http://www.missionashtanga.com/2012/the-tradition-and-the-dogma/

Although I don’t think there is anything particularly special about this day (after all it is just another day) there is still something I love about the sentiment of Christmas. I love watching Christmas films and despite the product placements and the advertising I find in the message something that touches me… that what is important in life is not being what we consider a success most of the rest of the time. I love any remake of A Christmas Carol, seeing Scrooge awakened by really seeing his life from alternative perspective. As right as he thinks he is while he’s living it, his whole world is opened up by viewing his past actions, behaviours and future consequences… the transformation of bhogi to yogi!

So instead of Humbug, I wish you lashings of Christmas cheer…

A musical message from our sponsors:

http://soundcloud.com/sonjaradvila/last-xmas-1-1

And Finally…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH8FvERQHtM

(thank you to Justyna Jaworska for this photo)

Having a yoga practices is a wonderful thing. I feel incredibly blessed to have a practice that keeps me in shape, helps me stay focused and tunes me into myself. Many of the best things that have happened in my life would not have happened if it wasn’t for the practice of Ashtanga yoga.

And yet… I can’t help get the feeling that there’s something more. That this daily movement of the body is just the tip of the iceberg of yogliness. As intense as it may seem, and as life changing a practice as it may be for many people, really we are just dipping our toe into the water of living as yogis (whatever that is).

I’ve heard one teacher suggest that the goal is to be practicing yoga 24/7… not just for that 1 ½ hours or however long we may find ourselves sweatily contorting ourselves into all manners of shapes.

Ultimately we should not assume, even if we have been practicing the Ashtanga system, or any other method for that matter, that we’ve arrived.

I’ve heard it said that it takes 12 years of regular practice to even be a beginner in Ashtanga Yoga. Perhaps, though, we start out as experts (we think we ourselves, we think we know the world around us, etc.) and gradually our layers of knowing our peeled away until the realisation dawns that really we don’t know much of anything. As they say in Zen, Zen mind is beginners mind.

I have heard one teacher talk about what he describes as narcissism in yoga. For all of us at times it seems our yoga practice can be a very self-orientated venture, our narcissism covered in the cloak of spirituality. Somehow what seems to matter the most is ‘my’ yoga practice, ‘my’ spiritual path, my ‘enlightenment’.

If our yoga practice is worth anything it has to extend beyond that little time on the mat into the way we live in, interact with and are part of the world around us. No man is an island, as John Donne said. How we are, how we live effects and reverbates out into the world around us. We are all connected, after all.

And Finally…

A few words from our sponsor.