Yoga

I've just finished taking a hatha yoga class (the study of Asanas and Pranayama) over the past four weeks.  It's been a great inspiration to me and something that I should have done long ago.  My instructor was very insightful and I've already seen a great difference in my personal practice.  When his next class comes available in the fall, I will do my best to be there.  It's led me to stop trying yoga and to begin practicing Yoga.  To that end, I've read three translations of the Yoga Sutras (linked at the right) which were written around 200 B.C.  You might ask what does reading have to do with Yoga?  Everything!

Now, I freely admit that I'm stepping way out of my league here as I only have a very limited experience as a base.  Yoga is much more than just stretching, twisting, bending and breathing.  Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, says that Yoga is eight limbed (ashtanga), YSP 2.29.  The first important thing to notice is that he noted eight limbs and not eight steps.  Now it's time to step out onto that proverbial limb and hope it doesn't break beneath me.  Any form of yoga which does not incorporate all eight limbs is only a shadow of what Yoga truly is.  Other forms of Yoga are good in that they are good starting points but if you've ever practiced yoga and felt that there was something more just over the horizon, you were right.

So, what's my point, where am I going with all this?  I am proposing to write a number of essays on Yoga, on its eight limbs, on parallels I've found between Yoga philosophy and LDS doctrines and other such things.  So these essays have a home, I'll be modifying the Everyday Yoga site and go from there.

I'm hoping that as a side effect I'll be a bit more organized and be able to publish in this space a bit more frequently, but no promises.