Yoga Shows The Way!

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Ever since I finished my yoga teacher training program at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre, Madurai in December 2016, I have been wanting to write a bit about yoga in general and my experiences with yoga in particular. But the more I practice, the more overwhelmed I become with the sheer beauty and power of this practice. As I lie down on my mat, before the beginning of practice, I feel an immense sense of gratitude to the Masters and to my teacher for giving me this wonderful gift. The feeling of gratitude, love and peace lingers in my heart all through the day, long after I have finished my practice.

It may seem a little weird that I am waxing eloquent about yoga, of all things. For starters, if anyone even uttered the word yoga to me a year back, I would have disappeared from that vicinity. Yoga was too slow and too boring for me -whenever I tried a little bit of yoga. I had felt that it was for the old, the laid back and those who were not up to any other form of exercise. I would rather run a 10 k or spend an hour doing intense strength training, but yoga -nope! Never! Not even as a form of recovery after the long runs.

But all that changed after I quit my job. My Acharya kept insisting that I do this course at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre. She said it will complement my Vedanta studies. I finally felt ready to try out this month long residential course and signed up for it in August 2016. And boy! What a blessing it turned out to be! To be able to learn and live the practice for a whole month in an environment that makes you feel the impact of yoga in all levels -right upto your very soul -was truly life changing.

The ashram life,  theory of yoga and vedanta, the practice of asanas and pranayama, morning and evening satsangs and meditation, eating simple and healthy vegetarian food, practicing karma yoga, sharing the space with 49 other amazing batch mates, all under the guidance of brilliant and loving teachers, the opportunity to learn how to take classes yourself, how to impart the theory of why we do what we do in yoga, how to demonstrate, correct, time, sequence and ultimately -borrowing the words of Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev - how to live consciously and not compulsively -I understood and experienced all this and much more.

It has now been 40 days since I finished the course, and it has taken me this long to even start writing about it. Not that I was procrastinating, it was just that it is something too profound for me to do justice with some words strung into sentences.While I know what I put out here about yoga is not even the tip of the iceberg, I want to record and share this wonderful experience. When I sit to write about something, the thoughts become more articulate, thereby crystallizing my own understanding. That is what I want to do about yoga in this space -to understand my own level of perception and what it is doing to me. Hari Om! Tat Sat!

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