You are your own best yoga teacher. While it’s true that finding a good yoga teacher is like falling in love, ultimately that “teacher” is you. The trust and enthusiasm you experience with a teacher who has you coming back for more is just your own desire for that knowledge. (more…)

In many ways, the practice of yoga is an enactment of powerful symbols using your own body. “Symbols” however is not exactly the right word as the use of mantra, mudra and yantra serve more as guiding yoga techniques bringing us back to our original connection and into deeper states of being. (more…)

Keeping a journal is a common enough practice these days. Artists often use journals as a way to remember inspirations and reflect on what they are experiencing. Similarly, starting a yoga journal can help you record and notice how your daily life is changing because of your yoga practice. (more…)

I’ve written previously how devoting my breaths to the Durga mantra, Lakshmi mantra and Saraswati mantra has affected my life. (See my blog entries on Navaratri for September 23- October 2, 2006). (more…)

There are two ideas here: mantra practice and yoga practice. One may include the other, for example, OM is actually considered a mantra and you’ll frequently hear the sound of OM at the beginning and end of a yoga class. Perhaps you’ve also heard of or participated in chanting the Lakshmi mantra or Siva mantra. (more…)

It’s a very different feeling creating your own yoga session than it is showing up for a yoga class. In my 20 years of yoga practice, I’ve gone through periods of knowing that I needed the structure and guidance of another yoga teacher and other times when I was able to go much deeper into my own yoga practice by going solo. (more…)

Meditation, in yogic practices, is not usually given as much explanation time in beginners yoga classes as guidance on the positioning and alignment of asanas. In fact, many of the explanations used by yoga teachers actually arise from Buddhist meditation techniques. Partly this is due to the fact that Buddhist practices have more written material available – having been developed and maintained through Buddhist monastic traditions.

So what’s the difference and isn’t it all just meditation anyway? (more…)

Here are a couple ways of understanding what might happen in yoga, from a philosophical perspective.

The most discussed explanation is the whole idea of steadying the fluctuations of the mind (called vrittis in Sanskrit). If you’ve been going to yoga classes, you’ve probably heard the teacher say or read something like this: we are surrounded by distractions that take us away from our true self. Yoga is a technique that allows us to not be pulled this way and that (by both negative and positive circumstances and their effects on us). Sometimes I think this describes my experience, especially when in sitting meditation, but then it doesn’t fully account for what happens during yoga practice. (more…)

One of the name speakers at the American Academy of Religion national conference that I attended was author Karen Armstrong. Her list of published books include: The History of God, The Gospel According to Woman, and The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions. Although she is not a religious studies scholar, she has succeeded in bringing many of the issues explored in our field to the public.
Among my notes from Karen Armstrong’s talk is the sentence, “we’ve lost the abilities of slow knowledge.” It resonated with me, as yoga is a type of “slow know.” Karen Armstrong spoke of the high regard we used to have for contemplation and the silence it required. These still do exist in academia, certainly in religious studies, which is probably why I have been drawn to it also. (more…)

Today begins Navaratri, a nine day celebration dedicated to the female energies named Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. In light of my last entry (“Considering Gender in Yoga”), I always welcome this chance to reclaim the feminine in spiritual practices. Navaratri is celebrated by men and women, young and old. (more…)