The Yoga of Asanas

There is so much out there about yoga: yoga videos, yoga classes, yoga studios, yoga teachers, yoga books, yoga styles, yoga methods.  It feels exciting, and can be overwhelming.  Students wonder if yoga will help them, if the teacher is good.  They wonder if yoga will make them thinner, calmer, more loving and better lovers.  That’s a lot.  Can yoga really be all that?

Today I went to a class and I was bored, because I admit, I have high expectations sometimes!  So when I noticed that this wasn’t going to be a life transforming yoga session for me I also noticed that I had been feeling disinterested and lazy about a lot things that day.  And then I stopped striving to make it more than it was.

The name “asana” which is used for all yoga poses actually means “seat”.  When the world of yoga gets too elaborate or expectations get too unrealistic, I remind myself that really all we’re exploring is this simple idea of providing a seat- to meditate, to pull our energies in, to witness the world around us from that place and finally, while we find this “seat” we can know that that is enough.