I’m going to try a new blog thing: I’m going to write articles every once in a while that address “why yoga?” I’ve had the idea for some time now (and I have a few drafts waiting to be finished), but I wanted to send this one out already, even if it might not be the most introductory… Oh well. It stems from my previous post regarding globalization and individuality.
One of the reasons I do yoga is because of the new truths that it introduces me to. I have learned so much about myself and the world around me because of my practice. I have also learned about other lessons… like, I’ve learned about states of deep concentration and meditation – but, let’s be honest, I haven’t actually attained them yet.
I’ve learned about the potential reality that we are all connected; we are all part of a Divine Source of Energy; etc… Sometimes it’s a cool concept, and I feel like I can see it through a microscope in myself. And sometimes it scares the poop out of me!! Anyway, here we go:
In another post I wrote: “Every moment is unrepeatable and impermanent. Objects, people, and moments in time possibly, maybe can be perfectly replicated – but the experience will always be a new one.”
Sometimes this sentiment helps us to relax and chill out about things; but taken on a bigger scale, it can be quite terrifying. We humans really REALLY want to just HOLD ON to things! But as Stephen Cope explains it, there is “suffering inherent in wanting to possess people, places, and things;..[while there is] true delight in simply knowing these objects…” (The Wisdom of Yoga, p. 260).
Our immediate human nature believes that if we possess things, we will be happy – we want to possess our unique landmarks, our Cathedrals of Junk, our individuality, our uniqueness… It seems to me that the ultimate finding of yoga is that we cannot possess these things.
The fact that we cannot actually possess anything is why we are able to have individual experiences, though! Because, as Octavio Paz so eloquently put it once,
That is the paradox of our condition…Our experiences are not historical, but we are. Each of us is unique but the experiences of death or love are universal and repeated.
Percolate Yoga 