Defining what it is to practice and embody Yoga.
I recall an evening spent with a dear friend of mine in a hip café. She and I met in an advanced evening French class and we related over Yoga as we are both Yoga Teachers. That evening she admitted to me: “ I still don’t understand what Yoga is.” I chuckled and suggested that it was a practice to “unify the body and mind, or something like that”. The word “Yoga”, after all, is derived from the Sanskrit word yuj, which means “to yoke,” or “to unite”. What are we uniting? (Pretend you didn’t just read the answer to this question in the previous sentence) Well, it’s pretty obvious. The Yoga practice “unites” the body, mind, and spirit, as well as the individual self and the universal consciousness. Did that click for you? Do you understand this definition on a visceral level? Because I didn’t. What exactly does it feel like when the body, mind and spirit are united, in harmony, yoked? I will get back to this.
Stephen Cope sparked my curiosity recently in his book “The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling”. In this book he speaks of Dharma, otherwise referred to as your unique vocation. In Sanskrit, Dharma means “path”, “teaching”, or “law”. It is often interpreted to mean “vocation” or “sacred duty”. When we are fulfilling our “Dharma”, we are excited to wake up in the morning and we have laser focus in our lives. We know what we are living for, we are aware of what our gift is and we are using our gift to give positively to the world and meet a need. We have life in our eyes and we are dedicated to our mission.
How many of us really feel this way? Not the majority, I suspect. And this is perfectly okay. I believe it is part of this whole game, the game of being human. We adopt certain belief systems and inherit specific fears as we grow up and we spend our lives cleaning up our consciousness. It doesn’t exactly sound like an enjoyable process, but we experience little wins along the way and it sure feels good to acknowledge the progress you’ve made when you look back on where you’ve been. Is there a destination? Do we ever reach perfection? Perhaps not. But do we need to? What fun would that be, to reach “the end”? I am just making a case for why it is worthwhile to embrace the messiness of life (as we perceive it).
So what prevents us from living our Dharma? Cope suggests that it is doubt and a lack of faith. Doubt “immobilizes us” and leaves us feeling stuck. He refers to this as the “paralyzing affliction”. What would the opposite of doubt be, you might wonder? Certitude. And in a position of certitude you would most certainly take action. You would not be a victim of paralysis and you would not procrastinate. You would make a choice, follow through, and not look back.
Cope says that “Yoga in action means to yoke all of one’s being to Dharma. To bring every action into alignment with your highest purpose. To bring everything you’ve got to the task.” The Yoga practice therefore includes this unification with your Dharma, your highest purpose, your gift, your authenticity.
It only seems fitting now to mention how we can find our Dharma. The way many of us go about this is by asking what we should do. “Should I leave or stay?” “Should I do this career or this career?” “Should I live here or here?” This is the doubt I refer to, the confusion, the feeling of being stuck. How does one mitigate this? Unfortunately, the answer may not be what you want to hear. Cope says that “the only way to get to certitude is to look more and more deeply into our doubt — to shine a light into the dark corners of our self-division.” This is referring to the process of going inward in order to know yourself. Living your Dharma is to be 100% yourself, to live your life with complete authenticity. And how do you know when you are not being 100% true to who you are? You can see it in your relationship to your life and to your work, namely: a lack of interest, a lack of enthusiasm, mediocrity, and a lack of soul connection. When do you feel alive and lose track of time? When do you feel fulfilled and are 100% engaged in what you do? This is your Dharma. And I guarantee you that you can think of examples here and now without needing to go search for answers. The answers live inside of you.
When this certitude is found, it motivates action, which in turn leads to freedom and fulfillment. We take action that is in line with our true nature, passionate action taken in the service of our sacred calling, our vocation.
The Bhagavad Gita, one of the most well known yogic texts written, speaks plenty of Dharma. It features a dialogue between Arjuna, representing us, and Krishna, representing “God” or the divine. It provides guidance on how to act, and hence live purposefully in this “battlefield” of life (the discussion between Arjuna and Krishna takes place on a battlefield, representing the imperfect and at times challenging battlefield of life). In this text Krishna spells out the how to live and act authentically in the world. The four guidelines are to 1. Live your Dharma, 2. Commit to it utterly and passionately, 3. Let go of expectations, as if success and failure are irrelevant, and 4. Dedicate your actions to God, or in other words: surrender.
And so, Yoga is the unification of the body, mind and spirit. It is the way you feel when you are doing what you love, when you feel alive, when you have a zest for life. It is that simple. And you know the feeling! We all do.
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