We all love feeling great after our practice,but sometimes the efforts that we make in yoga lead us to confront parts of ourselves that are less pleasant, ugly, or perhaps leave us feeling INSANE. While this is exactly where a proper practice should take us, that is to a place where we can correctly identify parts of our lives or character that are not helpful to our growth, when we arrive at that place it can be annoying, intense, and sometimes terrifying. Yet, this is exactly the place where we must pay attention and continue our practice: ALL the efforts (on an off the mat) we are making in our lives to focus, to be attentive, to listen. Yoga is a process with many booby traps,many that we have set ourselves, if we choose to exit at the wishing well (see GOONIES), then the rewards will not come. This is where our commitment to the process is tested, not in the times where we float away on a cloud from our practice, but the times where we do not always like what we see, what we hear, but we choose to look and to treat ourselves kindly despite this and because of this. We choose to continue our efforts because we suspect, or even know that we can rid ourselves of some of our dirt, and go through life with a bit more clarity and kindness. This is the effort of yoga, to stay, to be attentive, to commit to yourself because there lies the success of the relationship between you and your attention.
yogaḥ –citta vṛtti nirodhaḥ (Yoga Sutra I.2)
(also posted on hoshyoga.org)
