_If you're looking for happiness, make sure you're looking within. Happiness is not located in your new car, that bigger home, nor the European vacation. Happiness is in you.
_Your thoughts, attitudes and intentions will dictate your life experience. It's the same as saying, "As one thinks, so one becomes."
_Can you let go of your attachments? Can you accept that you are brunette and not blonde, brown-eyed and not blue, short and not tall? Does it really matter? Forget about how your body looks. Ask instead: How do I feel?
_When you think of yoga, you may think only about postures. Yoga is more than that. It is about the philosophy, the chanting, the meditation. Real yoga involves the mind-body-spirit connection and a devotion to the mystery of existence.
_Pay attention. Life will keep reminding you of who you really are and what you're here to do.
_I am no shape, no size, no color. I am simply me. I exist.
_Happiness occurs in the present moment.
_Breaking an addiction (no matter what kind of compulsion) requires three things: self-examination; self-forgiveness; and letting go.
_Who is your true soul mate? You are. How do you mate with yourself? Through yoga.
_Make inner peace your first priority.
_I am not my past or future. I am now, this moment, as it is right now.
_Yoga practice can focus the mind, open the heart, and reveal inner peace.
_If you engage negativity, you empower and strengthen it. Disarm it with love, for self and others.
_Our fears and anxieties exist so that we can transcend them.
_When you are no longer afraid of the world and when you are no longer desperately craving fulfillment from the world, there is truly nothing to worry about.
_The key to everything is awareness. But first you have to silence the mind, listen and pay attention. Jesus referred to this awareness as "the peace that passeth all understanding."
_The yearning to know the divine is natural and innate, inherent in the human condition.
_Why not be happy right now, right where you are?
Thank you, Steve Ross, for your wisdom.
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9 comments:
I've never done yoga, but this is enough to inspire me to try. Looking within can be hard, but so worth it. Thanks for sharing.
Tia, I'm a convert. New to yoga this year because it's been helping my BF find peace and relaxation after his open-heart surgery last March. I love how I feel after a class, and that we're doing it together. It's hard. Don't get me wrong. The stretches are challenging. But just when you think you cannot hold a pose any longer, you get to relax and move on to the next one. I like that I can take that hour or more and just focus on trying to hold a pose for so many minutes. You don't think of anything else. If thoughts seep in where they don't belong, you focus on your breathing. It's a nice break. What's even better is that the studio I'm going to doesn't even have mirrors, so there's no comparing or thinking, "I look foolish." I like that a lot. If you get the chance, give it a try. First classes are generally free.
you make such a great case for yoga.
i have to remind myself to simply be in moments.
great reminders.
Hey Ed, good to hear from you. What? It's been a year since you first participated in the blogathon. You missed this year's, and a good time was had by all. Definitely consider yoga. It's keeping me sane in these trying economic times.
I've also been doing yoga over the past 6 months, and I had never done it before. Although it has helped me look better, what I've really found is that the poses, breathing and "focusing on my focus" give me a sense of stability that I have not been able to find anywhere else. I've been an athlete most of my life, and separating my search for health and inner peace from my inclination towards competition has been a huge piece of the puzzle for me. I've been reading Yoga International (somewhat inconsistently), and there are some great articles in there too. I may have to give this book a shot as well. Do you meditate in addition to yoga? That's something I have thought about, and I've heard it's very powerful, but just haven't found a way to tap into it yet.
Jackie,
Great points to take away from a book like this! My favorite is this,
"Who is your true soul mate? You are. How do you mate with yourself? Through yoga."
YES :)
Practice makes perfect, and who doesn't want a perfect mating session? LOL Yoga has brought me to tears, for it pin points the places where we have "stuffed" our pain away and allows us to breathe it out. The pain eventually starts to go away and the practice allows us to melt all of our mental and physical worries away.
I love yoga! Need more in my life. Thanks for the reminder. :)
You have cried during yoga? Me, too! It was a such a release, so I wasn't bothered by it. But my BF, who goes with me, was surprised.
I did cry. It wasn't like a sniffling, bawling type of cry, but rather a single tear or two, here and there - to acknowledge the release and then move on.
I am really excited to try yoga in a church tomorrow! I've always wanted to fuse the two, so maybe I will blog about it? ;)
Same here. A few tears. It happened to me once when I was just beginning. I'd been under a lot of stress, and the instructor said something about "when you're ready to let go of dis-ease...", and I did. I let go.
I have a friend who teaches Holy Yoga. I've attended her class before and liked it a lot. The two work well together, I think. It's that spiritual connection.
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