What I mean when I say Yoga

Here’s my opinion, you really don’t have to like it. Or even agree.

A lot of what’s called yoga these days is at best a bastardization of the original work. I understand “everyone’s practice is different” blah blah blah but… saying the hyper-sexualized straight up gross ass shit you get when you simply type the word yoga into Youtube or Google just ain’t it, and I’ll fight that point till my metaphorical cows come home.

Yoga often implies gymnastic, acrobatic calisthenics and focuses on things like handstands and yoga butts as if they are the main pursuit of time in practice, rather than ultimately forgettable pieces on the way to something greater.

Yoga is, first and foremost, a spiritual journey. Through its depths we become acquainted and comfortable with who we are beyond our human form. And, we recognize that Spirit isn’t present within ONLY ourselves, but it’s within everyone, within everything.

We get to attune to the truth that we are all diamonds in the web of existence, reflecting and refracting that same light around and within each of us and all elements of material being. So being human is, like, super cool, because it’s here we GET TO realize such an out-of-this-world concept and play with the power that realization grants us.

So your practice is physically rigorous and you want to fight me on its validity? Sick. Tight. At the end of it all what your practice looks like is way less important than where it's taking you, and what it feeds. Most of the time in public spaces I believe we are feeding and leaning into only physical capacities, like your shoulders very specifically go here and only here, you should squeeze your butt this much and only this much, and just stay incredibly focused on the one thing the practice of yoga is asking you to see beyond, in time: your physical human form. I hear so often that this is “my time,” to “tune out the rest of the world and just be here.” So, act like I am the only person in all of creation.

Babes. There’s a lot of work to be done to be able to see beyond the deep caverns of humanness. We gotta tune the fuck in. Like, so hard. We have to listen and see how our body and mind move through our days and get to the core of our reactions and habits. Curiosity about how your human machine operates gives you so much breathing room, and plenty of space for compassion, because you can see that everyone’s human machine is actually quite similar. That everyone, including ourselves, is/are doing the best we can in any given moment.

Somewhat repetitive here, yoga is the process of comprehending the machinations of the human experience to, eventually, see beyond them to the undying light within, the part of us that is connected to and that IS the eternal.

Over time this makes it easier to disempower those automatic tendencies and to identify less and less with them, as they are nothing more than temporary fluctuations of the mind, NOT who we innately are.

Through this never-ending practice of tuning in, discernment, non-attachment, and the will to try again and again and again, with love and forgiveness at the forefront, we reside for longer and longer periods within our supreme, true nature.

This doesn’t have to be seen as a villainization of how you practice. I love physical challenge and progression too.

But, I will always claim this as true:

YOGA IS NOT YOUR WORKOUT.

And when you leave it there you are feeding and fortifying the very things the practice encourages release from: Ego. Competitiveness. Control. Pursuit of the superficial. The subconscious belief that “I am human therefore my human form must seek perfection.”

Remember, you totally don’t have to agree with me.

And, I think this notion can be true as you kick into handstand for the 20th time today.

We exist in the in-between. Nothing is ever absolutely one thing and when we embrace that, our spirit plays with (near) limitlessness.

This is what I mean when I say yoga.