It’s been a long series – I don’t know when I started and how many posts I made since then. I don’t like to count. All I know is that I have been writing everyday, practising everyday and learning everyday. Yesterday, was the last post on the series of the 21 exercises that followed the 21-day sādhanā. I think it’s time to take stock of what possibly lies ahead.
Avyakta Yoga.
I have said a lot about yoga in the past two months, but I haven’t come close to describing my experience of it. That is not possible, not in the limited vocabulary that I have. All I can say is that the yogic journey is a life-changing experience, as cliched as that may sound. Coming from a background of Kyokushin Karate – the bloodiest martial art there is (I don’t count MMA as an art – that is just street fighting), yoga seemed like the anti-version of karate. But as I dug deeper, and learnt more, I realised that martial arts, classical dance, Ayurveda and yoga all have a commonality that cannot be denied. Even Kyokushin Karate has many mudras and prānāyāmās, that I have come to understand only after going deeper into yoga.
The sādhanā was my way of introducing to you, the rich world of yoga – one that goes beyond pretzel-positions and bikini poses, into a way of living, loving and experiencing life.
So what next?
Avyakta Yoga.
It is my wish to bring to you an experience of yoga that starts from the physical, goes to the subtle, and then culminates in a life-long process of discovery. The āsanās lay the base, a foundation, that also includes the practice of yamās and niyamās – ethical behaviour and restraint, without which even the āsanā that you perform reduces to a mere physical exercise. The beauty of discovering your breath through the practice of prānāyāmā, the withdrawal of your senses and a look within through pratyahāra exercises, and then the bliss of meditation – all this can be experienced without having to renounce the world and go to the forest. Yes, right here in the middle of our busy lives.
All we need is a bit of alignment – of thought, of action and of perspective. The 21-day sādhanā laid the groundwork – we now plan to move full-steam ahead.
Avyakta Yoga
I will bring to you more exercises such as Udyāna Avagāhana, more perspectives on Swara Yoga, and an in-depth understanding of mantra yoga and it’s meanings. Mudra practice has a lot of subtleties that have not been highlighted, we will integrate practice of mudras into our kris, wherever possible. We will also visit the Panchatantra, the Hitopadeśa, the Jātaka Tales and other such stories to advance the kathā-paramparā of our culture.
I will also introduce you to Sanskrit, a language without any parallel anywhere in the world.
The richness of this language is unknown to the new generation, who consider this to be a ‘dead language’…but once you learn more about it, you would know that there isn’t any other language that is as alive and kicking as Sanskrit.
Tomorrow, we continue Yog Daily as usual. A new story, a new śloka,a new exercise…while I continue to explore the world through yoga, practice harder, and work on developing what will eventually become…