From Gabrielle Roth’s book Connections:
We spend much of our lives creating containers—forms, vocations, belief systems, ambitions, and explanations for why we are here—but they are only containers. When those containers are crushed, which they eventually will be, we discover something that endures beyond them—the human heart, the soul, the Mystery, the instinct to embrace our Source unconditionally. And so it is ultimately here, exulting in the bond and inspiration of life itself, that we intuit our own spiritual path and find our destiny.
And so it is with our yoga practice; we can get so caught up in the pose—the container—we sometimes forget about the importance of the experience of—the contents.
As a yoga teacher, it’s a delicate balance between not giving enough information and guidance in a pose and giving so much information there’s no room for one’s own experience.
Culturally we are conditioned toward perfection, which can come across on the yoga mat in a number of ways: We want to do the pose “right;” we are used to being told what and where to feel; always wanting to maximize the experience, to do more.
These are not bad qualities. The certainly have their place in optimizing our time and efforts. And why not live to our fullest in each moment?!
Still, it can be a wonderful experiment to shift attention from the container to the feeling underneath, inside, and around that container. What if the Warrior II is textbook on target (depending on which text book you’re referring to!) but there’s pain, shortness of breath, and dis-ease in the body?
And the ultimate challenge of doing less… less than you usually do, less than you know you can. Then watch the ego, the mind, the heart, the physicality: what is the response inside the container?
Just a little Thursday fodder… a little stirring of the contents!
Please feel free to share thought in the comments. Until next time…