seva journal » grace http://www.sevayoga.net/journal thoughts and musings Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:13:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 the middle way http://www.sevayoga.net/journal/2009/06/the-middle-way/ http://www.sevayoga.net/journal/2009/06/the-middle-way/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:13:06 +0000 seva http://www.sevayoga.net/journal/?p=71 middlePeople define Yoga many different ways.  Some think of it as an exercise, a religion, meditation.  It is my understanding that the simple definition of the word Yoga would be “union”.   So what am I trying to have a union or joining of?  My bones and my ligaments?  My mind and my breath?  Maybe the right Yoga clothes with their proper accessories?

A book that I am currently involved in talks about the middle way.  I think that I can be happy taking this middle way.  Not finding myself swinging too far to the left nor the right.  The balance between excess and deprivation.

The middle way is the natural flow of energy and you can just go with it, no resistance, nothing to control.  Just flowing with the rhythm of life itself.

If I apply this to a pose I would be moving into that sweet spot between effort and ease.  The place where grace resides and I can simply breath and feel my heart open wide to what my body is experiencing.  Knowing that this sweet spot it self is a dynamic thing, ever changing as my body and mind are.  I can almost feel myself closing when I move away from this middle way.  Tensing, fighting to regain control that was never mine to hold

Yoga is my path to find this middle way.  A union with the natural flow of all life.

-michele

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