What Yoga Does, Where Yoga Leads

Thanks to friend and reader, yoga teacher Frances Stahnke for posting this last Friday:

"My favorite definition of Yoga is that which enables one to attain what was previously unattainable. Yoga is the science of realization; you are the scientist, the ingredients, and the experiment. The ancient yogis have passed on to us the fruit of their work and wisdom. If one delves deeply enough, with discipline and devotion, the teachings will take you as far as you want to go.

"What is generally taught to the public is only a small portion of yoga, there is so so much more. If a student is not taught this, it is the fault of the teacher and perhaps the teacher's training. Perhaps that is what should be considered, how well trained is the person that is teaching you? How deep is their practice and where has it brought them? They cannot teach what they do not know, what they have not experienced.

"Yoga is usually defined as 'union,' but this is not quite on the mark. For they are speaking of the union of self to the Self, and this union already exists. We are already Divine Beings, we have just forgotten, we are unaware. So the practice is one of remembering, which comes from being present.

"Yoga provides us with tools for this: attention on the breath in meditation and pranayama, the sensations of the body as we attain an asana (the physical poses) are essential tools to the awakening process. Asana means to pose and re-pose, in so doing we are present, paying attention and adjust again and again until we can be still and go deeper within. As we go deeper we explore our body, our energy and eventually the microcosm of our being. This is key, for we are so distracted, so overloaded in our lives, that to spend an hour and a half focused on our being, we come alive.

"We are then able to let our mind settle into our whole being, to pervade our whole self. In time we are experiencing a fuller sense of who we are, and we realize we are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not just the body, we are more, much more. This is where my practice has taken me and where I lead my students."