If you read Yoga Sutra 2.15 out of context, you’d think the great sage Patanjali was teaching yogis to give up hope. Life is suffering, he seems to be saying here. The verse reads: All is misery to the wise because of the pains of change, anxiety, and purificatory acts. Patanjali is saying if you’re […]
How to bring the energy from the mat to your daily life… By mahabis We all know that yoga is an exercise for both the mind and body. Yogis worldwide get to experience the many benefits like increased flexibility and energy, improved balance and circulatory health as well as stress relief and inner peace. […]
In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali teaches us that yoga can liberate us. It gives us tools for overcoming attachment, aversion, and egoism. If we don’t practice yoga, that is, if we don’t find a means of liberation, we will continue to suffer. For classical yogis, continued suffering means an endless cycle of birth, suffering, death, […]
Egoism is a problem. You don’t have to be a yogi to know this. The small self—which egoism inflates—always competes for attention, recognition, and accomplishment. Why is this a problem? If you’re focusing on human life, it’s not. If you’re focusing on spiritual growth and enlightenment, egoism is a great obstacle. Reverend Jaganath Carrera describes […]
In Yoga Sutra 2.5, Patanjali gives yogis a clear idea of ignorance as an obstacle to enlightenment. If we remain in the dark about the truth, he says, we will suffer. Ignorance is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, evil for good and non-self as self. ~Sutra 2.5 As this […]
I remember my very first yoga experience, an Integral Yoga beginners hatha class I attended in the library of my high school. Each time we practice, the teacher had a reminder for us. Your true nature is peace, she would say. Combined with the mellow and relaxing experience of yoga, that sounded right. Then, of […]