Yoga Asana – Movement – Postures & Breathwork

Yoga is a vast body of teachings, practice and wisdom that has evolved over many thousands of years and became popularised in the West when it was exported from India in the early 20th century.

Today, many people’s perception of Yoga is that it is either something that middle-aged women who aren’t very active, or paradoxically, something you need to be super flexible to do. Neither of these things is true. Yoga does not care if you can touch your toes, neither does it care if you are male or female.

The essence of Yoga is that our essential nature is of pure calm and awareness. To quote the sage Vyasa in his commentary on the Yogasutra: “The place in which the self is hidden is not to be found in the netherworlds, nor the mountain caves, nor darkness, nor the bottom of the oceans, it is in each thought.” (Yoga Reminder – AG Mohan, pg 35).

Yoga practice teaches us to find a place of peace within us while working through the challenges, the stress and the drama of life that often surrounds us. We do this by cultivating focus in our minds, being more discerning of our thoughts, concluding those that don’t serve us and amplifying the ones that do.

This pathway to the mind begins with our outer world, our relationships, our actions and behaviour, delving through the physical body through the breath to our inner world, that of the mind.

“Yoga tells us that we must bring balance and clarity to all these layers of our life experience, and the mind will follow suit” (AG Mohan – Yoga Reminder – pg 36).

Through the practice of Yoga Asana (the postures), controlled breathing (pranayama) and meditation, we can find a place of calm within the mind. We can experience a state of relaxed energy and awareness that is the essence of who we are, beyond our stories, our grief, our pain and our suffering. This is the journey of the self, through the self to the self. This is Yoga and Yoga helps us to find ourselves.