Hi everyone!

Today I wanted to talk about asanas, or yoga poses. While it might seem weird to talk about asanas rather than practice them, it is important to know why we practice yoga!

Yoga, as we practice it today, is basically preparation for meditation. But way back in the day, before Hinduism or Buddhism, yoga was meditation. And the first and only yoga pose for a very long time, was lotus. One pose, designed for meditation.

Today we have a whole repertoire of asanas, many focused on physical strength or flexibility.  But many of these poses were developed in order to prepare the body to sit in the original asana, lotus, for long periods of meditation. So all of that strength and flexibility we are  cultivating is bringing our body into a mindful state of being. It is allowing our physical body to be loose and strong and our mind to be calm and mindful. Neat, huh?

In Mindful Yoga we focus on this meditative aspect of yoga. We don’t use yoga only as a means to an end, however! We bring the mindful state of being into the asanas themselves. In this way, yoga becomes not simply a preparation for meditation, but a moving meditation in itself. This gives us all of the benefits of the physical exercise and mindfulness simultaneously!

Thanks and have a wonderful beginning of your week!

Liz

Creating Mindful Balance