Yoga as a Means to Living Plastic-Free
Yoga has been an essential aspect to my plastic-free journey.
If you will join me, here is a bit on why I feel the exercises of the body have supported my philosophical quest.
In quarantine, I’ve been studying some yogic texts. Here are some notes I’ve taken.
Around the 6th Century BC the Lord Buddha influenced the take up of meditation, ethics, morality—but yoga was ignored.
At this time, Yogi Matsyendranath shared “before taking to the practices of meditation, the body and its elements need purifying.” He may hear meditation, I hear and am deeply curious about ethics & morality. How is our physical body related to our ability to uphold morals or adhere to our chosen ethics?
In Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Swatmarama starts with the body and only later when the mind has become stable & balanced are self control and self discipline introduced.
So perhaps this sickness of culture, this morally void society we subscribe to, that abandons the sick & values the young & beautiful.. perhaps this is related in some way to our lack of movement, lack of connection to our bodies, doing less of the actions ourselves. Paying for a gym when we remember the aesthetic benefits of getting active.
Physical and mental therapy are some
of yoga’s most important achievements. So powerful and effective because it works on wholistic principles of harmony and unification. SIGH! How very romantic that these feminine, fluid concepts of harmony and unity are what support and heal the physical body and the mind—two masculine, rigid aspects of self. The mind can be fluid, but so oft it attaches to rigid stories or dogmas that prove hard to shake. That yoga can soften & create space in the mind and body is truly beautiful to me.
“Yoga is far more than physical exercises, rather it is an aid to establishing a new way of life embracing both inner and outer realities.”
The society we live in, many of us, puts immense value on external fulfilment. Externals such as happiness or instant gratification through material goods, through accumulation of money, through sexual pleasure, through beautiful people, through drugs or alcohol. We are rarely encouraged to develop internal peace. For we can buy what we need to be “happy.”
This of course is bullshit, we can all see right through this.
Travel and sex and nice things feel good, but are not deeply satisfying. However they still feel good, it would be austere to presume anyone would reject these things to be closer to the internal peace. When it seems yoga offers a balance between the two. Cultivating internal consciousness as well as participating in this community.
“By developing control of the body through asana, the mind is also controlled.”
Control used to freaked me out. I have done work on myself to breathe into my personal triggers and witness and observe humbly and objectively. It is no question that the body enjoys the strengthening and expansion of the daily practice. I remember becoming addicted to yoga when it found me. I was always an active, sporty lass. But something bigger was happening for me in yoga. I felt grounded, strong in body and balanced mentally and emotionally.
Our minds are so battered with advertisements and marketing for products and changes we can make to our way of life. We are battered with social media, news media, politics, pandemics, and our own personal family or social dramas. No wonder we so easily let our physical bodies slip and succumb to Less nutritious foods and drink. No wonder stress and loneliness leads to disease and weakened immunity. It is no wonder our minds are so exhausted from all of the stimuli we siv through daily that we do not have space for anything more than self preservation or survival.
We are divine infinite beings. With one body to adventure through this one unique experience of life. With all of its ups and downs. Yoga brings me back to my breath, by heart, my body, out of the stories and patterns my mind can get stuck in, it brings me back to the quiet of just my self. And from here, a harmonious unified grounded stable and balanced self can begin to explore ethics and self discipline.
I would so love to hear your thoughts.