“Ordinarily, if an average man comes face to face with the nagual the shock would be so great that he would die. The goal of a warrior’s training is not to teach him to hex or to charm, but to prepare his tonal not to crap out ... You call it explaining. I call it a sterile and boring insistence of the tonal to have everything under it’s control. Whenever it doesn’t succeed, there is a moment of bafflement and then the tonal opens itself to death. What a prick! It would rather kill itself than relinquish control. And yet there is very little we can do to change that condition.”
Carlos Castaneda

Tales of Power

Yoga Readiness

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Sometimes getting on the Yoga mat is not as appealing as I’d like or imagined it to be. Especially after years of practice, superficially rewarding changes in the practice are rare and replaced by subtle & intimate revelations.

Sometimes it’s very difficult to get to the mat, but feels good to be on it. Sometimes it’s difficult to get to the mat, and wrong to stay on it. Sometimes it’s impossible to even approach the mat. Sometimes it’s impossible to read my readiness to practice – so there are times I may not practice when I could have or practice when I really shouldn’t.

This morning I stumbled on to another tool to clear my clouded perception. I asked myself “Do you appreciate being here, in this moment, on this Yoga mat?”. I looked down and found my feet bathed in a warm beam of morning sunlight – and the answer was “yes, I do”. Asking the question sent me on a path of introspection and observation. If I can’t answer with a clear “yes” I shouldn’t be on the mat, I should probably be doing something else, creating space, allowing appreciation to resurface.

There’s a good chance that asking the question not only reflects on my present consciousness but also alters it, in which case it is not just a readiness-test but a great opening posture for my practice.

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  • By Wanting to Practice | iamronen on June 6, 2010 at 9:39 am

    […] All of the students that came back for more lessons and who had guilt-trips about not practicing were constantly thinking about Yoga. They wanted to do their practices. Wanting to practice is a practice. Wanting to practice should always be the first “posture” in any practice sequence. […]

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