Reading about yoga requires attention and concentration. I have the Grammys on in the background in my living room and I really like music, so it’s a struggle not to skim Light on Yoga, even though light reading it is not. And although I may give it more study later later, I suppose my current purview is sufficient for the stirrings of enlightenment; I’ve already learned at least a little.
I’ve confirmed my belief that yoga means union. It is also means communion. The word Yoga is derived from the Saknskrit root yuj, meaning to bind, join, attach, attach and yoke, to direct and concentrate one’s attention on, to use and apply.
The previous paragraph is basically the first couple sentences of Light on Yoga, one of the most respected texts on yoga; it’s been around since 1966. I don’t know much about B.K.S. Iyengar but I have heard that he values the headstand and the shoulder stand as the parent poses of yoga, and I am not yet comfortable with those postures. We were given time to try them both during Friday night’s midnight yoga class, to the melody of a live jazz bass that fell eerily silent when it was time to try out our headstands.
Our teacher was so nice about it, no pressure thank goodness because despite her demonstrations my first attempts at balancing the crown of my head either between my elbows or against the nook of my enlaced fingers were both failed and frightening.
Still, I fared better in shoulder stand and can see how mastery of both poses would make me feel pretty great about myself, and require a certain degree of strength and focus I would appreciate acquiring. So I am open to what Iyngar has to say.
So far (p.37, about halfway through the introduction) I am very interested. I am liking the thoroughness, the forthrightness, the calm sureness of its tone. The information feels humble and honest if foreign and complicated.
I ordered Light on Yoga along with the other books from my training’s recommended reading list more than two months ago, but this is the first time I’ve felt a genuine desire to read this particular book. It had previously seemed dense and intimidating, so I am pleased to find myself curious, and to realize that if I pay attention, I can translate the general ideas enough to interpret them and benefit myself and others.
But for tonight, I’m just getting an overview–I’m allowing myself to be distracted by the Grammys because I have really been enjoying the quality live music, and, after all, yoga does teach us to appreciate the present moment!
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