After a second magical practice yesterday, today's was the worst I've had in recent memory. I just wanted to be finished with it. I had so many negative thoughts about Mysore, about the people here, I was ready to get out of there, possibly even all the way to San Francisco.
I realized I've met a lot of very opinionated and judgmental people here. They are so wedded to Ashtanga, and practicing a certain way, that they disparage anyone who does not subscribe to the same path. It reeks of dogma. Spirituality, of all things, is a highly personal endeavor, and any one of infinite reasons could lead someone to follow one vs. another. It's a bit astonishing to hear people so self righteous about it. But alas, by the same token, who am I to judge them?
So there I was in the packed room, moving through the motions as quickly as I could. My mind was no where near the state of concentration I'd discovered just two days before. I've had plenty of practices like this. In fact now that I think about it in retrospect, while I often attributed a 'good' or 'bad' practice to how physically strong I was feeling, I realize now that it was more my mental state that dictated the degree of euphoria I felt after rising from savasana.
Yoga used to be a daily physical check in for me, and I'm learning to push the physical part into the background. Now it seems to have become a daily mental check in. Over time I imagine I will learn to push my thoughts into the background as well, and not let things 'get' to me so to speak. I'll train my mind to focus and find that state with greater frequency.
Some days it comes easily, others it does not. Today was clearly one of the latter, but instructive nonetheless.
I realized I've met a lot of very opinionated and judgmental people here. They are so wedded to Ashtanga, and practicing a certain way, that they disparage anyone who does not subscribe to the same path. It reeks of dogma. Spirituality, of all things, is a highly personal endeavor, and any one of infinite reasons could lead someone to follow one vs. another. It's a bit astonishing to hear people so self righteous about it. But alas, by the same token, who am I to judge them?
So there I was in the packed room, moving through the motions as quickly as I could. My mind was no where near the state of concentration I'd discovered just two days before. I've had plenty of practices like this. In fact now that I think about it in retrospect, while I often attributed a 'good' or 'bad' practice to how physically strong I was feeling, I realize now that it was more my mental state that dictated the degree of euphoria I felt after rising from savasana.
Yoga used to be a daily physical check in for me, and I'm learning to push the physical part into the background. Now it seems to have become a daily mental check in. Over time I imagine I will learn to push my thoughts into the background as well, and not let things 'get' to me so to speak. I'll train my mind to focus and find that state with greater frequency.
Some days it comes easily, others it does not. Today was clearly one of the latter, but instructive nonetheless.
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