Open hamstrings, open heart.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship to the physical practice of yoga recently. And so, after a very long hiatus, I’m finally finding time (on this rainy afternoon, as I’m getting over a cold) to write about it.

While talking to a friend the other night, I heard myself saying, “I can pinpoint the moment in time when my whole life shifted.” That specific moment happened to be at the end of a midnight yoga class many years ago. (Since then, at least one other moment of equal or greater magnitude has occurred. But, I digress).

During the first few years of practice (and I’m still a complete beginner, mind you) most of my focus was on the physical level. Through the practice of the physical poses, I began to connect to my body in a new way, and I felt strong and empowered in my own skin for the first time in my entire life. (I was 19 at the time, and I’m not exaggerating).

As I continued to practice, however I soon caught myself falling into the pitfalls of the ego. In an effort to master more advanced poses, I ambitiously pushed my body, once or twice even to the point of injury. With injury came a new way of practicing, as well as so many important lessons about where exactly I was practicing from (my head or my heart) and to what end.

Although I am still deeply moved by and committed to my physical practice, my focus has begun to shift: Where once I rearranged all my activities to fit around my yoga schedule, I am starting to see that my true yoga really only begins once I am off my mat. I am starting to view my physical practice as something I do so that I have the energy and strength for the real practice that is my daily life.
I recently had the opportunity to study with a wonderful teacher who, on the first day of training, talked about something he referred to as “the weave.” (You could replace “the weave” with “the matrix” and you wouldn’t be too far off).

Essentially, he said that the illusion is to believe that we are ever outside of the weave. We think, “Ok, I’m here, on my sticky mat. I’m breathing. I’m connected. My chakras are spinning. I see pretty lights. I’m in the weave.” And then later, we have a Big Mac or a fight with our partner and we suddenly despair, “I’ve fallen out of the weave.” But everything, he said, is the weave.

In the practice of my daily life, I recognize how often I have been caught in that illusion. That duality has often played through my mind: "this is my spiritual practice; that is not. This is yoga; that is not.” But at the heart of the real practice, the real teachings, there is never a separation from this or that. Every activity is a spiritual practice because we are spiritual beings interacting with other spiritual beings. Every activity can be an opportunity to experience yoga (union/connection with the divine) because it is all a part of universal creation.

My teacher continued to say that our real work as yogis, (or simply as awake human beings), is to first and foremost, recognize that we are always in the weave, and therefore, to engage fearlessly and headlong into it. If we are always in the weave, then there is nothing to resist, nothing to fear. Whether an experience is comfortable or uncomfortable, joyful or painful, we can relax within the knowing that we are still, in those moments, a part of the weave.

This message in particular, struck a major chord for me. Living in New York, with the intense amount of stimulation and energy surrounding us at all times, my tendency is to seek solace in my very chill apartment, and to as much as possible, limit any extra exposure to what is, whether I like it or not, still a part of the weave.
Hearing that message, it at first struck me as paradoxical that I am engaging in a practice where the main purpose is to become increasingly sensitive and aware, while living in a city that is so over-stimulating. And yet, that’s what I’m doing, and this is where I am—in this crazy and exhilarating part of the weave.

So, how do I fearlessly engage? Essentially, this teacher said, we engage by trusting in our resilience and inner resources, and by learning how to navigate the outer world while using the tools of our inner practice.

A simple theory. A profound practice.

OK, New York. I’ll try again.