Being Popular

by LauraLynn Jansen

Change is inevitable they say. The world revolving around this word, Yoga, demonstrates how even something so ancient can evolve and change thousands of years later. It is an evolution I’ve personally been a witness to, and the variety emerging truly amazes me! My closeted yoga self, of several decades ago, could never have imagined the fringe practices I read of and tried to reenact (in the little old pottery studio I was living in) would one day enter the mainstream. At that time the use of meditation, asana, visualization, mantra were all curiosities in my pursuit of finding peace (and maybe some physical relief) amongst a slue of treatments to defeat the cancer throughout the upper portion of my body.

 

Now many, many years later I wonder what gives Yoga (everything from asana to mind-centering practices) such staying power? Maybe it is the sensation, many students have shared they experience, of feeling lighter and freer through the body. Or could it be the self-growth one may experience when engaging in the various principles associated with a Yoga based practice? Recently a great new video, by Uplift, on the science of Yoga was released. It links this ancient knowledge with modern science. It highlights how the self correcting mechanism of the body, homeostasis, is righted through Yogic practices. This innate ability to heal is in each of us, and is the antidote to the ever-present stresses of this modern world. When engaging in asana or meditation or mantra we allow time to hold both suffering and joy, unhappiness and self love, flow and fighting it, or letting go and being human. So whether balance is being invoked through the physical actions of asana or the vibration of a mantra practice this ancient science works. The Big Bonus is by engaging in Yogic actions we tend to be reminded of how to connect to other and relate to the Divine of selves we are! We are taking time to feel the essence of who we are, and I am guessing this aspect alone is a deep draw to this thing called Yoga.

This organization, theYoke, is one way I’ve committed to sharing and keeping the many pieces composing Yoga alive and understood. We built this organization based on the aspects of seva, sustainability and unity. It is an organization created to grow with the times and to be sure we do that we are currently taking the pulse of Yoga folk. We would love your input. We are deeply curious what you see and feel about the Yoga world around you.

Leave a Reply