Yoga Journey #8

I will explain about all the yoga frogs in a future post.

Just a thought.

Writing about my MS and Ashtanga Journey is my attempt to inform and possibly inspire.

Would you like to contribute a real life story on this site relating to either of these two topics. You can remain anonymous to the audience if you prefer. However I’d like to know who you are and I will protect your anonymity.

If you’re interested you can email me at:
david@my-ms-ashtangayogajourney.com

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Imagine

I can pinpoint when I first felt real peace in my practice. I was not looking for it and I was completely caught off guard – it actually scared me a little. I won’t tell you about it as it was deeply personal.

What I can say about it is that it was not a religious experience. It was just a feeling of being incredibly calm and present.

My Grandmother and Mom were and are devout Catholics and my Dad was a Protestant – he had to convert to Catholicism so that he could marry her. Therefore; I was brought up catholic, went to Sunday mass, benediction on Wednesday’s, signs of the cross on Friday’s, confessions on Saturday’s, and catechism classes mixed somewhere in all of that also. I went to catholic schools all the way up to high school but none of all that indoctrination ever caught on.

I have known for a long time that I don’t believe in a God but having been brought up Catholic I would never say that out loud due to some ingrained fear of being struck down by lightning or something. The nuns did it to me – ha. I tend to follow my own path and growing up I inherently knew that there is something else that is unknown or untapped.

As a Catholic kid growing up in England I was basically taught to hate Protestants. Therein lies the rub.

How did religion make it into this post? One of my concerns about yoga was is it a religion or maybe even a cult. My experience indicates that it is neither. Why I picked Ashtanga yoga, in part, was because on the website where I first started; it said that this yoga would fit any constitution.

I did not start this journey to find myself or discover some metaphysical answer. It was purely for physical reasons. But as I mature in my practice I find I’m enjoying more about how it makes me feel than conquering some difficult asana. It’s an interesting realization of where I am in practice and where I am in life.

I’d say my most formative years were the seventies. In 1970 I was 15 years old so that whole amazing decade I went from 15 to 25 years old. A lot of the ideals and lifestyles were in part a protest to where the world was going. Songs reflected that direction and aspired to a better more compassionate world. Somehow most of us faded into a life pattern that took us away from those ideals. Although; every once in a while I meet one of those souls.

I love music and when John Lennon’s song Imagine came out it crystallized all that I believed. It was a generational moment of aspirational love that I wish would have materialized. It was also sad because the song is called Imagine – we have to imagine that kind of world.

I am not looking for a God but I know there is more. Not a religious more just more. Something generated by me, felt by me, realized by me. How did I generate a non judgement, self confident, portrait of me. It was and is a process of showing up and just being myself.

And I’m thinking the current state of the world could use some yoga.

“And the world would be as one”.