I recently started going for yoga classes in the evening. If you follow this blog, you can identify why I’m more a yoga than a gym person. I prefer the calmness, longer term orientation and mental+spiritual aspect of yoga exercises over purely physical workouts. My goal was nothing concrete and I figured it helps to have some routine especially for anyone working independently.
The classes are conducted in a lawn during the sunset hours which I happen to love. A part of the class time is spent on pure relaxation and while lying on the grass and watching the endless sky, I see different birds. First, I see some arch-winged creatures flying at considerable height that keep hovering over rather than flying. Then there are flock of parrots going to their homes, handful of eagles and other unidentified flyers. I also notice the black drongos sitting alone on electric wires with their beautiful forked tails. I wonder what those birds see and think while flying in the traffic free upper atmosphere zone, just concerned with eating and living. Here I am having to practice how to relax and live and there they are, supposed primitive creatures, doing that effortlessly.
Anyways, I do feel closer to birds since a friend made me read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. It is a story of a seagull who is bored with the daily squabbles over food and discovers higher planes of existence through its love of flying. Interesting, no? What more, it is a pretty short read – so give it a try reading it here.
Coming back to yoga now, I love the smell of grass, staring at sky for those few minutes and watching the sky turning red around the sunset. Yoga by definition is a Hindu philosophy of applying a disciplined method to achieve any goal – it is about creating a harmony between your physical and mental planes. I have no clue if it works or not and I’m sure it takes a lot of practice but I feel there is a unique energy within us that it tries to unleash and in that respect, I find it very interesting. Once in a while, our instructor makes us do yoga-nidra which is another fascinating concept of deep conscious sleep akin to state of meditation. While delivering the verbal instructions during this exercise, the teacher said a thing which stuck with me – ‘I’m thankful for living a pure life and getting this one hour in my day where I can do yoga peacefully. I’m happy and every cell of my body is experiencing a state of happiness.’ Its utterly simplistic and thats what makes it so powerful. Gratitude leads to pure happiness and if we can be constantly thankful for the simple pleasures we get to experience, we can feed on our own happiness.
Lets cut out too much abstract stuff but the point is it is important to keep our minds healthy and happy (as much or perhaps more than our bodies alone). So, find out some ways to do it.
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