Am I really practising yoga?

So do you have a yoga practice? 

This episode includes: What does sādhana mean? 

Is your practice helping keep your life orienting in the direction of your soul’s deeper and authentic longing? 

The potency of allowing some time for deep silence and meditation every day. 

The Medi-state as the foundation for yoga practice. 

Meditation and silence allowing us to connect to source, disconnect from the clutter and chaos of our conditioned perspectives, attenuate our attachments to the fleeting externals that will never bring us lasting peace or satisfaction and bathe in the influence of our deathless essence. 

And what else constitues a yoga practice? 

Yoga treats the whole human being. 

Physical, sensory, mental, intellectual, emotional. 

The Upaniṣadic image of the chariot and the horses. 

How to train our horses, the need to exercise them with respect. 

How ’that which does not kill me can only make me stronger’ is a partial truth at best. 

Am I becoming a more skilful charioteer? 

Am I handling my horsepower skilfully? 

And what if it feels like I don’t have a lot time to devote to practice? 

Remembering the classic definition of yoga practice: the effort to foster steadiness. An effort that is long term, uninterrupted, attended to ith genuine presence, with dedication and devotion so it can become well rooted, able to grow and withstand storms. 

Does such a definition mean I have to devote all the day to technique? 

No! Techniques are for the sake of attuning to what it means to be buddhiyukta - joined up, integrated, present with all our intelligences functioning together in mutual support. 

Considering the structure of a traditional ‘full time practitioner’ in the haṭha yoga tradition and how this can inform a practitioner with less time to devote to technique. 

Practising to nourish the whole.