It's the End Where We Begin

I have found over time that establishing a yoga practice is not a quick and easy process. It takes a lot of time and a lot of patience for development and growth to occur. In the beginning, as I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, I was so focused on getting into advanced postures before I was even remotely ready. I just wanted the pose!  …and then, I got injured. Since then, I’ve learned that growth is a never-ending process that requires infinite patience, infinite desire, infinite passion, infinite focus, and many other infinite things. I’ve come to find that there is even this infinite trust that underlies everything else.

When I realized that I needed to build my foundation from the ground-up, as well as from the inside-out, that is when my practice truly began. It was this realization that moved and touched me in the deepest areas of my being, and gifted me with the willingness and the desire to practice. “Practice, Never Perfect”, says one of my teachers, quite often.

Since I began, I have been made aware at how my practice has grown. To me, the evidence of growth lies not purely in one’s ability to move from posture to posture in the most graceful of manners, nor the ability to hold a super-advanced pose like Kapinjalasana (pictured). 

One can have the physical capacity to do all of these amazing things, but still have an absence of, or an incomplete practice. The true evidence of my own growth lies in the way that I carry myself, speak to myself, interact with the world and others around me, and then yes, the physical abilities that come with practicing asana regularly. The physical practice is just a physical manifestation of the greater whole of the practice; the greater whole of life as it is. When this is realized, then, your practice begins.