 What brought you to your yoga practice?
I was initially drawn to yoga as a way to “work out” when I was younger. However, I soon came to realize it’s so much more than that, and called a “practice” for a reason. I quickly found the benefits both mentally and physically. What benefits did you notice once you started practicing consistently? Continuing off my previous answer, I found yoga to not only be extremely beneficial for my body, but also my mental state, including stress levels. What would you now tell yourself before you started practicing yoga? I would have told myself to do the yoga teacher training (I completed in 2024) much, much sooner. My body has more limitations now than when I first started practicing. But on the flip side, I’m learning for the first time how important props are, and this is in large part due to the amazing instructors at 5 Keys!
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 Photo by Lucas Doddema on Unsplash Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. - Ryunosuke Satoro This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series. Want to start at the beginning? Yoga Sutra 4.25 विशेषदर्शिन आत्मभावभावनानिवृत्तिः Viśeṣa darśina ātmabhāva bhāvanā nivṛttiḥ Understanding the distinction between the mind and the Self causes a cessation of the perception that the mind is Self. If you’ve ever wondered why there is consciousness at all if it is distinct from the Seer, Yoga Sutra 4.24 is for you! Patanjali answers that although the mind is afflicted with innumerable desires and subconscious impressions, it “exists for the sake of another” - that is, the Self - because “consciousness has no existence of its own but is dependent on the seer.” (Iyengar, 272)
Makunda Stiles calls this existing “solely for the sake of being close to the True Self.” (53) The Shoshoni Yoga Retreat calls the mind a “close ally” (50) of the Self. So clearly, the mind is subservient but also beneficial to the Self. Why? Patanjali has actually already addressed this back in Yoga Sutras 2.21, 2.23 and 2.24. |
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