#66 - 3 Minute Thursday: What Yoga Isn't

Welcome to our new segment, "Three Minute Thursday"  (#3MinThursday) where I highlight a piece of wisdom I’ve come across from my own readings over the past week, or share with you an inspirational anecdote that can help you lead a more calm, free and full life. 

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Many of you may know from my posts on social media that this year I decided to take a teachers training course from an authentic school of yoga based in India, pioneered by world humanitarian leader and spiritual master, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

The first few days of this course flipped my understanding of yoga inside out and upside down. Yoga, in its truest form, has to do very little with asanas (those exercises and poses that we have now come to automatically associate with yoga) and everything to do about calming the mind.

See, when the ancients began asking those profound questions like "What is the meaning of life?", and "How do I find joy?", and when they began practicing ways to find inner peace, they came to realize that by calming the mind and connecting with the inner self the answers to these questions revealed themselves.

Yoga, is, in fact, our ability to master the stream of thoughts that run through our mind. This is the definition provided by Maharishi Patanjali himself, the author of the Yoga Sutras. Yoga is our capacity to connect with our true self through stillness. It is cultivating the inner skills used to master life while it unfolds before you. It is a disciplined path to finding your center, and dealing with your emotions.

The physical aspect of yoga- the yoga postures that we equate with yoga are only meant to be vehicles to achieve this ultimate goal and only 1 spoke in a wheel of many. In fact, practicing yoga postures without understanding the historical context, the philosophical wisdom and the other practices that comprise it, such as service and breath work, won’t make you a yogi no matter how many years you practice.

Yoga, is not a physical practice, yoga is a metaphorical and disciplined path of many practices and deep knowledge – a path to uniting you with you’re your truest self, a path that can allow you to blossom to your full human potential and contribute to the world as you do so. 

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For more from Host Pooja Mottl:  www.PoojaMottl.com

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Special Thanks : 

Kris Kosach of the TPR Podcast for lending her VO for our Podcast Intro.

Jessica Panian for her help with our graphic design. 

Sufi Kaur for managing and designing our social graphics.