How To Celebrate The International Yoga Day
More Than Asanas
The occasion of the International Yoga day, made me think about the deeper essence of yoga and how it is the honourable duty of each yoga teacher to stay true to the teachings of yoga and provide everyone they come in contact with, with the true meaning of yoga and the message on how it can transform a human being’s life.
Yoga isn’t about asanas, you know. Yes, the asanas play an important role in balancing our chakras and endocrine glands, so we can manage our emotions and conduct. They also help us maintain optimum levels of health.
However, yoga is more than that. A lot more.
The Soul
Yoga means union of soul with the Divine Soul. This is the actual meaning of the word yoga.
For us to get a feeling of what this Divine Soul is, we must first make contact with our own indwelling soul – that most precious light deep within our being.
A regular and conscious “connection” to one’s own soul is very important for our physical and mental well-being. You can contact your soul and integrate it lovingly into your everyday life.
Create a conscious “relationship” with soul to regain access to all of your soul’s wisdom and experiences from all previous stages of development and incarnations. Our soul is the immortal part of us! It nourishes us with its unconditional love, if we only allow it to do so.
But our soul must feel comfortable with us and within our body. Lack of care and an imbalanced life may disassociate the soul from the body/mind complex that it dwells in.
The more often you are living in the here and now, the more intense the connection to your soul. The mind may act like a screen and may try to stop this contact as it has its own agenda. And that’s why it is so important to cultivate our minds with care in order to regain access to higher spiritual levels, waiting to be incorporated into our individual life’s journey.
Meditation
Meditation is a wonderful way to make contact with the soul. It cultivates the mind and refines it gently and with love. Just as our body needs care, so too our soul requires attention, care and mindfulness.
Only you decide whether to listen to your soul in order to lovingly and consistently integrate it into your being. For this, constant mental hygiene, which can also be called “soul care”, is of great importance. Meditation is an invaluable tool of mental hygiene and prepares the pathway to our soul. Singing also lifts the mind and connects us with soul, especially devotional singing and kirtan.
In addition, our soul loves to be able to express itself in a carefree way through laughter, playfulness, curiosity, openness, creativity and imagination and pure love. We all are much more than our bodies and this realization creates unlimited possibilities that we can invite into our lives. We are spiritual beings who are provided with an opportunity to experience ourselves in every conceivable way.
Silence
Practice mindfulness, presence and invite the silence and tranquility into your life to connect with your soul. Have deep trust in your Self and learn to communicate with it. Anything that moves us away from the Self – stress, too much information and busy, mindless activity, noise and distraction, all of it creates static that dampens our connection with the soul.
Make sure to care for yourself and whenever possible to escape the noisy external world, to penetrate into realms of a higher energy that will give you strength, courage, positivity and fill you with the joy of life. Go on nature walks, swim in the sea or a lake, be kind to animals and look after plants – all this will strengthen your connection to the soul. By entering into a connection with our soul, we realize the true nature of our humanity which is Love and Spirit. This inevitably leads to a connection with the Divine Soul, bringing bliss and ecstasy into our lives.
