Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga - Softcover

Gates, Rolf; Kenison, Katrina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385721544 ISBN 13: 9780385721547

Verlag: Anchor, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

365 daily reflections offering a way to integrate the mindfulness that yoga teaches into everyday life, from the acclaimed yoga teacher, Rolf Gates who offers "a healthy way to find peace and a sense of coming home, day by day” (USA Today).

As more and more people in the West pursue yoga in its various forms, whether at traditional centers, in the high-powered atmosphere of sports clubs, or on their own, they begin to realize that far from being just another exercise routine, yoga is a discipline of the body and the mind. Whether used in the morning to set the tone for the day, during yoga exercise itself, or at the end of the day, during evening reflection, the daily reflections in Meditations from the Mat will support and enhance anyone’s yoga journey.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rolf Gates, author of two acclaimed books on yogic philosophy, Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga and Meditations on Intention and Being: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga, Mindfulness, and Compassion, conducts yoga workshops, retreats, teacher trainings, and coaching and mentorship programs throughout the U.S. and abroad—and online. Rolf and his work have been featured in numerous media, including Yoga Journal, ORGINS, Natural Health, People Magazine, and Travel and Leisure’s 25 Top Yoga Studios in the World. Rolf is the co-founder of the Yoga, Meditation and Recovery Conference at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts and a teacher at Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center in Northern California.  He is also on the Advisory Board for the Yoga Service Council and the Veterans Yoga Project.  A former addictions counselor and U.S. Army Airborne Ranger who has practiced meditation for over twenty-five years, Rolf brings his eclectic background to his practice and his teachings.  Rolf and his wife, Mariam Gates, author of Good Night Yoga: A Pose by Pose Bedtime Story, live in Santa Cruz, California with their two children.

Katrina Kenison has been the annual editor of The Best American Short Stories since 1990. In 1999 she was coeditor, with John Updike, of the national best-seller The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She coedited the anthology Mothers: Twenty Stories of Contemporary Motherhood and is the author of Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry. Her essays and articles have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, where she has been a contributing editor, and in Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, and Family Life. Kenison lives outside Boston with her husband, Steven Lewers and their two sons. She began practicing yoga with Rolf Gates in 2000.

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AN ANCHOR BOOKS ORIGINAL

As more and more people in the West pursue yoga in its various forms, whether at traditional centers, in the high-powered atmosphere of sports clubs, or on their own, they begin to realize that far from being just another exercise routine, yoga is a discipline of the body and the mind.

The 365 meditations incluided in this book offer a way to integrate the mindfulness that yoga teaches into everyday life. Whether used in the morning to set the tone for the day, during yoga exercise itself, or at the end of the day, during evening reflection, Meditations from the Mat will support and enhance anyone’s yoga journey.

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PART ONE

THE YAMAS

The Beginning

DAY 1

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
—Sir Francis Bacon

As we move into the twenty-first century, yoga seems to be the West's new remedy. Yet this remedy is in fact over five thousand years old—far older than Islam, even older than Christianity. Today, in yoga studios throughout the West, Sanskrit, one of the oldest written languages, is used as contemporary classroom jargon. So we might ask, Why yoga? And why now?

I believe our hunger for yoga, and our eagerness to embrace yoga as a spiritual practice, are a testament to our growth and our desire for change. In the aftermath of the bloodbath that was the twentieth century, and in the presence of threats posed by more recent events, there is a pressing need for what Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman describes as a "cold revolution." We need a new paradigm, one that will replace our present attachment to imbalance. Yoga is the study of balance, and balance is the aim of all living creatures; it is our home.

The flow of this book follows the course of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Written between 500 and 200 b.c., the Sutras codified a spiritual path that was already many centuries old at the time the Sutras were actually written down. Patanjali provides 196 succinct lessons on the nature of the human condition, human potential, and how that potential can be realized. Comprehensive, systematic, and remarkably precise, the Yoga Sutras organize the essence of all spiritual practices into a basic plan for living. You will find nothing in this ancient text that contradicts the precepts of any religion. Instead you will find a step-by-step guide to right living, a guide that complements the goals of any spiritual tradition.

A spiritual practice is one that brings us full circle—not to a new self but, rather, back to the essence of our true selves. Yoga is the practice of celebrating what is. At the end of the hero's journey, he finds that he did not need to go anywhere, that all he sought was inside him all along. Dorothy, having traveled across time and space to the land of Oz, and having struggled desperately to find her way back to Kansas, discovers that she could have gone home at any time. In the end, she learns that her adventures have simply brought her to the point where she can believe this. It is the aim of all spiritual seeking to bring us home, home to the understanding that we already have everything we need.

We are far now from home, and weary from our travels. The sun is setting and there is no destination in sight. Yoga is a lamp lit in the window of our home, dimly glimpsed across the spiritual wilderness in which we wander. At a time when we could not feel further from our home, yoga reminds us that we are already there, that we need simply awaken from our dream of separation, our dream of imperfection. Allow this book to awaken you, to be a light that shines in the darkness, guiding you through your days, pointing you home.

DAY 2

Burning zeal in practice, self-study and study of scriptures, and surrender to God are the acts of yoga.
—B. K. S. Iyengar

The Yoga Sutras outline a plan for living that flows from action to knowledge to liberation. This plan, or path, has eight limbs, which work more like spokes on a wheel than like steps on a ladder. The first four limbs are the limbs of tapas, or spirituality in action. Included here are the yamas and the niyamas, or the five moral restraints and five observances of yoga. The yamas and niyamas are akin to the Ten Commandments and are the true foundation of the yoga student's life.

The next two limbs of tapas are asana and pranayama, the postures and yogic breathing. The yamas and niyamas, asana, and pranayama all combine to form our path of action as we deepen our practice. They are actions taken or not taken with our bodies.

The yamas and niyamas bring us into right relationship with ourselves, others, and the spirit of the universe. The asana refine our bodies, deepen our awareness of the senses, and enhance our powers of concentration. In pranayama we develop control over the flow of our breath, thereby entering into a dance with our life energy. These four practices refresh the body, refine the mind, and bring peace to the heart, allowing us to meet the pressures of life with equanimity.

The next two limbs of the eight-limb path are called svadhyaya, or self-study. They are pratyahara and dharana. Pratyahara literally means turning inward—the mind withdraws from the senses of perception. In the stillness of pratyahara, dharana—or concentration—can be developed. The light of our awareness can begin to shine on our soul. The deepest form of connectedness is now possible.

Dhyana and samadhi form the final spokes of the wheel and comprise the limbs of isvara, the final frontier—the surrender of the individual self to the universal self. Dhyana is meditation, and samadhi is union with the object of meditation—the state in which meditation is no longer necessary, in which we reexperience our primal oneness, we come home.

The eight limbs are a map, but in yoga as in life, the journey is more important than the destination. In Alcoholics Anonymous they say that "we must be willing to grow along spiritual lines." And that is really all that is necessary as we undertake a yoga practice. We must simply remain open to our own spiritual potential and be willing to take action on our own behalf. As the days go by, we will examine each aspect of the eight-limb path in turn. Together we will experience the great adventure, the only adventure, the journey from darkness into light.

DAY 3

Everything all the time . . .
—The Eagles

At first glance, the eight-limb path appears to lend itself to a linear approach. It would seem to make sense: you do the first limb, then you proceed to the second, and so on. In fact, we take up all the limbs together. As the line in the Eagles song goes, we do everything all the time. It's not possible to practice the first two limbs, the yamas and the niyamas, without the support of the practices outlined by the other limbs. As we practice asana and pranayama, the postures and breath work that comprise the third and fourth limbs, we refine our relationship to our body, creating the necessary circumstances for brahmacarya, or moderation, the fourth yama. To practice living in the truth, or satya, the second yama, we must have a mind that has let go of the habit of distraction and developed the habit of concentration. Concentration is deliberately cultivated in dharana, the sixth limb. We must actually do everything all the time.

Our yoga practice makes this possible. Each time we come to the mat, we have an opportunity to work the entire path, moment by moment. As we move through the postures we are constantly enacting each aspect of the path. Our bodies, our breath, our minds, and our choices are being refined in the laboratory that is our yoga mat. As this symphony becomes established on our mats, it becomes established in our lives as well. Driving to work, mailing a letter, meeting a friend for lunch all become part of the uninterrupted flow of our yoga practice. We are doing our yoga all the time.

DAY 4

We are the ones we've been waiting for.
—Hopi elder

Now that you have a sense of how the book will flow, go with it. The Yoga Sutras will set the course as, in our travels, we explore each tributary of the eight-limb path. The daily readings that...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Anchor
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0385721544
• ISBN 13: 9780385721547
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland