Yoga Off The Mat

Greetings Yogis,

Greetings Yogis,What is your go-to yogic teaching “off the mat”?
​A few come to mind—patience, acceptance, or the simple act of giving of oneself. These sound beautiful in theory, yet they often stretch us the most when life presents real challenges. 
Yoga, at its heart, is not something we do but something we live into.

The postures and breathing exercises are like a laboratory—controlled conditions in which we experiment, refine, and prepare ourselves. Daily life, however, is the true curriculum, complete with unexpected tests and assignments.

The postures and breathing exercises are like a laboratory—controlled conditions in which we experiment, refine, and prepare ourselves. Daily life, however, is the true curriculum, complete with unexpected tests and assignments.

Which teaching arises most naturally for you in the flow of life, and which ones feels like they asks more of you? Can you compress the responses down to two words? Then carry them with as a self-reflective talisman for a week. 

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RIGHT ACTION IN YOGA

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna offers this timeless wisdom, describing right action in yoga:
“You have a right to your actions, but never to the fruits of action.” (2.47)

This teaching invites us to act with care and clarity, but without attachment to outcomes. Whether we teach a class, do the dishes, or contend with a difficult relationship, we can do so with the spirit of seva—selfless service.

When we adopt an attitude of service, we shift from “What can I get?” to “What can I give?”

This shift lightens the burden of expectation and opens the heart. We begin to show up fully because it’s meaningful to act, not because we’re guaranteed a particular result. It’s a movement from contraction to expansion.

Our energy becomes more focused, and ironically, our actions often become more impactful—because they are rooted in sincerity, not self-interest. It is an ongoing practice and requires yoga training.


This week, try offering your efforts as a quiet service. Cook a meal, answer an email, or listen to a friend—not for praise, but as a conscious offering; exercising right action in yoga.

Act fully. Let go gracefully. And trust the rest.

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ARCH OF YOGA PRACTICE

On one level, yoga practice may seem cursory or extra.  We may even gasp at an advanced posture and overlook its deeper intent–how it influences organ systems or directs the inner breath. We may overlook the greater arch of yoga practice.

Yogic techniques optimize forces implicit to our life-experience, and can be practiced wherever you occupy your body, whenever you breath, and anytime you think.  

 Life-experience itself explicitly occurs in the breath, body, and mind? We don’t experience the world so much as we experience our own energy in relationship to the exterior world.

The practices re-pattern the mind-body-breath complex to function more harmoniously with deeper, natural forces and rhythms. The methods are not bashful about how this attunement might look on the surface, and are willing to sacrifice convenience or “comfort” in service of deeper insight and hidden potential.

Furthermore, regular practice and yoga training, plays out over the long-game, adapting to life circumstances along the way. As the months play out, and seasons pass, and years turn into decades, we may find ourselves a bit wiser, more resourced, and more attuned to the many currents of the life-process and the greater arch of yoga practice

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WHY WE DO YOGA?

The student once asked “why we do yoga?”

My teacher, Baba Hari Dass, responded:

“At first we do yoga to improve our life. Then we do our life to improve our yoga.”

The practices can make us more graceful physically and emotionally, and more in step with life.  And still, we may have habits that don’t support our fullest potential.

Gradually, we may choose to refine our habits; diet, sleep and associations, to name a few; in support of yoga practice. We may be drawn to live in alignment with deeper rhythms of nature, go to bed a bit earlier, and create more space for yoga in the early morning, as a tangible example. The deeper study may lead us to yoga training.

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NOTEWORTHY WISDOM

I’d recently heard that….” Most are more interested in the cure than the cause.” Which struck me as a noteworthy wisdom. This idea certainly comes up in conversations around health and medicine but also pertains to personal relationships.

Ever by-pass your role in a particular dynamic and fast forward to trying to change the “other”? Any parents out there? While this may be semi-satisfying in the moment, if the roots are not tended to, the pattern will likely repeat itself again.

Even after years of yoga training, I notice a tendency to want to rush in with an answer, or “solution” rather than to see and hear the multiple aspects of any issue. In many ways, yoga practice aids us to be less presumptive, more patient, and to perceive with greater depth.

In practice, this noteworthy wisdom looks like a movement of energy away from the alleged “cure” and recentering on the “cause”, a stepping stone towards greater realization and inner-freedom.

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YOGA OF DEVOTION

Devotion can be a charged notion, particularly if one has some unpleasant religious association with it. The yoga of devotion tells the story a little differently.

In my view, it is not so much a question of “if” one has faith and devotion, but rather, faith and devotion towards “what?” Institutions? Science? The phone? Family? Divinity?

As a yoga practice, devotion is a way of de-centering attention away from oneself–and all its finite assumptions–and placing it on a larger force or ideal, a greater cosmic order perhaps.

In yoga class, I often hear an invitation for everyone to “set your intention.”  In that moment, I sometimes yearn that we may unite our devotions towards a shared higher principle such as “Intrinsic-Love,” “Peace,” or “Acceptance.”  Maybe there is some singular and trusted-enough principle we can unite upon.

This tends to happen organically at the end of class, when there is a shared moment of silence, and is often the richest instant in class.  Why not share the connective spirit of the yoga of devotion at the beginning as well? United, behind one prayer.

Devotion, while not commonly given credence in many spaces, can magnify our connection to the deeper ethos of yoga.
 

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The River of Yoga Practice

I’ve been at this yoga project for a while, the river of yoga practice has ebbed and flowed its way over 34 years of life-terrain, touching gain, loss, heartache, moments of insight, flesh & blood, and clear stillness; meandering towards a greater ocean, somewhere on the other side of present mountains.

The practice evolves with time; as ecology evolves; as culture evolves; as insight matures; and our role changes. Thankfully, there are many methods to support us in these changes.  Still, the actual experience of yoga itself is timeless. “Yoga is as old as human heart” as Babji would say.

The practices are a means to a greater end, that sounds something like: deep harmony, right-relationship, and even revelation. Over the decades, here have been times when I’ve mistaken means for ends, clung to rout-methodology and forgot the larger purpose or spirited-connection to yoga.

Looking back, over the decades, and the many yoga teacher trainings, these barren moments seem strangely necessary. Then come the cool rains of grace, perhaps at an unexpected moment, that revive the deeper spirit of why we practice at all.

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The Yoga of Discipline

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Back in the early 90’s, when I first went to yoga classes, the practice was closely associated with “discipline.” People talked about “discipline” the same way we talk about “inclusion” or “trauma sensitivity” now. Long before prevalent teacher training, the yoga of discipline was in the air of practice.

Discipline is an essential aspect of what the yogis call “Tapas.” Tapas are the creative friction that arises when going (a bit) against the grain of impulses; it gives rise to generative heat that opens new possibilities and develops one’s character.

Tending to the fire of transformation is tapas.  

circle of tapas, sustained effort

However, some habits seem quite stubborn and we may like the idea of “I will meditate every morning” but it remains elusive. I have my own fantasized version of a disciplined-self that does not parallel the reality of my behaviors. Sound familiar?

Here is a rewarding middle option. Practice “micro-disciplines” in the moment. Notice moments in your day when you can choose your higher virtue. Sacrifice a bit of comfort in the moment and nudge your way into a more fulfilling direction one small and simple choice at a time. I invite you to experiment with this in your day to day decisions.

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YOGIC TEACHINGS

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Here’s a fun question…. What is your go-to yogic teachings “off the mat”?  

A few come to mind: “patience”, “acceptance”–that’s a big one–or “giving of oneself”, all of which read nice on paper and can be much more difficult to put into practice.

Genuine yoga practice is something we live into rather than something to “do.”  

Layer by layer yoga reveals hidden and not so hidden tendencies and invites to apply the principles of “patience”, “acceptance” and so forth to living circumstances.

Overtime, leaving no stone is left unturned.

Baba Hari Dass used to say “climbing is hard and slipping is easy.”  It takes a bit of determination to live into one’s higher virtues, to apply yogic teachings in daily life.  But the alternative also comes with its price.

So, what is your go-to yoga practice off the mat?

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The Essence of Yoga

Perhaps you’ve heard Patañjali’s quintessential definition of yoga? I captures the essence of yoga.

It’s quite simple, and simultaneously vast; two signature features of wisdom.
 

“Yoga is the stilling of all thought.”
 

This definition probably conjures more questions than answers and invites us to reconsider our mental space…. what are thoughts anyway?

Patañjali goes on to assert that the mind occupies the surface of our being, vailing our essential nature. 

Who would we be in the absence of  thoughts and opinions about self and “others”?
How does one still the mind?
And why would we want to do such a thing anyway? 

More questions….

On a practical level, I invite us to consider the mutable nature of thought, how it can seem so dense, habituated and convincing at times and simultaneously amorphous, shifting and changing in every moment.

Sometimes the mental story is caked with adversity and sometimes it is not.  Yoga is the process by which we can come to terms with our particular narratives, create a bit of space, and draw closer to our essential nature.

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