January 23rd, 2016

Hello amazing being,


Last night I gave a talk at the studio about the spiritual side of yoga. What a great group! 10 of us in all...that's pretty much woodstock for me.

Today being Spirit of Life Saturday is the perfect opportunity to touch on what I presented. This a loaded topic because history of yoga is so rich and deep.

I have been studying yoga for 15 years and over the past 6 years I have delved a deeper into the mantra aspect. Those of you that come to yoga have heard the music playing in the background, some of you may have picked up on the repetitive nature of the lyrics, typically in sanskrit. If your like me you may have made up your own words because you have no clue what they are saying! Once you know the words it's a lot more fun:)

Yogic mantras are a way to connect us to the millions of gods and goddesses of India.

I know this freaks people out a bit, especially if you have been raised on western religion, as I was. It is a common misconception that cultures with multiple gods/goddesses also worship multiple gods/goddesses. This generally is not true, in fact the common belief is that their is one God and the gods and goddesses represent the many aspects of God which we can then relate to ourselves by drawing on the qualities and nature of the archetypes.

For instance, last night during the talk I introduced Shiva and Shakti which embody the masculine and feminine, the lover and the hero, the yogi and the saint, the stillness and the energy. The mantra associated with Shiva is OM NAMAH SHIVAYA. The mantra is a reminder to cut through the ego, balance the masculine and feminine within, to become more aware of our thoughts, words, and actions. The mantra invokes those qualities from the inside out.

We can learn so much about our inherent qualities by taking a deeper look at the qualities, archetypes, and symbolism of almost any culture and religion and connect the dots of similarity. A very common theme is fearlessness...

Bringing it all together, how can we on spirit of life saturday be inspired to invoke the qualities of stillness, balance, and fearlessness? My personal answer is simple...breath and faith. What's yours?

Namaste,
Jennifer