Coming Home To Ourselves (August Theme)

Photo credit: Aly Gaul

Over the past month or so, I’ve been re-examining yoga and my relationship to it. I’ve been taking a deeper look at the Eight Limbs of Yoga, working to educate myself further on yoga history and roots, and on introducing my classes and readers to this information. I’ve also been thinking about why we practice yoga, or at least historically, at its roots, why yoga was practiced. Basically, what is yoga really all about? 

The word yoga means “to yoke” or to join. For some, this could mean joining of the mind, body, and spirit that happens in yoga - or the combination of movement, breath, and focus/letting go. For others it could be the joining of people together (especially when practiced in a group setting, even virtually), reminding us that we’re part of a community or collective bigger than just our individual person. To me though, yoga is a process of coming back home to ourselves. It’s a practice through which we can join our “little s self” (the individual person) and our “Big S Self” (the “essense” of us that exists even beyond our individual self). Or if you’re a little unsure of this specific wording, think of the big S self as the piece of you that doesn’t feel quite tangible -it’s that part of you that you might feel connected to when you’re out in nature; that part of you that’s deeply moved by music or dance or song or some other form of expression; that you experience when you pause and take some quiet time for yourself and you’re able to look inward. 

As I’ve been delving further into the Eight Limb path, I’m seeing how each of these limbs may be a way in which people experience coming back to themselves. 

For some, it may be the Asana, the physical practice on the mat that most gets us back in touch with ourselves. By connecting with our bodies, our anatomy, and in linking breath and movement, we can strip away everything that’s happening in the outside world, even if for that hour or 75 minutes of class, or however long, and reconnect with the self. 

For others, it may be the breathwork, the pranayama that best helps us reconnect with the energy that flows through us, sustains us, that helps to calm the citta vritti - the fluctuations of the mind - and brings us back to ourselves on a deeper level. 

It may be in the meditation (Dhyana), in which we are fully present in that moment and in ourselves, not grasping on to anything from the outside world, not clinging to any thoughts or judgement.

In the Yamas and Niyamas, we’re practicing the way in which we interact with others/the outside world, and with ourselves (respectively). We may discern areas among these in which who we are at our core does not feel quite at ease with how we’re practicing, or not practicing, the Yamas and Niyamas.

Pratyahara helps us to turn our senses inward. By withdrawing one or more of the senses as they pertain to the outside world (for instance through blindfolds, ear plugs, etc), we can feel more of what’s happening internally. We can come back to that core of ourselves, that essence of ourselves that exists even without everything in the physical, the external. 

With Dharana, our concentration is focused on one specific point or object. It peels away everything else happening in the external world, and helps us to connect to something deeper, connecting with a deeper, less tangible version of ourselves. 

And there’s Samadhi. To me, and  I’ve heard this expressed by those with much more yoga knowledge than myself as well, Samadhi is the coming together of the other seven limbs. It’s not something that can necessarily be described in words, or even visualized/conceptualized fully. It’s that place in which, through the other seven limbs, our “self” and our “Self” are fully aligned, connected, virtually indistinguishable. Where the lines between the two blur, even if just briefly before they become separate again. It’s the place where we come home to ourselves. 

I realize that this concept might not feel super palatable or accessible, and that’s OK. I’ve done yoga for about fourteen years, spent a year in teacher training, and have been teaching others for a year, and I’m pretty confident I’ve never fully experienced this feeling of Samadhi, this fully coming home. But I have had the feeling of being something more than simply my physical, individual self, even if I haven’t fully grasped what exactly that “other” is. I’ve had that feeling of disturbance of self - that feeling where life feels like it just doesn’t quite fit you; like you’re walking around wearing someone else’s clothes that aren’t the right size, and even though you’re managing, you either feel like your being is lost swimming in them, or like they’re so tight they’re constraining you. I’ve had that feeling, as I’ve mentioned earlier, of being out in the expanse of nature, and realizing how small my individual self is, where for a moment or several, it feels as if myself as “Maya in this body” almost vanishes. 

I’ve also had that feeling when I step on the mat, or sit in meditation, or practice breath work, or when I’m working with any of the other limbs, where for even a little bit, I feel more like I fit with myself. I feel connected. I feel less like I’m “this individual that looks like this and thinks like this that’s been on this earth for 40 years”, and more like I’m something “bigger” (for lack of a better word”) than all of that. In those moments, I’m not this person in this situation with these thoughts that acts and moves and feels this way. In those moments, I just am. 

This month, I’m going to be working with this idea of coming home to ourselves. We may all experience it differently, and we may all be at different places in this journey. Wherever you are in your yoga journey - whether you’re just beginning, or you’ve been practicing for years, whether you began yoga for the physical movement or the focus on the breath and body and spirit, or to step back from the whirlwind of the world and connect with yourself, or if you’re somewhere else entirely - I invite you to join me in this coming home. 

I look forward to sharing practice, both the physical practice and all that yoga is, with you this month and beyond.