Practicing yoga at home with 3 young children, you just have to make it happen somehow. Somewhere.
This particular time I had vacuumed and mopped the house and I was feeling so clean and fresh. With a few minutes spare, I got into a downward dog in the kitchen.
Yoga gets you up close and personal to areas you may not usually pay close attention to, like your toe nails for example or unshaven legs 😀
But this time, it was the fridge. Yes the fridge. In my blissful downward dog, my drishti (concentrated eye gaze) led me to concentrate on the layer of dust under the fridge! A hard to reach place that can only be cleaned by moving the fridge itself.
This scenario got me thinking about the human condition. We may think we are clean and fine on the surface or on the outside level.
But how often do we really dig deep to clean out the hidden stuff, inside us. The stuff tucked away for a while and only gets cleaned when we make some big changes in our lives.
It’s only then we start to notice them.
But up until that point, they’re tucked away. Hidden and dormant.
But eventually you need to clean the dust beneath the fridge. Eventually you will have to move that big appliance to clean that space.
And the longer you put off cleaning it, the more dust it gathers and the harder it is to clean. You may even need to go over it several times before the layers of dust are cleared.
This is like the mind.
There are so many layers. And the longer we leave it to its own devices, the harder it is to work through and sort out.
A regular yoga practice helps to clear these layers of dust so that we can see clearly.
The yoga sutras begin by defining yoga as “calming the fluctuations of the mind”. How do we calm them?
By doing a good regular internal clean out through the yoga practice.
It’s amazing really. That a practice can be so powerful at bringing calm and peace to the mind. Most of our suffering in this world is not so much physical, it’s mental.
The yoga practice helps keep the mind clean and clear.
Like peeling the layers of an onion.
Yoga peels away the layers of stuff that lay dormant or hidden. The stuff that gathers dust. If we continue to work through these layers, we become much happier and peaceful beings.
Yoga can truly help you find happiness from within.
So roll out your mat and start clearing the layers of dust of your mind! …not just the physical dust in your house! 😀