"When stability becomes a habit, maturity and clarity follow." - BKS Iyengar Light on Life
As an advertising writer and creative consultant, I am more than aware of how our human desires are enticed with sensual displays of everything from electronics to food and fashion to pharmaceuticals. However, as much as we like to blame advertisers for the many ills of the world, they can also do a lot of good. They can change behavior, caution, educate, employ, and raise money for good causes just to name a few.
Those of you who are old enough to have children may have experienced how the exponential growth and omnipresence of advertising is beginning to teach our kids the need for discrimination. Learning to make wise choices is integral to finding balance in an over-stimulating, ever-changing world. The eight-limbed path of yoga is a well-tested systematic way to build the intelligence of the mind so we can think, speak, and act with discriminating wisdom.
It's been said advertising can get you to try a product or service, but only a good product or service can get you to buy it again. Learning to build good products is an art. Most of us have heard our parents say, "Well they don't make [insert product] like they used to." These days, we've come to believe some products are built with embedded obsolescence. In other words, after a certain time, it's actually made to break down so you have to buy a new one. It seems as if some manufacturers have lost their passion, drive, and sense of integrity when developing new products.
And yet, we are detoured constantly by them. Look, a shiny new phone. Where did you get those awesome shoes? Can I take a picture of your car? Is that a new lip color? Wait! How did I get here? Where was I? ADD/ADHD comrades aside, our world has become a massive detour sign destabilizing our connection to who we are and why we are here.
It has been my experience that when we apply passion, drive and integrity towards the 8-limbs of yoga, we have a better possibility to extend our life cycle so we are made to last. We can also develop control over the millions of distractions around us. We begin by building stability in the body through the postures. In the postures, we get to know ourselves by learning to ground our feet on the earth and extend our arms and legs and spine.
Extension creates space in the body. It purifies our nerves and wakes up the skin so it's like every pore becomes an eye showing us more and more of ourselves. What is my left side doing? What is my right side doing? Which side is stronger? Which side needs to work harder? As we progress we move from the skin inwards to the muscles, to bones, to the organs, and suddenly you find yourself wanting to go back and visit this fascinating place again and again so you can explore it more and more.
It's just you, yourself, and the unexplored sheaths of your body that are slowly unveiled as your stability and inward focus expands. You get glimpses of a quiet place deep inside you that offers stillness and peace. It is from this place of stillness that you gain clarity like you've never experienced before. The moment you question it, you lose it. The chatter in your head returns but like any other pleasurable occurrence you want to try to go back to it again.
Fortunately, along the way you have learned that with practice and detachment you build on the stability you've gained and the experiences of stillness, peace and clarity begin to grow too. You begin to be able to apply this stability and clarity to other aspects of your life. Over time, your desires and attachments are put in a perspective you can see with more eyes than you knew you had.
,,,To be continued.
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