Intimacy with reality

As I was walking out the door to go to yoga tonight, it occurred to me that class might be cancelled - I hadn't been to the Midtown studio in a month or two and they do change the schedule every few months - but at that point, if I had turned around to check online, I would have been late. So I just went. In the elevator already, I realized it wasn't going to be the usual Monday night class I used to go to: two women were discussing the amazing teacher who was going to be giving a workshop (I had no idea what that even meant). When I got up to the studio, I realized I was the only person not there to specifically see/hear/learn from this teacher. I had to pay double price but at that point I didn't want to just come home, I had already walked down there and I all day I had been looking forward to yoga. I was really hoping this wasn't gonna be just some dude talking about spirituality and philosophy and all that. 

Well, it was just that, actually. With a little bit of actual practice. But I think I learned more than I had in the past year and a half I had been taking yoga for. The teacher was pretty amazing! He just had this air about him, such charisma! Older guy, long, gray, messy hair, incredibly fit, wearing just black pants and a white button-down shirt, that, as the class progressed, kept getting unbuttoned more and more until it was almost off. His voice was so soothing, his words chosen so carefully, he was just so in touch with himself, so present and interested in everything and everyone. I just couldn't take my eyes off him the whole time - and not because of his chest showing more and more, at least not only because of that. 

For a good half an hour, he just spoke, more like he was having a conversation with people in the room. It's hard for me to recall much of what he exactly said or even what he was really talking about. The main idea though was the usual: in this day in age, an especially, here in NYC, we are trying so hard to reach certain goals, to do more, earn more money, run faster, look better, be stronger, be more spiritual, more more more!!!! What this implies is that we lack all these things we are so striving for. For example, in yoga - which has become very commercialized and very popular in a way that going to the gym is popular, it's become a form of exercise - we try to become stronger, and be able to hold the poses longer, make our heels touch the floor in a downdog, be able to do a headstand, and so on and on. I have been going to a higher level class for a few weeks now that is so challenging, I am struggling for the whole hour and a half, sweat pouring down my face, muscles aching by the time I leave. It feels good later (after the few days of incredible sourness passes, in muscles I didn't even know existed)  and I know I am getting stronger, but it sort of defeats the whole idea behind yoga. 

There is no perfect pose, not even a beautiful one; it's my pose or your pose and it's perfect exactly the way I or you did it. There should not be straining and struggling. Yoga is about letting go and about the breath. I learned a lot about the breath tonight. We did some very simple breathing meditations, small movements, nothing physically difficult, but really focusing on the breathing and moving with the breath, and it was wonderful. I felt so focused and present. He made us all promise that we are going to take what learned tonight and do a little bit each and every day. It doesn't matter whether it's just 5 minutes or 20 or an hour and a half, as long as I am present and in the breath for those few minutes. I will try.

He kept saying this one thing over and over again: yoga is direct intimacy with reality, with the nurturing life force. The power of life is in our own spines, what people call God or divine, is within all of us, is the ordinary, which is at the same time extraordinary - like a mother's nurturing her child - and is not in some text of blind belief that is held by a group of people and is only available to a few. What it comes down to for me is this: in order to be in touch with yourself and with reality, you have to find a way to be intimate with yourself, to love yourself and if you do, then you can be open to be intimate with others, give and receive love without pain. And according to Mark Whitwell, practicing a few minutes of yoga every day will lead you to intimacy with this life force, with yourself, and with reality.