Ripped

Since the awful bout with colds and whatever it was in the early spring my practice has been spotty at best as I have said before. During the summer I kept trying to get back to it, but the most I could pull off was maybe one, at the most two, days a week. The odd thing is that every time I did practice yoga, I felt really good. I would end the practice saying to myself, "Wow. I feel really good now. Why don't I do this every day." But I was also trying to initiate a regular work out routine in an effort to combat the lethargy I felt and to get in shape. I had been running and that didn't get me quite where I wanted so I started a program called "7 Weeks to Getting Ripped." The program in itself is very effective. I began to feel the results almost immediately. Then, classes started this week just as I was reaching a peak in the program. During this first week of classes I have felt more frazzled than I have in years. I can't seem to think straight or see things well. I feel like I'm running 100 miles a minute and yet I am doing nothing. I am nervous and tense and my sleep is awful. The Getting Ripped has ripped me, but it has also increased my metabolism or whatever to a point that I can't settle down. I can't think. I feel fragmented. So, I go back to yoga almost crawling on my knees begging it for help. I began reading yoga books in bed before falling asleep and the lines that stand out from what I recently read is that yoga is not to make your body look better, it is to help the functioning of the mind. Sure, one of the side-effects of yoga is that you may have a healthier body, but this should not be the emphasis. Yoga. As Geogor Maehle says, "Yoga is the science of training the mind, and it is for those who are in need of this training". And boy oh boy am I in need of training. I returned to practice on Wednesday. Today is Friday and I have completed three days. I feel somewhat better. My mind isn't racing as much as it was. I can control my thoughts a bit better-- nothing like before when I was practicing everyday. Maybe I needed this long break from yoga. Maybe I needed to get ripped to realize that there is more to yoga than the body. That it is distinct from any exercise program because it is really training the mind. And to survive I need that.

Belief

My practice has been spotty at best and I am definitely feeling the affects. I'm losing the calm that I had and didn't even notice really, the mindfulness that I built up over two years and took for granted is slowly slipping away. Yesterday I made it a point to get on my mat again. As I did so, as I stepped on to it the thought crossed my mind in a really clear, loud voice: "You've got to believe this stuff." The one thing that has slowly drifted me away from yoga is all the Hindu stuff that goes along with it. Chanting I like as well as the "Oming" and all that. But I can't get into the gods that many yoga practitioners seem to venerate. I didn't leave one religion to fall victim to another one. Why put up in front of me and why bow down before false idols? I can't do that and I won't. My rejection of those images and the veneration for them slowly led to the distance I created between myself and the yoga community and led to me practicing on my own. But, as I practiced on my own, I stopped believing in yoga as a meditation and looked at it more as a way to stay flexible and exercise. I'm wondering if there is a middle ground somewhere. Is it possible to believe in the yoga as a meditation without having to accept all of the myths that go with it? I'm thinking that is probably possible, but whenever I read on blogs or on the Facebook page of the local studio and see references to Hanuman or some other deity, my stomach clenches and I reject it.