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.
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