Prana is always evolving and moving forward. Prana uses the inhale to feed our body and our energy.
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Although it is the main energy of the body and is considered to be fed by our “inhale,” prana is not consciousness. For example, the relationship between our inhale and exhale is loosely considered to be the relationship between prana and apana. There are several concepts in yoga supporting this idea of balancing the connection you have with your external self and your inner consciousness. Once I realized this, it was like a burden was lifted off my shoulders and I could begin focusing on what it really means to find balance in life. Now, I realize that the whole deal with yoga and enlightenment is not to meditate your ego away but to balance your connection with your true Self and your bodily self. My teachers and all the yoga books I read made me think I had set forth on an impossible and daunting journey of trying to separate my external self and ego from my internal true Self.Īnd yes, that is the journey but the idea of dismissing the whole concept of who I am in every day life seemed impossible, I thought any one else who claimed that they had were probably living a lie. There was still one concept that not only mystified and overwhelmed me but made me question my commitment to yoga – the idea of the true Self, which didn’t seem balanced by an opposite. Okay, so I will never know what’s good if I don’t experience the bad, but what about the bigger ideas, the more abstract ideas? The True ‘Self’ Effort and rest, masculine and feminine, sun and moon, good and bad, happy and sad – some of these opposites made sense to me. To wrap my head around the idea that EVERYTHING has an opposite was a little much. I soon understood that balanced ruled every aspect of life-a realization that quickly took my yoga practice to a dark place. I slowly began to realize that balance played into many deeper aspects of life. At first, I thought of balance as mostly physical, I considered it to be the way my body moved through space. When I first started yoga, balance was a foreign concept to me and it was often even overwhelming.
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Often, the best indicator that something is out of whack is when we physically have trouble balancing.įor example, any day I have an exceptionally clumsy day, feel “ungraceful” during my practice or cannot hold an inversion I’m use to holding, I know something must be out of balance.
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Sometimes it’s hard to pin down what exactly the “thing” is that is causing an imbalance, no matter how much you practice yoga or seek to straighten things out. You do not have to be a yogi to know when something in your life or in your body is out of balance.