YOGA TAUGHT ME TO LIVE

-THIS IS ONE OF THE STEP BY STEP TO HAPPINESS, ENJOY THE PROCESS-

I remember the first time I practiced yoga It was an ordinary day, I accepted the challenge thrown by my girlfriend who was already practicing for a year. I will be honest, I could say many wonderful magical things about my first day practicing yoga but I won’t. It did not make any difference to me, It was not an epiphany in my life, I did not enlighten myself in my first down dog. I found it quite though, very physical, not spiritual at all. I was just trying to keep up with the many different poses which they were all new to me. I did not feel any kind of flow the first day.

It was a very intense period of my life, many changes were happening and trying new experiences I thought It could be the key to put every single expression of my mind in orders. When I say putting in order, I always imagine me putting my thoughts in drawers (my girlfriend would laugh now), all of them with a name. I did not give up that day, I tried to go to other classes. From the moment I already paid three weeks introduction I thought why not? The 3 weeks went by and I decided to sign up. Again, the studio was just 3 minutes away walking from my house,

So I said why not?

I attended other classes and I felt a slight change. I felt my effort trying to keep up with the poses was less and I could concentrate more on what I WAS FEELING in those moments of phisicality and concentration.

What was I feeling? Well, It was different from the first times. I could live the class with more ease. I could live that present moment.

I COULD CHOOSE what to do in that exact moment, in that exact pose.

I will not go through all my phases in yoga, through my evolution, nobody is really interested in that.

What I want to express instead is what I think YOGA IN REAL LIFE IS. You might think, what a nice catchy title, ‘Yoga is responsibility’. Very cunning of me uh?

Yoga can be compared with life. An hour of class has a full range of emotions: you can experience from tiredness to happiness going through frustration and surprise.

Yoga is like life because life is a responsibility.

Every single day of our life we choose, we take decisions, we take responsibility for our actions (at least should be like that). If you avoid it you simply live with inertia. When you live with inertia and life is taking over you, instead of you deciding for your own life; you are a dead soul.

I like listening to Tony Robbins, believing or not in what that guy says It’s up to us but I love his energy and his positive vibrations.

He thinks life is like a job, and he is right! Why not making of life THE BEST JOB EVER

Yoga put you in front of a choice every time you do a pose. It is so powerful. Nobody is pointing a gun to your head saying “or you do this pose or you die”, yoga says “do this pose if you want to do it, do it your way, you are perfect the way you are, take responsibility for what you are choosing”.

When a human being begins to take decisions for his life, then every single aspects of our life changes. We found ourselves being able to do things we have never experienced before. We can do that single pose we thought we would have never done in our life, we would achieve things in life we have never achieved before and eventually FIND HAPPINESS.

Now, if this seems like a lot to ask, CHOOSING FOR YOUR LIFE, and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE, maybe you should rethink about all the choices you have taken until today. The force of Yoga stays in the PRESENT MOMENT.

Let me explain it better. There is no past you can change, there is no future you can predict, there is only the choice you can make HERE AND NOW! Yoga teaches you can begin again every single pose you do. If there is a fall, there is the next moment to rise again or simply accept there is nothing wrong to stay there where you are because you are choosing to do so. HOW POWERFUL IS THAT?! How powerful realizing to be the one that really has control over your life?

Now, you might come and tell me, life is full of crap and many bad things happen everyday. I truly believe in Yoga and to its power.

The second Yoga Sutra says 'the restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga'. The entire yoga is based on this, the entire goal is to control the modifications of the mind. What does it mean? Imagine the mind and your world as 2 separate entities. The world, for the yoga point of view, is just a projection made by your own mind. From the moment you gain control of your thoughts, you can then change them as you want and not being bound by the outside world.

That is why yoga cares about only changing your inner world instead of the outside world, as it is always up to us to take the mind in the directions we want. This concept is empowerful and full of life.

That is the approach of yoga and I find it valuable from the moment it gives you the opportunity to experiment it every single time you practice, every single time you choose to go to class, every single pose, every single fall, every single YOU.

Now, for the most sceptical, I know what you are thinking. I know I made it very nice, it seems like I have shown the perfect formula to live the perfect life. I am not considering the real sufferance of life like: disease, getting older, death. Yoga is not going to solve any of these sufferance, It is true. Yoga is not magic, there is no Harry Potter with a magic wand trying to cure people or make a perfect life. Yoga is an approach to life, it gives you the opportunity to take responsibility for it and eventually change it for good.

I hate complainers, they will never solve anything in their life, they are just living in a circle of complains without really changing anything of the things they complain about. MAKE A COMPLAINT, then do SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Do not just leave it for someone else. Be aware of your life and choose for it. I think yoga is a good chance to have a better life, I then choose it.

Nothing comes for nothing in life, we need to understand that, it is a lessons that before we learn it,

before we are gonna be aware what real life is.

Yoga poses many times hurt, many times you fall, many times you wish you could be different, many times you wish you could be like the person in class next to you (doing headstands). Life is the same, many times slaps you hard and many times slaps you harder. In the end of the day when you go to sleep, and you put your head on the pillow, before closing your eyes, if you know you have been true to yourself, you have chosen for what you REALLY want and you took responsibility for every single action, you ARE STRONGER AND YOU CANNOT REGRET ANYTHING. This empower you and it will give you the chance to control your mind and therefore your life.

-THIS IS ONE OF THE STEP BY STEP TO HAPPINESS, ENJOY THE PROCESS-

Lorenzo Pilastri