In the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, there are eight limbs of yoga described.  Three of the last four are Pratyahara (withdrawing of the senses), Dharana (concentration), and Dhyana (meditation).  In my early days of practicing yoga, I got the part about withdrawing the senses pretty well.  It started to happen when I would do my sitting meditation, as well as occasionally when I was practicing the physical postures.  Yet the difference between concentration and meditation eluded me for quite a while.  I used to use my breath, a visual point of focus, a thought, or mantra to place my attention and then I called this meditation.  However, what I was practicing was concentration.  It was and is a worthwhile practice.  Yet I then began to discover that what is meditation is actually beyond this one-pointed focus.  I had read about it; knew this intellectually, yet it took a long time for me to distinguish the difference to being in a state of concentrating on just one thing rather than a meditative state.  A meditative state, by contrast, is being able to have full awareness of everything, really being fully present for reality.

For all the years in which I was basically practicing concentration, the practice felt as though I was condensing myself, through my awareness to try to maintain my focus on that one thing.  Whether it was staring at a candle flame, chanting mantras, or visualizing an object, it was the continual noticing that awareness had crept away from the one thing, and bringing it back over and over.  It did help me to be able to focus for longer periods on things like writing blog posts!  🙂 

I began to actually understood how meditation can be different.  While they both look the same from the outside (me, sitting with my spine straight, eyes closed, stillness), the experience on the inside is way different.  Meditation is expansion.  As though this much-more-intense focus extends to every cell of my physical body, my mind, my heart, my energy, and all that is around me, and sometimes even stuff that is not around me, including other people, nature, sights, sounds, energy.  It is a still, calm, awareness that is expansive, enveloping, embracing,…words just don’t do this justice.  It is, in fact, when I have felt the absolute most alive I have ever felt.  Aware AF, if it were to be condensed to a meme.  It does not mean being ignorant of what has passed or what is to come.  It is an embracing of all, without getting lost in any one part of it.  While it has come about during my meditation practice, it has also happened to me when I have been deeply immersed in playing music, creating art, or absorbed in nature. 

So while practice and meditative techniques are one way to get there, our life itself can be our practice.  My underlying philosophy on my spiritual path is that life is to be lived, that we are here to enjoy, be present for the divine play of our lives.  So the more time I can be in that state of presence, the more I truly enjoy it all, even the downs within the ups and downs.  If there is sadness, what does it feel like to experience that in my body, my breath, my mind?  How does it change the way I see and interact with the world around me?  If there is joy, let me be present and explore in the same ways.  If this sounds good to you, I suggest you find all the ways in which you can be here now.  If you find that tough to do, reach out.  I have some good ideas of how to begin to live your yoga. 

Namaste,

Mary