Day Two: Willpower

The Life of a Yogi

       I have discovered the secret of sitting for long periods of time! At least, it’s what worked for me today: Just decide that you aren’t going to move – no matter what. Because once you make the choice to do something, your mind sort of settles down; instead of constantly evaluating, “Do I need to move? Can I actually do this?” you just do it! As Sri Dharma said this morning during spiritual discourse, “You have to get serious about it!”

          Today was a physically challenging day. We all had soreness to contend with in the morning… Plus, Dharma III at 10 AM followed immediately by Master Sadhana with Sri Dharma was definitely not an easy series of practices. Again, though, it was necessary to simply make the decision to do it. The feeling when we arrived at savasana at the end of noon class was just overwhelming; it’s not that the practice had been so torturous that I was waiting for savasana the whole time – on the contrary, I got so absorbed in focusing on the asana and the breathe that when Sri Dharma told us to lie down, I felt a little surprised, along the lines of, “Wow, we made it!”

          After lunch we started the breakdown of Dharma III, and we made it all the way through the Shiva Namaskara vinyasa. It felt like we spent a lot of time talking about some things – just an assortment of questions people had about teaching in general – but at the same time, this entire day seems to have flown by. I’m getting excited to practice teaching the whole series, because it will be something new to explore.

          We finished the day with Maha Shakti and Sri Dharma’s new Monday night class, Meditation & Purification. Both practices were exactly what I needed (I’m guessing I am not alone in feeling that). Sri Dharma spoke in greater detail about seedless meditation, which was one of the practices I had the most trouble with between modules; we practiced it for what felt like forever, but in reality I have no idea how long it was.

          All in all, the day seemed to just whiz by… And it was filled with so many things – at points, feeling like my body was made of lead, and at other times, feeling like I could fly. I guess that’s kind of what this is all about, though: learning to be steady in all circumstances.

~Danielle

For some reason, I was really inspired by this green light this morning.

Yoshio and Melissa demonstrate postures during the asana breakdown, while Adam elaborates.