Spiritual

I’ve been practicing Bikram Yoga for a year.  I began practicing because I heard that yoga could relieve the knee pain I developed from running and playing badminton. It’s been more than a year since my first class and I’ve received more benefits than I sought when I began.

People often roll their eyes when I say that I practice yoga in 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  Given that I am not a masochist, why have I been practicing for more than a year with no plans to ever stop?

Because yoga is one of those rare, complete experiences. It has physical, psychological and even spiritual benefits. Gradually over time, you receive more than you set out for.  That is, IF you practice regularly and trust the yoga instructor.  TRUST the teacher even if she tells you NOT to take a drink when your throat is desert-parched and it’s a 100 degrees, NOT to wipe even  if you are drowning in your own sweat as it trickles into your nostrils in standing-leg-separate-head-to-knee, even if you want to argue against the presumptuousness of his statement, “If you can’t be honest with yourself here, how can you be honest with other parts of your life”. TRUST.

The physical benefits appear the soonest.  After practicing 26 postures that require using core muscles and isometric strength for 1 ½ hours, the dry towel you started out with will be sopping with sweat.  Several drenched towels after, parts of your body that were immune to other exercises, start flattening out and taking on more definition.  I stopped taking Glucosamine
because my knee pain went away.  But that doesn’t mean yoga isn’t pain free.   There’s some necessary pain that comes from unused muscles and there’s also pain from injury caused by not listening to your body and the instructor. And yes, you can get fat, like I did, when you stop
practicing for a prolonged period.  But the progress back to your yoga prime is quick and the self-persecution from putting on weight is gone.

More lasting than the physical perks of yoga are the psychological gains from regular practice.  The instructors will keep promising that your negative attitudes towards stressors will change.  And just at the moment when you’re tired of hearing their assurances, it happens. The discipline of 26 postures teaches you patience, to appreciate minor triumphs in achieving a pose, and gradual progress.  There’s also a fine-tuned awareness of when to push oneself further, or to hold back when unready. When faced with what was once stressful, instead of seeing red, there’s the clarity of calm that allows us to quietly observe, take stock and act.  Also, there’s the gift of
letting go of crippling self-doubt and fear as you learn to be gentle and trust yourself and the instructor. And best, for me, the bliss of being only in the present, free from the buzzing of a while ago, yesterday, after yoga, tomorrow, etc.  And there’s also the acceptance that despite the
presumptuousness of their statements about what happens in the Bikram room and life outside it …THERE IS A CONNECTION between both.

The spiritual benefits may not happen for others but it did for me. I had been going to yoga enough times to know the dialogue by heart and the like clockwork signal of the end of the session, when the instructor will say, “Namaste, the spirit in me honors the spirit in you. In an “Aha!” moment some months ago, instead of tuning out the instructor’s ending spiel, I
realized why the instructor is called yogi.  There was a rush of understanding of that word, Namaste: I honor that place in you where the Universe resides.  When we honor others by seeing others as spirit like you, there really is very little room for anger, sorrow and disappointment.  
NAMASTE!

Didi Manahan

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