How to Get Better at Yoga - 5 Signs of Growth as a Yogi (that doesn’t include doing splits)
The path of yoga or spirituality could be bumpy and very confusing journey. It might be very difficult to evaluate whether you are going forward, sliding backward, keeping the status-quo, or veering off-track.
Yoga is all about inward journey and is so deep and so multidimensional. What could be signs of progress for a budding yogi and spiritual seeker? Is it your flexibility of touching your toes or doing the Hanumanasana (split) or your capacity to stand on your one leg in Tree Pose, or your steadiness to sit still for some hours, or your mastery to hold your breath? Is it about experiencing visions, voices, and other mental or psychic phenomena? Do you have to possess some out of the world siddhis (psychic powers); or your capacity to do daily japa (rosary) or your involvement in many service or voluntary activities?
How do you know you have been making progress on the path of yoga? What are the signs to look out for? In this lucid conversation, t -- a Yogi and founding member of Sri Sri School of Yoga, who has taught 15000+ aspiring yogis around the world, gives a simple explanation of how one can measure growth on the path of yoga. Here is the essence of his talk:
Do you have a sense of belongingness to your practice?
Just as a child you had your favorite doll or that blanket you could not sleep without; you felt that complete sense of belonging. When you start feeling like the practices belong to you, it become a part of you and get integrated into your very fabric, then growth starts happening automatically.
As you advance in your journey, degree of belongingness you feel to your practices will keep on expanding and deepening.
Are you paying less importance to all the thoughts that come in your mind?Become aware of what is happening in your mind at any given point in time. Are you paying attention to every thought that pops up or are you selective in paying attention to thoughts that come up? The more attention you give to your thoughts, they tend to become concepts in your mind and more one gets entangled in them. Too many thoughts create confusion in your mind and takes you away from the very purpose of yoga which is to quieten the mind “Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha”.
As you progress on this path you will develop the ability to pay less and less attention to every thing that comes up in your mind.
