The Liberation of Yoga

In conversation tonight, I had an epiphany. I've been taking huge strides in my yoga practice lately, and it occurred to me recently how funny it is that some of the yoga poses are so neat looking, yet yoga has nothing to do with how "cool" something looks. Asanas have much deeper meaning to true yogis than simply getting in shape and doing cool things with your body. I hadn't even thought until recently how great some of the things I can do appear, yet I'm so detached from it. I think it's a beautiful art, but the practice goes so deep.

So my epiphany was that when we do yoga, we're primarily stretching our spiritual body. Through intentional movements, meditation, and connection to the earth, we are allowing our spiritual body to become strong, controlled, and flexible. That then moves into the mental body, which makes our thoughts so as well. Once our yoga has penetrated the mental body, it goes into our emotional body and does the same. And finally, it moves into our physical body. The physical body, as well, becomes strong, controlled, and flexible, allowing us to move forward in our practice on all levels. Having penetrated all layers of our being, we are freed of prior limitations, habits, and of who we once were. We can move on into being our new selves, our best selves. In every part of the self, we are liberated through yoga.