Wednesday, October 11, 2006

It Has Been Four Days Since My Last Confession

And I'm pretty sure I've sinned since then. Moving on...

Yoga was great again today, what with the life lessons and the stretching. Today the instructor talked about the fourth yama: chastity.

Sexuality is a part of human existence and the idea of chastity is that of moderating the impulse. It is not about ignoring our sexual proclivity, but rather controlling the appetite. It also relates to other appetites, such as food.

The idea is to be aware of the natural compulsion for sex and then to control how we act on it by making specific choices about behavior in order to fulfill that appetite. It is desirable to reach the state where you can be very deliberate about your actions, so that rather than denying yourself pleasure at every turn or feeling guilty about it, you instead act appropriately. In order to decide what is appropriate, you must have clarity about what is inappropriate and about what will hurt you (or others). THAT is the part that is key: clarity. If you don't have clarity, you can feel rudderless. Oh, I don't like that word. You can feel adrift. It isn't good, is what I'm saying.

P.S. What is this, sailing reference day?

Yoga is a very deliberate practice. You must think about which way you're holding your body in order to achieve the correct position and not hurt yourself. What I love about it is that it's not just exercise, but a practice which includes thought for better ways of Being.

Namaste.

2 comments:

ZestyJenny said...

Hi og!

I just wanted to give an "I LOVE YOGA, TOO!" shoutout to you.

MmmmmmmWAH!

Anonymous said...

You are so much calmer than me. I'm not sure I could pull off yoga. I really admire your posts about it - they're so interesting. :)