Tag Archives: daily practice

Daily Practice

Crescent MoonSo what do we mean by Daily Life Practice? Well when we do our meditation in our regular schedule and we experience the benefits of these regular sessions, we may ask ourselves how to continue growing and developing in this way when we are in everyday situations that challenge our composure and good vibes. We may spend many hours in calmness and very happy with our achievement and ability to do this. Of course this is a good place to be in and I’d life runs smoothly then our peace can be maintained quite happily. But is this the way our life is and also it may be good to ask ourselves is meditation just about being calm and peaceful. I think if you ponder on this you may feel that becoming peaceful is only a part of the benefits but not the totality of it. We remain calm and peaceful when the root causes that can trigger our restlessness are eradicated from our consciousness. Ok, if we are not thinking of a particular situation that has previously upset us, then for the moment we can be peaceful. What happens though when something happens in our life, maybe just a thought or an encounter with someone who we take a particular dislike to, then our peace can be disturbed and so here we go again back on the treadmill of frustration and disturbance. All our composure can be lost just like that in an instant.
We could say that our meditation is quieting, our meditation is purifying, our meditation is revealing and it can be all of these and much more. And if we use of medittion sessions as a firm of contemplation then what do we do with the insights that can be revealed to us at these times? If for instance a particular point of view is clarified, if a solution occurs to us in relation to a particular problem, in other if some insight arises during our meditation, Fi we take notice and act on it or do we simply notice it but carry on with our ‘wrong attitude or understanding’ as before? Daily life practice is the ability to live our truth even though it may involve some unvomfortableness in order to effect this. If we do not live our life in this way then conflicting minds are present within us and we become ever more disjointed and alienated from our intuition and sence of following the Heart.
If we experience these conflicting minds then we need to look and measur whether our daily life reflects our meditative experience. In other words we need to ‘walk the talk’.

How to develop a daily practice

forward bending seated wide angle poseNow that’s something to think about. We all come across  this statement and if we are to progress in our yoga practice it really is the only way to come on with any real purpose. If we have the interest in progressing our yoga then we really have to look at HOW TO DEVELOP A DAILY PRACTICE. With anything in life there’s no difference. Remember we become more skillful at anything we undertake if we do it regularly. Remember in the previous article S.E.N.C.L where C stands for CONSISTENCY. Well consistency is another way of spelling Daily Practice. Maybe we have a couple of hours a day for this, which is ideal. But many people have lifestyles that are very varied with other activities and not to forget, making a living, that this ideal 2 hours may be down to 20 of 40 minutes. But it’s good to sit down and access how much time we can devote to developing our yoga practice and having come to some conclusion of this then design a program that makes good use of your allotted time slot. I personally prefer first thing in the morning just after I’ve gotten out of bed and after the cleansing necessities like brushing my teeth etc……..

Try to do postures that flex the body in the 5 directions forwards, sideways, backwards, twisting and inversion.  There are a host of postures to select from and I will make some charts for future reference if you need some guidance with this. It really is up to you how you structure your practice but choose postures you enjoy so in that way you’ll look forward to your daily routine. Also remember that it is important to begin your practice in a gentle way and allow the momentum to build as you warm up to the task.

So good luck with your daily Sadhana and I’ll catch up with you again soon.