What do you want from yoga?
Storm Dudley hit the UK on Wednesday, and when we arrived for the Wednesday evening Chi Living Yoga class the wind and rain battered us as we hurried from our cars to the building. An hour later as the class was coming to a close, we were all engaged in a quiet mindfulness practice while the sounds of the wild storm outside were very audible. When we ended the class, one of the students commented on the noticeable contrast between the storm outside the building and the calm inside. On my drive back home I couldn’t get that comment out of my mind, and then I realised that it mirrored the Chi Living Yoga statement of purpose,
“Uncovering the positive & the peaceful in the midst of the difficult & the hectic.”
It also reminded me of the opening section of my book, “Just This” *
People all around the world attend their yoga classes each week, and they all do so for different reasons. I don’t know what you want to get from yoga, but for me it is quite simple - to find calm while the storm is raging.
*I looked it up just to make sure - the plural of Oasis is Oases.
The Oxford English dictionary gives one definition of Oasis as
"A pleasant or peaceful area or period in the midst of a difficult or hectic place or situation".
I composed this book to help you find oases in your life. Those oases may be widely spaced at first, but over time I hope that you may be able to develop the opportunity for oases every week, every day, every hour, or perhaps even more often than that.
Oases in a desert are there, they just need to be found. You don't have to build oases because they already exist - the challenge is to find them.
Many of us have difficult places in our lives, and most of us have hectic situations, but I'm also believe that we pleasant and peaceful areas. We don't need to manufacture them because they already exist - the challenge is to uncover them.
So that is what this book is all about. Uncovering the pleasant and the peaceful in the midst of the difficult and the hectic.
(taken from Just This by Stephen Smith)