Yoga & Service
The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit word “yuj”, meaning to yoke or bind. We often talk about this binding as the purpose of our yoga practice- to yoke our awareness with our current reality. This active process of paying attention is what allows us to make mindful, helpful decisions for ourselves on our mats. We might take a modification, pursue a different pose, deepen our breath, or observe a thought or sensation. In short, paying attention enables us to choose how we want to show up for ourselves.
Paying attention allows us to get out of our heads and into the room, to participate more fully with those around us. While participating with others certainly brings us endless joy and laughter, it makes sense that paying attention in this way will also bring us into contact with some suffering. In reckoning with the suffering of others, we are again prompted with a choice- how do we want to engage with and participate in the lives of others? This is yoga in action: responding to our suffering and the suffering of others with compassion. Compassion means to suffer together or co-suffering, to engage with empathy. When we act with compassion we bring awareness to the suffering, acknowledge the humanness of that suffering, and make a decision to reduce future suffering.
To me, this is the beauty of donation-based yoga. We can act with compassion for ourselves and for others. We can pay attention on purpose and with purpose. We can build awareness of our present reality and the realities of others. We can engage with our yoga community and our human community. We can feel good and do a little good. Participating in a donation-based yoga class is a small act in itself, but can be a joyful part of the larger effort of yoking together our lives with the lives of others.
Join me for our next donation-based yoga class on Saturday November 9th as we build a little community together! We’ll be raising funds for NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. They’re the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. I hope to see you on your mats!