Monday morning: the game of life

‘Aim to remain internally centered within your body, devoted to contemplation, to continuously staying in touch….Beware of those moments of wanting to escape or distract yourself when you get tired, and endeavor to reapply yourself to your efforts to remain centered in practice.’ -David Garrigues

These words ran through my mind this busy Monday morning, as I shepherded children, did a quick spit-and-shine housecleaning, and said goodbye to my parents, who had been visiting from out of town.

Why do you practice? I practice to stay grounded and focused on the primary aim of my life: caring for and raising my children.

In yoga philosophy, there are four distinct twenty-five-year-long periods of life (asramas):

1. General and religious education (brahmacharya)
2. Life in the home (garhasthya)
3. Preparation for renunciation of family activities (vanaprastha)
4. Detachment from worldly affairs and attachment to a life of service (sannyasa)

Over the course of this lifetime, students pursue four different aims:

1. Respecting ethical, social and moral obligations (dharma)
2. Earning a living (artha)
3. Enjoying life’s pleasures (kama)
4. Experiencing freedom (from disease, poverty, ignorance and pride, etc), self-realization and higher connection (moksa)

That’s a very tall order. It’s a path that explicitly excludes the pursuit of unnecessary power/glamor, excessive pleasure and inordinate wealth. It’s not flat abs. And it’s not expensive yoga pants. It’s not a prestigious job title…or a well-regarded zip code. It’s a serious endeavor.

I’m using this approach/framework/structure to make the most of the life, family, education, and community that I’ve been given. I could be frantically climbing the never-ending corporate ladder. Or shopping. Or lunching. Or napping. Instead, I am practicing–and teaching–yoga, so that I can take care of my family and my home.

It’s challenging. And it’s FUN.

‘I encourage you to think of the asana practice as an inventive and creative process, a great game with many natural laws to be discovered. At once complex, elaborate, fun, challenging, vexing, and joyous, asana is above all a game that you are passionately invested in playing. And just like any game— there are rules to follow, bend and break. There are endless strategies to devise and to put to the test. There are cheatings, penalties, scoring, winning and losing- all in the spirit of play and a discovery of what is useful and beneficial. It all takes place within the confines of a field (the body) that has been specifically designated for the activities of the game. The field is isolated with sealed off boundaries—from the layer of skin inwards to the core of your bones. The moment you step into the yoga space your world becomes narrowed down to what takes place within/on that field.
Because you are absorbed and intensely involved, your sense of time passing becomes altered, the rest of the world temporarily fades into the background. One essential ingredient in this game you are playing is—CREATIVITY! There is only one kind of asana mastery and that is personal, individualized asana mastery. This occurs as you go within and travel to the farthest realms of your own breath and body to discover the healing and meditative value of the forms—you job is express them tirelessly again and again through trial and error, to win through to what is sacred and to what has beauty and truth within you.
To put all the different variables into play as well as to understand the laws and maps that take you to the sacred territories within requires skill, ingenuity and imagination—and the key to these 3 things is intense, lasting, and humble curiosity.’ -David Garrigues

My kids and I love to play games. Chess, Candy Crush, Uno…We love them all. (Usually, I lose. Unintentionally. The kids are smart…and they’re only getting smarter.)

Yoga is a game, too. Only much, much better. Yoga is the game of life.

‘Yoga is firstly for individual growth, but through individual growth, society and community develop.’ -B.K.S. Iyengar