Why Practice Yoga?

“Even if it is very foggy, cloudy or stormy, the blue sky is always there, for us, above the clouds.”
​~Thich Nhat Hanh

People come to yoga class for all kinds of reasons. Some people come because their back hurts. Some people are just looking for a good workout. Some people come to yoga because they are looking for community or they are looking for something deeper and more meaningful in their lives. These are all perfectly good reasons to do yoga. But underneath them all, yoga is really about one thing: learning how to come back into balance.

Many people do yoga because they want to raise their consciousness.
But consciousness is not something you can collect more of or build up over time. Consciousness is not a ladder that you can climb nor is it something that can be expanded or improved upon. Consciousness is not something you need to obtain- it’s already here, it’s already now. It is the light of awareness by which all experience is known- the witness to all your thoughts, emotions, memories, fears and desires. You can’t get more consciousness, but you can bring balance to your body and clarity to your mind.

That is why we do yoga. By practicing movement, breath and stillness, we quiet the mind, regulate the nervous system and remember the presence that was already here, beneath all the noise. Think of consciousness as the sky and the movements of your mind as the weather passing through it. Thoughts are like clouds and emotions are like storms that can take over the whole sky. However, storms do not leave scars. Even the most violent storms do no harm to the sky. After a intense night of thunder and lightning, the sky will often be perfectly clear the next day, completely unaffected by what recently took place.

By practicing yoga on a regular basis, you learn to stop identifying with the clouds and start identifying with the sky. When the mind is busy, anxious, reactive, or caught in old stories and habitual loops, consciousness becomes clouded. You begin to identify with every thought and feeling that passes through. But when the mind becomes steady and clear, you begin to remember that you are not every passing thought, feeling, or sensation- you are the awareness that knows them. This is the first step towards a well-regulated nervous system.