giving up giving things up . . . . .

As I have got older I have found the reasons to change more challenging. If we live to be 75 years old, what can we hope for really. I'm really asking this question from the perspective of some of the promises of yoga practise.

I know for sure that my life has changed dramatically since I started to do yoga, but what is it that's changed? My perspective I think is the main thing that has changed.

Prior to doing yoga I had a life, I was always affected by everything in that life, the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' were always affecting me one way or the other. Whether I bore them nobly in the mind or took up arms against them were based on certain dynamics, usually emotional and usually reactionary.

I am still affected by life of course, but now I have a choice with my re-actions or more so nowadays, my responses, to such things. This is still dependent to large degree on some certain fundamental things being taken care of, such as not getting too tired, and looking after my diet, i.e, not eating crap.

So life is more peaceful for me, and that is it really, but it is a hell of allot too. As I have progressed along this 'mirage' path I have noticed more and more about myself. I have parts of myself that I have found quite hard to come to terms with and also certain parts of myself that I have had to let go of. In certain respects I think I'm the same person I have always been, and that feels good too.

We do this and that and the other to try and get something, what is it we are trying to get, that's the thing we really need to know. With hindsight I can say that most of my life I was looking for satisfaction or contentment. I sought out certain things that I thought would give me that and I was always disappointed eventually, the novelty wore off and I became bored.

With yoga something changed, I'm not quite sure what is was, but I know I stopped looking outside of myself for the answers.

The Asana and Pranayama were the hooks that took me to Pratyahara and the inner connection that I had always resisted because of my inability and/or unwillingness to feel anything. Then back to Asana and Pranayama again and again and again, taking me deeper into the layers of my inner experience, of my personal body memory and mind memory, it was and is re-conditioning me mentally- physically and emotionally.

So eventually I realise there is no need to change, just surrender to who you really are and deal with it in your practise.