One of the aims of yoga is to develop more sattva and to reduce tamas within our personalities. Excessive tamas leads to disease, restlessness, ignorance, selfishness, and various forms of suffering. If sattva dominates over rajas and tamas, we will feel healthy, happy, and full of knowledge, and we will enjoy supporting other beings in becoming autonomous, creative, powerful, and prosperous. Rajas, the force of desire, can lead us toward more tamas or more sattva in our lives. The choice is ours—it all depends on what we want out of life. Yoga Practice: Working with the Subtle Elements A balanced yoga practice is one of the best means of increasing sattva, as it maintains a healthy, balanced body-mind and injects awareness into our lives. Awareness is the ultimate source of sattva. The more awareness we can cultivate in teaching yoga, the more fulfilled our students will feel. Start with the more gross physical practices, such as asanas, which strengthen the muscles. Then progress to teaching more subtle practices, such as pranayama, mantra, and meditation. Pranayama works with the breath and our prana, or vital energy. It is one of the most powerful methods of removing tamas from the body and nervous system, while increasing concentration. Patanjali states that concentration removes disease, doubt, laziness, craving, instability, and depression, which are all symptoms of excessive tamas. Once we have prepared the body and the breath, we can teach processes that work on the mind. If we neglect the mind, our students will not make much progress in yoga. Meditation works on the ahamkara, or ego, which tends to rule our life because it is not united to consciousness and is often full of worries and concerns. The mind develops through a gradual process of meditation that includes relaxation, introversion and sense withdrawal, concentration, use of mantra and subtle breathing techniques. One of the best ways to work on the mind is through teaching breath awareness with the mantra So hm. All yoga teachers can use this mantra, which is universal and safe.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 12:14:17 +0000
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