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The Purpose of Yoga - Creating a New Reality

By Paul Jerard

Yoga teachers often discuss subjects such as self-realization and transformation in great depth, but where does the average Yoga student start this journey? How can we take control of our lives? How can we design a life plan, which gives us direction, purpose, and meaning every day?

Let’s look at where to start first. Designing a list of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly objectives, which are realistic, will give us direction. This method always works, because a list is hard to avoid, and the objectives become embedded in your subconscious mind. Writing your aspirations, goals, and objectives, down is a contract with the “witness” within you.

When a day goes by without daily objectives, it is usually an unproductive day. This is fine, if we are supposed to relax on vacation. All of us need healthy down time, but some of us are on down time every day.

How does this happen? In general, people are just not pro-active. If you practice Yoga for a few years, you start to become pro-active about every aspect of life. Your diet, posture, exercise, breathing, meditation, and prayer time have all changed. The result is a new reality and a healthy perspective of life.

If you are just starting to practice Yoga, you will need to design a list, but I must admit a list of long, and short-term objectives, does make life a lot more productive.

No matter how much drive and ambition you have, the direction you travel in should be designed to make the best use of your time. The time spent planning will actually prevent mistakes and help you to avoid wasting time.

Therefore, you should review your list of objectives daily. Take the time to do some soul searching, when you write your list. Here are some questions to consider.

Can you design smaller and measurable goals? Are your objectives ethical and positive? What are your unique life skills? Can you visualize the outcome of your objectives? How much control do you have to determine the future?

It is important for you to reflect on these questions, because you can carve out your own path in life, with your vision. This is a Yogic exercise in self-realization and transformation.

Whatever you do; your ideas must be your own. You can listen to good advice, but you cannot live your life trying to complete another person’s vision of what your life should be.

Lastly, it is wise to have a Spiritual leader, Yoga teacher, Swami, Guru, mentor, consultant, coach, relative, or a trusted friend, as a confidant. This must be someone, with integrity, who inspires you to succeed in life.

He or she will not be difficult to find, because you will easily feel and see the positive energy in this person’s speech, behavior, actions, and gestures. All of us need some guidance from someone who sincerely cares about us.

© Copyright 2007 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications
Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500, is a co-owner and the director of Yoga teacher training at: Aura Wellness Center, in Attleboro, MA, just 20 minutes north of Providence, RI. He has been a certified Master Yoga teacher since 1995.

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posted by Cheryl Levesque @ 12:20 PM