Have you ever heard a song or watched a performance that moved you in ways you don't quite understand? It's as if something inside you was stirred up, but words are not enough to describe precisely how or why, and neither can you truly explain it. All you know is that something in you responded or awakened. Perhaps it's suddenly knowing that there's a part of you that you didn't know existed, and it took a complete stranger who knew nothing about you to make it happen.
Great performers move us because they are able to express our shared human condition with honesty and vulnerability-- the yearning to be loved, the suffering of a heartbreak, the excitement of new beginnings, the grief of unexpected endings. Performers sing and write and paint and tell stories; but they do not tell their stories, they tell our stories. Now, outstanding performers take it a step further. They do all of that, and they do it with devotion, knowing that they are a medium, nothing more, nothing less. They are a canvas in which their message is written for all the world to see. They don't pretend to own the message. They are so humble that they always give credit to the source, to the divine, to God, if you will.
Our yoga practice too can either be an empty performance of movements or it can be a practice where we channel a great intention. Our life, for that matter, can be an endless pursuit of chasing after external goals or it can be our message. Even as we are not performers or artists, we can treat this life as a canvas in which we communicate a message to the world. It is when we see ourselves as a medium that we can find a connection with others.
Great performers move us because they are able to express our shared human condition with honesty and vulnerability-- the yearning to be loved, the suffering of a heartbreak, the excitement of new beginnings, the grief of unexpected endings. Performers sing and write and paint and tell stories; but they do not tell their stories, they tell our stories. Now, outstanding performers take it a step further. They do all of that, and they do it with devotion, knowing that they are a medium, nothing more, nothing less. They are a canvas in which their message is written for all the world to see. They don't pretend to own the message. They are so humble that they always give credit to the source, to the divine, to God, if you will.
Our yoga practice too can either be an empty performance of movements or it can be a practice where we channel a great intention. Our life, for that matter, can be an endless pursuit of chasing after external goals or it can be our message. Even as we are not performers or artists, we can treat this life as a canvas in which we communicate a message to the world. It is when we see ourselves as a medium that we can find a connection with others.
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