The famous adage of ‘Do what makes you happy,’ is one of the oldest sayings on our planet. It is a saying that you hear parents utter to their children and well-wishers desire for their friends. It is also a saying that a therapist or a doctor would say to his/her client with the hope that, the client lives their fullest life and has the greatest fun doing it.
In yoga, sthira (stillness) sukha (happiness) asanam (pose) is about finding happiness in that state of being that requires nothing more than the ability to be still. In short, happiness blossoms in stillness; for it is in stillness that you discover the power of your non-involvement from which, peace takes flight.
As with all yogic teaching, the very essence of yoga is to become the pose – to become one with everything you practice on the mat that you are able to translate that off the mat: to become steadfast like the tree or resolute like the warrior and to remain connected with our breath no matter how much is demanded of us in our daily living.It is about finding that balance of not needing to find the answers to every problem we are challenged with but to view our problems with stillness, without mind and allowing the stillness (and your state of balance) to find the solutions on its own.
It is about you not “needing,” to have answers for everything but in allowing the lesson of the moment show you what it is teaching you and allowing you to be in a state of pure bliss immaterial of the outcome. It is about allowing and surrendering to your ‘non-doing,’ and sending your awareness to nothingness so that your stillness compels the answers to come from deep within you. It is only when you give yourself the permission to be, will your stillness summon your healing and your repair – you simply need to surrender.
Yoga is not a practice you perform only on the mat – that is not yoga! Yoga is a state of being that accuates the principles of the discipline as a way of life – it is then, you can make claim that you are practicing yoga: it is in how you breathe, how you eat, how you interact with life around you, how you look at yourself and how you live your life – that is yoga.
It is in how involved you are in the non-involvement and how non-involved you are in the involvement. It is about you becoming your own witness, your own observer, your own teacher and your own student on living life in absolute bliss and when you find your happy spot, surrendering to your stillness…
May your stillness lead you to the path of your happiness. Namaste.
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SUJATA NANDY WORLD GURUKUL
