YOGA - THE SPIRIT AND PRACTICE OF MOVING INTO STILLNESS - Erich Schiffmann
"As a living being, you are an expression, a channel, a particular configuration or pattern of energy, of creative life force. You are a unique expression of the Creator, and life force flows through you. and Life force or Consciousness, is what you are. It is the reason for your being, the how and what of your being. Energy flows through you, enlivens you and makes you you. And if the flow of energy becomes obstructed or lessened for any reason, much like diminished blood flow, due to arterial constriction, then your health will suffer and problems will arise. If the flow remains open, health is natural and easy.
Your body's ability to function as a clear and efficient channel is limited by stiffness, lack of strength and lack of endurance. Your mind's ability is limited by the way it thinks about itself, by the way you think about you. The process of yoga is one of undoing the obstructions and limitations in your body and mind that inhibit the free flow of creative life force.
Each yoga posture is a specific template for this energy flow. Just like your hand (the center of your palm) is the center of the posture, and radiating outward from the center, like rays of light from the center of the sun are lines of energy (your fingers.) Such templates have evolved over thousands of years and are extremely good at opening tight and blocked areas. You are airing out the pathways that distribute the life force. Stiff and tight areas of your body inhibit the free circulation of energy and thereby strangle your internal supply of nourishment. Pain and discomfort indicates areas undernourished - crying for help. When tightly clenched this way, they remain separate, constricted, unrelated to the whole. As they open, they begin to receive nourishment again. Physical discomfort and pain will disappear as healing occurs. When you restore lost movement to these tight areas of yourself, you rejuvenate them, bringing life to more of yourself.
As you loosen and dissolve the physical and psychological knots that bind your body and mind, you are literally enlarging your capacity to channel the energy of life. Creative life energy flows through you more easily, with greater volume and power, and as it does, you experience more ease and less dis-ease, feeling and becoming more alive. With yoga, you nourish yourself at very deep levels, causing you to glow with radiant health. You become increasingly peaceful inside, less conflicted, and experience yourself more clearly as a uniquely beautiful expression of the creative God Force.
This is important because the fulfillment of your potential is directly proportionate to your ability to function as a clear and efficient channel. It will occur more rapidly as you recognize yourself as the unobstructed, undiminished, and undenied specific presence of God.
Yoga done properly is a matter of creating, directing and channeling "energy" through these various templates. This involves knowing how to create a "line of energy" with specific "current."
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