bhāvā

attitude

It is inevitable that the attitude with which you approach your practice will influence the experience. If you have a physical practice and focus on performing certain poses, your practice may become a struggle of performance. If you have a concentration/meditation practice where you measure your progress by how long you sat on your cushion, you may end up judging your sit as good or bad at the end depending on your relationship with time. There is something to be said about judgement and attitude toward practice, yet of course this is different for all of us. However, look closely at these patterns of mindset and see how it influences your experience and the intimacy with the practice.

It is advised to make the practice impersonal, as we are committed to see beyond the ahamkara - sense of ‘I’. By holding humility in the foreground and giving your practice as an offering to That which is beyond the doer, one tends to have a more objective stance moving through the practice, a more detached view as the observer. When we surrender our individuality we move closer to That which unites us all.

If your practice is a physical asana practice, we invite you to honor it as a full body prayer or offering. Surrender yourself. It brings humility and gratitude for the Life that is moving through you, and the Life that you have been given. It is like we offer Life back to Life, and the practice becomes a puja - an offering. When we take the little ‘me’ out of the equation of ‘doing’ the practice, the practice merely happens and we are there to observe/witness it all, as part of the divine play, no matter the experience. From that vantage point, it becomes an important aspect of the study of self.