Means without End

Yoga is my sanctum (one of many in fact). Bikram yoga is my current yoga of choice - I like the heat, I like the flow and the meditative nature of doing the same set of poses over and over again, and (most important) I love the community and instructors at the Bikram studio I belong to. Ironic since I don't currently hold a great deal of respect for Bikram the man - his actions in the last year or two seem in direct opposition to the nature of yoga.

I've been practicing yoga of one form or another for years now, so sometimes I take it's depth a bit for granted. The physical lessons are obvious and tangible, but I forget the connection between that and the life lessons it also teaches.

Tonight was my first night back after several weeks. I was sick before FETC and so took some time off from the studio (as much to not bring my sickness to others as to let my body recover). Then, I was out of town and completely caught up in all that was OMET at FETC. I returned home only to succumb to yet another nasty virus (flu this time). So - nearly four weeks without a visit to the studio (I kept up my hatha practice at home when I was feeling up to it). It seems that whenever I take time away from something (yoga is only one example) - it return to it with the eyes of a beginner and learn many lessons anew.

Tonight I remembered and learned (again) one of my favorite lessons from yoga. It isn't the End that justifies the Means, it is the Means that justify the End... and more importantly ... the Means can stand on their own, they don't need an End to justify or be justified by.

To put it another way - yoga is one of the best ways I know to truly understand that the important thing isn't "getting there." The important thing is what you do to get there ( wherever "there" might be). The poses teach us this. There is the ideal of the perfect form that we all can't help but keep in our thoughts. As we move our body into each pose, we approach that form in our own way. It is the moving into the pose that is as important (or even more so) than holding the pose itself. If you move into a pose to quickly, you may not set it up right, your energy may not move through the right parts of your body, your muscles and joints may not align in a beneficial way, your breathing my become irregular or forced. So, you must start slow, move deliberately, with mindfulness and attention. You never reach a place where there is nothing left to do - that is why it is called a "practice" and not a "performance." You are always reaching a little more (or less), trying to balance, trying to level your hips or shoulders, trying to expand or contract something else. If I could strike every pose perfectly every time with no preparation or work, then what would be the point? The End isn't the point at all... it is the journey toward it where I grow, evolve, and learn. That is what practice is about.

So - how does this relate to life? If I view my life as a journey (which I do) - then that might seem to imply that there is some destination (perfection) and that my journey is a means to that end (that perfect destination). The lessons of yoga remind me again and again that the journey itself is the destination... that each moment is its own perfection without being an end and that the journey doesn't stop there - it just keeps going. So - maybe I should view life as "a practice" - just as I see yoga that way.

Now - if I could just view traffic that way. :)