Returning to Self by Monique Parker, MFA, E-RYT

Monique Parker in Small Downward Dog

A few weeks ago a young woman named Claire came into Santosha Yoga where I teach weekly classes in Taos, New Mexico. She and a girlfriend were visiting from San Francisco. Having fallen in love with the beauty of the high desert landscape, they extended their vacation by a month.

After my class Claire expressed how different “this yoga” was from the classes she took back home. “I feel so quiet, so peaceful, so internally centered,” she said. “The yoga studio where I go plays techno music and everyone tries to outdo each other with what they wear and what poses they can do.”

Her comments, while not surprising, reaffirmed a long held suspicion. That while people come to yoga for all sorts of reasons—even the “feel good quality” of striking a pose to Deee-Lite—many practitioners, once they taste the nectar of inner peace, stay with yoga for an entirely different aim.

This has been the case in my own experience, as well as a number of the students who either study with me regularly in Taos, or who come here from other parts of the country for a personalized yoga retreat, where they can unplug from busy urban lives.

My yoga path began rather naively some fifteen years ago in a Gold’s Gym in Mountain View, CA, where, packed inside a sweaty room like sardines, some thirty yoga students chaturanga dandasana-ed (an Indian-style push up) like yogi-Marines. It didn’t take long before I was hooked. At some indiscriminate point, however, my external focus shifted. I began to change, internally. Desiring more knowledge, I sought out teachers who could guide me inward.

Today, as a teacher, I witness similar transformations among my students. While aspiring yogis want to feel better physically, they also suffer on some level from the unfortunate byproducts of our culture: habituated distraction, over-consumption, and addictive tendencies, leading to a loss of connection. In fact, a frequent mantra I hear is: “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

In the Yoga Sutras, the “Bible of Yoga,” the great sage Patanjali describes his system of yoga as Kriya Yoga, which is comprised of three steps. The second step, Svadhyaya, refers to anything which helps lead us towards our higher Self, or to that state of internal peace where the Self resides. Naturally, the Sanskrit word Svadhyaya contains the root Sva, meaning “Self.”

This study which leads to knowledge of the “Self” is in essence a communion of wisdom, clarity, and direction from our higher consciousness to our lower state of consciousness.1 Essentially, the practice of Svadhyaya promotes internal peace. The practice can take many forms, such as the repetition of a mantra (known as mantra japa), chanting the Yoga Sutras, or the study of sacred texts.

Unfortunately, asana practice alone can not bring us to the Self. If it did, we might all be practicing yoga to techno music. And while physical fitness can be gotten from a myriad of activities, there is no other way to acquire mental health, to bring about steadiness in the mind.

When teaching a class, I include some form of Svadhyaya whether it be mantra japa, chanting, or excerpts from the Yoga Sutras or other darshanas or ancient texts as conveyed by my teacher, A.G. Mohan. To me it’s important to give my students a taste of something deeper, something practical that goes beyond the body.
 

As I exchanged goodbyes with Claire, she added, “I’ll be back. I really loved the chanting. Sort of like returning to myself.”  I couldn’t have said it better.

^{1I.K. Taimni, “The Science of the Mind,” The Theosophical Publishing House, Madras, India, 1968, section II, sutra 44, p 250.
2A.G. Mohan, From a lecture at Yoga State, Chicago, IL. 2006.}

Clasic Yoga of India

Weekly Classes:
Mondays 4-5:30pm and Fridays 5:30-7pm

Santosha Yoga of Taos
Private Instruction, Retreats, and 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training Program. University of New Mexico - Taos

www.classicyogaofindia.com  

Are you interested in becoming a yoga instructor?

Yoga Teacher Training

Visit Taos

www.taoschamber.com