Guess What The First Word Of The Most Important Yoga Text Is?

It is said that all yoga texts that have stood the test of time contain all of their knowledge in THE FIRST FOUR LINES.

The Yoga Sutras, which is like the Bible of yoga, was written by a sage who is said to have written three texts: one on medicine (Ayurveda) one of GRAMMAR, and one on psychology (the Yoga Sutras).

So Patanjali, the sage/writer, knew his GRAMMAR, he knew the power of words, and he knew that the first four sentences were critical.

Now, guess what the first word, of the first four sentences, of the Yoga Sutras is?

The first word is “ATHA” meaning…

NOW

Atha yoga-anuśāsanam

Which means:

Now here we start the study of yoga.

“NOW” is the first word, written by someone who knew grammar and the impact of the first four sentences of a book that we are reading TODAY.

That is how important it is to note that "NOW" is the only thing we have.

Some teachers interpret this as: “Well, now that you have tried everything else and it did not work, how about we try yoga”?

But that never quite convinced me.

The teacher that really brought it home for me and  made me go AHA! is Eckhart Tolle.

I highly recommend you hear him (this podcast from Audible is 11 hours long and worth every minute) - 

Also, lucky us, Oprah will be re-broadcasting their 2008 conversation on A New Earth. FREE.  They start soon, and I would not miss an episode because it is sure to transform your presence for life.

I am grateful for Echkart because it was listening to him that made me aware that nobody needs to spend 30 years meditating in a monastery anymore.  

We are running out of time.  

Understanding WHAT is we are looking for is key.

And what we are looking for is this:

"The question is no longer how far can I go or what can I achieve, but rather:
how present can I be with what already IS?"

If you can go deeper into this moment (he calls it the "vertical")... if you can feel the worries of the future and the regrets of the past BUT still return to feeling your body... connecting to the nature in you... releasing the addiction to thinking... and accept this NOW in full, as it is, then you are here!

You’ve arrived, here we are. Hola.

The rest takes care of itself.  And yes I know, there are two objections the mind will bring up: 

1- Does that mean I let everyone run over me? I accept everything?  NO! It means you ground yourself in stillness and the place of power within you which means your answer (which can be NO) will be a lot more powerful

and

2.- What do I do when anger takes over me and I can't shake it?  Yes, the pain body... the Incredible Hulk... In that case, we may not be able to release it, we are "possessed" BUT if we are aware that we are possessed, then at least we are not so much in it... we can observe it, we are more conscious, we are moving towards consciousness.

These are some things that blew my mind, literally, this month, as I practiced being NOW HERE:

• Instead of constantly planning what I am going to say, I really listened and then, when there was a silence, and the inner prompt led me to say things, I let the words flow out of me, from a state of TOTAL presence.
• This was new to me.
• I feared doing this a bit because I thought: what if I am offensive? Can you catch the mind there again? The addictive thinking popping up?
• Well, there was no such thing… Being fully rooted in the now allowed me to say things I did not know I was going to say, never hurtful and sometimes right on… But I only noticed them afterwards…
• This does not mean I'm enlightened, that is another "concept" made by the mind.  And at times I was NOT present, for example, at times I was taken by the "pain body"...  BUT, being aware that I was taken over by it allowed me to remove myself from situations in which I could potentially hurt others  or try to instigate their pain bodies.
• It did not always work... Sometimes it does...
• I was able to be in the practice of yoga asana and pranayama while fully IN IT. I felt the skin moving, the breath flowing, the activity of the nostrils, and the muscles engaging. I also paid attention to impulses to try other things like: retentions, or making a video in Spanish, when in the moment.
• I was able to observe and let go of panic that came to me when an explosion happened in New York City an hour before I was meant to be there, exactly at the 125^th train station.
• When I felt the wave of fear I sat with it.  I felt it instead of going where my "mind" wanted me to go.
• This had a calming effect AFTER A WHILE.  Feeling it in full was hard, but it was better than numbing it with TV, or mindless conversation, or looking for another active mind to confirm my fears.

BEING IN THE NOW works BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY REALITY.  

Whatever happens, accepting what is, and feeling it in full, letting go of the pull of addictive thinking is POWERFUL because when we allow space and silence then the right decisions as of what to do appear.

Now, some people are not ready to hear this.

I assume you are, because you are reading.

This is great news.

We are awakening together.