Living is a phrase gaining awareness and popularity in the world of yoga.

Living Yoga and similar phrases like living meditation, living zen, and living the path have been crossing my feeds. More and more, yoga magazines and writers are using the phrase living yoga.

What is this sudden interest in the word living and why is it being attached to these other words like yoga?

There is an awakening to the depths of yoga. For decades, or perhaps thousands of years, yoga instructors have communicated that yoga is far more than stretching and exercise. The message is finally sinking in.

Living your yoga is about lifestyle.

And by lifestyle, I do not mean wearing yoga clothing, or attending the hippest yoga conventions or knowing all the proper yoga speech. It has nothing to do with being vegetarian, vegan, raw, breatharian or other ideologies.

Living your path is all about authenticity, discovery, truth, expression and soul.

Living yoga means putting the philosophies into practice, having the discipline to follow through day after day, breath after breath, Now after Now.

It’s not a form. It’s not a brand name. It’s not a guru or recognizable name. It’s not an institution, or a technique. Its simply who a person is putting the philosophies into practice, moment after moment with love-filled intention.

Yogic practices are designed to unfold the layers of consciousness. The composition of these layers makes a whole being. However, life and preprogrammed perceptions take time to understand. Yoga gives a disciplined, scientific way to discover one’s true nature and live in harmony within and without.

Living yoga puts these concepts into practice for exploration and self-discovery, similar to a classroom.

To live your yoga means to be sincere in the intention presented in yamas and niyamas. To be non-violent, and revisit that concept again and again. To constantly be a beginner and accept that what life presents in every moment is larger than individual perspective. To learn, with a fullness of heart and vitality, how to be alive in every way possible and share this gift of living experience, relationship and prosperity.

Living your yoga means being responsible for oneself, one’s actions and consequences. Developing a deep inner truth, and putting it into service for the world.

Living your yoga demands integrity, humility and action.

Seva, the yogic practice of selfless service, has far more to do with blossoming one’s god given talents and abilities in service of humanity. It has nothing to do with providing free labor for institutions that preach love and god. Living your yoga means challenging every concept, with audacious gentleness and respect, and abiding with peace and integrity.

In living one’s path, challenges will be presented. Those challenges are gifts that unveil the deeper truths. They are opportunities to be honest, to live with integrity, to be humble. Living one’s yoga becomes natural as one surrenders to the truth of self-knowledge, putting devotion into play.

Living yoga is a constant inquiry into relationship, discovering what generates harmony and how to relinquish separative reactions.

In learning oneself, others become known. To really learn who one is takes a constant inquiry and relationship. There is a self-growth that must happen in such an environment. When the intention is serenity, all one must do is follow through, surrendering to what is.

And what is it?

Reality, bigger than imagination, as mysterious as eternity. A discovery of who one is, and beyond.

Living yoga is beyond words. It is a journey to be undertaken.

Yoga, with all its schools and techniques, are like maps. Each provides clues to the treasure, the human soul and serenity that comes from self-knowledge.

No technique, no form or idea is who a person truly is.

Yoga clearly communicates the eternal self, and rather than an empty philosophy found in a book, only through living it does one discover the truth, blossoming into self-discovery.

Living your practice is a journey and a dialogue, with oneself and others who are delving into this experience.

With so many using these phrases, please share your experiences and perspectives akin to living yoga and living meditation.

Namaste.

Relephant:

Ahimsa: What & Why?

~

Author: Keith Artisan

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Riley Kaminer/Flickr