Sharath’s Conference

On Sundays, Sharath is always keeping a meeting which is here called conference. It sounds so official, but we are just sitting on the floor at the Shala and he is answering to questions as well as talking about topics which he sees important.

Students asked today for example about mantras and speed of the practice. Sharath repeated many times that yoga is a spiritual practice, not competion. You can’t really compete with other person’s spiritual practice. He also explained that ashtanga is a long process and we should take it slowly. Sharath gave us an example that Guruji once gave him an asana and said that practice that asana two years… We can read books about ashtanga, but that isn’t enough. Experience is important in yoga, so we have to go through asana and vinyasa. Asana should be supported by yama and niyama.

It’s nice to hear stories about Guruji and Sharath’s childhood. I think that sometimes I forgot that Sharath and other amazing teachers have repeated asanas day after day and they just haven’t born with their beautiful asana practices. But what can I do, it just looks so easy and light and beautiful and graceful… So Sharath also talked about pain. No pain, no gain. I got the impression that he wanted us to realize as well as remember that yoga isn’t always so easy, but we shouldn’t give up. Even behind beautiful practices, can be lot of pain – and for sure great amount of hard work. I have seen a very cool video by Kino Macgregor related to this topic, where she shows us, how to celebrate little victories. Two steps forward, one step back… Sounds quite familiar, but hey, there is that one step forward still. So my dear yogis and yoginis, let’s bear that in our mind, when we will face boring practices, bad days, ignorent people, arrogant behaviour or annoying injuries. Do your practice and all is coming.