Yoga as a Path of Love

If I had known 7 years ago what yoga was really about I probably would have packed up my yoga mat and headed for the hills. But like anything in life no one can tell you what your in for, no one can prepare you for the ride of your life and no one can really explain what the true meaning of Yoga is.

I had heard in lectures that Yoga meant union. Union of body, mind and spirit. And I understood that breath was the link from one to the other. What I didn't know at that time was that Yoga is a multifaceted jewel which carries within it the seeds to true freedom. There was no perfect way to get there, no set path and there was a great deal of trial and error along the way.

I had always sat happily at the feet of my teachers, drinking in their words and letting it inspire my practice. My teachers often told me to practice self inquiry, the practice of Jnana Yoga. I was encouraged to hear their words but then to let those words formulate and emerge as a truth I had discovered for myself. I had thought I was pretty good at that and prided myself in only speaking from my own experiences, but actually on reflection it was easier to take their word as gospel. Why take risks when they had tread the path so carefully before me and anyway I was way too busy teaching Yoga to take the time to look deeply within.

But then I hit a wall in my practice, my nervous system began to fail me and I began to question what Yoga really was. Instead of feeling open and liberated by my practice I flat lined. In recent studies on athletes they found that when they over trained without adequate rest their performance plateaued, and then began to decline. Fatigue set in and with it poor performance levels and a decreased ability to recover. If the athlete continued to over train, the result was total mental, physical and emotional exhaustion. At that point the athletes lost their desire to play their sport, their self esteem lowered and they isolated themselves emotionally, while experiencing heightened anxiety and mood swings. I was also the victim of this syndrome. After nearly 15 years of daily practice my body, mind and spirit needed a rest.

It was with great reluctance that I stopped my strong daily pranayama, meditation and asana practice. When ever I tried even the simplest of yogic practices bells and whistles went off in the nerves in my spine and I felt like a frightened rabbit. Luckily I had a strong, stable and patient partner to anchor me down, A wonderful yoga teacher to share with me the tools and techniques to get grounded and a child to remind me that it was important to stay positive and to play.

The other thing I had was my teaching. I found that by teaching Yoga, I was able to practice Karma yoga, the yoga of selfless service. It was pretty weird teaching without physically practicing it myself, but it helped me to stay connected to the essence of yoga as I had to draw from my own more challenging experiences and find a way to share that Yoga is a practice of learning about the self. Sometimes the body burns out, but as long as we are questing to meet our selves, its Yoga.

It was at this point that I really began to read a lot of Yoga books. I became fascinated with Tantra and its facets of ritual, mantra, mudra and devotion. I read about a complex ritual called the Prana Pratistha. In this ritual you bring power and divine energy to a symbol through a ritualized sequence with breath, mantra, mudra and meditation. To me that meant that any inanimate object could be empowered to represent the divine. I was excited about the idea of honoring the beauty and magic in everything around me. I knew I had to find a way to learn this practice and somehow make it my own.

It wasn't long after discovering that there were more practices and methods to Yoga then asana, pranayama and meditation that I moved from New York City back to my hometown of Byron Bay, Australia. Byron Bay is a beautiful place , a beach town surrounded by a picturesque hinterland. I was in the perfect environment to find my way back to balance. Amidst the green hills and sparkling beaches my nervous system began its slow recovery and as each day passed I was able to return to a more well rounded yoga practice. I also had to rely on my own experiences and understandings to teach Yoga now as my teacher was back In NYC.

I would be lying if I said that being back in Byron brought me to the essence of Yoga. being Back in Byron actually turned up the volume for me on everything. Without the distractions of a big city life there was no way to jump outside myself and avoid my own stuff. I also was getting more balanced and couldn't use my nervous system imbalance as an excuse anymore. Now the heat was on me to really get to know myself and to get to the bottom of what freedom in Yoga was all about.

What appeared next was an unexpected complication in my personal relationship and a passionate longing in me to really know and understand the nature of energy. These two factors were like a fuel that fired me into the core of my own heart and I began to burn in ways I never thought I could burn. I dreamed up a fantastic story to explain why I was here and who I was and somehow I convinced everyone around me to believe in it too. In Yoga the word for illusion is Maya, but Maya also means to measure out, or to create distance between things so they are separate from each other. I began to distance myself from ordinary life for the sake of my yoga quest and immersed myself so deeply into the ritualized aspects of Tantric practice that I couldn't fully connect anymore to my grounded home life. I began to straddle two worlds, and I couldn't commit fully to either of them. I was standing on the earth but my head was in the clouds.

The experience of being both in my body and out of it was both a gift and a curse. On the one hand I was having amazing inner visions, which I expressed through poetry and creative writing. I would dream a whole ritual in my sleep and then wake up and practice it. I felt connected to my own menstrual cycle and the cycle of the moon. Everything had a magic to it and everything shone as a living vibration. I understood the meaning of Shiva and Shakti and the essence of Lila, the divine play of the universe. I also experienced a flowering of my intuition. At the same time, my personal relationship suffered greatly and I detached myself from my close friends and family. Sometimes I had a strong urge to get a cow and become a cave dweller. I wanted to live breathe and eat Yoga all day every day.


I headed to India to find out more about cave dwelling and instead landed in Goa, a haven for Yogis wanting an introduction to India that was safe and more western. I wasn't quite ready for the real India, instead I was taking baby steps into my dreams. It was like putting my toe in the water and not really being brave enough to swim. I was lucky though because I stayed with a fellow Yogi who was also a teacher. I attended daily classes with him and also did my own longer morning practice. It was in India that i began to understand that Yoga wasn't really about philosophy, or practice. India made me see that Yoga lived in the hearts of the people there. Everyone I met was a deity, a divine shining one, especially the women whose laughter and a warmth melted my heart. Every time I went to a market or to town I was just overwhelmed by how content everyone was with whatever life had given them. All of a sudden freedom meant contentment in and laughter at the unpredictability of life. The mornings were filled with the ordinary sounds of men clearing their throats and spitting out the excess, of blaring radios with Hindi music, of cows rummaging through rubbish while the evenings were alive with fire crackers and faraway doof doof music. I never made it to a big temple and never completed any complex Tantric rituals as I had hoped, but I discovered some really profound things about myself.

I discovered that I take myself wherever I go. I am difficult, fearful and controlling at times and also able to laugh and give in to the little things. I like living in a western country and really love the simple things in life like breathing in clean air, making music and having a family. I also realized that i like the struggles and dramas in life and that I am absolutely put on this earth to live them. I am not destined to be enlightened or to live in a cave, rather I am meant to live and love like any ordinary Joe.

Now I feel like I am beginning to finally step on the path of Yoga and to me that path is one of self love. In accepting more of who I am I have found my feet firmly planted on this earth. The clouds are great and will always float by and the visions will continue to come and bring their inspiration, but for now I am enjoying cooking creative dinners for my family, reading about the brain, learning Japanese and teaching Yoga.