He’s not a yogini- he’s a dogini!
For the last year or so I’ve been slowly studying the yoga sutras. What many of us think of when we think of yoga “the asanas” like tree pose, mountain pose, down dog…are just the precursor to a lifestyle. The real essense of yoga is to know the self , and what better way to know the self than to still the mind.
Still the mind!!! Are you kidding me? I have at least a terabyte worth of life data running through my mind at any millisecond! How can I still my mind….Well , in reading the yoga sutras of Patanjali (this is the guy who decided to sit down scribe yoga-it was taught in person only in the beginning) there are many ways of living our lives that help us to still our mind.
The body movements (asana practice) allows us to get out all that restless energy so we can then practice the other parts of yoga that allow us to go deeper into our true essence. There we learn things like stillness, living in our heartspace, expanding our boundaries, and living in the present moment.
When get to this level in our practice, we feel truly content with life. That terabyte of life data, the junk mail in your mental inbox, just gets filtered out. You feel clear, you feel fresh and here you solve problems and leap tall buildings in a single bound!
So here’s the part where I start rambling a little less and start making my point a little more….
I have watched my Oliver (six year old Maltese with a gentle soul) wake up each morning and practice his favorite asana, downward facing dog! Of course, he would have to pick that one right? Seriously though, today I have been moving , rearranging, packing boxes, and Oliver’s regular places to lounge have been packed into boxes. Yet, everytime I turn around he has found a new comfort zone…an old t-shirt he has wrapped himself in, a new spot under the bed, a cute new shirt with the tags still on it which he is not supposed to sit on but looks blissful and curled up in…he has found a way….Despite the clutter , the hectic process of his pack leader’s frantic gathering and re-arranging of items…he has found a way.
He finds peace and harmony in each room by finding a comfort zone, a place of peace, and takes delight in living in the present moment. As I watched him today, I realized that I have a lot to learn from my sweet little Oliver.
He is a perfect “Dogini”! He does his morning stretch everyday with discipline, he makes his own self comfort and care a priority by finding comfort and peace in an old sweatshirt on the floor, and when that sweatshirt moves or gets replaced, he stays in the present moment and finds the next best place he can go sit peacefully and meditate on his cute doggish ways!
