Be still clear mind

Did you know that the brain is only about 2% of the mass of your body yet it accounts for more than 20% of your daily energy requirement? Our brains spend most of the time distracted. It is busy distracting thoughts that take up this energy. The ability to get and stay focused is in short supply in this information intensive age that we live in. Perhaps that is why yoga, with its ultimate aim of stilling the mind, is more popular now than ever.

From the first chapter and verse of the Yoga Sutras, Patanjalis tome from 2,500 years ago, yoga is "Citta vrtta yoga nirodhaha". Yoga is the cessation of the fluctations of the mind. Yoga is the settling of the mind into stillness, so that the stirrings of consciousness (citta) become settled and we are able to abide in our true self.

This is a process of illumination, rather like the beacon of a lighthouse with its highly focused and constant beam, which illuminates and shows the path in the midst of darkness, so the process of yoga allows purusa (the true self, undisturbed mind) to shine through the fog of our clouded consciousness, which we mistakenly take for our true self.

We live deluded. And this causes our suffering. We don't see things as they really are (avidya) and our consciousness is clouded by our attachment to things that don't matter. When the mind becomes still and clear, even if this way of being is something that we only catch microsecond glimpses of, we connect with a vast and deep connection within ourselves that is also connected to every other being. Yet the mind is easily disturbed. Like a glass of freshly poured orange juice, all the bits settle to the bottom if the glass is left, but once moved the liquid becomes cloudy once more.

So we need to allow our minds to settle. And we need to make more effort in turbulent times, where the mind can so easily become distracted and cloudy again. Yoga achieves this. The postures are meditation in themselves, but after practice of yoga we find it so much easier to settle into 20 mins of meditation. Yoga yokes the body and the mind and prepares us for the practice of meditation.

Try it! Even 10 mins a day will give you more energy, focus and wellbeing!