Equanimity is Yoga

Equanimity is yoga: 

equanimity is yoga - those are the words that captured my attention in my recent rereading of the Bhagavad Gita. A similar passage is also found in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which has also been part of my current study. It seems that every time I go back to these books of perennial wisdom I am struck by another aspect that calls to me to consider and explore more deeply now, as if I'm ready now in a way that wasn't quite before. Every part of my practice has deepened, I've devoted myself to understanding yoga though it's  most subtle meaning, and Krishna's words to Arjuna invoked a strong urge within me, a desire to know more and better understand the equanimity of yoga. 

I'm not new to this concept, it's a quality that was cultivated for years  through Shamatha meditation, a practice of concentration that leads one towards Vipassana or insight meditation. Yet it's a quality that seems easily lost, forgotten, as life holds us in it's sway, our minds readily absorbed through all of life's passions and sorrows, likes and dislikes, pleasure and suffering. Yoga doesn't tell us to be unmoved by any of this, but to simply return to center, beingness, our original nature. 

equanimity is yoga. 

this is clearly demonstrated through asanas, movement, and how we so easily fall out of balance as we try to hold a difficult pose. Equanimity is returning back to center, smiling with every attempt even as we increase the measure of our concentration. It doesn't matter if we can hold the pose or not, the length of time isn't of any great importance, only that we smile through the effort, appreciating the joy of being in motion, balancing, that we have this ability to even try at all. Equanimity is knowing that sometimes we fall, losing our balance, failing to maintain a stable posture - and yet always, deeply, we remain established at true center, beingness, never straying once from this position. 

equanimity is this reality, who we truly are at center. 

and yoga is simply its practice. 

a reminder of who we are. 

even as we lose our balance. 

~

Peace, Eric