My yoga retreats are called, "Going Back to the Source". I've had a few people ask for a bit more clarity on what this theme means. My big (and sometimes evasive) answer is that, like our yoga practice - and indeed life itself - it's a work in progress. But right now, this is sort of at the core of it...
Life is just energy moving through us. We can allow it to flow or we can allow it to stagnate in our being. Everything we say and everything we do will determine one or the other. The energy does not disappear when we die. There is no beginning and no end. The samskaras we were born with (the blockages preventing us from accessing our best selves) can melt away enabling the flow or they can grow thicker and act as a dam. Going Back to the Source is a conscious journey that starts with a simple decision: In this life do we choose to breathe, move, and act in synch with the flow of the universe or do we habitually align with our suffering, thereby compounding the suffering in the world?
Going Back to the Source is about making decisions - from what we consume to what we say to who we surround ourselves with - that support our greatest capacity for forgiveness, compassion, learning, creativity, and love. Anything else is just maya, a lie we tell ourselves as we put off and resist the love and joy available to us. Because at the Source of our being is a profound truth that we are ultimately connected to all beings, everywhere. We are never alone and our actions - conscious and unconscious - have an impact. At our Source we are perfect. We are beautiful. We are radiant. We are imbued with all the knowledge or wisdom we could ever need.
The Source is indeed a place of "...peace, love, joy, playfulness, and truth. When you're in that place in you and I'm in this place in me, we are One."
This is Going Back to the Source. This is yoga.
I was introduced to this wonderful, somewhat heartbreaking, but nonetheless honest and sweet story written by a courageous woman describing her journey. And she names her dog as her guru, so I immediately fell in love with her sentiments: "The Downside to Down Dog" by Kelly Grey.
