Holy Yoga

Jesus wants us to offer him our heart and our mind. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your MiND"

Isaiah: "come now, let us reason together"

God the Father also wants our minds and our hearts, in order to trust Him, we must involve both heart and intellect. Some of us don't like to study, because studying Gods truth takes focus and discipline. However, such discipline ought to be part of the Chrisian life. Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." this certaintly includes mental discipline as well.

One of the reasons that you can trust Jesus is because He loves you so much that He has given you a mind that can embrace the truth about reality. The book of Psalms says, "Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you" its not trusting in something that we don't know, but it's trusting in something we can know, even if our knowledge is limited.

We don't have to have all the answers (in fact, we never will on this side of heaven), but God calls you to passionately pursue His truth. God says in the Bible, "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all of your heart." Another verse says, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in name of the Lord our God." He assures us that He is worthy of our trust. Once we have a foundation of knowing truth, then we can pursue Him, and once we know Him, we can trust what He tells us in His Word.

From "Why Trust Jesus" by Dave Sterrett

Originally posted at http://tellingagoodstory.blogspot.com/, where I am documenting my attempts to complete 101 things in 1001 days.  Becoming a certified HY instructor is on that list.

Six weeks ago tomorrow, I returned home from one of the most amazing weeks of my life with my Holy Yoga Instructor certification in hand. The week was incredible. We were in the middle-of-nowhere Arizona, in the high desert, a land that is simultaneously stark and beautiful. I was reacquainted with my love for the outdoors and spent every moment I could outside. I met fabulous women (& three men) from all over the US, Canada & Japan whose passion for Jesus was tangible. Together we shared life, laughed, and cried. And the yoga...it was excellent. I've never worked so hard physically in my life. We were taught by very talented instructors who know their yoga, but it paled in comparison to their love for the Lord and their dedication to the calling He has placed on their lives. They set the bar high for us as instructors, but were so encouraging to us about how He will use us to further the Holy Yoga mission. Seriously, one of the best weeks of my life.

So, I've needed to write this post ever since I got home. And you'd think that it would be easy and exciting to write this one. But it hasn't been easy and I keep putting it off. Why, I wonder. For one, it has been hard to write because I don't know where or when I am going to be teaching Holy Yoga. God's had me waiting. I'll be honest, that has been really hard. I watch my classmates starting their classes, and while I'm so happy for them, it's been painful to wait for my answer. But, He is good, and I am sure of my calling. It will come.

The other part that has been holding me back is that I feel like if I write this post, it is somehow admitting that my training is over. And there is part of me that really doesn't want that season to be finished. As excited I am to be heading into whatever is next, the five months of my training were simply amazing, and I am sad that time is done. I can't completely wrap my brain around what I'm feeling, I simply know that it is what it is.

And so, I'm posting. I'm a certified Holy Yoga Instructor. That's true, whether or not I am actually teaching yet. It's by His grace and goodness that I've been led on this journey and I choose to continue to follow Him as he leads me. And I know that my time of training isn't really over either. It just looks different now.

I treated myself to a pedicure today and lo and behold I experienced what we hear so often from our yoga teachers, “take the practice off your mat.”  Never would I have thought it would transfer over to the pedicure chair!

As I put my feet in the water, I envisioned Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.   I contemplated on His words…"Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am.  Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:12-17). 

So I am sitting and playing around with the lovely massage chair and chose "kneading." Closed my eyes and asked God to knead the planks in my own eyes, roll it out, wash away the things I don't see, that I so easily point out in others. Breathing deeper and moving more inward, the guy washing my feet, must have thought I was crazy, but I am free from worrying about what others think of me these day; so I bathed him in prayer, asking the Lord to bless him and work through his hands as he touched my feet.  As he took the buffer and scrubber to my feet and spent what felt like an eternity on one foot, I thought...so like our God to slough away the calluses, so gentle, thorough, and firm. I have been receiving pedicures for who knows how long now, and think I will never experience them the same again.  At that moment I realized I was experiencing a pedicure meditation. 

What is meditation?  I like the way Wikipedia defines meditation:  “Meditation is a holistic discipline by which the practitioner attempts to get beyond the reflexive, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Meditation is a component of many religions, and has been practiced since antiquity. It is also practiced outside religious traditions. Different meditative disciplines encompass a wide range of spiritual and non-spiritual goals; achieving a higher state of consciousness or enlightenment, developing and increasing compassion and loving kindness, receiving spiritual inspiration or guidance from God,  achieving greater focus, creativity or self-awareness, or simply cultivating a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind.” Just reading that makes my shoulders melt away from my ears. Experiencing higher states of consciousness is not limited to our “yoga mat,” although our mat serves as a tool to discipline the body so that we can become more aware and conscious beings off our mat.

Meditation for me is “receiving spiritual guidance from God to develop and increase more compassion and love towards others.”  T.K.V Desikachar a yogi master and author of “The Heart of Yoga, Developing a Personal Practice,” defines the term bhakti.  “The term bhakti comes from the root bhaj, which means to ‘serve.’ By following bhakti yoga, we offer all our thoughts and actions to this higher power. In everything we see, and in every other human being, we recognize God-truth.  We act out of a conviction that we are serving God. We always carry his name within us. We mediate on him. We go into his temples. We are completely devoted to him. That is bhakti yoga.”  Even in a pedicure char!

So the next time you treat yourself to a pedicure consider experiencing bhakti yoga.

1.       Greet the person with your eyes and heart. Bathe them in prayer and send them love.

2.       As you place your feet in the water visualize Jesus washing your feet.

3.       Close your eyes and take deep full breaths.

4.       As the pumice stone sloughs away calluses or hard edges bring to mind something that needs to be smoothed out in your heart or mind.  Observe with the mind’s eye and see it wash away in the water.

5.       Finally, absorb, receive, soak it all in and then go “love your neighbor has yourself.”

An article about the Pre-Natal Holy Yoga DVD created by Master Holy Yoga Instructor, Christina Mroz was featured in the Marshfield News Herald recently.

Click here to read the full article.

OK, so what does this little beetle have to do with us.Fireflies are a great example of sharing God's light with the world, so how do we get that same light to shine through us . Let me share with you what I learned.

Matthew 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. A city on the hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (NIV)

The firefly, also called a lightening bug, lights up when it breaths oxygen into its abdomen. The light indwells within that firefly, but it takes the breath to allow it to shine. The oxygen combines two chemicals within the firefly to ignite the light.

So what about our breath?  How does it help to ignite our light? From the very beginning, God breathed life into us, so the light is always there inside of us, but it takes our continual inhaling of oxygen to allow God’s will to be energized and our exhale to allow us to shine for him outwardly.  No one can put out our light. We may cover it (like scripture says ‘put it under a bowl’) with our life’s circumstances, be it addictions, wanting to be accepted by certain groups of people, or just not wanting to “rock the boat” in our relationships.  But here is where we need to take that covering off the light (‘put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house’).

In Psalm 119:105 the Bible says: ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.’  The Lord does not want us to hide the light he has given us, rather to present it to the world with sheer delight and allow it to light our path. We are to feed our bodies with the breath (his Word, the Bible) building the flame to glow ever so brightly from the belly. Opening up space in our bodies by breathing through the entirety of our lungs gives room for the light to penetrate each of our cells and begin to enlighten us from head to toe. ‘You are the light of the world’… The firefly glows in many different ways:  a faint flicker, a strong blinker or a bright beacon of light. How is your light shining today?  Is it a flicker, going in and out of the darkness, or is it a beacon filled with light from within? In order for us to continually be glowing we need to feed and nurture our bodies with God’s word. The breath is the beginning of what ignites the belly to be light up with the love of the Lord.  The scientific name for the firefly is Lampyridae, which in common language means “torch bearer.” To think we are the “torch bearers” for Jesus on this earth is such a wonderful gift to give to our family and friends. Let that light shine through the way you live and the words you speak. ‘Toss the bowl aside’ and work on shining brightly with the love, joy and union with God.

Psalm 27:1 says ‘Light, space, zest—that’s God! So, with him on my side I’m fearless, afraid of no one and nothing. (MSG)

Our night skies at eye level here on the coast are not filled with ‘fireflies’, but just take your gaze to the evening sky above. The stars can represent our summer sky of fireflies, twinkling above us, some bright, some only flickering.  Where is your light today? A flicker, a sustained blinker or a beacon shining without a cover? Is your light hidden under your circumstances or have you uncovered it for all to see how Jesus is lighting your path?