Am I Doing Yoga?

I came home tonight with alot on my mind. Things like where do I want to be in 5 or even 10 years from now? Do I want to keep teaching? Maybe my career as a yoga teacher will evolve into becoming a medical intuitive? I've asked myself this question throughout my life and I always seem to come up with the same answer. That answer has always been- I was made to motivate people and heal people through movement.

Someone once told me I was a "healer". You can imagine my excitement when I heard this and something felt "right" about it. I've always been interested in the mind and how the body connect. Beyond that, I've always knew that we were spiritual beings on this planet to maximize who we are and in some powerful way make a positive impact on the people around us.

But, I came home with many things on my mind including the question -What is yoga? How does someone define what yoga is? According to Reverend Jaganath Carrera in his book, "Inside the Yoga Sutras", he writes "Derived from the root, yuj, it refers to the act of yoking.. Later, the word was applied to the control of the senses and referred to harnessing the power of a concentrated mind toward an object of worship. It was then generalized to refer to any spiritual disciplines. "Yoga" is also used to refer the essential union or Oneness of the individual with the Self.

As I was reading this statement, it struck me that yoga is about the union and connection of the entire being. I continued to ponder the questions in my head about how others see yoga. Do they see yoga as only a physical activity? Do they experience yoga as a transformational process? Do students rely on me to bring them to an understanding of themselves? What expectations do we have of yoga and are those expectations "real"? If I'm not doing yoga, then what am I doing?

To be continued...