The Architecture of Peace

Yoga, what a powerful thing indeed.

I visited Michael O'Neil's On Yoga: The Architecture of Peace at the Taschen gallery in West Hollywood.

Yoga is deep y'all. As I walked up, I felt excited to visit the gallery, almost giddy, like a child. Walking around, seeing all the imagery, I felt something deeply, I started crying! Just me, walking around this gallery on a Wednesday afternoon crying. I'm sensitive.

The images of people committing themselves to something greater than themselves, committed to a spiritual life, a life beyond this flesh. This body of ours, it is also fleeting, though we do use it as a means to practice and discover.  Seeing the portrait of "One Arm", a sadhu, had me mesmerized. He has one arm! And a ring around his penis! (Totally not for sexual pleasure.) He wears a crown of rudraskha beads (he strung together the beads with one hand and a stick), no clothes, instead, covers his body in ashes (a symbol of death and rebirth). I mean, come on, that's real dedication and some of us can't even commit to going to the gym. Some of us think our bodies or their parts define who we are as people. Let's look deeper.

What really got me as I walked around, was the mural of "The Roots of Yoga," as soon as I saw the names B.K.S Iyengar (illustrated hanging upside down), Geeta and Prashant, I lost it. It was right there on the wall that I'm part of something bigger than I could ever imagine. And yes, we know we are part of a very big universe, but when it's right in front of you like that, you feel things. I'm grateful to be part of this architecture of peace, this path that is infinite and I'm figuring my way along it.

There were so many beautiful portraits, some of yogis I've heard of before, and some not. It really opened my perspective of yoga and all the different ways it manifests.

Yoga is not about being physically flexible, touching your toes or contorting your body, it's about the union of your outer self to your inner self, renunciation of the material world. It's about connecting with each other and to something greater than ourselves and we do that through practice. Through earnest, honest practice.

Why do we practice? Why do we go to class? To say we go? To look good?  To bring a sense of closeness and intergration within ourselves and the world we live in? We go to class but are we practicing yoga? We must find out.

I am grateful to Yoga, I am a beginner in my studies and I look forward to whatever I find within.

Blessings to you and your practice.

Conscience ask the question...

Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles.
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency ask the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But, conscience ask the question, is it right?
And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Rap and Yoga: The truth of it

I practice a lot of yoga and I listen to a lot of rap.  Alot of people, mostly all people who know me, think that I'm a bit odd for this.  It doesn't make sense, how a little Asian gal can love rap music so much but also practice so much yoga.  I really do, from my soul love rap music and love yoga.  I guess if we are looking at these two things on the surface they seem very different.  Often times, yoga imagery is depicted as pretty girls who are flexible, wear colorful pants, flowers in their hair and live some sort of "holistic" "vegan" life style while images of rappers are of them flashing their hoes, money, cars, living life in the streets.  On the surface level, yoga and rap music appear to be worlds away from each other, but if we look deeper; the core of Yoga and the core of rap music is the same, it's truth.

Yoga is about living your true self, connecting yourself to who you really are and living from that space.  The path of yoga is shedding all the suffering, to discover who you really are.  It's about realness and honesty.  The goal of yoga is enligtenment but we cannot practice with the goal in mind, then you are not practicing yoga-but that's another topic to be discussed.  While rap music, is letting truths be known, it's a way to shed our suffering, through lyrics, through music.  And if we know anything about hip hop, it's for reals.  Keepin it 100. How many times have you heard a rapper say that?

So if we really know what Yoga is about and we really know what rap is about, it's not so odd that they are more similar in their core than they are different.  No wonder these two facets are a huge part of my life.  I've been listening to rap music since I was 8 years old, and I could not tell you what drew me to it in the first place. (My parents were definitely not listening to Biggie or TuPac around the house and they weren't too thrilled that I was either.) Since I discovered yoga, I have earnestly practiced. The more I practice, the more I can see. I never questioned why I like what I like and why I live how I live, I just do it and I'm gaining more clarity each day. The more I practice, the more parallels of rap music and of Yoga I find.  Still I think many people may disagree or find it odd but maybe it's because we are not used to looking at things for what they really are but instead making judgments when we can only see the surface. The surface is fleeting, it's ever changing, the core of us, the spirit of who we are, that doesn't change, and we should let that part of us shine.

This life can be hard to live and it takes a lot of courage to speak the truth and more courage to live it.  The power of yoga is to be comfortable with who you truly are and live from there.  The power of yoga is living your truth and not letting anyone tell you other wise.  Dr. Cornel West says, "The telling of truth allows suffering to speak." So continue to shed your suffering, whatever your practice may be, and allow your truth to shine. Don't let em kill yo shine, you betta live!!