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Enlightenment Journal | Spring 2011

time to meditate deeply; do the recom-

mended cleansing, breathing and 

stretching practices; study enlightened 

teachings; make sure I am preparing 

fresh food; exercising for health; and 

engaging in service while still seeing 

to my responsibilities?  I could see 

the day beginning and ending with 

all these practices before I even left 

the house. Like many who come to 

the path, I was enthusiastic about it. 

There is no competition and there 

is no race. There is no where to go 

and nothing to gain. There is only 

the revelation of what is already so 

about us. We truly are that perfec-

tion, that wholeness we are seeking. 

Yoga is practiced simply to clear away 

whatever obscures our ability to see 

what is true, and to live in accordance 

with it. When we know this, the sense 

of pushing to achieve something with 

I knew I had finally found a spiritual 

path that satisfied my heart, my mind 

and my soul. And, it gave me practical 

guidelines for how to incorporate 

spiritual teachings into my life. I just 

wasn’t sure where it was all going to fit 

in a day. What I discovered is that the 

very attempts that we make to adjust 

our lifestyles to include the practices of 

yoga are inherent to the practice itself. 

In other words, in order to practice 

yoga, we practice yoga! We begin 

by turning our attention and aware-

ness to the Source of our being and 

progressively make the changes in our 

lifestyles that are consistent with living 

from that spiritual perspective. 

One of the most freeing insights 

along the way is discovering that yoga 

is not about creating a spiritual condi-

tion. It is not about self-improvement. 

our practice falls away and a natural 

discipline ensues, one that is not 

driven by ego but motivated by the 

soul’s natural inclination to express its 

inherent peace. Once we realize that 

yoga is not about trying to be some-

body or achieve something, we can 

begin to follow the natural inclination 

to live a balanced, healthy, spiritu-

ally conscious life. We give ourselves 

permission to experiment, to find out 

what works for us, to discover what 

enhances our awareness and what 

obscures it. This is living yoga; this is 

how it is meant to be. We continue to 

take steps toward greater awareness 

and peace and to move away from that 

which depletes our vital force. 

In the story of the enlightenment of 

the Buddha, we find this age-old ques-

tion of how much is right? How much 

I remember thinking in the beginning,  

“This yoga is a full time job!”