Clearing the mind fog
Yoga is more than just exercise, Yoga is also about claiming back one\’s ability to engage fully with life and a Kaliyoga retreat is a course in practical approach to good living. It is estimated that 95% of adult’s thoughts are repetitive subconscious memories involving past events and possible future events. If that’s true, then only 5% of awareness is free to deal with the present moment. The present moment is where we live 100% of our lives and although it’s not always pleasant to be here and now, we can never truly be anywhere else, so there’s no way out and being mindful of ‘here\’ is surprisingly rewarding.
Many of our guests turn to yoga as a way to become more mindful and less clogged up in the process of habitual thinking. In yoga practice we re-connect our attention to the mind, body, and breath which helps us to direct awareness inward. Curiously, this process of inward attention brings the everything into focus. The 95% of habitual mind fog gradually decreases and the 5% of being present increases.
If physical exercise is usually perceived as a series of goals to be completed, you can see why yoga, which looks a lot like exercise, is often marketed in gyms and clubs as another style of exercise, but in the hands of a good teacher, yoga is clearly in a league of its own. Regular yoga practice creates a powerful shift in awareness in addition to the already well understood benefits of healthy exercise. The yoga state of awareness is a creative state, full of curiosity, delight, imagination and positive action. Actually it is more than a state because it is a deep level of awareness that supersedes all other changing states of mind. From this new clarity we begin to notice old habitual ways of living that no longer serve us and with very little effort they begin to dissolve and be replaced by thought patterns that are vital to positive everyday being.