The way I understand Yoga in my daily practice continues to unfold. Or in other words, my practice of ashtanga yoga continues to blow my mind. Some days, like today, I perceive the subtleties of each asana, and I can feel what it requires and what is the "natural direction" of each. When I practice with my teacher, she will adjust, show or tell me how to get an asana right. She will guide and explain, and I will listen and apply. When I practice alone, sometimes during my practice, I have this inspiration; an invisible "teacher" that guides me and shows me the right way to do the asanas. Each asana has a specific modality that makes it effective. The inspiration moves me towards this effective modality.

Yoga is a field of experimentation where my state of mind reflects in how I practice. Specific attributes correlate directly.

- Physical energy => Mental energy

- Skipping asanas without even noticing => Forgetfulness

- Rushing through my practice => Stress or being under pressure

- Doing it right, mindful of each asana => Balanced, focused, and inspired

- Feeling pain => avoidance or laziness

- Feeling at ease while crushing it => inspiration

The list goes on. However, every state is slightly different. I've just named a few to get my point through. In reality, it is more complex than that because each of these states is unique in how it manifests. It is as unique as my mind at that instant.

I am in the state of embodied consciousness. This means that I find myself in an embodied state here in this physical realm. This is a super interesting state of affairs, and Yoga operates precisely at the junction between the material - body and immaterial - mind. By applying myself honestly and diligently to the practice, the state of my mind shifts into a more aware, focused, and at the same time calm state.

It is just a matter of time and patience till this process is ignited. It is a process, like starting the defragmentation program on windows.

Sometimes during practice, my mind can be very messy; it's basically like a tornado where emotions, ideas, random memories, weird projections, feelings, whatever comes to my mind for brief moments, then I keep on practicing, and other stuff emerges. I heard someone say not long ago that she likes to practice with a notebook nearby to quickly write ideas down because she gets loads of them during practice. Oh well, if I were to do that, I would probably never end my practice. In my mind, it just appears as... a mishmash of the stuff I lived (mentioned above; thoughts, feelings, etc.) It's basically like my mind is vomiting this mind stuff into my awareness. Pardon the metaphor; I'm just trying to get my point through. If you practice Ashtanga, you might know what I'm talking about.

And the good thing is that this happens every day.