As a kid, I loved to sing. I completely stopped doing it when I was a teenager though. It started feeling somehow embarrassing. In yoga, many years later, I learned mantra singing. Call and response: that was great! I started singing passionately again, this time with many others around me. But at first, I felt deeply uncomfortable starting a yoga class with a mantra and singing alone. This went on for a very long time.
One day I was in Zurich with my friend and partner Florian. We had some time between appointments, it was drizzling and we wanted to enjoy some time out in the fresh air. So we waited under a bridge at the Limmat river. Florian always has his guitar with him! He sat down, started to play and told me to sing “something.” “I can’t do that,” I replied, “I need notes.” But he kept insisting, so I sang “something” very softly. A few minutes later, a man came by and gave us two “street musicians” a franc. That was the first money I made singing. I still have that franc today!
Meanwhile, I’ve started singing on stage, released a CD and ALWAYS sing in my yoga class.
I am quite sure that every one of us feels the same every now and then. We want to do something, but we believe that we are not good enough, too weak, too old … too small.
In India, there are two different terms for EATING: the food we CAN EAT, and the FOOD that nourishes us on every level. Call it Haute Cuisine. It’s not just food – it is food that tastes really good and does us good.
That which is good for us and brings balance, clarity and joy has its roots in Sanskrit:
SATTVA
- SAT means to be pure
- TVA means that which exists
- Sattva: the fact that you are / exist
Sattva is your nature, what does you good. It is Haute Cuisine in all facets of life. We are in Sattva when we are able to live our full potential.
Every living creature has its very own, individual existence. His or her individual Sattva. Deep down, every being knows the difference between Haute Cuisine and just food.
A lion, for example, doesn’t eat a banana by accident … A panda knows its favorite bamboo tree… it does not eat just any bamboo.
Well, you could say that these animals have no choice, it’s just their nature.
We humans have many choices, and that between food and Cuisine is just one of them. We can choose sport, a relationship, a job, and many other things within our capabilities and within certain (self-devised or physiological) limits. In yoga we “pick and choose” by deliberately leaving our comfort zone. We find that, which really does us good and then come back to our state of homeostasis. A balance that brings us back to our very existence. The self-regulatory mechanisms of the body strive to restore our physiological balance.
Yoga helps us find the right choices by entering the state of Sattva, of equilibrium more and more often. In yoga we train mindfulness, learning what does us good and what doesn’t, what feels like Haute Cuisine and what is just cheap food. With regular practice, making the right choice becomes easier and easier and we can be the best version of ourselves every single day.
Yoga classes: www.yogazentrum.md or online www.yogamehome.org
With this video the artikle is read aloud to you.
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