What is yoga? What is not yoga?

I do think exploring definitions of the things we're engaged with is important. Like yoga, right? I also believe that educating ourselves and studying the original sources of yoga matters.

But finding a definition and discussing yoga is not the same as doing it, experiencing it. It’s the same with everything, right? Talking about eating is not the same as eating. And I think that's especially true for yoga.

I appreciate that we want to know, with the mind, what this thing called yoga is. I appreciate that the mind needs answers to feel safe. Yet I also have a bit of an icky feeling about it.

Because sometimes finding a definition for something and then clinging to it creates separateness. It creates "my definition" and "your definition". It can even create a kind of hierarchy.

Some might think that their definition is deeper or more sophisticated than others because they spent more years studying yoga, read more original texts, attended more trainings. They might think that some definitions of yoga might just scratching the surface, while mine is somehow more true.

Also, as Patanjali says in the Yoga sutras 4.15: Each individual person perceives the same object in a different way, according to their own state of mind and projections. Even if we agree on a definition of yoga, that definition will carry a different meaning for each of us.

So yes, study yoga. Read. Question. Explore.

But what feels even more important to me is this: practise it. Whatever yoga means to you, commit to that practice. Do it regularly. Do it wholeheartedly.

And when you practise, do it with utter presence. With attention. Be in the moment.

As Mary Oliver said: Attention is the beginning of devotion

Sure, if you want to, enter your practice with your definition, but then allow that definition to become an deeply personal experience for you. Allow it to become something spontaneous, something that arises from what is actually here, rather than something that has already been decided by the mind.

Don't let your definition control your practice.

Let your practice liberate you from attachement of your definitions.

Be aware of what is here. Respond to that. Meet this moment as it is.

And maybe pay more attention to your own experience than to the definition of it.