I’m currently reading the book, How Yoga Works, and as I am going through it, I think I’m getting a better understanding of how deeply yoga changes your life. It’s not just a physical thing. I’ve always known that,  but as I go through it, it becomes clearer and clearer to me. As you develop a consistent practice, you really become more aware of the internal and external winds (as is put in the story) that really causes you disease, whether this may be a bad back or a psychic wound. Amazing.

As I’ve watched my practice grow, I have seen how much my life has changed because of yoga. Even my being a vegetarian, for example, is now becoming clear. I’ve said many times that I did not really know why I did it, but that it just felt right. I guess that was my “winds” coming into balance. Even now, when I go out with friends for drinks or what not, I see that I cannot tolerate it as much. I guess the old habits, just like the sergeant’s penchant for drinking in the book or maybe one’s habit of smoking cigars, are really modified because of the practice. The nice thing about this, I think, is that if you let it, the magic of yoga just happens. You don’t really need to MAKE it happen, but you have to allow it to happen by being fully present, consistent in your practice, and most of all, you let it be by allowing yourself to open to grace. It is with that that healing begins.