Planting the Seed of Intention

April 13, 2020 Posted by Sandra Gergler Yoga

Planting the Seed of Intention

We practice yoga during good times, on the mat, to cultivate skills to overcome difficult times of adversity. Life ebbs and flows with periods of ease and difficulty. Buddhism and yoga philosophy both rely on the premise that there is suffering and there is also freedom from suffering. Suffering is thought always to be self-inflicted, whether it be by expectation or attachment. When we put expectations on others, we set ourselves up to judge them for good or bad; right or wrong. We will usually be disappointed. When we become attached to people, things or even ideas, our happiness depends on factors out of our control. The behaviors that bring suffering are woven into our karmic blueprint. The sum of your karma; your thoughts, feelings and behaviors determine your experience. To be awake means that you recognize that you have the ability to choose your experience because you have control over your thoughts and feelings as discussed in the Are You Awake? article.

Why We Practice Yoga

Over the centuries, the world has changed dramatically but the human experience hasn’t really changed that much. People are fundamentally the same over the ages and the ancient yogis had much the same kind of problems we have today. For example, people do not behave as they should. Things aren’t going my way. Will I have enough to get by? The practice of yoga teaches us to harness our energy and attention; to use it to advance our personal growth. According to “Yoga Master Amrit Desai, “what you want in the end must be present in the beginning. You would not plant an apple seed and expect to grow a lemon tree”. Once we become committed to the path of our greater good, we must create the intention. This intention will put what we want at the end at the center of our awareness in the beginning. It serves as a compass to point us in the direction we want to go. An intention is different than a goal because with an intention there is no “arriving“. There is only traveling. Your intention can evolve, shift or change over time. Its purpose is two-fold.

Life's Compass

First, an intention is a positive statement of affirmation that helps you release patterns and habits that hold you back from being happy and free. Second, it serves as a focus for your energy and attention when you find yourself astray or in conflict. When we remove an undesirable behavior, we need to put another, positive behavior, in its place. The more skilled you become at focusing your energy and attention on your intention, the more your entire being becomes integrated in body, mind and spirit. Balance is restored; energy and time free up. If there is struggle and fighting present, this will drain your energy and distract you from your intention. It’s like a flat tire on a road trip. It stops you in your tracks. When we are in struggle and conflict, we are really on the sidelines, fighting with ourselves. The mind is an astute problem solver and looks for problems, even where none exist. Acknowledging this and routinely moving energy back to our intention keeps us on the path to greater happiness and freedom from suffering.

The First Step

The fundamental teachings of yoga are the eight limbs of Patanjali. The first two limbs describe the ethical principles of yoga. We look at these first because if we are participating in behaviors that are violent, deceitful, selfish and greedy, we will have no energy left to focus on a positive intention. For this reason, in the beginning, the Yamas and Niyamas serve as an intention to guide us to a place where we are prepared to let go of our karmic patterns and selfish behaviors. Only then are we ready to move toward higher levels of personal growth. The path to happiness and freedom is fraught with painful work. Life’s lessons appear and reappear until we have truly learned them. Our natural instinct says that pain is bad; avoid it at all costs. When we practice these ethical principles, it will most certainly bring up painful things we have suppressed. The only way that pain can leave us is if we let it arrive and arise. If we continue to avoid it, it cannot leave. This is how pain becomes suffering.

The process of practicing the Yamas and Niyamas is the first step in the journey to prepare for adversity in life. It removes the largest obstacles from our spiritual development. The Yamas are the ethical observances of yoga. They are: non-violence, truth, non-stealing, non-excess and non-possessiveness. The Niyamas are the ethical disciplines. They are purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study and surrender. We will look at each of these more closely in later posts. At Bhakti Yoga Teacher Training you have the unique opportunity to be guided through these ancient teachings to choose your attitude and experience. We not only cover all of the teachings of yoga; you develop a personal intention and get support in practicing it on and off the mat. The principles of yoga can raise individual and collective consciousness. We need that now more than ever before.

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About Sandra Gergler

I'm Sandy ; owner of Bhakti Yoga South Jersey. I spent 10 years as a Chemistry Teacher. My background in education is being applied to maintaining the most up to date curriculum for the Bhakti Studio’s 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Program. I use the scientific basis of the benefits of yoga as the foundation of the BYSJ instruction.. I bring professional academic instruction to BYSJ teacher training as well as workshops on yoga meditation and nutrition

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