Yoga is for lovers.

Everyone, heck every being on this planet essentially wants to love and be loved! That is what makes the world go around; the continual creation of Amore. When you get right down to it doing things in the name of love is one of two fundamental driving forces in your life.

There are many avenues through which you may go to get that love-buzz, that feeling of at home-ness and security and all around fulfillment. You may go round about ways and have complicated rituals and get a little ocd about things like keeping your room clean or your Yoga practice and ways of measuring and testing if it's real when it arises. Like it or not, beleive it or not it's there, running the show day in and night out. Replace the word "brains" with "love" and you're a regular zombie! "Loooove"!

Now, before we get too foo foo let's acknolwedge something else in the mix, the other driving-force. Survival! Granted a tiger is not necessarily trying to fall in love that poor little helpless fuzzywuzzy little creature as its tearing it to messy shreds for lunch. It's survival. That's how things are. Some people would use that as evidence to support the theory that nature is cruel and everyone is out to get them and they have to protect themselves therefore they get hurt. They must be closed down and never trust and so on. Sound familiar? Well, news flash people! Every being is also designed to survive at darn near any cost. It is impossible to love when survival is at stake.

Put the Dalai lama in a cage match with that hungry tiger and see how much compassion there is when the his holiness' body turns into a weapon of instinctual destruction. Balance young grasshopper. Balance. We are all hardwired to survive, all of us even if we want to be selfless like the buddha that just ain't happening, ever! When push comes to shove it's on like donkey kong, yo! The degrees may change, but you get the picture.

So in this world of survival of the fittest, its really easy to become focused on the survival aspect alone. The economy gets tough so we stop sharing , we start getting weird and rationing our own freedoms and panicing and whatever it is we do and then we wonder why so many of us are sealed up like a pack of frozen meat popcicles. Where is the love?

Well, it's a two-fold thing. You've got to love to be loved. You have to start by loving yourself. Relax, unwind, don't worry you are the tiger and the fluffy creature all in one. One of the most self-empowered and effective ways to release the survival stress and get int the game of life is through Yoga. Yoga of any kind. the regular practice in the yogic arts creates unsurpassed balance in the mind, the body, opens the heart, the breathing; sighs of releif. I love Yoga for this reason. No matter how hard it gets, how lonely I feel or strive for more success Yoga brings me home and allows me to love and be loved. How about you?


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