“So many things to do, so little time”
“I need more than 24 hours a day”
“I’ll sleep when I am dead”
I have the same sentiment. We have finite number of years, days and seconds to our existence and conscious or unconsciously, we know that. We try to utilize this resource before it expires. We multitask, want to be more efficient, want to go faster. We want to do more, achieve more, experience more.
When I first started Yoga, I treated meditation and breathing exercises as down time before we get into the ‘action’. I would use that time to think about the problems I am solving at work, my next appointment or planning my schedule. And when I am working on Asanas, I will be trying to imitate the pose the instructor is in. If it’s a bind, I would be frantically flapping my hands behind my back until they find each other. If it’s an inversion, I would jump and jump until I am upside down. I would rush into a pose and become frustrated when I am not able to achieve it.
Suffice to say, brute force didn’t get me very far. So I started to evaluate what am I doing wrong. That’s when I found the purpose of meditation in my practice. It’s a chance to calm my mind, a time to temporary put aside all thoughts, a moment to fully concentrate. With a clearer mind, I began to be more aware of my body. Why am I not balancing in my one legged pose. Where do I need to work on to reach further. Upon realising that, I come to accept that I just need to prepare and condition my body and one day I will be able to achieve the pose I am looking for.
My first 20 minutes meditation during YTT brought all that to a different level. It made me realise there is another dimension to calming and relaxing the mind. Without realising it, halfway through the meditation, I suddenly realise I reverted back to my old habits. My mind started to juggle thoughts all over again. It actually takes effort and concentration to continue keeping the mind in a relaxed state! The trial wasn’t easy but at the end of the meditation, the serenity and clarity that I felt was amazing.
Capitalizing on the fact that we all have time constraints, everything is moving faster so that we can accomplish more. However, the more we try to accomplish, the lesser time we feel we have. Stop once in a while, rethink and realign. We have limited time, so make sure what you achieve in the end is really what you wanted.
Leo Yaik @ahtut