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Initially, enlightenment is living in the present moment and accepting your situation as it is. That is a pretty heavy task for anyone in any time. It is often said that an enlightened person cannot be angered by small talk or negative energy.

Many people are humble and believe that they will never be enlightened in this life. They also believe: The goal of enlightenment is too vast for the average person to achieve. However, should you just give up?

What can you do to attain enlightenment?

You should meditate daily: This will help you connect to the world around you. This is an awareness of plants, animals, people and many things around you that are often not appreciated or overlooked.

Meditation will enhance awareness of yourself, everything around you, and the connection between the two. This will bring out the ability to see reality as it is - with the ultimate goal of reaching a state of pure consciousness.

Understand the value of prayer, mantras, and singing. Even if you only practice in your mind, this will strengthen positive energy within you. Many people resort to theses practices; to gain comfort in times of need. This is a shame because you can gain the positive benefits of prayer, mantras, and singing, any time.

Remember, enlightenment is not a race: You would be shocked at the number of people who put pressure on themselves to be instantly enlightened.

It is good to have goals in life, so creating a log to track your progress is a beneficial practice. Your log may track your meditation sessions, your ability to deal with, or diffuse, negative situations, your ability to create positive energy and project it to others, and your ability to see reality.

If you continue the process of keeping and maintaining a log, your results will be encouraging. You may also want to join a group with compatible religious beliefs, search for a teacher, or share your practice with a friend on the same path.

Lastly, do not be frustrated by uncertainty and learn to accept what you cannot control. If all humans could maintain enlightenment, we would experience world peace. We could all accept each other, despite differences of culture, nationality, color, sex, religious beliefs, or any other thing humans can find to develop a pre-conceived notion about each other.

My first taste of Yoga was over 40 years ago, at the age of 7, in a martial arts school setting. I have continued to study martial arts until this day and I have four teaching certificates in four different martial arts. Now I teach both Martial Arts and Yoga. I began to seriously practice Yoga (under Laura Foster) over twenty years ago due to martial arts competition related injuries. Laura was a skilled & knowledgeable teacher of Restorative Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, and Laya Yoga. After training with her for 3 years, she certified me as a teacher in 1987.

I became certified as a Master Teacher (Guru) on September 15, 1995, after teaching over 5,000 hours under her wing. Shortly afterward, Laura retired at age 90. Since that time, I started organizing Yoga Teacher Training camps. As time went on, we began getting requests from everywhere in the U.S. and Canada for a comprehensive Yoga Teacher Training correspondence course. http://www.yoga-teacher-training.org

posted by 55208  # 3:24 PM 0 comments

Even though the world population has shifted from mainly rural to mainly urban in the last decade, there are still lots of folks like me who live in the sticks. Doing things like taking a yoga class becomes a different thing in our case from driving to the neighborhood gym. Since I live 40 miles from the nearest town large enough for yoga studios, when I decided to take a class, I was more interested in the schedule than I was the type of yoga. I couldn't afford to be picky if I preferred not to wait around for a couple hours after getting off work. So I looked in the phone book, and didn't pay attention to anything but the schedule. There it was: M-W-F at 4:00. Perfect. I don't know what rock I'd been living under, but the word "Bikram" writ large across the ad in the yellow pages didn't trigger the term 'hot yoga' in my mind, and that left me in for a big surprise.

I showed up with a comfy pair of sweatpants and a long- sleeved t-shirt. As the woman at the desk was giving me a little orientation information - explaining that the room was heated to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit - I realized that my concept of yoga clothes weren't going to work here. Apparently, I wasn't the first to make this error. Susie told me they had loaners. Now, it's been a while since the last time I wore hot-pants, so when she handed me the little scrap of shorts, I thought, "No way." She said, "Trust me, you'll fit right in."

Susie continued, giving a few more orientation tips, which started to seem like a set of warnings. "Our first-time students are encouraged to rest whenever you feel you should - kind of take it gradually. The instructors just ask that you do your best to stay in the room for the entire time." What? Were we still talking yoga here? I'd seen pictures. Sure, I might not be able to balance on one leg while holding the other one over my head at my first try, but come on. How hard could it be to stretch as far as I could go and stop there? Why would I get desperate to leave the room?

Her next suggestion: "OK, I see you brought a bottle of water. That's good, but you'll be tempted to drink a lot, and I recommend you just drink sips - not too much at a time." Hmm. What was I getting into here? It sounded like I was facing some kind of ordeal - not what I had in mind at all since I was thinking of yoga as a peaceful, low- impact way just to stretch and keep my aging body flexible and strong.

Once I was dressed in the little bit of shorts, I opened the door to the yoga studio and was met with a rush of hot, stultifying air. Oh goody. I walked to an open space, spread my mat, lay on my back, and understood exactly what she meant by asking me to at least stay in the room. I was already dripping sweat, and we hadn't even begun the class.

Ninety minutes and twice through the 26 poses later, I was indeed still in the room. In the non-competitive, supportive atmosphere I had been completely guided to go to my edge, but not so far that I would be turned off by struggle. In fact, I was exhilarated. I lay on my back at the end, eyes closed in the peaceful, very hot room, and knew I'd be back for more.

Carina Snowden is a contributing author to Apex Yoga News the leading resource for yoga information. Visit Carina's archive of articles at http://www.apexyoga.com/

posted by 55208  # 6:19 AM 0 comments