The Study of Yoga Never Ends
When does the study of Yoga end? Does it stop when you finish your 200 Hour YTT? Is it over when you perfect titibhasana or urdhva dhanruasana? When you master a complex pranayama technique? When you have hundreds or thousands of students? When do you finally know “enough” to stop studying Yoga?
The question is not meant to be rhetorical. If you have come to your Yoga practice because you are seeking salvation from your life, then you may be disappointed to hear that learning Yoga never ends. If you have come because you think Yoga can “fix” your body, your mind, or your heart, unfortunately the tool of Yoga doesn’t promise these ends. Instead, Yoga gives us a lens through which we can view our broken bits with compassion and understanding. It’s a process through which we can integrate our pain and trauma and begin living in wholeness. When you come to your Yoga practice to explore yourself every day, to interrogate your frustrations, to discover your darkness as well as your light, and to disassemble who you thought you were so that you can be who you actually are, then you are at the beginning of a lifelong relationship with learning Yoga.
The truth is that learning Yoga NEVER ENDS. If your Yoga study and training didn’t teach you this, it’s not surprising. It was probably suffering the effects of patriarchy and colonialism, just like the rest of us. It might have sold you on an image of “Yoga Teacher” as a commodity, and left you feeling disheartened when it didn’t turn you into an authority. If your Yoga study has left you feeling overwhelmed with information, requirement, and the need to perform perfectly and manage risk, then it’s likely you are a graduate of one of a multitude of modern Yoga Alliance registered 200 Hour YTTs.
But I want you to know this: there’s NOT a lot of Yoga in that approach, and it’s eons away from what is actually available to learn. Yoga doesn’t teach that there is only one right way to do anything, instead it teaches you to discover what’s needed in each and every situation and be courageous enough to show up for it. Yoga teaches that you can be your own authority by listening both to yourself and to what others have to offer, then choosing what is of value by tuning into your heart. The real practice of Yoga teaches you to chart your own course by deeply and bravely learning about who you are beneath all of your attempts to please other people, a herculean task that never ends. But the good news is this: YOU CANNOT FAIL AT YOGA.
Yoga is meant to bind us to our lives as a collaborator and coconspirator, it was never meant to be our savior or our destroyer. Yoga can teach us how to have agency, autonomy and sovereignty, but only once we are ready to fully own our responsibility for ourselves and what we contribute to the world. YOGA NEVER ENDS. As one of my elder teachers says, “Yoga is a practice of playing the edges of your knowing. Once one edge dissolves, there is another right there waiting.” Yoga is a lifetime practice because you never run out of edges. Once you understand this, then Yoga is how you show up in every situation. It can provide the tools and means to play your edges, infinitely.
If you are ready to continue to learn, to deepen your understanding, to be curious, to be shocked; if you feel brave enough to explore the dark caverns and sharp edges of who you are, then Vira Bhava Yoga’s 300 Hour Online Yoga Trainings provide the tools, support, guidance, mentorship, and opportunity. Join us in 2022. Scholarships available.