I would love to connect with some other folks for accountability for living a yogic life. Is there such a thing already? Or any interest in participating? I would be willing to coordinate and organize.
Lisa Paul
I'm interested.
I'm interested too 🙏💜🕉
Hi Angela & Catherine!
For simplicity sake, we can start off using this forum to connect and create some accountability.
My current steady practice is reading the Daily Guru first thing when I wake up in the morning.
The rest of my practice is scattered - sometimes I meditate and do pranayama, a little hatha here and there, I listen to the talks randomly, sometimes I watch the Satsang. I am thinking about planning a mini retreat for myself this weekend using the material on here.
What does your practice look like?
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I have also been trying to formulate for myself some sort of daily practice. I'm trying to do an hour of Hatha Yoga daily. Starting out really gentle and moving up to intermediate as my body permits. I'm also doing a little spiritual reading every day. Mostly the yoga sutras. The Golden Present, daily inspirational readings by Sri Swami Satchidananda is also very good. Funny, I just randomly opened a page, and it says...
Question: why is it so difficult to be disciplined?
Sri Gurudev: that is part of nature. There is a natural gravitation that makes it easy to push things down, and hard to lift them up. That pull is there; but we have been given the capacity to face it and rise above it. That is discipline.
And so we will try to resist gravity together my new friend.
Hi, Lisa & Catherine.
My practice tends to be all over the place, so the fact that I've done asana practice every single day for the last 11 months has been huge for me. The actual practice varies wildly but that daily consistency has been a very big deal for me. Other than that, I've been -- on & off -- taking in Krishna Das's Thursday satsangs on YouTube, joining an online pranayama class on Sundays, and trying to take a bit of time to meditate each day.
I would like to be more intentional/structured in my practice as well as add some consistent reading/studying to it.
Hi Lisa and Angela,
I have heard from several sources recently that it is helpful to write a check list of the practices you would like to do daily and keep a journal to track progress. I just started today :-)
My checklist includes:
Start my day by reading a daily meditation from Sri Gurudev's book The Golden Present
Bath and then do Japa sadhana practice with pranayam and meditation
Do an hour of hatha yoga
At night, do some spiritual reading (working on the yoga sutras currently) and write in my journal what I accomplished that day.
If you were to design a regular daily practice for yourself, what would you include?
I start off my day with the Daily Guru app. I have been doing this daily since I left the LYT program and is my anchor.
These are what else I intend to do but it doesn’t always happen.
Pranayama 10 minutes
108 repetition of my mantra
30 minutes of Hatha
Mataji advised me to do small and consistent. The fact that I don’t always do it means for me that I am creating too big of goals.
Keeping regular with my Hatha Yoga practice has been the most difficult for me. I've managed to do my japa everyday thank God. And I've been very immersed in this really beautiful book called The Untold Story of Sita by Deena Merriam, which has been inspiring me.
I just found this forum. So lovely to read you supporting each other.
I have a daily pranayama practice, morning and night and as needed throughout the day, I keep a gratitude journal before bed and do some spiritual reading. My go-to is To Know Your Self by Sri Swami Satchidananda. My Hatha practice has also been inconsistent. I do the joint freeing series before getting out of bed, then either a restorative practice before bed, or a more vigorous practice in the morning.
I'm working on being more mindful in my eating and daily activities - moving out of multi-tasking busyness whenever I can.
It’s lovely to meet you here, how wonderful to connect and share our spiritual practices. I listen to a Gurudev podcast on awakening, and read the Daily Guru reading. My japa and meditation practice has been haphazard unfortunately, but I do an Integral hatha practice most mornings, with pranayama. I try to watch one of the lifestyle videos here, and am currently reading Take Your Time, by Eknath easwaran. I have purchased a few spiritual books on audible and listen to one to put me to sleep, right now it is Works of Vivekananda. Some evenings I will listen to a Krishna Das podcast. Sometimes I feel my practices are all over the place, maybe it’s my vata nature 😂, Id love to be more regimented. 🕉☮️☮️☮️
I have the same feelings about my Vata nature and longing for more discipline, but I'm learning to love my Vata nature more and instead ask my body )or mind) what it needs today.
Hi friends. I hope everyone here is doing well. I took the liberty of starting a new thread where we could post our daily practises and anything else that is on our mind for daily chat. All of the threads here have been very quiet lately. Please feel free to chime in. I am a (65 y/o) yoga teacher in southwestern Ontario, have not been able to teach Hatha classes in 17 months. I trust that you all, like myself, I’ve been working on creating your own space and daily sadhana and hope that you are all doing well. Namaste
Hi Susan, I'm in the same boat with teaching. I haven't taught a group hatha class since March 11, 2020. I'm in, and have participated in, many classes with Integral Yoga during this time and my life, opportunities and activities are looking very different than 17 months ago. I'm learning the meaning and application of adapt, adjust, accommodate, and also following the advice of St. Catherine of Sienna, to "start being brave about everything', Om Shanti
I started this to keep me from getting distracted and I will admit the only part of my practice I kept over the last 6 months has been the Daily Guru reading. I have been reading them so long that some of them are familiar. This weekend I took an online course thru Yogaville and realized that I miss the simplicity and Integral Yoga "recipe". Tonight I started the 21 day meditation series and put my altar back together (I moved and it was in a box). Om Shanti!
Hi Lisa! I did the 21 day meditation reset in August, and now for the first time in my life I look forward to meditating daily. Enjoy the course.
Hari Om, all! I'm just tapping into all that IYTV offers and so happy to come upon this chat. I finished up Raja Yoga Teacher Training with Sw. Karunananda in May '21 and have been developing a practice which is gradually becoming more regular and helpful. I'm also Vata by nature and find it not easy to be so regimented with regard to time but I do manage most days to get in at least one 30 min sitting of chanting/meditation/pranayama/hatha per day. For those with access, I started by using a 30 min guide by Narada which was made available to those of us who were enrolled in RYTT class but it may also be available through membership? In August, I became afflicted with a debilitating vestibular health issue so I've had to rely upon only doing a 20-30 min Hatha stretch that I developed years ago which is all floor based. Thankfully, the symptoms have abated in the past couple of weeks and happy to just begin to expand into more active standing Hatha class. In addition to reading Daily Guru upon rising each day, I have enjoyed the videos, Satsangs, and other programs offered on the weekends. Also, took part in the Pranayama workshop over the summer. So grateful for the Ashram and all who support the teachings of Sri Sw. Satchidananda! Om Shanti Shanti Shanti :)