Balancing Doing and Being

It’s getting very quiet and dark as we approach the winter solstice next week. I’ve been touching stillness more often and more consciously lately. Not defining it. Just noticing it. Looking for silences between things. Putting my attention on a breath. Connecting my attention to the feeling of aliveness that is behind being-ness. 

I hear that the art of living is to balance doing with being. Not to pick one. But to inhabit the intersection. 

I teach people a highly structured technique of practicing yoga that can be used for awakening to aliveness and being-ness. But please, a word of caution, don’t lose yourself in the doing of your practice. The doing needs to be balanced with being. It’s not difficult. You can bring stillness and being to your practice (and to your life) by looking for silences between things. Taking a conscious breath. Noticing the aliveness inhabiting your physical form, your inner body. 

As we explore these quietudes in the shala lately, I am in bliss. (Sure, I’d like to sleep in. Sure, I am hitting snooze EVERY day). But, it is just so special to share these dark mornings, leading up to the darkest of mornings, with others who are feeling into the mystery of aliveness and human-ness in the way that we do at Mysore Melbourne. 

Soon we’ll take a little break from routine and rest. I look forward to seasons unfolding ahead. After the solstice, plants will start putting out new shoots. The yoga shala will slowly fill up with old and new friends. We’ll keep doing what we do and bringing being-ness to that. :)