Okay. Another confession. Despite my cellulite-free quads, I am not a real yogini. Not by Bikram standards. Because Bikram says, “Healthy spine, healthy life.” Well, my spine flexes nicely enough, but my mind is far from positive. I wouldn’t call my mind healthy other than that I practice almost daily for reasons I don’t even understand. I may have the yoga bod, but I lack the yoga mind.

I learned the other day what the yoga mind is. It has five characteristics, first and foremost being faith that the practice of yoga yields benefits for body and mind. The more profound lesson of this one is that effort is effective. The other four, in order of either importance or difficulty, I am not sure which, are discipline, concentration, determination, and patience. And these also are virtues and abilities that improve life. I can often apply them on the mat but they are missing in action in my life.

So what I am saying to myself is rule one: have faith. Because I do know perfectly well that years of effort gave me my full-out hero, and a month of daily efforts taught me the trick of balancing in toe-stand. Maybe the mind parts of the practice are harder and require much more work, more patience, more months, more years.

The catch is, I don’t even feel the imminence of a yoga mind the way I feel when I am progressing toward the full expression of a pose. Every now and then I am able to endure difficulty, every now and then I stay calm when I once might have freaked out, but if I had the yoga mind I would be living my life very differently. The only thing to do is practice and hope practice makes perfect, or perfecter, or at least makes a real yogini of me.

And if I could choose, I’d prefer to be possessed of the yoga mind.

Namaste,
Yoga Lily