What Kind Of Yogi Are You?

So today's talk is all about,

It's called what kind of yogi are you?

The reason I love talking about this is that on a really basic level we need to feel whole right?

Like yoga is not about,

It's actually not about you know touching your toes and sitting in full Lotus and and all that kind of thing.

Yoga is a practice of literally bringing everything together,

Bringing our divine self,

Bringing our every aspect of who we are together.

But more than that it's about being happy right?

It's about actually feeling like we connect with the universe.

Like that we matter,

We're not just floating around unimportant.

Right?

That every single one of us here really matters right?

That we really count.

And this isn't something we can figure out intellectually right?

It doesn't matter how many books we read or how much yoga we do or whatever.

It doesn't help us fit in,

It doesn't help us fit into the universe,

It doesn't help us feel connected to God,

It doesn't help us feel happy and have meaning in life.

So the question is,

What does make us feel happy?

What actually makes us want to wake up in the morning and make us feel like we belong here on planet earth?

What makes us feel like we belong in the community?

What that makes us connect to other people?

That makes us capable of being able to even have intimacy and love and relationships.

Like what is it that makes us glue together on the inside that makes us feel like we actually exist?

Like we're not just pawns in a great scheme or something.

And this is really the question of yoga right?

This is actually the teachings that have been passed down from master to student for millennia.

Like this is really the point.

And what's really beautiful about this and one of the reasons I like to teach this is that oftentimes we feel called to yoga right?

Like there was a time that I felt called to tantra right?

I didn't even know what tantra was but I knew I was called to it.

And sometimes we're called to yoga.

So we maybe go to a hatha yoga class and maybe we love it,

Maybe we go hmm or maybe we do meditation,

Maybe we're great and we love it or maybe we don't love it.

You know when we ask ourselves like what's wrong with me?

I feel so called to yoga and yet this is hard or I can't quiet my mind or or or or and then we feel like we're a loser and we just we're just no good at yoga kind of idea right?

So we're gonna talk about five different yogic paths and to understand that every yogic path is equal and there's many more than five right?

There's probably seven and a half billion since there are seven and a half billion people on the planet right?

Whatever combination of these make you feel whole,

Happy,

Connected,

Grounded,

Exalted,

Safe right?

Then that is your yogic path and it's always interesting to be aware of when someone else gives you advice they will like you likely give you advice based on their yogic path right?

If they are a hatha yogi they will tell you you know what do this these sets of asana.

If someone is a raja yogi they will say all you need to do is meditate right?

Like if someone is a karma yogi they'll say you know what all you need to do just go and do some volunteering in the community and everything will come straight.

So it's always very interesting to be aware of who's giving you advice because they very likely will give you advice based on the way that works for them right?

So it's just a an awareness right?

One to truly honor what works for you.

It isn't about beating yourselves up trying to do something that is hard.

The path of yoga that is right for you the second you're doing it all will come in line right?

So the first yoga I want to talk about is karma yoga and when I first started really pondering this I was actually thinking about my mom and because my mom was a karma yogi and my mom didn't know what yoga was.

I realized that everything to do with yoga,

Yoga is just a word right?

It's not a thing it's it's a word it means whatever yokes you together whatever brings peace whatever brings all of our disparate selves together that's what yoga is right?

So my mom was a grade six teacher in inner city school inner city schools in Toronto and and it was really hard for her like I remember she was so funny my mom she had like bright red hair she she was kind of like Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus it's a cartoon I don't know if it's all over the world but it's a cartoon and she was sort of all the kids friends but she was also their mom and she was also you know and every year I remember my mom would start the class and she would come home and she'd be sitting with my dad in the living room well or the in the kitchen while my sisters and I were in the living room watching you know happy days or something and mom would sit down and she'd say oh Vic she'd say this might be the hardest group of kids I've ever had.

Wow I just don't know because they were really from difficult homes and really really tough place right but then she would have her ukulele Club and then she would have after-school programs and then and my mom was very mothering like a lot of who I am comes from my mom right so if you know me you know my mom right and you know I mean when she died the funeral home was filled with people like my mom died when I was about 25 if you're new but um and it was also filled with all of her students lined up down the road all the students that she was mom to she is a karma yogi she couldn't have imagined doing anything but working with those children right and at the end of the year every year my sisters and I would laugh her heads off because every year she would sit down and it would just be for the final graduation and she'd sit with my dad and say you know Vic I think this is the best group of kids I've ever had every year and then we would wait for the summer to pass and we would start she would start over I think these are the toughest kids but what's interesting about being a karma yogi and karma yogis can be anything they can be people they're people who are drawn to work in the world but there's no like nobody owes them they're not doing charity work for prestige they might not even tell you they're doing charity work or and it doesn't matter if they do it's not like that but they're the Jane Goodalls of the world who couldn't imagine doing anything besides working with gorillas they're the Julia butterflies who lived up in a thousand year old redwood because that's the only thing she could imagine doing right these are the people who maybe become nurses doctors teachers anything because in their heart not because of money not because of anything else but because in their heart all they want to do is help others and when they're helping others they feel one with God they may not use those words but they feel like they fit into the community as they were designed to this is the karma yogi this is the Gandhi these are the people who these are even people when the kids in the school yard if someone is being bullied they're the kid that says hey come with me don't worry about them right there's no fanfare there's no requirement it does something inside of them and it comes perfectly natural so do these people also have to go do another yoga practice to connect with God no not unless they want to but they may spend their lives dedicated to helping others and they are a karma yogi and this path is as wonderful and righteous and spiritual as sitting in meditation or doing anything else this is karma yogi karma yoga right then there are the bhakti yogis and bhakti bhakti yoga is often we talk about chanting kirtan right all that kind of thing and bhakti yoga is certainly um it is certainly all about that but the real question so for me yoga has to actually hit the ground running it has to actually apply to our lives right it can't just be an idea it can't just be something we do in class it can't be something we just do with a group it has to actually help us in the dark times right yoga is a practice for life right so bhakti yoga how does it help us in our day-to-day life I love kirtan I love chanting all those kind of well I don't always love chanting but sometimes I do if it's fun and it's really got excellent energy but how does bhakti yoga actually help us in the dark times that becomes the real question so the spirit of bhakti yoga is the desire to embody the divine right it's actually it's the Christian who has a lot of Christians where not a lot of Christians but it's a thing where they wear a bracelet and it says wwjd what would Jesus do and it's a reminder that if they're about to do something that they're gonna regret they stop they take a breath and they say what would Jesus do right now and they act differently this is bhakti yoga if you are particularly called to Ganesh or Shiva or Durga or Muhammad or whoever it is that fills your heart with faith and optimism and a different perspective then in any moment and you sit and you say what would Ganesh do what would Durga do this is bhakti yoga because in this moment in this dark moment I need help so I am going to embody the divine in this moment and you can imagine how powerful this is right because we can get very caught up in our personalities we can get very caught up in our pain our pain body our anger right and if we can stop for one moment and say what would Gandhi do what and what would Martin Luther King do right this is very powerful this is very powerful medicine in our difficult times right so why do we chant in kirtan why do we sit and chant Saraswati why do we chant Ganesh Shiva why do we do that because as we chant it ideally we are embodying the spirit of those aspects of ourselves of those aspects of our own divine nature it isn't just empty chanting if we really because again it's it's very important to dive deep into a yoga practice right in the same way that an asana practice which we'll talk about next could just be physical exercises you can also go deep into that asana and ask ourselves what is this asana mean body mind and soul is it really just Cobra or am I grounded on the earth and opening my heart center right what is this asana really mean what is to dasana mean what does mountain pose mean this connection of the divine and earth that I am how more powerful is to dasana when I understand that and it's the same with bhakti yoga if I chant if I sit in kirtan how much more powerful is this when I understand the nature of the gods and goddesses whose names I've chant I'm chanting if every time I say Ganesh and I know that every time I say Ganesha I can move through any obstacle light that's in front of me right to know this deep inside if every time I chant the word Durga I know that boundaries and who I am this is powerful that I am immovable in my truth this is bhakti yoga and it's beautiful and it's not for everybody but for many people if we sit and we say I want to embody this aspect of the divine within me right now it will happen and miracles will happen suddenly our lives will take an entirely different turn and we'll take a different path bhakti yoga is very very beautiful then there's hatha yoga and hatha yoga is what's most common in the West I mean there's a million versions of hatha yoga but the key thing about hatha yoga and again to remember that yoga is all about what brings us peace what connects us to God right hatha yoga is when doing something physical through the body connects you to your divine nature and this could be anything like this could be asana practice it could be hiking it could be horseback riding it could be mountain climbing it can be diet it can be limiting diet or an ascetic practice of some flavor that forces us into the body and this isn't for everybody some people do yoga classes hatha yoga classes for exercise and stretchiness and and it's lovely right and that's awesome you may not be a hatha yogi but you know there are people who love their hatha yoga practice they love it they every day they wake up and they cannot wait to get on the mat and begin their hatha yoga practice these are hatha yogis no one's telling them to get on the mat no one's saying you need to do this every day these people cannot wait because the moment they sit and the moment they they tune in and they begin to move their body they feel one with God they are complete they connect parts inside of them that makes sense this is a hatha yogi in the in the really serious hatha yogis they would go so far as to imagine your goal is to meet God right and I know that word is a bit sketchy for a lot of people but it really is the foundation of yoga right so just replace it with whatever feels right for you so a true hatha yogi may also alter their diet and eat a very sattvic diet right they will only move their body in a certain way they may sunbathe they may do whatever but the experience of wholeness will come through the physical body right so this is very important because not everybody is a hatha yogi not everybody like if you are doing hatha yoga and by doing it you do not feel closer to God you do not feel happier you do not feel connected inside then it's not your path you may do it for exercise and health reasons but that's not yoga then and it's okay right we do lots of things that aren't yoga right but if it brings you closer to God if it brings you closer to you then then you are a hatha yogi awesome possum right some of my best friends are amazing hatha yogis and they live for it and they would never ever miss a day and they're brilliant hatha yoga teachers as well they share that passion because even there you think of that when someone is naturally a hatha yogi like I'm thinking of this one friend of mine she's so embodies hatha yoga she so embodies it when she teaches and she moves through the postures her whole aura I swear it's like 10 kilometers wide right and so everyone in the room feels the aura of a hatha yogi in bliss it's so palpable and this is why people just flock to her classes because this is her calling right then there is nyani yoga and nyani yoga is normally spelt it can be spelt G N A N A or J N A N A it's a Sanskrit word it's not spelt in English at all but if you ever don't know what I'm saying nyani yoga if I was to pick one yoga that I truly was it's a nyani yogi which is why if you've attended many of my classes I'm always quoting people right and then there's this book I read that really blew my mind and then there's Viktor Frankl who just altered my being and then there's Gandhi who just this is the sign of a nyani yoga yogi because when my world is spinning when I don't know what to do and when things are just going sideways in my life I sit down and I read the Tao teaching or I read the Bhagavad Gita or I read the Bible or I read the Prophet or I read Viktor Frankl or Gandhi or Ramanujan whoever it is that have been in my opinion blissfully connected to God and then they've written about it I read these things and everything in my world comes to center for me on my journey no amount of yoga ever does that for me yoga is good for me and it does other things but when I sit and read the words of someone I come to peace and I understand who I am again and if this is you if reading words in a book bring you to center if they make you feel connected could I define God no the worst thing we can ever do in the world is define God it's uh for me I like the word God I actually it is a word that has misused as it's been used I understand it as a placeholder for something I cannot understand but it also holds a sacredness that carries weight in me that takes it seriously it's like in Taoism you know that the Tao that can be named is not the Tao you know if you meet the Buddha on the path kill him all these kind of things and even in Christianity you know I am the great I am right that I am NOT to be named do not all every name is almost a false idol the best I can explain especially in the context of this talk is so there's every one of us sitting here all of our individual personalities every one of us has a particular path a particular incarnation a body a job whatever it is we are but there's more there's more than that there's something infinite there's something expansive there's something that connects all of us there's something that in my experience holds guidance for me God for me isn't just an energy I don't understand it but all I know is that when I close my eyes and ask for guidance an answer comes one answer that you know in yogic terms would be considered Satya I don't know where that answer comes from all of our languaging my highest self God global consciousness whatever universal wisdom who knows it's all just words right they're all just words pointing to something the more we have faith in that something that we can't explain the better we are and the more powerful it is it's like I love the in Buddhist teachings how they talk about you know the Buddha would say don't believe what I said go out and live it then you will know it's not a belief it's something you've experienced it's a real thing that to me is the same with God whatever you understand again this is my word I whatever other word is fine it's just a placeholder it's not it's not interesting beyond that it's whatever really brings us peace guidance wholeness connection and it's the same with this whole practice if you're a karma yogi and you love helping others genuinely love helping others not some weird twisted passive-aggressive you know you know what I mean something magical connects inside it's like you know it's really interesting even about the discussion of God is you know in yoga we effortlessly talk about the seven chakras of the body we'll talk about the seventh chakra connection to God connection to infinity connection to that whatever that is for you is the answer and this is what's interesting because whether you're a karma yogi bhakti yoga yogi hatha yogi jnani yogi raja yogi which we'll talk about next all the chakras line up if that's a way of looking at it that my physical self in my lower triangle my first three chakras effortlessly merge and blend with my upper chakras my sense of infinity guidance sharing and they magically merge together words come inspiration comes I mean this is our divine self this is our physical self you know what does that mean what is the divine self mean to you it's a very very important question that very likely doesn't have words in language but this is what we ponder right so for example the last kind of yoga or the last path of yoga I want to talk about is Raja yoga and Raja means King and Raja yoga in in the West probably hatha yoga and Raja yoga are the most commonly understood paths or there I don't know if they're understood but the most common yoga Raja yoga is meditation Raja yoga is when you sit in a meditative posture and you breathe deeply and your intention and I'm gonna keep using these words just because they're mine and feel free to change them when my desire to connect with the divine will happen through focusing within through feeling that portal through feeling the energy flow through my body through finding Zen silence and in that silence I will experience God I will experience infinity nothingness Zen Shunya however we understand this to be I will sit in silence and listen with perfect focus with perfect awareness and in that space something happens our personality drops away our fears drop away right and we sit in this beautiful quiet and in that place we are one with God we are one with the divine we are one with the universe this is Raja yoga this is not everyone's path right and this is why it's really really important and this is one of the reasons I like talking about this because just because you cannot sit still in silence does not mean you are not a great yogi maybe that isn't your path maybe doing beautiful pranayama to help heal your nervous system is very good medicine maybe sitting in quiet is good medicine to find this beautiful center but it may not be your path to God it may not be your path to divine it may not be your yogic calling on this planet right or maybe it's a part of it so when you hear of people saying the way to cut you know the way of yoga is to sit for an hour in quiet contemplation if they are truly a Raja yogi and and understand that our society is really twisted that we have this idea that discipline the discipline of yoga is to sit until my legs fall asleep and I'm literally just driving myself crazy and I've accomplished something in that hour this is nonsense in my opinion but sheer nonsense yoga is not about beating yourself up yoga is a path to God it's a path to happiness it's a path of happiness so when I sit if I ever feel called to sit in silent meditation which I do right on occasion I love sitting in silent meditation the reason I love sitting in silent meditation is because the world starts to spin around me and I find my center and I sit beautifully quiet and it doesn't matter what's going on my thoughts melt away the craziness of the world disappears and I feel connected to something greater that is when I sit in silence because I'm not naturally a Raja yogi I use it to help me find the center if I sit and read a book for example if I read the Bhagavad Gita it brings me there I just have to read a few passages if I read Thich Nhat Hanh Thich Nhat Hanh he's so interesting because I've actually never really read any of his books but when I used to go to the library I would be just you know let's say something was going on I mean we've all got stuff going on in our life right something was going on in my life I would just pick one of his books off the the shelf and it was like it would transmit right into me and my whole body would just relax my mind would rest everything would rest I didn't have to try like to know that life isn't about torturing ourselves like even discipline the word discipline comes from the root word of disciple and disciple means you choose something you love right that you absolutely love and you become a disciple of that so like let's say you truly are a Raja yogi let's say you love sitting in silence right well you will make a discipline out of it and every day you will sit in silent meditation and you will enjoy the journey of each moment right the journey of sitting in silence becomes an expansive experience just as expansive as reading a great book or doing an amazing asana practice or volunteering in the community or chanting mantra sitting in that silence is the portal that's the doorway to a different reality if that is you you are Raja yogi oftentimes the Raja yoga path is connected with the eightfold path so they may contemplate the yamas and the niyamas and all these things that I which I don't want to get into right now that's a big topic but they may use something like dharana right dharana means concentration so they may focus on a candle or focus on a yantra on the wall like it's not a mandala but it's a picture that helps bring you focused to God or they may practice dhyana and dhyana is when you sit in meditation and you're not focused on anything you're actually focused on nothing and therefore you are with all things but you sit in this beautiful peace it's like when you where I live for example you can walk down the street and sit on a park bench and look over the cliff at the lake and you sit there and you breathe quietly this is Raja yoga it's sitting and looking at the stars it's watching a sunset in the silence and feeling this beautiful connection so all of these things like you may be some little bit of all of these things or there may be times that each one of them works for you but it's a really beautiful path to find yours to find the one that's it's not just that it's easy that it works if you do an asana practice and you feel wonderful after and not just after but during like sometimes yeah I mean it feels good to stretch it feels good to have been with my breath it feels good to center but did it bring you joy doing it this is what's really important we don't focus on joy enough we don't focus enough on the perfection of your design that you are perfectly designed and what brings you joy is your yoga right we sort of been taught that oh no no you need to be improved it's something that you need improvement it's like I remember reading the autobiography because you know because I'm a nyani yogi of Darwin and Darwin every single day we get up I can't remember this now but he would get up and he had this daily Constitution that he would get up he would walk for five miles then he would come home he would answer all of his correspondence then he would have a rest then he would write then he would do this this was his yoga this was what he did every day that made his life make sense imagine this focus imagine filling your life with things that brought you to Center only no forced discipline joyful discipline joyful choice to follow our bliss that this is legit following our bliss what do you do when your bliss is through movement like yoga hiking dancing but you're chronically ill and have restricted mobility okay so to understand that every one of these paths is never about accomplishment it's never about how long did I sit in meditation how many mantras do I know what posture did I accomplish how many people did I help there's no counting this is about connection this is about what connects us to our divine so if we're chronically ill and we love movement then the journey is still through movement but it's not about accomplishment it's about the experience of the movement so let's say you were in a wheelchair and you could only move your upper body and now you close your eyes and you put on music and you feel the music inside of you and you move your body to the mood to the music the intention is the experience right so you are moving to this movement you are completely present and you are moving all that you possibly can maybe all you can move is one shoulder maybe that's all you've got and you dive into that experience right it doesn't matter what it is maybe you lie in a hospital bed and you cannot move but you can move your face and you move your face and you feel the music and you feel the movement it's through this movement that you feel alive it's the inner experience that matters one of the reasons I love teaching kundalini yoga is that there are no levels when I taught I would have people there who were in wheelchairs who couldn't move their bodies at all who were 90 who were five who were whatever because the experience is inside all happiness comes from inside so the key is no matter what our illness no matter what our disability if it's movement we love then we find the smallest movement and we dive into it and infinity happens in that space well thank you so much for joining me here today please join our circle tantra love and connection with Katrina boss search for Katrina boss in the circles and you'll find us there so thanks so much for being here I hope you have a wonderful day or evening and I will see you guys later