MICHAEL FERGOT YOGA​

It depends on who you ask.  But as Yoga is a lineage of practices that extend back through many centuries and many cultures, you may receive many diverse replies.

Yoga at its root meaning as a verb is to yoke, to join together, to unite.  Like love in English, it may be both a verb and a noun.  And in our cultural bias we often perceive it as an object to be obtained.  “At-one-ment”  I feel so good after a practice because I am feeling more together with everything.  I feel "The Love".

Our best contemporary physicists assert that everything that is, is energy-matter in a continuum.  Yogis historically assert that our mind-body is part of that continuum and that everything the body experiences leaves an impression on our subtler body, the mind.  And that also, every thought and feeling that we have, has an impact on our body and its well being.  

Yoga is an invitation to deepen our understanding by deepening our experience.  Oh, and by the way, it can also be a lot of fun, and a great work out.  It depends on your experience.  

What you feel, depends on your experience.  What you do creates your experience.  How you think affects what you do, and therefor your experience.

For about 1,400 years individuals have been honoring their experience with the Sri Guru Stotram, a verse from a much larger work.  Guru can mean teacher, and your experience is your best teacher.

 

Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu

I greet the Expansive Teacher, I greet the Sustaining Teacher

Guru Devo Maheshwara

I greet the Teacher that dissolves limited understanding

Guru Sakshat Param Brahma

I greet the Teacher as close as the tip of my tongue, and beyond my comprehension

Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah

I offer my experience to a deeper experience of The Good