On Practice

why + how

It is so easy to get stuck in thought patterns or behavioral patterns that doesn’t serve our life or practice. In this section, we will explore different aspects and elements of a spiritual practice - sadhana - which we hope will inspire and nurture your inner journey. We will address different relevant themes and questions that can arise when we go within. As all parts of this site, the content will evolve as we go, whereas each topic will get fleshed out over time. Please also note that what is listed here, will often intimately correlate to what is shared in the Philosophy section. The overlap is inevitable. As is the correlation between our practice and the rest of life - as both serve as foundations for our inner work. There is really no separation between ‘practice’ and ‘life’ if you look closely enough. However, a practice is an excellent place to apply tools of introspection and contemplation, which will eventually spill over into life as a whole. If you have questions or topics that you would like to see addressed here, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Since keeping a one-pointed focus is extremely valuable when applying a method, we’ve shed layers of practices along the way, yet been blessed with insights from each of them. The content we share is of course based on our own experiences, which may lend you to believe that we are biased toward a certain path or method. But we remain open and inclusive. Everyone has their own individual journey to take, whereas the path doesn’t matter as much as ones devotion towards it. All paths point towards surrender, and at the heart of it, they all land back at what was always here in the first place - our fundamental nature, the essence, our self.

BEYOND THE METHOD
What is important here is that we intend to look beyond any particular method or practice. We much rather address the context, the attitude, the tools that applies to any practice. It is easy to get into a dualistic mindset when discussing different methods, so let’s remember that everyone comes into this existence with different conditioning and constitutions. The different methods that are available at large, are all targeting different individual make-ups in their own way, serving different sets of conditioning. Hence we appreciate all paths. At the end of the day, you will have to drop your attachment to whatever practice you’ve adopted. Any practice can only take you thus far. However, the different paths serve to open you up to new possibilities and perspectives, as they prepare us for the simple, yet profound; the recognition that what we are striving for is already at our core. So, as we explore further, let’s collectively stay open-minded and open-hearted when we dive deeper into these subjects. Being non-inclusive would go against the whole philosophy of yoga. No method is better than any other. That belief only exists on the dualistic plane. Being dogmatic about a path or method being ‘better’ than others, is - in our humble opinion - just revealing attachments and dogmas that doesn’t serve anyone on the path. At the end of the day, all paths point to the same source.

One of our main beliefs is that it is not the style of practice that matters, it is the devotion with which you give yourself to the practice - literally giving up your ideas and the ways you continue to be self-clinging. But the continuity also plays an important part, the honesty, the attitude, and the level of attention that you bring into your practice (and into life). We always recommend sticking to one method for an extended period of time - in terms of pranayama, concentration/meditation, or asana (posture) practice - as it evokes much deeper meditative and contemplative qualities in a practice (and is healthier for the nervous system) to stick with one thing for a while. If you’re digging a well trying to find water, it is much better to dig one deep hole rather than many shallow ones. There is a time for exploring different modalities, but once you’ve found one that resonates, stick with it for a while. Explore it. This, in turn, will both challenge and reprogram the extremely distracted and experience-hunting mindset we are conditioned with in today’s world of instant gratification and endless information stimulus. It will be challenging, but it will be rewarding.

DO WE NEED A PRACTICE?
No, not at all. But for some, it helps.

We often start a practice to relieve suffering, be it triggered by mental, emotional or physical stressors. We may have experienced some type of dis-ease that we wish to alleviate - and are somehow pointed to yoga. It does work wonders, on all these levels. But we have to remember that all benefits are side effects and that we still have to be willing to go to the root of an issue in order to fully dissolve it. In this sense, yoga can be like therapy. As a combined modality of deep breathing, concentration, contemplation, it pretty quickly is appreciated as yoga therapy. There is a responsibility that is nurtured through a practice, that we are all responsible for our response-ability and our contentment. We can’t always change the world around us, but we can change the way we respond and relate to the world around us.

A practice turns the awareness inward, makes us face ourselves, makes us see our patterns, allows us to play with the relationship between the inner and external world, it can help give us glimpses of that which is always there underneath all the layers of distraction that cover it up. A practice is a mirror. And a gift.

The question - about having a practice or not - arise for most of us, especially in moments when the motivation is low. Turn the question around and ask yourself, ‘Who is the one who believes that one needs a practice?’ Once you pierce the question, you’ll notice how this is just another belief. Our biggest fear in life as a human, is our own freedom. We unconsciously cling to people, situations, emotions, experiences, even memories, to create some sort of structure for our psyche to make sense of the immense freedom that we have. The truth is, if we just stayed long enough to see past this, we would enjoy the freedom. To enjoy the space between the moments that we pack full of stuff. When we witness this, and it is fully registered, we have a choice. We always have a choice, but we’re more or less conscious of it. However, 1) a regular practice can point one to this truth, 2) the practice takes on a different purpose - which is; none at all. Based on this, one still practices - because of the joy of expanded awareness and deepened connection with oneself. It becomes something that is deeply correlated with the joy of being. Simple as that. Everything, even the practice itself, will not serve in reaching an end-goal, because there was never anywhere to go to begin with. The practice is a bonus, a way of getting more intimate with the experience of Life. It is a way to bring together and align the ultimate reality with ones relative reality.

We do not need a practice to see the Truth or to taste what freedom truly is. If we look closely enough, that reality is already here as the substratum of our experience (though we get side-tracked by distractions and miss the obvious). The shifts of perspective is something that can happen spontaneously, even to those that have never looked within, or gradually over time - with or without a practice. What is mentioned on this site is merely shared to tickle the mind to become more familiar with the terrain.

INQUIRY
What is discussed on this website are useful tools to deepen the internal investigation. These concept and ideas can be applied anywhere along the journey, or every step of the way, or not at all. At the end of the day, we have to come to grips with the fact that a practice and philosophical ideas are merely that - part of the divine play, duality and illusion. They are embedded in beliefs, which at the end of the day, we are here to drop. Some may argue that practices and philosophy serve to prepare the body/mind complex to befriend the unknown - the new terrain of expanded awareness. Absolutely! But that is also the flip side of the same coin of illusion. We have to drop it all to truly know it. It’s such a potent paradox. It is in the expansiveness that all of these ideas of holding on and letting go are cradled. No matter what stance we take about these matters, intellectually, we have to drop ALL concepts and ideas - including any practices and our attachments to them - to really see That which is beyond. So, as you move through the content on this site, don’t get hung up on words or descriptions - don’t miss the forest for the trees - don’t ride the waves not experiencing the ocean.