Santulana, Dynamic Balance

I can't believe it has been week over a month since my last email. Time does fly. It feels great to be writing these emails again though. 

I decided to investigate this theme of balance lately since it has been a challenge to experience it more often in the last few months. I discovered that it is a very rich and nuanced topic in yoga philosophy. In Sanskrit, Santulana is the act or state of balancing. As an act, Santulana requieres action to experience it but in our daily lives who has time for that, right? 

One of my teachers shared with us that a student decided to observed what he did throughout the day since he could not find time to study. One of the things he did was to use an app that tracked his usage of social media. After a week, he discovered that he was on social media about 3-4 hours a day. He did not notice that because it was 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, and yes sometimes an hour or more at a time. 

I am not advocating for not using social media. What I want to point out is that we can find time to practice and experience dynamic balance in our daily lives and not just during yoga class. As we go through our day and something challenges us, we can stop and observe how can we do that in a way that feels more balanced. As we do menial things like doing the dishes or walking or waiting for and traveling in the train we can work on our posture or focus on our breath.

Just like we naturally carve out time to do so many things during the day we can naturally carve time for dynamic balance.

I look forward to seeing you in class.

Breathe easy.

Blessings

Jorge Nihāl