Margaret Austin Retreat Center - Texas
Raja Yoga Retreat

Yoga Classes

Many students of yoga practice from an ego-centered place of control. They are deaf to (or worse - choose to ignore) the body's attempts to communicate. From a place of intellect and ego, they impose yoga upon their body without awareness or respect for the steady stream of requests and suggestions coming back to them from muscles, joints, ligaments, skin, organs, and breath. This leads to a very confining concrete and rigid practice that does not adapt itself to the natural changes that occur as we grow, mature, and age.

When practicing from the intellect, students are trapped in the past and the future. They remember what they learned last year, focus on where they want to be next year, and very little attention is left over for awareness of the present moment. This fragmentation of attention is the antithesis of yoga (which means "to make whole", "to join" or "to bind") and leads to boredom and discontent. Many attempt to escape this boredom by pushing deeper into poses and taking chances, often at the expense of the body. Others simply quit and moveon to the next fad.

The emphasis at this retreat will be to learn to practice Hatha Yoga from the body rather than the intellect. Yoga does not take place in the past or the future. Yoga results from the total awareness of the present moment.

The motor cortex and sensory cortex of the brain do not operate in the past or the future, but only in the present moment. Likewise, breathing is a present experience. If for 90 minutes we can bring all of our attention to the breath or the interplay and feedback between movement and sensation, then we have spent 90 minutes living in the present moment.

The first Hatha Yogis did not learn from a human teacher. They were inspired from within by the presence of God and from without by watching animals. These cats, dogs, eagles and other animals were the first gurus, in honor of whom, Hatha Yoga named many of the asanas.

These original teachers of the very first yogis are still with us today. We can go to the same source that inspired the original yogi. What makes a teacher a teacher? Students! What turns a cat into a guru? The student who watches and learns from the cat.

If animals are teachers, what is it they teach? A cat stretches without thinking about how to stretch, whether it is time to stretch, how long to hold the stretch, or which stretch to do next. A cat stretches without thinking! It moves from the body, not the intellect. When a cat stretches, even the most rigid human can feel the joy that the cat knows. Cats love to live in their own fur. A cat knows how to live in the senses, to feel the life force, and to take pleasure in the simple routines of life, stretching, breathing, moving.

Most cats and dogs that I have known are not capable of human speech. But they still talk to us all the time. They still try to teach us with each movement and every stretch. What is it they are telling us? What is it that they already know, and we have forgotten? Animals know that within their own body resides an amazing teacher, speaking in a language of pleasure and pain. Animals know to move away from pain and to move into pleasure. The innate wisdom of the body guides each creature with this secret language of subtle and not so subtle sensations, and the result can be seen in the pleasure of a lioness stretching, or a gazelle leaping with unbounded joy.

Rather than moving from ego and intellect, move from the wisdom of the body. Let sensation guide you away from pain, and into pleasure. Learn to hear and trust this inner mind/body dialogue and let it guide you in your practice. This one lesson, once learned, practiced, and absorbed, puts you in touch with a voice more readily available and more reliable than a thousand teachers telling you what to do. Best of all, unlike the external authority figure who stands between you and God, your own inner teacher is God. Your Innner Guide is talking to you. Are you listening?

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