One day during our recent trip to India, we were taking a tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw) out to Sarnath, the place where the Buddha was thought to have given his first sermon five days after his enlightenment. As we were bouncing along the road, our driver dodging and weaving to avoid cows, pot holes and other vehicles, I noticed this young child walking by himself along the road. He would have been no older than two years, partially clothed and seemingly quite at ease ambling along by himself, no apparent sibling or adult within sight.
I thought to myself, “Wow! You’d never see that in the States…a kid under two just walking down the road with no obvious care in the world”. It would freak people out, just as the sight of this solo child made me stop and think about how different life was in India.
I realized that from as young an age as possible, many of the kids we saw were being taught self-reliance. Intentional or not it was a striking difference to what I knew.
It has led me to my thought for this week that of relying on others. If we need support, assistance or help, can we ask for it? Do we seek out people to do things for us or “fix” us to avoid our own responsibility of looking after it ourselves? How does the practice of yoga fit into the idea of self-reliance?
One of the many beautiful things about yoga is that you can do it anywhere. You don’t need a sticky mat, groovy designer yoga clothes or soft lights. Yogis from way, way back practiced on dirt in not much more than a loin cloth. They did have a teacher (guru) to help open the doorway to the practice, but as soon as the door is even cracked open, the student can begin practicing on their own.
I know that when I started a more regular asana (physical) practice, my need for chiropractic adjustments all but disappeared. I no longer needed to wait until an issue arose to have someone adjust me into a better place. I was doing that myself through the practice. I’m not minimizing the need of a chiropractor, or any other health practitioner, but how much responsibility can we take for our own health? Unfortunately, our culture is awash in having an issue and solving it with a prescription for medication.
How can we own our own health without putting it into the hands of others?
We can do so by better understanding our relationship to ourselves…all aspects of ourselves-body, mind and spirit. Yoga is one way to deepen this knowing by putting through conscious connection to awareness of breath, to moving our body, and to changing our inner dialogue to one which embraces who we fully are.
Yoga teaches us to become reliant on our inner voice. To trust our instincts and intuition. We glean what is needed to open our hearts from its teachers and teachings so that we may ultimately be in a fully loving and compassionate relationship with our own self.
And just as this two year old Indian boy mosey down the road, we too can find a sense of freedom by taking wellness into our own hands and using the support of others to enhance the process.
