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The Mind is Like a Dixie Cup (Lauran Janes)

Yoga is the state where nothing is missing. There are galaxies upon upon galaxies, in fact, all galaxies are within you. Suns, moons, stars, planets. Not just one planet. Intricate systems work together within you. There is water, electricity, waves, vibrations, the building blocks of every living thing exist within you. Nothing’s missing.

There’s a story about Krishna’s as a boy. He was eating dirt. His mother found out and came to him and asked if he was eating dirt. With cheeks full of earth Krishna shook his head, no. His mother insisted he open mouth. She peered down his throat, passed the black earth on his tongue and guess what she saw? The entire universe! Stars, suns, moons, space...so much space. And then what happened? She passes out cold. The mind is like a Dixie cup. It can’t hold that ocean. In Krishna's mother's case, it literally shut off.

It is helpful to think of the mind as a label making machine. All day long, mak'n labels. “Mother”, “son”, “woman”, “boy”, “democrat”, “republican”, “upper class”, “lower class”, “white”, “black”. The mind attaches very specific qualities to each label to assist the individuation process. The mind convinces itself that the label it created and the quality that it connected to that label is “right” (“right”, of course, is another label in and of itself). The Dixie cup can hold a sense of its own “rightness”.

So what do we do with these two seemingly opposing realities - with the Dixie-cup-label-making-machine and the vast Ocean-of-galaxies within us? There was a time that I would have shouted an "answer" to the above question. DITCH the Dixie Cup and DIVE into the Ocean! But some labeling is good, is very helpful, keeps us alive. And too much time in the inner-cosmos creates an imbalance with our here-and-now concrete reality. It seems the graceful moving between the mind and the inner vastness is what is necessary. And that graceful oscillation is a most profound art form. Go in. Move out. Go in. Move out. All our days, like that.

Lauran's Videos

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	Exploring Our Hips	Lauran Janes presents a 50-minute class dedicated to our hips. Run Time 51 min.
	Playing With Yoga	Lauran Janes brings presents a fresh playfulness to your practice of yoga. This yoga sequence is not for beginning yoga students but more of an intermediate level class. Run time 72 min.
	How We Meet Resistance	A large part of yoga is learning how your body meets resistance. Lauran does a wonderful job of teaching us that playing with how our body meet resistance is an excellent way to learn. How you approach resistance on the yoga mat can teach us a lot about how we meet restqnce in other aspects of our daily lives. Run Time 62 min.

The Cat in the Hat & Resistance in the Body (Lauran Janes)

Like Dr. Seuss’s book, Oh The Places You’ll Go, perhaps some day I’ll write a book for my yoga students titled Oh The Obstacles You’ll Meet.

In class I often refer to these obstacles as “resistance”. When I first began the yoga asana practice I met the resistance of my hamstrings, my hips, and my spine. I met the resistance of neglected and denied emotions. I met the resistance of my self-doubt, the twisted knot of my lack of self-compassion, and the exhaustion of an unloved body. I met the resistance of a chronically dense sensation in my heart-center. I met the resistance of an over-active inner-critic. I met the resistance of an over-active perfectionist. Oh the Resistance I Met.

In the face of resistance on the yoga mat I have found the following questions to be very powerful and empowering tools: How am I meeting this resistance? Am I meeting this resistance with a fight - with my fists clenched, teeth gripped and shallow breath? Can I meet this resistance with its opposite - with a patient exhalation, a soft loose jaw and with loving compassion directed to the area of resistance?

Consider the lives and choices of Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa and Gandhi. These individuals lives reflect the possibility (and power) in meeting resistance with something other than...more resistance. They met life's inevitable resistances with non-violence, calm, compassion and intelligence. Their lives teach me that since resistance is inevitable how I handle resistance is my only choice. Staying tuned to how I confront obstacles and choosing a love-based response to them is one way to practice living yoga off the mat.

Oh the Compassion We'll Cultivate.