Why We Practice Yoga Early: Benefits of Morning Yoga

Transcript

yoga changed everything about my life before I started practicing yoga I was not a morning person I was a sleep in person to be honest with you I'm still not a morning person but yoga changed me uh which means that if I didn't have my practice I would just sleep in immediately again every time I get a day off I sleep in and I love it but that's definitely changed sleeping in used to be much later than it is now so the yoga practice is traditionally done early in the morning now I'll tell you how my life changed I didn't mean for my life to change I really just wanted to do the practice like twice a week when I first started practicing that's really all I wanted I thought two days a week yoga I could still have entertainment on the weekends life is good well I was able to do that for a little while and then I went to a traditional myour style asanga yoga practice and I did one class and at the end of that class it was in the morning and I remember I set like five alarms I get myself there at 7:30 in the morning felt so early for me you know and oh here I am I got to class I felt I didn't make it at 7:30 to be honest with you I was a little late but I arrived and I felt like yes this is wonderful I finished the class and the teacher came up to me and he said this class meets six days a week and you can come at 8 and I felt like I really only wanted to come Tuesday and Thursday and I was really hoping for around 9:30 but 8:00 6 days a week and I thought you know what let's try it so immediately my life changed so now 6 days a week I need to be on the mat practicing at 8:00 a.m. this changed what time I went to sleep this changed when I eat this changed what I could do in the evenings when I could have all forms of entertainment so my whole life changed and I didn't even really mean for it to happen but from one day to the next I started practicing six days a week at 8:00 and the more I practiced at 8:00 the more I felt like wow I'm I'm changing what time I sleep I'm sleeping better my body is feeling better my mind is feeling better I want to keep practicing less than a year after that first Ashtanga yoga class I found myself in India practicing with the living masters of the tradition who are my teachers kab Joyce and his grandson Ararat Jo and I'm so glad that I did because that also changed my life I never wanted to be a yoga teacher I just wanted to be a student started practicing there within a few weeks of practice they told me that I needed to show up at you're not going to believe this unless you're practicing asanga already then you're going to believe it at 4:30 a.m. and I just had to take a breath when they said you come tomorrow at 4:30 a.m. and I thought I look I didn't hear that I couldn't be right because I was already coming at 6:30 in the morning which I thought this is nuts first I come at 8 now I come at 6:30 now they want me here at 4:30 and I don't know about you but before I ever started yoga 4:30 a.m. felt for me like the end of a nice evening you know middle of the night uh if it's the best case scenario if the alarm went off at 4:30 in the morning maybe it was to catch a flight but it was certainly not to do physical movement so then my mind is doing all of these mental Loops oh my goodness what time do I have to go to bed to get up at 4:30 in the morning to take a shower and be there and all this sort of stuff so somehow I bring myself to practice at 4:30 in the morning and you know what it was amazing the amount of quiet intense introspection the energy that's present when the whole world is sleeping and you're awake devoting yourself to spiritual practice is something else now I learned after a long time after that for those first Mornings in India at 4:30 practice that the reason why the spiritual practice of yoga is best advised to practice as early as possible specifically in the hours before Sunrise between 4:30 and 6:30 or 4 and 6 just sort of depending on the time of year um and where you are uh but this specific time is What's called the Brahma Mora and this this is the time of day when the mind and the spirit is are most attuned to the Divine so it's the time when you can go deepest into your inner journey of spiritual practice so to practice during the Brahma Mora has the most power to evoke inner transformation it's the time when your inner Tapas and tapus is the Sanskrit word for that kind of um uh you know the the the fire of purification the what we surrender into the fire the difficulties the sacrifices that we take on for the practice the toughest that which transforms us so at the during the time of the Brahma morta when everybody else is sleeping when it's when you've already exerted great effort great sacrifice to get on your mat at that moment before your mind wakes up before the world wakes up before the sun wakes up before all of the organ systems in the body start to wake up before you get hungry at this time the deepest SP spiritual practice can happen it's extremely difficult to practice in the Brahma Mora when you have many other life commitments when you have to say work a late job or something like this so I had the wonderful opportunity of experiencing this special transformative time while I was in India practicing with my teachers and I had nothing else to do so if you're thinking about the Brahma morta and you're thinking there's no way I can practice at 4:30 in the morning gosh I won't be able to you know take care of my worldly responsibilities then my advice to you is to practice as close to first thing in the morning as possible there are small elements of the the the sort of the the sacrifice of carving out that special time that you can integrate into your practice every day first of all you can make a small commitment which is to not engage on social media until after your practice you could send no emails no text messages until after practice you could take a commitment to not engage with any sort of news so we don't read any news until after practice some people like to read the newspaper for thing in the morning and even digitally make a commitment no emails no news until after practice if we need to read something to wake up the mind a little bit we could make a commitment to read a spiritual book of some type so that the mind is kind of acclimated towards the practice in that way there are other things that we can think about of in sort of engaging in the the the sacrifice of practicing it as early as possible we could go to bed a little bit earlier each night and and see if that encourages us to wake up a little bit early and we could make that commitment to get on the mat even if it's just for a few minutes each morning to create that daily discipline letting that happen as close to again first thing in the morning as possible we could make the commitment to not drink too much tea or coffee before practice maybe just a little just something to help you wake up and then get on the mat as soon as possible there are some things that can be very useful if we practicing very early in the morning you can put your clothes out so that they're just immediate next to your bed you just get out of bed and put on the clothes that you're going to wear for practice you can have your mat already unrolled in the spot that you're going to practice in these are some very useful tools that'll make it easier for you to practice first thing in the morning if you practice first thing in the morning then the entire day will be set up with the spiritual intention of your yoga practice the energy of the Brahma morta will carry through as a commitment to make your life a little bit better you'll notice days that you practice days that you don't practice and you'll feel the the difference there will be a different quality of how you show up and interact with the world so when we think about what are the benefits of practicing early those benefits eventually become worth the sacrifice and this is tus it has the power to transform our life we accept those pains which lead to purification those pains of changing our life we get a text message in at 8:30 p.m. that says hey did you want to come out there's this awesome band playing and then we experience tough us I'm so sorry I have to wake up early do my yoga practice tomorrow David Swanson who is one of the you know one of the foremost Ashtanga Yoga teachers in the world he's a really funny expression and he says don't let yoga ruin your life so you may find that all those wonderful invitations from all those friends that are not doing yoga coming in late in the evening you may feel oh yoga has ruined my life but when you practice in the Brahma morta and you enter the sacred you enter into a space that few individuals on this planet enter and it's almost like a sacred secret that keeps you illuminated from within and it's totally worth the sacrifice and you'll know that that fire is illuminated when the reflection of Your Life Starts coming back to you and people say to you what do you do you seem like you glow from within and you'll say I do yoga first thing in the morning and then when people who've known you the longest say I see a big change in you you're so much more peaceful now then you can say I made the commit commitment to change my life and practice yoga one of the things that my teacher Pabi Joyce used to say is that if you practice yoga yoga will show you the way you might think it's impossible to change your life to do the practice every day but I know that if you catch that spark that and you keep practicing I know that yoga will show you the way and all you have to do is trust that inner light that spark that says yes I want to find that secret of the practice I want to find that Light Within if you keep following that yoga will show you the way okay