A daily yogic practice.

What is a daily practice? Why do you do it? What’s in it for you?

There should be nothing in it for you.

Daily yogic practice is where you allocate a certain amount of time and effort every day for the divine. It’s an offering, a sacrifice. It should be done in their name and for them. You must give up all merits and fruits of the practice.

You can also offer it for the benefit of all beings, which is the same as offering to the one that makes up the whole. You can offer the practice to God, the Universe, the Ultimate Consciousness, the idea is that you offer your practice to the Ultimate Being. The God of the gods.

Offering to anything less gives the sacrifice to a being also still on a journey. An offering to anything less than the ultimate becomes a form of shamanism or animism. Perfectly fine, but these offerings serve a different purpose. Each have their benefit in assisting improve a human condition, with the appropriate exchange. They can also be very powerful, like the gods of the Romans and the Greeks, the celestial bodies we now call planets. They are powerful and spiritual beings who can help improve life with rain, good harvest, and many other things beyond our control.

But the yogi with respect wants to go beyond, he aspires to go where the gods are also going and not yet attained. So any offer the yogi makes to them is for the benefit of getting closer to that goal. The yogi acknowledges the greatness of the gods and will at times ask for their help to get there as the gods are much closer and see far better. Like the Surya namaskar, though not a yogic practice, it is used by many yogis to give salutations to Surya.

This is not a dogmatic or a religious thing, it is more scientific. For the longest time science and religion were intertwined. The practices were often called technologies. This is what a yogi does, they go outside the constraints of formal religious practices, experiments, and always seeks more ways and purer knowledge, to go straight to the source.

Religions are for the masses, therefore it is structured to suit the masses, but a yogi’s aspiration goes far beyond this, the most extreme practices won’t quench a real thirst for god. The body will fight, emotions and thoughts will torture, but the yogi needs to and will continue until the very last bit of them has been obliterated and turned to ashes. And all this must be done out of love, out of a desire to realise the truth.

A yogic practice shouldnt be done out of a sense of lack, or to improve or fix something. It has to be done from a place of knowing they are perfect and have a relentless desire to realise it. Then the veil is lifted, armours are dropped, and they bask in their glory.

So the daily practice is union with the divine. Where you sacrifice a portion of the day until you are capable to offer all day and night. Our very life should be yoga. Every moment can, should and inevitably will be yoga.

So you might start with your asanas and pranayama, do some kriya and meditating, some praying and maybe kirtan, maybe also the odd seva. But eventually, this will become just life. Your body will automatically align itself and the Nadis unblock, energy will flow as it should. The body and mind are purified simply by your food and thoughts. At every moment your heart is so full of love that your every word is a song and a prayer. Every single action that you perform is a labour of love, a selfless service.

-Pedro

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