Personal Vitality

Greetings Yogis and Yoginis,

This week in class we are considering the topic “personal vitality.”

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

– George Bernard Shaw

Shopping for things we do not need, even if it is only window-shopping, wastes a lot of vitality; energy flows out with every little desire. It is a surprising connection, but an extravagant shopper will find it difficult to love. He or she scatters love like largesse all over the department store. We can become bankrupt in love this way.

When it comes to our personal vitality, we have no atoms to split, no windmills to set up, no sun to draw on for an alternative source of energy; we have to conserve what we have and make it last. When we find it difficult to love, we can think of it as a personal energy crisis. By not buying things which are neither necessary nor beneficial, we conserve the precious natural resources of the earth, and we save our personal energy, too.

So if you want a good, stiff test of your capacity to love, go into your favorite store some day – preferably when there is a sale – and see if you can walk straight through, looking neither left nor right, and come out unscathed. It may sound unbelievable, but it can be done.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to explore what vitality and personal energy conservation means to you. Discover what it takes to keep your vitality bank full. Does it involve having more awareness about your desires and not necessarily following through on all of them? How would meeting the needs of others help you to fill your bank?

Blessings,

paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com

Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003