by Lyndy Summerhaze, Crabbes Creek, Australia
When I sat down to write about Esoteric Yoga and stillness the question naturally arose: “If we don’t know stillness how can we know true movement?” This almost felt like a basic tenet of what yoga is all about. We move and speak using the energy that is already present in the body – and if that energy is in disarray, then our movement and expression will be of that same quality. I have come to realise that to know and connect to the stillness within the body is first essential if I want to move and speak in a true way.
Coming into that stillness at yoga has enabled me to become aware of the levels of stress, anxiousness and nervous energy that I was employing to function within life. And it has helped me to feel the disharmony and disarray this way of living brings and how it leads to illness.
- Experiencing the stillness has helped me to observe the constant static of mental activity that I was using to overlay the true feeling that came directly and clearly from my body.
- It has brought into focus for me the relentless driving of mental activity I lived by – ticking off lists to be done, constantly being on the alert as a way of dealing with the world, or ever on the ready to achieve endless outcomes which only bring momentary glimpses of satisfaction – then onto the treadmill again.
- Through the beauty of this stillness I have been able to feel myself again. I have been able to hear what my body is communicating to me – what it feels and how it feels. For example, it was the tension in my arms and the way I was holding them that told me that I was in a constant state of bracing against what the world might bring. What a powerful reminder of how I have been living – always in apprehension of what might happen.
- Now that I can feel my body I can appreciate it so much more. It now makes sense to choose to nurture it instead of neglecting it and running it ragged. This body has turned out to be like a precious lighthouse that reveals the dangers and rocks I can get caught on, instead of being a nuisance of a thing I thought I had to drag around with me and feed and put to bed.
I have found that as I’ve grown in awareness of the quality with which I meet the varying situations of daily life now, it has become ever clearer that I have a choice in how I respond to those situations. I can choose to react, resist, hide or be a victim of what presents, or I can align to and offer harmony, humour, observation and love to the situations I encounter. What comes to me in life may not always be pleasant or easy but what I’ve discovered is if I carry a known space from my body out, I remain knowing who I am and what I stand for. This feels like true liberation indeed!
I have attended yoga groups, inspired by Universal Medicine, facilitated by Jennene Greenall and Victoria Carter. These groups are very beautiful and have had the beneficial effect of a ripple out into every sphere of my life.
The group energy, along with the loving and skilled facilitation, is helping me to build a strong foundation of stillness and harmony in my body from which I can bring all that I am to the world. I can take what I have learned and felt in Esoteric Yoga out into the world in a most practical way.
I have found that living in the presence of my own stillness is by far the most practical way to live life as it has greatly improved the power of my observation, and I now have a clear perspective of what is going on. No time or energy is wasted on drama. When I am being truly present I notice that no energy is squandered and I feel more vitality coming back into my body.
Through conversation and sharing with each other in these groups I am learning so much and have been able to deepen my awareness of my true being and purpose here. The shared presence I experience with the group assists me in strengthening my confidence and commitment to staying with the bodily stillness when I am out amongst the tension and stress that can be there in daily life.
Esoteric Yoga has been the most valuable tool to assist in expanding my awareness of the kind of energy in which I am living my life. This has been a crucially important awareness to cultivate since it has brought to my attention that the way I live is constantly impacting not only on my own wellbeing and bodily health, but also other people’s wellbeing and the environment around me. It has helped bring universality into my approach towards life that is very practical and real. I am starting to understand that everything that I am, do and think is not just about me, but also about all of us.
The stillness I have found through Esoteric Yoga has been to me a true medicine. This medicine feels like a powerful preventative medicine – it has brought a deeper and richer sense of health and wellbeing than I have previously known.
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
It is hugely important for us all to understand what kind of energy is running our body, ‘Esoteric Yoga has been the most valuable tool to assist in expanding my awareness of the kind of energy in which I am living my life.’
The more we connect with our body, the more the body communicates with us, ‘This body has turned out to be like a precious lighthouse that reveals the dangers and rocks I can get caught on’.
Love the space offered by Esoteric Yoga. It allows me to feel my body from inside out, to clock how I’ve been living to that point and to restore the stillness within that is always there, no matter what.
Lyndy what you shared feels very powerful and also accessible for all. Your experience opens up a complete different way to approach life that makes completely sense. It brings solidness, awareness, responsibility, but also joy and light. It feels like the choices we make can support us to return to our true way of being. Step by step with no perfection but a readyness and humble obedience with the body we carry that inspires me very much.
“Now that I can feel my body I can appreciate it so much more. It now makes sense to choose to nurture it instead of neglecting it and running it ragged” – what I can feel is how stillness is the observation point where clarity prevails and that, we know so well and find inconvenient if we wanted to carry on void of responsibility and purpose, and that is why we try avoiding it at all cost – even by trashing our body.
“then onto the treadmill again.” Esoteric Yoga offers a way to live in connection to yourself rather than at the mercy of the chaos created all around you.
You sound like an out of tune radio with a ‘constant static of mental activity’ and I feel we can all relate to the mindless chatter that happens to us at times. As you have shared Lyndy, it is not until we experience stillness that we can feel the out of control mental activity.
Stillness is like a foundation from which to go forth in life, ‘Coming into that stillness at yoga has enabled me to become aware of the levels of stress, anxiousness and nervous energy that I was employing to function within life.’
If you ever want to know how your day is going, how your week has been, just stop and feel your body. Register your thoughts and you’ll be able to get a sense of how you have been moving prior to that moment.
Connect with and feel our bodies, and from a base of stillness, we are more able to discern what is true, ‘I have come to realise that to know and connect to the stillness within the body is first essential if I want to move and speak in a true way.’
Esoteric yoga highlights just how much we live in our minds and not our bodies.
Stillness is a quality and a slight misnomer as it is possible to move in stillness, i.e. to move in the quality of stillness.
Seems like a contradiction of words, but stillness is a quality we can live in; it’s the opposite to racy so eliminating those racy thoughts, and moving a ‘quality of stillness’ as you have shared Christoph, becomes simple when we understand how to move in conscious presence with a mind that is then obviously not thinking ahead of itself. A simple or slight misnomer because as we deepen our stillness, stillness becomes a known quantity as a lived quality.
Stillness becomes a known and lived quality, a far cry from how many of us live, or have lived, ‘It has brought into focus for me the relentless driving of mental activity I lived by – ticking off lists to be done, constantly being on the alert as a way of dealing with the world, or ever on the ready to achieve endless outcomes which only bring momentary glimpses of satisfaction – then onto the treadmill again.’
There is much to learn from our body and listening to it is most certainly a very wise approach to life indeed
Much wisdom is gained from our bodies, when we choose to connect and listen, ‘Through the beauty of this stillness I have been able to feel myself again. I have been able to hear what my body is communicating to me – what it feels and how it feels.’
Becoming still inside is the foundation for life, although few know this at this point in time. From this inner quiet you are able to feel and be aware instead of moving without awareness of what’s best for you and your body.
It is through the stillness of Esoteric Yoga that I have become more aware of my body and how my body feels, it highlights the areas I have been holding in protection and as I let go I realise that there is no need to hold the body in any tension as the tension is counterproductive to its natural rhythm.
Many people hold their body in protection, or live with an ongoing tension, which is counter productive for our well-being, ‘I was in a constant state of bracing against what the world might bring.’
Sharing with other people from that quality is so supportive as everyone brings their own angle on life which can help us be more aware of things.
“This body has turned out to be like a precious lighthouse that reveals the dangers and rocks I can get caught on, instead of being a nuisance of a thing I thought I had to drag around with me and feed and put to bed.” – what a vast difference between these two ways of living. It also represents a vast difference in how you feel within yourself and how you think about yourself
Esoteric Yoga offers us a foundation of understanding life from our body instead of having to negotiate it from what we think, or rather theorise in our minds. From this understanding we can develop a truly solid way to be ourselves in life and not live at the mercy of life.
I think we’ve made the stresses of life a normal even though it’s not really a true normal. We need the stillness to awaken the innate source of vitality we have within us. When we run on sugar and carbs we’re always running behind, catching up an ever underlying exhaustion. When we stop and feel more and allow stillness in our lives, our bodies are able to regenerate and eventually we will be powered from the inside when we unleash the power plant that lives in our cells.
The question that comes to me as I read this is how it is that we are not consciously aware of our innate stillness and that living in connection to this quality is our innate way of our being? This is a fundamental for living life, for truly living our full potential. In developing an honoring relationship with this quality, our essence, we are then able to move through life with greater connection and confidence as such we can living Soulfully becomes our normal.
Yes, very much this. There is a lot to the quality of stillness.
Thank you for yoga shows us how to be with God in our body on this plane of life. Nothing is stronger than that. A beautiful expose.
Well said Lyndy, the Esoteric Yoga is a modality that got me to feel what stillness truly was, having run from that quality for many years I have now learnt to embrace it more and to feel how powerful and deeply healing stillness can be in our lives.
The Esoteric Yoga is a powerful healing modality offering much support to how we live, ‘I have found that as I’ve grown in awareness of the quality with which I meet the varying situations of daily life now, it has become ever clearer that I have a choice in how I respond to those situations.’
“If we don’t know stillness how can we know true movement?” – wow. This, I will be taking with me today. Thank you, Lyndy.
Esoteric Yoga not only supports us with feeling where we are at but it also provides the answer and healing to move forward free from the tensions we might have felt before.
Esoteric Yoga supports us in many diverse ways; this sharing is really beautiful, ‘I have found that living in the presence of my own stillness is by far the most practical way to live life as it has greatly improved the power of my observation, and I now have a clear perspective of what is going on.’
Esoteric yoga does not just allow you to observe the energy you have decided to be in union with, but to change it.
Very true Eduardo – through our connection to our Soul we know precisely what is and what is not going to support us living and moving impulsed by this quality. This is how we live with true empowerment.
For me Lyndy, as it has been for you, “Esoteric Yoga has been the most valuable tool to assist in expanding my awareness of the kind of energy in which I am living my life.” In fact, my awareness has increased ten-fold and with it, the deepening of my relationship with my body. I have finally realised that my body is indeed my best friend, and although at times what it shares is very uncomfortable to hear, I now know that every single message is gold and not to be ignored.
Esoteric Yoga helps to increase our awareness in many respects, ‘When I am being truly present I notice that no energy is squandered and I feel more vitality coming back into my body.’
“Through the beauty of this stillness I have been able to feel myself again. I have been able to hear what my body is communicating to me – what it feels and how it feels” – absolutely Lyndy and also, feeling my own body, its senses and being attuned in this way has also brought this sensitivity towards other people too where I’m able to feel them more or what they may be going through for example. Esoteric Yoga affects us all.
“I have come to realise that to know and connect to the stillness within the body is first essential if I want to move and speak in a true way” – love this simplicity Lyndy, before coming to Esoteric Yoga myself, I often charged on with life not paying attention to anything about the quality or ramifications in moving in such a charged, emotional or disconnected way. Connecting to the very fact and science of one’s quality both the great and not so great type has allowed me to live life with truer understanding and when we understand something we can let things go or pass as opposed to otherwise holding on. Esoteric Yoga allows true freedom to be inside the body…to move with freedom.
I like here how you state that we cannot know our movements unless we know stillness – this is rather profound for if we do not know the quality of how stillness feels in our body then how can we know the quality of our movements? So without stillness we have no reference point or marker to guide us and our movements and actions can then rapidly decline or reduce in terms of quality and we may not even notice it or register it.
True medicine, indeed. The Stillness I feel when participating in Esoteric Yoga sessions can vary in depth and consistency yet each and every time I am amazed at the ripple effect and how it flows from within my body, into my movements and speech and into my relationships as I go about my day…I don’t always hold it as the precious lighthouse it is, but it holds me no matter what. Sometimes I race ahead of myself, other times I lag behind yet the Stillness is always and ever present around us and it doesn’t take long for my body to stop and actually be with it. It’s a beautiful rhythm that builds the more I welcome it.
Thank you Doug it makes sense what you have shared here, most people (and even kids) are in a state of constant movement, doing and motion, recognising that confirms how powerful Esoteric Yoga is as a modality to support people to come back to their own inner Stillness and start living from their own truth.
Maybe Esoteric Yoga, as a modality, should be introduced to the curriculum in schools for all pupils, as stillness, and connection to our bodies is very much needed with children today.
Thank you Lyndy, exactly what I needed to read today. I often wonder about that constant mental chatter and why I seem to use it as a tool, so your words about it being a preventative to connecting to what we feel makes sense. I also appreciated your words on how the constant movement away from stillness through reaction, anxiety, etc becomes something we then have to continually recover from which depletes our vitality.
‘The stillness I have found through Esoteric Yoga has been to me a true medicine.’ Beautifully said and very true Lyndy, after spending many years doing a very rigorous style of yoga and never once feeling stillness, I can agree to all that you share about the Esoteric Yoga Modality and the enormous opportunity it offers our body – true medicine indeed.
The stillness really supports our health and well-being, ‘This medicine feels like a powerful preventative medicine – it has brought a deeper and richer sense of health and wellbeing than I have previously known.’
I absolutely love the description of your body as “a precious lighthouse” Lyndy, and as I read it I could feel that this is what my body is too; in fact it had me smiling. And it follows that the deepr we care for ourselves, like attending regular Esoteric Yoga sessions, the more light that is going to shine forth from us. In a world that is very ‘dark’ at times this light is truly needed.
Thank you Ingrid for high-lighting 🙂 this as I hadn’t noticed that quote that the body is a “precious lighthouse” – so true, it constantly communicates the truth to help us avoid the rocks in the sea of life!
I know what you mean Lyndy. Every day everywhere almost we will run into what is not true and loveless, we can choose to be knocked down by this, what collectively we have made normal in the world; or we can be clear about what these things are, express, and keep on being ourselves–free from the control of what the world wants us to be in–hurt. We can choose instead to be the truth of who are, love.
Lyndy I loved what you have shared on this blog. I’ve been having the pull to Esoteric Yoga for some time and decided not only did I need and feel to bring this stillness into my own body and rhythm but also take it in particularly to work, a place I can often become caught in the calamity of it all.
I took it upon myself to do a program of 2 sessions a week, one the day before work and one in the middle of the week and it is beautiful to observe the difference in my body and people around me.
Observing the signals of my body when things become burdensome and observing the subtle changes around me.
I’m loving Esoteric Yoga….
Esoteric Yoga is an opportunity to feel the inner stillness and feel the warmth of love flow through your body.
What a gorgeous, gorgeous blog to read, the stillness in which you have written is deeply felt, as I feel more still after reading. Having done Esoteric Yoga many times, I have to agree that it is a true medicine and one in which the body truly responds to.