One Love

Bob Marley said it well, “One love, one heart, let’s get together and feel alright.
Ashtanga, Iyengar, Viniyoga, Kundalini, Vinyasa, Power, Shakti, Anusara….
With so many kinds of yoga spreading around the world today it’s difficult to differentiate between what is good and what is not, what works and what doesn’t. If you ask a yoga teacher what style is the best, they will respond with whatever style it is they happen to practice. Many yoga teachers are confused on the differences between all these styles and many of us have never tried all of them, who has the time?

The important point made here by Iyengar is that all of the three main yoga’s (Ashtanga, Iyengar, Viniyoga) are simply branches of the same tree. These three styles were fed from the same bosom, they share a foundation, which is Krishnamacharya’s teachings. Many teachers get caught up in defining our styles and poo-pooing the other branches when in reality each style is working toward the same goal which is to identify the true Self and through this discovery we can begin to recognize the relationship this Self has to the outside world and hopefully begin to realize that the Self is not separate from the Universe. The Self is both the seer and the seen, the observer and the observed the subject and the object. Ideally all these forms of yoga are helping us peel the layers from our external selves in order to reveal our inner most Self so we may experience bliss. So please, pick a style and stick with it and let the yoga do it’s job.