This month, it will have been a year since I was handed my very first yoga book. Certainly at that point in my life, if I was to choose a yoga book, it wouldn’t have been
“Yoga from the inside out”, by Christina Sell. The book, with a forward by John Friend, Anusara Yoga Founder, is a teaching on grace and how to make peace the body.
Despite the emotional upheavals from reading the book, I didn’t know or understand that only a year later, I would begin to understand. As I write this, with tears in my eyes,
I am convinced there will still be more to learn on the vast topic of grace.
But what is grace? How do you know you have it? How do you step into the flow of grace? The Oxford English dictionary defines “grace” as: “Pleasing quality,
gracefulness.
1. The quality of application: The attractiveness or charm belonging to elegance of proportions, or (especially) ease and refinement of movement, action, or expression.
2. An attractive or pleasing quality or feature.
3. Something that imparts beauty; an ornament; the part in which the beauty of a thing consists.
4. To show favour or be gracious to; also, to countenance.”
To me, “grace” means more than that. I recently read the book again. This time, it provoked different sensations in me and resulted in a completely different outlook on the
concepts of beauty, love, acceptance and grace. Can yoga bring us to grace? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, anything you do with passion, devotion and complete love
will bring you closer to grace. You already possess the grace you need.
By doing something fervently, with your complete devotion, you are polishing the window to your heart to see the flames of your being – your grace – that much more
clearly. This is the true nature of grace. It’s a flame burning at the very core of your being. You can only see it through the window of your heart, but if that window isn’t
very clean, you may not be able to see if there is a flame there. That’s when doubt creeps in and we fall victim to the sleeping world. Yoga is a way of keeping that window
clear and open, a way to see the beauty and the power within each of us.
In a month that celebrates love, why not celebrate grace as well? Start with your loved ones. The grace in them is what you also hold within yourself. You wouldn’t be able
to see the grace in your surroundings if you didn’t possess it yourself. At the very core of who we are lies a heart that demands our commitment to the higher divinity of the
spirit and to love.