Though as yogis we always stress living in the present moment, it’s hard not to think about everything that needs to get done, especially from Thanksgiving through the end of the year.  It’s as if our already busy schedules go into overdrive and we scramble from place to place, store to store, function to function, without a moments rest.  With the power of the web, we don’t even have to leave our seats to travel to the far ends of the earth to explore, shop and have our senses over stimulated.  Don’t get us wrong, being busy is great, especially if you’re running from place to place with others in mind—taking action without an expectation of thanks- where the getting is in the giving.  The yoga of action or Karma Yoga is a truly great pursuit, but at some point we encourage you to stop, even if it’s for a minute, to smell the roses (or incense, or whatever it is that let’s your heart catch up with your mind). 

Even after the most active yoga class, we end with savasana (relaxation pose) not because we’re too exhausted to go on, but because that’s where some of the most amazing and profound aspects of our practice occur.  Where we surrender into the earth and receive back everything we’ve given up.  Putting that pause into your schedule, taking those few moments to actually find the moment can be completely enriching and rejuvenating.  It’s as Jon Kabat-Zinn writes in Wherever You Go There You Are—“Don’t just do something, sit there!”

 

Attention Without Resistance

You know what space is.  There is space in this room.  The distance between here and your hostel, between the bridge and your home, between this bank of the river and the other-all that is space.  Now, is there also space in your mind?  Or is it so crowded that there is no space in it at all?  If your mind has space, then in that space there is silence-and from that silence everything else comes, for then you can listen, you can pay attention without resistance.  That is why it is very important to have space in the mind.  If the mind is not overcrowded, not ceaselessly occupied, then it can listen to that dog barking, to the sound of a train crossing the distant bridge, and also be fully aware of what is being said by a person talking here.  Then the mind is a living thing, it is not dead.

 From The Book of Life, Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti