The Integration of Knowledge (Wisdom)

Ask ten people what they think "Yoga" is, and you're likely to get ten different answers.  The literal definition is that it means "yoke," and then, "union, and finally, "integration' -- which is the connection of one thing to everything else.  And that way, all three answers are correct and meaningful -- for one thing is tied to every other.  That doesn't necessarily make it spiritual or sacred, but is the thread that runs through all things -- which is energy.

Of all the things people can do, many are beneficial, just as many are harmful -- and distinguishing one from another, is the wisdom one hopes to attain in this lifetime.  One is successful to the extent that the former, overwhelms the latter -- through trial and error more than academic learning, because the former is what one has to learn uniquely on their own.  Academic, or theoretical learning, is what somebody else has told us is the truth -- but for many, that is all they know, and have never found out the truth of anything for themselves -- by themselves.  But that is the valuable learning -- that is the outcome of individual experience and results.  That is who we are.

"Exercise" is not merely practice and useless, but means "use" itself.  To exercise one's faculties, options and rights, makes them manifest -- and moot if not.  People become good at what they practice -- which is what they actually "do."  It is an entirely different matter if one only imagines or think they can do -- without actually going through the motions, or integrating thought in action.  That is when reality is made manifest.  Despite what the pundits "know" and are certain about, they go ahead and play the game -- to find out what actually happens.

And that is how it is with all of life: it doesn't matter what one thinks is real -- until one finds out for themselves if it is.  Not everyone will encounter the same results.  For that, we have to dig a little deeper. and find out the difference in outcome, even when both think they are doing the same thing.  When the results are consistently different, some greater principle is at work -- and not simply that one practitioner is more devout and deserving than the other, is the only explanation possible. 

Usually though, one more devoted to their practice, will experience greater results than the less dedicated -- all things being equal, and they seldom are.  The world was not made that way -- with each an interchangeable part with another.  Industry tries to achieve that universal interchangeability, so one needn't reinvent the wheel each time one fails.  It is enough just to replace the part that failed -- after it is determined what failed.  Often, that is not obvious, but requires extensive trouble shooting to find out -- while many do not get to realizing that something is wrong and malfunctioning.  They think that is how it is supposed to work and be -- broken and badly.

That's why it is necessary to categorize and catalogue the movements each body should be capable of -- as the standard of what should be possible, in the normal human body.  Those movements, postures and poses have not changed much over the course of 5,000 years -- and are easily recognizable in the contemporary exercises of today -- from the pushup, situp, and jumping jack -- even without any apparatus.  The familiar basis of productive exercise, is the movement within the body -- and not any external measuring device.  All it takes, is an awareness that that is true.

And that is particularly true, the older one is.  The functioning of their own body, is the ultimate measure of how well they are doing.  Just that, is enough to tell one what they need to know -- when they need to know it.  But one won't know that, unless they take that inventory daily, if not momentarily.  That is the only way they know with any certainty, that they actually have that capability currently, and not just the vestiges of a memory long since unexercised, and probably extinguished for that lack of use.

Unless those neurons have been fired recently, it is premature to assume that one still has those capabilities -- at some basic, minimal level.  That is to say, that one doesn't have to run a marathon to know they are still capable of running -- if they really had to.  Mostly they need to know, if they are just capable of such a movement at all -- because it is merely repetition after that.  Can you do it once? -- even without any resistance?  That's all one needs to know -- with certainty.

That is the simplicity of exercise, and how little one needs to do.  But one simply has to do that.  That is not too much to demand of oneself.