Lasater - Living your yoga: finding the spiritual in everyday life

Praise for Living Your Yoga

Judith Hanson Lasaters new book is a down-to-earth discussion of how we can use the age-old wisdom of yoga in order to reconnect with the sacred in everyday life.

Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., Founder-Director of the Yoga Research and Education Center

Yes! Living Your Yoga is what its all about. Here is a clear and friendly book that will help anyone embody the wisdom of yoga by consciously bringing it into daily life. The exercises are fun. They can help you learn how to do yoga all the timenow and now and nowwhen you are in the yoga room and when you are not. Take this book to heart.

Erich Schiffmann, author of Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness

In this easy-to-read, inspiring book, Judith Hanson Lasater generously shares delightfully funny and poignant stories from her very American life, to show how we all can use the simple problems of daily living as a springboard for spiritual practice. Reading Living Your Yoga is like moving in with Judith and her family for a while. I enjoyed my visit immensely. She reminds us that yoga practice is primarily about mindfulness and is a twenty-four-hour-a-day activity. Take this book to bed every night for a couple of months. Open it anywhere. Read a few pages. Reflect. Relax. Breathe. Smile. And have a good nights sleep.

Beryl Bender Birch, author of Power Yoga

In this delightful and practical book on yoga philosophy, Judith Hanson Lasater presents timeless wisdom with clarity and insight. She is a well-seasoned yogini, who writes from personal experience on how to use the events of daily life as yoga poses for the mind and the heart.

Patricia Walden, coauthor of The Womans Book of Yoga and Health

Judith Hanson Lasater explains how her practice has helped her to sort through lifes tangles, clarify her values, and renew her commitment to her ideals. She bares her soul so that we can see our own.

Suza Francina, author of The New Yoga for People Over 50

In her heartfelt and gently humorous manner, Judith Hanson Lasater shares her profound understanding of ancient yoga teachings, and translates the Yoga Sutra and Bhagavad Gita into a simple prescription for daily living. Whether youre a yoga student, yoga teacher, or yoga scholar, youll be informed and inspired by Living Your Yoga.

Kathryn Arnold, former editor in chief of Yoga Journal

By Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D., P.T.

30 Essential Yoga Poses

Yoga for Pregnancy

Yoga Abs

A Year of Living Your Yoga

Yogabody

What We Say Matters (coauthored with Ike K. Lasater)

Relax and Renew (second edition)

Living Your Yoga (second edition)

Shambhala Publications, Inc.
4720 Walnut Street
Boulder, Colorado 80301
www.shambhala.com

Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life,

copyright 2000 and 2015 by Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D., P.T.

Cover photograph by Vilor for Thinkstock. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage or retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.

Permissions and appreciations appear on .

ISBN 13: 978-1-930485-85-3

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

EDITORS

Linda Cogozzo, Holly Hammond

For Rhoda, with love

Contents

Contents

by Suza Francina

by Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D.

THE NEW EDITION of Living Your Yoga is a joy for me to share with you. Rereading the book for this new version has given me the opportunity to recall some wonderful parts of my life. In addition to this reflection, writing the new chapters has allowed me to express where I am now with my practice, my teaching, and my life.

One of the best parts of writing new material for Living Your Yoga is that it has rekindled my awareness of how many people contribute to my life and writing. So I would like to acknowledge them here.

First, I want to thank my children, their spouses, and my three grandchildren. Each of you has brought untold happiness to me, and you make my life so much richer by being in it.

I also want to thank J. R. R., who has been in and out of my life since childhood, who has always and will always live in my heart, and whose presence in my life has taught me so much.

I would like to express gratitude to my students, some of whom have had the tenacity and courage to study with me for decades. What a wondrous thing to grow with you as we keep meeting on the mat year after year.

And of course, great credit goes to my publishers, Linda Cogozzo and Donald Moyer, who have stood by me as friends during lifes ups and downs. Their publishing expertise and their rock solid affection are so welcomed and appreciated.

Finally, to you, dear reader. I hope you will find a little help, a little humor, a bit of my best self here as you read. Thank you.

Acknowledgments for the First Edition

THIS BOOK REFLECTS a personal journey that began decades ago. I have had important helpers along the way. I thank each of you for your support.

First, I thank my family, specifically my husband, Ike, and our three children, Miles, Kam, and Elizabeth. Their insights about life, as well as their sometimes pungent comments on how I am missing the essential truth of any given moment, have been invaluable and fill this book.

Next, I acknowledge and thank my yoga students, especially those who have stuck with me for many years. Having the responsibility of teaching has inspired me to practice and to continue to learn.

Finally, I thank Linda Cogozzo and Donald Moyer, who have consistently supported me during the dark times and celebrated with me during the happy ones.

IN LIVING YOUR YOGA, Judith Hanson Lasater provides an elegant yet sturdy bridge between yoga on the mat and the yoga of daily life. When we leave the sanctuary of a yoga studio, roll up our sleeves, and set to work in the world, we must be careful not to add to the confusion and violence that already exist. This book of essays and guided practices, based on selected verses from the Yoga Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita, can assist us in this endeavor.

The author shares her understanding of yogas ancient teachings and shows us how to apply them to our contemporary lives. Especially insightful is the warm and personal way in which she addresses the division many of us feel when the peace we experience in our yoga practice is disrupted by everyday reality. Judith Hanson Lasater explains how her practice has helped her to sort through lifes tangles, clarify her values, and renew her commitment to her ideals. She bares her soul so that we can see our own.

Now that yoga has entered the mainstream, it is more important than ever for yoga teachers to communicate how postures, breathing techniques, and meditation are rooted in moral principles. Yoga addresses the ethical life through a whole range of practices that encourage us to live in harmony with nature, making our actions conducive to both personal and planetary health. The great yoga teachers urge us to consider all aspects of our lives, to revere all living things, and to take no more than we need. Surely a complete yoga practice must encompass a way of life that addresses the harm we inflict on ourselves and other living things, as well as doing our part to reduce pollution and to share the limited resources of our planet fairly with all other beings. In