Day #26 - Sitting for Prayers

What I am sharing below is a paraphrase from what I heard in class with of course my own slant.

How often do you sit tall and straight like a statue for the invocation?

How often do you sit for the invocation like you are doing Swastikasana for Instagram?

Sittig for prayers is different from sitting for an asana, or a meeting or the camera.

Furthermore in what condition do you arrive on the mat to start your prayers?

Have you rushed from work or home or dropping off kids?

The way you enter a shrine is very different from how you enter a sports stadium.

The place from where and how we begin will imprint on our practice.

Yes, we want to sit with the spine straight, not to impress the teacher.

We can use the sitting at the start of class to look within, get connected to our breath, allow the brain cells to submerge into the heart and we can get connected with the heart so the prayers come from there.

When I heard this being taught in classes here, I realised how robotic and mechanical my sitting for the invocation had become.

I loved this sweet reminder of the impact of small things.

Because everything here is imbued in Hinduism, I feel there is more opportunity to explain the prayers and they are to be done than in the west.

However, hearing these words have inspired me to find a way to express the importance of this ritual at the start of class, no matter the ethnic makeup.