Connected with Truth - The Mind
If you were to hop over to YouTube and search for yoga practices, you would have numerous options from which you could choose. But as a Christian, it is important to understand the framework of what is being taught. Rooted by the River Yoga aims to connect mind, body, heart, and soul with the truth of Jesus through the tools of yoga and meditation. This is the framework, the basis from which I teach. God’s Word is the core of what I believe—Jesus, as the Living Word of God; and Scripture, as the written Word of God. While creation is the general revelation, demonstrating the Creator’s character and nature to the world. The Word of God is the special revelation, God communicating His plan and purpose along with His character and nature. As a Christian, I want my life to be aligned with the truth and grace of the Word of God.
Connect the MIND with Truth
Why do we need to connect the mind with truth?
Because we are bombarded with lies.
Our culture feeds us lies through marketing and messaging, we are often so immersed in it that we don’t even hear them as lies anymore. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is good and acceptable and perfect.” We need to saturate our minds with God’s Word so that the lies of the world around us become a stark contrast to the truth.
Lies come not only from outside but also from within ourselves. We are sinful and self-centered by nature. We tell ourselves lies everyday. Perhaps we are self-deprecating, critical, and judgmental; or maybe we are self-aggrandizing, proud, and arrogant. We lie to ourselves about what we deserve, about what God deserves, and about what others deserve. We place ourselves at the center, where everything revolves around us. These internal lies also need to be countered with Truth. Psalm 119 says, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” We need God’s Word to show us the error of our thoughts and expose the lies that lead to sin.
Because we need God’s wisdom.
Psalm 119, also says in verse 105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” We as humans are fallible. Human wisdom is not God’s wisdom. Therefore, we must seek God’s wisdom in all things. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives graciously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” Cultural insight can lead to folly, without the hope of the gospel; therefore, we need God’s Word to provide us with the wisdom we lack.
Because we are forgetful.
Repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, God tells us to remember, to not forget. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses writes the greatest commandment, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” He follows that immediately with: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (6:6-9). He is in essence telling us to saturate our lives with Scripture. Like a sponge soaking up as much water as possible, so we are to soak up as much of God’s Word as possible. Why? Verse 12 tells us, “then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
He goes on in the same vein of thought in chapter eight, “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statues, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Deut. 8:11-14). When things are going well, it is so very easy to forget God – He is the one that blesses us, cares for us, loves us. When we are overwhelmed, it is also easy to forget that we do not have to do it all, and we do not have to do it in our own power. It is in His power and by His grace that we live and move and have our being.
In Joshua 4, we read about the memorial stones used after the crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land. They marked that place so “that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever” (4:6-7). God had the Israelites set up physical markers to remind them of His kindness and power…because we are forgetful. We forget His blessings. We forget His faithfulness. We forget His goodness. And we forget His great love for us.
How do we use the tools of yoga to connect the mind with truth?
Breath Prayer. Yoga unites the breath with movement. The teacher often offers breathing cues throughout the class, cues for students to inhale and exhale. A breath prayer unites the inhale with a word or phrase and the exhale with a word or phrase. For example, as you inhale you would focus on the phrase, “When I am afraid,” and as you exhale complete the phrase, “I will trust in You.” Every time the teacher cues your breath, your mind can come back to the breath prayer, inhaling “When I am afraid,” and exhaling “I will trust in You.” Thus, your yoga practice is continually brought back to that prayer from Psalm 56:3.
Affirmations. This article from Val Marie Paper was helpful in understanding affirmations from a Christian perspective. The basic premise of the article is that modern affirmations teach that I can overcome negative thoughts by believing in myself. Instead, it is about who Christ is, and who I am in Him, my identity as a Christian. There is a shift in focus from me to Him. She goes on to talk about how she started using truths of Scripture as her morning affirmations. She began asking herself, “What biblical truths would transform my life if I remembered them daily?” She also offers a list of questions and some of her own personal affirmations with Scripture references. I’d invite you to go check it out.
Focus. Our thoughts are often like a dozen small bouncy balls ricocheting around in our mind. Yoga teachers often refer to this as “monkey mind.” Kendra Adachi, the Lazy Genius, I think rightly, calls it “caffeinated squirrel brain.” Yoga works with our physiology to slow that mental chatter, calm the monkeys and squirrels, and gather up the bouncy balls. The breath alone is a helpful tool for this, simply taking deep slow breaths can engage the parasympathetic nervous system and signal your body and mind to slow down and relax.
Physiologically, movement can also help to release any tension or pent up energy, so moving through a vinyasa (flow) sequence can further help to focus the mind. And, beyond this, any pose or sequence of poses that engage the core muscles, especially balancing poses that require focus to maintain, will steady your mind and help you to focus. I have seen this work in a classroom, where young bodies need to release energy before they can focus. For those kids with ADHD, using an exercise balance ball to engage their core helps them to pay attention because it not only engages the core but requires focus to balance. If we tap into our God-given design, we find that the tools of yoga can aid us in focusing the mind.
Hebrews 12 reminds us to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” We have explored both why this is necessary — the lies surrounding us, our own need for wisdom, and our forgetfulness are only a few — and we have learned a few ways in which we can stay connected with truth through the tools of yoga. It is equally important to keep the body, heart, and soul connected to Truth. Join me in the next couple of days as we continue to explore this concept and the ways that yoga can be a tool to aid us toward that end.
