How Old are YOU??

I have encountered thousands of students in my years of teaching.  They are all fitness levels, from wheelchair bound to Olympic athletes.  They have been of all ages, from little children to octogenarians (unless they were fibbing about their age and were actually nonagenerians or centenarians!)    If you take a peak at the website www.genarians.com, a website celebrating people in their nineties and 100's,  the very first picture you see on there is BKS Iyengar who is 93!

We may measure "how old you are" in chonological age.  This usually will form a picture in or mind of what someone should, or should not, be like physically and mentally at the chronological point.  At 25, we should be full of life, optimism and vitality.  At 93, we would be failing, cranky and an invalid.  From my experience, having observed students, I have found that chronological age has very little to do with the amount of LIFE in someone.  I have found young people who were stiff, inflexible, in fairly bad health and true pessimists, without a spark of enthusiasm, and I have seen students in their 70's 80,s and beyond, defying gravity, with a happy anticipation of what the next day will bring.

This is not a blanket statement.  I have also encounter many young students who have enough energy to light a city, and some older student who really cannot be bothered to move at all. My point here is that, practicing yoga, consistently, will elevate and increase the life force within us, and maintain that throughout our lives.  A 20 something with a bad case of lethargy, will find the sparkle and enthusiasm for life return, as the body and the mind resonate at a higher level, and the older student, will feel the rejuvenation of that force start to work it's way up to the surface.  This applies to all in between also.  If you have been practicing most of your life, you will feel this high resolution throughout your life, and be able to live fully, in physical health, and mental acuity.

Aging will seem much more irrelevant, since the effects of it are much diminished and spiritually, we become ageless.  It is, after all, about the vital force that animates us.  Our mission, as we dwell inside our bodies, and is to keep this force stoked and fired up.  If you are 20 or 90, it is irrelevant.  If your fire is burning brightly, you are life incarnate!  Yoga will ignite that force and keep it bright all your life.  SO come on baby, light your fire!!