Your energy affects everyone around you!

When you are more focused, you help others focus around you. When you are light and energetic, you help others have more energy. We all know what it is like to practice next to someone who is a long time student of yoga. Their energy can help lift us up. We also know what it’s like to practice next to a beginner who is lazy or has low energy and is not able to push themselves and work hard, or the student who is arrogant and driven by ego and is constantly trying to compete with everyone and push them down. We all affect each other in every situation. And it takes energy and hard work to find balance, to stay calm, to breathe into challenge. It’s easy to get unfocused. It’s easy to become lazy and give up. It’s easy to get distracted. You have to fight hard to get to a place where you can be a leader and help others on their journey. The yogis say we are affected by three qualities of energy, just like everything in the world around us. Sometimes one of these qualities is more dominant than the other. These qualities are called Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva. When Tamas is dominant, we feel lazy, tired, the body is heavy and sluggish and the mind is sleepy and confused, and filled with ignorance. The only way to find happiness is to bring others around you down so they feel heavy and tired too. When Rajas is dominant we feel agitated and unfocused, the body is tense and tight and constantly moving, the mind is jumping from thought to thought and unable to focus. The goal is the pursuit of happiness with complete disregard for others. When Sattva is dominant we feel balanced, the body is light and full of energy, the mind is calm and clear. It is in Sattva that we are able to turn inward and experience a deeper connection to ourselves, and it is in Sattva that our inner light shines through us to the outside world. The way to find happiness is to be of service to others and to lift them up and help them find more balance too. Go towards the light. Move from Tamas, through Rajas to Sattva. Your energy affects everyone around you. Find balance, and then help lift others up and help them find balance too.