On happiness, contentment and asanas

We are born to be content with the vital minimum, against the breast of a mother, feeling her warmth against the hushes of her heart beat. As we grow into adulthood, we are impregnated with do’s and don’ts, shoulds and shan’ts. Marketing, movies, parents, society, churches brainwash our minds with illusionary images of happiness. It becomes some people’s life quest as they are never happy enough, what-is is never sufficient and so they sink into sadness. Why is it so? I’ve recently heard that there is no such thing as happiness. Happiness is not lasting, it’s a momentary stage where we find a quick satisfaction but it quickly wanes into sadness. But whyyyy? well as the event or object of our happiness lasts in time the appreciation we have of it becomes mundane, we then miss the thrill of the first moments of this new found happiness and we become nostalgic then sad. People then engage in the next activity to bring them another moment of happiness, it’s a never ending story. Happiness is like a snow ball rolling down the mountain. As it starts rolling it is small and the speed is high, at the beginning we are fast to find the next best thing to make us feel happy. The snow ball rolls quickly to the next layer of snow. As it becomes bigger it is slower to roll as there is more surface to cover, just as we grow old we have more difficulty finding the next best thing that will make us happy, some say they’ve tried it all and just lack the energy to look again, some are just too tired because of the heaviness of the empty feeling they have inside, and surrender to sadness; until one day the snow ball crashes into an obstacle. We are then coming to a wakeful state or we’re dead. Maybe we’re just waking up from another layer of bad dream and we now think to understand that there is no such thing as happiness. What-is is and what-is-not is not. We are just here at this moment content, neither happy nor sad, with whatever is or is not, neither makes any difference, we surrender and accept.
Happiness is because of sadness, death is because of birth, night is because of day, just as the yin and yang cannot be without each other.
Our path starts in the middle and staying in the middle: Balance.
Yoga Asanas teach us about getting into balance between the breath, the posture, the gaze. Only when these three are in symbiosis does the mind shut and let contentment stand out. We stay aware of all three. Yoga is not only performed in the studio but as we walk down the street, as we talk to others, as we cook, etc, we stay aware of our breath, our posture and our gaze, and we feel content. We become yoga and yoga becomes us.
Namaste.