I believe the best lessons yoga provides are the ones that teach you to live a better life. This specific insight came from my recent trip to India. I learned that India could change you, if you let it.
Whether you love it or hate it, India will shake all your beliefs about reality and will teach you a lot if you can tune out its chaotic scenery. On its surface, India is intense, complex, smelly, noisy, and very crowded.
However, as I went deeper, I found a simplicity, serenity, and spirituality I have never experienced.
I sensed the Hindus’ worldview seems to be more centered in the present moment, deeply oriented towards relationships with others, and their high degree of faith allows them to have more tolerance over the things that can’t be controlled. I heard the phrase “God knows best” quite often.
Even though India is now thousands of miles away from me, I keep a piece of it in my heart. It is a living reminder of what yoga has been teaching me all along:to be consciously present every moment because life is what you are experiencing each moment, not what happened in your past or what you hope and fear for the future. It taught me to take good care of the relationships with the people who are important in my life and to find happiness in the love I feel for them.
It also reminded me of the importance of being able to let go of the things I can’t control because in the end — God knows best!
