YOGA - the search for SELF.  BUT if taken too seriously, too competitively, if hollowed out, commodified and consumerised, yoga builds EGO and wallets as much as BODY and SOUL. The goals are freedom, unity, inner peace. When practice becomes rigid, the yogi-ni builds boundaries, separation. I’m laughing, sometimes in a still silence, sometimes loud with gasping sounds deep from my belly and pumping diaphragm. WHY? Because all of my struggle and my dismal efforts don’t get me anywhere.

I don’t know where I am going. It’s ludicrous to even think there is some WHERE to get.

I already am.  And I am laughing.

Yoga as LIFE, LOVE, LAUGHTER

Yoga as PLAY, CHALLENGE, INSIGHT Yoga as MIND, BODY, SPIRIT

Yoga as TRANSFORMATION, ENERGY, HEALING Yoga as ART, MUSIC, POETRY

Yoga as COMING HOME

Welcome to the Laughing Yogini’s website!

carolyn - upavistha - wide-angled seated forward bend

With gratitude to my teachers and their teachers throughout the ages for generously offering wisdom, inspiration, and courage .

With appreciation to my students for their experience, support, and love.

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Laughing at the serious way I take on the world AND my overblown sense of importance of well, everything. Chuckling at my seriously imperfect self. Yukking it up over yoga sectarianism: the divisions created and maintained in a sacred pursuit of UNION. Chortling over gym-style posture competition and the quest for physical perfection. Giggling today just because!

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Stop running and running and running. Sit still. The universe is speaking. Are you listening?

Can you quiet the ceaseless chatter? The endless drone of nonsensical words in a stream so thick, it gives you the heebiejeebies when you finally take a break from doing doing doing and sit and watch what’s going on in your little patch of gray matter.

And then what happens is you decide to TURN THEM OFF: all those voices cramming your station. You realize the static confuses and throws you off balance. Everything, every thought, every feeling, every “accomplishment” belongs to someone else. You want to know your self, some call it the TRUTH. Like a starving beast, you hunger after your life, no matter what it tastes like.

As your practice grows, so do the small spaces, the little deaths, momentary breaks, the lapses between the thoughts crowding your grey matter. It’s quiet there. Deep within, in the ancient place, probably the amygdala or thereabouts, is a locale where you exist in a pre-civilized state. It’s a state of joy (you can agree or disagree as you wish), a place of primordial bliss.

When sitting in that sweet neighborhood, all sense of time, all direction drops away. This is entering the GREAT UNKNOWN. Funny thing about this place is that you’ve always known it. It’s familiar, no doubt about that. You don’t feel lost when you are there in momentary bliss. Nope, not at all. You feel, for once in your half-century of  “living” that you are finally home. Home at last. Home free. And afterward, whenever you are not there, you will remain homesick, unconnected. Not lost anymore though, because now you know the way home.

PLEASE BE ADVISED:
This information is not intended to replace competent medical care. Check in with your health care provider to be certain you will benefit from physical activity, including breathwork. If suffering from major depression, please seek professional guidance before engaging in sustained periods of meditation. All material is under my copy protection. Feel free to print or quote for your own use, but please respect my work. You are required to include my byline and/or reference: Carolyn Kieber Grady.