Yoda and Yoga

'On this path no effort is wasted,
no gain is ever reversed;
even a little of this practice
will shelter you from great sorrow.' - 'the wisdom of yoga' as said in the Bhagavad Gita- A New Translation by Stephen Mitchell

That quote is going to be the only serious thing in this post, the rest is just lighthearted, goofy, and fun. I know littered through out this blog I reference and quote many films and television shows and books- in yoga the wise man learns to see the world as his teacher, to break away from selected reading for guidence and finds his own through nature, work, loved ones, media, art, etc etc. Star Wars however is not my yoga teacher of the day. No no, far from it, I just noticed some goofy comparisons.
It started out yesterday when I was unpacking an old box of decorations I had in storage. In this box is a sculpture of a Buddha head, and it made me giggle because its kind of short, making his face shape very similar to that of master Yoda. Not only does Yoda look like Buddha, check out his name, Yoda is Yoga, just with the 'g' upside down (depening on your font face). And that got me to thinking about Yoda and how much of a Yogi he is and how 'The Force' is like 'Consciousness' also known as 'Awareness', and well here are just some fun yogic ties between Star Wars in a galaxy far, far away, and Yoga on Earth =P. :

So forgive me if I misquote this, I am a nerd, but I'm not nerdy enough to have the Star Wars script memorized. But we are all pretty familiar with the 'knowledge' of fear leading to hate, hate leading to anger and anger leading to the Darkside, right? Well fun fact Bhagavad Gita is a poem dating back to the first century C.E. and quoted here passage 2.62 :
'If a man keeps dwelling on sense-objects,
attachment to them arises;
from attachment, desire flares up;
from desire, anger is born;

from anger, confusion follows;
from confusion, weakness of memory;
weak memory- weak understanding;
weak understanding - ruin.'

Worded a little differently, but the concept is the same, if you let your ego and emotions take control, you'll be lost.

Yoda is like a Yoga Instructor, trying to teach Luke to clear his mind, be focused on the moment, letting go of the outcome, and letting it happen. Yoga students in the beginning are often times like Luke feeling frustrated and wanting to 'learn a cool move'.

Jedi are like Buddhist monks, you have one training another, who will then train another, and so on it goes, wearing their distinctive robes, staying away from romance, all living together. - Sexy =P

There's always that one guy in class that embodies Jar Jar Binks.

There are aliens with dread lock type ears? Hair? Scalps? And in portland at least you get a lot of students with dread locks, esp chicks.

Luke when he got more advanced was doing hand stands, advanced yogis do handstands.

Luke was doing sweaty hot training in the swamps with Yoda, in Bikram studios students train in 105 degrees F.

Jedi's get lightsabers, yogis........

Anikin lost his mom, yogis mom's think we're crazy.

Jedi's listen to dead people, yogis listen to dead people.
Jedi's have figured out how to remanifest themselves after death in a holigramic ghost form, yogis have learned how to carry on after death is written form.

And then there are always these guys:

Anywho, I'm just playing around. =)
However for those interested, it turns out that there is a book called 'The Dharma of Star Wars' (and for those who don't know, dharma in yoga means the ultimate truth) and this is a serious book comparing the yogic truths and buddhist philospohy that's in the films written by an ordained buddhist monk of the Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhist Community, named Matthew Bortolin, currently on Amazon.com for $14.42.

I hope you all are having a fun day, enjoy the start of the week. =)

~Stephanie

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