Homework
Homework Overview
Your homework this week includes three parts:
Creating a yoga class of three Shakti Flows (floor, middle, and standing), each linked by Unmeshas.
Exploring Nimesha—the movement into stillness—both within and between your flows.
Bringing the same awareness of stillness off the mat into daily life.
On the Mat: Experiencing Nimesha
We walk the same path to stillness in our postures as we do in meditation. Each asana has a primary movement—a spiraling or waving path that reveals the essence of the posture. This movement, called Unmesha, is vital to our practice.
Because our modern lives are full of distraction and limited movement, we first learn how to move before we learn how to stop moving. Still, each Shakti Flow contains moments where we can guide ourselves or our students toward stillness—toward Nimesha, the dissolving of movement.
The key lies in the teaching that we “let ourselves [move there] in slowing invisible circles.” This means releasing effort and allowing movement to gradually soften and diminish—slower, smaller, more subtle—until it disappears into stillness.
You don’t need to do this in every pose. It’s powerful to choose one posture in each Shakti Flow to arrive in this way. That’s your first piece of homework: find one Nimesha moment of stillness in each of your three flows.
Between Sides: Stillness as Transition
Zooming out, we can also find stillness in the transitions between sides of your flow. This pause is a natural moment to collect yourself, reflect on your effort, and “find zero” before continuing.
Here, you may not cue the invisible circles literally, but instead allow your sequence to taper down—each movement becoming a smaller, subtler version of the one before it—until the body naturally rests in stillness.
For your second piece of homework, consciously weave Nimesha into your practice both within the flow (in a held posture) and between sides (as a space of quiet integration).
Off the Mat: Stillness in Motion
Stillness isn’t static—it’s a living state of clarity we can bring into every activity. Take time each morning to sit quietly, and set two or three checkpoints throughout your day to reconnect with that inner stillness.
See if you can begin to find peace even amid the swirl of daily life. As Babaji teaches:
“During your workday, when you are engaged in mental activity, it’s good to breathe into your navel and feel centered. If you feel congested in your head or in your emotions or in your lower chakras, you just breathe down through the congestion. The clearer your mind is, the better you’ll be able to do or see what you’re doing. Use the breath to calm the mind. Become very still and learn how to function from that stillness, and do your work from that place. We all have chores that we need to do, and we all have activities that we do on a regular basis. Just going through the motions of doing your daily business is not very effective. Instead, you should become more conscious and aware of what you are doing. You should also develop the ability to surrender and step back a little bit while still performing your duties. You will be developing a very useful skill. The source of creativity that artists, musicians, and other creative people are looking for comes from a place beyond the small mind” (SP, 14).
Your final assignment this week is to practice this teaching throughout your day. Notice where you can breathe through resistance, return to center, and function from stillness—whether you’re teaching, cooking, emailing, or simply walking across the room.