Merging yoga and meditation with prayer
Practise personal spiritual growth for your mind, body and soul
While meditation and yoga may come across as simply breathing and stretching, these practices provide multiple benefits and powerful tools for spiritual growth and selfpreservation.
As one stretches deeper into each posture, balance and endurance are improved.
With each inhalation and exhalation, the mind, body and soul draw closer to a state of health and happiness.
For movement artist and yogi Oratiloe Matla, yoga and meditation serve as tools to navigate day-to-day life. These are practices she intentionally engages in as she strives for self-preservation.
“When I think about selfpreservation, the words protection and survival come to mind. I am protecting myself from external harm that I have no control over while finding ways to provide as I navigate through life. Even when harm has been caused, it helps knowing how to overcome and cope through that,” she says.
As a black Christian woman, Matla has found ways of personalising the practice of yoga to make it fit her context and reality. This allows her to find belonging in the practice outside of race and religion.
“Yoga is a very Westernized practice. I found myself in a harmful place when I realised that I wasn’t being represented. I wasn’t seeing enough black Christian girls doing yoga. So I asked myself what I can do to be that representation.
“There’s a community of black yogis that are trying to decolonise the practice and I’m grateful to be a part of a community that has the same goal,” she says.
Making yoga and meditation an integral part of her Christian journey, Matla has managed to make various sacred and beneficial spiritual practices interlink in the most beautiful way.
Moreover, merging these spiritual practices with mindfulness as the common factor has resulted in her spiritual growth and a better understanding of self.
“Yoga, meditation and spiritual growth all require you to be present. When I go into prayer and worship, I am present in that moment. I believe I am in the presence of God right there and then.
“In the same way, I include God in my yoga practice and use it as a form of worship as I’m being grateful for a whole, able and functional body.”
Matla believes the importance of personalising one’s journey of yoga and meditation cannot be over-emphasised. Regardless of any differences, what’s important is love and letting go to feed and preserve the body, mind and soul.
“Your practice is for you and nobody else, so be sure to set a loving, kind and sacred space for yourself. It’s a journey.
“Always remember that it’s a personal practice. Be kind to yourself,” she says.