Most of the books that you will read about yoga these days explain to you HOW to do yoga.
They go over each of the postures, how to hold the posture, what muscles to focus on, where to put your feet and hands.
Of course, learning how to do yoga is necessary if indeed you wish to become a practitioner.
Having a great teacher is of immeasurable benefit.
We can read all the yoga books in the world, but having someone demonstrate the poses to us, explain how to get in and out of them, and show us where our weak spots are and how to correct them can never be learned from a book.
As we get into our practice, the effort no longer becomes about how to do the poses but on the sincere dedicated effort of keeping our practice going.
You may come to yoga for one reason but continue for many others.
You may have a need you want to satisfy, and then discover that yoga is not only rewarding you in that particular way but also many others.
The more you practice yoga, the more of a mystery the practice actually becomes.
We know the poses, and we rediscover ourselves in the poses each day that we practice.
Who are we when we practice triangle pose today?
How are we different?
How are we the same?
What direction is our practice leading us in?
How can we use the practice to open ourselves to deeper and deeper levels, unfolding who we really are and also who we are meant to become.
Very few of the books about yoga discuss how yoga actually works.
Uncovering what is really happening in our practice can go a long way to ripening its effects.