Cosmos Vickery – The Yoga of Living

Cosmos Vickery has embraced his love of yoga since he was a teen. Through the years he’s grown in his understanding that the beauty of life is all about being present in the moment, knowing that we are all loved. In this episode of Nourish Your Health at Every Age, he shares his deep understanding of the “yoga of living” with host Jan Swift.

A Lafayette native, Cosmos Vickery was raised by what he calls “two hippies who were in the Peace Corps.” His dad and grandfather were named “James,” and he was named James Cosmos Vickery with the pronunciation of his first name being “Jame-us.” In early high school, he switched to using his middle name, Cosmos, which his mother told him means to “walk the universe in harmony.” An apt name, given the path his life has taken since then.

After graduation, he became somewhat of a nomad, traveling first to North Carolina to work on a Christmas tree farm, then to New Orleans to attend U.N.O. Yet, he couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that there was more to life. After meeting Ryan Hornback who introduced him to a vigorous form of yoga called Ashtanga Vinyasa, he gave away all of his possessions and pursued the practice of yoga six days a week, two hours per day. He was searching for truth and following the strict lifestyle of Ashtanga Vinyasa.

A stint living in North Carolina where he apprenticed in three different eco-villages gave him an opportunity to focus on his yoga, while he lived simply with no money, trading his time and skills for food and a place to lay his head at night. This led to a meeting with a Sanyassin (a person who is liberated from material desires, innerly detached from worldly affairs, free of egoism, and genuinely caring for the well-being of others) who awakened Cosmos to the Osho philosophy and encouraged him not to take life so seriously. As Cosmos recounts, the sannyasin told him, “Don’t let life upset you, upset life! Live and experience life. Accept life in its totality.”

So Cosmos was inspired to really live his life. He left the eco-village and traveled to South Mexico and Guatelema to meet other Osho-Sanyassins. He then returned to Louisiana to marry a young woman he had met while in an eco-village who was also a Lafayette native.

Cosmos believes that all physical practices such as yoga, exercise or even psychotherapy can be useful if they lead you to a true, natural meditation where the mind is allowed to relax and open up. Just as plants need to be hydrated with water to stay alive and to flourish, humans also need to “hydrate and loosen their soil” from hard-held beliefs that have crystallized and hardened about who they are or how they and others should act. The manner in which we are raised has a profound on these hard held beliefs and can keep a person from truly experiencing life and being able to relax. Various programs such as the 12 steps, exercise, or even religion can lead one to a loosening of this soil within the mind.

Yoga means to “yoke together” or “union,” and is a physical as well as a mindful, spiritual practice. A very small number of people are open to experiencing the enlightenment that yoga can bring to the mind and spirit. For most of us, being mindful of our body’s aches and pains and accepting that it is best to work within our limitations, without pushing beyond these limits, can be challenging. Cosmos shared that very few people, especially in health clubs, show up for yoga with a desire to just relax; they typically show up knowing that they want to sweat or get stronger physically. But, they’re not willing to open up the possibilities of what a yogic disposition may bring into their life.

Every yoga position you put yourself into as you learn how to handle the posture, even when it’s uncomfortable, can be a tool to help you learn how to lean in and handle life’s experiences. The postures help you open up and “love the problems