The dreaded nerves

The brain and nervous system act as our very own bio-computer. The brain is a multi-million celled organ made up mostly of grey matter that sits in the top of our head. I have read various articles on how much of this marvellous miracle actually works, from 10% - 20% and then to make matters more complicated is it that it's not working or we have no idea what it's actually doing?

Whatever the case it sits at the top of the head in the cranium and it needs a regular supply of oxygen for optimal functioning, it also needs sugar.

Working from that principle I would say that if we give our brain plenty of oxygen and maybe some healthy sugar, in the form of fruit sugar then it will work better. But maybe that's too simple?

Well why shouldn't it be simple?

It makes me laugh that most people think nothing of taking over the counter medications for all sorts of minor things, i.e. cold remedies, upset stomach remedies, hay fever remedies, etc, ad nausea-um. But if you suggest that something like YOGA may actually help them they look at you as if you have three heads. That is proper brainwashing for you. The next time you go to a chemist look at how many different types of cold symptom relievers there are. Mental!!! But totally accepted as normal.

Is it possible that we have everything we need inside of us to take care of ourselves? It would seem so because if we didn't have chemical receptor sites for these synthetic chemicals they wouldn't work, would they?!

I am not a doctor so maybe I 'should' not mention this stuff, but all I am trying to say here is why is it that yoga should be thought of as something that is a 'bit weird' ?

Anyway I digress. The brain and nervous system controls our body more or less. As I have stated elsewhere the body will respond to fear whether real or imagined by releasing powerful chemicals into the bloodstream, creating a physical reaction to something from the mind. So please don't worry about a thing, ha! easier said than done right? Well no not really, I think that it is actually so simple that we just can't see it. Our minds have become so befuddled with over complicated dramatic interpretations of health and disease that it just can't see the wood for the trees.

The answer is rather simple to me - by breathing deeper we improve the oxygen supply to the brain. By stretching and/or lengthening our muscles we release some of the chronic tension held in the joints and organs. We generally think tension only affects our poor old shoulders or lower back, but chronic tension affects all of the organs of the body.

Well I know it's no big deal we have always had to deal with stress. I mean how stressful must it have been living in the dark ages with no medicines or even in victorian London with poor sanitation etc. Or for that matter being chased by a sabre toothed tiger while we're out picking a few berries.

The difference between now then I think is that possibly we would have burned allot of the tension off through harder physical activities. They had no washing machines, baths or lovely flushing toilets, and life was more physically demanding.

As we sit in front of the telly worrying about the recession or global warming or finding the mortgage money and whatever else there is, those lovely old hormones are coursing through our brains and bodies. The 'sympathetic nervous system and the 'fight or flight response' (google) becomes chronically over active and we find 'we just can't switch off'. Oh dear better pop off to the doctors. But yoga, no way they're all a bit weird. 'I'll stick to my drugs and a few beers I'll be alright, is there any more of that bacon flavoured ice cream dear?'

By breathing and doing some Asana's we will improve brain function and we will wake up. We will wake up and act according to the natural rhythm's of our body/mind. We have an inherent intelligence that is being overpowered everyday by the 'small mind'.

We need more of the para-sympthetic nervous system functions to counter balance the effects of the sympathetic nervous system. We can do that by practising Asana and pranayama.

Oh yes we can!!

Yes .

Ommmmmmmm

Hard Work!

Most of us struggle to find the time to practise. This may just be the unconscious resistance, the ego making excuses, trying to save itself and I may be talking a load of old rubbish!

Do you ever ask yourself if you are actually getting anywhere with this yoga stuff? Is it making any difference to you?

I'm certainly convinced it has helped me to see myself a little clearer, and because of that I have been able to enjoy life more than I used to. I have changed but I am still me. Hmmm that sounds odd I know but in some sense I don't actually think I've changed at all. I think what has really happened is I've learned to see that I was always ok the way I was/am and always will be. In the past I think I had this idea that I 'should' be more than I already am.

Now having said that it has taken me many years and struggles and money to find that out! I think I deserve a medal!

But what choice do we have? We accept things the way they are or we don't. If we don't then we have to find the energy to change the things that are bothering us. So sit still for a moment and be honest with yourself. What is it you really want? And if you're not doing that why not?

What are you doing now? Is this what you really want to be doing? Is there really anything to do? Who does the choosing? Is the part of us that is doing the choosing any more important than any other part of ourselves? Are you 'single' minded, or are you multi dimensional? How many fingers am I holding up now? Wrong it was two!

Sun - Moon

Inhale - Exhale

Up - Down

In - Out

Tension - Relaxation

All of these opposites all of these choices how do I/we choose? What has choosing got to do with anything? Is the World really in trouble? Does the Dali-Lama really eat beef? And who cares ?

Thoughts are thoughts - where do thoughts come from?

Is it really true that only one- tenth of our brain is working. Have humans reached the pinnacle of evolution? Did the Americans really land on the moon in 1969? What is really going on? Nothing is really going on!

ITS ALL IN THE MIND DOCTOR !!

Hold a downward dog for twenty minutes just to see what happens ! And while you are doing it breathe through your mouth- do it and see what happens.

Take a rest, have a day off.

Hari Hari Om

OOps!

Is anyone reading this blog ?

Who knows anything? What is there to know? All there is, is right here now. How you feel and what you think, that's it. But what you think and how you feel are going to influence the now aren't they? So become a bit more choosy about what you think and this will influence how you feel.

'Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery, that just leaves us with now!'

How you think affects how you feel. I'm absolutely convinced that if you want to make more of now then you really 'should' breathe a bit deeper. But that's just me, you may feel it is not necessary and that is you. There you go, you have now created your own reality using your own decision. I would say this is better than just allowing it to drift along aimlessly and asleep.

But having said that first of all you may need to get to a place where you really are ok with things being exactly the way they are, oh hmm. You may have the worst problems in the world or not and wishing things would be different is just that- a wish. Action is the operative word here, action through awareness.

As I understand it awareness is psychological constant, that is, we are always aware to some degree all of the time. Can awareness be increased, can we become more aware than we already are? And if we can what would be the point?

Of course we can become more aware, just by sitting still we will become more aware of ourselves, our thoughts and our feelings will be become a little more highlighted. We may find this a challenge and may want to wriggle out of it, after all why would anyone in their right mind want to suffer, but then again are we suffering, is this really suffering or a little bit of discomfort?

What does becoming more aware achieve? Becoming more aware will give us more choice over how we spend our time. There is only now and now is the time to activate awareness. Or just spend the time being asleep, that's ok too if you prefer to be a moron. By being asleep you will still be led forward and who knows.

'The fool on the hill see's the sun going down, and the eyes in his head see the world spinning round" John Lennon.

So really who cares what you do? Who really gives a damn about Asana practise and breathing? Why do we do all this stuff? Where does it get us? These are some of the questions 'you' may want to ask yourself. But only if you have the time to spare.

I personally like to be relaxed more than I like to be stressed. I am not too driven by unconscious un-lived feelings, not as much as I used to be. I think this is so because I have undone allot of the old unconscious programmes that were running my life from underground. I have done this through the trial and error route of yoga. I have uncovered much of the stuff that was making me tense so am more relaxed as a result, most of the time, not all of the time I might add.

Hari Om

Chakra opening

'The awakening of Kundalini and it's union with Shiva is immediately and intimately connected with the whole brain. To explain it simply, we can say the brain has ten compartments, and of these nine are dormant and one is active. Whatever you know, whatever you think or do is coming from one-tenth of your brain.

Why are these compartments inactive? Because there is no energy. The active portions of the brain function on the energies of Ida and Pingala, but the other nine tenths have only pingala. Pingala is life and Ida is consciousness.' From 'Kunadalini Tantra'.

Without our ability to be a little objective there will be no sense of perspective in our 'progress' in our ongoing practise. The essence of practise in my opinion and according to more then a few books I've read on the subject is to activate 'intelligence'.

I know I'm repeating myself but just one more time the essence of it all: By opening and purifying the 'nadi's', especially IDA - PINGALA - SUSHUMNA we can move 'Kundalini' up towards the 'Crown'. Once this is completed we activate full intelligence.

Each chakra as it awakens may contain some 'Samskara'. In other words the unconscious may become activated, you may become aware of past trauma etc. If the unconscious becomes activated you may be 'freaked out' if you are unprepared for it.

A Quote from Kundalini Tantra. SWami Satyananda Saraswati : "There are so many whispers about the dangers of awakening and dark hints about people going crazy or developing disturbing powers, but everything in life is risky and there are far more dangers in everyday life than you will encounter on the path of kundalini. Every time you walk across the street or travel by car or plane you take a risk. In the pursuit of desires, passions and ambitions, people take great risks every day without thinking twice about it. Yet they allow the relatively minor risk of kundalini to deter them from pursuing the supreme goal of higher consciousness"

He goes on to say: "Without involving yourself in risk, nothing great in life can be achieved. Every great yogi, scientist, explorer and adventurer has faced great dangers and risks and in this way has invented, discovered or made progress. People who think and talk about risks are cowards, and should not even practise yoga. It is better they eat, drink and be merry and die unenlightened".

Phew strong stuff from the great Swami! But a man after my own heart I think.

Activation of the 'Ajna' Chakra is important as a first step. This is the chakra of the mind. Self enquiry and really asking some fundamental questions about what you are doing and where you have come from in a very realistic way regarding your next step in yoga is of the utmost importance I think.

If you are happy to 'do' yoga for relaxation purposes and have no interest in expanding intelligence and/or consciousness then you continue on that path. If on the other hand you have become bored with that you may be ready to take the next step and in order to do that you need to be a little bit grounded at the very least.

Some questions to ask yourself may be. What has been your past history relating to psycho-emotional balance or not and are you worried about re-activating these old wounds? Have you had any major illnesses? Are you in steady employment and earning a living from your own means? Do you take drugs and alcohol either addictively or recreationally? In other words are you 'stable' enough to be able to deal with 'stuff' emanating from the unconscious?

An interesting question for me is; Does Yoga work even if you don't know what you are doing? I think it does. So fore-warned is fore-armed, I think.

Activate Ajna through meditating on the space between the eyes, see whats there. Spend some time writing about your fears and worries in an objective way and see if there is any relevance to them. There is a saying that goes: "Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered and there was no-one there".

Without the 'ajna' there is no perspective of progress, no objectivity, so this should be the first chakra to be opened.

All of the books talk of pranayama as an essential part of the process of awakening. It is a dynamic way and is not for everyone. Work it our for yourself there is plenty of time in spite of what the doom and gloom merchants are telling us. Remember we live in and infinite universe with infinite time and we only have a tenth of our brain functioning!

'Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated awesomely simple, that's creative'. Charlie Mingus. Jazzman.

Where is this peace they keep talking about?

Tranquility and peace is quite hard to find if you keep looking outside for it. In fact I don't think you can find it outside. One has to start looking at what causes the disturbances that prevent peace. One of the things I keep coming back to is this thing called the mind, or more specifically the 'ego', or in yogic terms the 'ahamkara', the thinking faculty.

I keep referring to this part of the mind as the conditioned part of the mind. This presupposes that there may be an unconditioned part of the mind, is there an unconditioned part of the mind? Well here we have to resort to the yoga texts and ask what it is that may lay beyond or behind the 'ego'.

In my experience it is silence or the 'void' that we look into, that lies behind the ego. Without the chattering ego there is silence or what is known as 'the void'.

Now poor old Joe Bloggs is used to this companion along the way. The chattering mind is always reassuring him or chastising him for this that or the other. In some psychological references it is known as the internalised parent or child or tyrant etc. But what we know in yoga is that it is the thinking part of the mind. That is enough to know surely!

Once we realise that this is a conditioned element to our being human, we can maybe start to ponder the idea of changing something. Where do we start? It is such a huge job, or is it?

'You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack!' Talking Heads. Once in a lifetime.

One day, and I'm sure it must happen to most people at some point in your life you may wake up and think, 'What the hell am I doing with my life?". Indeed you may wake up and say to yourself, 'I am very happy with my life and the way things are'. Who is it that is saying these things, is it you? Is it the 'real you'? Is there a real you?

Here we arrive at the old chestnut of self-enquiry which I touched on in the last blog. If you are not interested in 'enlightenment' yet, and there is no reason to suppose that you 'should' be, then what are you interested in? What do you want? These are very important questions.

The problem for me throughout my young life was that I had an uncanny knack for seeing through the complications of life. I saw people struggling and I used to wonder why that just didn't do what they wanted. When I proposed this theory to my elders I was told it was selfish to do what you want. This confused me and I thought because my elders knew better that I 'must' be wrong. And so I began to mis-trust my instinctual feeling of living a simple life. Without going into too much detail, I knew that there 'must' be something more than living a life of struggle and toil, and becoming miserable because of it.

Well here we are now and we are maybe seeing hopefully that the causes of our problems are of our own making. Through the conditioning of our own mind we are living a life of habitual responses more or less. The bookshelves in the local health food shop are full of this stuff!

By sitting and breathing in and out through both nostrils we will start to see our condition. It is usually shown to us in the form of discomfort and pain, physical, mental and emotional. Ouch!

'what am I gonna do about that?' you may say.

I've never met anyone that said they thought doing yoga was easy.

Yoga in the interface of the so-called conscious mind with the so-called unconscious mind.

As you look into yourself you will find good bits and not so good bits about yourself, in other words parts of yourself you like and parts you don't like. The HA (sun) and the THA (moon) of Ha-tha (union), the union of opposites.

Is Yoga or 'Union' or 'Yoking' or 'Bringing-Together' or even 'Integrating', what you really want to be doing? Or would you rather be somewhere else? Be honest with yourself. Once you have decided then get on with bringing into manifestation the thing that you really want, make a commitment to it and see where you get to.

Cosmic consciousness, what ?

What needs to happen is there needs to be a clear distinction made between intelligence and 'smart arses'. Intelligence is some thing we all have somewhere, hidden away in the background. It's in the appreciation of the flowers and the birds and nature etc. Then we have the 'smart arse'. A smart arse is somebody that 'thinks' they know everything, the continual expert, the one who is never wrong, and who will lead you up the garden path.

What amazes me is how people think that a complete stranger can know more about them than they know about themselves. If this is the case then you may need to find a guru or a therapist that will help you, how do you do that, there are so many flavours?

If you find yourself confronted with 'cosmic consciousness' you would never mistake it for a 'smart arse' would you, that could never happen could it. As you increase your ability to bring in more light or 'prana' you will chase out the shadows, as the shadow emerges you may feel as if it's all going wrong. But quite the opposite is happening to you. If you can stay awake when the 'stuff' comes up you will see it for what it is, an illusion, and an out-dated illusion at that!

A smart arse only has one concern to keep you hooked to him/her. Beware of the smart arse, he/she wants your 'dosh' and nothing else. But how can you tell?

It's all very well if you want to do yoga to relax. If that is the case then that's fine you know where are coming from. But you may as well keep it simple and do pilate's or something because Yoga is not for this purpose and unless you at least know what the point is you may actually start to get somewhere.

'I was self-realised but I just didn't realise it!' Anon.

The teacher is the teacher and the student is the student. The student goes to a teacher because he/she wants to find something out about a particular subject. What are you learning? What do you want to learn? Do you need allot of 'old flannel' or do you want to know what to do?

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT TO DO?

Some people like to be entertained and it's quite entertaining going to a random yoga class just to see what might get dished up for you. It's fair enough and it's also true that there are some disagreements in even the most authoritative books in yoga. But when a teacher doesn't know 'diddly squat' about anything at all let alone yoga, what is the world coming to?

There was a saying around a few years back which said, 'Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?' This was essentially saying, 'do you want to be a smart arse or do you want to enjoy your life as it presents itself to you?' Of course the answer is 'both', I want to be right and I want to be happy'. Is that the correct answer?

'Sometimes I really don't know what to say specifically so I just waffle on and most of the time it seems to work' Captain Fantastic.

This 'smart arse' character is of course our old friend the 'ego maniac'. What lies beyond this character? What could cosmic consciousness feel like and would we know it if we got it? I think not, I think these things may be happening to us all the time, but we keep listening to the one who knows it all and he/she keeps steering us up the wrong path.

Apparently we have a higher self, or inner guru, an element of our own psyche perhaps, that is the wise person inside of us, the part that will always lead us into our best position. How would we know that if we got it?

Focusing in the space between the eyes and breathing deeply into the spine. Inhale, 'puraka' and exhale, 'rechaka', the energy moves up and down, 'prana vayu' moves up and 'apana vayu' moves down. We keep going with this process for 15 minutes. We start to notice our mind distracting us away from the breaths movement . Then we bring our attention back again to the movement of up and down. We suspend the breath cycle for half a minute, kumbhaka and we see if we can stop thinking. Once you have stopped thinkin you have made the ego maniac go away for a while. But he will come back again and sometimes with with a vengeance. What is he saying? Is this the 'smart arse' or is this the 'inner guru', how will you know?

You will know only through trial and error. Repeating this process over and over agin until you can trust your deeper self, your inner guru etc. You will soon start to see the smart arse for what he/she is, a manipulator extraordinaire.

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

'Oh do shut up Brian' Hilary Fernley.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Ecstasy. what are you waiting for?

'If these two separate energies, prana (energy) and chitta (consciousness), can be unified, this creates a suitable condition for Kundalini or spiritual energy to awaken and ascend through the middle passage, Sushumna nadi. Hatha yoga is the process of establishing perfect physical, mental, emotional and psychic equilibrium by manipulating the energies of the body. It is through Hatha Yoga that one prepares for the higher spiritual experience.' From Hatha Yoga Pradidpika, Yoga publications trust version, page 26.

What yoga seems to have become now is an opportunity to show off how good you are at your postures at your local yoga class, have you noticed how all the bendy people go to the front of the class?. It has become very body oriented and also money making business. People are charging £50-£100 or more to teach a yoga class in someone's home for an hour. Yoga teachers are taking drugs and getting drunk on the weekend. Blimey!

I remember many years ago I mentioned that I thought it was wrong for yoga teachers to smoke dope, and get drunk, and I was immediately attacked for being moralistic. Let me add I was attacked for being moralistic by the very people that were still 'needing' to use drugs and booze to have a good time. Perhaps I am fortunate that I don't need these things anymore.

Morals have nothing to do with this, if you want to get drunk and take drugs that's ok by me but how can you call yourself a yoga teacher, at best you are are some kind of fitness teacher. We seem to live in an age where people can do what they like and if they are criticised they accuse the critic of being judgemental. Well like I say, 'its not important to be serious but it is important to be serious about what's important'.

I think keeping Yoga pure is important, at least to the point where so- called yoga teachers are drug and booze free and are doing some kind of daily practise. If you have any problem and disagree with me then feel free to make a comment. And I just want to say I am not saying these things to be controversial this is what I 'really' think and I'm putting my money where my mouth is for a change, it's nothing personal

All that aside when was the last time you felt ecstasy in your practise? If you go on a scale from abject and utter misery to complete unbounded joy where do you think you are on that scale right now?

I see consciousness a bit like a bandwidth on the Internet. We used to use a very slow old narrow band-width and when we first got it, it was great! Then along comes broadband and wow, we will never go back to narrow band. Once you start to really get into YOGA from the point of view of Ecstatic experience you will not need to go to a yoga class you wont worry how you look either.

'Oh no', the 'ego' says, 'I can't have that. If I'm gonna be in ecstasy I want to look good too!'

My first experience with cosmic consciousness as an adult was in 1970. I went to a guru and sat around getting very high from all the sat-sangs. We were doing some chanting and I went off into an altered state. I was not in the room any more and went into a white light experience. It lasted for quite a time, and when I came back I felt like I'd been washed through. I'm not saying this was Samhadi, I don't know what it was, but it blew my mind. At that time I wasn't ready to pick up the mantle of 'spirituality', I don't know what other word to use, and soon went back to my life as it was before that experience. I knew I was not finished with the world I wanted experiences and could not entertain the thought of not being me as I was then.

Humans are flawed, most of the great teachers when you look deeper into their lives were flawed characters. But so what! Perfection awaits you in Samadhi nothing else matters, does it?

And if it does, indeed if there is something more you want you'd better get on with it then hadn't you?

And this is a very interesting point. If you are meditating and trying to clear your thoughts and the thought keeps coming in, "Oi you need to put some more money in the parking meter". Well if you ignore that thought you will get a ticket won't you. So see whats in there. You must follow your inner dictates until you don't need to anymore. Then you become guided by higher consciousness.

Yoga teaching has become seriously compromised, in my opinion, an easy way to earn money. We get over-authoritative teachers that have probably failed in life and have now become Demi-Gods in their little world of yoga. 'Egoic' and self important they become tyrants only really worrying if they will make enough money to pay the mortgage! Hahaaha. Yes that means you if you are rankling!

'Become nothing then you have nothing to loose' Anon

'Bulls**t baffles brains' Anon.

'Do you know the way to San-Jose' Burt Bacharach.

'Come on Baby light my fire' Jim Morrison.

Om Nama Shivaya.

Sat Chit Ananda

Sat (Being) Chit (Consciousness) Ananda (Bliss)

Here we all are spinning around on this planet in this vast universe. What are we supposed to be doing?

Conflict reigns supreme in abundance all over the world. So maybe we should just accept it as part of human nature, at least at this point in our evolution.

Within the deepest experience of ourselves is Ananda. Overlying this experience are all the layers of the complex mind, the physical body and all of it's functions and dysfunctions. Conflict seems to be with us all the time on some level, as we are constantly having to make choices.

When we shine the light of 'cosmic consciousness' into our mind and body we may begin to see these conflicts more clearly, this is tricky, this may make us want to turn away again. Unresolved conflict can drain our energy so it is important to resolve some of these conflicts- in other words, MAKE UP YOUR MIND! Or maybe that should be, WAKE UP YOUR MIND!

The only real question that needs to be answered is 'WHO ARE YOU?'

And once you find out who you are the next question is 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?'

But actually once you know who you are at the deepest level you probably won't need to ask what you are doing.

My experience of life is sometimes it is UP and sometimes it is DOWN this is a part of the natural rhythm of life. But can we keep conscious whether we are up or down? Can we resist getting all overwhelmed when things 'go wrong' for us? Can we keep perspective when we 'get high'? If we don't we may start to buy into the whole theory of right and wrong good and bad, we may start beat ourselves up for failing to do what we maybe didn't really want to do in the first place.

Regarding this thing called yoga, as I have said, as far as I'm aware, it was meant as a practice for those people that were either drawn into a more spiritual way of being at a younger age, or for older people that had finished with the material world and were ready to become 'spiritually' oriented. It really wasn't meant as a P.E class, but we have to start somewhere.

Perhaps the explosion of yoga into the Western mindset is representative of 'our need' now to sort things out before we destroy ourselves with over consumption and laziness globally and individually.

As you shine the light of your yoga practise into the dark recesses of your mind you may begin to notice things. You may begin to see the different elements of your 'egoic' construct and you may have to start to decide which of these elements are still serving you within that construct and which are not, (remember the sub-personality model form previous blogs).

Pratyahara-is turning inward, once you turn your senses within you will certainly become more aware of your mental programming.

Dharana- Once you can manage to stay centred within this inward attention process you will see more and more that the thoughts come and go, they rise and they fall.

Dhyanna- As you sit for longer periods you then 'rea-lise' that the thought processes are just that, a process. It's as if the thoughts have now become independent of the thinker.

Then comes the question 'WHO AM I'? If I'm not my thoughts which makes up my personality structure then who am I ?

It is at this point that we begin to real-ise that we are something more than our thoughts.

'Do you take the red pill or the blue pill'? Matrix.

'It's all getting a bit serious Maude' Bill Koncope.

More Kundalini.....

I really don't know what else to say on the subject of yoga. I think I've said it all in essence and I know I'm already repeating myself.

There is much to read and much to do. You will need some determination and very slowly you will start to see how it all comes together.

The 8 limbs of yoga through Patanjali

The Hatha yoga Pradipika.

Everything you need to know is in these two books.

There are many different versions of these two books and if you want to know more e mail me and I will tell you which I think are the best one's to get.

The books are useful because as we have already discovered many people supposedly teaching yoga don't know too much about what they are supposed to be doing, so the books help to give a clearer vision of the whole process.

Whatever has happened to you in the past is stored in your memory banks, physically, mentally and emotionally. Sometimes strong feelings and memories can resurface. When they do you have to remember that this is the past and it may be showing you something.

Try not to become a victim of your past. Stop complaining about how hard it all was, we need to move on from that and empower ourselves with this energy rather than be overwhelmed by it.

On the other hand if you have a need for it then you may benefit from some form of therapy of which there are many types to choose.

I personally believe It is all contained in yoga, it is all there. The only problem, is that it can seem a bit confusing. So keep it simple - Breathe - Relax - Look into your own mind - where are you right now ? - Do an Asana - Breathe some more - Keep relaxing - If you cant relax do some more Asana.

Something that is very important is the development of 'Pratyahara' (Turning inward). If you are too externally fixated you waste allot of energy, if you can remain more centred you will not waste energy by over-compensating and straining yourself in Asana's.

Feeling is something that we might not want to do if we are not used to it, and keeping over-tense (being uptight) is a sure way not to feel uncomfortable feelings.

How much are you prepared to do to achieve (at the minimum) peace of mind.

Just Do IT !!

Ommmmmmmmmmm.

"The Essence of it all".

It is a very large subject is yoga, vast tracts from many different sources old and new abound. What is it all about when it really comes down to it?

One thing is certain, if you don't do anything nothing will change. If you do a little some things may change slowly and if you do allot much can change rather quickly.

Time is of the essence, this is the case for most of us. There are 24 hours in a day and if we sleep and average of 8 hours we have 16 hours of wakefulness. 7 days a week makes that 112 hours a week. If you 'go' to three 90 minute classes a week that's 4 and a half hours a week. 112 hours minus 4 and a half still leave 107.5. Most people I speak to think it is impossible to do even that!

It looks pretty bad looking at it like that don't you think?

Leaving logic aside, and I will because logic has nothing to do with it. If you are 'called' to do yoga there will be no stopping you, you will just do it. But please don't complain that you are unhappy, tired and miserable etc, until you have invested a little more energy into a little more consistent yoga practise.

Many years ago there was, and probably still is a book called 'A course in miracles'. It is a very long book written in a very difficult language. The second part of the book has 365 separate lessons for everyday of the year. The idea behind these lessons is to dismantle the ego. The basic message of this very long and difficult book is: 'There is only love, all fear comes from the ego'.

I tried it and did it and I never really understood what it meant and it never made any difference to me probably because I'm thick!

When I do Pranayama and use Khumbaka I know what it feels like experientially to have 'no ego', albeit for a minute or two, but I know what it is like to have a quiet and peaceful mind.

It's funny but true that people ask for the truth and you give it to them and then they go somewhere else and ask again. The truth is right under your nose.

All fear is created by fearful thinking. If there is no thinking there can be no fear.

The first yoga Sutra of Patanjali states: 'Atha Yoga Anusasanam'; Which means, now a revised text of yoga, or an explanation of yoga follows.

The second yoga Sutra of Patanjali says: 'Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha'; which means; Yoga is the restraint of mental modifications.

So in the second Sutra, Patanjali tells us what yoga is! Restraint of thoughts, more or less.

The rest of the book is a rather complicated and complex explanation of how to do this.

I am not being disrespectful, I am just out lining for the more simple minded, like myself just exactly what it is we are trying to accomplish.

So the 'ego' is the source of our problems. If we can begin to see that it is this 'ego', which has been shaped by our experiences and input/data, that is a subjective and therefore changeable thing, we just may begin to see some light (at the end of the tunnel).

Do some Asana's, any Asana's, and then do some deep but gentle breathing for five minutes. Then slow the breath down and at a certain point mid-inhale suspend the breath and stop thinking. You don't need to get all competitive with this process, just easy breathing will do and don't hold the breath for more than is comfortable. See if you can do this and actually stop thinking for a few seconds.

If you have succeeded you have just mastered yoga. Not for a very long time but long enough to see that it is possible to stop thinking. I think it is a staggering realisation that with all our amazing abilities and achievements we are not able to control our own minds. In other words we are not able to stop thinking for very long if at all, at all.

I'm telling you this so you don't waste vast sums of money and time listening to long winded discussions about the in's and out's of a dogs ear. I know it's not much fun doing it like this, and you never know you may just meet the man/woman of your dreams at the next workshop you attend. I know so many people that gave up yoga after getting into a relationship I can't tell you.

Om Nama Shivaya.

Simply speaking.

You clear the system of toxins using Kriyas - Shatkarmas.

You strengthen the body and mind with Asana.

You focus the mind and breathe more consciously, Kapalbhatti and Anuloma Viloma. Pranayama

You turn your attention within. The senses are turned inward. Pratyahara.

You practise keeping focused within on the breath or a mantra etc. Dharana.

You extend the periods of keeping still and focused. Dhyanna.

You merge with and become one with cosmic consciousness. Samhadi.

There you go. This is all in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which was written about 2000 years ago.

As we bring in more light it draws out the shadow. The brighter the light the darker the shadow. The more practise you do the faster you change and the more intense the practise becomes. Your Karma will determine your practise, don't worry about anything! You will be able to do what you will be able to do no matter what anyone tells you. You own body/mind will be you best teacher.

As you unite the HA and the THA of Hatha all duality ceases and you will 'BE'.

Ida is the left nostril and left channel.

Pingala is the right nostril and the right channel.

Sushumna is the central channel - This channel opens and energy flows within it when Ida and Pingala are balanced and flowing.

As the Sushumna channel opens the Kundalini energy will begin to move upward towards the top of the head - Sahasrara- the thousand petalled lotus.

The dance between Shiva and Shakti begins.

Ommmmmmmmmmm.

Stuff!

We are what we are now and through yoga practice we can change, this is as much of a fact as it can be.

But you will need some determination if you want to change.

The reason you will need to have some determination is because generally it is hard to change for most of us.

The reason it is hard to change is because we have become used to being who we are, in other words we have become conditioned/comfortable being a particular way.

The way we have become, i.e, us as we are now, is confronted with a 'newer or deeper' part of us that is more or less fed up with things being the way they are and wants to change.

You could say that we are now willing to move from the material, i.e, shopping, falling in and out of love etc, to the spiritual, i.e, a more internally motivated life.

This would require that you are maybe a bit older and have got fed up with materiality, although not necessarily so.

If you have found yourself doing yoga and have stuck with it for more than a year then you may actually have to concede that yoga is helping you to change, or not.

Once you have decided you may need to start to take the practise a little more seriously, or not.

Remember it's not important to be serious but it is important to be serious about what's important.

'Comfort zones', is a term used to connote that we have a limit to our ability to be comfortable. If we move beyond those limits we become uncomfortable.

If we are attached/addicted to being comfortable then we will always view discomfort as dangerous and threatening in some way.

Remember the body responds to fear 'real or imagined' so if we force ourselves into too much discomfort the process may become counter-prodtuctive.

Unless we use yoga as it meant to be used- Patanjali- Hatha yoga pradipika etc.

The mind/ego as it has been formed is very cunning and it will outwit any attempts to get rid of it.

So don't think of trying to get rid of it.

As you learn to sit still and look at the way you think and the type of things you think about you will get a deeper insight into who you have become.

The 'ego' (ahamkara) is the central 'I'. The aware part of mind that identifies with things. Statements such as 'I am hot or cold, I don't like cheese, I am a train driver, etc, come from this place.

A statement coming from the central 'I' which says 'I am expanding my consciousness with my practise of yoga, I am becoming healthier and can relax more etc' is still coming from the central 'I'. So in this case the 'I' is necessary.

But there may also be a part that says 'I'm fed up with yoga'. Ha ha ha, then you may just have to laugh.

We have then identified the dual- positive/negative nature of the ego or conditioned mind.

If we deny the 'ego' and keep pushing it out we have no relationship to anything 'we are then suppressing stuff' which will come up and bite us in the arse later on.

So the little 'I' of the ego needs to change to being more positive and supportive in our process of our attempts at expanded awareness.

We can then choose to become more positive and supportive towards ourselves as we progress through the layers of conditioning.

As we connect more and more to the big 'I' , expanded awareness, we see the little 'I' for what it is - a conditioned part of the mind with mostly outdated software- so we renew the software, positive input is required for a positive outcome.

This is a big realisation!

All of the older wiser books on yoga come from the premise that all change comes from within.

The dangers of yoga, are there any? Most of the warnings are about 'pranayama' and the fact that you should not do 'pranayama' until you have achieved steadiness of mind. You achieve steadiness of mind through asana practise and pratyahara.

Basically what this means is if you haven't dealt with some of your basic issues they may become inflamed, e.g, addictions to drugs or alcohol.

Also if you have a history of high blood pressure, respiratory problems, etc you should not do pranayama. But this does not mean forever otherwise the path of yoga would be closed off to anyone with health problems. This is why you need a proper teacher--- Ask these people challenging questions, see what they know.

So you need to find out what pranayama is and why you should do it or not.

Then of course we have people that may have had some psychological problems and have or are continuing to take medication for these problems, do we do tell them tell can't do yoga?

There is always something in yoga that is possible for people whatever their level of health, be it full on strenuous asanas or gentle relaxation.

Om Nama Shivaya.

And Briefly

What we are supposed to be doing, if we are practising yoga that is, is to be purifying our system in order to increase energy, (Kundalini), in order to expand intelligence and consciousness.

Kundalini Shakti lives in the Sacrum and when we are ready it will rise up the spine and unite with Shiva in the crown of the head. The unification of Shiva and Shakti.

This is what all of the older books are saying more or less!

According to most of these books the journey of the Kundalini Shakti through Sushumna Nadi will not happen until you are ready.

On the other hand some of the books give dire warnings as to what will happen if you raise the Kundalini energy prematurely ?!

What I think they are warning against is to not inflame any underlying problems of a psycho-emotional content, i.e, unfinished business. Remember some people spend years in therapy!

There are stories of people that have achieved this 'kundalini awakening'. Gopi Krisna for example, without ever doing a Yoga Asana or seeing or knowing about any of the Chakra's did so.

Remember allot of people need money and allot of people will tell you anything to get you and your money to part company. If you decide to go to yoga classes ask your teacher some of the things you read and see what they say.

There are 8 limbs on the tree of yoga- not one. The reason for asana practise is to gain steadiness and strength in the physical body to contain increased energy that you are transforming from dormant to active, from unconscious to conscious. Go at you own pace and respect the fact that your body and mind have already become conditioned to what they are now and may need a bit of coaxing to change.

But be honest with yourself if you are too lazy- admit it- you are a Tamas soul that's all and you may need to address the Guna's.

p.s. any words you don't understand google and there will be an answer.

Hari Om.

And Now.

Our personal evolution has been whatever it's been, and things happened to us in the past that we had no control over. It is these things have shaped us more or less into the person we now are.

If you have chosen to do yoga and you have been practising for more than 1 year regularly you really should at some point soon start to ask yourself if you are serious about this stuff.

Do some Asana then some Pranayama- then sit still and listen to yourself. This could take as little as 15 minutes or as long as 2 hours or more. Are you doing anything yet?

It's hard work and if anyone says it isn't ask them if they no any other good jokes!

om nama shivaya.

Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Sri Patanjali talks of the system of Raja Yoga saying that the Yamas and Nyamas 'should' be accomplished before proceeding to asana and pranayama etc.

Taking a look at 'Hatha Yoga Pradipika', we see that it is not concerned at all with Patanjali's view. It is more focused on the cleansing processes, and feels it is important to clear the channels from impurities. To do this we use 'Shatkarma' and these consist of Neti, Dhauti, Basti, Kapalbhati, Trataka and Nauli. I'm not going to make it too easy for you I think you should research each of these yourself, remember 'google'.

The point again I'm trying to make is that there is some disagreement within these two major texts, i.e Patanjali and Hatha Yoga Pradipika, nevertheless they are still very much focused on purification and the raising of consciousness and energy.

You may still smoke and do Hatha Yoga but surely one day you will have to concede that smoking and yoga don't really go together. I believe that as we use Asana and Pranayama we surely become more intelligent and we become more aware as the light of reason shines into the darker corners of the mind. We become restored to sanity and we see certain things that we might not have seen before. We can then choose what to do with this new seeing vision, ignore it or act on it.

Before you can solve a problem you may first have to become aware that you have one!

I love the fact that scientist only know what 10% of the brain is for. They call the unknown part ' the silent areas', isn't that amazing, to think that we have been able to crawl from the primordial slime to reach this point in time and still only have 10% of our brain working.

This is surely where yoga takes the stage. If you think of how much practise you do now and see the benefits and multiply that by 10 the you can begin to see the possibilities.

Using the Hatha Yoga Pradipika's way forward we may have to spend some time purifying our system a little first. How? Stopping smoking, drinking too much booze, over eating are three to start with. And here we seem to hit a big problem. Being told what to do! We seem to think we know it all and are very reluctant to take advice and especially if it means giving up some of our precious habits. I know only too well so I can empathise certainly.

One example stands out for me. About 10 years ago I had been doing yoga for about 4 years and thought I knew it all, I was bendy and I liked breathing and getting high from it. I met a guy and knew he was a yoga teacher of some years. He was sitting drinking a Cappucino and smoking a roll up and he told me it was alright to do what you liked. To me this was ridiculous and although I didn't argue with him I knew I completely disagreed with this view. On the other hand I met someone who told me that unless I had the Yamas and Nyamas under my belt then I could not possibly call myself a yoga teacher.

Two different views from extreme ends of the spectrum. I consider myself quite extreme but see these views to be lazy. These people have taken a stance and held them rigidly in place. Through the practise of Yoga surely we can become more internally directed. Aren't we after all moving into higher realms of consciousness. Why on Earth would you want to smoke and drink or on the other hand deny worldly pleasure if you are conversing with 'Cosmic consciousness'?

Misery is optional apparently but it is only optional when you see you have an option. You can only see you have an option when you move beyond the constraints of the moaning mind.

'It's a hard world to get a break in, all the good things have been taken'. 60's Animals song.

All the answers lie within is the basic message of all of the older schools with designs on consciousness expanding techniques. Do it or don't it's up to you.

Om nama Shivaya.

What is this thing called yoga practise?

As all humans have similar characteristics so too all humans are absolutely unique to one another. As there are no two fingerprints the same so there a no two people exactly the same. Having said that it's amazing that we can communicate at all. Honouring the differences and the similarities between us we can find a practise that suits our individual needs.

The Eight Limbs of Yoga

In Sanskrit

1.Yamas. 2. Niyamas. 3. Asanas. 4. Pranayama. 5. Pratyahara 6. Dharana. 7. Dhyana. 8 Samhadi.

In English

1. Observances. 2. Restraints. 3. Postures. 4. Breath control. 5. Inward attention. 6. Concentration. 7. Meditation. 8. Immersion/Ecstasy.

1.There are 5 Yamas: 1. Ahimsa = Non harming. 2. Satya = Truthfulness. 3. Asteya = Non stealing. 4. Brahmacarya = Chastity. 5. Aparigraha = Non-Greed.

2.There are 5 Nyamas: 1. Shaucha = Purity. 2. Samtosha = Contentment. 3. Tapas = Asceticism 4. Svadhyaya = Study. 5. Worship of God.

According to Sri Patanjali and others the Eight Limbs of Yoga should be completed in the order described above, i.e, from 1 through to 8.

If we are realistic about this we may have to concede that it would be virtually impossible to achieve all of the observances and restraints before we did a yoga posture. Besides if we did achieve these things it might become unnecessary to do anything else anyway. I am not saying it is impossible though, some may be able to do it.

It is becoming more acknowledged as yoga spreads throughout the west that there is some differences between the Eastern and Western mindset. So maybe we need to be clearer about what it is we want to achieve from yoga. If we have taken the time to do some yoga and find it useful, even as a form of relaxation, then we should not be put off by some of the more 'way out' perspectives of some of the older texts.

I know that at times I have become a little bewildered by my 'inner processes' and have needed some advice on some of the 'fall-out' from that. Reading 'Light on Life' by Mr Iyengar we read that regarding pranayama he didn't start it until he had been doing asanas for Several years and even then he found it extremely difficult because of some earlier childhood illnesses.

I personally found the pranayama very useful in raising my energy enough to do the asanas in the first place. So what are we to do? This is why I say by all means read all that is available on yoga and surrounding subjects, but trust your own experiences and let them guide you. When in doubt return to the study of the subject, read about it and then go back and try again. Don't be put off by the current over- safety neurotic fear of anything a little challenging. If the safety obsessed culture had it's way we would all be wearing harnesses!

'Remember you are your own best teacher and if your not you should be'. Sam Jones.

If you cannot find a good and knowledgeable teacher then please refer to the many older books available. You could trawl back through some of the blogs to find of them.

'Hatha Yoga Pradipika' is a very good and informative book. Indeed any books by the Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India.

Believe me there is allot to read.

It's all very well saying 99% practice one per cent Theory but not if you get lost and need some information - it's not good advice at all- unless of course you want to be a physical jerk!

More later .. . . . . . .

Hari Om.

Read the Label.

When I first came to yoga I didn't particularly enjoy the class but I did appreciate how I felt at the end of it. Because of my inquisitive nature I wanted to know what had happened to me to make this profound change. During the class I knew that I had breathed deeper than I normally did and I knew that some of the positions I held were really uncomfortable.

As I continued with my practise I realised more and more that the ability to change my energy using yoga asanas and pranayama was very real. I got very high from the breathing, but nobody told me about the low end of the high. Have you ever heard the term 'the brighter the light the darker the shadow', or, 'the higher you fly the deeper you fall'?

My experience of yoga is that it does take you up and it very much lets you down. We get high and we get low this is our experience. The yoga mat to me feels like the interface with the conscious and the unconscious mind. As You continue to practise you may become aware of 'your-self' from a deeper feeling perspective and indeed you 'should' be getting to know yourself.

In getting to know yourself you are learning how you are affected under the 'whip' of the practise, i.e, when you are under pressure the cracks start to show, and when the cracks expose themselves you know where the repairs are needed. In other words under stress you may be reactive but if you learn to breathe and detach you may be less reactive and more responsive to this new situation you find yourself in.

'To heal you have to feel'. Ralph.

This is exactly what the practise is designed to do. You may start out on the yogic path all lovely and shanti and suddenly you hit a wall of anger, grief or misery and you may think you are doing something wrong. Absolutely not! You are in fact doing something right, you are uncovering the deeper layers of unfinished business, physical, mental and emotional. Old wounds may return to be healed in a deeper way, certainly old physical injuries may reappear, and if this can happen on a physical level why not on an emotional or mental level too? This is why it's useful to keep a diary of experiences on classes you attend and you may be surprised by what you find out about yourself.

This is the conditioned reality of 'subjective experience' and I think I've mentioned before it isn't an easy thing to do this work. This is why when you go to some classes you may get music playing to focus on instead of feeling the intensity of the experience. This is because it might get too much for you, after all our delicate Western sensibilities are in need of being placated to a certain extent or else we would never do yoga as it meant to be done, it would be too hard, or too boring or something else.

Admittedly we all have to start somewhere. My first yoga experiences had carpets and music!

Getting to the point; As you keep going up and down and in and out you will notice that there is a part of you that is growing in appreciation of this up and down movement. I don't know what to call this element of the mind, you could call it a 'witness' consciousness or the 'higher self', but whatever you call it you will notice 'it' more and more.

There is a principle which more or less says that 'what the 'thinker' thinks the 'prover' proves'. In other words if you 'think' something to be 'true' you will manifest the evidence to support your theory. If we add the 'watcher' or the witness to this process, then the 'watcher' watches the 'thinker' thinks and the 'prover' proves. Now if we can stay in touch with this newer element of the mind, 'the witness', it may save us from having to prove so much to ourselves, it may save us from our illusions and restore us to sanity.

Om Shanti.

Following on from yesterday which did seem a bit long when I read it this morning, I would like to reiterate.

Oh no, here we go again: You are here now. You are affected by your current life circumstances more or less. You are avoiding or you are dealing with the issues that are facing you at the moment. True or False?

When we sit to meditate, we may become aware immediately of our situation from a feeling, thinking perspective. If you have not made an intention to sit still you will probably fidget about until it becomes 'too much' and you 'have' to go and do something else. If you continue to sit you may become aware of certain thought processes, and if you sit regularly and often you may even become aware of habitual thinking patterns.

This is interesting from the point of view of conditioned reality. 'I think therefore I am' becomes, 'I think therefore I am a victim of my thoughts'. It surely must be the case that if we believe something to be true then it is true, for us, e.g, Bob is an idiot but Shirley is really clever, I don't like people that wear green because they are rude, etc, etc.

Until we test these truths in the laboratory (our own brain and nervous system) we will never really know if these truths are true or not, ahem!

Sorting the real from the unreal is one of the 'tenets' of yoga, but surely this is confusing if all is 'Maya' (illusion) in the first place, what is there to sort out? It's all an illusion so therefore it should all be thrown out, because it's all rubbish.

But of course if we do that we may become 'mindless' morons, and that's an interesting concept. No mind and an empty head seems bizarre because we would have nothing to listen to, no inner dialogue, no chattering between the ears.

The 'ego' is a bit like having a portable small screen TV set stuck firmly in front of your face. You become so obsessed with this small screen that you fail to notice that if you take it away from your face you are confronted with a panoramic view of the hugest screen in the universe, and all in technicolour too!

A robot is a mindless machine with a programmed reality. Can you identify with that, being a robot, all nice and safe doing the routine things that you do everyday more or less in the same way? I'm really not trying to be funny here, but it just seems to me that this feels more like the truth. Our brain and nervous system are the hardware and our thoughts, beliefs, habits etc, are the software. We have become programmed to behave in a certain way, through parenting, education, etc.

Habits are one thing but addictions are habits that have become necessary for the survival of the ego. We hold on to the safety of our routine and we have been taught to do this from a very young age. Allot of child rearing techniques are based on safe routines. This is not a case of right or wrong it is just that at a certain point in your life you may find that you are very unhappy and that you are 'stuck in a rut'. This is a wake up call from a deeper part of your being, the big screen beckons, a spiritual emergence is occurring, and according to some of the books I have read this is a global phenomenon. We as humans have somehow reached a pinnacle of technological brilliance and the poor old brain and nervous system are struggling to keep up.

Just considering the advancement of technology over the last ten years is enough to blow your mind! Everyone virtually has a mobile phone now and a computer. The 'google' God gives us immediate if sometimes flawed answers to all of our questions. Try it now, think of anything and google it as a question, how many stars in the universe, it will give you an answer, amazing.

Some of the information I have gathered over the years seems to indicate that we can do something about our predicament if we have the tenacity, or read another way if we are 'desperate' enough to have the energy and commitment to clear some of the bullshit that exists within the parameters of our own minds.

From what I can make out meditation, i.e, inward looking and certain breathing techniques seem to be crucial in the changing process. It depends on the 'seller' of the latest gimmick technique as to which of these if any has the priority. But used in conjunction I would say both are very useful.

Useful for what I hear a voice say. What am I going on about? Well in a nutshell undoing who you have become, if you are unhappy with this situation, to be the person that you want to be. Rather than the programmed person that you may be now you can energise your system to raise your energy, (intelligence), to look around you and wake up, ouch!!

I listened to Radio 4 yesterday morning and I heard someone (probably famous) I didn't catch her name on woman's hour. She was talking about a depression she'd had in the past and how she went to the doctors and got some anti- depressants and now feels better. I didn't hear her say she was now off them, maybe she did, or that she had tried therapy or yoga or anything else at all. But I did think that at this time of year with depression being higher than at any other time of the year, how (i cant think of a word strong enough) 'wrong' it was to be sending out a message like that to people.

'It's a hard life innit'! Uncle Bob.

"Into this world we're born. Into this life we're thrown." Jim Morrison.

"We're all equal but some of us are more equal than others" George Orwell, Animal Farm.

"Three bottle of vodka please I've had enough". Overheard in an off-license.

Beyond Asana . . . . .

If you try to put 40 watts of power into a 30 watt light-bulb the light-bulb will blow. If you as a human organism put your system under too much pressure it will blow itself out somehow.

Try and imagine that there is such a thing as supreme health and give it a number 10 and that there is also a thing called Supreme Un-health as number O. Then if we had some way of assessing where we are along that scale we could formulate a plan to become healthier, or unhealthier, if we are predisposed to such a thing.

If we keep it even simpler and use the terms *Supreme Happiness to replace *Health and Supreme Misery to replace Un-Health it may be easier for us to get an idea of where we are on the scale from 0-10. All you have to do is think back to the most miserable time in your life and compare it to the happiest time of your life, you can then create your own scale, and you will be somewhere along that spectrum between happy and miserable at this moment in time.

*n.b you can choose any word that suits your vocabulary to replace health or happiness*

So here and now with whatever is going on for you, you could make a commitment to move from where you are now to the next level up, or if you are inclined, the next level down. So for example if you decided that you were at number 3 you could make a commitment to get to number 4 and so on.

I personally believe that given the choice most people would prefer to be happy rather than sad. Happy is maybe a bit simplistic in such complex creatures as ourselves so you may choose the word you want to denote your favoured way of being.

'Anandamaya Kosha' is the 'Bliss Body' and in relative terms could be said to lie beneath the other layers, the other layers being the physical, mental, etc. So the bliss body could relate to 'Atman' with Atman being related to Brahman, which is beyond understanding, the infinite wisdom of the infinite. Imagine the size of the Universe and multiply it by any number you can think of to give you perspective of Brahman.

I am trying here to give an idea of levels of experience within ourselves, from the mundane misery to the super-conscious levels of bliss absolute. These are places the yogi's of old spoke of and they spoke of these places as being 'very real' from an experiential perspective. If science ever proves or disproves that these places exist as 'real phenomena' is not important because it is the experiencer and not the experience that is important and 'you/we/I' are the experiencers of these inner realms of being-ness.

Coming back to our lives as they are now what do we find? I know for myself that some days are better than others, and recently I have been acutely aware of the disparity between joy and misery from my own personal experiences and of those around me. How can I stay in joy all the time? Ha! Now that is the question. If the bliss body is at the back of all the other layers then it is the bliss body that supports us in whatever experience we are having, in other words bliss is our natural state. Our outer mundane reality may be horrendous but the bliss body isn't affected by any of our worldly concerns, it just is!

How you personally raise your energy to get a stronger and more intimate connection to the bliss body is entirely up to you. The philosophy of yoga to me is a manual for the subject of transformation, what the alchemists of old referred to as the transmutation of lead into gold. If you don't use the yogic manual it may be because you are not ready yet, or in other words, you are too busy, too lazy, too tired, too clever, too stupid or something else you may need to use as an excuse.

An interesting point to be made here is that, according to what I have read in various book. In days of old a man or woman was said to be ready for the spiritual life when he/she had finished with worldly things, such as having a family and having a career etc. He/she had proved that he/she was of sufficient fortitude to move into the so-called higher spiritual realms, the metaphor of feet on the ground and head in the clouds.

Put another way I would say that unless you have your feet on the ground and are living in the world in a grounded way, i.e, taking responsibility for yourself and earning a living through your own means, then yoga may become another way of escaping. You may want to get up when you haven't really been down in a grounded way. So you become a 'flake-head' or an 'air head' floating around the place thinking it's all lovely-jubbly when it actually isn't too great at all on the ground below.

Having said that I know only too well that there are always exceptions to the rule, I myself being one! I have known of people who thought it would be a lovely idea to be a yoga teacher only to crash with a very soft thud a bit later on down the road. As mentioned in an earlier blog if you are a yoga teacher it would behove you well to continue your own practise (Sadhana) or run the risk of becoming depressed or worse, more on that later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hari Hari Om.

Practise, Yes oh yes.

I'm quite certain that for most of us a daily practise is essential. More often than not and especially at this time of year my resistance to practise is huge. If I do it I feel better, if i don't my head starts to get the better of me and I generally start believing it.

FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real. Fearful and worrying thinking will trigger hormones into the system. The body responds to fear real or imagined, i.e, if you lay in bed at night worrying and creating fear filled thoughts your body will react as if it is being threatened and at the very least adrenal hormones will be pumped into your system and speed your heart rate up. You will not be able to sleep then and will think even more, probably digging back into the dark distant past to find the cause of your misery.

Alternatively you could get up and sit down and start to activate your breathing mechanism with some attention. As you do this your heart rate will start to slow down. This will then send a message to the brain that the previous threat has now passed and it is safe. All very simple really, but not easy? This is why I say; DO IT EVERYDAY!! Did you hear that: DO IT EVERYDAY!!

Make your practise personal, create a practise that works for you. You will have a favourite posture so start with that one. Leave the super yogi's to become super stupid, all you have to do is see into yourself and become whatever it is you feel you want to become. Find your inner guide then keep your own counsel. It may take a time but hey there's plenty of that isn't there ???

Om nama shivaya.

Keep it simple.

As you may already know the subject of yoga is vast, but what do we really need to know? You are here now, is that a fact or not? You are here now with all of your life around you, true? These are the only things you really need to know. You don't need a guru or a book to tell you that.

How you feel and what you think about here and now is another matter, right? What has happened in the far distant and more recent past has shaped you into the person you now are, are you happy being you now? You can do a 'yea but I'm different' if you want but I think essentially you cannot argue with this idea of 'here and now with who you are and how you feel about it'.

What can you do about it? Do you want to do anything about it? Do you feel that life is fated or that you choose your own destiny, or maybe a bit if both?

The inhale and the exhale are continually occurring within you, without your needing to have anything to do with it. The breath feeds your body with the vital ingredient of oxygen. We inhale oxygen and we exhale carbon. Once you make the breathing a conscious act, i.e, when you breathe with attention a subtle change happens. Try it now, sit back and take 5-10 deep relaxing breaths through the nose. Go on!

We think, most of us, more or less constantly. In effect thinking can be a bit like breathing, i.e, some of the time the thinking mechanism goes on almost entirely on it's own. We can literally find ourself thinking about something and may wonder why we are thinking about this particular subject at this particular time. If we can keep it simple however we may find that it's enough just to see that we are thinking and that we are not particularly involved in the thinking process, it's as if the mind has a mind of it's own.

If we apply the same principle to the thinking mechanism as we do to the breath, i.e, thinking with attention, we once again change something very subtly. It's a bit like cruising downhill in a car and then deciding to engage the gears and drive with some intention, speeding up or slowing down because we want to rather than through the force of gravity.

Ok so what next then? Whats this all about? Well I would say that s0me of us are really more like 'victims' of our own thoughts. "I think therefore I am". What you think is true is true, that is an existential given, if you 'believe' something strongly enough it becomes a personal truth. We may be walking around still believing things we were taught as children and it is a fact that not too long ago 'we' thought the EArth was flat!

What you think and how you see the world shapes your physiology. How you hold yourself and your postural stance towards the world has been shaped to a large degree by your heriditary traits and your own conditioned mind. It stands to reason that if you change the shape of your body, you must change the shape of your mind and vice-versa. Do you want to ? Can you be bothered? These are important questions to ask yourself. Because it is a hard road and unless you've got the right ingredients you could be wasting your time.

There is an old saying that I mentioned in an earlier blog, 'necessity is the mother of invention', or put another way we may start to become willing to change once we have felt the pain of how we are living now, it is this pain that rather than becoming something we have to escape from becomes the thing that we use as an ally or as an energy to move us through our resistance and/or inertia.

"There is no growth without pain" Anon.

"Anger is Energy" Johnny Rotten.

Pain or discomfort are parts of living as far as I can see. We all have our struggles and yoga is one way that we can start to make sense of it. So going back to the start - you are here now with all of your life around you - what are you going to do about it ?

In a sense all addictive behaviour is a way of avoiding discomfort.

"We avoid authentic suffering and create neurotic suffering". S.Freud.

Do a cobra, breathe, and relax, do a forward bend, breathe and relax. Alternate nostril breathing and Kapalbhattti energise the brain and relax the body. Downward dog, fish, plough, etc. What have you actually done today so far?

Cheer up it'll soon be Xmas ........... Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Life with Yogic ramifications!

'What am I doing?' Do you ever ask yourself this question? 'What am I really doing?' This is a tricky question to answer because it always seems to lead to another question.

If we keep it very simple there is only this moment now, what has happened has happened and what is going to happen is still a mystery. The more thought-full of you may argue this point but for most of us it's a truth. There is only the fact that we are here now and what we are doing here and now. This to me is a very profound realisation.

Continuing on the strand of Kundalini awakening I feel it is misleading of me to say that I understand this whole idea the way some others do. Although I 'do' understand the idea of 'intelligence' residing within each of us, and that it is this intelligence which is 'veiled' by our mental discomboulations.

In other words if we are pre-occupied with petty worries and neurosis our intelligence is limited to varying degrees. Allot of energy is used in continuing to use the brain as a device for worrying about things, i.e, worrying and/or compulsive thinking uses allot of brain energy and makes you tired.

In 97' I was diagnosed with a relapse of my luekaemia condition of which I was first diagnosed in 93'. It is very hard to not worry about something like that, and in my search for some kind of answer I went to India. I met many people there who told me all sorts of things, but the best 'words' I got were from 'Amma', she hugged me and said 'pranayama, pranayama, pranayama, pranayama, pranayama'. I didn't know what pranayama was so when I got back to where I was staying I asked some of the yogi guys what it was, they explained and from then I started to use it.

So there I was very sick and very depressed. It would have been pointless someone telling me it was all in the mind and I needed to meditate. But pranayama was something else and I started to do Kapalbhatti which strictly speaking isn't pranayama according to some, but that's another story. I felt instantly better, I felt lighter and less depressed, which was a huge relief.

I'm afraid I didn't cure myself with pranayama and I did eventually go into hospital and have a bone marrow transplant which has proved successful up until today, 13 years later!

Where the pranayama helped me most of all was with the massive fear post bone marrow transplant of another relapse. I was able to accept that I had no real power over the illness itself but I did begin to see that I could control my fear riddled thinking to some extent. This is why I'm so passionate about pranayama as a form of practise in it's own right. There was no way I could do asana's in my condition so for me to hear people say that you shouldn't do pranayama until you do postures is not the case. In an ideal world yes postures and pranayama should be done together if possible.

As I continued to do pranayama breathing I felt better and better and my thinking became less fear based. Eventually I was fortunate enough to meet a teacher who knew about pranayama, so I was taught about it properly. But like anything else, without the desire to transcend my current post-transplant misery it was worthless. I did it every day until I was exhausted from it, it relaxed my mind and made me feel happy, and that was a shock because I never thought I would ever laugh again!

Anyway my ongoing story has been one of practising and then not practising and I know for sure that the times I am practising regularly are the most peaceful and fulfilling times for me. When I'm not practising it's because something has grabbed my attention and takes my focus away. These things usually become boring after a while and I return to the 'real thing', my practise.

I just want to make a point here to anyone reading this blog that doesn't know me personally or have never done a class with me that this site is really for my students. I say this because I don't want to be misunderstood as someone that knows all the answers. If you're looking for a guru go to india!

What I really feel at this point is that it is the breathing itself which is the activator of intelligence. This works simply by improving the blood supply to the brain. The brain loves oxygen and if we give it what it loves it will work better for us. Too simple you may say, I do not care at all if you think that. Try sitting or laying down or whatever you prefer and breathing in and out through the nose for ten or fifteen minutes, preferably without moving around too much. Now if you were to do this for half an hour or more everyday it must surely make a difference to the way you feel.

Cardiovascular type exercises will give you allot of oxygen but the energy you use to get the breathing to deepen, e.g swimming or running dissipates some of the energy that would otherwise be saved if you kept still. Besides keeping still and breathing deeply is very challenging to most of us, it is intense, and there are many distracting devices too not least of which are your own thoughts.

More later............

Happy new decade! Om nama shivaya.