Stress is the answer ?!

The phenomena of stress is very interesting once you start to look at what you actually mean by stress.

Do you think there has ever been a time in ancient or modern history where stress hasn't been prevalent?

We have stress related illnesses now, apparently we are more stressed now than we have ever been before, rubbish!

What could have been more stressful that being chased by a sabre toothed tiger when you were out hunting for some berries to eat way back when? Do you think we might have said, 'I need a week of because I'm a bit stressed and I want to be paid for it too, it's my human rights innit'!?

Well of course we are much more cultured now and very highly complex and fragile beings, we have so many more needs now than we used to have. What are they?

We still need to eat, sleep, go to the toilet, have warmth and shelter and human company and touch. There are more but these are the bare necessities for human growth and security, according to what I've read.

But now we see that (apparently) this is not the case. You know in a sense the way I see it is that if you are happy then it doesn't matter where you are or what you are doing. But it begs the question, what is happiness and what are the requirements for it? Is happiness based on external things, or is it simply a question of the right brain chemistry?

Sri Nityananda was a great sage who came in the great Siddha lineage, and he was the master of Swami Muktananda. He was said to have spent hours standing naked in the tree tops, he ate on occasion cow dung and offered it to others in dismay that they wouldn't eat it. This person was and still is revered as a great saint and holy man. He lived in India the birthplace of yoga. It appears he was happy (understatement) without the need for anything at all.

We have the western business man who in a sense, although maybe not so much now, has been praised with the same gusto as Nityananda was in India, only for entirely different reasons. One makes oodles of dosh the other has nothing.

'One man's meat is another's poison'.

What makes me happy may not make you happy. The doing of certain tasks makes me happy/miserable. I like going to the cinema, I don't like going to work on a Monday morning in the rain and cold. Preferences control our actions, we become drunk and hypnotised by who we think we are and we actually believe it to death.

It is only when a crisis of some kind comes along that we may ask ourselves what we are doing and why we are doing it.

The politicians seem like a kind of 'spitting image' farce as they argue and score points over one another and call each other names. The country and indeed the world according to more and more sources from many different walks of life is in a right old mess! But you wouldn't believe it, the shops are full, the biggest shopping complex in Europe has just opened in Shepherds Bush and seems to be doing ok. People are still driving huge juice guzzling motors all over the place and on and on. The politicians are arguing over who's going to make the least cuts to public sector spending, to save (us?) money over the next 10 years.

What I would like to know and please tell me this if you do know, where is all the money and who is it all owed too? I'm told it's the Chinese, is this true?

I digress, stress is here to stay, get used to it, stop moaning and get on the mat !!

I'm H A P P Y I'm H A P P Y, I know I am I'm sure I am I'm H A P P Y.

Rama Dama Ding dong.

Om zzz

Conflict res(v)olution.

Oh where would be be without tension and stress? In a way tension is just unresolved conflict.

We seem to have moved (some of us) from a place of not enough, (the past) to a land of plenty. I'm not necessarily here talking of materially it's more in terms of mental choices and conditioning.

As I become increasingly disillusioned (after all this is in essence the result of yogic transformation) I see my tendency to be less in conflict in general.

I feel there is a giant chasm of apathy around, seeing people interviewed on TV regarding the forthcoming elections, nobody really seems to care less about who gets in, the idea behind this of course is the fact that all politicians are essentially self-serving.

I was criticised once by a fellow yogi for being political, 'Yoga is beyond politics', she drawled. 'Ah well then I'm not a yogi I thought'. It bothered me then, now it doesn't bother me at all.

Everyone in a sense is out for themselves, to get one's needs met is the whole purpose of existence, until it becomes warped into some kind of compulsive addiction. Then the servant leads the master to the burning ground.

You really don't have to do anything at all if you don't want to. The conflict between 'doing what you want' and 'doing what you're told' comes back to the same thing, who is doing the telling?

'Whaddya mean multi dimensional realities?' Berlin Grafton.

Reality is or it isn't, make up your mind, who are you- and what do you want/need?

Yoga is a bit like being in the mafia (not that I would know). The deeper you get in the harder it is to get out.

Are you that good that you are beyond responding to anything that I've written on here, are you beyond it all, or too shy, or can't be bothered?

I think my original intention for this blog was to instigate some debate, now I'm getting bored.

Do something different today!

Om

Just do it!

Too many words, the simple truth is if you have any problems do yoga, if you don't have any problems do yoga. If you are not a yogi, have a drink or do something else.

If you feel really miserable do twenty rounds of sun salutation, don't worry how long it takes to do them just try it.

As no one seems to be interested in this blog, i'e, no comments etc, I shall be posting less frequently for the time being.

Hari Hari Om.

Ugga Wugga.

As we sort and sift through our thought processes, meditating on and deciding what we really believe about all of the things that are going on, we may begin to realise something.

We may begin to see that we need to work a little bit harder, this is not what we want to hear of course. But I feel as if 'we' have become kind of brainwashed by the media into believing that life should somehow be easier than it really is. It's almost as if the the media and the consumer market is in denial of some of the bigger issues that are going on.

It 'feel' to me as if there is a rising swell of information that is pointing to the fact that things are not well with the global economy. It also seems that things are not well with the global environment, population and political movements and religions all over the world.

What is going on?

I know for sure that when I sit and meditate and do some pranayama I can make my mind a still and quiet place. There is no thought, there is no 'I', there is no 'me'. It is as if all that I am and all that I have ever been existing as an ego personality has dropped away. I am then just 'being'. Then I open my eyes and I look around and see people and plants and animals existing in much the same way that they always have. I feel the weather, the heat of the summer, the cold of the winter just the way I always have, it all seems ok.

Then I pick up a newspaper, or I watch the news and there it all is again, all of this information, all of these views and opinions, arguments and counter arguments as to what is the truth and what isn't.

We know don't we, we know in our heart what is right or wrong, something informs us from a deeper place. We don't need that much to be happy. In fact I'm finding that the less I have the happier I am.

I kind of ended up being a yoga teacher, it wasn't a plan I had. I often say I tried everything else including chemotherapy and none of it worked in the long run. I stumbled across yoga and I knew instantly that I had found something that was lasting.

This idea of 'everything should be easy' is false. It's not easy, it's hard work. Stop complaining about everything and step up to the mark, i.e get on your yoga mat and start working to see through the layers of bullshit that keep you in a cloud of ignorance and misery.

I really feel we live in the day of individual consciousness expansion. We have all the manuals and maps, they are all available through books and online on some websites. We don't need heroes anymore, we don't need guru's now. They can all go on holiday for a couple of thousand years. All we need to do is do it!

'You can't beat people up and have them say I love you.' Murray Roman. Blind man's movie.'

'Get out of that without moving.' Tommy Cooper.

Om zzzz

Negative me ?

Well i got a bit of a slap in the ego yesterday because somebody said that they thought my blog was quite dark and negative :).

I thought about it for a while and then decided that this may be the case. Then I trawled back through some older blogs and thought some of them were quite good, as you know it's quite hard to be completely objective about almost anything, let alone your own work. Anyway I conclude that yes some of my blogs are quite miserable in a way, but on the other hand if you keep your sense of humour you may find something to laugh at too, like yourself for example.

I watched a TV prog last night, It was about James Lovelock. He is the guy that came up with the Gaia principle. This is the idea that the planet Earth is a self regulating organism. That is, intelligent life on Earth creates what it needs in terms of it's own atmosphere and environment. He goes on to say that this has worked fine over the last several billion years but now that man is making such a big impact on things Earth is fighting a losing battle to maintain it's status-quo. He gives the example of the polar icecaps fast decline as one irreversible process that will lead to an increase in global temperatures and therefore the rather fast demise of many species that now exist, including us! He goes on further to say that his could happen in ten to one hundred years time. He also said that perhaps a billion people will survive this event.

'Thats a bit negative James innit?'

We have this sort of information bombarding us all the time from many direction, even the movies of gloom and disaster are more than ever. We have global economic recession, global warming, overpopulation as just three of the 'negative' things to think about, or not.

According to James Lovelock what we are doing to save things is a waste of time, we are virtually doomed according to him. I must admit I'm sure that if I looked hard enough online I could find a counter argument to his theory, but I haven't bothered.

What can we do with this stuff? The way I see it is if you as a person has one day or 80 years left to live, you still have certain criteria to meet. According to the experts humans a very few 'needs' as opposed to wants.

We need to eat, sleep, poo, keep warm, the company of other humans, shelter and contact with others. I may have left some out but you get my drift. If you put that list against the wants of humans you find a different story.

'Whaddya want? Whaddya got'?

I really do try to keep things as simple as I can for myself and on most days I think I'm part of the solution.

tonight history is being made as the three major party leaders have a debate on TV. I will suspend judgement for the time being, but I do suspect it's going to be a . . . . . .

Ommmmmmm

Shanti

Valium is a drug that makes people feel tranquil, it is a chemical tranquilliser. It seems to me that in an ideal scenario if you are tranquil then you are unaffected by life, or people places and things. You remain unperturbed at the outrages that occur on a daily basis all over the world. I would like to hear from you if you are like that now.

I would like to be like that but I don't posses it yet, tranquility that is, although I sometimes do for short periods of time. I have noticed however that when I am tranquil, my mind is very quiet and still.

Things can can go wrong all over the place which can disturb us, but if we can remain detached we will be unaffected by it, not completely maybe but less so.

This seems to be the case in theory but as we know if something affects us personally it is very hard not to be affected by it.

So perhaps the best we can do is to be honest about how we are affected by things and then take it from there. Noticing how we feel is very useful in grounding ourselves into a kind of felt reality. If we don't do this we may get into trouble, which in a way is another way of getting grounded!

For example if you have low level anger and are not feeling it you may go out and bump into someone who is feeling the same way and get into a fracas. This is very upsetting and ,may make us think about ourselves for awhile.

So this is why it is important to sit for a moment before we go tearing out of the door and into the world.

Morning practise is a little more challenging than evening practise in my experience. But it is worth the effort. Take a bit more time than you normally would to get to work, enjoy the journey, change the route you normally take. 'A change is as good as a rest' , the saying goes. And it is true, it can be refreshing to do something different to stimulate the 'robot' to wake up.

Idling in the groove is a bit like a tranquilliser, it keeps us safe and secure in our little neurotic routine. But then so what it's your life isn't it?

'Yabba Dabba Doo' Fred Flintstone.

Ommmmm

(' * ')

' Part of the problem is that any one that tries to understand enlightenment lacks it's realisation at present. Since enlightenment transcends the mind any attempt to conceptualise it is inherently impossible. And yet those of us that are as yet unenlightened and need to comprehend it must resort to the conceptual mind to understand anything at all. This involves us in a great paradox that can act like a koan , that if we were to stay with it may yet awaken us.'

The above extract is taken from Georg Feuerstein's excellent book 'Holy Madness'. For me it exemplifies the plight of the yogi that is over the novelty for the perfect Asana and getting high from pranayama, and stands in front of the great void asking what is it all about? Is there really anything to this yoga thing?

The problem for me seems to stem from the indication of so-called advanced yoga technique's that there is something separate from mind (as we know it), a place that we can get to if we are somehow karmically pre-disposed for it or are willing to work hard enough for it!

I know that most of us are happy just to be happy and that is beautiful if you are one of the lucky one's that can find happiness in the superficial. but I feel yoga is much, much more than this. The fact that the majority of people doing so-called yoga are unequipped for the harsher path is not the fault of the Rishi's and yogi's that handed down the maps of consciousness transcendence.

We don't need to water down yoga to suit the climate. i feel we should continue to teach it the way it was meant to be taught and those that are not ready should come back when they are ready or are desperate enough, whichever comes first.

'That's a bit harsh old boy, isn't it? Yes . . . . . !'

"Many are called few are chosen".

'When the music's over turn out the light'. Doors

Hari Om Tat Sat.

de-condition

Following on from yesterday re discomfort: If you are comfortable that is great, if you are uncomfortable that is great too, why should it not be.

I've gone on and on about conditioning, ego conditioning to be precise. If something is conditioned it is programmed to work in a certain way. As you may know by now, we have been conditioned by our lives so far, making us into who we are right now.

From this point of view anytime we feel discomfort it is usually, though not always, because we have slipped out of our conditioned way of being.

If you take the same journey to work everyday habitually and for some reason you have to take a different route it has an effect on awareness, you tend to notice more. So waking up is like this, we cruise through life with the automatic pilot on, and at certain high or low points we wake up a little bit. By high or low points I mean falling in love, or the death of a loved one or something similar. Which of those is the high point though I'm not sure about anymore :) Om

Using Asana as a way of staying with feelings of discomfort ( as an experiment) is a very good way of seeing more clearly how you react under duress, i.e the stress of holding an uncomfortable posture for more than a few minutes. The mind reacts as does the body in the form of thought processes and feelings. As you continue to do this over and over again you are training your body/mind, you are teaching yourself to respond to stress rather than react to it!

I see many people start out on the road of yoga with much enthusiasm, and I see many people give up yoga disappointed. There are obviously many reason for this, the one that concerns me is that they give up because they haven't understood the ideas behind yoga as a transformative tool, rather than a rather complex exercise programme.

I have an issue with greedy yoga centre's that cram too many people into their classes with little or even no information on what they are actually doing. Also ego centric yoga teachers who have failed at anything else they have done in life suddenly to be turned into a Yoga Gods or Goddess.

Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable!

Hari Om

Easy life?

How often can you say that you are truly happy? If you live a life of habit, and addiction to comfort you will feel ok according to your conditioning, take away the props and there is discomfort.

As you practise Yoga more regularly and start to integrate it into your life a little more you will probably find that it has it's ups and downs as usual, life that is, but there is a subtle difference. The difference is active awareness, you have switched on the awareness fine tuning.

Arnold Mindell has written many books and one of them is 'The Shamans Body'. In this book he talk of awareness as a 'psychological constant'. That is, we are all aware all of the time. Obviously as we know we can be aware and we can be very aware all of the time.

One of the things that happen when we do our yoga practise, is we become aware of for example, what we are thinking about, how we are feeling, etc. As we know this can be a good thing but it also brings with it certain ramifications, i.e the need for taking more responsibility.

I don't mind admitting that I am rarely completely satisfied, momentarily yes sometimes, but never for very long. This is because I have decided to live in the world and not in a retreat somewhere. I love the challenges that life brings overall (most of the time).

Really if you don't want to be challenged you should get some prozac or valium or something similar, these things can take the sharp edges off of life and you will feel chemically induced happiness, after all it's only a chemical response to certain thought processes that make us happy anyway.

I'm saying this because what I have found with life is that no matter what you do, it still has it's ups and downs.

Now getting to the point. For most people being disturbed or uncomfortable usually makes them act out. In other words if discomfort is felt it will need to be fixed as quickly as possible. This could mean a cigarette, a drink or whatever. This is more or less how the so-called normal world functions, people accept that we 'shouldn't feel' uncomfortable. Go and see the rows and rows of off the counter pain killing drugs available.

What am I talking about? Well I'm not saying it's all about become a masochist, but surely just hanging out with some discomfort for short periods of time will help you to see yourself a little more clearly. After all isn't yoga, and any other form of awareness types of processes bound to make you a bit uncomfortable from time to time.

Do the posture that you find the most challenging until it isn't any more. Do it everyday!

'Misery is optional'. Anon

Om

For he's jolly good fellow

I look around and i don't see much to laugh about. Maybe I should just stop looking. But then i wouldn't see anything, hmmm that's not much use then is it.

Better to travel in hope than to arrive someone once said, that's not much fun is it?

Enjoy what is before it isn't, because if it doesn't get any better it may stay the same and even more if it doesn't do any of these it may get worse.

If you are happy don't do yoga it may just spoil your fun!

If this blog doesn't make any sense to you it's probably a good thing :)

Ommmmmm

Ramble on . . . .

We all breathe all day and all night.

Inhale moves up - Exhale moves down.

Breath retention - holding the breath.

Mind thinks - Body feels

Mind becomes quiet as the breath retention deepens.

The more you practise the easier it becomes.

Mind - Body - Breath

Shavasana = Corpse Pose = complete relaxation.

Hatha- Ha + Tha = Sun and moon.

Isn't it nice when life is easy. When it's all going smooth and easy. It's much easier to be happy when you have a steady job and someone to come home to that you love.

Yoga in it's fullest process will take all of that away from you!

It will turn you towards what is really real- Nothing.

If you are happy is it because you are choosing to be or is it just luck?

It's all an illusion, or so they say, but is it really, and who cares?

Om

Same old stuff..........

I think the point has been well established in the blogs I have written that I believe the 'ego' is something that has been shaped by our lives since we were born this time around.

Once this is accepted, then we may see that we have a choice as to whether we can become more conscious and live our lives more authentically, i.e in a more consciously choosing kind of way.

It will of course depend on many things, this is what is commonly referred to as 'karma'. In other words you are either predisposed to it (yoga) or you are not. What is the deciding factor? Well to be honest you either 'is or you ain't' and after a while you will surely know one way or the other.

What you do is what you do is it not? If you are not happy with what you do then why not, maybe you are doing the wrong thing. Which may mean you have allot of thinking to do, or it may mean you couldn't care less and you have accepted your destiny.

One thing I know for sure is that life is rather tricky sometimes and that is putting it mildly. Having something like yoga for me is a necessity. The reason this is, is because I have never really been that bothered by the need to get rich or famous so I have had my drives inverted. Whereas others may have focused on ambition my 'inverted' drives became counter productive because I didn't understand that I was ok and the problem was with the way the world was turned on it's arse when it came to priorities. In other words the 'greed over need' principle that still seems to dominate today. So because I never had that I thought there must be something wrong with me.

'Me mad, surely not'. A Nueman

It is only since I have discovered yoga that things have made more sense to me. The whole principle of transformation of energy and super consciousness ignited an inner drive towards something reasonable and intelligent and the lights came on.

I really believe as many others before me have, that if we increase intelligence we will solve all of our problems.

I have absolutely no doubt that yoga can do that!

Om Shanti

I may be wrong, but .. . . .

I may be wrong but I believe that if you were completely happy, which is highly unlikely, then it is highly probable that you would not be doing yoga.

I have wondered about it for a couple of years now and I am pretty certain that the only thing that would make someone 'do' yoga in a committed way would be if they are dissatisfied (unhappy) with life being the way it is. One reason I conclude this is because yoga by it's very nature is a tough road to travel in an authentic way.

Now before the more intelligent among you scoff at such a thing just think about it, then make a list of all the reasons you are doing yoga. If you are not a yogi and not doing yoga then I'm not really interested in what you have to say to be honest.

There is a part of me that thinks it is virtually impossible to be happy with the world being the way it appears to be, i.e in such a mess. How can we be happy when there are millions living and dying in poverty around the world? How can we be happy once we realise that we are living out a rather shallow existence, working to buy things we don't really need? Of course I could go on with this list of what is wrong but as we know there is allot to be grateful for too, (you can make that list).

The trouble is that as humans we need to be happy in order to live a healthy life so what are we to do? Seeing that we have a choice is useful . Are we going to let 'it' get us down or are we going to see into ourselves and find out how we can relate to 'it' in a different way? I think that if we are too unhappy for too long we will whither and die, or go to the doctors.

The reason people drink alcohol and take drugs and smoke cigarettes is to feel better surely. It's not a moral issue it's more practical and rational than that, if you are not happy, why ? ?

If we invested half the energy into dealing with our problems than we do escaping from them we would save allot of time and energy.

Even on the most basic level, if you do pranayama you are bringing more oxygen into your bloodstream and therefore into your brain, this makes you feel good.

All of the chemicals that exist within your system are there to be used for your benefit. Adrenalin is a very popular one and dopamine is quite popular too. There are allot of good reports regarding seratonin, which I think is secreted via the pineal gland, which some but not all yoga books relate to as the Ajna centre. Sending the Ommmm into the centre of the eyebrows was thought of thousands of years before people knew about hormones.

But then of course this word 'happy' is far too simple a term to apply to us complex and cultured peoples isn't it. We have shades of light and dark within our complex psyche's.

There are 2 more things I want to say.

1. How old you are when doing yoga is important, if you are still very much into the world and materiality then you are not going to get far with yoga, you may get a nice body but thats maybe all you want. The very nature of the full yoga practise is turning within. I have noticed many students giving up the practise once a boyfriend or girlfriend arrive on the scene.

2. Everything you you need is within you. You do not need to take anything into your system that is not there. All the chemicals and drugs are already naturally supplied by the human body.

Pranayama is the key to the transformation of consciousness.

'Prepare the way and you'll be ok'.

I hope I have upset a few of you.

Ommmmmmmzz