Guru Who ?

'There ain't no Guru can see through your eyes, I found out". John Lennon.

The idea that someone can give you something like insight or wisdom is, in my opinion a fallacy. Being with someone for some time in the teacher/student role will teach you things like tolerance and maybe an ability not to laugh out loud at inappropriate times (whatever they are), but to have wisdom imparted I think is a rare thing, especially in this time of information overload.

If you want to learn yoga go to a teacher and ask questions, ask questions that are useful to you. Know why you want to 'do' yoga in the first place too, this is always useful. You really need a teacher that will empower you and not themselves through teaching you what they may or may not know.

If you are a fool, like we all can be at times, an unscrupulous teacher will take advantage of you, telling you that it is good to do work for nothing, for them. This is usually referred to a 'karma' yoga if it serves the greater good. But if it is decorating your teachers bedroom then it is not really 'karma' yoga, it is unpaid work. But even so, when you come out of your dream you may see at least what an idiot you have been and as most of the advanced masters say, 'disappointment is the beginning of practise'. Ha!

'we seem to do what we do until we don't, and then we do something else' Anon.

To be happy and content is a great place to be, but there is always someone or something that can take that away from you if you let it/them. Peace and contentment is an 'inside job', the truth shall set you free but it might just upset you first.

If you want to learn yoga read some of the proper book first such as; 'Hatha Yoga Pradipika', and any of the 'Bihar' school books on Yoga are very good. Once you have done that, go to different teachers until you find one that is talking some sense and has no vested interest in being a God to you! On the other hand the 'big ego' teachers are more interesting than someone that's done a part time yoga training course and is now trying to learn something through teaching you. What you gonna do?

Better still get some of the 'Bihar school' books and read them and try and see if you can learn something from them on your own. They all have references in them and contact details if in doubt.

Is being sedated and being peaceful the same thing?

If you are a bit lost and a bit lonely there is nothing better than to go to an 'in place' where yoga is taught and to be told that you are here because you are 'special'. You may hang out there for 20 years before you wake up to the fact that you have been sedated into a hypnotic trance.

Being alive and creative is painful sometimes I think, but if you want to be sedated that's your choice. If you want to give your power to someone else that is your choice too.

I may not be leaving many posts for the next few weeks. Will be back soon.

Ommmmmmmmmz

Pranic you !

No matter what anyone tells you, it still essentially comes back to your decisions as to how things go. If you need a plumber don't go to a decorator.

There is so much information on how to live/not live this life that you have. Everybody is clamouring to tell you what and how to live your life.

If you do get lost on the way, look around, then look within. Ask yourself what the problem is. Once you have worked out what the problem is you can go to the right place for the answer. I repeat, don't go to a decorator if you need a plumber :))

Shazam!!!

Pranic ramblings

If you are on here reading this it may be because you are interested in yoga. You may have been into 'it' for years or weeks. There's only one yoga as far as I can tell as there is only one 'water'. But as we know water can come hot or cold, frozen or in steam form but it is still water essentially.

In my opinion, and I think this is the general gist of it all; Yoga is an extensive vehicle for transformation. What 'you' are personally transforming is, well, personal really isn't it.

If you 'do' a slow deep practise, or a dynamic jumping around practise, at the end of the session you always come back (eventually) to you, or to be more precise, who you have become as a result of all the things you have done and have happened to you so far in this life.

Are you happy, sad, miserable, angry? Once you have decided which of these you are currently you can take a deeper look and ask yourself (perhaps) why this is the case. Actually if you are happy it's unlikely you will need to bother asking yourself why.

Acceptance/Resistance

Relaxation/Tension; And all the shades in between . . . make you/I/us/we/ they, who or what we are. The dynamics of who or what you are, or have become, rely upon numerous influences and according to yogic thinking there is at the background of all of these influenced ideas of yourself a 'real' and true self. This 'real' and 'true' self is called amongst other things the 'purusha', the 'higher self', the 'atman' etc, etc.

Ask yourself honestly, have you ever felt close to this aspect of you? Have you any inkling of what this thing may be? Do you care if it exists at all?

When you are next relaxing, instead of drifting off into a dream try and stay focused but relaxed and start to consider in an experiential way if you can get a glimpse of this pusrusha... . . . . .

Good luck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OM

maya illusion or what?!

Blimey people what is going on? There exists a wealth of information almost to the point of overload, well actually there is an information overload. Now we can with the aid of google find out virtually anything we want to. We can download books instantly onto a device we carry around with us. So we can read more, find out more about almost everything instantly. We get a diagnosis form the doc, we go home and google it and find out more than the doctor does before an hour has passed, amazing!

Of course this information overload also brings with it another problem, we have more information to sort through to know what is the real from what is the bull!

I've been dipping in an out of many types of modalities in the last 20 years, I trained as an osteopath for 5 years only to be overloaded with illnesses to the point that I couldn't practise the art. Later because of political interest I found I could no longer call myself an osteopath because I didn't go through another process requiring more time and money whilst trying to recover from luekaemia. So although I hold a diploma in osteopathy I can't legally use it!

Ah well never mind here comes yoga, I like yoga, and with my osteopathic training I can teach a good and interesting yoga class. But hang on this gets hijacked as well. Health clubs spring up everywhere and in the competition for more members take the prices so low that now if I include travel time I barely make minimum wage! Ah well I'm a yogi I tell myself, it's not about the money is it? But hold on I see yoga centres opening charging extortionate prices for teaching classes, and for taking you on a yoga retreat for thousands of pounds to India where we all know it is so cheap to live, ah well I'm a yogi I can rise above the hypocrisy and rubbish. Hmmmm.

It's not an illusion is it, this is as real as anything else. But who cares, because we have global warming to worry about, we have the recession to worry about and all the other things to worry about. It's like a pick and mix of things to get you down. But booze is cheap, so we can all drink ourselves to death and forget about it all. Illusion what illusion?

What are you gonna do about it ?

weather

We look out and see a grey sky and we may feel an, 'oh dear' kind of feeling. This is a typical re-action from the 'condition' of who you 'think' you are. Of course we all do it don't we. But whilst 'doing' these automatic re-actions, do we ever consider what effect these reactions have upon our delicate physiology? I doubt it 'cos we don't have time do we. . . . . . . . . . .

Time is on your side, it is on your side unless you don't give yourself enough of it. I hear so many people telling me how busy they are, why? Why are you so busy? What are you trying to achieve. The hidden significance of 'keeping busy' is that you don't have time to feel anything, or for that matter to actually 'think' about anything.

Do you ever give yourself some quality time? If not why not?

Consider how busy you are, consider how busy everybody seems to be, what do you think about it?

Re-actions come mostly from unconscious processes that are programmed into our systems at a very young age. If we can slow down a bit we may be able to unravel our re-actions a little bit and become free to create and express our more authentic self. That is much more fun!

Neurotic busy-ness as opposed to being creative is a mind numbing activity. Try doing something different tomorrow/today.

Om

reasons to do . . . .

It stands to reason that if you have lived for some time in this world, this world will have made it's impact upon your body, mind and soul.

If you consider this for a moment and then look a little deeper into 'how' this world has affected, impacted, transformed and/or made you into the person you have become, you can then look again and ask yourself some important questions. What these questions may be are very personal to you as a form of self-enquiry.

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

So now, if you have been reading this blog for a while, you may have to ask yourself if you have the tools to change and/or integrate what these impacts (on your life) etc have made upon your nervous and endocrine system?

What tools? Asana - Pranayama - Meditation, are the essential tools.

If you cut it all back, it really comes back to how you are with your-self.

Can you be up all the time? No!

So what?

Be what you are when you are, what else is there but to surrender? There is sometimes conflict or there is not conflict, at the very least the practise will resolve tensions and conflicts.

BUT - - - - Now this is important!

Once you start to practise (yoga) 'with earnest', you will need to tune your inner ear. The natural intuitive guides within are 'shut out' by the clamouring voices of the ego, as the ego becomes tamed the inner quiet voice wakes up and informs you, listen to that! You may hear it as a subtle reminder that you may be eating too much, sleeping too much, drinking too much. I know this is not what 'we' want to hear but this is the awakening of the inner. Leading you to purify the body in order that you can experience being fully and truly alive. Instead of being a slave to the senses.

I knew there are people that appear to be able to cane it on the weekend and 'do' yoga during the week. But these people (in my opinion) are merely avoiding depth. Alcohol and/or drug use is an avoidance technique widely and commonly accepted as being ok. The reason for this is 'vested interest' of one kind or another.

Breathe!!

If you can't manage to do anything else, at least breathe a bit deeper.

Try getting up in the morning and before you do anything else just breath as deep as you can for as long as you can. It may give you another view of the early morning mind-set.

'We do not become enlightened by visualising beings of light. We become enlightened by taking the light into the darkness' Carl Jung.

There is really nothing to fear in a sense, although you may be unconsciously very fearful about going deeper and going beyond what you are familiar and comfortable with. As you tentatively go deeper you are really entering into your unconscious holding patterns, i.e, your addictions to being comfortable.

As we grow older we will move slowly and surely move into ever decreasing circles of conditioning. But, if we do something like yoga, we may, if we are lucky, begin to slow that process down.

om

Pranic practise versus inertia

It takes very little to achieve so much with our yogic practises of Asana - Pranayama and Dharana. The biggest problem is getting started - of course - and inertia is our biggest issue most of the time, inertia and procrastination. But if we can just make that little bit of effort to roll out the mat and then get on it, to start to breath a little deeper and stretch a little, we can then move more freely- lovely, what a relief. Before you know it you don't recognise yourself from the person that was there earlier, you have changed something.

Amazing!!

But unfortunately sometimes it is harder than others . . . . .

Ah well, that's life . But at least you now know that it works.

The major problem with this whole thing is that no one can do it for you, bummer. . . !

Om

Do It !!

When the last thing you want to do is practise. You know then what you really have to do, don't you?!

Awakening!

In order to wake up you will have to rouse yourself to the task. It's no accident that the 'spiritual path' was only open to those of older years in the past. This was at a time when the 'person' had done the material things, had created a business perhaps and/or a family. Once these material things were done and dusted it was time to go somewhere else. Then the serious task of the 'undoing oneself' could begin, i.e, the 'spiritual quest'. Even then it was and still is not for everybody is it?

The longer I have been involved in, not just yoga, but the search (if you like) for some peace of mind, I have realised that it is not an easy thing to achieve. My searching has taken me through a series of different routes until finally being led to yoga.

At the start of yoga I again was led though many different routes learning here and there from a variety of sources. Learning what though!? That is that question.........

I have had many intense experiences in my life, taking me close to death. The last of these was in 97 when I struggles through the treatment for leukaemia. Having been through that process it was hard for me to take seriously anything anybody said about so called spiritual growth. I heard the words and saw the actions and the two in almost all cases did not match.

Then when I read the more informed books on yoga I am told in no uncertain terms that I should find a teacher. Where? How? I have looked and I have not found.

At this point in time I am reading Gopi Krishna's story of his own 'undoing' through suddenly stumbling upon the 'kundalini' power. It is an amazing story and told very well about what we can really expect if we try with any seriousness to 'undo', ourselves.

Om

Dharana

Where you place your attention is (obviously) where your attention will follow. If 'you' do not place your attention, does your attention then place you somewhere?

In meditation within the yogic ideal we are transcending the mundane issues of ego and personality. We are transcending not to avoid, but to see more clearly who we are and what we are 'choosing' to do with who we are.

On the other hand if we wish to, we can consciously observe our thinking/feeling process in order not to transcend, but to understand certain dynamics that may exist within our own complex psyche's

So we can transcend in order to get an overview, or we can get involved in the thinking/feeling process, more or less objectively, to see where it takes us.

Transcendence is more classically the 'yogic' path. From the point of view of the yogi, the ego is nothing more than a tool for using to focus and concentrate on 'images' outside of the personal sphere, images such as chakra symbols etc.

The other way would be more 'involved' in the process. Carl Jung's active imagination techniques would be more along these lines.

In either one we do need to activate awareness.

This is the core of it all!

comfort/discomfort

We are ever seeking comfort, and we don't have to look far do we? We are inundated with goods and products that make life easier, and as our lives become, easier, we revolve in ever decreasing circles of mobility, in more ways than one.

The Hindu pantheon of Gods and Goddesses are like a multiple spectrum of references to our complex psyche's. It seems to me that we are not monotheistic in any sense of the word, we appear to be at the very least dualistic and to some extent multiple in our psychic make up.

Viveka is discrimination and it is a pre requisite of Yoga practise to be discerning as to what is real and what is not. How do we decide this, what is our benchmark? Well we have the 'tenets' of yoga, the Yamas and the Nyamas as guidelines and we could also use the 'ten commandments' as guidelines if we so choose. These guidelines can then act as reference points in an ever uncertain and rapidly changing world.

How do we live in the face of an ever demanding call to change? Our world is fast changing and technology is 'the' major influence on the speed of this transformative process. Our poor old brain-box is struggling to keep up.

Yoga has never been more necessary than it is now! We need it and we really 'should' be teaching it in schools. But don't get me started on that!

'I want yoga to be big in me not to be big in yoga'.

'In the very depths of Hell is a stairway going upwards'. . . . . . . . . really ?

Joy - Despair = Liberation. Until you feel one, you will never experience the other.

Aum.

Up and/or Down. .

We seem to live, most of us, in the up and/or down drama. We read in the vast yogic texts that not only will we be up, but that we will be beyond any ideas of up and/or down if we persevere with our ongoing practise of yoga.

We seem to, most of us, want to be up all, or at least, most of the time. But if we ask ourselves seriously if this is possible, and here I am addressing people that are more or less reasonably sane, then we surely have to admit it is not possible to be up all of the time. We maybe then could ask ourselves what is so terribly wrong with being down for some time in the first place.

'The gift of depression", is a chapter in a book I've read, I think it's by Thomas Moore, called 'Care Of the Soul'. This is a great book for giving us a picture of 'that place' we seem to dread so much. This 'dreaded place' is after all the place that is on the other side of that which we seem to desire so much, the up, up and away phenomenon.

It can be highly annoying when people that at the moment are having a great time, tell you to 'cheer up it may never happen'. Then at some other point in time when they are not so great they get annoyed because you remind them of this earlier time.

A past teacher of mine used to irritate that Hell out of me when he'd say, 'there is no such thing as illness'. I had not too long before been through chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. I thought he was an idiot, but at the same time I was learning something valuable, i.e, yoga. So as I gained some sanity through the process of the practise I began to realise that people could posses levels of genius (up) and stupidity (down) in the same persona. Bringing it back to the high and low syndrome, we surely have to concede, that there are times when even the most holy of holy's has a 'bad day'.

Going with the flowing of the natural processes of the emotionzzz and feelings, is where we begin to see what is possible. There really is nothing to fear. Our emotions can, and do take us on little journey's, but once we have established our 'heart practise' we know that no matter how bad it 'appears' to get we always have the silence within to relate to. If you haven't yet started to relate to this inner place you are meant to be creating through the practise, then you had better start!

Yoga is an intense spiritual practise, if you think you are 'doing' yoga and are still needing to use outside things such as alcohol and/or drugs you are not yet truly 'doing' yoga. Once you have tasted the inner silence you will never want to use outside stimulants again, well maybe a cup of chai :)

Yoga is more of a science than anything else, with very clear definitions and processes. If you ignore these processes you may get into trouble, but so what, you have learned something and you will come back to the 'process' with a renewed determination. We all have to start somewhere.

Spiritual ?

It is my opinion that a so-called 'spiritual experience' is not something special. It is merely the integration of mind/body and breath. When the mind body and breath are working in harmony it gives us a more harmonious feeling which we 'may' describe as a 'spiritual experience or feeling'.

This is not hard to achieve, it just takes a bit of time. You really 'should' dedicate more time to this.

'Man is his own absolute lawgiver the creator of Heaven or Hell' Who said that?

What goes in must come out. Garbage in garbage out.

Be more aware of how you feed yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. As you continue to practise you will/may become more sensitive to things. You will need to adapt, how long it takes you to adapt is, once more, up to you.

Well anyway . . . . . .

You will never know unless you try and if you don't try you will never know. What is there to try that is the question?

It's all around you if you open your eyes.

What is?

Nothing . . . . . . .

Breathing in and out through the nose.

Keeping the mind focused on the rhythm of the breath.

Will bring you everything and nothing.

The outcome of your experiments with the mind focused breath are dependent on YOU!

But unless you know who you are you cannot possibly begin to imagine what outcome there could be in the first place.

So. .. .Think about it!

What is it you could possibly not know?

It is impossible to not know as it is possible to know!

I rest my case . . . . . . .

OM

try this!

Have you ever heard the expression; 'It's as easy as breathing in and out'.

Well just try it now. Try sitting or lying still for 20 minutes and just focusing on the rhythm of your breath. If you consider yourself an advanced yogi do it for an hour or more.

So do it now!

If you are not going to do it make a note of all the reasons you can think of for not doing it and see how many 'sensible' reasons you have on the list.

OM