cause and effect

We are predisposed to react in a certain way to external events - action - reaction.

It is possible to act out one's whole life in reaction to an event in childhood. This is one reason some people choose to have psychotherapy.
During a course of psychotherapy the events of the past can be re-examined and released from the unconscious. By releasing suppressed events from the unconscious the unconscious events/trauma's etc, lose their power over us.
In order to uncover the past we need to feel some things.

When we do an Asana we are holding a position that is transforming the body/mind conditioning.
A depressed person will generally - but not always - hold a depressed stance, e.g, slumped shoulders, lethargic attitude, etc.
If the (imaginary) depressed person does some back-bending Asanas to release the forward slumping position it is likely that he/she will not only feel physical discomfort but also psycho-emotional discomfort too!

In fact it is this psycho-emotional conditioning that is going to release a lot of 'held' tension from the unconscious.
In releasing this 'held' tension we are opening up our-selves to higher levels of energy and therefore awareness - which brings it's own challenges.

It is a slow process (in my opinion).

An analogy: If we compare ourselves to light bulbs. A light bulb will have a certain wattage. If we try to input 30 watts into a 20 watt bulb - the bulb will pop!
If we as humans have been functioning at a specific level of energy for many years ( use your imagination) and suddenly we get a big blast of energy from somewhere - we may find it challenging - the brakes are now off and we may find we can't handle the new speed we are moving at.
It's a bit like an office clerk suddenly being promoted to president of the company - it's ok as a fantasy - but in reality the office clerk will not be able to handle it - I'm sure you get what I'm saying.

So if you think you are having a nervous breakdown, you are probably not, you are just moving into more energy/power and you now need to learn how to handle it.
If you can't then you can have psychotherapy or go to the local ashram.

I think there will always be people that 'need' to be told what to do - you just need to know if you one of them?

***All of the above applies to people that are actively practicing yoga - Intense yogic practice can induce certain 'altered states' of consciousness, which we may find challenging! *****

Retreat in November.

If any one is interested we will be running a retreat retreat in East Sussex in November - go to the retreats page for more details. Let us know soon because it is filling fast!

Terry

Electrical impulses

We exist physiologically as a set of electrical impulses (thoughts) - which trigger chemical responses (hormones/chemicals) - these chemicals reactions affect us and create our feeling reality.

Example: If you are worrying about something, the chemical response to this will probably increase the heart rate/respiratory rate etc and lead to what we commonly know as anxiety - simple huh? The same will be true for depression and lethargy - long term depressive patient autopsies showed high levels of the adrenal hormone cortisol in the blood stream - which acts as an immune suppressant. If you need to check the above as fact it shouldn't be too difficult on the www.

Anyway, what I'm saying (again) is that you are responsible for your own reality - in other words - for what you think about - what you input into your brain via information TV/Media/Reading material etc.

You are responsible too, for food input/ chemical input.

A saying from A.T. Still, who was the founder of Osteopathy states : Structure governs function - and - Function governs structure.

'You' cannot blame anyone for your trouble.

Maybe it's not true but I'm pretty certain that it is - That if you start your day by sitting peacefully and breathing calmly and deeply through your nose - you will have a better day.

If you do this three times a day life will get even better - probably.

But canyou/willyou do it?

Here and then.

'Lake Padarn, Snowdonia - where we run retreats.



The - 'right here and right now' - of life is true.

We - all of us - are always - 'here and now' - we cannot not be - 'here and now'.

Of course - what we choose to do in the 'here and now' is a very different matter.

We 'should' know by now - if we have been doing some yogic practice for over a year - that we live in a more or less conditioned reality.
That means that everything we 'see' through our own two eyes has been conditioned - so that you will see 'it' in your own unique way and I see 'it' in mine - 'it' being reality of course.

Which means there is no such thing as 'objective' reality - the yogi's call this state - 'Maya'.

From this perspective (if there is no objective reality) what have we got to work with?

AS you may or may not know - there are all sorts of people - selling all sorts of realities.
We have the various religions/politics/media/advertising etc.
Within these models there are sub-models to deal with too - realities within realities.
So, you may find yourself getting very confused at times as to what is the 'right' way to be.
At this point you may have to cling tighter to the version of reality that you have been conditioned with.

The breaking down of these - 'tunnel realities' - is what would generally be referred to as a nervous breakdown or breakthrough.
In other words if everything you have ever believed in starts to crumble around you - what are you going to do?

If you care to sit down - everyday - for a set period of time - you will begin to see that the mind - the thinking part of the mind - is 'not you'.
If you are not your thoughts then what are you?
That is not to say that your thoughts don't create a 'conditioned reality' - they do - that's just the point.
But it is what lies behind this 'conditioning' that becomes more interesting - it is this 'deeper' sense of 'self' - (for want of a better term) - that informs awareness/intelligence .

Remember that thing - 'intelligence' ? - Whatever happened to that?

The way I see it there is a place known as - 'complete ignorance'.
Which may eventually - through need or desperation - lead to another place - called - 'believing in something - such as - Buddha - Jesus - David Cameron - Mao - etc.
Believing in something will give us a sense of belonging - e.g - to the same group of believers.

If you are lucky - or not - you may move to the next level - which is - Informed/intelligent enquiry into the nature of consciousness/reality/self.

Failing that you can go to the pub or join an ashram. . . . .

We seem to crave comfort - and we do that at our peril - in my opinion.

"disturb the comfortable - comfort the disturbed" Quote.

please don't complain

Sitting in a cross legged position - with eyes closed - breathing deeply and calmly - in and out through the nose - with a straight spine - relaxed jaw and shoulders - making yourself as comfortable as possible - using a cushion or block(s) if needed.

This is your home - this is the place you can return to whenever you choose.

If you find it too difficult or too hard - ask yourself why this is?

Do you think your life is harder than other people's - why is that?

YOU absolutely have a choice over how you live - if you are unhappy who's fault do you think that is - the government - the weather - your parents - your husband - wife or children.

Responsibility begins and ends with the person looking back at you from the mirror.

The increase in Awareness that comes through ongoing yoga practice has a price on it and that price is RESPONSIBILITY - and as you know FREEDOM is a double edged sword.

You may complain that you are not free - but who holds the key? You may think you want freedom when in fact you keep locking yourself away in various prisons of your own making.

Overworking - underworking - going on holiday - not going on holiday - getting a new car/job/boyfriend/girlfriend . . blahdeblahblahblah and on into the infinity of the ceaseless jabbering complaining mental programmes.

So -HAM = (I AM THAT I AM) - 'inhale' - SO - 'exhale' - HAM.

Sit still and listen.

look

If you look in the mirror you will see the answer and the cause of all your problems.


What you gonna do about it?

What?

What would happen to you if you truly did what you wanted to do - all the time?

Yogic stress

Yoga practice is stressful - It is designed to be stressful - It is designed to be stressful in order for you to be able to 'handle' stress - To think that you can live life in this world without stress is a big mistake - To 'really' live however, in a unified conscious way is the time when you begin to see stress as being an invitation to evolve.

It is all very well for guru's and teachers to tell us it is 'all in the mind' or that the 'answer is right under our nose' etc. But if 'we' cannot see it then 'we' cannot see it and all the badgering in the world will not bring us one step nearer to realising the truth.

So what do we do then? The simple answer to this is 'do what you 'think' is best for you now'. Then see where you go from there. A decision is just a decision made on information available. If you make a decision and you realise quickly it was the wrong decision you would be a fool to continue on the path you took, based on the information at that time. You may need to re-think and make another decision. This process may continue over an unspecified period of time until you acheive what you set out to do or realise that you want to do some thing else.

But to sit around complaining and doing nothing is going to get you no where - is it? Who knows?

So coming back to the practice - find out which posture you find most challenging and make a commitment to understand and overcome it - Use posture practice as metaphor.

Holding the 'bow' posture for five breaths may be terrible for you - the thought of losing your job or relationship may evoke the same 'feeling' effect for you - Living in fear is not good for you in the short or long term. So using postures to 'feel' the 'feelings' that you normally avoid through compulsive and neurotic habitually designed behaviour is stressful - Get over it and move on!

Or don't!

OM

too busy.

Of course the blessing of being too busy is that you don't have to think about anything. You are 'caught up' in the everyday mode of living.

I think the movie 'The Matrix' is a great metaphor for understanding the practice of yoga. There is a scene where one of the guy's is talking to 'Mr Anderson' and he says "I know this steak is not real but it's better than the other stuff . . . . ." What he is saying is that the 'illusion' seems better than the hardcore of the 'real world'.

It is hard to do practice some days. When we have a head full of worry/anxiety - our mind whirling in turmoil - the last thing we feel like doing is sitting still. This is why we have Asana practise - to slowly start to move into 'feeling', the feelings that we normally avoid because of our compulsive busy-ness - the same compulsive busy-ness that we equate with 'getting on in life' - the same compulsive busy-ness that is now generally accepted as being 'the way things are'.

All of the Guru/Swami's of old tell us the same thing - the answer lies within. And in my opinion in order to get within you may have to make a little bit if an effort.

I hear of modern guru's - guru's for the life we now live - what tosh that is!

How is 'now' any different, in terms of what we have to deal with on a day to day basis, any different than it has ever been? There has always been stress - there has never been a time when there was not stress!

Do it - Don't do it

ps. to earlier blog.

Really if you can see it - you have an answer to all of your problems in the practice of yoga.

You have to 'make' time to do it or 'it' will not do anything for you.

If you are happy - 'just getting by' - or - 'being in 'survival mode' - fine - just carry on and wait till something else happens.

If you are fed up with that - you know what to do!

Of course there are always those (for reasons best known to them) that may never get it. It is for these people that there exists psychotherapy/counseling etc.

If you can't be anything else - at least be honest with yourself and what you need.

Hi or Low ?

Certain people have created maps to consciousness - Timothy Leary - for all of his infamy - made a detailed map of the levels of consciousness. John Lilly also drew out a detailed map - using his experiences of isolation tanks and certain chemicals - of different levels of consciousness.

We have all experienced at one time or another high's and low's and can relate to the idea of up or down. Through fear we cling to a level of consciousness somewhere in the middle and we call this reality.

How can any of us expect to find anything at all - let alone enlightenment - if we are caught up in the day to day survival mode of living?

We use yoga - at best - from this perspective - as a means of staying sane and perhaps releasing a bit of tension.

All the while we cling desperately to what turns out to be not too much at all when examined a little deeper.

I have often asked myself if the situation we find ourselves in at certain times, i.e, stressed out, tired, irritable etc - could have been avoided if we had taken our practice a little more seriously.

A question; Have you got the time to save your soul?

I have students that can barely manage to get to one class per week. When I ask them if they are doing any practice at home, a blank look appears and the usual answer - 'I haven't got the time'.

There are 24 hours in a day the last time I checked - if we say 8 for sleeping - 9 for working - that leaves (at least) 7 hours to do something else.

boring . . .

' North Keralan dance ritual performer.'


I get caught out sometimes by my emotional reactions - don't we all.

I do find myself getting increasingly 'disturbed' by the 'MacDonaldification' or the 'Starbuckification' of yoga.

We now have brand yoga - it looks like it is here to stay - corporate yoga is here and it seems we love it.

no more draughty church halls - we now have showers and proper changing rooms, sauna's and steam rooms - and why not?

From an evolutionary perspective it is all good, (I think) it is a good place to start. What I mean by this is that yoga, as a tool for transformation, has now been capitalised upon by the money making machine. The MacDonalds theme has entered the yoga world (yes I know I'm repeating myself) and so we can all experience yoga - for a price.

Compare this to the origins of yoga (in India). Whereby the honourable student would seek an audience with a reputable 'Yogi' and ask to work for him in exchange for the teachings.

We now have a situation here in the UK where somebody, with little 'proper' training and no real experience or understanding of yoga can call themselves a yoga teacher.

I've been teaching for ten years in all sorts of places and 'in my experience' there is little, if any, understanding of what yoga is all about at the level of management in many of these establishments - as long as the room is full and the money is coming in that's what matters.

A person seeking yoga can be put off for life by some over enthusiastic 'yoga teacher' that thinks making you kill yourself is the 'art of yoga'. This is based on the fallacy that by creating a false sense of suffering (in the class) that at the end, when the suffering is over, there is a sense of relief. But has the student learned anything of real value?

There you go, I thought I'd share that with you today.

Thre is no need to suffer - apparently.

We hear it all the time - people keep telling us they have the secret formula for finding peace. There is a whole industry - making fortunes - out of people looking for answers - looking for peace.

But where is it?

It is inside of you - you don't need to pay anyone, anything. You don't really need to go anywhere to get it either. You have been fooled - or you have fooled yourself into thinking that you lack something - you do not!

If you can be bothered to sit still for a moment and look at yourself honestly - you will be at once looking into the problem and the solution.

It really is that simple - You have the tools - Why not use them? Asana - Pranayama - Meditation.

Relax . . . .

If you are laying on a beach in paradise and you are worrying - you are not relaxed.

If you are sitting or standing on a tube in the rush hour with a quiet peaceful mind - you are relaxed.

Relaxation is in the mind and although outer circumstances can sometimes affect our state (inner condition) our state (of peace) is not dependent on outside circumstances.

Therefore you must get it right in the mind for it to be right at all!

I see peoples doing yoga postures, looking good, very flexible and correct, but they seem to be somehow missing the point - they look miserable and tense outside of the yoga posture.

Of course this could be a phase they are moving through, and as they progress they will, at some point, find out about the mind and the benefits of paying attention - I write this now so that maybe you can bring your attention to it sooner.

We have it all - Asana - Pranayama - Meditation.

A good question.

In a nut-shell; If 'your' mind is quiet, peaceful and empty (because 'YOU' have made it that way through your practice) - Is there anything to achieve after this event?

WHY do 'YOU' do YOGA?

What do 'YOU' gain from 'YOU"RE' Yoga practice? This is a very important question.

The reason I ask is because (the way I see it) the practice can (if you don't watch out) become another neurotic routine that 'you' perform - just to keep yourself comfortable.

"Disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed" Quote.

There is only now and there will only ever be now - there cannot be anything else!

From this perspective it would behove you to be aware of WHAT YOU ARE DOING NOW.