There is so much drama isn't there?

There is so much to focus on that is wrong.

Why don't you stop doing that?

Why don't you get a grip on yourself?

You are.

You exist.

Right here and now you have a choice.

Sometimes it seems hard, there's no doubt about that.

It is when it seems to get hard that you have to surrender more.

What do you 'need' to do?

What do you 'want' to do?

Conflict is created in the mind by having so many choices.

If you can relax - you will be more likely to choose what is right for you.

If it's right for you, in a deep connected way, then it is right for everybody.

Take responsibility!

stop listening to yourself

Stop hearing and start listening to yourself.

Do you know the difference?

The chattering monkey mind blathers on and on. It tells us all sorts of things. Some of the things it tells us are not based in any form of grounded reality whatsoever, and much of what it says is based on the past.

The past is gone.

Listen to yourself.

Listen to how you talk to yourself and you will soon become more clear on why your life is the way it is.

Pranayama will help you to wake up!

every day counts

When each day begins.

What do you do?

Do you think about things?

I do.

That's what we do.

We've been doing it for so long now

It's become a habit.

Habits can be broken.

Change begins whenever you want it to.

Do some practice every day.

Asana - Pranayama - Meditation.

Om

Fascinated by the mind stuff..........

Unless you're careful you can live in an hypnotic trance for years, in some cases all your life.

It's a terrible thing to say but it's true.

How do you wake up out of the trance/dream?
It ain't easy.
But] It's doable.

What is life for? Do you ever wonder?

To be happy? To be free? To be rich? To be loved?

None of this............

To be you.

It's not easy to admit you're an idiot, but it helps sometimes.

I'm so aware of nothing.
I'm so enraptured by ideas of who I think I am.
I'm so captivated by my own thoughts.

And all the while I miss my life ..........

Rising up.

I saw a film recently called 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The Paul Newman character, is an alcoholic. He says he drinks until he feels the click in his head, and then it gets peaceful.

I  sometimes think there is an invisible line we cross, a kind of parallel line that exists, that we have to rise above to feel the click of peace. Below the line we are captivated by our 'stuff', we are submerged, and weighed down by our conditioned mind.

Pranayama and Asana practice helps to remove the obstacles to peace.

What are the obstacles to peace?

Our conditioned reality.

When we do a yoga class, we are maybe not aware of it, but at some point during it the click occurs, and we rise above our problems. Or at the very least, our problems come into clearer perspective, and we feel better.

Problems are what exactly, something we have let get the better of us? It can be anything from a cloudy sky to the death of our beloved. There is an order of intensity between these two imaginary problems, but to a certain extent, it is not the problem, or whatever you want to call it, but the way we react to it, and/or are affected by it that is the point.

Yoga can help, but only if you can overcome your inertia/resistance to doing it.

Yoga is a technology for awakening.

Use the Asana's to wake up.

As you sit around, or whatever you do, and try to work out who you are and what you are supposed to be doing, you are not seeing the power of practicing.
You would rather get drunk and/or stoned and try to forget about it. But you can't. The next thing to do is blame somebody or thing, neighbours, work colleagues, members of the family, the government, anybody will do. It's not that some of these targets for your blaming are perfect and not at fault, it's just that blaming them doesn't really help you, does it?

So forget about 'them' out there, or the tiredness that dogs you, or the problems that you have that are so unique, and do something about it.

What?

Practice, that's what!

Do it or don't.

Your life, and your problems are yours to deal with.

OM

important.

Have you noticed that when you tell people you do or teach yoga they ask, what type of yoga?

There are lots of different types of Yoga, lots of different variations on a theme. I suppose it's okay, as long as you know what you're doing with them.

Have you noticed how every Guru, or Yogic authority, has there own idea about what should and what should not be done in Yoga?

They can't all be right.
On the other hand.
They can't all be wrong either.

So what do we do?

Who do we believe?

What is the goal, what is Samadhi?

I suppose for us mere mortals, feeling good is enough. If we do practices and feel good, that's enough in itself. If you feel good you are more likely to have a better life. You will enjoy yourself more, and you will probably be a better person for it.

A better person?

Better than what?

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

Who do we believe?
Who can show us the way?

One thing that most Yoga Guru's and teachers agree upon, is to look within.
When we use the Yogic technologies we are waking up dormant areas of the mind/brain. We are waking up. We are increasing intelligence. I believe this.

What you do with the information is based upon your karmic predisposition towards life. Your biases and conditioning will take you on detours and variations, but enjoy it, until you don't anymore. Then move on.

 All is well.

Die trying.

I re-read the end of my last post.

'Work hard to be happy or die trying.'

We are tyrannised by our own mind - do you realise that?

We think good and positive things, oh yea, why? To counteract the negative things?

Escapism is escapism, whatever form it takes.

You think, this is true.
We all think, this is true.
We have to think, this is also true.

Do we have control over what we think about?

What we think affects the way we feel, true?

Conditioned thinking leads to conditioned behaviour.

We want to be happy? Do we? Then why are we so unhappy? Is it an existential given that we, as humans, should struggle for happiness?

The choices we make, lead to consequences. This is known as Karma.

If you do thirty rounds of sun salutation, and can quote the Yoga Sutras backwards standing on your head, do you think it makes you a better person?

What is life about, becomes, what is 'my' life about?

Your life is a work of art. Start creating and stop wasting your time escaping.

Do yoga or not..........

:)

 

Guru.

The word Guru, means 'weighty one' and 'light bringer' is another.

But what's in a name. A Guru's job is to tell you, you are doing it wrong. Whatever it is.

Have you noticed that?

Do we 'not' have a thing as intelligence? Do we not have a thing called intelligence that is inherent in all of us?

Of course we do.

How do we get in touch with it?

Until we stop investing energy in trying to be something or somebody, and just accept ourselves the way we happen to be, we will never find out true nature.

Relax.

Why do you struggle? What is the point? We are all going to die. We are all going to move on from this plane to another. Even if that 'other' is nothing for all eternity.

Why are you miserable?

Look within and you may see the cause of your suffering.

Let it go.

At this point in time, with so much on offer in the way of advice on health and healing and right living, I think we can at least surmise that the past has somehow affected our ability to be happy.

Yoga practices can wake up the dormant energies and bring you back to life.

Analogy; If you have been taking tranquilisers and/or painkillers all of your life and you stop suddenly, you will feel a lot of pain. So, you will more than likely continue to take the painkillers, it seems easier.

This is the short term solution, and is commonly known as denial.

We have all, to a certain extent employed various means to protect ourselves from the harsh realities of living in this world. But when these behaviours and habits compromise our well being, we need to take a reality check.

Yoga is hard, but so is life. (I Think).

If you think life is easy, leave a comment and tell us how to do it.

Work hard to be happy.

Or die trying. 

If you're not happy .....

If you are not happy, then you really should be looking at the reason why.

There is this thing called denial. It's very subtle. It's the part of you that likes things to stay the way they are.

It can seem as if one part of you wants to change, and another doesn't.

You have been hypnotised. And you are continuing to hypnotise yourself.

Denial is strong.

Are you happy?

That's it. That's the only question you need to ask.

If you are unhappy, there's a reason.

Check yourself out.

Are you fit?
Are you healthy?
Do you feel good?

Who's responsibility is your life? Ask the person looking back at you from the mirror.

Insanity is prevalent now, and it's accepted as normal behaviour.

For example; Working a job you hate, and getting stoned and smashed on the weekend. Then going back to the work you hate on Monday feeling like shit.

Is that sanity? No, but it's so what people do. If enough of them do it, it seems normal.

You would be better off perhaps looking at what you can do about your dreadful life situation. That may make you uncomfortable, and that is the last thing you want to be.

Wake up.

Up and/or Down

Stop trying to get away from your life.
Stop going on a metaphorical holiday every five minutes.
Stay still, stay where you are and change what you think you need to get away from - from the inside.

You are you, aren't you?

Are you you, or not?

If you are not you, then who are you? And if you are you, then what are you doing about it?

Who were you before you were born?

What is happiness?

What is misery?

What creates either of these states?

What you think about has a 'real' impact on the nervous system.
Your body cannot tell what is real and what is not. So when you worry - when you project images of helplessness, fear, and anxiety into your body, via your mind - you are sending a very negative message to yourself.

Why do you do it?

You do it because you have always done it. You don't know any better. This is the reason you need to escape from yourself, via nefarious means, drugs, booze, etc.

Sad ................

You have everything you require inside you. You have the chemistry set inside of you, you just need to know the experiments to perform to get the required results.

For example if you like speed, just think of something that will make you anxious, your heart rate will go up, and you will be speeding. Doh! I know it's not that simple, but you know what I mean, right?

Wake up fool.

You are or you ain't.

I stumbled upon Yoga one day, almost by accident. When I tried it, I didn't think it was a big deal really. I had a teacher that talked too much, and had a big ego. I always enjoyed breathing though. That made me feel good. And feeling good, was what I wanted, always had done.
Eventually I discovered another teacher, he had a big ego too. He had his own Yoga centre, and other people went to it. It was more interesting there. He did lots of breathing, I felt good. But I still wasn't convinced.
Then I got very ill, and was in and out of hospital for a year. At the end of my treatment I was very frail. I went to Yoga. It made me feel better. I liked feeling better, and continued to go, and continued to get better. I was hooked.
After two or three years, my big ego Yoga teacher suggested I do the training. I did.

I didn't sit down one day and decide I wanted to be a Yoga teacher. I became one because I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Some days I felt so bad, I wanted to die. But I went to Yoga, because I knew it would make me feel better. My judgements about my teacher were mine to deal with. Who's perfect?
I'm very grateful to all of my teachers. Just for doing what they did. They, like me, probably have no idea most of the time how much impact they have on certain individuals when they do what they do.

Turn up and practice.

Get real about it.

What do you think you're doing now?

Why can't you do Yoga everyday?

Or, more to the point, why don't you want to do Yoga everyday?

Can't? Don't want to? Too tired? Too busy?

Get a grip!

If you don't want to do it - don't, go way and do something else.

If you are going to do it, then do it, and shut up complaining.

What do you think you're doing? Do you think it's all pink fairies and butterflies?
The things that you've gone through in your life have had an impact on your nervous system. The way you think, and the way you have been shaped have been caused by your life so far. Stop moaning about it and do something.

If you are unwilling to change, then don't, no one is forcing you. Who do you think wants to listen to your endless complaining, about the economy, the weather, how unfair it all is - we already know that thank you.

Have some respect for yourself and the people around you by keeping your mouth shut for once.

Listen. Breathe. Feel your heartbeat. Breathe more, and deeper.

If you want to drink and smoke and eat shit, feel free, no one is stopping you.

Some Yoga centers have a vested interest in talking rubbish, they need your money.

We don't.

OM

Asana Practice.

Asana practice is a specific dynamic designed to awaken psycho emotional conditioning for release.

Wilhelm Reich, as a scientist in the forties, identified chronic muscular tension in the body. He called it 'muscular armouring' and was the first person based in a psychologically oriented science, as far as I'm aware, that identified this phenomenon.

Chronic muscular armour is part of the mind/body dillema. If there is unacknowledged tension underlying the movements of the body/mind, there cannot be freedom.

This is why psychotherapy alone is limited, in my opinion, and such a long drawn out affair.

Asana's must be done correctly though, and it is worth time learning to do them properly, rather than throwing yourself around, and sweating your arse of, injuring yourself, and wasting time, in a class taught by someone that does not practice themselves, and needs the money.. You might as well go to a bodypump class or something.

There is a big difference between getting high and getting real........

If you want to wake up - get real.

You can go to any number of retreats, workshops, events etc, that will get you high for a while, but the long term investment in an ongoing committed practice will fulfill you on a daily basis, negating any need to escape anymore.

Hari Om to that..........
      

The slave.......

The mind, or the ego, or whatever you want to call this thing that thinks, is your slave.

If not kept in check it becomes a tyrant.

The voice in the head reminding you how terrible life is, how difficult it all is, and how bad it will all be. That one that wakes you up at three am to remind you that life sucks. Or is that just me? :)

So there are tranquilisers; some people apparently need these things. In fact, according to some literature I've read in the past, up to a third of the population of the so called civilised world are on some form of long-term medication. Even if it's half of the number it's still too many.

Numbing out all feelings is not healthy. And being on an emotional roller coaster isn't much fun either.

Yoga practices will keep you alive, will keep you engaged in feeling alive. Sometimes intensely so. When the roller coaster ride carries you away, you can go with it, perhaps even enjoy it. Alternatively you can stop and listen to what's going on inside your head. The trouble with this second option, in my experience, is it's too hard to sit still once the emotions are raging. So in this case one should or could do some intense Asana practice.

I don't really want to be a tranquil person all the time. Sometimes it's just not appropriate to say noting and bear all with a poker face. Sometimes I still 'need' to tell someone how I feel about what they are doing and how they appear to be affecting me.

There is thinking, and there is having thoughts that you are aware of.
There is feeling, and there is having feelings that swamp you.

Then there is the breathing connection to self. Becoming conscious through choice about who you are now and what you want to do about it.

What are you doing? prt 2

When you think. I mean when you really think consciously about what you are doing, how does it make you feel?

Are you satisfied/happy/peaceful?

There can be, if you look closely enough enough, an underlying anxiety that is always looking for a fix. We want to feel comfortable, and we want to feel relaxed. We compromise our energy to get what we think we want. One of the major driving forces, base chakra survival stuff, is the need and the requiring of money.

How much do you need? Have you worked it out lately?

Because one of the most popular ways to avoid life, living and intimacy, with oneself and others, is to work your arse off and tell yourself you're doing something good.

Money is necessary, that much is true. But this drive I see to get it, is life negating.

The other extreme is to live in denial of deeper connection to oneself through feeling. This is done in another creatively avoidant way. Going to endless workshops, retreats, holidays, and etc, and kidding yourself that you are 'working' on yourself.

Don't lie.

Anxiety is real. It's fear manifest. Fear manifests in an arena of doubt. Doubt is 'not knowing'

What don't you know?

When you meet someone that has the answer ask them; what is it they know that you don't.

I believe yoga, as a practical tool, will connect you deeper to who you really are.
I believe we all have natural talents, and I think Yoga can put you in touch with those talents. To reach the layer of authentic experience may require you to travel through layers of conditioning, in the form of discomfort and pain.

Yoga Asanas,  are psycho-spiritual templates. These practical positions of the body will realign and awaken the inherent intelligences in the system.

The nervous system, the hormonal system are information highways inside you - listen to them.

If you begin to listen deeply to yourself you will begin to drop the need for someone to show you the way.

Can you be bothered to live?

What do you call life?

What are you doing with this gift you have been given?

Yes, it's all relative.

You may be happy, until you realise that you are not.

How does this happen?

When you wake up to the fact that you are not awake.....

Definitely disturbing information.

Yoga can help to connect you to a deeper sense of aliveness. An aliveness that will make - what you consider to be aliveness now, appear as a dream.

Who can you blame for your misery?

Ah well.........

Yoga can help.

Time is an illusion.

You are always here. Why try and escape?

Going on holiday, is literally changing the scenery.

Perhaps changing the scenery gives the illusion that you are not here anymore, and now you are somewhere else, you can forget about being here, and become someone else.

Ridiculous huh?

What is it this need to escape from ourselves, this need to occupy all of this illusion of time?

'Oh, only another hour to go, and I can leave.'

It's funny isn't it.

Why do you suffer?

What seems to cause suffering is, doing something you don't really want to do.

On reflection, I realise now, the times of most extreme suffering for me, or extreme unhappiness, were the times I was 'not' being true to myself.

But then I say, 'well I was ignorant, I didn't know any better.' But, the truth of the matter is, I was scared to trust, and scared to let go and allow my deepest desires to manifest themselves.

Now what is it you said you are doing with this gift called life?

it used to bother me but not anymore :)

It always bothered me. 'Why do people go to such extreme lengths?' I wondered. 'Surely once they've realised the truth they don't need to go to Yoga classes, or workshops and retreats anymore?' It bothered me.

But now it doesn't.

Once you have realised that you are not your thoughts, where is there to go?

What is there to do?

There is a saying; 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, fetch water. After enlightenment chop wood, fetch water.'

So what? Nothing changes?

Well, there is another saying; 'For those that don't know, there is no answer possible. For those that do know, there is no answer necessary.'

Profound huh? :)

It doesn't matter what you have done. It doesn't really matter what you do now either.

What matters? Or to be more precise, what matters to you?

What are you doing?

Everything arises from, and returns to nothing.

Unless

Unless you commit to change, nothing will happen.

Yoga is a commitment.

Yoga is transformation.

You are miserable because you can't see the real truth.

What are you going to do?

No mind - no problem.

Is it just me, or does that make sense?

When there is peace within, there is no problem.

I hear someone say, in my head of course; But what about if you have small children, a job, a difficult relationship, an illness, etc?

True, sometimes it is more challenging to find peace within. But if a little effort is made to find the time, then it is not impossible.

When the mind becomes quiet it allows the energies, otherwise engaged in thinking, to be directed elsewhere.

A yoga class - when you first did one, was probably very difficult to do, but as time went on, it became easier to do - right? :)

And so does everything else -usually.

I see, inner peace, as the only goal worth achieving. And having said that it's not even a goal is it, it's here - now!

Peace is there anytime you want it. There are no excuses. None.

It's just that sometimes peace seems a million miles away from where we might be at any given point.

But.......

It's there if you look.

And the more times you go there, the easier it is to find your way back.

Yoga helps.

Mind the Gap!

The gap between you ears is filled with the sound of your inner voice. If you are multi-dimensional, you may hear the sound of more than one voice, or different voices at different times.

The 'voices in the head' syndrome is more common than we are lead to believe.
We 'think' - so we to listen to the sound of our own voice, inside of our own head. If we imagine what our mum would have said, we may imagine her voice inside of our head.

Unless you have woken up, then you may think this voice, or these voices, are real. That, not only are they real, but that they need to be obeyed too. If, on the other hand you have woken up, even a little bit, then you will realise that this voice or these voices are not you. 

The voice or voices inside the head are commonly referred to as the 'ego'.

If someone is described as being egotistic, what does that mean? It usually means that someone is very certain that the voice, or voices they listen to, are very real and important.

"I absolutely know." is a statement that has no room for doubt.

For example; "I absolutely know those people are very bad." Leaves no room for doubt.

On the other hand; "Those people appear to be bad, but I'm not really sure yet." Leaves a little room for doubt and investigation.

All of the prejudices we currently have, and all of the habits we have formed so far, are usually based on a conclusion we came to, at some point in time. Sometimes, someone in authority, telling us something at a vulnerable time can be enough to form a belief about someone or something.

Question authority and be true to yourself!

Yoga helps you become clear about who you really are.

Head Trip!

"Your head is out to get you all the time." Overheard on a bus.

Well how true, we listen to the dialogue between the ears, the one that never stops, until we learn to stop it.

But how?

It's easy actually.

1. Become aware that you are thinking.

And......

2. Decide to stop.

If you have ever tried to stop thinking, you'll know it's not that easy.

But..........

As long as you have at least become aware of it, you are getting somewhere.

The thinker thinks.

And ...........

The witness watches the thinker thinking, right?


Can you get that? If you can, the next question to ask is; which are you, the thinker or the witness?

Of course, the easy answer is both. But if we keep to the the point, i.e, stopping thinking, then we 'should' really be looking at making a stronger connection to the, Witness.

It's not as if we really get completely disconnected from the witness, it's always there in the background, it's more about staying present to it.

How do we do that?

By doing it!

By becoming more aware, more often.

Yoga helps.

Keep laughing, that helps too. 

release the past.

Granthi knots, are specific points along the spine, blocks that need to be pierced to allow the free flow of Prana through Sushumna Nadi.

Do these knots really exist?

Some people believe it, some don't.

Does it make a difference?

The point is, as an actual fact and something you can be certain of, we have 'all' been shaped an molded by our lives so far.

We are, in effect, victims of our lives.

Think about that................

In order to survive our life, we have had to adapt and adjust to environments and situations, on the inner and outer level.

This process called life makes us unique, we have become someone that is unique.

At the same time it is supposed that we have an innate sense of self, a soul. A kind of - authentic self - something we were born with. This authentic self has had to be abandoned, to a certain degree, some more and some less, in order to deal with the life we were given.

'Karma' are the lessons we need to learn in order to become who we were really meant to be.


Yoga is nothing more than a technology that supports you through the changes that you need to make, in order to become you. Life will do it to you anyway, that's what it's meant to do.

But Yoga will speed the process up!

Surrender to your self.

Why do you suffer?

Do you know?

Is it because you listen to the dialogue between the ears?

Yes, you're mind is playing tricks with you - all the time! Sometimes it's your friend, it tells you how great you are, how special you are, and how different and amazing you are. Then, as you start to believe it, it will tell you not to be so big-headed, to stop showing off and act like a grown up. It will shame you and put you down.

Oh dear, maybe I'm exposing my own mental delusions, hmmm.

Do I care? Not really. It's much of a muchness, as they say. Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Stop struggling. There is no where to get to. Not unless you have decided to get somewhere.

That's not to say you shouldn't be involved in life, earn money, have friends and relationships.  But don't let these things rule you. Don't let outside things become so important to you. Live life as you would wear a loose cloak and be prepared to cast it off when it gets too much.

Yoga practices, are designed to wake you up. Not to keep you fit, or make you into a 'better' person. Better than what? Better than your authentic dynamic spirit. How can that be so?

Perhaps it's fair to say that sometimes you need to make an effort to keep your energy positive. This may be the case for a time.

But eventually through the process of waking up, you will stop doing the things that deplete you in the first place.

You will begin to honour your highest self.

And you will be free.

Fear.

Fear is an illusion.

If you relax.
If you keep the mind clear.
If you stay present to this moment.

What is there to fear?

Fear is in the mind. It is the ego's defence against its own destruction. It will remind you that it's not safe to be you. It will remind you that you are not okay, that you lack something, and that you 'need' to be careful. It will take you back to the past and remind you how unfair it was. It will take you to the future and remind you how uncertain everything is.

But right here, right now - there is nothing to fear.

Relaxation is a skill. It is something that you 'should' try to be aware of as often as possible.

Take a breath now and again. Detach from the thoughts you are having. Take a good look at what you spend your time thinking about and be honest with yourself.

Be mindful of what you put into your body.
Be mindful of what you allow into your mind.
The company you keep will affect your energy levels.

The point of doing a regular Yoga practice, is that it keeps your prana levels up, and keeps you strong and protected. It is your energy levels that keep you protected against the external influences we are 'all' affected by -life, people, places, work, etc.

If you see a tired child, they are fractious and more sensitive, and so are we.

Relax more often.
Do some Asana.
Do some Pranayama.

 

 

your choice.

Happiness is relative to something. For example, someone that is mildly upset about something, is happier than someone that is deeply depressed, and from there it's all onward and upward.

I do believe that there is a state of being that is, how shall I say? - more natural, and that possibly we have a human being, default setting.

But living the way we do perhaps this default setting is not correct.

The long term effects, of long term stress, are many, and restlessness is one of them. The inability to relax can be caused by over stimulation of the,  sympathetic nervous system. Better known as the fight or flight response.

To counter balance the effects of stress we have the, para sympathetic nervous system. But if we are constantly stressed, constantly putting ourselves under pressure, for one reason or another, the sympathetic nervous system becomes stuck in the 'on' position. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it is to switch off.

This is where narcotics, legal and otherwise, and booze come into the picture. These things supposedly help us relax. But they don't, what they do is deplete the system of its natural chemical/hormonal substances.

For example it has been widely documented that, Serotonin enhancing substances, reduce the natural production of Serotonin. Serotonin is a 'feel good' chemical, supposedly produced in the pineal gland, amongst other places. And the highs some of the drugs give are, more high, in some ways than we can achieve via natural means. So we become dissatisfied with, so called, mundane reality even more than we were, before we took the drug. This is where dependency comes into the picture. We 'need' something outside of ourselves to give us something.

But we have free will. Right?

Huh!

Hmmmm.

Well we 'do' have free will.

If we begin to see that Yoga can help reduce the obstacles to feeling good happiness, we may be more inspired to try it. The alternative is to be in denial, and hang on in there, until some kind of miracle occurs.

Yoga is an action practice. If you don't do it, it won't work.

:)    

Ego - of course.

Becoming conscious is easy. Staying conscious however, is another question.

All you have to do, is stop for a moment, and notice what you are thinking about, and how, what you are thinking about is affecting you.

To be honest, you don't really need to notice how thinking is affecting you. Just by noticing what you are thinking about, you are creating a space between you and your thoughts. If there is no awareness of thinking, then thinking will affect feeling, via the nervous, and hormonal system.

Make sense?

Then get on with it!

Brain ache.

The brain sits in the cranial cavity at the top end of the body, and for healthy functioning it requires oxygen and sugar.

When we breathe, when we eat, we are feeding our brain. So, if you eat badly and don't breathe very much you're brain will behave accordingly. Fact!

If you smoke too, and toxify your body with chemicals, you're brain will act accordingly. Fact!

Do you think you can do what you like and the body will not react? Think again.

Then again, I suppose it depends on what you 'think' life is. If you have come from a low functioning background, you will relate to this low functioning as life, as you know it.

And vice versa.

An analogy: If a 30 watt bulb has 40 watts of input, it will explode.

If you are low functioning, and you get too much input, via prana, your mind will explode because you can't handle it. You will literally blow your mind.

This is why a regular and progressive practice is advised.

As you, clear the blocks in Sushumna Nadi, more energy will flow in. As more energy flows in, more space is created, for more energy to flow in, and so on.

The blocks I refer to, are the physical, mental, and emotional limits you had placed on you during childhood programming.

All of these limits can be transcended and overcome, dissolved in the fire of Karma, if you re pre-disposed this way - are you?

Otherwise you may idle at your leisure in the retrogressive groove you call life.

If for some reason you think you can't practice, think again.

You are responsible.

strength!

Why is there so much focus on 'bad news' all the time. We do live in an amazing world, that is still full of opportunity.

With so much focus on the negative things, that seem to be occuring on a daily basis, it would seem that is is rather hard to be positive at all, let alone happy.

You don't need to believe that you have a choice in order to make some kind of effort to change your life, your circumstances. But it looks to me as if most people would rather take the path of least resistance, and stay stuck in a drama dynamic that sucks the juice out of their life.

Why?

You have to ask yourself seriously folks - who's fault is it that you are miserable?

As you commit to a practice, a yoga practice, then you may discover discomfort like you have never known, this is why you avoid it. But this discomfort is the pain that comes with birth. The pain that comes with living fully and consciously.

I'm 60, and I still don't think I've reached my peak.

Long may it continue.

love and truth

Once you have peace, what more is there?

Peace is here, we just need to remove the obstacles to it, and the obstacles are the things that keep us in the prison of misery.

If you are unhappy, hard as it may seem, it is because you are choosing to be.

I'm not talking about the type of misery that comes from an event such as the loss of a loved one, or the ending of a relationship. I'm talking about the background misery that we are constantly trying to avoid, and to escape from.

The clever tricks we employ to avoid ourselves and our feelings are what we would 'normally' refer to as the 'things' we like to do. Keeping busy is a classic way of avoidance, getting stoned, or drunk, eating too much, and too often, over exercising, keeping fit, etc.

Nothing is wrong with anything, we do what we do.

We have certain 'needs' if we want to keep comfortable, so we keep doing what we do in an ever decreasing circle.

Okay so what?

What is life all about?

A good question.

Do an interesting Asana.

Instead of moaning about everything, get up and do some breathing.

Lighten up yourself.

Move your body.

From nothing comes everything, be prepared to let go of everything you thought you knew............

the truth 'will' set you free.

The truth is powerful.

Can you handle it?

As we clear the illusions that keep us in an hypnotised prison of our own making, the truth will become clear.

Freedom is not an idea, it is here and now. It's not in the future, it's here now!

Relax and set yourself free.

And then have a laugh ..................

"Misery is an option"

Silence is peace.

Peace inside the mind is peace everywhere.

Whether you be on the most beautiful beach in the world, if your mind is not calm, you may as well be anywhere.

Finding peace between the ears is the total secret of Yoga.

Silence is Golden, it is the ultimate state.

Yoga and all the parts of the Yoga practice, as well as the highly complex philosophy involved with it, are all designed for this one aim.

Nothing is real.

No thing is real.

All is an illusion, created by the mental obfuscations, and images of hypnosis.

We have all been brainwashed into believing something. What do you believe?

Look within and there lies all of everything.

selling peace.

The world of health, healing, ans the so called new age movement, whatever you want to call it, is full of ideas on improving your life.

What do you need to improve? What is it about your life that makes you think you need to make it better.

There are so may workshops and events to 'make us, happier, fitter, more peaceful, spiritual, than we could ever do.

Why?

What's it all about?

Do we live in times of such stress? Really? Has the world been better than it is now?

I believe much of what we are sold as, self improvement, is unnecessary.

We are constantly bombarded with information, form all sorts of arenas. We get told a lot of bad news!

But how much do you see in your daily life?

Do you personally have all you need? If not, what is it you need?

I think we live in a world of choices, and we choose all the time. We choose how to think, and what to think about on some level, all the time. But we probably don't choose consciously enough about some of the things we do dwell on.

We have to ask; do we really have a choice, over what we think, how we eat, and relax, or are we still victims of our past habits?

Can you decide who you are, and who you want to be? Is that possible?

Yoga can and will help you.

Stop complaining and do something!

:))

Sat Chit Ananda.

Sat Chit Ananda = Being - Consciousness - Bliss.

Being = we are as we are.

Consciousness = is what we are seeking to be all the time.

Bliss = the state created by both of the above.



Worrying is no good whatsoever. It serves no useful purpose.

But if you do worry then see it as a reminder to become more present.

Having said that; How present can a person be?



There is a vast difference between, being, or keeping busy, and taking action.

Action is conscious.

Being busy is another way of avoiding depth.

It is another clever avoidance technique, coming from past guilt and shame.


'Enjoy what is, before it isn't'.

breath and thought.

By becoming more conscious, we become less a victim of, our unconscious.

That's obvious.

How do we become more conscious?

We become more conscious, by becoming more conscious.

It's a full time job!

Whenever you breathe with your awareness engaged, you are conscious.
Whenever you are aware of what you are thinking about, you are conscious.

Couldn't be any simpler could it?

What we do when we do Yoga Asana, is to wake up the nervous system and feel our body. As we know this can be challenging. It becomes an interesting experience, i.e, the desire to let go more, and the resistance to letting go more, through the pain we may be feeling.

And there it is!  This is the interface between your conscious and unconscious processes.

The ego, thinking apparatus, or mind - whatever you want to call it, will keep you going around in circles until one day, if you're lucky you'll wake up to the profound realisation that 'you' are not your, mind, ego, thinking apparatus.

There are many ways to wake up!

But you don't have to.

It may be just as easy to stay in the drama's you create to keep you
pre- occupied. By keeping pre-occupied you may never have to face the fact that your life is slipping by and you are not going anywhere with it.

But even this is an opportunity to do something.

Pranyama - Meditation - Asana - these will help.

a day.

You're stressed, what do you do?

Do you notice yourself getting stressed, or do you take it for granted that this is part of daily life?

Are you perhaps addicted to a bit of stress, and maybe wouldn't feel like 'you' without it - an interesting thought.

Signs of stress = increased heart rate, and blood pressure, shallow breathing, sweating (in extreme cases), loss of appetite, or overeating, worrying (a symptom, and a cause of stress), hyperactivity, emotional outbursts, crying, losing temper often, irritability, etc.

Do you recognise any or all of these? Of course you do, so do I.
The point is: Do you accept them as part of normal life?

You don't have to!

If you can actually be bothered to do some practice, on your own, or with a teacher, you will usually find that you feel 'more' relaxed afterwards.

On a scale of one to ten, one being complete relaxation, where are you now on the stress arc?

An interesting thing to do, just for the sake of experiment, is to get yourself as relaxed as possible, using Yoga ideally, and then do something that under normal circumstances would make you stressed. Watch yourself in this situation, be more mindful of it.

A normal (?) scenario could be; you think of doing something that may make you feel uncomfortable. Then the thought processes kick in - "Ohh, I don't like it, I don't wanna do that." These type of thoughts compound the problem. These type of thoughts affect the nervous system, because you are now telling yourself something, and the body is doing its job and responding to it.

It would be just as easy to say; " I don't like this, but I"m gonna watch myself and see what happens." Take a deep breath and step into it!

Just a slight calibration of the thought mechanism. You are now thinking consciously, instead of letting old programmes run your life for you.

Please - stop complaining..... and act.

More simply - can you be bothered to live?

  

relying on nothing.

The more familiar you become with nothing, the more support you'll feel from it.

De-conditioning is an event that occurs through ongoing committed practising.

What you practice, is very personal. It may be Tai Chi, Yoga, Qui gong, it really doesn't matter. This is a Yoga oriented website, so we refer to Yoga a modality for letting go.

You are conditioned by your past, and you are hypnotised by it. The past is gone, but only if you let it go. You are anxious about the future, but you have no idea what's coming next, you may think you do, but really, you have no idea.

The personality, this thing we identify with as us, is a condition. It is not really you!

Look at some of the things you think you need in order to survive as an ego. The way you dress, this thing that gives us so called individuality. The things you eat, and drink.

The people you feel 'comfortable' with are the people that live roughly within the same belief system as you do.

This is conditioning.

It's strange but true, that the very thing you 'think' you need, is the very thing that keeps you prisoner of the illusion you probably refer to as reality.

Everything comes from nothing and returns to nothing.

Let go.

connect...... make a point of it..

Eyes closed - sitting up straight - or lying down relaxed - breathe.

Breathe deeply into yourself.

Fill yourself with breath.

Watch the mind disappear and/or become clear as you keep breathing........

The more often you do this, the easier it becomes.

Soon you won't need any special preparation, just a thought will be enough to remind you to - let go.

And because you know how it feels to be deeply relaxed, the body/mind remembers and will take you there.

If you are very far removed from peace, and stressed, then a little more effort may be required, or should I say a little more focus may be required.

But now you know what peace feels like, you'll be able to return to it more easily. And more importantly you won't let yourself stray too far from it in the first place.

Peace between the ears is the only thing you need.

relevant or not?

The past has happened, it affected us, it affected all of us to some extent. Psychotherapy will look at you, as you are now, and in relation to the past. It will take you back into the past, to help you uncover some of the things that affected you. It will allow you to analyse the past and your relationship to it.

This seems to help some people, and it's a blossoming profession.

Alternatively, there are those who tell us to let go of the past, to forget about it altogether.

In a sense, the past has no power of us. Unless we choose to give it power over us. People also, have no power over us, unless we choose to give our power away to them.

The reason we may give our power away is usually because we are conditioned to do it, from our past.

Hmmmm, so if we do not do in depth psychotherapy we will always be a victim of our unconscious, an unconscious that has been shaped by our past conditioning?

There are some that are more damaged by the past than others. Some have been seriously traumatised by abuses of various kinds. Psychotherapy would be helpful to these people, probably, as would all sorts of support.

What do we do then?

Who do we believe?

Well, if you have a problem, usually you'll try to sort it out. You can only sort out a problem once you recognise that you have one. That's the first step.

But then again, all problems stem from the mind.

So if we can get rid of our mind, then all of our problems will go away. In effect this too is true.

We all need to eat, sleep, go the the toilet, have company, warmth, and water to drink.

What else is there?

How complicated does your life need to be?
What is your problem?
What do you need to do?
What do you want to do?

Your Yoga mat, is the interface between conscious and the unconscious.

Let go of the past.

Let Go Of The Past.

Let Go

Can you let go of the need to be something other than what you are right now?

Lay down on the floor, part the legs and arms, and let go.

See the way your mind keeps pulling you into different shapes, different perspectives, and realise that it's all and illusion.

As you continue to surrender, the mind begins to quieten, and in the silence you feel what it's like to be free, to be open and free, right here right now.

There is no future, there is no past. There is now.

This is what all the teachers are telling us, some in very convoluted ways, but this is it!

You are Here and Now and always will be.

What are you doing with this moment? Are you thinking ahead, trying to work out what you're going to do next, having imaginary conversations with people that aren't here. Rehearsing your life inside of your head? Wondering what it will be like when you have a new job, house, or boyfriend?

Forget it and enjoy being here.

Relax.

If you can't relax do twenty rounds of Sun Salutation.
Do Five rounds of Kapabhatti.
Do Ten or Twenty rounds of Alternate Nostril breathing.

If that doesn't work, do it again.

What have you got to lose?

If you are in the grip of a personal crisis, you may find you'll have to work a bit harder.

If you have an intelligent and sane friend to talk to that helps.

But ultimately letting go is the best you can do.................

So learn how to do it now.

Yoga as technique, not cult.

Yoga - and the system of Yoga, was never meant to be captured and made into a 'thing' that belongs to someone.

Yoga is a system of techniques, that may help you to to see through the illusions/delusions of your own mind.

It seems so much easier sometimes, to have a drink and relax, to smoke a cigarette, and tell yourself you are free.

How free are you?

And what is freedom anyway?

'Within the mind there are no limits'. So says John Lilly, in his famous book, 'The Centre of the Cyclone.'

The mind 'is' a limit.

Pranayama - can help you move beyond what you 'think' are your limits.

Do you even do Yoga?

Would it ever occur to you to get up in the morning and do, Five, Ten, or Twenty, rounds of Kapalbhatti - just to see what happens?

Would it occur to you to get up and do, Fifty rounds of Sun Salutation, just to see what happens?

Ten, Twenty, or thirty rounds of alternate nostril breathing?

What have you got to lose?

Your mind? :)

I suppose you may think it's easy for me to say all this. Why? Because I made an effort to get here?

Sometimes it seems so easy, and why not enjoy it, why shouldn't it be?

Enjoy.

Before you know it, it may be seriously hard again.

Breathe and relax. Stretch out, and relax. Sit still, and look within

Do what you want, and see where it takes you. If it takes you into a shit place, at least you will have learned something.

Procrastination means, putting off till tomorrow the life that you could be having today

Peace.

our teachers.

It seems to me, when you look a little closer, our teachers seemed to be flawed in some way - all of them.

Could that be because they are human? :)

If you look, you will discover that you are a victim, to a greater or lesser degree, of your past.

Your personality has been formed, consciously, and/or unconsciously, via, education, religious input, or the lack of it, parents views and biases, accidents, illnesses, experiences in general, and more.

This is a fact, and by now it should be pretty obvious.

Freud, Jung, and all the psychologists, have told us what we need to know. There is more than enough information available now, for those of us that are interested, to look at and discover something about ourselves.

If you can't be bothered to do that fine, but stop complaining.

Bookshops are full of old, and new books, on all the varying subjects to do with the mind, the body, the universe, and everything in it.

What's the problem?

People have been going on about the 'new age' the 'age of Aquarius' since the sixties! Well it's here - if you can't see that, you must be seriously asleep, or stupid, or both.

I believe, Eckhart Tolle, and, Tony Parsons are telling us something interesting. You may need to hear it, they seem to make it sound simple. Unlike Krisnamurti, and others like him. They made it too complicated for me. And some of the stuff written by Alice Bailey, et al, is beyond comprehension.

Why did they need to make it so complex?Perhaps that's the best they could do with the mind sets of that era. Perhaps the 'esoteric' made it more interesting for people.

To be honest, we have to ask, what are they all saying anyway?

The Guru system seems to be irrelevant, and outdated to me. I know there are some that still kow-tow to the need to be special and different, and pretend they know something none of the rest of us mere mortals know, but now it's clear, it's a game!

We are here now, and what we 'choose' to do with his gift is personal.

We have knowledge at our fingertips - if we don't choose to look at it, who are we going to blame?

What's the problem? Oh yea I forgot, the world is in a mess! People are still killing each other.

This is not good.

There are many people with serious struggles, I know that. But with some determination and willingness to see more clearly, most things can be made better.

The mind needs to be examined, looked at. That's it!

Your own mind, and the things you 'choose' to think about, will determine the way you feel, and the way you view the world around you.

Stop and look within.

Breathe and try to stop thinking for five minutes.

Let the light come in.

Yoga can help you.

do as you will.

I'm 60, and I'm talking about Yoga.

I was washed up on the shores of Yoga in 1994. I went to my first Yoga class on my 44th birthday, and the number of the house I entered to do my first Yoga class, was number 44.

I saw that as significant at the time!

I wasn't overly enthralled by the sun salutations or some of the postures, but I liked the breathing.

I was taught, what was explained to me at the time, as Kriya Yoga. These were a set of breathing exercises, that made me feel very good - and that was all I really wanted.

The year previous to this I had undergone a series of treatments for Leukaemia. I wasn't happy, and the breathing helped.

After some time I moved on. I went to a Sivananda hybrid class, and I liked it. It also involved a lot of breathing - Kapalbhatti pumping, and alternate nostril breathing.

It made me feel good, so I went back many times for more for several years.

Then I felt the need to move on again, and began to do self practice. This is where I learned what Yoga was all about. During this period I experimented with different styles of Yoga, but I always came back to the breathing.

Last year I did an advanced teacher training with Sivananda, it was very difficult!

But, at 60 I feel great.

In my early life, in the 60's and 70's, I took lots of drugs - who didn't?

I took my last drug in 1974, and I stopped using alcohol 12 years later, in 1986.

Now what?

The one thing I can say with complete honesty is, I have always done what I 'thought' I wanted to do, and it is this has led me to where I am now.

It took a while but I got here.

Are you doing what you really want?

If not you'd better start.

Hadn't you?

Yoga helped me :)

is it that difficult to keep still?

"Be still and know that I am God" - comes from the bible - what does it mean?

Well, let's try keeping still.

How hard is it?

When you try to keep still, you will immediately notice something, your mind.

When the body is kept still it becomes easier to look at your mind.

Thoughts......... float past..................like clouds passing through the sky.................they arise, and they disappear.................this one...............the next one....................here comes another one...........wow!

Thoughts are meaningless, unless you attach meaning to them.

There is another part of us that knows, it just knows. This knowing part doesn't need to process information, it knows immediately what it has seen or felt.

Stop thinking and see..............

simple not so easy.......at first.

Becoming more present is an ongoing job. The mind or the ego, or whatever you want to call it, will not just go away.

It's difficult to stop thinking. So the first thing to do is to, see, that 'you' are thinking. Once you see that you are thinking, you have activated this other level of mind, which we can call 'the witness'.

The witness is normally dormant, but with ongoing practice it becomes more accessible. In fact it is always there, it's just that we have over-identified with the voice of the ego, and lost touch with it.

So you see, it's simple. But in practice is not so easy.

This is why we do Yoga, it's why I do Yoga.

Thousands of years ago the Rishis were apparently informed by higher consciousness entities/God, and from this evolved the Vedas, a highly complex philosophy on Yoga.

I'm no scholar, but I get the gist of it.

We are now thousands of years forward in time, and have been through many years of social and material development. The ego, in this era has been king, we needed it.

Do we now?

Why are you unhappy?
Don't you have everything you need.
Yet you are still unhappy.
Why?
What is it you think you lack?

Stop looking outside of yourself for answers. The new house, car, boyfriend, girlfriend, boat, whatever, will make you happy for a while, then the ego will look for something else to be miserable about.

You have become so enamoured with your own mental discombobulations, that you can't see it's your mind/ego that's causing the problems in the first place.

Peace

the mind.

Someone once did an experiment on someone that suffered from multiple personality disorder. This is a condition whereby a person can have two or more co existing personalities in one body, that do not relate to one another.

In the experiment it was found that one aspect of the multiple personality could be allergic to something, but whilst in another aspect of the multiple personality the allergy did not exist.

Interesting. That the person could manifest symptoms in one part, and none in another.

I think most of us have experienced that we have different elements of mind or personality, parts that exist more or less at different times. For example, in one part we may relate in one way, in another part we may relate in a completely different way.

To the logical it becomes a paradox, the the multi faceted it is an expression of another element.

If you adhere to the mono-mind theory, this can be very confusing. But if you allow yourself to expand into the idea of a multi-faceted mind, it all makes perfect sense.

:)

Anyway, we may have to admit, that we are acted upon by external forces most of the time; the weather, people, places, etc, can have an influence on us. Some of these external forces can affect us deeply, but only if we have a mind to be affected. The weather for example can destroy someone's day, week or month, and we now have a syndrome synonymous with changing weather patterns, known as S.A.D.S, seasonal, adjustive, disorder, syndrome. In this case, as the weather changes so does mood and the ability to operate.

I digress!

What I am getting at is, if we can sink into the silent mind, we are not going to be affected by anything. When we are in silence, we are relating to the void, to nothing, to the 'no mind' of the Zen philosophers. And from that space nothing can affect us.

Deepen this connection everyday.

Relate to nothing and become free.

In Yoga we are kind of creating a new part of the personality 'the inner yogi' if you like.

This 'inner Yogi' is connected or relating to silence and stillness.

The inner Yogi becomes less affected by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

informed.

We have a vast 'literal' network of information at our command.

We can for example Google the word, Vedanta, and get many answers.

It is only our resistance to surrender that keeps us hooked into the drama games that we play, games that keep us tense and miserable, locked into our position of 'little me'.

What a waste of energy!

Relax.

What we hold in our mind affects the body's function. The body's function, likewise affects the mind.

Structure governs function.

Health is wellness.

Feeling good is surrender to now, always.

Resistance to the present is denial.

Stop pretending and set yourself free.

When you look in the mirror you see the cause of, and the solution to, all of your imagined problems.

Relax a bit more.

How far can you go?

Infinity ..................?

:)

a hard won peace

Recently, due to a few mishaps and upsets, I have tried to look at myself a little more honestly.

................and I admit - it feels difficult to be peaceful.

My conditioning is reactive.

Something happens - I react.

In this watching I realise more than ever, that I am not my thoughts.

I detach, and feel a deeper presence.

I respond rather than react.

It feels good.

Surrender and enter the present.

If you need help, try Yoga.

when seeking is gone....

When seeking is gone.

We have what we have.

Surrender.

And accept.

Feel it.

Let it.

Sink 

In.

Then breathe deeply.

Into the self.

And realise.

You are here.

Now.

And always will be.

Hari Om Tat Sat.

what is and isn't......

There is stillness, everything arises out of stillness.

There is chaos and disharmony too, which things also arise from.

There is (in my opinion) the infinite intelligence of the infinite, that which is all and nothing. It is this indescribable source that we desire to connect to, and that we feel separate from, but we are not separate from it, we are it.

It is said that the ego keeps us separated from this source, and there are some that are connected consciously to this source as a gift of grace. If you are not one of those you will still be looking for a way to find it, and that is your problem.

There is nothing to find and nothing to connect to.

Relax..........

I think yoga can help :)

Calm and storm.

Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not.

When it's not so easy, we have to work a bit harder, we have to try to see through the cloudy mind.

The mind is a clear sky, and the thoughts are clouds, that's all.

You really have to understand this, if you don't you'll waste your energy chasing another ego trip.

You are not your mind.

Yoga can help you see.

Asana - Pranayama and Meditation.

Try it sometime.

Alternatively, smoke some dope, drink some wine, and pretend it's all okay.

Okay? :)

peace not pieces.

If you keep looking outside for satisfaction you will not get it.
If you look within you may feel uncomfortable for a while.


Where do you turn?

Keep looking within and begin to realise that you are not your mind.

The thinking mind is an illusion based on the past.

The past is gone, let it go!

The future is not here yet, forget about it!

Breathe deeply into the self.
Meditate deeply on the self.
Here and now.

Follow your bliss.

awareness not neurosis.

When you practice (if you practice) - look within.

As you move deeper into the aching muscles, the stiff joint(s), the busy mind, a transformation occurs. The transformation is caused by the fact that (you) are getting some space between you and you.

You are taking yourself into a practice that is undoing who you think you are.

Crazy no?

YOU are what you are, and YOU may be relatively unhappy with who YOU think YOU are. So it is best to see that who YOU are is not a fixed thing at all. It is a condition at best, and a condition can be changed.

Detach and watch what the mind does. It panics. It needs to survive and it cannot survive without you.

The BIG YOU and the little you are not the same thing. You need to see the difference.

Chasing money, or desiring the perfect relationship is the forlorn hope of the ego. 'Thing will get better' it tells us.

WHEN?

 How can things get better in the future when the future does not exist?

'You' only have 'now' to make a change and the only change 'you need' is the one that lets 'you' see that 'you' are not 'your' thoughts.

In the silence that follows there is peace.

Reality is here and now.

If you are lost in your mind, you are not here.

If you are not here, then where are you? You are not here, that's for sure.

It's not much use not being here is it. And spending time thinking, or worrying about the past is such waste of time.

Spending time projecting into the future, is also a waste of time.

If you need help becoming more present, do some thing that will help you do that.

Yoga helps.

Breathe deeply with your eyes closed. Get a rhythm going with the breath. Focus on that rhythm and detach yourself from thinking. Keep doing it. The thoughts may appear to get stronger and more demanding. This is what the ego does. It needs you to survive. When you get away from it, it will become cunning and powerful

I know it sounds as if I am talking about the ego as an alien entity, but if you look at it in an open hearted way, that is exactly what it is.

Of course it is useful to think intelligently and consciously sometimes. But allowing the mind to dominate us, allowing it to jabber away endlessly, is pointless and a complete waste of energy.

By becoming aware that you are thinking, you are slowly waking yourself up.

You can do this anytime and anywhere.

Be awake, or carry on sleeping, it's up to you - isn't it?

In the mind......

The mind is an idea.

How can you describe the mind? You can't, it is unfathomable.

What we know for sure is that we use part of this thing we call the mind, to think!

We think therefore we are. This is the worldview given us by Descartes, way back when. Well we've done enough thinking. Now it is time to stop, and perhaps look at what we think about.

We worry. There is always something to worry about. We share our problems, and as the saying goes, 'a problem shared is a problem halved.' Untrue! A problem shared is a problem compounded and doubled in volume. Your problem is now somebody else's problem, and before you know it your problem is the cause for discussion by people you don't even know.

What is your problem exactly?

Are you unhappy?

Why?

Look within.

If that's too painful, keep distracting yourself. Someday it'll get so bad you won't be able to do that anymore.

Yoga is designed to show you the way!

Try it sometime...........

mind over matter

When you use Yoga intelligently, in other words, when you understand the purpose of yogic practices, you will find that sometimes it is easy to overcome the discombobulations of the mind, and sometimes it isn't.

You need to know the difference.

What you did yesterday may not work today. Each practice session you do, whether with a teacher or on your own is completely unique.

Stay present!

Yogic practices can very easily become another piece of equipment in your arsenal of remedies and fixes, something to make to feel better for a while.

Be aware of this.

Become clear, why are you doing the practice. What does it give you? Is it helping you? It may not be right for you to do it now etc.

You have a choice, and although you may not believe it yet, you will be able to see more clearly over time that the choices you make every minute of everyday lead to consequences.

Consequences are what we generally refer to as Karma.

If you are more intelligently informed, your choices are more conscious. Therefore you will create less (bad?) karma for yourself and others.

What makes you more intelligent?

It might be a good question to ask, what makes you less intelligent..........

What are you 'really' doing?

unhappy?

Have you ever asked yourself, why are you unhappy?

If you do, and if you have to strength to be truly honest with yourself, you may find that you are unhappy because you are choosing to be.

Make a note of how many times in the course of a day you find a really good excuse to be angry, and or miserable.

It may make you laugh.

When you see that it is the the mind, or more precisely, the conditioned mind that is doing this, you have got to laugh.

You are not your mind....

Become quiet and enjoy it. If you can't do that, at least become aware of the nature of your thoughts, and the way these thoughts are making you feel.

Once you do this, you are acknowledging that 'you' have the capacity to 'see' your own thoughts.

This can provoke a serious question; If I can watch myself thinking, then who am 'I'?

Am I the thinker or the watcher?

Going further. If you are captured by your thoughts, if you have no way of detaching from and/or seeing that you are not your thoughts, you will then identify with them. When you identify with your thoughts, 'you' or who you think you are, have become your thoughts.

This is where the 'prover' comes in. The 'prover' has to prove what your thoughts are telling you, is real.

If someone in authority told you something as a child, you may have believed it, you may still, at some level, believe it. If you were told you were stupid or something, you may go around proving to yourself that you are stupid/miserable/ugly/fat/horrible/not a nice person/bad/good/ whatever, whatever, whatever.

So there you go.

By becoming still, and more conscious, you will see these little dynamics ticking away in the background. These 'beliefs' have become so ingrained that they become part of you, they have become a living reality of who you think you are.

When you do yoga etc, you are waking up the power of concentration, and the ability to become more present, more often.

Becoming more present more often is all you have to do...........

mental condition position.

In the last blog I said, 'how do 'we' keep going when all of our conditioning is asking to give up?'

You may have to look at what 'your' mental conditioning is telling you, and the only way to do that is to keep looking at it - all the time.
.
Instead of becoming more neurotic, become more peaceful, as you realise over and over again, that you are not your thoughts.

Can you do that?

Relax.

Then relax a bit more.

How far can you go?

I find if I have had a particularly bad reaction to something, and my head drama has kicked in,  some serious asana practice helps me get clear, and helps me to relax.

Then I can breathe.

And there is nothing like several rounds of strong Kapalbhatti to wake one up from the deep slumber of mental discombobulation.

Peace lies within.

The mind is a clear sky. The clouds are thoughts. Clear the clouds and see the true light of reality.

the body stiff.....

Mental
Physical
Breath

We may think our way into a poor posture.

Take a look at the way someone holds their body when depressed. Usually they'll have slumped shoulders, and a neck hanging forward. Probably a miserable countenance too.

How will this person ever stand up straight?

It depends. If he/she has held this position for a long time, it will probably be a difficult and long process. The musculature at the front of the body will have shortened, and at the back it will have lengthened.

As this person begins to straighten up, a certain level of anxiety will be felt as the chest is lifted and opened.

This is a rather brief description of a mental/postural attitude of a depressive, and what they are likely to feel over a period of transformation.

In a sense, the world has literally got this person 'down'. So, in another sense, they will need to 'face the facts' of their circumstances squarely, they will have to 'stand up' and 'see' the world exactly as it is.

Conditioning in early childhood may have shaped this persons attitude, perhaps that life is unfair, and they are not 'good enough' to deal with it.

So not only a mental, but a physical change may be required.

Asana's then, are an integral part to a holistic recovery. Another more expensive route, may be through extensive bodywork sessions. In fact there now exists a modality called body psychotherapy.

But how do we keep going when our mental conditioning has also become a physical problem, when out total conditioning is towards giving up and going under?

This is where we need a good teacher, an inspiring teacher.

First; we realise we are 'not' our thoughts, we Meditate and Relax.

Second; we see that thinking is the cause of our attitude towards life - We Breathe and concentrate.

Third; We relax the body as often and as much as we can. We become more aware of ourselves, more fully aware of ourselves more often. We do Asana and Relaxation.

Before all of this comes the profound realisation, and I reiterate, that "WE" are not "OUR" thoughts.

It's already here.

Enlightenment is here, do you want it?

Can you handle it.

It must be here, it can't be anywhere else can it?

Wake up now!
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
Now.........

Why not, what is stopping us?

'Well it's err, well it's all these things I've gotta do, the job, the relationship, the mortgage, the car, the bills, argh!'

We need to find a clear definition of what we think is missing from our lives. What is that thing that we do 'not' have, what is it that is preventing me from being?

The mind is as conditioned as an out of date computer, an out of date computer that can't handle information. The information that is coming in at you from every angle is likely to blow your mind.

But.

If you let go and become completely aware that there is only 'NOW' to deal with, you'll be able to relax - won't you?

Unless there is a direct threat on you right here and right now, you have nothing to worry about - do you?

It's a bad habit!

Enlightentment.

What is enlightenment?

The descriptions I've read are rather confusing. It's as if the enlightened person can't describe what he or she has seen.

A bit like trying to describe a colour to a blind person.

But what is enlightenment?

If we look with clear eyes, what do we see? We see the world, we see the things in front of us.

Without clear eyes, in other words, when we are lost in our thoughts we see nothing.

Enlightenment then, could be described as 'seeing' with clear vision, i.e, when we are 'not lost' in our thought processes, and when we are able to stay present with whatever is happening, within and without us.

Perhaps we could call that enlightenment.

Why not?

However, we may have to assume from the very few people that seem to have achieved it, that it is not an easy thing to become - to be present.

Not all the time anyway!

So from this perspective we could have levels of enlightenment, that we are, at any given point, more or less present.

So what prevents us from being present, our thought processes, our pain?

Indeed, it may be very painful to be fully awake to the moment, there may be issues that we would rather not deal with right now, would rather leave them till later.

But later somehow never seems to come.

I'm no expert. I just look at the evidence of my own experience. We can read about someone else's experience, and we may identify with it. But there is nothing like 'knowing' from one's own truthful experience what it feels like to, feel sad through loss, joy through realisation, misery through pain, laughter through fun.

We come back to trying to explain a colour to a blind person.

How do we do that?

not seeing.

What I have found is that we can get so caught up in trying to 'be' something, that we miss what we really are.

What are we?

Be honest.

Look at yourself truly and admit that you are 'not' perfect.

But

That you are perfect in your imperfection.


Where you are now, is where you are now - right?

What are you going to do about it?

Do you need to do anything about it?

If you are unhappy, or if you think you are unhappy, accept it.
Surrender to that feeling, see where it takes you.

This voice that tells us we are not good enough as we are, is the ego. It tells us we are not good enough as we are and that we can be better than we are. It can also tell us that we are too good, too good to be bothered with the mundane things in life, such as working, earning money, eating, sleeping and etc. (Or is that just me? :)

It seems that the world has been set up so that we don't have enough time. Prices, living in London especially, make it so that we have to work pretty hard just to make the rent. We do some Yoga, it helps us to manage our time a bit better. It shows us we need to relax, as well as work and play. We need to eat good food.

A balance is struck now we have activated our intelligence, and our greater awareness.

If you know yourself, you will understand what you need, and when you need it. If you know yourself, you will be better able to understand others. We are human after all, and in some ways very similar to one another. So instead of getting resentments and making enemies, we can better understand why people behave the way they do and become more forgiving. This helps us!

Peace is what we want and need.

We have a choice.

breathing.

How hard is it to breathe?

How hard can it be to sit still for 10, 15, 20 minutes or longer, and concentrate on breathing?

The 'probable' reason you don't, and there can be many, is that you do not understand something.

You are 'probably' too busy listening to your mind chattering.
It will tell you that you are too busy, it's a waste of time, it doesn't work, and many more things.

YOU really need to realise that YOU are not YOUR thoughts.

Sitting and/or lying, and focusing on the breath is 'one way' to help you do this!

Eventually YOU will be able to let go of thinking. YOU will look around and feel good.

'If you have one foot in tomorrow and one foot in yesterday you are not here.'

ASANA
PRANAYAMA
MEDITATION.

trapped in the head?

A thought is an electrical impulse inside the brain. If you think the same things everyday, if you worry all the time, it causes the brain to form a habit, it causes you to form a habit.

We think habitually and chronically about the same things, over and over again.

Crazy isn't it?

I received a letter recently that may affect where I live. I may have to move, and I really don't want to move. As a result, I felt anxious and uncertain about everything. It was as if the foundations of my life had been rocked. It lasted about three weeks. I felt anxious, and on top of that I had this rather harsh voice telling me that, 'because I'm a yogi I 'should' not be bothered by anything,' which of course just compounded the problem.

I have to say that the 'observer' aspect of my mind was still functional, I could 'see' this was happening. But because it was such a strong 'thought form' loaded with anxiety, it had become a physicalised issue by now too. In other words the thought related to the situation had caused an adrenal response in my body and increased the anxiety levels.

Anyway, I'm okay now, as they say. I managed to get things back on track by constantly reminding myself that this was 'not' as bad as my mind was perceiving it to be. I was using what, in 'cognitive behaviour therapy' they call 'disputing'. Such as; 'although this situation is quite upsetting, it is not going to kill me!' :))

So I used my mind, my positive mind, to dispute all the evidence that my 'conditioned mind was telling me. And I breathed, and stretched to cause my body to relax. I breathed consciously and deeply whilst disputing the chatter of my conditioned negative mind.

Once I had reset my nervous system, and felt more relaxed, I was able to get current time perspective again.

So it depends on the strength of the catalyst that causes you to go into an anxiety dream, fantasy, or whatever you want to call it. In other words the strength of the reactive thoughts, will determine the action you may need to take to get you back to the present.

The bigger the catalyst the harder you may need to work - so start with the small things, notice more.

Practice more and more becoming present to what you happen to be thinking about at any given time.

Do some some Pranayama as often as you need to.......
Same with Asana.

And don't let your practice become a neurotic routine.

What??

What are we doing?
Why do we do Yoga?

More to the point - do we do yoga?

What makes us happy?
What makes us unhappy?

Why is it so difficult to be happy?
Is it difficult to be happy?
Is it really difficult to be happy? Have you ever thought about it?

Aren't we making ourselves unhappy by the choices we make?

Are we conscious or unconscious?

Are we awake or asleep?

Are we free?

Or

Are we in a prison of our own making?

How can we be more free - more happy?

These are some serious questions.

What purpose does worrying serve?

Are you attached to being unhappy because you don't think there is another option?

Do you know how to relax?
Do you know how to relax very deeply and let go?
Do you know how to relax very deeply and let go of yourself?

When will you be ready to make some effort to wake up?

ps.

I don't think we need to use anything other than our own intelligence to become happier and healthier.

You can become more present by simply looking at the nature of your own thinking habits and questioning them.

Pranayama will improve your health, and the function of your brain.

Asana will improve the flow of blood through the body, and release tension from the muscles.

Meditation will help you relax the brain, and mind.

You should really try it sometime.

Yoga is NOT magic.

If you enjoy being miserable that's a choice you've made.

I don't enjoy being miserable, and still find myself, on occasion, being miserable.

The mind is a very strong and cunning adversary. It will not let go without a fight.

Do you know what I mean?

The mind, the ego, the conditioned mind, call it what you like. I'm talking about the voice in the head that tells you things, the one that tells you you're better than everyone, or worse than everyone, or whatever it needs to tell you to fit the occasion.

If you can detach from this little voice, it's fascinating to see what it will tell you.

Do I sound like a madman?

Well anyway if you understand, you understand, if you don't, you don't. It's not my problem really :))

I've decided, for the time being at least, to use every moment possible to become more aware of the present moment.

It seems like the only sane thing to do.

The alternative is to think about how I can make my life better, because it seems to be so crap at the moment. Hmmm, maybe even have a drink or a smoke to help myself feel better - only joking!

You are whatever your thoughts tell you you are, until you realise the you are not your thoughts.

Simple and effective remedies available from your own intelligence. Use it!

Why am I alive?

The mind is like a wild horse. It needs to be tamed.

As soon as you 'see' yourself thinking, you have awakened from a dream.

Events occur in the world, small things, big things happen all the time.

Things happen to us personally too, big things, small things.

If someone says something to us that is personally upsetting, whatever it may be, we will react, we will take offence. In the world this is what is expected of us, it is the stuff of movie legend. The person insulted will enact revenge on the perpetrator, and we all feel satisfied.

However, if you 'see' that your thoughts are nothing more than habitual forms of nothing, then you will be less affected by so called external events.

How much time do you spend thinking about, what happened yesterday, last week, last year, and what 'may' happen tomorrow, next week, next year?

If you look at this you have to admit that it is a waste of time.

We are here.
You are here.

Pinch yourself - it's true.

What are you doing with this moment?

'The course in miracles' - a book written a few decades ago, was a very long and complex book. It is a course designed to free you from the mind. It (in my opinion) is a very complicated and difficult book, and also a very complicated and difficult process.

Later we have 'The Power of Now' a shorter and much less complicated book, designed to do the same thing, i.e, to show you that you are not your mind, and that you have been conditioned to live the way you do.

To detach from thinking, you just become aware that you are thinking.

And watch it.

Keep doing this.

Spend more time learning how to be present.

Yoga Asana and Pranayama will give you a head start, especially if you have difficult challenges occuring.

Be in your body.

And

Try not to be in your head.

Keep breathing.

Keeping focused on the breath rhythm is another way to give yourself a break from thinking.

And when you choose to think about something, do it with awareness.

WHO?
What?
WHY?
Where?
When?
How?
What?

and then have a laugh ...............

Multi tasking - thinking and breathing

Breathing is something we all do all the time, when we are alive.
Thinking is something most of us do all the time - come on admit it.

When breathe consciously something important happens - we become embodied awareness. In other words we become aware of ourselves as a human being, breathing, heart beating, here and now.

The same is true for thinking, when we become aware of what we are thinking about, we see the thinker. Then we have a choice - to either continue thinking, or step back and observe ourself thinking.

We become the the seer and the seen, one is real and permanent the other is not.

Simple but effective.

Create or Miscreate ...

As time passes, we practice Yoga more regularly, and what we see, what we realise is that the mind is a very powerful thing.

We make a commitment to become more present, and twenty minutes later realise we've been thinking for the whole time.

Should we give up trying?

In a way we don't have to try, because we 'see' we are thinking, and this is enough to show us that the thinking mind is not who we are.

We are the 'seer' and we are much more than the mind thinking.

This is a shocking realisation. We see that all the thoughts we have, are illusions.

We 'think' we can see into the future by projecting self made images of what we think will happen. These projections, if done positively and creatively, are possible futures based on conscious choice.

If, on the other hand, they are fear based worries, projecting a negative outcome, then that is what they will do.

There is an old saying; 'be careful what you pray for, you just might get it.'

Conscious thought is like a prayer, but unconscious thought is just as strong, and just as likely to create an outcome of some kind.

So; be careful what you think about, be aware of what you are projecting forward.

Unless we wake up to this fact, we will keep bringing the past into the present.

If we have come from a negative past it is easy to project a negative future.

Post traumatic stress is replaying a stressful event over and over in our mind. We re-live negative experiences. 

If we go back to the past and see a positive event, it comforts us. A negative event upsets us.

Being present takes practice. And if we are mired in the past, Yoga, or some other form of psycho/spiritual practice can help us let go of it, and can give us some perspective of a life without fear and tension.