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This weekend a handful of yoga enthusiasts became beacons of peace. They graduated to become yoga teachers. Through their own dedicated and disciplined practise, they transformed their passion into a profession. When we become yoga teachers, we vow to dedicate our life to embodying peace, transmitting light and hope to those around us.
The process is one of self-care to empathy, discipline to integrity, trusting in the flow of life.
The positivity that comes from practising yoga is rooted in the experience that I can shift my own physical and mental and spiritual state from lethargy and darkness into light by a series of specific introspective techniques, weeding out the nonsense and focussing on helpful, supportive thought patterns.
We need to be subtly aware most of the time because a thought becomes a habit, which becomes a character which becomes a destiny.
There were 3 builders on a construction site
A woman comes up and asks – what are you doing?
The first builder replies:
I am building a church to earn enough to eat
The second replies
I am building a church to feed my family
The third replies
I am building a church to honour the Divine in each of us.
We all get up and do our daily chores, but what is our focus, what is our intention with our actions? The intention behind our actions determines how we feel and how others perceive us and ultimately the satisfaction we feel with our own life.
As yoga teachers, our intention is to be world leaders, leaders in peace
When we find out dharma, life flows. It doesn’t always flow, so its nice when we fall into our dharma. Dharma in yoga means the path you are meant to walk, the one you find easy and fulfilling, the effortless path which gives so many people joy.
Recently, running the Universal Yoga Teacher Training Course, it has occurred that the 16 years of yoga practise is ripe for giving… for sharing.. all the tormented questions, then resolved, now shared. The teachings pour through us and towards the students in a steady flow of gratitude to what has been, the pain, the teachings, the teachers. Coming away from the weekend, I feel full and empty and the same time. Full of Love, awe and gratitude for the students’ willingness to listen and learn and finally, for a moment, empty of any needs or desires.
Our guru Swami Sivananda, had many mottos, one was – Serve, love, give.
The apple tree drops all of its fruit when it’s time comes, the well needs to give its water in order to refill itself, and knowledge needs to be shared, effortlessly. To love and to give is our very nature and it is such a pleasure to let the energy flow through and towards the source again.
Om Shanti
How often do we do something inside that we are ashamed of on the outside. A thought, a private action? What if all these thoughts and actions were visible? How quickly would we shift then? How relaxing would it be to be completely congruent, transparent. It strikes me that our karma would play out quicker if we stopped believing we were in control. This little ego who gets things out of proportion. Is it possible to let it go and surrender to the greater unfolding of this life?
Our addiction to the physical plane is a hallmark of our lives. I think it exhausts us. Every Friday, when I fast, I notice how pleasurable it is to get a greater perspective. To notice how the body and the mind benefit from taking a break for a day. Otherwise, it is only when we sleep, do we get a break from the identification with this body and this mind. When we start to practise yoga, we are able to step away from the dictatorship of the intellect and the body and recognise the greater movement of life through us. It is relaxing to me to realise that our logic, our reason, our body are not sovereign over our lives but rather life itself, the greater force of joy, love and magnificence that pours through us and flows, to delight us with surprising experiences again and again.
The wheel of fortune in the Tarot cards is a reminder that the wheel can be appearing to be turning upwards when you look at it from one side but it is turning down from the other. Last week we were told to leave our yoga centre within a week. It was a shock, my whole world seem to turn upside down.
I was faced with the prospect of selling my family home, my long term relationship having broken down and my work taken away from me.. my world falls apart!
Then, as so many times before, the world-wheel turns around, a new centre heralds a new beginning, a new love burgeoning on the horizon with promises of all dreams fulfilled and more, answers to questions not yet asked. Abundant intelligent solutions. Support and love from all corners appear.
Allowing the letting go without resistance, allowing the breaking down, the powerless falling away of long held hopes and dreams, the tight fist of old dreams noticing the last grains of sand exiting effortlessly, leaving nothing to grasp onto. The hand is empty yet again and is forced to open in the beggars way.. nothing left to hold on to.
And so…with open palms, treasure by grace is poured in and heralds yet another Spring!
Last week I went home.
It was a place I had no memory of, where everyone and everything was different from anything I have ever known, but it was home. In many ways.
300,000 years ago people lived here. When the UK was under ice. The cradle of civilisation, in the heart of Africa, was where I was born.
Being a child with roots in two countries I have often reflected on how it feels to belong and how it feels to be slightly separate, dissonant, without roots, ill at ease.
It strikes me if your ancestors have lived off the same land as you for 300,000 years, there must be a deep sense of belonging, of wisdom and of peace.
Walking around the noisy, dusty, scorching streets of Kitwe Zambia, I felt deeply at home, I felt I belonged. What does that feel like? It feels safe, it feels like you could fall asleep right there, knowing that the world around you will take care of you.
I was blessed to spend time with a Zambian family, and discovered that sense of common responsibility, of interdependency and of complete trust that someone will be there for you. We walked around Mukuni village, a village whose ways has not changed for thousands of years, a village independent of money and outside influences, completely able to care for all its inhabitants easily, without strife or difficulty. The ground is fertile, the water clean, the kids happy.
I know many anthropologists and travellers would argue that I have a romantic view and surely people want cars, money, modern flats? Of course, there is that. The legacy of the white man. The other legacy, apart from the introduction of money, is the introduction of expensive drugs.. We were shown tree bark that helps with diarrhoea, herbs that help with common ailments, now shunned for expensive drugs from the West. This is the legacy of the white man.
But the main desire among the people I spoke to is to go back to the village as you get older, to go home. Isnt that what we all want, to go home, to peace, to where we belong, to the smells, the sounds and the sensations familiar and comfortable?
You guessed it, this to me is yoga, coming home to oneself, to the deep rest and peace within your very bones, the place that demands nothing, that asks for nothing except your very existence, where you have full permission to exist in all your majesty.
Welcome to yoga, welcome home!
Karma – well, laughing at “My Name is Earl” and the crossing off of his list, with my son, makes me realise that these ideas are percolating through to very popular culture.
Life somehow becomes much, much easier, when you start to see it through the eyes of karma.
There is something about looking at the intention of the action rather than actually what happened. Think about it, “its the thought that counts!”. If things turned out pear shaped and your intention was good, then what is the karma of the action?
In Yoga the concept of karma drives your actions and ultimately even your thinking.
The ultimate goal, is to act with no desire for an outcome. Hm tricky!? Well, maybe most actions we do are because we want something? A bunch of flowers, because we want to be forgiven? A present because we want to be loved? Cleaning the house because we want to impress someone?
For example, I remember when I first went in to work as a “karma yogi” at the London Yoga Centre, and someone broke a glass on the floor, I was quick to tell one of the Swamis who lived there ” so-and-so broke the glass and its there on the floor” Swami took a look at me and patiently said “In yoga, there is no blame, there is just a broken glass, the fact that you saw it, means it is your job to clean it up” My colleague had given me an opportunity to serve. What a turn around!
A beautiful shift of thought, an expansion takes place with this thought.
It was enticing to think that there is no blame, so no shame, therefore no guilt, and maybe no merry go round of passive aggression following guilt and shame? wow! This new idea made me feel light and free. If something presents itself to me, then it is my opportunity to clear my karmic debt. Excellent, jump at it!
Now, I am going to ask you to expand your mind even further.. not only is there no blame or agency, imagine if life were just a series of lessons for you. Every time something occurs, it is an opportunity for you to serve, to send out loving intention, to somehow neutralise everything bad (or in yoga we would say ignorant) that you have ever done. (“Forgive them, for they know not what they have done”) If the same thing keeps presenting to you, the same disappointment, the same let down, what is the lesson here? How can you relate to this scenario differently? How have you been acting in this way towards others, without even noticing it?
You know for sure, that if you bounce a ball off a wall, it will come right back at you? Well in the same way, any intention you send out, any action you take, will reverberate back to you in some way. Imagine everything you did was for the “greater good”, imagine gifting stuff, for the sake of it, not because you want something back, just because it feels good to give?
There are whole communities that work in this way, and have done for thousands of years. Our village works like this in many ways, without even realising it. It is the original way of communities. Can we get back there? Finding what the Gods are asking of me in this situation? and What have I got to learn from this scenario or this relationship? How can I serve here?
Maybe this is the “new” consciousness that is dawning, this understanding that with taking responsibility only for our own actions, and acting with pure intention of service, love and mercy, we will live in a beautiful world.
It is not easy, we are entrenched in an “owe you” or “sorry” society. But maybe just maybe, you could try for a day to just give, without any wish for any return, just give, because it is good for you. This is Karma Yoga.
Last week, I experienced what may well be many business’ ultimate nightmare, I was told that the council would shut me down imminently because of the traffic coming and going from our Yoga Centre.
Now, with a few breaths and a bit of meditation, it became clear that this may not be as dramatic or as “bad” as it seems.
Maybe it is time to do something else, maybe its time to move on, maybe this is the Universe telling me not to value effort and the past as some lasting thing, everything passes.. be flexible, see the good… having extended myself over four years and spent thousands of pounds on lawyer fees, several refused planning applications and other advice, trying to build the business up and to find resolutions to the parking issue, maybe it was time to give up the fight?
The doubt was there, one last effort, I will tell the students and let them decide, was this worth saving? I will contact the local MP, will he help? I hand it over to Grace, God, the Universe……. my effort is spent.
The response was miraculous! with over 100 responses, on facebook and email, tender and heart opening messages of love and community, email after email, tears ran down my cheeks as people’s experiences were laid bare….how yoga had carried them through tough times, through bereavement, through cancer, through loss and pain.. the heartfelt plea sent from people living several hundred miles away who had been here on retreat…our MP must have been very busy in the last few days opening emails from our students!
With renewed vigour, I realised yet again, it is not I or we who offer yoga, yoga offers itself to suffering and heals suffering on so many levels. This is not about doership, about who is the doer, who is the receiver, it is about fulfilling dharma in this lifetime of providing a space for people to heal whether it is profitable or not, whether it is easy or not, whether it suits me or not… it is my dharma and the dharma of all the yoga teachers, to offer what we know for the peace of the individual and like threads of cotton, each individual is turned into a thread of silk, to weave the most beautiful silken cloth, which is our community, a community of peace.
Om Tat Sat
My first experience of yoga, was walking in frustrated, irritated and tired and walking out refreshed, chilled and happy. I didn’t know why or how, and didn’t care, as long as I got my fix, that was 15 years ago.
I quickly became curious, what happens in a yoga class, that brings about this state?
The next ten years was spent working this out, and most recently the “Yoga for the Mind” course I have been attending for a year, a rigorous, humbling and affirming course clarified in some detail the process of yoga.
I went in wanting to know why yoga works and came out convinced that it does, with a box file full of scientific research to back it up. Of course, hundreds of students and my own experience was experiment enough, but somehow understanding the mental and scientific principles behind each breath, each movement, each stretch made me more determined to use yoga as a therapy.
Which posture do we need, when we feel anxious? Which breathing technique when we are down? How do we get rid of anger with yoga?
Now I know these answers and many more, before deduced, now proven.
Watching people move from distorted in their anxiety to clear and grounded, through this course is a testimony to the power of yoga as a therapy.
I am very keen to share some of my learning and knowledge in private work, I intend to open a clinic in time in Bath, but will be offering discounted sessions at the studio in the next few months, to get started.
In 2013 I will also be offering a course for well-being, that runs for 8 weeks.
So, if you feel you would like to increase your well-being and shed anxiety, stress, low mood or anger, then give us a call. Private sessions will be on Mondays between 2 and 7. The first session will be approx. 90 mins and after that they will last for 60 minutes, and cost £40. If you book a run of 5, the full price will be £150.
Layer by layer, tension dissipates with yoga. This is the way it works. Our body releases, our mind releases, our intellect releases its need to control, to understand, our heart releases its need to protect and finally our soul shines with divine brightness.
This is why meditation and yoga become addictive, it is a process of falling in love with yourself on a daily basis, which becomes the same as falling in love with the world!
Om tat sat
It works! I see it every day.. gratitude, feeling better, getting better, becoming pain free. I know it works..The power of yoga never ceases to amaze me.
I mean, twisting your body into impossible contortions, how on earth is that actually going to make anyone feel better about anything?
Looking back over 15 years of dedicated regular yoga practise I am starting to realise how profoundly yoga has helped me in more ways than I ever imagined. It is so much more than the sum of its parts.
It has seen me through becoming a mother, 4 house moves, 1 divorce and 1 very difficult break up, family upheaval and probably a few other major stressors up there on the top of the scale. Yoga and the yoga community have offered me a steadying and focussing centre to this tumultuous time. I would say that it has brought me to a place of complete joy for the first time in many, many years.
How does yoga do this?
Now I am learning all the scientific ins and outs of the magic of how it works and I stand in awe of this science more than ever.
Did you know that the Vagus nerve sends messages to the brain from the body, telling it how you are feeling. When you start to breathe deeply and rhythmically, it will let your brain know it can relax! This is just one of the wonders of our body that ancient yogis knew intuitively and designed the postures to enhance our experience of our own lives.
I am in awe.
