Dear Yogis,

TODAY’S NEWS:  I am going to do RESTORATIVE YOGA Zoom classes starting next week.  Please look at the Yogabeautiful “CLASSES” to keep abreast of what we are doing and how we are moving forward.  I update the Yogabeautiful pages regularly, and they mean nothing if you don’t check.  Please let me know if you are interested.

THE LESSON:  Desire, desire, attachment.

According to Buddhist tantra we can remain trapped inside a circle of dissatisfaction because our view of reality is narrow, and may I say it – suffocating.  Almost all of us hang on to a limited and limiting view of what we are and what we can become.

I remember when I was on the wheel of relationships, I tried to be what the man wanted.  I thought in that way he would be happy and we could work together towards a future.  It didn’t work because I couldn’t abandon my beliefs, my life or my students to keep a males attention or affection.  I believed in partnerships and they wanted control.

Ordinarily this energy of desire feeds into patterns of grasping and attachment which have over time become strong and habitual.  They decrease our awareness whilst reinforcing our ignorance and dissatisfaction.  One of the major tasks confronting us, is to identify the factors perpetuating this cycle of dissatisfaction (suffering) and then apply the most appropriate antidote to their destructiveness.  Transforming it with Tantra.  As long as our opinion of ourselves is miserable, our life will remain meaningless.

Tantra allows us to see ourselves and others as transcendentally beautiful.  We begin by transforming our ordinary concept of ourselves from empty space into which they have dissolved,  into a glorious light body of the Diety, which is not “out there”, but a manifestation of our deepest being.

This “self-visualisation” gives us the strength to take control of our lives, and create for ourselves a pure environment in which our deepest nature can be expressed.  The most powerful “diety” is the essential qualities of the fully awakened experience latent inside of each of us. at our most profound level of consciousness.  

If you you identify yourself as being essentially strong and capable you will become that.  You will see yourself in this way and develop these qualities.  If you continue to think of yourself as  “not good enough” THAT is what you will become. Trapped in the negative.   The more closely we identify with a diety, understanding the various attributes, the more deeply we will stimulate in our own mind the growth of the qualities they represent.

A story:  One time a student who has been having trouble at every level in their lives was going for a job. She was new to yoga,  not terrific at meditation or visualisation but fully grasped the concept,  and  she asked me if she could borrow one of my hats.  Why? Because she believed that if she felt that my strength, my willpower was with her she could get the job.  The hat somehow made the visualisation easier.

We all do it to some extent.  We carry a crystal, use the mala bead, wear the St.Christopher.  They would be more powerful if we knew their qualities and how they apply to the situations in our lives… if they were not just an object.  This understanding is what Tantra asks of us in order to achieve our goal.  At this level we will be manifesting the divine qualities already within us, not just putting on a magic overcoat.  Tantra is not Harry Potter  magic.  It is a practical way of living up to our highest potential through the transformation of our human consciousness.

You are far more powerful than you imagine yourself to be.

HAVE A BEAUTIFUL, Sunny day in the garden – it is Camelot here at the moment (rain at nite, sun in the day)

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

Dear Yogis,

The OpShops in our town went back to work this week.. it reminded me of a story.  

A little girl came in to the store looking for a doll.  Her mother directed her to shelves with lovely dolls, tall dolls, baby dolls, fabric dolls, sparkly dolls, but this kittle girl was drawn to a doll in the throw-out bag.  You can imagine that a doll in an OpShop throw-out bag was less than beautiful.

It was faded, had only one shoe, the head was hanging on by only a thin thread of plastic, the clothes were torn, and one of the glass eyes was missing.  You get the message.  This baby had been discarded, disrespected, forgotten. As we say it was “on its last legs”.  This was the doll that the little girl wanted, and she was prepared to be stubborn, to take a risk to get it.

If her mother was like my mother she would have been strongly discouraged in her choice because the mother probably felt that if the daughter chose THAT doll it would be a reflection on the family, or on her suitability as a mother.  She probably was not thinking of the daughter, and certainly not at all about the doll.  She could have been thinking “What would people think if my daughter carries that doll around?” She hadn’t yet worked out how few people do think, and if they do it isn’t for long.   This lady wanted her daughter to have a beautiful doll not to please the daughter or to save the doll.  She wanted her friends to  know she was a good mother, and on some level even if not conscious, believed the doll was a negative reflection on her.

Too put a positive spin on it, she could have wanted her daughter to have THE BEST.

But the girl persisted in her need for the tattered doll.  The salesperson who was pretty pleased to sell any doll asked “Why do you want that particular doll?” and the little girl said “BECAUSE IF I DON’T TAKE HER, IF I DON’T LOVE HER, NO-ONE ELSE WILL”.

What do you love?  Will people think more of you, or less of you because of your choices? Does it matter?

Love is the ultimate reality.  Something has clicked in your being..  It is not about the little girl (or you) being convinced about your ideas.  It is not a conviction, it is not a conversion, it is a transformation.  A change from the inside out.  Looking into the others eyes, something happens without saying a word, something that you never dreamt of suddenly becomes a reality.

It isn’t about faith, because faith contains fictions – we have to search for arguments or evidence.

It is about trust.  Trust is the highest flowering of love.  There is no guide, and you probably will not meet anyone on the path no matter how many times you ask “are we there yet?”.  The little girl in the story above trusted her heart, because in the moment she experienced the flowering of love, and acted on it.

Once you have found that truth on your own, you will realise that nothing else is needed..  This little girl searched on her own, alone – risking, moving away from the crowd on a lonely path, trusting her heart. She chose freedom.  The question of belief does not arise.  She responded in sincerity, integrity and consciousness.  She responded to the highest quality of love and positioned herself for the greatest gifts that God has in store..

There are many powerful forces in this world, but nothing is more powerful than love.

 

HAVE A WONDERFUL SUNDAY. Be a NOW-PERSON, take a risk,  your destiny is calling you..

NAMSTE, JAHNE.

 

Dear Yogis,

NOTES FOR TODAY:I am never sure whether to put these in the front or at the end.

YOGA CLASSES: please read “classes” above, and bring all your props, and pre-pay. ZOOM – Four classes PER WEEK.  Mondays, Wednesdays, Friday and Saturdays.

TAROT: The last training class today (Saturday) at 2pm.  Bookings taken for the next class. I will be trying zoom consults and trainings starting the 1th July.

TEA AND TAROT  “Afternoon Tea – Meet-up”, At the studio, 2pm to 4pm Sunday 28th June.  Please email an RSVP yogafirst2@bigpond.com. Everyone welcome.  Readings, decks, paintings, posters, pendulums….

We have been walking around and around the hard things, the yoga basics, but starting today we are going to jump in.

WE ARE NOT THESE BODIES.

“O descendent of Bharata, he who dwells on the the body can never be slain.  Therefore we need not grieve for any living thing”. (Bhagavad-Gita 2.30)

The first step is to understand that you are not your body.  In the verse above the “he who dwells in the body” is not talking about you.  It is not a matter of just repeating “I am not this body” but actually realising it.  Although we are not these bodies, these vehicles,  but are pure consciousness, somehow over time we have become identified within this physical identity.

Some scholars say that this identification with the body can be cured by abstaining from all action.  Buddha also maintained that if we somehow separate ourselves from the material,  the cause of suffering will be removed. In today’s terms – If you were being pursued by the ATO, would it remove your tax debt if you destroyed all your material possessions.  I don’t think so.  It would however make it more difficult for you to meet the remaining obligations, but now you would have destroyed the vehicle through which this could be achieved.

The Bhagavad-Gita indicates that the body is not everything.  There is more.  Beyond the complex material elements there is the spirit, and the symptom of that spirit is consciousness.  We know that a body without consciousness is a dead body.  What is this energy we call consciousness? Consciousness is the energy of the soul and proves that the soul is present.  When the body breaks down and this energy called consciousness leaves the body, there is no possibility of our replacing a broken part and thereby reviving the body, and achieving our destiny…  The soul energy has gone.  There is no possibility of re-animating the body after the soul has left.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, Sri Krishna points out that all our miseries are caused by false identification with the body.   It is the spirit spark of the soul which motivates us into great feats of creation. We try to attain eternity, knowledge and bliss by subjugating our imperfect physical vehicle, however to progress to our goals we must realise  that we are being blocked by the physical.  Perhaps we are floundering in a place of desire and attachment, allowing the  senses to drag us this way and that.  For success, for peace and contentment, we must learn to master the body, not deny it.  We must be masters and not servants.

Tantra USES the energy of desire.  Instead of seeing pleasure and desire as things to be avoided at all costs, TANTRA recognises the powerful energy aroused by our desires,  to be an indispensable resource for our spiritual path.  Tantra seeks to transform every experience no matter how un-religious it may appear – into the path of fulfilment.  Because our present life is so inseparably linked with desire, instead of denying this fact, instead of living in denial,  we must USE desire’s tremendous energy if we wish to transform our life into something transcendental.

HAVE A LOVELY WEEKEND.

NAMASTE – JAHNE