Dear Yogis,

Have you ever read the Bible?  Most of you probably not on the basis that it is too difficult, or your parents read it therefore you don’t want to, or you believe you can’t learn anything from it.

Wrong on most counts particularly the last one.  The Bible is a “self help program”.  Get over the words that look strange and get a translation you can read easily, then with patience you will get it, and hopefully learn from it.  Forget the prejudice..

For instance; When Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden.  They had everything they needed and more, however, they were human so guess what, like us when we have everything, we want something we can’t have.  We want to know what God knows, and Adam wanted just that, he didn’t want to be dependent.  He understood he wasn’t the captain of his soul or the master of his fate.   His value was not dependent on his wealth, status accomplishments or position.  When God said to Adam “Where are you?” he was not asking Adam to physically show himself.  God is all seeing, he knew where Adam physically was, but Adam was in a state of confusion.  God was asking Adam to look inside himself.  “Where are you?”.  

The apple and snake story was about them saying to God “we want to know what you know and provide for ourselves”.  Believing the serpent who told them that God was holding something back that would make everything clear, he was determined to KNOW no matter the cost, and it was great.  Their nakedness was not so much a lack of clothes as it was the complete vulnerability which they accepted when they cast aside their dependence for independence

Independence always comes at a high price, especially when it involves turning our back on the possibility of a Being greater than ourselves – which some call the Universe, or Spirit and which I call God.

Simplicity is a gift. It is a return to our  dependence on the gracious provision of God.  It allows us to live in a spirit of trust. Even in a time of Covid.  Try it.  Relax in the arms of a providing, embracing God.  Your day will expand, your stress levels will lower, and your moments of true happiness will increase. It is at the core of Simplicity.

Some students are so busy trying to be everything to everybody that they have lost site of what they actually have duty to, and they believe that they alone can provide for their family.  They would rather spend 15 minutes telling me what they can’t achieve than five minutes achieving something worthwhile. “WHERE ARE YOU”.

ZOOMING. (This means you don’t come to the studio – the lecture is on your computer –  for those who are not sure)

TUESDAY: (TODAY) 7.30 to 9.30pm for three sessions – Hypermobility lectures. $35
SATURDAY: TEA LEAF READING course – start date to be decided
SATURDAY: 2pm to 4pm – Tarot Training for three sessions ongoing
SUNDAY: 2pm to 4pm Teacher Training. First Sunday in the month. $20  (this Sunday)

METHOD
1. Contact me via email to notify me you want to attend. yogafirst2@bigpond.com
2. Put the fee into Direct Debit AND EMAIL ME THE RECEIPT.
Commonwealth Bank BSB: 063 806  Account: 1019 1251
3. When that has occurred i will send you the ZOOM ID in planty of time for you to join the     class.

ATTENTION:    If I don’t see the routine has been followed as above, and I don’t get the receipt, then I will presume you are not coming to class. Please have your mobile with you if you do Zoom.  If there is a tech hiccup you will be able to call me. PH: 0402088170

 

HAVE A GREAT DAY.

NAMASTE.  JAHNE

 

Dear Yogis,

What a gorgeous weekend, sunshine, mild breeze and for more than 10 minutes, perfectly designed for “spring cleaning” and I started.  I am still mildly decluttering.  I walk around the house and all I can see is stuff. Lovely stuff but totally meaningless.  I have always thought that houses and their contents are everything we don’t need, and that is why, from a material point of view, losing everything in Ash Wednesday bushfire was accepted calmly. I knew I hadn’t dealt completely with the material, and stuff would come back, and it has with a vengeance (starting with a sculpture of the buddha’s head).  It started the day after the bushfire.  I was trying to walk off into the sunset, but the world hadn’t dealt with me yet, so everything conspired to keep me – and I went with it.  One foot in –  one foot out.

My look has changed little over the years (except my hair) but one thing has not, the fact that on any day I am probably wearing one of three outfits I like and find usable in the studio and for lunch.  I have done a little there but there is heaps to go. The next step is to get rid of about half.

The hardest is going to be the bookshelves.  This makes clearing the clothes look easy.  First I have to decide what I am going to be, do and have before I can clear the books.  My dad read to me before I was born, and I was able to read by the time I was about four.  Even then I treasured my books almost as much as my brushes and paints.  I read fast with good comprehension, so I can get a book in the morning and have it read by the time I go to bed.  A student asked me if I had read all my books.  The answer is yes – and now they are friends.  How can I get rid of friends.  I love them more than most folk love their toilet rolls.

The kitchen is easy, as is the office. The bathroom has been culled but not entirely…  Now that we are going through covid the world will be different when lock downs are over (if they ever really are).  We are forced to face the clutter.  You can decide to live with it, find more designer boxes for it to inhabit, or you can chuck most of it out.

When I lived at home and did the declutter my mum used to say “Don’t throw it away. You spent good money on that!!!” A guilt trip of her making born during wars, depression, migration and privations of all sorts.  Mum even saved and stored string and brown paper bags.

When you are part way through decluttering you will be able to keep going because you will realise as I have done,  it is not about wasted money, dreams and opportunities, but the beginning of saved money, saved dreams and saved opportunities.

TALKING ABOUT OPPORTUNITIES. Please visit the web site.  Look at the home page under ZOOM or the menu under the topic you are interested in and sign up for the lectures, courses on offer.  I look forward to seeing you.

NAMASTE – JAHNE

Dear Yogis,

Another Zoom Teaching yesterday, which, apart from a beginning hiccup went smoothly.  We loved it.  I loved it (which I never thought I would say).

Coming ZOOMS  
HYPERMOBILITY: Tuesday 7.30 to 9pm. $35 (starts on July 28th) for the  lecture series of 3 sessions on the topic . You have long said you wanted to know more, but have not used the books and youtube we have offered – as shown in your modules.  Here is another way.  Please join us.

TAROT TRAINING COURSE: Saturdays at 2pm to 4pm.  This is full. But you can be put on the wait list for the next series. The course costs $157 which includes a deck of Revelation Tarot Cards.  If you have taken the course and want a refresher $50 to join the class for ongoing sessions. Join as many you like in groups of three sessions.

TEACHER TRAINING:  First Sunday in each month $20. This month we are speaking of The Yamas and The Purushatras.

TEA LEAF READING: The course.  Saturday mornings 10 to 12noon date to be decided, please register your interest.  Includes cards and kit.  $225 for six sessions.   We are waiting for the cards to be printed – they are this new..  Until they arrive we will use the old method of tea and pot.  Once the cards are printed I will send you the Card Kit.

To join any of these ZOOM classes.  
1.Let me know you want to join.  
2. Direct Debit the fee into Commonwealth Bank
BSB 063 806 Account 1019 1251 Yoga First.  
3. When I have this I will send you the course ID and Password so you can get into the  ZOOM class.

I am not a techno whizz.  I am learning about ZOOM every time I use it.  There can be misunderstoods, there can be small difficulties,  BUT we seem to get there in the end.  We help each other out until everything is smooth.  You don’t have to be fabulous to join.  Not in tech or in yoga.  We learn from each other.  Please join us.

 

YOGA:

This morning I offer you words from LIGHT OF ASIA by Sir Edwin Arnold.  It is a treasured book of mine and in verse describes the birth life and teachings of The Buddha.

“Enter the Path! There spring the healing streams
Quenching all this! there bloom the immortal flowers
Carpeting all the way with joy! there throng
swiftest and sweetest hours!

More is the treasure of the Law than gem:
Sweeter than comb its sweetness: its delights

Delightful past compare.  Thereby to live
Hear the FIVE RULES aright:-

Kill not – for Pity’s sake – and let you slay
The meanest thing upon its upward way.

Give freely and receive, but take from none
By greed, force, or fraud, what is his own.

Bear not false witness, slander not, not lie:
Truth is the speech of inward purity.

Shun drugs and drinks which work the wit abuse;
Clear minds, clean bodies, need no soma juice.

Touch not thy neighbours wife,
neither commit Sins of the flesh unlawful and unfit.

…. Scatter not rice
but offer loving thoughts and acts to all.  
To parents as the East where rises the light:
To teachers as the South whence great gifts come:
To wife and children as the West where gleam
Colours of love and calm, and all days end;
To friends and Kinsmen and all men as North;
To humblest living things beneath, to Saints
And Angels and the Blessed Dead above:
So shall all evil be shut off, and so the six main quarters will be safely kept.

Have a lovely weekend/week.  Join us when you can.

NAMASTE.  JAHNE