Dear Yogis,

I am starting yoga teacher training classes on ZOOM from next week.  If your course has come to a halt for whatever reason, get back into it.  You will never have a better time.  Zoom is not as “intimate” as turning up for class, but it will be helpful to get you back on track.

After putting in the blog yesterday that I was starting teacher training classes on Zoom I got some takers and I am quite excited.  Those people who have stalled in their teacher training, should take this opportunity to get back on track. I am quite excited… so I guess I am ready to start, which I will do from next week.  I have sorted through some options, and once you let me know you are ready to re-start, we will organise a plan.  It’s a new world… and we are embracing it.

Tantra has been enormously helpful in my transition to this new world.  In order to board what is known as “the lightening vehicle of tantra”, we have to  put aside the ordinary limited view of ourselves which keeps us trapped.  By looking deeply into the clear nature of our mind, we can create space in which true self-transformation can take place.

It is not enough to know why this transformation is necessary and possible, we must also generate the strength and confidence that will enable us to  follow this radical approach to a fulfilling future.  Put another way.  We need to be inspired!

Ancient tantric texts mention that all realisations come from the guru.  Our guru can be a teacher, but it can also mean our own inner wisdom, our own fundamental clarity of mind. This inner-guru can accomplish everything.  The practice of guru yoga can be a method for learning how to listen to this inner guru.

Although we all possess this inner guru we do not listen to it, and we rarely hear it.  As long as we are out of contact with this inner teacher, and are disregarding our practice on the mat, we will never be able to integrate them.  Our inner guru will always remain weak and undeveloped.

For the very best teachings, for the teachings of enlightened beings to reach us, there should be an unbroken lineage of successive gurus and disciples carrying these living insights  down to the present day.  We need an experienced guide to show us exactly how to put the teachings we receive into practice.  We will not get to the highest teaching reading from a book,  hoping to figure things out for ourselves.  That is why I am always talking to to you about lineage,  and giving thanks.  Gratitude.  Lineage is not a marketing mantra, it is not a star on your report card. You cannot shop for lineage.

We need someone to show us, to give us a practical demonstration.  This is our guru.

COVID:  For many, each day brings more challenge, more hardship, more suffering. Their hearts are breaking, their patience is waning, and there is no end in sight. Events appear cosmic, beyond their control. Yet, we are far from powerless. When we come together as One, we have the power to transform our world.

As many teachers before me have said….    A single act of kindness, like a single drop of rain, might have little noticeable effect. But millions of raindrops falling together can form a channel capable of breaking through the strongest dam. In the same way, the accumulated grace of a million acts of kindness, channeled by shared intention, can break through the barrier of ruthless selfishness, flooding the earth with new life. That is the power of One.

Have a wonderful day. Start planting your spring natives seeds.  Many need the winter cold to germinate.

Namaste.  Jahne

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

This covid experience experience is visiting us/me as a teacher,  and I am learning many things.   One of the things I have learned is that without you my life has less meaning.  I love teaching you, doing these newsletters, and next week, speaking to you via ZOOM. Something I never thought I would do. It is my challenge, and I have a few.

If I went to my monastery in this time I could fill my days with meditation, and spiritual routine dependent on no-one. I would have nothing to achieve, nothing except the routine to comply with. I could feel good because I would receive validation just for being there, just for making that choice. But I have not escaped to there, am not there;  like you – I am here.  I could even escape at home, and maybe you are doing it.

I know the planetary reasons I feel like I feel, I know about the retrograde (which will last a few months), and the tarot cards. I like finding reasons for how I feel…  My advice to self – turn around, look at the spiritual.  Because I am me, I am not giving up on what God has put in my heart. He is waiting for me to look again, and not settle for what appears to be.  I am waiting for our clouds to turn into rain, and new plants.  I am waiting for new ideas to grow into fruitful paths.

In the TOWER, the 16th card in my Tarot pack, I learn that there is an obstacle, a tiring one.  I could start to climb and give up, I could just curl into a ball and wait things out in which case nothing would change and things would get dark.  Or, I could climb down the ladder and run away, in which case I would learn nothing and once again, nothing would change, except I would have a feeling of failure. No matter what other choices I made I would know there was a Tower I did not climb, an opportunity I did not take.   The challenge, the Tower –  and no matter how far I ran, I would know I had given up.   Now is the time to climb the tower no matter the obstacles, no matter your imaginings…. plant good seeds, nurture them and watch them grow.

You have to have a made up mind and decide that abundance is on the way, look again and do what it takes.  Like me, you may be climbing today.  Have faith that you will have a sign of what God is doing in your life.  You will look at the world from the top of the tower.  Look again.  When you keep looking up,  keep climbing no matter the obstacles, you will be able to see what is your destiny.  Look up again.  There is a new beginning.  You wouldn’t be alive if there wasn’t something fantastic up ahead of you.

If you keep the faith, if you keep climbing your particular tower, doors will open, opportunity will track you down.  That stirring is new life.  Keep your faith stirred up, live with expectancy.  Your difficulties are set-ups, not set-backs.  No matter how things look in the physical,  rest in the Spirit.  You will still get what you have been promised.   You would not have the dream if there wasn’t a way for it to come to pass.  

Please let me into your world.  If you are interested in zoom yoga classes, weekly zoom teacher training sessions (most suitable for those who are struggling with the course), and zoom tarot and tarot training sessions…. please email me at yogafirst2@bigpond.com and I will give you the password and the code required. If you are not confident in this new technology – well, neither am I.  Let us learn together.

 I can’t give you what you want if I don’t know what it is you want.  EMAIL me.

 

Have a lovely day, no matter the weather, no matter the height of the tower.

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

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