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

Dear Yogis,

We live in “interesting times”, and this is just the beginning.     Our routines, the routines, income, habits have a way of drying up…and it can happen that this is when the ravens or angels stand back.  A lesson is on the way.

In the bible the widow of Zarepath (1Kings, Chapter 17) found herself in this dried up position.  It probably was not uncommon then, and it is not uncommon today.  She was down to the last crumbs of everything and was gathering up the last sticks to prepare the little they had before they died.   We don’t get to this position, but we do sometimes struggle.  It was at that moment that a prophet arrived on the doorstep asking for water.  Because of their understanding about hospitality she went off to the well for water, but when Elijah asked for bread she was brought face to face with the reality and emptiness of her position.

It is one thing to have nothing, it is totally different when you are asked to feed another out of your emptiness.  The widow says to Elijah “I have only a handful of flour and a little oil”.  How could you feed yourself or another with so little?

This emptiness is not just about physical emptiness, it is also about spiritual and emotional emptiness which we so often experience.  When you have the courage and love to give the up the last handful to another human being, trusting that the emptiness will be miraculously refilled,  you will discover as the widow did that the supply of food NEVER dries up.  Miracles happen and there is always provision.  Your jar of flour will never dry up and your little oil will last for ever.

My meditation and my mat have gotten me through many days of famine.  It is the place where I feel safe to come with my grief, my anger, my joy and delight, my frustrations, my questions, my confusions and my amazement.

Each mantra I pray, is only a handful of flour and a little oil, however it has always been sufficient to change my famine into a feast.  My life has been blessed because I have believed in these crumbs.

When I want to see clearly I close my eyes.  This says something about my inner eyes.  Because I forget use them, they can suffer from neglect and underuse.  Perhaps yours too need recharging.  A friend told me that in her meditations she was aware she sat in front of “a tree full of Angels”. What a wonderful feeling.

Try it.  When you sit on your mat, before you go deeply into you meditation, imagine angel wings like stars glistening in every branch.  Gold and silver everywhere you look.  What an Angelic start to your yoga day.

HAVE A SPARKLING, ANGEL FILLED DAY.  When your basket seems empty, reach in and give away what you have with trust, not challenge.

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

Sometimes when I sit down in the morning to write to you, I have to hear in a different way.  I have to trust the guys upstairs because their understanding is way different and way ahead of my understanding.  There is quite a gap.   Sometimes I think, “where are we going with this”, but I have to trust enough to keep going.  To listen very intently.  This morning is a case in point.   They spoke about the inter-school cricket I played when I was in primary school.  What’s that got to do with yoga I thought as I bumbled onwards?  As it turns out – everything!

Have you ever played cricket?  In my early years I wasn’t good at team sport – I couldn’t see the ball coming at me, and most of the sport we did involved a ball. I wasn’t even any good in the outfield where I felt abandoned in “space”  and couldn’t see the team or the balls. As my sight improved and I began to see again (however badly) I found that I was a very, very good bowler in the game of cricket.  I couldn’t yet see the ball well enough to actually hit it when it was coming at me with speed, but I could bowl amazingly well.  So I did.  I had found a game I could be good at, practised,  and got even better.

I had my own little ways of holding the ball, doing the run up, bowling in ways  that worked for me, and as long as the person about to hit it wasn’t used to my method, I could bowl them out… I got into the A Grade at school based on this and they assigned me a coach (just a parent perhaps) who was an awesome bowler. The first thing the coach needed to see was how I bowled, just to see what he was working with.  What was the first thing he did? He changed my grip, then my run up! I got confused, frustrated, and my game went down the drain.  I wanted to go back to the old way.

I was young.  What I didn’t know in the beginning was sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards. If you want to grow at anything FIRST you have to get into an uncomfortable place,  trust the teacher, and practice the new way.  You have to get uncomfortable, and practice the new way, not long for and hang onto the old way..  “Better” depends on purpose.  If at the bottom of it you don’t care about anything other than people’s image of you, if it means nothing other than ego, then you will quit rather than go backwards.

If I am just bowling (doing/teaching yoga) to a closed group, just for the ego strokes, and I am not confident enough to get uncomfortable, make some wrong decisions, grow and change, at some point I will know I am faking it and drop the game, or I will make some less than honest decisions in order to keep in front of the group.  This applies to anything, and is as relevant in the game of yoga, or the game of family, or the game of work.  

This painting will be available for purchase after 28th June….

The photo is of a new painting of the Medicine Buddha I am in the process of completing.  Every time I sit in front of  blank canvas,  I have to be in the position of trust.  I cannot do it on my own. Once I think it is all about me I am lost, and might as well put the painting in the bin, because it will be rubbish.

At various points along the way it looks as if nothing is happening, or feels like it is useless to keep going.  If I got into my mind and only trusted that,  I would get nowhere.   I would quit.

 

What if BETTER is a foundation?

What if BETTER is coming through you?

What if BETTER is right in front of you, but because it is too challenging to allow BETTER into your life you don’t recognise it, and therefore you don’t receive it?

If you want to change your life, your mind must change first, and you can only do that with  trust and with knowledge.  Not just reading the morning messages, but acting on them, reading more, doing more.  MEDITATING MORE.  Remember, when you switch your grip in order to go forwards, in the beginning you may seem to go backwards.  It’s OK.  It’s necessary.  Trust the process.

 

ENJOY THE SUNSHINE.

NAMASTE JAHNE