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