Dear Yogis,

ZOOM RUMI TONITE – don’t miss it. 7.30pm. A “must be there!” time.

THE BREATH – LOSING WEIGHT feeling great with “the breath”. Mondays 6.30pm:   Sounds too easy?  I have lost (at least) 5kg in a month.  I didn’t realise because I don’t weigh myself regularly, but I put on a ring I hadn’t worn for ages and it just slipped on and off ANY finger! Amazing.  Then I weighed myself – 5kg off, and still dropping.  Better than a gastric band, a whole lot easier too.  I didn’t concentrate because that covid increase happened because of less exercise – I thought eventually it would go… but wow! The breath? Who knew?  My reading said it would happen, and it did.  www.thebreath.online

If you want to join me as my own weight drops, a lifetime of good practice coming up.  This isn’t short term, this is about longevity – Email your interest. yogafirst2@bigpond.com

 

YOGA/meditation/prayer:    

Yes, I said I wasn’t going to clutter up your in-box.  But I just wanted you to see this.  It is a favourite of mine, and will help you moving forward…

The PRAYER OF Jabez.   1 chronicles 4 to 9.  In the middle of a set of boring  biblical chronologies, appears the wonderful prayer of Jabez, just four lines (another reason why I like it). The name defined the history of the child.  Jabez = pain.  His mother called him “PAIN”.  Imagine how that made Jabez feel.  What the other kids called him.  Yet Jabez is a comeback story.  He moves from pain to great gain.  He doesn’t let the pain have the last word. Great pain to great gain

The difference – the prayer for the middle of pain.

1. Lord bless me indeed
2. Enlarge my territories
3. Stay with me
4. Keep evil from me

 

1. BLESS ME INDEED:– If I am not blessed I can’t bless others.  I look to you God, I need you.  It is OK to ask God to bless you.  Bless me a lot I need it.  When you ask for Gods blessing, you are asking for something that only God can give.  We are asking him to bless us so that we can be a blessing.

When we are going through pain we can’t see the blessings.  God wants to bring us amazing things in the pain.

2.EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS so I can expand your kingdom.  Expand your influence so you can inspire others.  In pain we want to batten down the hatches.  God wants us to look up and out.  Enlarge your opportunities so you can make a difference to those around you. Just ask – “God grow me in every area of my life”.  I know it may not make sense when we are on the way to being defeated by difficulties, however, it is during pain that God wants us to grow the most.

It is about being a blessing in the middle of pain.  In the middle of what is dying.  Expansion in the area of pain grows our character.

3.PRAY THAT YOUR HAND WOULD BE WITH ME: Don’t get overwhelmed.  Stepping out in faith in the middle of your pain.  Especially when you feel inadequate.  Reach out and ask – “God I need your hand of grace and favour because without your hand I cannot do this”.  Then step out in faith, and like Jabez write a new story.  Being honest with yourself and God “Help I can’t do this”.  It is when you have got the end of yourself God begins.  You don’t have the strength alone.  This is where your story begins.

It is not my strength, not my intellect it is your strength to do what I cannot do on my own.

4.KEEP ME FROM EVIL: When you are being blessed, when God is expanding you, the negative forces will try to derail you.  Keep me from evil, and GUIDE me into your path.  God can’t use you when you are too proud.  “Don’t let me take the wrong path.  Keep me from the wrong direction”.  Sometimes in order to get me to take the right path He has to slam (the wrong) door in my face.

I challenge you to pray the prayer of Jabez for thirty days.

Start looking for your blessing…  there is a “waiting chapter”. During the delay we wonder if He will come through.  “Things will come to pass, they will not be overdue by even one day” –  (Habbakuk)

Don’t give up, the blessing is just around the corner.  When you are out of the “green room” the testing chapter before triumph comes along, then you will reap a harvest of blessing.  Don’t give up just before the blessing.  The blessing is coming.  Don’t miss the harvest of blessing.  The longer the chapter of waiting the bigger the wave of blessing.  Like a sunami.  The wave draws back and then sweeps forward carrying everything with it.  Stand in faith and trust.

Is God WAITING ON YOU  to start looking for the blessing?

NAMASTE – JAHNE

Dear Yogis,

ZOOM AND CLASSES:
Monday: Studio Yoga Class – 1pm (class full)
Tuesday: 7.45pm Rumi Study Group – This is a highlight of our week.
Wednesday: 5.30 Studio Yoga Class – (class full)
Friday: 6.45pm Free pendulum/tarot class.  Last week we discussed the vibrations of food, and our body,  and using the pendulum to determine the freshness of food and the usefulness to our health status.
Saturday: 2pm Art class.  You can bring projects you started, or do something new and different.  This coming week could be a studio class if we get class consensus.
Sunday: 10am Gita Study Class – Our second time around (doesn’t mean there is no need to be committed).  We are up to Chapter 3.

Everything has changed….. however, we have settled down to a “Post Lock-down” routine – until the next time.  Believe me there will be a next time, and it may not be Covid next time.  It might be a different kind of flu altogether, but still difficult.  So start preparing your immune systems NOW.  Don’t wait until it sneaks up on us.

With regard to vaccines.. According to “Scientific American” magazine , if you do decide to vaccinate it will be a whole lot more effective if you have a good night’s sleep the night before, plus about 45 minutes of exercise immediately prior to receiving the vaccine.

 

FOUR SIMPLE TIPS FOR LIVING A BUDDHIST LIFE

1.SET OUT GOOD ROLE MODELS AND MENTORS.
Although it has been 2,500 since the Buddha passed into parinirvana, his teachings are upheld and transmitted by TRAINED and qualified dharma teachers.  In my case I have had  teachers of great note.  Margaret Segesman, Phra Kantiphalo, Aya Khema,  and more down through the years,  both here and overseas.

Now, although I find leading a teacher training school, studying and teaching both asana and philosophy is a challenge I feel that my practise has been enriched my this complexity.  It would have been easier in a temple, but would not have been helpful to me.  Having mentors who managed the same and more complications helped me to see it was not only possible, it was suitable to me.  I needed and still need mentors for when things fell apart – they did, and still do.

2.GATHER MERIT
This particularly means to practice compassion.  Any time when i think I am making headway (especially in the area of patience) , God sends me a student who stretches my “elastic” further than it has gone before.  A person who has a characteristics I find difficult.  I know what is happening when it happens and can learn adapt, and lean back into my teachers. Even though they have passed over to the other side they are still with me.  Remembering to make offerings UPWARD and and practice compassion and generosity DOWNWARD.

3. APPROACH ALL ENDEAVOURS WITH MINDFULNESS
No matter what you are asked to do, in the sangha or in the home,  approach them with intelligence.   The question you should ask is “What qualities are needed to fulfil this role?”  It can be difficult to learn from others in order to move forward, but we need to do it.  As teachers we need to receive genuine dharma teachings, from genuine dharma teachers, reflect on them genuinely, and practice them genuinely.

4. NURTURE DIGNITY AND CONFIDENCE
In these difficult times of change more than ever we encounter problems and challenges.  At these times we should not let circumstances rob us of our confidence.  Here in the middle of the worldly confusion and anxiety (samsara) I can help my family, I can support my sangha and my teacher, and benefit sentient beings, and in this manner I can live a joyous, meaningful life.

“God’s joy”, wrote Rumi
“moves from unmarked box to unmarked box”.

 

MEET ME ON THE MAT.

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

Dear Yogis,

BKS Iyengar said “The yogi’s life is measured not by the number of his days, but the number of his breaths”.  BKS was a frail and debilitated child who by his own admission used yoga TO BREATHE HIMSELF BACK TO HEALTH. (He didn’t say he “exercised or asana’d his way back to health” or “personal trained his way back to health.”  He said that he “Breathed himself back to health”.  He died in 2014 at age 95 still engaged in conscious breathing and yoga.

 

CONSCIOUS BREATHING

Covid as you know is primarily a virus which attacks the respiratory system, and then depending on your immune system, can move from there into other organs of the body – it is an opportunist.  

To resist this virus or deal with it,  is extra toilet paper required? No! IS CONSCIOUS BREATHING REQUIRED? Well, of course “YES”.   Do you know how you breathe? Do hold your breath at night? Do you breathe with your mouth at nite? Do you consciously nose breathe (at least time-to-time) during the day? Do you hold your breath when you are in front of the computer – “email apnea”?  Do you snore? Do you suffer from sleep apnea, snoring, lack of energy, dwindling fitness level, anxiety, weight problems, high blood pressure and so on.  The list goes on.

It’s not just about breathing it is also about food.  Industrialised food has been shrinking our mouths and destroying our breathing as long as we have been eating “modern” soft food.  The people who are drinking gallons of celery juice could be well advised to actually chew on real celery.

Contrary to what most doctors believe, we can grow bone at any age.  All we need are stem cells, and the way we produce and build more maxilla bone in the face is by chewing – clamping down on the back molars over and over. Chewing.  The more stem cells we release, the more bone density and growth we will trigger, THE YOUNGER WE WILL LOOK, the easier we will breathe,  and the better we will live.  

If you want to know more so you can teach your family, your community and your students to eat, breathe, move and live...and in this way resist disease, old age, and cell deterioration –  then you need to come to the workshop… You may think you know.  I would challenge this.  So few of us do.

MEET ME ON ZOOM.  SATURDAY MORNING 20th February,  10AM
PLEASE DON’T MISS THIS.

Details on www.yogabeautiful.com.au  When I get your receipt I will send you the ID.

NEW DATES FOR WEEKLY BREATH CLASSES and TUESDAY REPEAT BOTANICAL ART CLASS. Go to the Home Page on the Web site.
www.yogabeautiful.com.au

 

NAMASTE.  JAHNE