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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

 

Dear Yogis,

Covid has shown us that there is a deep sadness in society.  In spite of the fact that we can email and speak to anyone anywhere in the world, to this point we have lived very insular lives.  We have not venerated the old people, respected our expanded families, or engaged with our neighbours, and have attempted to fill this vacuum by smoking, drinking, eating and even overworking. The covid pandemic is making us aware of this hole in our lives.  Human beings always want what is taken away from them.  We have had community taken away, we have been confined to our houses, and guess what – we want community.  Covid is showing us to ourselves. In this way and others, it is valuable and necessary.

As a community our children in particular have rejected the traditions of our our parents and grandparents but have not found anything to replace them, and right now,  generally do not know what to do.  Even our parents may not have been able to transmit these deeper traditions because they have not fully understood them, perhaps not even experienced them.

On my YouTube channel,  have spoken of the lady in the supermarket gazing at the empty shelves and crying.  She had passed the point of panic and was crumbling in front of me.  Her only reality had been taken away and there was nothing she could fall back on.  There are many people like this. They have no inner resources, not just the spiritual resources but the practical know-how that grandparents knew.  I have volunteered classes to teach “the old ways”.  Hardly anyone is interested unless I dress these ideas up in fancy yogic terms… the superficial forms.  When living values are absent then the rituals and dogmas are lifeless, rigid and even may I say it, oppressive.

Buddhism like Christianity and other traditions have to be living institutions in order to respond to the needs of the people.  This applies to our yoga class and studio, zoom or studio.  Unless they are living and working in the market place and responding to what is happening around them, they cannot transmit the jewels they have received.  On the other hand, people have to be ready to receive them.

For many years people have had the traditions stripped away and nothing put in their place.  They have nothing to believe in.  Imagine living in a world where there is nothing worthwhile, beautiful and true, and now even the distractions are being peeled away with the restrictions imposed by Covid.

It is not necessary for everyone to become a yogi, a Christian, a Buddhist or a member of any other religion.  I encourage students to look at Spirit and go back to a tradition in which they had felt nurtured. Not just look at it, BUT LIVE IT.   A place they can reintegrate and reroot.  If they do this, then they can use this knowledge to transform and renew their traditions and discover the jewels that are there.  In this way they can value other traditions, other ways, and become a benefit to everyone.  We need to reach out so others can reach out

The yamas in Yoga, the precepts in Buddhism and the Commandments in Christianity are important jewels that we need to study and practice.  We can never study and live them enough.  The more we study them, the more profound we realise they are, and how deeply they can contribute to the happiness of the family and society.

The first of the yamas is “I shall not kill”

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I vow to cultivate compassion and learn ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals.  I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.

Yogis (readers).  I invite you to become part of our community.  Choose where you want to start.  Reading, a course, YouTube, Zoom?  Choose from the menu on the home page.  It doesn’t matter where you start, it only matters that you do start.  There are many ways… If you are not sure, email me, talk, we can find a way together. yogafirst2@bigpond.com

HAVE A GREAT DAY – KEEP WELL AND PROSPER

NAMASTE – JAHNE