Dear yogis….

I am not sure if this got through ( you may get more than one), but it is such an important message I decided to send it again.

SIMPLICITY Thinking about bombing of any kind, keep top of mind that about 400 hundred people per hour are going to die of starvation whilst we are reading this, and many more are on the brink, and many more will be killed and maimed in the various wars being waged at the moment!.

What can you do about this – well a lot on a tiny scale.  You could agree with yourself to live more simply.  I look at the lifestyle of the now deceased Tasha Tudor.  Although she lived in an affluent society (1915 – 2008.  Boston. Mass. USA) , she maintained the simple life of her parents until she died.  Made her own clothes, raised her own food, used electricity marginally and so on.  She earned money through writing childrens books and painting, and rather reminded me of an American Beatrix Potter.  Because Tasha (like Beatrix) wasn’t distracted by the modern world, she was very productive and wrote 100 books and painted about 2,000 works of art mostly watercolours to illustrate her books..  in this way she changed peoples lives, and like childrens’ writers before her taught children about a different, simpler kind of life.

Whilst simplicity provides an answer to this modern dilemma, it does not provide an easy answer.  Simplicity is both a grace and a discipline.  Grace is a gift of God (yes, the “G” word).  In my understanding and experience there is no way we can build our will power and put ourselves into contortions, mind games, and attain it.  We perhaps have an idea of what simplicity is and batter it to fit our lifestyle, But that is not what simplicity is.  It slips in unawares.  A new sense of concentration enters our awareness, a wonder, a concentration.  We begin to understand that when the call is made the power is given.  Simplicity is a grace, and a discipline because we are called to do something.  It involves a consciously chosen course of action.

What we DO does not give us simplicity, but it does put us in the place and the frame of mind where we can receive it.  It is a vital preparation, a sowing of the seed both easy and difficult. It is an inward reality that can be seen in an outward lifestyle.  We must have both – to neglect either end and the effect is not useful. We must accept the goodness AND THE LIMITATIONS of material things.

For yogis reading this – consult the Purushatras.  Dharma – Duty and moral values, Artha – prosperity, Kama – pleasure, love, psychological values and Moksha – freedom, liberation, spiritual values, self-actualisation.

 

TEACHER TRAINING AT THE STUDIO ON SUNDAY AT 2.30.    Namaste – Jahne