Dear Yogis…

Hooray we are (reliably) back.  I love writing the newsletters, and thankfully some of you like recieving them.  As I said…as we did with the old files, we will be going over the lists of subscribers and checking as far as we can who is responding, and at least reading… as much as we can tell.  The computer program helps.  When we culled the Teacher Training files after months of notifications that we would,  we got the most response months AFTERWARDS when people realised they weren’t any longer part of the team.  Don’t leave it that long this time.  Sometimes we have to start at the beginning…again.

BALANCE:  In yoga, meditation and life there must be balance.  In meditation, between relaxation and attention, between focus and analysis.  In the very old Tibetan Temples there was no electricity of course.  They were lit with butter lamps.  It was in this way hard to see that the walls were covered with paintings.  If you wanted to see the paintings you had to get close to the wall and then deal with the draughts which repeatedly blew out the flame.

It describes perfectly the state of meditation, the goal of which is to see past disturbances into the nature of reality.

Balance and stillness are not the same.  Finding balance means accepting and learning to live with change.  That’s the basis of adaptation.  Covid is teaching us this skill.

WHY WE MEDITATE. There are a number of reasons to meditate, just as there are a number of reasons to keep bees, or anything which is dependent on us.  We always need to ask good questions.  Perhaps reflecting on these questions – In doing this, am I making things better or worse? Are my efforts making things better or worse? Most importantly, am I serving others or just serving myself?   It is not always easy to get the correct answers to these questions, but asking them should be a priority.

“The lessons taught by a teacher with a positive motivation penetrate deepest into their students minds.  I know this from my own personal experience.  As a boy I was very lazy.  But when I was aware of the affection and concern of my tutors, their lessons would sink in more successfully than if one was hard or unfeeling on that day.

So far as the specifics of education are concerned, that is for the experts.  I will therefore confine myself to a few suggestions.  The first is to awaken young people’s consciousness to the importance of basic human values, it is better not to present society’s problems purely as an ethical or religious matter. 

It is important to emphasise that what is at stake is our continued survival”.  HH The fourteenth Dalai Lama 2006.

In my garden I am still dealing with the ravages of winter – not as bitter as it used to be, but very wet.  My Tibetan gongs like damp air, but I am looking forward to sunshine.  I have ordered my new bee colony which will arrive in September which is not long away now.  By that time I will have cleared away what remains of winter and everything will be ready for the bees in the spring.

Don’t forget to click our “classes”  on the home page of this site to see our zoom classes.  Teacher Training on the 2nd August will be zoomed.  So all you folk who have said how much they want to join us CAN.  We wait to see if you are ready for “spring”.

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

NAMASTE – JAHNE