No mind, the Zen practice of awareness, shows us soon as the thinking mind stops, true self emerges, and the above statement becomes true. The thinking mind cannot grasp this, and does not want to subject itself to this bigger reality. Should it do so it seizes to exist, and it’s game over for the…
Immersed in Rishikesh, India. Historically one of the most yogic areas on the planet, a culture in stark contrast to the Western world I live in. A decisive feature of India is becoming, for me, a seemingly built-in philosophy of self-realisation. On the surface there is much ritual and religion, and the next level of various means of full-time…
There is something timelessly beautiful about a clean, elegant, functional, simplistic and sensitive design. This is also how it is when we inhabit our bodies, poised, in a comfortable arrangement of muscle and bone, a display of posture and movement, with the inner focus of the Zen art of flower arrangement. A Zen flower arrangement has what some…
How can we move on if we don’t leave? It’s a bit like the old country song joke, “Honey how can I miss you if you don’t go away”. Our world, and us living in it, is curiously attached to staying in it, considering the way we, as a society, tend to hang on to…
People, including myself, and not only in yoga class, often says random sounding things such as “expand your consciousness”. When one critically asks what that actually means, it can be hard to say. To make a cover image for a music project called “Enhance Consciousness” may seem even worse! Thinking a little about sound, and…
We live, every day, in our bodies. It let’s us get around on our legs, using the body and arms, and we’re in the body, day in and day out, all life long. Intellectually much of our life plays in our heads, this is where we think about life, and pursue much of our functionality. We also feel the…
There is a certain brutality to great truths. For instance, this quote “If the dead past is not buried, our whole mind begins to stink and makes life impossible for us”. Swami Sivananda was well loved, for many reasons, and my teachers at yoga school, who learned directly from this great yogi, told us he…
Yoga practice helps us experience glimpses of our potential. Connecting with ourselves in class is only a first step. Mindfulness happens when yoga techniques transform our everyday lives into an evolving, extraordinary experience, of practical physical functionality, and inner peace. Yoga points out that no-one person or group of people, no personal status or possession, no compliment…
Yoga is big on meditation, and on bodywork. It wants us to be in our bodies, mindfully, in asana practice, during meditation, and after yoga class. Body awareness imbues us with mindfulness, something that happens when we take what we learn from our practice on the mat, and apply it to our daily lives. A very useful skill to help…
We are whole beings, with many different layers or aspects or realities. Self-realisation, according to yoga, is when we become consciously aware of parts, and the sum of parts. Modern Western, holistic disciplines such as our Western version of yoga, simplistically refers to the human being as body-mind-spirit. Yoga traditionally refers to the physical human…