Early on in my teaching career I had three symbols made for my first yoga studio. Each one was painted on a small canvas, so that I could move them along to future studios. Nearly thirty years on and I still have the yin-yang, AUM and The Way of Tao in my current studio. Symbols represent a practice, philosophy and a way of being. Exactly what “the way” may mean is open to individual perception, but the broad strokes are as follow:

Nourish this understanding, of Self, in Life, and you balance yin and yang (doing, non-doing, form and formless) with, according to The Way of the Tao, Lao Tzu’s poetic, deep mind experience of nature and inner nature (a lovely companion to Patajali’s 8 Limb Principles and Sutras). And of course all of this happens in the Universe, or All That Is. The undifferentiated A-U-M is the Totality, the sound mantra, is the vibration we make in our practice, and it resonates with the vibration or multiple octaves of matter and subtle energy frequencies of Everything. Jesus said for us to build our lives on the rock of the Love of his parents, God/Goddess, or call it Shiva-Shakti.

This is what we are to surrender to if we are to be in the flow of the great Yin and Yang of duality, within the liberating Non-Duality of Pure Awareness. Practice of the Yoga of Self-realisation, Union is a practical day-to-day reality. It is a process where yoga is self-development therapy that supports change. We are the change, made possible by our surrender in our practice. Nourish this Way, Know Self, Know the Way and Grow. Realise Self, Be Bliss.

Practice Yoga and keep warm – I write this from a wintery Yoga Studio,
on Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town, July 2019.
Regards, Johann.

● Cape Town International Centre (CTICC) is Saturday 17th 2017, two sessions 08h30-13h30 and 14h00-19h00.
● The Consulate General of India, Cape Town presents Sunday, 18th at Samaj Centre Hall, Gatesville, 8.30 – 10.30 AM. A screening of a short film, a performance of some basic
yoga asanas by all, and a demonstration of more difficult yogic asanas.
● Solstice Celebration on International Yoga Day, Cape Town, 21 June 2017, 7.30 AM – 10 PM, Muizenberg Civic Center, Pavilion & Beach. Program on my workshop & events page and Facebook Event

The United Nations declared 21st June as the International Day of Yoga in 2014. This year this important day will be celebrated in all 193 member countries of the UN.

Holistic health, or absence of a holistic, systemic worldview, of an individual, society or ecology, is the answer to all the problems the world faces.

Disrespect or disregard, nature and human, on any level, constitute ignorance of the holistic bioenergetic* ecology of the universes. Connection to the “holistic energy” of the whole, includes our “spiritual heart”. When Spirit informs Mind the “thinking” is expansive, when thought is ruled by the ego it is limited. Holistic BodyMind is systemically holographic, the Universe Within contains Spirit (Infinity). Understanding of the “whole” systems helps bring balance of Body (World, and world in Space) Mind (Time) Spirit (Eternal). The material realm is manifested into the world as a physical aspect of energy. Acknowledging, and exploring that energy is what yoga consciousness is all about.

Supernature – consciousness and wisdom vs. knowledge and facts

Infinite potential (healing and whole) may arise from understanding infinite source (Oneness). Eternity is an expanded capacity, and its “timelessness”, can’t be understood by thought alone, yet it may be directly experienced in meditation. Such a mystical approach, when based in ordinary reality, includes rational reality, while limited “hard science” factual reality does not include the mysterious, unfathomable “whole”.

For the world the healthy way, perhaps the only way forward, is to balance realities, and manifest “more” of the infinite into the finite. Such healing is not “fixing”, which can’t actually work without wisdom from the Whole. Personal and global healing has to begin within, through inner transformation of a limited (partial) reality worldview.

Such a spiritual philosophy is neither irrational or emotional. Its an objective openness to a possible energetic supernature. Energetic as consciousness manifests as nature, yet it is not nature.  There is world, matter, and there is spirit, energy. Nor the thinking mind nor the feeling heart, in separation of the whole, has the capacity to understand the whole, or transform either aspect. This is the difference between technology as a tool vs. tech as master, science and religion as information and dogma vs. as knowledge as an aspect of wisdom and life force (spirituality).

Consciousness in a human being occurs when Matter and Energy converge, its an evolving functionality. When the Mind is open to the multi-dimensionality of Infinite Being the heart and body is received into a transcending evolution, or centropy. The upward spiral is a spiritual-creative renewal. It’s the opposite of entropy, the beginning of reality, ongoing electrification of matter, considered by some the only constant in the universe. In centropy everything is renewed, nothing is destroyed. In this sense “ego” is entropy, and “surrender” centropy.

Such a worldview is frowned upon by some rationalists, intellectuals, atheists and like. In this one I’m rather naive than cynical; there is possible liberty or redemption in that, at the very least, true joy.

How to use yoga to help release your limitations

Johann
7 February 2017

* Webster Definition of bioenergetics. 1: the biology of energy transformations and energy exchanges within and between living things and their environments. 2: a system of physical and psychological therapy that is held to increase well-being by releasing blocked physical and psychic energy.

ॐ

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 light, as vibration helps a little.

Sound vibrates the air around us, vibrating through our bodies with disruptive or beneficial effect

Frequencies, high or low sounds, dense or fine, fat or thin, regular, irregular and so on, have different effects on the body because it resonates or vibrates the nervous system at different pitches and modulations.

We interpret the sounds we hear with our brains, a process that stimulates the brain and nervous system in specific ways – much as a specific part of the brain is connected to, for example, primal reflexes, and another part to the autonomic nervous system. Thoughts, emotions, work and meditation all affect our brain and nervous systems. This means we can use certain sound frequencies, bodywork and the mind to cause disruption or chaos in the bodymind, or to harmonise the inner world.

We can expand our consciousness and focus our abilities to generate beneficial states of mind. I have been experimenting with the effect of sound frequencies for many of my ambient music productions, and there are lots of studies on Binaural Beats music and brainwave patterns. I always reason it is best to find out for oneself what works for one, or not: watch the short video I made to explain how Stereo Binaural Sound Design works in my Youtube Binaural Beats Projects & Binaural Beat Music Playlist. Or use the free stream player below, or buy and download from the store, in the same player.

Simplistically speaking we hear with two ears, have a left brain and right brain. A stereophonic sound creates a 3D sound picture, with sounds to the left, right and centre, as well as foreground and background, higher, above, and lower, sounds. High frequency sounds or refined sounds such as wind chimes in contrast to bass beats stimulates different awareness responses. Exposure to a full spectrum of sound dimensions, or specific frequencies, entrains the brain to form holographic, dimensional layers of holistically, horizontal and vertical integration of energies, as all sound frequencies are nothing but energy waves.

Of course it can also be useful to slip on a set of headphones with some pumping hypnotic house music on the player. Experiment with different genres and sounds, if you’re interested. Essentially when I talk about enhancing consciousness I mean that you want to create a clear, focussed mind, a relaxed body with even breathing, you want to be free from thinking and emotions. Whether you get it from silence, or a pulsating beat is immaterial. Main thing is to be discerning about how the music you use lets you feel, and that one way of understanding “enhancing consciousness” is that it is about going deeper, or wider, than thinking and emotions.

Blessed and happy experiencing!
Johann

A distinguishing characteristic of Yoga is that it has a single concept for the body and the mind, the bodymind, with no separation of the two aspects. Yoga practice is all about being in the body, not primarily in thinking mode, or overrun by emotions. While it does not suggest that one should stop using the intellect, or suppress emotions, it encourages attainment of a calm, inner peace as a harmonious state of the bodymind.

Yoga requires physical practice as well as reflecting.  It helps us understand well-being, and experience it. It helps put thoughts and emotions in perspective, and uncover a more pure or specific aspect of self. The conscious self in yoga is the self aware being becoming aware of itself as a sleeping person living in the material world.

Yoga understands that every thing that is is a part of a greater whole, a universal life force, Prana. An individual being is at once an aspect of all that is, while “containing” all that is. Fusion of the two aspects create the feeling of inner peace, a non-dulaistic oneness when bodymind harmonizes with all that is. A specific state of consciousness, which is why yoga works with the body and the mind as one unified aspect, and as a reflection of, or aspect of the whole, and as the whole.

Typically this is why I’m writing this blog such as this – it’s hard enough to put these ideas down in writing, let alone explain them, in brief, in a class. And these concepts are certainly best when understood or felt, rather than intellectualised. It can be no other way – yet the thinking mind, rightfully so, demands logic, order, realism, and so on. So there is often this kind of situation that goes on in my head when I teach classes! As I have more ideas and thoughts about yoga practice I can share with my students while teaching, writing helps me share and explore some. I might have, had I the time, been writing a blog post for every class!

Here follows a few thoughts I wanted to relate to the opening of this blog, and a something that occurred to me in a recent class. For some reason I remembered my visits to psychologists – it would have been in context of treatment of the mind, which is traditionally in the Western world the domain of the psychologist.

I went to a psychologist twice in my life. Once, when I was a child, I guess I was 14 or so, because my mother thought I needed help, and once, I was about 30, when I thought I needed help. Both times did help me tremendously. These visits were important for my self-understanding, the basis of holistic healing.

I still remember the childhood psychology guy, he seemed genuinely distraught for me, and came to a quick conclusion about my problem. His comments about who I am stayed with my, to this day, I think he saw me very clearly. Or perhaps we are just such stereotypes that a skillful psychologist can read us easily. I didn’t want to go back for “treatment” though, I didn’t feel at that stage there was that much to be done about what it was like, “being me”. The insight stayed with me, and that mattered, and still matters.

In any case, our past comes back to haunt us, unless we transformed whatever chased us then, it’ll come and bite you in the ass, and keep biting. So one day some 20 years later I thought it a good idea to speak to someone who again help see myself more clearly than I could see myself. At that stage I was well into a full-time mission on the path of self-discovery and a process of self-transformation, using insights from all kinds of therapies and primarily yoga practice. I was finding meaning in life, involved in music and yoga for a few years already, having opted out of an ordinary job and settling into a full time alternative lifestyle.

I was n a serious mission to find healing, or be healed, to understand myself, and reshape my life. I guess, part of it was seeking cures for the childhood afflictions that motivated my mom to take me to the physiologist. I was constantly looking at and feeling and changing the dysfunctional me that I was as a child, and still was, or am. In retrospect the process sometimes seems like way too long a period of time, at other times it just seems like a necessary process, simply one that requires time. The adult psychologist also did a commendable job at helping me see myself more clearly. I completed three sessions, providing more clues and insights about who and what I am, to keep me engaged in the full time project to uncover and clarify more of myself.

I think the reason why I started writing this is because I mentioned something in a class that triggered a whole lot of memories of a part of the process of self-discovery I mentioned. I had an insight of what both psycologists must have seen when they worked with me, and what they might have meant by their feedback. Their insights suddenly helped me to see a part of me clearly, I could joint the dots between how I was then, and how I have become.

All I really wanted to say with this post is that it is useful to have awareness of what forms us, and how we may practically use this awareness to find the tools to more usefully shape our lives. And that yoga is a brilliant technology to let us see ourselves more clearly, and help us shape our lives more effectively, because it works on the body and the mind, and the emotions and feelings involved in living.

Yoga helps us to take responsibility for ourselves, in the body, so we can take better care of ourselves, mentally and emotionally, to transform our lives with greater consciousness.

I hope this makes some sense and help you a little with a more meaningful practice of yoga.
With blessings and love,
Johann

Stellenbosch,
27 August 2014

Anyway, move on, or rot and stink, the statement says. Be in the moment, in the present, let go, of past programming, fear, hatred, gripes, envies, the list goes on. Just let go. Our bodies remember these energies, just like we store them in the minds. Together they form an unhealthy allegiance polluting our being with unhealthy emotions and thoughts. When unchecked the unwholesome energy stays with us, locks our bodies into the un-well energy field, causing disease.

Chronic stress tightens our bodies, resulting in a severe bodymind state that has severe consequences for our nervous system, digestion, sleep, everything, A stiff, tight body is an unhappy place to be. And if we don’t transform theses energies the stress becomes imprinted on us. Release of stress, habitual, chronic stress, helps bring healing and a greater sense of well-being. As they say, “let go, let god”. Don’t worry.  Swami Venkatesananda also said “Turning away from God is disease, he who turns to God is at perfect ease within”.

Yoga helps us, much, to let go. We also, more often than we realize, require help in letting go of our mental, physical and emotional stress. So we sometimes require treatments that are holistic, works on many levels, addressing the physical, spiritual and emotional release. Always search out a therapist that is experienced, holistically minded, that is prepared to give you the time of day you deserve, that is happy to refer you on if required, have a kind heart, and someone you resonate with. In my opinion the therapy has to help the body unlock whatever trauma holds it “closed” – treatments may be gentle, or firm, but should not be severe.

Check out this interview with Dr John Upledger (inventor of CranioSacral Therapy) on crania work and bodywork.

The list I provide here is by no means exhaustive, and view it as a starting point to find a person to help your bodymind help itself. I prefer to suggest rather than recommend a therapy or therapists, every person has unique expectations and needs and so on. I do always recommend my clients to have either regular treatments, i.e. once a few weeks, like a haircut regular, and or 3 or more sessions in a series once a year. This is quite an essential practice, a lifestyle investment, not a luxury. I remind you that you have one body, and you everything you do, your entire life, in it.

This list is in no particular order of importance. The therapists I list are holistic, healing practitioners in areas of Stellenbosch and Muizenburg (where I teach), some work from both.

Natasha Wrightford
Neurosoma Myotherapist
Muizenburg & Stellenbosch
0823033150

Sandra Smit
Cranio Sacral
Muizenburg & Stellenbosch
084700690

Candice Jones
Holistic Massage
Energy Work
Stellenbosch
0848000448

Cecelia Britz
Reflexology
Stellenbosch
021 8864710

Dale Simpson
Body Stress Release
Muizenburg
0832617498

Robyn Lewis
Shaitsu
021 7881101

Tony Edwards
Shaitsu
Stellenbosch
0725850483

Anna Scheltema
Cranio Sacral
Stellenbosch
021 8866819

Dr. Chris Muller
Chiropractic
Stellenbosch
021 8874488

Enjoy your bodymind work!
Blessings,
Johann,
8 July 2014