Cape Town International Yoga Day 2017 is celebrated with three separate festivals, on three dates, at different locations. The all day event in Muizenberg is the only one on actual yoga day. It starts early morning with a free sunrise beach session, includes workshops and class, community skills development, children’s yoga for after school, and…
In our world there is a place for commerce, entertainment, work, leisure, religion ad sport. For those aspects of life to express in harmony, there also has to be a place for conscious contemplation, in body and mind. Meditation is a phsycial, mental and spiritual practice. The whole practice takes place in the body; a…
Infinite potential arises from a conscious connection to the infinite life source. Unchecked thought and feelings originate in a disconnect from the whole. Anything but direct connection to such unlimitedness creates all the problems of this world. Mental, physical, ecological, economic, personal, national and universal imbalances occur when the mental and emotion aspects dominate the world with knowledge…
Wisdom from the Waves. Inspired by the ocean, it’s beauty, riding waves, and beach-side living. Philosophical life appreciation in context of yoga and self-realisation. An ode to the ocean. As much an analogy as an excuse for writing about the immersive and luminous quality of the sea and the cosmic ocean and, and why meditation and yoga,…
Meditation is at the centre of yoga practice. Not only sitting in meditation, also the meditative awareness while practicing asana. Without it yoga would be “unconscious”, and not yoga. Asana and pranayama practice was actually promoted by ancient yogi’s as a means to meditation as their ultimate goal. Meditation, as mindfulness/awareness, and as a spiritual practice, can be thought…
The body knows everything. Every cell is aware of the breath. It becomes aware of the life force the inhalation will bring, even before it happens, and as the exhale takes place the body receives the energy. The bodymind is a device of mindfulness that results in consciousness. It is awareness of self, of the body as an object, of…
Yoga often mentions self-realisation as its ultimate goal. The path to “realise” “self” may be a long and winding road. A good place to begin is to investigate who, or what, self is. One may think of it as a process of remembering who we are. The “self” yoga refers to far too easily gets buried under a…
When I was in India last year I was astonished at how excited the country’s people, in general, were excited about their new president Narendra Modi. They all felt a positve transformation taking place under his leadership. Modi actually practice yoga. He says “Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfilment; harmony…
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…