Sun Burning Through Clouds

Filed Under Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Food for the Body, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Gardening, Photos | Leave a Comment

We need protection from the sun as much as we need the sun. The yogi philosophers could perhaps point to this pair of opposing forces/needs as an example of the elemental pulsation of opposites (spanda) that is universal to all manifest being.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Love “the Cow Lakshmi” Part

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Fascinating video about Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi.

Looking Within

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The great texts and teachers of meditation exhort us to look within with the promise that by so doing we will find great peace or bliss or splendor.

For many, though, initial attempts at meditation are just as likely to reveal troubling aspects of the self or agitating thoughts as any sense of beauty or quiet and the reaction can be a dismissal or disbelief in such teachings.

The exhortation to look within is not directing us to introspection or the self-examination of therapy (which are also useful in appropriate circumstances), but rather is inviting us to open to seeing that the beauty and specialness that we might believe of and recognize in others is also within ourselves.

Only when we can first look inside ourselves with love and empathy, can healing, change, growth, and compassion begin regarding those things that make introspection scary and challenging.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Found Exhortation

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I prefer the exhortations: be careful, be mindful, pay attention. It is good to heed what is around us, being open to the optimal next step on the unfolding path.

But if we get too wary or fearful, if we spend too much time watching out for and guarding against danger, then we may well miss opportunities to enhance our lives and those around us.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

More Ephemera

Filed Under Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Gardening, Meditation, Photos | Leave a Comment

Spring flowers are not much more ephemeral than are we from the perspective of infinity (or even geological time). I think one of the central aims of yoga philosophy is to make some sense of the need for recognition of our own place and worthiness, while still acknowledging our undeniable individual smallness in the vast web of being. In that light, it seeks to offer us awareness of some idea of ourselves that is infinite and not just our distinct finitude.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Signs Around Town (and Tuesday Night Yoga)

Filed Under Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Community and Family, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Meditation, Quaker | Leave a Comment

Xome join us on Tuesday nights. All levels of experience welcome. Suggested donation is truly a suggestion–like the admission to the Metropolitan Museum. Pay what you can. Bring a friend from in or out of town. Comment or email with questions.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Signs Around Town (and the Yoga Siddhi of Bi-Location)

Filed Under Art and Culture, Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Community and Family, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Meditation | 1 Comment

The “shelter in place” signs in my building demarcate suites where designated groups of employees are supposed to gather in the event of a threat to human safety where it would be safer to hunker down in the building than to go out.

While I was sitting through a seemingly interminable, pointless, but only somewhat acrimonious meeting this morning, I was thinking how important it is to have a space within our own consciousness where it feels safe and peaceful even when we are in a situation where staying physically put is the most realistic alternative. This got me thinking about one of the powers (siddhis) that allegedly may arise from a steady, devoted, and long-term practice. That power is the ability to bi-locate–the power to be in two or more places at once.

I’ve long practiced with part of my goal being to cultivate the space of meditation as a way of making bearable the unavoidably painful, such as when confined to bed because of severe illness. In such a situation, though my experience is thankfully limited, going into meditation is a going to another space of consciousness, but does not require staying mentally engaged and present.

When in an unpleasant meeting or stuck in traffic or similar situations, the problem is that one needs to stay mentally and physically alert and present and cannot just go off into bliss.

Then, I think the power of bi-locating is what would serve best. It would enable being simultaneously present and functioning while also being in the blissful and peaceful state of meditation. The space we go to in meditation would indeed then be a “shelter in place.”

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Found Exhortation

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My aim, with the awareness cultivated through meditation and yoga practice, is to delight in a way that does not impinge on the delight and health of those with whom and that with which I am in relationship.

What would delight you today and how would you share your delight?

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Signs Around Town (Excerpt)

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When we do a yoga pose, it is an act of creation; asana is in its own way a dance form. Every time we practice, it is our choice whether to make a pose a full and deep expression of our embodiment or just a routine physical workout no matter how many times we have done it before.

So too, everything we do is in some sense a creative act. How we choose to express ourselves and what we make of our day–no matter that it is the same commute and work we may have done for years–is up to our own creative intention. What did you create today?

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Still There Were

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Whatever might
have happened
or didn’t happen,
whomever I might
have encountered
or didn’t encounter,
whatever might
have worked
or did not work,
whatever I might
have completed
or left unfinished,
whatever I might
have stirred up
or might have
begun to heal,
whatever might
have been, or was–
still there were
the blossoms,
still the moon.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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