Viewing entries tagged
letting go
you are balanced. i live with you.You are a work of art. It’s not easy but you do it. You live true to who you are and know it. When you are open, chakras, in my yoga practice, I don’t question it.
dear chakras, you help me walk with strength, enchanted. i’m open to each of you as you arrive, speak and feel. i know who you are…
-->> chakra article moved to here.
find your peaceMaybe it doesn't seem like it at times, but there is peace within you. Sometimes it's hiding on purpose, so that you cannot find it easily. Let's say you find the source of a problem and throw it out the window. But your inner chaos returns. Why?
Surrendering is a process. You need to believe that it relieves you. And then know that this action needs to be repeated.
But what does surrender even mean?
Many people drop into their favorite group yoga class, with usually a number of studios, teachers and times to choose from. With an unlimited membership at a studio, why would a student choose private instruction instead?
Robin in Death Valley 108 degrees (image © Simeon Schatz)
I started teaching private yoga exclusively
Is a true spiritual practice about respecting time—living by it and being on time for it? Or does the mere concept of time mess with creative flow in life?
...is most likely to live in a timeless place in your mind. To come down from that—to live with a real clock—is a downer. In this way, the clock can be a method of control, and becomes one to fight against in order to be free...
image by simeon schatz
Let's look at two different spiritual ideas to compare: mindfulness from Buddhism and illuminated thoughts from Tantric tradition.
Mindfulness seeks to empty the mind of thoughts, letting the thoughts go so that you are left with peace.
Tantra invites the thoughts to become illuminated, positive or negative, so that you have a beacon in which to focus for your true path.
Coming into wholeness. Feel your peace. Be in love with your path in life.
Find it inside you. Let go of all that makes you worry. Be free.
Access this freedom any time! The truest side of you coexists with the emotional mind...
Imagine 3 buckets of water.
The sun is shining in all three, and they each enjoy the sun equally. One is muddy, one is stirred up, one is still and clear.
Reflection in bucket #1 is dim and dull, in bucket #2 is agitated, and in bucket #3 is peaceful.
Sun is the Self, water is the Mind, reflection is the Ego (mis-identification)
Some conclusions...
I am now wondering where my fears are, going off the edge to find them in myself, in the depth of who I am. If I am bold enough and I don't turn back, I will be able to renew my patterns. This action will set me free.
In the dark shadows, I imagine I will sail through my depths as if a dream and find the silence I need and have searched for all my life. I know that the best stuff is at the very bottom.
More conspicuous and offset against the darkness, the gems and secrets are easier to see and feel. Sometimes they shine with luminosity like a beacon, with my name on them!
The bottom must be a bed of soft sand which I can dig my bare feet into and feel rooted, maybe for the first time. The ground of my soul. To touch this part of me is to release all that I previously imagined was hidden.
Transforming itself, no longer in the dark, I will invite it to be a part of my waking life.
We go to yoga class. We start the class by making an intention. Then what?
Do we hold true to its energy every second of the class? No. We tuck it away in our heart and let it speak its own words to our soul.
For, the energy of a wish comes from within us and can hardly hide its wings when we are allowing the prana to circulate as we move our bodies in twists and waves.
What we feel comes from within. Before the words even articulate themselves to our being, we know what it is we are trying to say.
Sometimes we are silenced. Sometimes this is a blessing. In this inability to find words, our soul is telling us to go deeper. Look into the still pond of your being. Do not always rely on words. Look to the swirling space that doesn't want to hear your words and give it your thanks.
There is more to living.
Namaste.
© 2010 Yoga Robin®
I just returned from a Bikram yoga class. What sticks with me is not the power of enduring the heat, but the power of discipline to control the mind.
Bikram yoga, unlike the Vinyasa Flow yoga which I have 13 more years of experience with, has many rules that are not necessarily inherent in many people. In my life and in my yoga practice I am used to living organically, letting my life take me in a flow. When I am practicing yoga alone, I have no plans in advance for my practice. I let my yoga practice take me.
Sure, there is discipline required with many styles of yoga, such as Ashtanga. But the movement inherent in this active style, where you generate your own heat, and move your own prana makes for a more organic practice inately.
Back to Bikram. What I feel in these classes is the necessity for discipline, as I'm led along a distinct path and how the discipline itself becomes the spiritual practice.
It is important to notice where the mind goes in any yoga practice, but in Bikram it is more about needing to stay with the group, listen to the teacher on cue, not close your eyes, drink water only when told, rest in savasana over and over, to name a few
Staying present helps. It does help me to stay peaceful when life on my path deals me too much chaos.
Sometimes it seems like some force is behind it all, dealing me one blow after another or all simultaneously to get the largest effect. It is in these moments when I know that I am being shown a serious sign to listen.
To know the lesson, I need to refocus because staying with each moment, breathing patience, is the only way to get through the most chaotic times.
In this way I dive into the chaos and embrace it. I do not freak out. Instead I laugh in a way. I invite each moment, dealing with it as it comes. In doing so, eventually I realize a miracle has occurred! I come out of the experience at peace and with a secret message...
From here in this space, absent of worries, I have more personal power. If I erase others' doubts and erase the pressures of needing to be more than I am, I can see the truth clearly.
To reach a personal space where I see people I care about as a resonance of my perfect heart beating, I feel freed of any negativity that could go along with feeding into chaos.
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you dropped everything and turned to your spirituality? I know I have. In fact, I have done it for days on end, which led to months and then years.
I added yoga to the mix as well as dream interpretation and psychology. Although it is all good to dig deep into yourself and find all of your secrets, it can be a double-edged sword. Is it part of the path to enlightenment, or it is a danger to avoid?
From the start what got me into yoga was the feeling of loneliness and a special group of people to practice with to stir it all up inside me. I think we were all there for the same reason. It was an escape while I was doing it, but it led to my freedom and happiness.
I was feeling bliss as if flying, yet I was also genuinely lost and ungrounded while I was not practicing yoga. I escaped my life and reality and lived in my yoga, always moving, isolating myself more and more from friends and family into my inner world. I was obsessed to meet some end, knowing on some level that the only way to open the door to peace was through this uneasiness and drama that I created.
With much strength and years I was able to get a hold of the escapist manner in which I was dealing with my life. I realized I mimicked my life in my yoga! I was able to get out of the endless loop
It is through an injury which brought me over my physical edge and left me unable to do my yoga practice and function in my life, that I was able to see my true power and find my true courage!
It was as if I quickly was shown what life would be like without the blessings I currently take for granted: my capable and amazing body. Through a significant injury I questioned, in a desperate way (as if the injury could be permanent), how can it be possible for me to maintain even a basic means of living? I learned how.
I knew it was my path. Our path always teaches us lessons. So I tried to see this injury was a gift and I surrendered to it...
With my neck and twist intensive yoga practice I've come to rely on periodical chiropractic neck adjustments from an amazing man—a yogi, in fact—so that I could continue to do the yoga poses which brought me to the most spiritual places that were unheard of before I learned how. They truly are the key to me.
The poetic fire in my heart will undoubtedly lead the way as I feel my way through life guided by its sacred energy.
I am an eater of the "poisonous leaves of the plant" (John Welwood) in order to truly feel, and then become immune, as I invite intense situations to exacerbate them in order to see my boundaries. In doing so, it unlocks the vitality contained in the poisons—that which can help me maintain my connection with the earth, my passion, and everyday life.
In other words, I go straight into the fire. Ideally, I see my path in life as an ineffable river that simply flows as I follow my instincts, moving my body and mind as if I am escorted as a puppet on a Divine string.
I feel this sacred subtle presence moving through me in many facets of life. It is inherent in the elemental composition of my body, in my Hatha yoga practice, in my angelically guided path, in my connections to other beings, in my connections to myself and in my connections the Divine itself where I feel deep love in my heart.
I speak internally to this reality as “you”, knowing that although I move within the boundaries of different covering of layers, they are all one. I experience a vibrant warmth when knowing overcomes me and I can feel that it is actually sacred and much larger than myself, and I feel as if I am without a buffer between myself and my true nature.
