Greetings Yogis and Yoginis,
This week in class we are considering the topic “The Reciprocity of Love.”
For creatures who want to loved, appreciated, even adored, we certainly go about fulfilling our desires in a curiously unfulfilling way. Instead of manufacturing it ourselves in the little love machine inside our chests, we complain about not getting enough of it, search frantically for someone else to give it to us, and try to make ourselves more loveable by improving our looks or earning more money. But the truth is, the Beatles song has it right. The love you take is equal to the love you make. In other words, the most effective way to get love is to generate it yourself.
By cultivating caring, loving feelings you can actually provide yourself with the nourishment you seek. At the same time, by radiating those feelings outward to others, you can touch their tender hearts and naturally elicit the same feelings in them, creating a flow of love that keeps circulating between you and building upon itself.
- Stephan Bodian
The homework is to use your Yoga practice as the training ground to cultivate caring and loving feelings for yourself. When you come to class or practice at home remind yourself that you are perfect just the way you are and that you have unlimited capacity for Love. Know that committing to yourself through your practice is one way to build up your bank of Love.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Love is All There is
Greetings Yogis and Yoginis,
This week in class we are considering the topic “Love is All There is.”
When there is neither desire nor fear, there is but love.
- Jean Klein
The homework is to look at your desires with the idea that all desire leads to disappointment and to look at your fears with the idea that all fear leads to suffering. Then cultivate the practice of letting go of desires and fears. Make a list of some of the desires and fears you are “holding” on to. Be honest with yourself. Let the list sit for a few days and then revisit it and see if any revisions are in order. Then choose one thing from your list to completely let go of. Say to yourself, “This moment is the perfect moment to let go.” Continue with this practice and all that will be left is love.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
This week in class we are considering the topic “Love is All There is.”
When there is neither desire nor fear, there is but love.
- Jean Klein
The homework is to look at your desires with the idea that all desire leads to disappointment and to look at your fears with the idea that all fear leads to suffering. Then cultivate the practice of letting go of desires and fears. Make a list of some of the desires and fears you are “holding” on to. Be honest with yourself. Let the list sit for a few days and then revisit it and see if any revisions are in order. Then choose one thing from your list to completely let go of. Say to yourself, “This moment is the perfect moment to let go.” Continue with this practice and all that will be left is love.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Love, Sex and Beyond
Greetings Yogis and Yoginis,
This week in class we are considering the topic “Love, Sex and Beyond.”
Ultimately everything boils down to whether we can love unconditionally. At least that is one way of describing the spiritual path.
What we commonly call love is often little more than a sentimental emotion peppered with a good dose of self-interest. The situation is still less appealing when we consider sexual love. In practice, sex and love can be almost mutually exclusive. Love is a matter of the heart, one of the major psychospiritual centers of the body – the fourth cakra. Sexual impulse is anchored by the second cakra which is located in the genitals. If we can engage in sex with an awakened heart, sexual love is indeed a possibility, but our culture deemphasizes the heart and overemphasizes sex.
Since ancient times, Yoga masters have recommended sexual abstinence (called bramacarya) during the first twenty-one years of one’s life. During this time, children and adolescents learn to properly harness the awesome power of the libido. Then, as adults, they are not ruled by the second cakra but engage in intercourse in a wholesome, balanced fashion as an expression of mutual respect and love.
For many people, sex is mere entertainment – a diversion from boredom and everyday anxiety and frustration. The problem is that it proffers only a trickle of pleasure, which cannot satisfy us deeply. We use sexual gratification as a substitute for real happiness.
Yoga is not opposed to pleasure, only to our enslavement to it. It also recognizes that the enjoyment we derive from our senses or the mind is nothing by comparison with our innate bliss. When we are in touch with our true nature, everything we experience is filled with delight, as bliss eclipses both pleasure and pain.
The Yogic path demands of us that we transmute ourselves at all levels. It is not enough to restrain our thoughts; we must also rid ourselves of negative emotions and cultivate positive emotions like love, compassion and kindness toward all beings. This involves regulating our sexual impulses and using that energy to fulfill our spiritual destiny.
- Georg Feuerstein
The homework is to explore your relationship to pleasure and pain on all levels.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
This week in class we are considering the topic “Love, Sex and Beyond.”
Ultimately everything boils down to whether we can love unconditionally. At least that is one way of describing the spiritual path.
What we commonly call love is often little more than a sentimental emotion peppered with a good dose of self-interest. The situation is still less appealing when we consider sexual love. In practice, sex and love can be almost mutually exclusive. Love is a matter of the heart, one of the major psychospiritual centers of the body – the fourth cakra. Sexual impulse is anchored by the second cakra which is located in the genitals. If we can engage in sex with an awakened heart, sexual love is indeed a possibility, but our culture deemphasizes the heart and overemphasizes sex.
Since ancient times, Yoga masters have recommended sexual abstinence (called bramacarya) during the first twenty-one years of one’s life. During this time, children and adolescents learn to properly harness the awesome power of the libido. Then, as adults, they are not ruled by the second cakra but engage in intercourse in a wholesome, balanced fashion as an expression of mutual respect and love.
For many people, sex is mere entertainment – a diversion from boredom and everyday anxiety and frustration. The problem is that it proffers only a trickle of pleasure, which cannot satisfy us deeply. We use sexual gratification as a substitute for real happiness.
Yoga is not opposed to pleasure, only to our enslavement to it. It also recognizes that the enjoyment we derive from our senses or the mind is nothing by comparison with our innate bliss. When we are in touch with our true nature, everything we experience is filled with delight, as bliss eclipses both pleasure and pain.
The Yogic path demands of us that we transmute ourselves at all levels. It is not enough to restrain our thoughts; we must also rid ourselves of negative emotions and cultivate positive emotions like love, compassion and kindness toward all beings. This involves regulating our sexual impulses and using that energy to fulfill our spiritual destiny.
- Georg Feuerstein
The homework is to explore your relationship to pleasure and pain on all levels.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Breathing Away Fear
Greetings Yogis and Yoginis,
This week in class we are considering the topic “Mindful Breathing.”
Breathing Away Fear
Let us observe…the way a nervous or anxious man breathes. Such a man does not venture to breathe out fully, he does not dare to empty his lungs and remain at peace until the moment when the in-breathing phase comes of itself. This is a symptom of deep fear and anxiety. When the lungs are empty an anxious man is in dread of the void, and he gives himself over to the moment of breathing in so as to recover his habitual feeling of life and a state of passing relief.
But in the case of a healthy man, that is, a man who is perfectly harmonized, in agreement with himself and the cosmos, breathing has a metaphysical significance, it is the symbol of the rhythm of exchange between the individual and his principle. Each breathing out expresses an entire surrendering of the creature to God and each inspiration signifies the return of the divine influx.
Between the two moments, at the moment when the lungs are empty, the unmanifested divine is approached. Thus we can see how fear hinders us from being and experiencing the formless.
- Jean Klein
The homework is to pay more attention to your exhalations in your Yoga practice and off of the mat. In Yoga Sutra I:34 Patanjali says you can attain a quiet mind by “maintaining the pensive state felt at the time of the soft and steady exhalation and during positive retention after exhalation.” (BKS Iyengar’s translation from Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali) When you are in a quiet place practice pausing briefly after your exhalations and notice the quality of mind during the pause.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
This week in class we are considering the topic “Mindful Breathing.”
Breathing Away Fear
Let us observe…the way a nervous or anxious man breathes. Such a man does not venture to breathe out fully, he does not dare to empty his lungs and remain at peace until the moment when the in-breathing phase comes of itself. This is a symptom of deep fear and anxiety. When the lungs are empty an anxious man is in dread of the void, and he gives himself over to the moment of breathing in so as to recover his habitual feeling of life and a state of passing relief.
But in the case of a healthy man, that is, a man who is perfectly harmonized, in agreement with himself and the cosmos, breathing has a metaphysical significance, it is the symbol of the rhythm of exchange between the individual and his principle. Each breathing out expresses an entire surrendering of the creature to God and each inspiration signifies the return of the divine influx.
Between the two moments, at the moment when the lungs are empty, the unmanifested divine is approached. Thus we can see how fear hinders us from being and experiencing the formless.
- Jean Klein
The homework is to pay more attention to your exhalations in your Yoga practice and off of the mat. In Yoga Sutra I:34 Patanjali says you can attain a quiet mind by “maintaining the pensive state felt at the time of the soft and steady exhalation and during positive retention after exhalation.” (BKS Iyengar’s translation from Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali) When you are in a quiet place practice pausing briefly after your exhalations and notice the quality of mind during the pause.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Flow
Greetings Yogis and Yoginis,
This week in class we are considering the topic “The Breath of Life.”
Flow
When the practice of postures is combined with conscious breathing and deep states of concentration and absorption, prana will sometimes spontaneously “take over” the practice. Suddenly, energy will begin to direct the flow of postures. In these moments we may have a sense of effortlessness, of complete surrender to a force greater than ourselves. This experience can be surprising, compelling, and blissful. And, it appears, to be completely out of our control. We cannot make it happen. We can only let it happen.
- Stephan Cole
The homework is to learn to let your practice happen. While maintaining your effort and integrity work to connect with the breath more and through this connection to the breath allow your energy, or prana, to guide you. To take this practice off of the mat practice letting go of controlling life’s situations and allowing life to unfold.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
This week in class we are considering the topic “The Breath of Life.”
Flow
When the practice of postures is combined with conscious breathing and deep states of concentration and absorption, prana will sometimes spontaneously “take over” the practice. Suddenly, energy will begin to direct the flow of postures. In these moments we may have a sense of effortlessness, of complete surrender to a force greater than ourselves. This experience can be surprising, compelling, and blissful. And, it appears, to be completely out of our control. We cannot make it happen. We can only let it happen.
- Stephan Cole
The homework is to learn to let your practice happen. While maintaining your effort and integrity work to connect with the breath more and through this connection to the breath allow your energy, or prana, to guide you. To take this practice off of the mat practice letting go of controlling life’s situations and allowing life to unfold.
Blessings,
paul cheek
Rushing Water Yoga
The BKS Iyengar Yoga School of Southwest Washington
417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607
360.834.5994
www.rushingwateryoga.com
info@rushingwateryoga.com
Serving Yoga to Camas, Washougal, and Vancouver Washington since 2003
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