Samyama (integration or synthesis)

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring Samyama (integration or synthesis).

What I needed most was to love and to be loved. I rushed headlong into love, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers of jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by bursts of anger and quarrels.

                                      – Saint Augustine

Even in the most intimate of personal relationships, most of us still live inside our own private mental worlds. Our attention is often preoccupied - sometimes more in the past and future than in the present - so that we have very little attention to give to those we want to love. Despite our best intentions to draw closer, all kinds of distracting thoughts - likes and dislikes, attachments and aversions, private moods, dreams and desires - come in any time they like, keeping other people at a distance. We yearn for closeness and find, more often, disappointment.

Here Augustine echoes the experiences that almost all of us go through, starting often in our adolescence. The journey into deeper consciousness is one we must take up if ever we are to find the love, the closeness, and the fulfillment we all so earnestly desire.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to consider what Yoga practices encourage us to " journey into deeper consciousness".  Review the eight limbs of Yoga paying close attention to what is referred to as Samyama. Samyama is the practice of Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi usually in relation to objects or ideas and connected with some kind of result.  This result is usually some kind of Siddhis (accomplishment or supernatural power) or Vibuhti (blessings or power) and implies integration or synthesis. Sutra III:4

Rushing Water Yoga, 417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA  98607, 360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com                           info@rushingwateryoga.com

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Seva (selfless service)

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring Seva (selfless service).

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore

Of nicely-calculated less or more.       

                                      – William Wordsworth

This morning, when I was reading an important New York paper, I noticed an article on the dynamics of gift-giving. This article quoted a distinguished professor of sociology as saying that in every gift there is a reciprocal relationship, even if it is not conscious. In other words, when you are making a gift, you are expecting a gift in return.

Not only that, there are very subtle social gradations: gifts to longtime friends, to recent friends, to acquaintances, to possible benefactors. All these factors come into play when choosing the gift. No wonder shopping for gifts is so terribly time-consuming. No wonder people feel confused and inadequate about what to give.

But the spiritual approach is very simple. Whatever you give - it may be a check to a worthy cause, it may be clothes to a person who is cold, it may be food to the hungry, it may be medical help to the sick - do it without thinking of getting anything in return. Do it as a service to God, not reluctantly, but with joy.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to consider what it means to practice Seva (selfless service). From the Bhagavad Gita 3:19 "Therefore always perform unattached the deed to be done.  For the person who performs action without attachment obtains the Supreme." A simple way to practice Seva is to find something around your home or work that needs doing and to do it without fanfare.  Do not tell anyone that you are going to do it, and do not talk about it afterward.  Try to pick a “Seva project” every day or at least every week. If you regularly volunteer and feel burned out, maybe you need a break.  Take it.  Then reassess what is possible for you: How much?  And how often?

Excerpts paraphrased from “Living your Yoga, Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life”, by Judith Lasater.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Ahimsa.....it has a Wider Positive Meaning, L O V E.

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring Ahimsa.

Amor saca amor.     (Love begets Love)              

                                      – Saint Teresa of Avila

The saints and mystics are the world's greatest authorities on love. When Saint Teresa says, "Love begets love," she is giving us the precious secret. One of the most beautiful things about love is that even today it cannot be purchased. It cannot be stolen; it cannot be ransomed; it cannot be cajoled; it cannot be seduced. Amor saca amor: only genuine love begets love.

All of us have been conditioned, even though we may not put it in such crass terms, to believe that if you love me six units, I should love you at most six units in return. I can feel secure in loving you six units because you have already committed yourself that far. But if you get annoyed with me and stomp out, slamming the door, I should pull back, at least temporarily, my six units of love.

Everyone can learn to love and urgently needs to learn to love. After all, even if you don't learn Esperanto, your life is not necessarily going to be dull and drab. But if you do not learn how to love, everywhere you go you are going to suffer.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to revisit the first Yama: Ahimsa. “The word ahimsa is made up of the particle ‘a’ meaning ‘not’ and the noun himsa meaning killing or violence.  It is more  than a negative command not to kill, for it has a wider positive meaning, love.  This loves embraces all creation…….BKS Iyengar. "Ahimsa is an intelligent, harmonious relationship.  Harmony is the essence of nonviolence." V. Thakar. "The yogi, grounded in the practice of ahimsa, acts from a place of love and respect for all beings, including himself. This begins a new cycle of love and respect instead of harm and pain." BKS Iyengar. See how you can make Ahimsa come alive in your lives.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

How Asana Prepares the Practitioner for the Practice of Meditation.

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring how the practice of asana prepares the practitioner for the practice of meditation.

Know that when thou learnest to lose thy self

Thou wilt reach the Beloved.

There is no other secret to be revealed,

And more than this is not known to me.

                   

                                      – Ansari of Herat

To know completely, the knower has actually to become one with the known. To know you as you really are, I must somehow get out of my own shoes and step into yours. I must get myself out of the way in order to know you as you really are. This is what we catch some glimpse of in totally faithful love, where we forget ourselves completely in the happiness of another. The mystics of all faiths and all ages testify that then we know directly, intuitively, what the needs of the other are, and we do our utmost to make sure those needs are fulfilled. It is this direct awareness that we can develop through the sustained and enthusiastic practice of meditation.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to remind yourself that the reason to practice asana is to prepare yourself for a contemplation practice - be it prayer or meditation or something else.  Through the practice of asana we learn to direct our attention just like in a contemplative practice.  Learn for yourself how to make the leap from your asana practice to a contemplative practice.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

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

How the Practices of Yoga Encourage us to Embrace the Unity of Life.

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring how the practices of Yoga encourage us to embrace the unity of life.

All things by immortal power

Near or far,

Hiddenly

To each other linked are,

That thou canst not stir a flower

Without troubling of a star.

                   

                                      – Francis Thompson

The science of ecology teaches us that everything in the universe is connected. We cannot separate ourselves from the consequences of even the least of our actions: whatever we do here comes back there. This is the law of the unity of life. Like gravity or any other law of nature, you cannot break it; you can only break yourself against it.

If you throw a bottle into the air, it will return to earth and shatter. Similarly, if you act in a way that violates the unity of life - polluting the atmosphere, wasting precious resources, ignoring the needs of others - you will find your health, your peace of mind, and your happiness destroyed. We are not separate fragments. Like all the animals and plants, we depend on each other and on the environment.

Words to Live By: Inspiration for Every Day – Eknath Easwaran

The homework is to use your Yoga practices to explore the unity of life.  Yoga teaches us how to slow down and challenges the concept of "doing" and encourages movement towards a state of "being".  It encourages us to become or "be" the pose with a oneness.  See if slowing down and being, instead of always doing, provides you with the experience to cultivate the compassion that allows us to embrace this oneness.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

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