Making a Commitment to Practicing

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring making a commitment to practicing.

They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart. 

                                                  – Bhagavad Gita

The Gita's hypothesis is that it is possible, by mastering the thinking process, to leave behind unwanted habits and negative thoughts. To accomplish this, the Gita outlines a daily course of training in which we acquire conscious control of our attention, strengthening our will at such a deep level of the unconscious that no compulsive desire or addiction can sweep us away. What is the predicted result? When your will is linked to your intellect at the very depths of your personality, you discover yourself as you really are - secure, wise, compassionate, and intimately connected with all of life.

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

The homework is to create your own "daily course of training" that includes the eight fold path of Yoga (http://www.rushingwateryoga.com/eight_limbs_poster_may2014.pdf). Commit to practicing something everyday for 21 days. Start slow and be consistent. Work to penetrate deep into your own psyche and see what happens. Experiment!

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Freedom

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring Freedom.

Just as a fire is covered by smoke and a mirror is obscured by dust, just as the embryo rests deep within the womb, wisdom is hidden by selfish desire.

 

                                                  – Bhagavad Gita

This verse is taken from the Bhagavad Gita, a short Sanskrit work of seven hundred verses that has fascinated and inspired mystics, physicists, psychologists, and philosophers of many countries for three thousand years. Set on a battlefield on the morning before a fierce battle, the Gita uses warfare as a metaphor for our personal struggle with the challenges of life.

The Gita's message is simple but profound: our native state is freedom. What we want most from life is to be free of all the mental compulsions that keep us from living in peace with ourselves, with others, and with the environment. This desire for freedom is at the core of our personality, says the Gita, and our failings only hide our real nature like dust obscuring the face of a mirror.

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

The homework is to use your Yoga practices to explore what "freedom" really means. Does practicing the same thing, the same way encourage freedom? Does challenging yourself physically and mentally encourage freedom? See for yourself what encourages the type of freedom referenced in the Bhagavad Gita.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Patience

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring Patience.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.

 

                                                  – I Corinthians

To excel in anything you have to have patience; but if you want to love, patience is an absolute necessity. You may be dashing, glamorous, fascinating, and alluring; you may be tall, dark, and handsome, or whatever the current fancy may be. Without patience, you can never become a great lover; it would be a contradiction in terms.

"Well," most of us say, "I guess that leaves me out. Patience has never been my strong point." Very, very few of us are born patient. Our age has been called the age of anxiety, the age of anger; but we could just as easily say the age of impatience. You see it in supermarket lines, on the highway, on the tennis court, in the schoolyard, in the political arena, on the bus. With all this we have begun to believe that impatience is our natural state. Fortunately, love is our natural state, and patience is something that everybody can learn.

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

The homework is to learn first to be patient with your practice of Yoga asana. When you are faced with something you cannot physically do see what it is you can do and be content with that. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras present Adhyatma-prasada means calmness, or clarity, of the inner being,  (1:47) and  Upeksha which means equanimity, (1:33). Together these words convey the meaning of patience. Through the observation in your practice and your experiences off of the mat see if you can move towards this native state of being.

Excerpts 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