Paul Cheek / Rushing Water Yoga in Camas, WA: May 2015

Monday, May 18, 2015

Nine Obstacles and Accompanying Four Distractions

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring Nine Obstacles and Accompanying Four Distractions as presented in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.

- Revelation

We have all seen those signs on the highway, "Go Back. Wrong Way!" Where roads are concerned, we all understand this warning. We turn around. If only we could understand life's signs so easily!

Sorrow is often a warning with the same message: "Go back. Change your direction. You are going the wrong way." Every creature is conditioned to avoid pain; this is a built-in safety mechanism to protect our bodies from harm. When you eat more than necessary, for example, you should feel reassured if your stomach hurts. Your body is telling you, "Please don't do this again; it's not good for me." Mental and emotional suffering often serve the same function.

Once we have connected our sorrow with particular patterns of behavior, we will remember to act wisely more often. Eventually, as we learn its lesson, personal sorrow will fade from our life.

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

The homework is to study Patanjali's Yoga Sutras 1:30 and 1:31 reviewing what are referred to as the "Nine Obstacles and Accompanying Four Distractions". To learn how to use your Yoga practices to cultivate the connection of our sorrow with particular patterns of behavior and learn to act wisely more often, review Patanjali's Yoga Sutras 1:32 - 1:39. This is where Patanjali presents the ways to prevent these thirteen impediments.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Monday, May 11, 2015

Tapas

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring the third Niyama, Tapas - to use burning effort under all circumstances to achieve ones goal in life.

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.

- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

In going faster and faster and trying our hand at new adventures all the time, we hope we can forget our emptiness. We try to squeeze as many jobs as possible into a limited span of time. We're in some frantic race, not knowing just why or against whom we're racing.

There is no joy in work which is hurried, which is done when we are at the mercy of pressures from outside, because such work is compulsive. All too often hurry clouds judgment. More and more, to save time, a person tends to think in terms of pat solutions and to take shortcuts and give uninspired performances.

It is often said that life in our modern world is so complicated, so busy, and so crowded that just to survive we have to hurry. But I think we still have a choice. We can insist on working conditions that do not force us to hurry. It is possible to do our work and attend to our duties without being oppressed by time, and when we work free from the bondage of time we do not make mistakes, we do not get tense, and the quality of our living improves.