Dharana or Concentration

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring sixth limb of Yoga, Dharana or concentration.

Familiar acts are beautiful through love.

                                                            – Percy Bysshe Shelley

By giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose. Simple, yet essential to the practice of love! Being one-pointed means we can give the person we are with our complete attention, even if she is contradicting our opinion on tax reform or explaining the peculiarities of French grammar. Once we can do this, boredom disappears from our relationships. People are not boring; we get bored because our attention wanders. When we can give someone our full attention, our attitude says clearly, “You matter to me. You have my respect.”

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

The homework is to work on directing your attention to one thing at a time. This is practicing Dharana, the sixth limb of Yoga.  Challenge the concept of multi-tasking and work to be present in whatever you do.  In your personal relationships practice listening with full attention and when you wander away from being present, draw yourself back in fully.

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

The Second Niyama, Saucha or Purity

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring  the second Niyama, Saucha or purity.

As an archer aims the arrow, the wise aim their restless thoughts, hard to aim, hard to restrain.

- The Buddha

Thoughts are things, even though we cannot hold them in our hands or see them with our eyes. This is very different from our usual view. Usually we consider thoughts as immaterial, so we are not aware of how a fleeting thought can affect us. If I throw a beach ball at you, it won't hurt much; in five minutes you will have forgotten about it. But if I say something harsh to you, you will not be able to forget that thought; you will take it home in your mind, have nightmares about it, and wake up oppressed the next morning. We all know from personal experience how a harsh comment from a parent or a friend can rankle in our consciousness for years. This is the immense power of thoughts.

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

The homework is to apply the second Niyama, Saucha or purity to your thought process.  Saucha is keeping our bodies clean outwardly through bathing, through the foods we eat, the exercises we do, as well as inwardly through the thoughts we think. Think about how angry words and thoughts affect you. What happens to your relationships when you get angry? How do you feel when you get angry? How does your body feel? Our actions as well as our thoughts can pollute not only the world around us but our inner world as well.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

The goal of Yoga, to still the fluctuations of the mind.

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring the goal of  Yoga, to still the fluctuations of the mind.

Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down, along with our busy thoughts. Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still. And imagine if that moment were to go on and on, leaving behind all other sights and sounds but this one vision which ravishes and absorbs and fixes the beholder in joy, so that the rest of eternal life were like that moment of illumination which leaves us breathless.

                                      – Saint Augustine

As I reach the spiritual summit, I hardly feel my body. My mind is still; my ego has been set at rest. The peace in my heart matches the peace at the heart of nature. This is my native state, the state to which I have been striving through the long travail of evolution to return. No longer am I a feverish fragment of life; I am indivisible from the whole.

I live completely in the present, released from the prison of the past with its haunting memories and vain regrets, released from the prison of the future with its tantalizing hopes and tormenting fears. All the enormous capacities formerly trapped in past and future flow to me here and now, concentrated in the hollow of my palm. No longer driven by desire for personal pleasure or profit, I am free to use all these capacities to alleviate the suffering of those around me. In living for others, I come to life.

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

The homework is to make the connection for yourself from your own experience how the goal of Yoga, to still the fluctuations of the mind, brings you to a place of being completely present in the moment. Also consider how the practice of asana moves you in this direction?

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

A Clear Picture of the Meaning of Tapas

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring the meaning of Tapas.

On the one hand I felt the call of God; on the other, I continued to follow the world. All the things of God gave me great pleasure, but I was held captive by those of the world. I might have been said to be trying to reconcile these two extremes, to bring contraries together: the spiritual life on the one hand and worldly satisfactions, pleasures, and pastimes on the other.

                                      – Saint Teresa of Avila

Saint Teresa of Avila was a remarkably spiritual woman. Even as a girl she could say passionately, "I want something that will last forever!" Yet this woman who was to become one of the world's greatest mystics went through twenty years of doubt and struggle before becoming established in God. If Teresa took twenty years, can people like you and me think of doing it in less? Her words can inspire all of us, for everyone begins with doubts and conflicts. Little people like us are likely to be haunted by them - and to feel frequently disheartened for a long, long time.

When you have doubts about your capacity for spiritual progress, don't be defeatist. Remember these words of Saint Teresa and keep striving, keep on trying. This is all we are expected to do.

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

The homework is to reflect on the effort you have been putting towards your practices -  not just yoga asana.  Consider the third Niyama, Tapas, which is translated as discipline, austerities, and heat.  Tapas can also mean effort.  Here Saint Teresa is presents a clear picture of the meaning of Tapas.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Commit to Practicing for the Long Haul

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring practicing for the long haul.

Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives.

                                      – Bhagavad Gita

With infinite tenderness, the Lord lets it dawn on us only gradually that we are not separate, that we belong entirely to him. If this realization were to come overnight, ordinary people like you and me would not be able to withstand it; it would be more than our nervous systems could bear. That is why the Lord is so gentle with us; he spreads the transformation from separateness to unity out over many years so that all these changes in the mind and body can take place gradually. Often we are not even aware they are taking place until we look back and remember how we were some years before.

We should not ask when illumination will come. We should have a patient impatience to reach the goal. Finally, after many years, no matter what our past has been, we will begin to live in the light that knows no night. The temple may have been dark for a thousand years, but once the lamp is lit, every corner will be ablaze with light.

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

The homework is to remember three of the Niyamas: Santosa or Contentment, Tapas or  discipline, austerities, heat and Svadhyaya or self-study. Learn to be patient and content as you consistently and with much vigor develop your practice. Commit to practicing for the long haul.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Cultivating an Alertness to Life Without Thinking

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring cultivating an alertness to life without thinking.

Reason is like an officer when the King appears. The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.

                                      – Jalaluddin Rumi

Thinking, however useful it may be at times, is not the highest human faculty; it is only a stage in development. If, for example, in the throes of evolution we had stopped with instinct, saying, "This is the highest possible mode of knowing," our human future would have been stunted: I would not be seated here writing these words, nor would you be reading them.

Like instinct, reason is only a way station. When friends and I go to San Francisco to see a play, we sometimes stop halfway along to stretch our legs. But we don't get so involved in stretching legs that we forget to go on to the theater. Thought is a useful but temporary stopping station; it should not be considered a permanent solution to the problems of living. Just as we were able to rise above instinct and to develop reason, we must one day pass beyond discursive thinking and enter into a higher mode of knowing.

We cannot solve the problems of the mind with the mind. We cannot solve our problems by thinking about them, analyzing them, talking about them. In meditation, we often simply leave personal problems behind - we move out of the neighborhood where they live.

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

The homework is to use your Yoga practices to encourage a state of being, or an alertness to life without thinking.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

A Life of Selfless Service and Becoming a Spiritual Teacher

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we will be exploring a life of selfless service and becoming a spiritual teacher.

Those who are good and pure in conduct are honored wherever they go. The good shine like the Himalayas, whose peaks glisten above the rest of the world even when seen from a distance.

                                      –The Buddha

People who are good, kind, selfless, and hardworking for the welfare of others will be very deeply loved, very deeply respected wherever they go. It is a simple law of human nature that we love the highest. We want to be like such people, and we want to lead the kind of life they lead. This is the saving grace of human nature: when we see someone who is patient, kind, forgiving, and forbearing, we begin to trust him, to love her.

Such people have such a deep, loving concern for us that they will block our way when we are going astray. They will point out, very sweetly, very tenderly, when we are on the wrong path, and then they will support us and help us to change our direction. This is the role of the spiritual teacher, the person we can trust to stand in our way when we aren't strong enough, wise enough to make the right choice.

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

The homework is to imagine a world where we all live life for others and see Divinity in every person we meet – a life of selfless service.  Experiment with and practice this concept of selfless service and apply it to your life.  Look to the Bhagavad Gita translated by Eknath Easwaran for guidance on becoming a spiritual teacher.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com