Tapas

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are considering the third Niyama - Tapas.

You are what your deep, driving desire is.

                                           - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Desire is the key to life, because desire is power. The deeper the desire, the more power it contains.

Most people start life with many small desires. Their power and vitality trickle away in many different directions. None of their desires is deep enough to contain much power. But there are people whose lives are molded by only a few, consuming desires. Such people usually achieve their goals. Because their desires are unified, their will becomes nearly invincible. To desire something deeply is to will it, and to will is to achieve. If they want to become a great artist, build a bigger pyramid, explain the movements of the planets, they devote their life to that, and usually succeed. Wherever you find great success in life, it is fueled by the intense unification of desires.

But the most successful people of all are the rare men and women like Mahatma Gandhi and Saint Teresa of Avila who have but one desire. All lesser desires have been consumed in the great fire of love for God.

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

The homework is to study the third Niyama or Tapas. Tapas means to use burning effort under all circumstances to achieve ones goal in life.  Tapas needs to be applied in three areas: body, speech and mind.  Practicing non-violence towards your own body is one way to practice tapas of body.  Speaking kindly and truthfully can be one way to practice tapas of speech.  Developing an even mind that stays balanced in sorrow and joy and practicing self discipline is tapas of mind. Observe for yourself how unifying this practice of Tapas across these three areas can help you navigate and stay on your path.

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

Pranayama and Pratyahara

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are considering the fourth and fifth limbs of Yoga, Pranayama and Pratyahara.

The enemy is more easily overcome if it be not suffered to enter the door of our hearts, but be resisted without the gate at its first knock.

                                    - Thomas a Kempis

The body is rather like a city with five gates, the five senses. We are fairly fussy about what enters the gate of the mouth. But just as food enters the mouth and goes on to nourish or damage the body, sense impressions enter consciousness through our eyes, ears, nose, and skin, and in most of us the traffic is somewhat unregulated. We all want to be open to experience, but we also need to be watchful. When impressions come knocking, we need to check IDs.

Take popular films, many of which glamorize violence. We can pretend this is only entertainment, bearing no relationship to real life, yet every year violent crimes enact with terrible precision episodes from television or movies. In our violent society, how can anyone argue convincingly that witnessing casual cruelty on television does not affect us? We all have a personal stake in not supporting any of the mass media when they give us poisonous food for our eyes, our ears, and our minds.

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

The homework is to consider the fourth and fifth limbs of Yoga, Pranayama and Pratyahara. Pranayama teaches the aspirant to regulate the breathing, and thereby control the mind.  Pratyahara teaches the aspirant to discipline the senses, helping free the senses from the thralldom of the objects of desire. If you don't currently practice Pranayama talk to your teacher and consider taking up this art. Additionally learn what it means to practice Pratyahara. See for yourself how the practice of these two limbs of Yoga can work together.

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

Santosa

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are considering Santosa.

Faults and virtues arise from our companions.

                                    - Sanskrit proverb

According to this ancient saying, what is good in us and what is bad, our strong points and our weak points alike, develop because of constant association. When we associate with calm people, we become calm; when we associate with agitated people, we become agitated. When we frequent the company of people who are wise, we become wiser; when our company is otherwise, we become otherwise too.

We've all experienced this. When we have spent an evening with someone who is overwrought, we come home so agitated ourselves that we can't get to sleep. But there is a positive side of the power of association: we absorb good qualities too, by spending time with people who embody them. Whenever we associate with people, we participate in their mental states.

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

The homework is to consider the second Niyama - Santosa. Santosa can be defined as contentment, reducing desires, becoming cheerful and creating balance of mind. Determine for yourself how to practice Santosa and work to be the calming force in peoples lives. Become the person that others want to associate with.

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

Oneness

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring oneness or not being separate.

Sages speak of the immutable Tree, with its root above and its branches below. . . . The limbs of this tree spread above and below. Sense objects grow on the limbs as buds; the roots hanging down bind us to action in this world. The true form of this tree - its essence, beginning, and end - is not perceived on this earth.

                                    - Bhagavad Gita

We are all familiar with the unflattering expression, "He can't see the forest for the trees." Similarly, it can be said that most of us don't see the tree for the leaves, that we fail to see the Tree of Life because we are fascinated by the leaves. We are so obsessed by the leaves - the millions of little fragments that grow on the tree - that we are not aware of the tree at all. We do not see that without the tree the leaves do not have any life, that it is the sap, coming from the very life of the tree, that flows into the leaves and supports them.

In our modern world, most of the emphasis is on separateness, on the leaf rather than the tree. Daily we receive the message, "Find your joy in your own way; live your life in your own way; find your fulfillment in your own way." This drive for personal satisfaction is based on a cruel fiction: that the leaf can prosper without the living tree. In reality, none of us are separate; we are all part of the same creation, drawing our strength, happiness, and fulfillment from the cosmic tree.

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

The homework is to observe how your Yoga practices connect you to everything that is.  Yoga means many things including oneness or not being separate.  The challenge is to learn how to apply this experience to our lives in every way and see how it impacts our behavior and choices.

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 Can Help you Formulate, Navigate and Stay on Your Path

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring how the practices of Yoga can help you formulate, navigate and stay on your path - whatever it is.

All mystics speak the same language,  for they come from the same country.

                                   

                                                                                  - Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

What we are all looking for, even though we are searching in the most improbable places, is infinite wisdom, infinite joy, infinite love. In other words, we are trying to discover our real nature. At the very core of our being is a spark of purity, of perfection, of divinity. When we learn to identify less and less with that which is subject to change and more and more with this core of perfection, we are gradually moving closer to this supreme goal.

Though different religions call it by different names, the goal is always the same. It is nirvana to the Buddhist, moksha to the Hindu; Jesus calls it "entering the kingdom of heaven within." To the Sufis it is union with the Beloved; to Jewish mystics it is the return to the Promised Land. No matter what they call it, all the great religions point to the same supreme goal.

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

The homework is to ask yourself why Mr. Iyengar referred to Yoga as the science of religions. Others have called Yoga the mystical path of Hinduism. Why is this? Consider how the practices of Yoga can help you formulate, navigate and stay on your path - whatever it is.

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

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

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.

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

The homework is to experiment with yourself to see if bringing more consistency and dedication (Tapas) to your Yoga practices increase the time you have in the day to develop warm, deep, and personal relationships.  See for yourself if your practices can support simplifying our lives, dropping less important activities, and slowing down our pace of living.

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com