Becoming Small Forces for Peace Wherever We Go

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring "becoming small forces for Peace wherever we go".

And then there crept a little noiseless noise among the

leaves,

Born of the very sigh that silence heaves.

                                    - John Keats

Today I was walking with some friends in Armstrong Redwoods Park and I was astonished at those trees. The more I looked at them, the more I came to appreciate them. It was completely still, unlike our tropical forests in India, where elephants trumpet, tigers roar, and there is a constant symphony of sound.

Here everything was still, and I enjoyed the silence so much that I remembered these lines of John Keats. It is a perfect simile for the silence of the mind, when all personal conflicts are resolved, when all selfish desires come to rest. All of us are looking for this absolute peace, this inward, healing silence in the redwood forest of the mind. When we find it, we will become small forces for peace wherever we go.

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

The homework is to consider why you have taken up the practices of Yoga and how doing so can help cultivate becoming small forces for Peace wherever you go.

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

Fear

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring fear.

On this path, effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear.

                                    - Bhagavad Gita

To be truly secure, we must begin to find a source of security within ourselves. Even the bravest among us have many fears. Behind the attachment to money or possessions, for example, you will always find the fear of loss. Attachment to prestige brings the nagging fear of what others think of us. The thirst for power feeds the fear that others may be stronger. Every self-centered desire brings the fear that we may not get what we desire.

One could make a Sears catalog of these fears, but all stem from one fatal superstition: thinking of ourselves as merely physical creatures, separate from the rest of life. As our sense of oneness with the rest of life deepens, we step out of the world of fear to live in the world of love.

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

The homework is to consider how can the physical practices of yoga (bahiranga sadhana: yama, niyama, asana) and the inward practices (antaranga sadhana: pranayama and pratyahara) prepare you for your spiritual path and help free you from fear and move you in the direction of LOVE and the experience of oneness?

  

Blessings,

paul cheek

Rushing Water Yoga

417 NE Birch St., Camas, WA 98607

360.834.5994

www.rushingwateryoga.com

info@rushingwateryoga.com

Savasana

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring Savasana or corpse pose.

Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?

                                    - Henry Havelock Ellis

When we wake up from a dream into waking consciousness, we do not pass from unreality to reality; we pass from a lower level of reality to a higher level. And, the mystics of all religions say, there is a higher level still, compared with which this waking life of ours is as insubstantial as a dream.

Yet until we do wake up, nothing sounds more absurd than the assertion that we are dreaming, and nothing seems more solid than this world of the senses. Why should this be so? If original goodness is our real nature, why are we unable to see it? The answer is simple: because we see life not as it is but as we are. We see "through a glass darkly," through the distorting lenses of the mind - all the layers of feeling, habit, instinct, and memory that cover the pure core of goodness deep within.

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

The homework is to observe your state of being after Savasana. One of the goals of Yoga is to uncover our true reality or as Eknath Easwaran writes "the pure core of goodness deep within." In Sparks of Divinity B.K.S. Iyengar writes, "The best sign of a good Savasana is a feeling of deep peace and pure bliss. Savasana is a watchful surrendering of the ego. Forgetting oneself, one discovers oneself." See if through your practice of Savasana you can move towards discovering yourself. 

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

Dharana

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring Dharana or concentration.

Households, cities, countries, and nations have enjoyed great happiness when a single individual has taken heed of the Good and Beautiful.   . . . Such people not only liberate themselves; they fill those they meet with a free mind.

                                    -Philo

Just as we live in a physical atmosphere, we are surrounded also by a mental atmosphere. And just as the air we breathe may become polluted, our mental atmosphere can be polluted by negative thinking. If trees were not always releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, scientists tell us, all life on earth would suffer. On a smoggy day the trees along the freeway look grey and drab in the haze; they do not seem to add anything valuable to the landscape.

Yet they are performing a vital function: they are taking in our carbon dioxide and giving us oxygen in return.

A person whose mind is free from negative thinking spreads a life-giving influence in much the same way that a tree gives oxygen. Although a selfless man or woman may seem to go through the day doing nothing extraordinary, without them nothing would revitalize the atmosphere in which we think. By being vigilant, and not encouraging negative thoughts, all of us can offer this vital service - which benefits everybody, including ourselves.

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

The homework is to witness the mind and all of its movements or Vrittis. The Yoga Sutras state that practicing the Eight Limbs of Yoga is the key to calming the Vrittis. Study these Eight Limbs and specifically review Dharana or concentration as a practice to help you notice when you are generating a negative thought and discourage the fruition of these thoughts.

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

Letting go of our Attachments

Greetings Sadhakas,

This week in class we are exploring letting go of our attachments.

Love the whole world as a mother loves her only child. 

                                    -The Buddha

My grandmother could not read or write, and she was a woman of few words, but by her example, by the very power of her presence, she taught me that we are all children of God, no matter what our country, religion, race, or sex. To use the language of traditional Hinduism, she was aware of the unity of life that binds us all together, and she was able, gradually, to transmit her awareness to me.

A favorite expression of my granny's was, "Life cannot make a selfish person happy." It has taken me half a lifetime to understand the profundity of her simple words, warning that happiness cannot come from possessing another person, or from any selfish attachment. But she would also always add, "Life cannot help but make a selfless person happy." Like spiritual teachers of all the world's religions, she taught that happiness is to be found in learning how to love others more than I love myself.

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

The homework is to observe what it is that your are attached to the most. Learn for yourself what it might take to let go of this attachment a little bit at a time. Start with easier things like chocolate and move on to harder things like people. See how your Yoga practices can nurture you on this 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

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