I would ask you to check in with your breath and notice how you are breathing in this moment. With the perception of heightened uncertainty all around us, and life seeming almost completely unpredictable these days, the one thing we can count on to reconnect us with our center is our breath. As Eckhart Tolle says, our relationship with the present moment is either friendly or dysfunctional. The way into awakening harmony with the present moment is through the breath. This is why Pranayama, or control and expansion of the breath is the 4th limb of Astanga Yoga and is actually a more evolved practice than the 3rd limb of Yoga, the Asanas, or poses themselves.

I resisted Pranayama practice for so long until my training with Rod Stryker, when I finallly got the importance of integrating this practice into my daily life. I've been practicing regulating my breath with 1:1 breathing since September, and it is one of the most powerful practices I've developed to help me sustain my center during these energetically turbulent times. As turbulent as the times seem to be, it is actually a profound gift to be experiencing everything that is happening right now. All there is, is now. As much as we might think we like knowing what's ahead, feeling like we can be 100% certain, all of those projections really keep us in some way disconnected, or not fully connected to the present moment, where the energetic fullness of life lives.

It's not that we are supposed to be numb. It's ok to feel a little shaky or maybe even a little scared at times. But, realize, what's really happening, is you are awakening to what is, the energetic reality and the realization you are an energetic being composed of mostly space and water, existing in a Universe, and living on a planet that is hurling and spinning through space at speeds which are almost inconceivable to the mind. So, if we think it's the stock market which makes us feel a little shaky, think again. The collective consciousness is collectively realizing we are much more than what we've identified ourselves to be. How powerful is our mind? Any spiritual tradition would tell you it is the most poweful instrument you have and any master would say our thoughts create our reality. So, if you want to shift your reality, this first step is to free yourself of fear. How do we do that? By realizing you are fundamentally ok, you are supported by forces seen and unseen in realizing this energetic evolution you are here to experience.

Is it intense? Sometimes, yes. But, that's what your Yoga practice has prepared you to be able to embrace...to breathe with calmness and ease even in the times of intensity. Is it magical and full of wonder? Absolutely. The only way we can fully open up to all the wonder there is, is to be completely here now. So, breathe and be grateful to be healthy and well, because that really is what matters most.

One final thing, Dharma Mittra sent out his newsletter yesterday. He shared this guidance, which was powerful for me when I read it, so here it is:

Greetings from Dharma Mittra Yoga NYC,

This fall season is loaded with changes all around. Everyone is experiencing it, including the yoga center. Go with the winds of change and you will effortlessly glide to your new destination.

And, here are words of guidance from Rod Stryker, which I just received tonight in his newsletter.

No doubt the events of the past weeks have shaken many at their core. It is important to recall that this is not the first time you have faced uncertainty and challenges. In fact, looking for answers to life's demands is the very reason why many of us turned to yoga in the first place and, in particular, found a home in the teachings of ParaYoga.

It should come as no surprise then that my advice draws not upon some new formula, practice or magic mantra. No. My answer to life greatest challenges is the same as it has been since my teachers first provided me with their most precious wisdom.

Wondering what I should offer you at this time I recalled a letter I wrote to some students some twenty years (what might seem like much more innocent times): "Make time for silence. The questions you might have about how to manifest the teachings in your own life will not spring from rational. Instead they require loving dissipation. You already are the fulfillment of the teachings. Sit. Do some breathing and then practice the things we have taught you. Practice surrendering into your heart of hearts. You've toiled to prepare the soil for the harvest of your higher Self. Now you must learn to nurture your garden constantly. With patience and a willingness to serve that which is greater than you, your efforts will bear fruit.

"Silence envelopes the voices of insecurity. That is when 'remembering' returns, showing you that your light is an eternal bridge to freedom and peace. May your actions this day, however insignificant, be forever changed by having tasted the loving, the invisible".

Yes, the answer remains the same. It always will. Find stillness. See that you are and will always be okay. Stay awake. Act selflessly.

With love,

Yogarupa

May each breath we breathe, individually and collectively, awaken us to the healing of ourselves and the collective consciousness of our planet. Namaste! Oh ya, and come to Costa Rica with me in January for the Yoga retreat of a lifetime I am leading there! Read more

So, my birthday was awesome. Thank you to all of you who offered such beautiful words and blessings to me through your cards and gracious gifts.

I love the words of Dharma Mittra who says, "In Yoga practice, age is never an obstacle...it's an evolutionary grace." He would certainly know, considering he's been practicing Yoga for fifty years and is 68 years young.

There are so many blessings unfolding in my life, from the improved health of my father, to the gift of family, community and friends, and the guidance of inspired Yoga teachers like Shiva Rea and Rod Stryker. I feel grateful to be in this community where so much Goodness is awakening. The times are changing, and these changes are for the better. We are going through a collective awakening as we grow stronger in our Muladhara Chakra, and this awakening is both unifying and enlightening. It is teaching us what it really means to be Faithful and fearless.

I just wanted to post a couple of announcements here about what's coming up in the not-so-distant future. Beginning Friday, October 24th, I will be teaching a new class at an awesome studio called Chi Dallas, located in Fair Park. This will be a lunchtime class from 12 - 1 pm and will be a great rate of $10 to drop-in!

And, we'll have an uplifting and inspired Holiday Yoga class coming up in the beginnig of December on December 6th at exhale spa. I know it might seem a little far away, but it will be here sooner than we can imagine. So, just something to be aware of as the weeks ahead start to become filled with the festivities of the approaching holidays.

I'm especially thrilled to announce an awesome Yoga and Eco-Adventure retreat I will be holding in Montezuma, Costa Rica this January 24-31 2009! Those of you that receive the newsletter, will be getting all the info about this soon. This will be an 8 day, 7 night retreat to the beautiful Los Mangos sea-front resort (pictured above) in Montezuma, where we will get to spend an amazing week revitalizing and renewing ourselves for the brilliant New Year. Each day will be filled with Yoga in the open-air pavilion, fabulous, nutritious and delicious meals, incredible adventures like horseback riding, snorkeling, surfing, hiking, relaxing aquatic massages and natural face masks and the incredible gift of community and friends. This will be a life-enhancing experience which will positively transform your body, mind and spirit and awaken you to the fullness and gift of each breath you breathe. I hope you will be able to join me and Global Soul Adventures Founder, Kate LaCroix as we guide you through this inspiring week. If you are interested in registering, you can do so online at globalsouladventures.com. I hope you will be able to join us.

So, stay tuned as I update the blog with more inspiration from Rod Stryker. What a gift to receive such incredible wisdom from such an illumined teacher. I have been learning the Invocation to Patanjali which he taught us at the training. It's a bit tricky to learn, but learning these chants helps to build retentive power, which is called Smriti, also one of the 5 principles of enlightenment, according to Patanjali. Although there is much mythology around the sage Patanajali, who is the Father of Yoga and the reason any of the Yoga we practice on the planet exists, he was actually a living person who walked the earth sometime around the 4th to 6th century BCE. I believe as a practitioner of Yoga, and to realize the fullness of what Yoga promises if we commit ourselves to the journey, it behooves us to learn the Invocation to Patanjali. When we say this invocation, we are essentially calling upon Patanjali for guidance and wisdom in our journey of enlightenment. You can listen to an audio of the Invocation here.

"This is the real meaning of Yoga-a deliverance from contact with pain and sorrow." - The Bhagavad Gita

Be well and I'll be back soon!Read more

(Picture of Shiva Rea)

I'm just learning about this myself, as I mentioned in the previous post. However, I wanted to share with you some of the ways Shiva herself honors this sacred ritual and celebration called Navaratri. It's fascinating, because I had already been honoring some of the practices without even knowing it. My girlfriend and I are eating all raw food between now and next Tuesday. This is one of the suggestions as a practice during this time, i.e. cleansing. And, having recently moved into a new space, I felt inspired to clear out any "old, regressive" energy by getting a few new things to beautify my space. It turns out these are recommended practices. And, I realized last night, the last day of the Navaratri celebration happens to fall on my birthday...October 9th! She describes this day, Day 10, as "Victory of Shakti!"

Here are a few ways Shiva is honoring this cycle which is from the e-mail she sent to us two days ago.

You can enter the ritual festival when and however you are moved.

Below are somome personal ways that I am honoring and aligning with Shakti during this time. It is a wonderful time for honing your practice and devotion.

- spending as much time with my little man Jai as possible and nuturing him with love
- it is very hot here so it is easy to fast from dinner to morning eating only fruits.
I am not fasting for the 10 days in this vata season but eating as whole, organic vegetarian as possible (this is my version this season and suggest that everyone finds what is right for you).
- only listening to Devi kirtan and chants for the next 10 days
particularly in the early morning
- chanting the Lalita Sahashranama daily and offering 108 mantra for the different aspects of the Goddes as fire offering or as flower puja (offering petals with each mantra) with meditation.
- bathing in the ocean everyday and making flower offerings
- connecting with my teachers, family, friends
- resting and laying around like one of Durga's tiger cubs (I did part of the chanting laying down tonight as I really needed it post- conference)
- clearing my space of unfinished business for the next three days
- envisioning and bringing into fruition a vision for the next six days
- offering a community puja this Friday with Saul David Raye for all
- during the festival and on the final day offering seva in as many ways possible

I love you all! During the Laxmi-Saraswati phase, I will be writing a letter to you all about 2009 and resources available for tending your sacred fire of evolution.

Infinite Blessings!

in her lap
Shiva Read more

Don't worry your heart and mind...

The word Sraddha in Sanskrit means Faith and it is the first quality of enlightenment, according to The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which is the most highly revered and authoritative text on Yoga ever written. The Sutras came 500 years after Buddhism, however, what is ingenious about Yoga is its non-discriminative and Universally embracing approach. It does not teach that you must believe in a certain God to awaken to your highest potential, but rather, that one's Highest Good can be achieved through the consistent practice to realize this Reality of Goodness, Peace, Joy, Bliss within one's own Self. A person can certainly realize this through devotion to an incarnation of God such as Buddha, Krishna or Jesus, but it is not imperative.

So, as we grow in our practice of Yoga we become increasingly faithful. It's hard to imagine a better topic than Faith at this very moment and time, given the recent turblence with what's been going on with our country's economic situation. So, the first place to look when any type of panic or fear is happening with the collective consciousness, is right within your own heart and mind. One of the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves is how are our thoughts impacting the greater Good. Are there thoughts of scarcity or lack running through your mind? Are there any ripples of fear about loss? Do you buy into the idea that there's a reason to be scared? If so, then there is transformation that needs to happen within yourself.

Be Ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2

At times, it's easier to disregard the hype. But at other times, like the past week, it seems to become more difficult to unplug from the fear-based collective unconscious. It's literally filling the air as fear messages from countless mediums (tvs, satellites, radio) travel through waves transmitting their signals and messages all around us. And yet, it's these times when we get to awaken to a greater state of faith within our own mind and heart. It's at these times when we really get to examine ourself and realize where it is that we are allowing ourselves to live in fear, living in the world bound in some way by the idea of material loss.

So, my first recommendation to dissolve any ripples of fear is to practice your 1:1 Pranayama breathing and to meditate regularly. Allow yourselves to plug into the message of Truth from the One, Unchanging, Always Present, Ever-Existing Consciousness, the Energy that always was and always will be. And with each breath you breathe, allow yourself to breathe away fear. There really is nothing to be afraid of and this is scriptural no matter what your specific faith is. Many of the recent experiences I've gone through in my life have been teaching me this very lesson. Any fear we experience really comes from one fear, which is the fear of death. That's why as a Yogi, we are continuously evolving and dissolving this fear every breath of the way.

Those of you who live in Dallas, I hope you will join me this Friday night at exhale dallas for a Yoga Trance Dance from 7-9 pm. This Yoga Trance Dance couldn't come at a better time as we will actually be going through a process called Ha Kriya to slice away and free ourselves of fear. This is an incredibly insightful time we are in and so there is much to be released and liberated as we dance fearlessly!

It did occur to me I really need to share some of the specific teachings from my Yoga teacher training with Rod Stryker. It's great for me to have received the gift of these teachings, but they are most beneficial the more I can share them with you. As these 5 principles of enlightenment become most relevant, such as Sraddha, I will share them with you here. So, here's an excerpt from the training I attended, Yoga Sutra: Light on Self-Mastery.

This is what Patanjali's saying enlightenment looks like. These are the qualities of enlightenment. What is Sraddha? Sraddha is Faith. There's a beautiful teaching in the Bhagavad-Gita that says your life is the size of your Faith. The bigger your faith, the bigger your life. The moment you embrace, even the Unknown, and create trust that you are in the right place, that you will have everything you need, that the Divine, or however you want to think about it, Nature, God is on your side...the moment you make that decision and the extent to which you make that decision, your life opens and everything becomes possible. So Patanjali is saying we're going to make this number 1. This first sign of enlightenment is this embrace of the whole of existence, even in the darkest night, in the darkest days of our lives, there is still this flame of, not hope, but belief in Goodness...ownership of what is possible. So, #1 is that. So in your times of confusion and doubt, and indecision, life challenges and loss, all of those things, there is still this underlying sense that you are exactly who you need to be, you have everything you need in order to attain everything your heart truly desires. Despite there being no evidence, that's the way of life. That's the facts.

Also, I just received an e-mail today from Shiva Rea. I'll be blogging more shortly on the Navaratri festival which began today. She began the e-mail saying this:

I hope you are staying connected to your center in the midst of America's muladhara shaking. In yoga, an unstable foundation must change so this is a good process that needs to happen in order for real strength to emerge and grow. We are in need of real leadership to navigate the changes ahead. The way that each one of us listens to a deeper current and emanates from that place rather than fear and anxiety is a tremendous contribution at this time.

I wanted to make sure you had this information for Navaratri.

She then went on to offer ways in which she is personally observing this 10 day cycle. Here is another portion of the e-mail which she just wrote in her newsletter:

On the eve of the New Moon, Rosh Hashanah and one of the most important Hindu-Tantric ritual festivals, Navaratri, I wanted to honor this sacred cycle of deep alignment and ritual renewal that is available to us all during these times of intense change.

Navaratri Ritual Preparation.

Beginning today, September 30th, Tuesday until next Thursday, Shakti is celebrated for nine "nava", ratris' or nights. For three days each, the form of the purifying force of Durga-Kali, the manifesting abundance of Maha Lakshmi and the creative wisdom of Saraswati are celebrated by hundreds of millions of Bhaktis all around the world. I have included an article from the Hindu perspective if you would like more information, click here. You can also google Navaratri, you will find lots of images, video footage and information. I have celebrated Navaratri for the past fifteen years and do not miss this amazing ritual process of connecting authentically to the power of Shakti. Here are some suggestions for entering this ritual cycle with universal awareness:

Prepare your home and temple of your body by cleaning and caring for your spaces of embodiment. The first three days of Navaratri are the time of clearing out the energy of tamas (regressive, backward moving energy). You could also attend to the process of purification and creating sacred space during this time so that there is no pressure of tension. In particular, clean your altar space and if you are connected to the different aspects of the Divine Mother, Ma Shakti, then invoke her through images, colors, and symbolic offerings that will deepen your ritual reflection.

Living Practices

In General:
Before or after your meditation, pray and journal upon the qualities of Shakti that you can call in from the macrocosmic process to have effect within the microcosm of your being. Allow the shakti forces of purification, nuturing, creation and manifestation to reveal to you how to align with your highest vision in action for collective evolution. Not only write, pray and meditate but live what you are ritually invoking in your thought, speech, actions imbued with the love of life and the mother.

Specific:
Chanting of kirtan for the divine mother in the form of Durga-Kali, Sri Laxmi Ma, and Saraswati
Chanting and listening of the Lalita Sahasranama
Chanting with Japa Mala 18-27-54 or 108 rounds of the mantra Aim Hrim Klim Chamundayai Vicche or mantras for the different aspects of the Goddess:
Om Dum Durgayai Namaha, Om Shrim Maha Lakshimaye Namaha, Om Aim Saraswataye Namaha while meditating within your heart upon
Fasting in a way that is appropriate from a complete fast on fruits to eating vegetarian food to giving up regressive foods for your system is also traditionally part of Navaratri.

Days 1-3 (Tuesday -Thursday) Purification of Inner and Outer Obstacles on the Spritual Path (Durga Shakti)
Days 4-6 (Friday - Sunday) Worshiping the Healing Beauty and Abundance of Maha Lakshmi
Days 7-9 (Monday-Wednesday) Awakening the Divine Wisdom and Creativity of Saraswati Ma
Day 10 Victory of Shakti


I have not even fully absorbed everything Shiva wrote to us, nor have I read the article she recommended, but I intend to as soon as possible. This celebration and observance is new to me, but I am so grateful to receive this information from such a blessed teacher as she. So, we have every reason to be faithful. We are simply riding the waves of strengthening change. Om Shanti!
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