“Train your senses to be obedient. Regulate your activities to lead you to the goal. Hold the reins of your mind as you hold the reins of restive horses’’
The wheel and the web: Discourses based on verses selected from the Shvetashvatara Upanishad
Shvetashvatara Upanishad
Patanjali says: ‘stira sukham asanam’; alertness that is comfortable and light is to be practised during posture.
He continues: ‘prayatna saithilya anata samapattibhyam’; the conclusion (the return to its essential form) of yoga is found when exertion has a relaxed, spacious quality.
The yogi’s mind then moves into an unbounded limitless relationship (with life and practice).
Concluding, he […]
The Buddha reminds us of the right approach in his famous metaphor of the raft from the Majjhima Nikaya.
In it, he describes a situation, where a man standing on the near shore, which is dangerous, needs to get to the far shore, which is safe.
There are no bridges or ferries so he builds a […]
When yoga teachers talk about being non-competitive, this does not reflect some utopian idealism, but a down-to-earth pragmatism. A sense of space provides sufficient disentanglement from our formations, compulsion lessens, and the opportunity to respond begins. This is the beginning of what yoga poetically describes as ‘Ishvara Pranidhanna’: surrender or dedication to God, or handing […]
One day you finally knew
What you had to do, and began,
Though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was […]
Beka Card continues her diary from retreat in India…
Read Part I, Part II, Part III
As my time in India is progressing, there is an inward deepening happening. This is due to the continuing exploration of the inner world and the fact that I have now participated in four group and one solitude retreat.
The […]
Ch’an or Zen is a school or Buddhism developed first in India, China then Japan. It is recognisable by its pragmatic, uncompromising approach to truth. Its spirit connects closely with the yogic teaching of Ishvara pranidhana (dedication or surrender to god). Although Buddhism is a non-theistic tradition, the two traditions (yoga and Buddhism) are pointing […]
Vajrasati yoga is a practice based on recognising the strength of community and applied yogic philosophy. It is concerned primarily with an attitude of listening or attention. This practice of listening is a skill to be honed and a tool that, when used, brings illumination, knowledge and an immediate sense of support and guidance beyond […]
Beka Card continues her diary from retreat in India…
Read Part I
Read Part II
Gifts to humanity
From Tiruvanamalai, I travelled with two others to the central Indian state of Maharashtra. An overnight train journey in India can be fun and integrating as often the Indian people want to talk to you and share their food. […]
from the Dhammapada
What neither mother, nor father, nor any other relative can do, a well-directed mind does and thereby elevates one.
Hate is not overcome by hate; by Love (Metta) alone is hate appeased. This is an eternal law.
Here he rejoices, hereafter he rejoices. In both states the well doer rejoices. He rejoices, exceedingly […]
Having recently had Valentines Day and it being the season when nature’s critters are thinking about making young, one’ attention turns to love. There are many kinds of the stuff: romantic love, sexual love, motherly love and brotherly love, love of one’s country or one’s lifestyle. There is infatuation and there is spiritual love, there […]
Carry on in hard times with the steady influence of yoga practice and study. At times there is joy, at times there is sorrow, but let there be always practice and study, and yoga will illuminate your life, and also life will illuminate your yoga.
To be a great teacher, you don’t have to be […]
You are currently browsing the archives for the Thoughts & Inspiration category.
