AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF
Meditation practice takes place on a personal level. It involves an intimate relationship with ourselves. Great intimacy is involved. It has nothing to do with achieving perfection, achieving some absolute state or other. It is purely getting into what we are, really examining our actual psychological process without being ashamed of it. It is just friendship with ourselves.
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Glimpses of Abhidharmaby Chogyam Trungpa. From Carolyn Gimian’s Ocean of Dharma
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You see, when we over-identify with the mind, we cannot but help believe its stories. tHe mind creates over-simplified, over-genralized, and distorted representations of reality (called vikalpas). When we take these mental constructs as reality - instead of the distorted second-order representations that they are - we suffer…When we are not over-identified with the mind, we are naturually more skeptical of the stories it makes up about reality…
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Christopher Wallis (2012) Tantra Illuminated, Anusara Press in The Woodlands, TX (p. 96)
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July 12, 2012
THE WIND OF AWARENESS
Awareness is not something that needs to be manufactured: when there is a gap, awareness enters into us. So awareness does not require a certain particular effort. Such an effort is unnecessary. Awareness is like a wind. If you open your doors and windows, it is bound to come in.
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Chogyam Trungpa, The Path Is the Goal: A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation, page 116. Shambhala Publications
Taken from Ocean of Dharma, Moderator, Carolyn Gimian, at carolyn@shambhala.com.
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Ashtang Agni Kriya
Tonight, we practiced the Ashtang Agni Kriya. It is described as the eight-fold spiritual fire kriya. Yogi Bhanjan taught it on July 24, 1996. I wonder if it was as hot that night as it was in our class tonight.
In this kriya, the navel point pumps out the air (exhaled) as the arms hit the ribcage. The breath becomes a real Breath of Fire. It was said that Breath of Fire came from this exercise. (Yogi Bhajan’s Praana Praanee Praanayam, 2006, KRI).
Let me know what you experienced tonight! I feel like I burned through a cough that was nagging my throat and lungs.Maybe some karma was mixed in there.
Sat Nam
2011 Mastering Anxiety Yoga Study Begins!
Sat Nam - Welcome everyone to the second study using the techniques of Kundalini Yoga to manage anxiety and stress. Let me know how you are doing as we go along. Use the blog to communicate with other participants.
This is going to be a wonderful and transforming experience.
Sundari Satnam Kaur
Half way through the class!
Sat Nam
We have reached the half way point of our eight week class. I have gotten to know each one of you and the connection between all of us is deepening. This is good as we move forward learning more about yoga and how to release stress and anxiety is every aspect of our lives.
There is so much more to come in the second half of our class. I can’t wait. Please share your experiences on the blog. You will be very surprised how we are all experiencing similar reactions and emotions as we delve deeper into the yoga experience.
Getting started - we have to start somewhere
