Sunday again

I've got this pinched nerve on the left side of the sacrum that runs down my leg, doesn't cause pain but it is causing numbness down my left leg that makes me limp a bit because certain muscles arent' firing when I need them to! But, in spite of that, I've felt great all week. Been in my head a bit too much, until today anyway, today I've felt amazing. I taught my favorite class and had a great response to it, and then had an Abraham meeting that we laughed and had more fun at than in a long time and then watched some Abraham. Always a great time with that group, I love them very much. Yesterday I taught a Kundalini Yoga workshop in Illinois and it went over well and was fun too, saw some old students and friends, had a great dinner. Over all I'm thinking this was a great weekend and can only get better as we move into the week because Wednesday I leave for San Diego with my friend and student Lance to go to the Ashtanga COnfluence out there, where my first Ashtanga teacher Nancy Gilgoff will be teaching, and I'm so excited to get to be in the company of that many people who live this life that I live here mostly alone in St Louis, to practice with some amazing master teachers and to see Nancy again, so I'm thinking that the whole week will be just as awesome as my weekend was. I've been very content lately, in Sanskrit its called santosha. I've found a lovely balance in my life where my practices are helping to focus my mind into a place of being okay, no matter what is going on around me and my body, as a result, is also feeling amazing and more open, but I'm also more aware of energy in and around me and of how to get it to move where I need it to be. Very nice! I've also been eating mostly vegan and raw, which is adding to the amount of prana flowing and being stored in my body. I love this stuff! I hope to write something terribly profound before I go to San Diego, I feel it building up in my mind, but not ready to come out yet. So check back again soon. Much love to you all!

Lately...

What have I been up to lately? Hmmmm, having car troubles. So my dad is fixing it and I'm driving one of his cars. I think he's got it fixed and that will be awesome, then I can keep it longer. Of course I don't want a car payment, but damn, I love that little car. Its bright red, and I don't love that and I've put way too many bumper stickers on it, and I'm kind of sick of that and I have the BE YOGA license plates on it, so I stand out for sure lol. But I love it, its a good car, and from driving his car, which is a Cavalier, still small, I've learned how good my gas mileage is, especially now that its almost $4 a gallon. So, last night I co taught a Thai massage workshop with Danielle and it was fun but damn when she was working on me it release all kinds of emotions that I wasn't aware were still in there, and just Tuesday I had a massage with energy work that did the same thing. So I feel like I've been full of emotions all frakking week! lol, and I guess technically I have. So today I taught a Kundalini Yoga workshop and it went really well. I enjoyed teaching it and I think everyone who attended liked it as well. In a week and a half I will be in San Diego at the Ashtanga Confluence and I'm super excited about it. I'm sleepy, not sure if I thought I had something profound to say, but I didn't apparently, so I'll say good night. Good night...

Been too long

Well, it hasn't been that long but this month has gone by slowly, or so it seemed anyway.

I've been very present and full of appreciation, after that entry into the new year with letting go so much that my body expunged itself of everything, literally and come to find out figuratively, I feel amazing.

I've been inspired, enjoyed teaching more than ever and my practices have been so deep and so connected that I can't even explain it. I think part of that has to do with the letting go and part of has to do with my embracing the abundance that has been awaiting me. I'm also going to San Diego one month from today for the Ashtanga Confluence and am super excited and my friend Lance is going as well and it will be his first ever such outing, for a yoga trip I mean. Then this weekend I paid for Kino MacGregor in Chicago this coming June, so solidified that!

Its exciting to be having so much to look forward to and be so engaged and inspired in the present at the same time. I've decided I'm going to see Abraham in Chicago again, probably the very weekend after Kino is there and then again in August! lol

So, lots coming up. I cancelled most all of the classes that were no longer working and only had 4 left, in a couple of weeks I have two new classes starting at D's Yoga Home, a former place I've worked and the owner of whom I am great friends with and also am most likely moving in with, and lined up a couple workshops and got asked to sub about a million classes, so no worries on the money front. I know the universe will take care of me and line up even more amazing things for this year.

This year that I'm embracing prosperity and abundance, in all their meanings, not just money-wise, but also in friendships, in happenings, in events, in love, in peace, in every wonderful way that they can express themselves. And in this embracing I've found joy, and for the first time I get all that stuff Abraham has been speaking about for so long, I've finally heard it.

I love and bless you and wish the same level of understanding to all of you!

Lokaa Somastaa Sukhino Bhavantu...

Its like spring out and only 1/11...

Its 68 degrees outside on this January day and I spent most of it outside, I did teach a class and take a class both indoors but most of the rest of it I was at the park, took a nap there and read most of the day in the loveliness of the day.

I'm waiting to do a private in about half an hour and decided to write. I've been full of inspiration lately but haven't coagulated most of it into cohesiveness yet, so not sure if any of it will come out in this entry tonight.

New years was crappy, I got sick in the middle of class, didn't show it, but basically slept and shit for the next 36 hours and had a friend bring me vegetable juices and fruit which was about all I could fathom eating. I kept it up too, eating only fruit in the mornings, until this past couple days. But I need to maintain it I think so that I can enjoy the energy levels it inspires. I tend to eat too many carbs, in the form of bread products, and then I feel sluggish and wonder why. Today I had a doughnut and took a class later in the day and had all this anger come out, not from the doughnut, but I'm sure it didn't help matters at all.

I'm also as of this week calling it quits on my Mysore classes. I gave it another go round and it still didn't work, nice showing at first, then it slowly drops off. People here in St. Louis just don't love Ashtanga the way I do, there are a few of us, but we're all teachers and we want to share what we love, but the people just don't want it. Especially the Mysore style, which is my favorite, but oh well. Lamenting won't make them want it.

I shall just practice it myself and teach what I can teach of it when I teach and go from there. I also really want to go to India this fall and have that experience, that will also hopefully inspire me to move somewhere after I get back, somewhere that maybe loves Ashtanga and I can share it there. But I have some privates that I'm teaching it to and can go from there. Its my thing, and practicing it makes me happy, so I'm sticking with it!

I've also been practicing kundalini a bit more again, since I was ill it just seemed like it would help me manage my energy better and it has. So I've been doing both, and I love them!

These practices are helping make me more aware all the time, and then just when I think I can't become anymore present, I find a new level. I love it, even when I'm bitching and saying how I hate it, I'd rather be the one who is practicing and working toward something than not...so I embrace it!!!

Sundays

Sundays are my favorite mornings of the week. I get to get up of my own volition, practice at a pace that doesn't feel forced, eat breakfast slowly, go to Starbucks, have a chai and croissant while reading for a good long while and then I tend to go to the park for a walk or to meditate (being cold this morning not sure if these will happen lol) and then I head in to teach a late morning class. Its a great class with mostly long time students who are willing to do the work and chant a bit and then I'm off the rest of the day. Whats not to love about that? A day led at the pace of life that I enjoy, semi-leisurely...

This morning I woke very early and practiced already, have eaten already and so decided to write before I shower and head out. Times like this, where my practice was so deep and my pranayama session so clearing, that now its just quiet, are my favorite of these Sundays. That sense of quiet, even when there's noise, is why I practice. Sure my body feels better, works better and looks better. Sure my mind is clearer and I feel more steady and peaceful. But that quiet is so nice. When you hear a sound and you just hear it, clearly, with no extraneous thought muffling it and then its silent again. I'm experiencing it as I type on this keyboard right now, so nice.

How do people everywhere not engage in the practice of yoga?!? It just makes everything better, not one type of yoga over another either, just anything from the yogic cannon applied to life. It just makes everything fuller, more complete and more fully experienced. I know I'm not alone in this, I'm seeing it more and more lately. In the connections between people in the workshop I taught yesterday, in the people I draw into my life on all accounts, not just in the yoga world.

Everything just seems to be getting clearer, more crystalized and transparent, and to me that brings peace. Maybe not to some. Maybe there is something to this Age of Aquarius stuff, which is now in full swing. We'll see as this week unfolds even further, with New Years Day on Tuesday and beyond.

I love it! I love you! Enjoy yourself today, for your own sake!

Christmas

I'm not a big one for celebrating this holiday, mostly because of what its become. I don't feel the need to buy people tons of stuff to let them know how I feel. If I'm in your presence by my choice, I pretty much think you're awesome, if not I wouldn't be around you!

But I do like the time with family. I am the kind of person that I'm okay with being around the people I like or if I don't see them for a while, I'm okay with that too. Not too attached, and it seemed to have gotten worse during my Kundalini yoga period (I still practice it some, but meaning the time I was only doing it, and doing it a lot). I had gotten to the point I didn't feel like I wanted to see anyone much, or anything, and then was totally fine when I was around people. Now that I've began practicing Ashtanga as my main practice again, I feel differently. I remember when it changed, sometime over the summer, I started feeling my emotions again more fully, not that I allowed them to rule over me, but that I noticed them being in full swing again, and they hadn't been in a little over 3 years.

Now I'm in touch with that again, I've noticed that I'm enjoying being around family again and older friends that I haven't seen in a while. My past is part of what made me who I am now. I can't just disregard it as I was doing, I need to embrace it for what it is, part of the formation of me, as I am right now. And I like that, and I'm glad that I've shifted to this place, its a much nicer place to be.

Its like being okay with everything, not all the time mind you, I am still a work in progress. But the majority of the time being okay with whatever happens, embracing it and moving forward with it. I.E. my family, much of the time, still calls me Keith even though I expressed much displeasure at this, during the time that I was really doing the Kundalini and living fully as a Sikh, wearing the turban and so forth. They do make the occasional effort to call me Sat Inder, and thats great, but I've slowly shifted into being okay with that. I hear it and it doesn't make me cringe as it once did, and its okay. I was that person at one time, I was named that name at birth and for just short of 40 years went by it. It is a part of my history, and a part of me, and remains so, so its okay. Now I still love being called Sat Inder more and am prone to not always hearing Keith when someone says it to me, but its not the end of the world.

I have a friend, Caleb, who said "you know, Sat Inder just seems like he should have long hair and look more Eastern." He's right, I do feel more apt to deserve the name with my long hair, and am growing it back out, full length, I don't know yet, but longer. And I did love my beard long, it was awesome. So I'm heading back that direction.

I also realize that this is one of the goals of a yoga practice, not just an asana practice, but a full yoga practice. To be okay with the polarities of life, something good is fine, something not as good is fine too, you are okay with whatever happens. Acting, not reacting to life.

Its nice to be here, and not saying it will be a stable place. I imagine I'll have to work at it all the time, but thats okay, at least its a bit easier this week, and thats nice.

The following mantra has become my personal mantra lately and what I base my practice around:

Asato ma sat gamaya

Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya

Mrityor ma amritam gamaya

translation;

Lead me from untruth to truth

Lead me from darkness to light

Lead me from death to everlasting life

I use my practice: asana, pranayama, the application of the yamas and niyamas, meditation, all of it; to bring myself to such a level of awareness at all times that I am able to discern the truth in most situations, to see the light in the midst of the darkness of whatever circumstance I happen to be in the middle of and to see myself as a being of spirit, a spirit that will never die, but will continue one once I throw off the chains of this mortal coil and leave this body behind, I will still be moving forward, growing, expanding, yes, even then.

I love this life I've chosen and intend to keep loving it and moving forward and teaching others these teachings I live by so that maybe they will also have similar results and become more conscious and loving and peaceful.

Namaste!

Good morning...

I almost never write in the morning, I'm usually practicing and then after showering and heading to Starbucks. This morning I woke up after sleeping in a bit (didn't sleep too well the night before) and was so sore from my practice yesterday that I decided to just do some pranayama, meditate and chant the Japji and forgo my asana practice until later in the day, maybe before I teach the primary series this afternoon.

So I'm going to go visit my friend in Collinsville for brunch after I go to Starbucks, and enjoy not doing much this morning, which is a rare occurrence.

This Friday is December 21, 2012, the last day on the Mayan calendar and according to astrological terms the beginning, in full, of the Age of Aquarius. Sounds like a big deal huh? I guess it probably is, the energy shifts are palpable these days and seem to be making some people crazy. Especially those who don't practice any yoga or anything strengthening their consciousness, because that helps to integrate all the energy flowing around lately. More and more are waking up and becoming fully involved in life, theirs and others.

But in the teachings of the Law of Attraction as brought through Abraham, the fact that everyone believes something is happening is bringing it forth, and so its self perpetuating? I don't know. I do know that I can feel something going on and more and more people coming to classes and more and more people asking advice on many aspects of life and actually following it, then there are those that are asking and not following it and creating a whole big mess for themselves lol. But thats on them, its time for folks to be taking resposibility for their own actions, happiness and living more consciously, its also time for those of us who are to be compassionate towards those who are trying.

This is my biggest lesson, compassion. I always have been the guy who was like, thats your fault its like that, you made the decisions to lead you that way, but thats not how I'm working to be nowadays. Some people just havent built up the inner strength that I have and need that support system, and I'm making a concerted effort to be that when needed. As much as I can, I am still a work in progress.

This is why my practice is so important to me, and why I make such an effort at disciplining myself to keep up with my practice. Ashtanga most days and kundalini here and there, meditation, pranayama, all of these things. Or rather all of the things that I've discovered, through practicing them, help me in the pursuit of inner happiness and strength. It seems to be working and now is a bit easier, most days. Now that my vata is more balanced I also find that it keeps the focus harder to maintain as well, so being pitta/kapha before was a blessing in disguise, but I do like having more energy from the vata balance, its nice to not be so lethargic.

Harmony Lichty, an authorized Ashtanga teacher from Canada is now in Mysore studying with Sharath and I would love to be there (many of you know that I was trying for a trip in February, that is not happening, thats for another blog, but maybe next fall with my friend Seabrook), but she posted notes from Sundays conference with him and I love reading them because I get inspired in my practice, here is a link to it and if it doesn't work just copy and paste it, http://www.livingbreathingyoga.blogspot.com/.

The problem with being in love with this practice is that there just isn't a community here for it. I have built a small following of folks who come to classes but no one who wants to practice on their own, other than Seabrook, and so knows what that entails and the trials and tribulations of it. That is the biggest reason I want to go to Mysore to study, for the community of it and the immersion in all aspects of the practice, throughout the whole day, not just your time on the mat.

Oh well, it will happen, and sooner rather than later, but I can't lament about it anymore now. I'm happy and want to stay that way today! lol

So the holidays are upon us, all of you enjoy them and be wondeful and peaceful with one another during them, and note the studios schedule changes due to them. One of them being me teaching a big 2 hour Ashtanga led primary series class ending with pranayama on New Years Day, and the 30 day challenge at Yogasource for January.

I wish you all well during this time of change and tradition, much love!