Ice storm last night, very peaceful, but of course one must scrape the hell out of the car to get it in a shape to see out the windows first, then its peaceful, driving with not many on the road.
I have a little sacrum issue going on, so I did a kriya with my roommie this morning that was for nerve, navel and lower spine strength and it seemed to work wonders. My class at Yogasource was canceled because the room was being repaired, so I went to Starbucks, got my chai, read a bit, talked with this guy who is a nurse but is always asking me tons of questions when we're both in there, today it was about my book, Meditation as Medicine. Interesting talks with him, even though he talks a bit too much ! lol, And this other guy, Jerry. Nice guy, tall, gay with two kids, hairdresser, but you'd never peg him as one. Looks Bosnian but has no accent. (For those not in the area, there are many immigrant Bosnians here, we lobbied for them to come here during the Bosnia/Herzegovena (sp?) war).
Then drove to the Loop to meet Lynn for lunch at a great Persian restaurant that I love, Ranoush. As I'm driving down Lindell, I notice the peace I feel, and then I look around and notice that everything looks different to me. Not sure in what way, just different. Brighter maybe, clearer maybe. With that lower but constant vibration that is so prevelant in winter. Hmmm. We talk about energy, she's ready a book called the Subtle Body, all about the energy channels and compiles it from every system of energy clearing on the planet, very nice. I'll have to get it. Very lovely being, love her, and a very lovely conversation.
Still I'm noticing all this peace around everything around me and within me. Peace. NO turmoil, none. Just feeling the flow within and without, if there is a without. Feeling the love from each being, including myself. Not overwhelmingly, like I guess I keep thinking I'm supposed to be, but just constant, a flow of it in, around and about.
Its nice. I like it. I think I'll try to maintain this, or rather allow it to maintain itself, trying hasn't been working for me, allowing is the key. Allow myself to feel whatever comes up and be okay with it, maybe thats the key to peace? Allowance? Interesting thought . . .
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Holidays
So, how do we all feel about these holidays? Holiday being a run-together of the two words holy and days right? So what is so holy about these days anymore?
It seems to be the focus that everyone has to get something for someone else instead of the focus on the meaning behind the holiday and the connection to the divine within you and the connection between that expression of divinity and the expressions within your physical family and spritual family have gotten all switched around. Did I type that out right? Oh who cares, I think you get the drift.
I love my family, blood family that is, but they like to buy things for you and thats how they express their appreciation for you over this particular Christian holiday anyway, and I don't care about that stuff. Just love me unconditionally and I will do the same for you and we'll all be fine.
I also have family that is not blood, my friends who I have chosen to have in my life, my spiritual family through my yoga, kundalini or hatha, my Sikh family which is growing by leaps and bounds. They are just as important to me. I also must say, I spent the first 40 years with the blood family, so why am I made to feel bad that I prefer my chosen, spiritual family to be around these days? They fulfill me in many ways, mostly because they recognize the spirit in themselves and want to share that with me, and at the same time I'm working my best to connect with the spirit within me and share that with them as well.
I am also working on sharing that spirit unconditionally with everyone else as well, its just easier with them because the dialog is already there, no explanations needed, which is nice. Well, better than that, its awesome.
The teachings of Yogi Bhajan I'm learning on these teacher training trips is bringing up a lot of my old shit that was buried long ago, and helping me to transmute the energy that went into holding it down, into a flow of energy through my being, through my life even, making me a better friend to everyone in my life. I'm super appreciative of that, even if it gets tiring to be doing the work all the time, at least now I see some change, some growth, and am reinspired to keep it going. They work, they are weird sometimes, sometimes tiring, sometimes not. SOmetimes they make utmost sense while they are being used, sometimes the meaning is illusive, but the end result always comes together and I can say I fell better than I felt before having done it.
I also am seeing it help others as I begin to teach it more and more. I also am seeing now why its not so popular here in St Louis, because it does dredge up your shit. Most have buried that stuff and do not want to see it again, but that is like having a wound and covering it over with a bandaid and then the skin growing over the bandaid. Its still there and always will be, even if only on a cellular level, your body holds onto those old stories or old abuses or self judgments deep in the subconscious. Why would you NOT want to dig down and roto root that stuff out, get a new start by allowing the energy around that issue to flow, rather than fester and stagnate, and allow that thing to leave you, mentally and physically? Why not? Somebody tell me, I'm really asking you!
So, my work is to be excited enough to inspire others to try it and not to judge them if they don't want to, but to just be the brightest light I can at all times and lead by example. Be the lighthouse my friend named his book, and so I shall do my best to be!
Sat nam all, enjoy this internalized time with yourself and your loved ones and even those you may not love so much, find the divine within them especially and be kind and peaceful in that face of any drama that comes up. No judgment of yourself or others! Sat Siri Akal!!!
Sat Inder S. Khalsa
It seems to be the focus that everyone has to get something for someone else instead of the focus on the meaning behind the holiday and the connection to the divine within you and the connection between that expression of divinity and the expressions within your physical family and spritual family have gotten all switched around. Did I type that out right? Oh who cares, I think you get the drift.
I love my family, blood family that is, but they like to buy things for you and thats how they express their appreciation for you over this particular Christian holiday anyway, and I don't care about that stuff. Just love me unconditionally and I will do the same for you and we'll all be fine.
I also have family that is not blood, my friends who I have chosen to have in my life, my spiritual family through my yoga, kundalini or hatha, my Sikh family which is growing by leaps and bounds. They are just as important to me. I also must say, I spent the first 40 years with the blood family, so why am I made to feel bad that I prefer my chosen, spiritual family to be around these days? They fulfill me in many ways, mostly because they recognize the spirit in themselves and want to share that with me, and at the same time I'm working my best to connect with the spirit within me and share that with them as well.
I am also working on sharing that spirit unconditionally with everyone else as well, its just easier with them because the dialog is already there, no explanations needed, which is nice. Well, better than that, its awesome.
The teachings of Yogi Bhajan I'm learning on these teacher training trips is bringing up a lot of my old shit that was buried long ago, and helping me to transmute the energy that went into holding it down, into a flow of energy through my being, through my life even, making me a better friend to everyone in my life. I'm super appreciative of that, even if it gets tiring to be doing the work all the time, at least now I see some change, some growth, and am reinspired to keep it going. They work, they are weird sometimes, sometimes tiring, sometimes not. SOmetimes they make utmost sense while they are being used, sometimes the meaning is illusive, but the end result always comes together and I can say I fell better than I felt before having done it.
I also am seeing it help others as I begin to teach it more and more. I also am seeing now why its not so popular here in St Louis, because it does dredge up your shit. Most have buried that stuff and do not want to see it again, but that is like having a wound and covering it over with a bandaid and then the skin growing over the bandaid. Its still there and always will be, even if only on a cellular level, your body holds onto those old stories or old abuses or self judgments deep in the subconscious. Why would you NOT want to dig down and roto root that stuff out, get a new start by allowing the energy around that issue to flow, rather than fester and stagnate, and allow that thing to leave you, mentally and physically? Why not? Somebody tell me, I'm really asking you!
So, my work is to be excited enough to inspire others to try it and not to judge them if they don't want to, but to just be the brightest light I can at all times and lead by example. Be the lighthouse my friend named his book, and so I shall do my best to be!
Sat nam all, enjoy this internalized time with yourself and your loved ones and even those you may not love so much, find the divine within them especially and be kind and peaceful in that face of any drama that comes up. No judgment of yourself or others! Sat Siri Akal!!!
Sat Inder S. Khalsa
Monday, November 29, 2010
Dr. Hari Simran S. Khalsa
So, going into this weekend of teacher training in KC we all were nervous, having heard all these stories about the "advanced" Sunday class from last year given by the aforementioned being.
Friday night we come to class to be greeted by a very jovial (reminds me a bit of the way Santa Claus is portrayed) and radiant individual who not only began to put us through our paces with a great kriya, but also informed us of everything that kriya had just done for us, physically and energetically, and I decided I liked him.
The next day we went through more anatomy, physical and yogic (ie chakras and such) and the sat kriya workout, which is one of my favorites, and sat nam rasayan, which is another of my favorites. Another great day, then Sunday, the dreaded "advanced/intermediate" kundalini yoga workshop.
Now, if you ever been through a white tantric day you've basically been through this. We moved so much energy and opened up our bodies so much physically, through not so physical a means, that I even had a "coming down from it" energy hangover when I got home last night.
It was quite awesome, but not only was the work awesome, his delivery of the work prompted me to be more excited about this yoga and bringing to others. He also informed us of everything that we were doing. Pituitary gland, then a series that elaborated on that. Kidneys, then a set for it. All sorts of meditations, eye positions, telling us how the eye position is so important as the optic nerve moves the pituitary gland and makes it secrete or affects its nervous system. And yes the pituitary is a gland as well as a nerve cluster.
I learned so much that I don't even know what to do with it all, until I subbed today at least, a hatha yoga class and then I was informing them of these things which is awesome!
Check him out at www.dryogi.com. He's an interesting guy, a loveable guy and a strong yogi. Love him!
Sat nam
Friday night we come to class to be greeted by a very jovial (reminds me a bit of the way Santa Claus is portrayed) and radiant individual who not only began to put us through our paces with a great kriya, but also informed us of everything that kriya had just done for us, physically and energetically, and I decided I liked him.
The next day we went through more anatomy, physical and yogic (ie chakras and such) and the sat kriya workout, which is one of my favorites, and sat nam rasayan, which is another of my favorites. Another great day, then Sunday, the dreaded "advanced/intermediate" kundalini yoga workshop.
Now, if you ever been through a white tantric day you've basically been through this. We moved so much energy and opened up our bodies so much physically, through not so physical a means, that I even had a "coming down from it" energy hangover when I got home last night.
It was quite awesome, but not only was the work awesome, his delivery of the work prompted me to be more excited about this yoga and bringing to others. He also informed us of everything that we were doing. Pituitary gland, then a series that elaborated on that. Kidneys, then a set for it. All sorts of meditations, eye positions, telling us how the eye position is so important as the optic nerve moves the pituitary gland and makes it secrete or affects its nervous system. And yes the pituitary is a gland as well as a nerve cluster.
I learned so much that I don't even know what to do with it all, until I subbed today at least, a hatha yoga class and then I was informing them of these things which is awesome!
Check him out at www.dryogi.com. He's an interesting guy, a loveable guy and a strong yogi. Love him!
Sat nam
Saturday, November 6, 2010
A blog from my teacher
Here is a blog from one of the teachers training me to become a kundalini yoga instructor. There are the 12 values in the Native American system of spirituality, before Columbus came and fucked up their lives obviously, and then this his expansion on them from the Sikhi point of view. I had to steal it because I love it so much.
Traditional Indian Code of Ethics
1. Give thanks to the Creator each morning upon rising and each evening before sleeping. Seek courage to become a better person.-- If we do not remember our Creator each and every day we are in danger of losing that innocence and sense of grandeur which defines us as humans. In trusting “God” by whatever name, image, intention or concept you please, we elevate ourselves to a place closer to our origins. When we are intent upon becoming a better person we are also seeking to strengthen that connection to the Creator. Our sense of self relies upon improvement -- how sad would be the day when we acknowledge that we care not to uplift ourselves or others.
2. Showing respect is a basic law of life.--- Aside from the obvious that we should treat others as we wish to be treated is the simple valuing of a life so we might really know our own value. Viewing another person as less (or even more) valuable than ourselves says that we truly believe this world to be a crapshoot dependent only on luck or misfortune as determining factors in how treat ourselves or another. We might well then spill a drop of water or, in some careless way blood and cause the death of another. We cannot sayit doesn’t matter, when it really does!
3. Respect the wisdom of people in council. Once you give an idea it no longer belongs to you. ---We must really LISTEN to others if we wish to be listened to. How often have you found yourself preparing a counter argument as another person was still talking? If we have gathered to discuss, then first we should listen, really hear and ultimately understand what another is putting forth. If you do not respect the speaker, then either he or she or you should not have come to the meeting or council. Since you usually have little or no control over who is invited or who rises to speak, then most likely you should content yourself with hearing, digesting and truly understanding. And once you do thoughtfully speak, trust your listeners to listen as you have done and not worry about whether you were heard properly and whether your words were given their proper weight. Know that your efforts and intentions will be rewarded with the same grace and gravity that you have put into them and the same gravity and grace you have offered--no more and no less.
4. Be truthful at all times.--- What other aim can you possibly live with than the truth. “The truth is high,” the Sikh’s first guru, Guru Nanak said, “but higher still is truthful living.” We all know the truth if we have thought at all about it, but to live that truth is the most difficult and perhaps cumbersome obligation. Nothing is easier than looking away from the unfortunate or importuning. Nothing is harder than seeing and doing. It takes a special and honestly heart-full person to see and act according to our highest nature. It is inconvenient, expensive, gut tightening and often knee weakening. Can we do it? Of course we can. Should we? Again, of course. But will we?
5. Always treat your guests with honor and consideration. Give your best food and comforts to your guests. ---We do no honor to those who come to us if we hand them a thin blanket, a cleared out space in a corner to those who come to us for whatever reason. Are leftovers and scraps what you would serve an honored guest? Of course not. Treat every guest as honored for every guest is an opportunity to exalt those who come to visit for whatever reason. And for that, the opportunity to exalt, is why they come to us. And our efforts do not go unrewarded ... or punished if they fail.
6. The hurt of one is the hurt of all. The honor of one is the honor of all. ---How are we unconnected to each other? How do we not know that the common link of humanity runs through the entire chain of living human beings with no break anywhere unless it is snapped though our own carelessness, prejudice, disdain, hatred, feelings of superiority or inferiority or simple ignorance. How can we not want to know and understand the grace and strength and beauty of our fellow beings? If we do not care then we do not rise to the occasion of our own divinity, morality and charity that is our inborn heritage.
7. Receive strangers and outsiders kindly.--- A new person, a stranger, one who is not like us is no danger until their actions so determine them. Until then, they are opportunities to learn and understand. They are new knowledge to integrate and new behaviors to regard in wonder and resonance. How often has history taught us that unmindful actions have destroyed all the potential of beneficial actions because we only regarded another through the lens of misunderstanding?
8. All races are the children of the Creator and must be respected.--- To disrespect is to mistreat. There may indeed be people in the world who are dangerous and full of hatred. It is our task to clearly see and make provision for our own safety and the safety of others in their presence. Yes we need police and we need a defense but where and what is the sense in aggressive actions in order to change others. The senselessness of terrorism is obvious to all but those who propagate it. But what are the issues which have birthed the terrorist? Have we calmly assessed and made even the slightest effort towards solutions? The situations into which people have been driven are what we need to address. If all we do is react then we are not seeking solutions but merely readying ourselves to respond. That is not respect, it is wariness and paranoia.
9. To serve others, to be of some use to family, community, or nation is one of the main purposes for which people are created. True happiness comes to those who dedicate (decorate) their lives to the service of others. ---There are many opportunities for happiness. Some quite rewarding, others merely selfish. Happiness is really complete when it is shared with others. The happiness we hold to ourselves is usually fleeting, temporary. Who loves us more than our families? Who depends on us more than the community in which we live? Who offers us more than our nation? When we serve in an unselfish and honestly open manner our service multiplies. It touches many and improves their lot. Whether it is a close relative or a stranger who never sees your face service always blesses the world.
10. Observe moderation and balance in all things. ---Watching athletes perform incredible feats may indeed be exciting, but for 99.99 % of the rest of us watching is scary enough. For the most part, to seek balance in our pursuits, appetites and passions is probably the most rewarding. The wages, not of sin, but of “passionate” pursuits are usually a fall, the greater the aspiration the more cataclysmic the failure. We must really enjoy those things we do, whether it is in a career, a marriage, a hobby or a spiritual practice. Is there a job for everyone that will make us a millionaire? No. Is there a soul mate out there who is perfectly complementary to us? Probably not. Instead we should pursue a central way that neither impinges on the well being of others nor curbs our own best inclinations. A Native American Medicine Man I once knew advised nothing more than that we should “Walk in balance upon the Earth Mother.”
11. Know those things that lead to your well being and those things that lead to your destruction. ---How often have we “enjoyed” some experience or pleasure or diversion one day only to deeply regret it the next because of a hangover or misspoken word or misplaced trust? Very few are those events in our lives which we cannot with some forethought avoid. We do actually control our environments. We can avoid those people and places and things which inevitably lead to trouble or pain or unhappiness. There is little wisdom in not looking directly into a noon time Sun. We just do not do it without the expectation that our vision will be distorted at least temporarily. How reflexive though is the inclination to not eat that rich dessert after a gourmet meal? Usually, the gluttony ball is already rolling and it takes some determination to pass on it. That is wisdom, the alternative self satisfying foolishness. We should live our lives in awareness -- awareness of those people and things around us which can cause good or ill.
12. Listen and follow the guidance given to your heart. Expect guidance to come in many forms; in prayer, in dreams, in solitude and in the words and actions of elders and friends. --- Our hearts are the figurative centers of our well being. Things you “know in your heart” are those things you trust and believe in. To live in one’s heart means to live and love openly. It also means to be aware of those things which are dissonant with our hearts. Things that we know without having learned them from a book or a teacher. This is our intuition, our inner voice, our dream. This intuitive inner voice can lead us in many positive directions when not clouded with emotional desires or hungers. The intuitive voice is the result of listening to others, our elders and friends who have life experiences we do not. It is also the result of our quiet and meditative moments when we listen, not question or wonder, but just to listen.
Sat Nam, Sat Inder Singh
Traditional Indian Code of Ethics
1. Give thanks to the Creator each morning upon rising and each evening before sleeping. Seek courage to become a better person.-- If we do not remember our Creator each and every day we are in danger of losing that innocence and sense of grandeur which defines us as humans. In trusting “God” by whatever name, image, intention or concept you please, we elevate ourselves to a place closer to our origins. When we are intent upon becoming a better person we are also seeking to strengthen that connection to the Creator. Our sense of self relies upon improvement -- how sad would be the day when we acknowledge that we care not to uplift ourselves or others.
2. Showing respect is a basic law of life.--- Aside from the obvious that we should treat others as we wish to be treated is the simple valuing of a life so we might really know our own value. Viewing another person as less (or even more) valuable than ourselves says that we truly believe this world to be a crapshoot dependent only on luck or misfortune as determining factors in how treat ourselves or another. We might well then spill a drop of water or, in some careless way blood and cause the death of another. We cannot sayit doesn’t matter, when it really does!
3. Respect the wisdom of people in council. Once you give an idea it no longer belongs to you. ---We must really LISTEN to others if we wish to be listened to. How often have you found yourself preparing a counter argument as another person was still talking? If we have gathered to discuss, then first we should listen, really hear and ultimately understand what another is putting forth. If you do not respect the speaker, then either he or she or you should not have come to the meeting or council. Since you usually have little or no control over who is invited or who rises to speak, then most likely you should content yourself with hearing, digesting and truly understanding. And once you do thoughtfully speak, trust your listeners to listen as you have done and not worry about whether you were heard properly and whether your words were given their proper weight. Know that your efforts and intentions will be rewarded with the same grace and gravity that you have put into them and the same gravity and grace you have offered--no more and no less.
4. Be truthful at all times.--- What other aim can you possibly live with than the truth. “The truth is high,” the Sikh’s first guru, Guru Nanak said, “but higher still is truthful living.” We all know the truth if we have thought at all about it, but to live that truth is the most difficult and perhaps cumbersome obligation. Nothing is easier than looking away from the unfortunate or importuning. Nothing is harder than seeing and doing. It takes a special and honestly heart-full person to see and act according to our highest nature. It is inconvenient, expensive, gut tightening and often knee weakening. Can we do it? Of course we can. Should we? Again, of course. But will we?
5. Always treat your guests with honor and consideration. Give your best food and comforts to your guests. ---We do no honor to those who come to us if we hand them a thin blanket, a cleared out space in a corner to those who come to us for whatever reason. Are leftovers and scraps what you would serve an honored guest? Of course not. Treat every guest as honored for every guest is an opportunity to exalt those who come to visit for whatever reason. And for that, the opportunity to exalt, is why they come to us. And our efforts do not go unrewarded ... or punished if they fail.
6. The hurt of one is the hurt of all. The honor of one is the honor of all. ---How are we unconnected to each other? How do we not know that the common link of humanity runs through the entire chain of living human beings with no break anywhere unless it is snapped though our own carelessness, prejudice, disdain, hatred, feelings of superiority or inferiority or simple ignorance. How can we not want to know and understand the grace and strength and beauty of our fellow beings? If we do not care then we do not rise to the occasion of our own divinity, morality and charity that is our inborn heritage.
7. Receive strangers and outsiders kindly.--- A new person, a stranger, one who is not like us is no danger until their actions so determine them. Until then, they are opportunities to learn and understand. They are new knowledge to integrate and new behaviors to regard in wonder and resonance. How often has history taught us that unmindful actions have destroyed all the potential of beneficial actions because we only regarded another through the lens of misunderstanding?
8. All races are the children of the Creator and must be respected.--- To disrespect is to mistreat. There may indeed be people in the world who are dangerous and full of hatred. It is our task to clearly see and make provision for our own safety and the safety of others in their presence. Yes we need police and we need a defense but where and what is the sense in aggressive actions in order to change others. The senselessness of terrorism is obvious to all but those who propagate it. But what are the issues which have birthed the terrorist? Have we calmly assessed and made even the slightest effort towards solutions? The situations into which people have been driven are what we need to address. If all we do is react then we are not seeking solutions but merely readying ourselves to respond. That is not respect, it is wariness and paranoia.
9. To serve others, to be of some use to family, community, or nation is one of the main purposes for which people are created. True happiness comes to those who dedicate (decorate) their lives to the service of others. ---There are many opportunities for happiness. Some quite rewarding, others merely selfish. Happiness is really complete when it is shared with others. The happiness we hold to ourselves is usually fleeting, temporary. Who loves us more than our families? Who depends on us more than the community in which we live? Who offers us more than our nation? When we serve in an unselfish and honestly open manner our service multiplies. It touches many and improves their lot. Whether it is a close relative or a stranger who never sees your face service always blesses the world.
10. Observe moderation and balance in all things. ---Watching athletes perform incredible feats may indeed be exciting, but for 99.99 % of the rest of us watching is scary enough. For the most part, to seek balance in our pursuits, appetites and passions is probably the most rewarding. The wages, not of sin, but of “passionate” pursuits are usually a fall, the greater the aspiration the more cataclysmic the failure. We must really enjoy those things we do, whether it is in a career, a marriage, a hobby or a spiritual practice. Is there a job for everyone that will make us a millionaire? No. Is there a soul mate out there who is perfectly complementary to us? Probably not. Instead we should pursue a central way that neither impinges on the well being of others nor curbs our own best inclinations. A Native American Medicine Man I once knew advised nothing more than that we should “Walk in balance upon the Earth Mother.”
11. Know those things that lead to your well being and those things that lead to your destruction. ---How often have we “enjoyed” some experience or pleasure or diversion one day only to deeply regret it the next because of a hangover or misspoken word or misplaced trust? Very few are those events in our lives which we cannot with some forethought avoid. We do actually control our environments. We can avoid those people and places and things which inevitably lead to trouble or pain or unhappiness. There is little wisdom in not looking directly into a noon time Sun. We just do not do it without the expectation that our vision will be distorted at least temporarily. How reflexive though is the inclination to not eat that rich dessert after a gourmet meal? Usually, the gluttony ball is already rolling and it takes some determination to pass on it. That is wisdom, the alternative self satisfying foolishness. We should live our lives in awareness -- awareness of those people and things around us which can cause good or ill.
12. Listen and follow the guidance given to your heart. Expect guidance to come in many forms; in prayer, in dreams, in solitude and in the words and actions of elders and friends. --- Our hearts are the figurative centers of our well being. Things you “know in your heart” are those things you trust and believe in. To live in one’s heart means to live and love openly. It also means to be aware of those things which are dissonant with our hearts. Things that we know without having learned them from a book or a teacher. This is our intuition, our inner voice, our dream. This intuitive inner voice can lead us in many positive directions when not clouded with emotional desires or hungers. The intuitive voice is the result of listening to others, our elders and friends who have life experiences we do not. It is also the result of our quiet and meditative moments when we listen, not question or wonder, but just to listen.
Sat Nam, Sat Inder Singh
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Today
So, the process of this teacher training is unfolding me and myself to myself in ways I never thought possible, ways that are not so lovey dovey and feeling good to me, but things that I've waited a few days on and have figured out they are for the best.
First off I had a little rendevous with someone who at one point last year I thought I was in love with, willingly on both parts and it was very nice, but very surprising. I don't want to go any further on that one! lol Then I went to the ashram early to spend extra time there, read from the Siri Guru Granth Sahib some and do some karma yoga, which I did and it felt great to be there for a longer time than normal and to enjoy the space and the company of a couple of great folks, who just happen to be Sikhs. I also stayed until Monday morning before leaving, but Sunday night I thought of my ex. My ex whom I lived with for almost 2 years from 1999 til 2001 and ever since we've had a friendship, relationship, even occasional romps in the hay. All without attachment. Then I quit hearing from him about last fall, just around the same time I was thinking of making my Sikh path known and official by growing out my hair and taking my spiritual name as my own, etc. About 2 months ago I got an email from him stating he was changing his email address and letting me know. So I responded and was surprised when he reacted so strongly to my name change and faith change and we had a few discussions about it, only by text, he wouldn't talk to me because it disturbed him so much. So anyway, I texted him Sunday night only to have him make some ignorant comments and we went back and forth to the point where I realized I needed to let him go. So I did and told him so and he just said enjoy your peaceful life.
So, it was hard having to deal with that, but I was able to use my sadhana the next morning to really work through the letting go process and felt better. Now today I went and say Life As We Know It and it made me think of him again, I guess because the two main characters relationship reminded me so much of his and mine. I was very sad after watching the movie and came home to do my Brain Doctor kriya, which did make me feel better, but I'm still feeling introspective about it.
I don't really have any wonderful insights or other things to share, just putting it down so its out of my head for now. I'm off to eat dinner, talk to you again soon. Sat Nam
First off I had a little rendevous with someone who at one point last year I thought I was in love with, willingly on both parts and it was very nice, but very surprising. I don't want to go any further on that one! lol Then I went to the ashram early to spend extra time there, read from the Siri Guru Granth Sahib some and do some karma yoga, which I did and it felt great to be there for a longer time than normal and to enjoy the space and the company of a couple of great folks, who just happen to be Sikhs. I also stayed until Monday morning before leaving, but Sunday night I thought of my ex. My ex whom I lived with for almost 2 years from 1999 til 2001 and ever since we've had a friendship, relationship, even occasional romps in the hay. All without attachment. Then I quit hearing from him about last fall, just around the same time I was thinking of making my Sikh path known and official by growing out my hair and taking my spiritual name as my own, etc. About 2 months ago I got an email from him stating he was changing his email address and letting me know. So I responded and was surprised when he reacted so strongly to my name change and faith change and we had a few discussions about it, only by text, he wouldn't talk to me because it disturbed him so much. So anyway, I texted him Sunday night only to have him make some ignorant comments and we went back and forth to the point where I realized I needed to let him go. So I did and told him so and he just said enjoy your peaceful life.
So, it was hard having to deal with that, but I was able to use my sadhana the next morning to really work through the letting go process and felt better. Now today I went and say Life As We Know It and it made me think of him again, I guess because the two main characters relationship reminded me so much of his and mine. I was very sad after watching the movie and came home to do my Brain Doctor kriya, which did make me feel better, but I'm still feeling introspective about it.
I don't really have any wonderful insights or other things to share, just putting it down so its out of my head for now. I'm off to eat dinner, talk to you again soon. Sat Nam
Friday, October 22, 2010
Rottenness
I don't know if thats how you spell that word, don't even know if its a "proper" English word, but thats okay.
I think I may still have a lot of rottenness to work through, and in my feeling so wonderful through all these practices and through this teacher training, its fighting its way out.
I'm saying things and doing things that are normal and feel as if I'm doing them in an appropriate way and yet everyone is getting pissed at me! lol, I know that weeding through the riff-raff is part of the process, it happened when I first started yoga many moons ago and has happened again and again, but now with the kundalini yoga training its happening again! I am seeing those things that are in me made manifest in others. I know that goes with the mirror theory, that everyone is a mirror of you and reflects back only those things within yourself you need to make a shift on, in judgment or thinking usually, not necessarily in action. I also know Yogi Bhajan always said that you will be ridiculed, treated badly and made fun of, amongst other things, when you chose this path but it helps you clear that stuff out and helps those you teach it to clear their stuff out. THat is why you're doing it, not for the non-believers, they will always be there.
I of course put that into my own words, not quoting him directly. That is the way I read the statement. So maybe that is whats happening? I'm weeding out the riff-raff, those who don't serve my path are falling away, via my pissing them off? I'm also creating stronger bonds with many folks through trial and error with my behaviour.
How do all those Sikhs make it look so easy to be so knowledgeable, kind, loving, open and forthright? Many of them have been doing it for a longer, much longer, time than me so they've had more practice? I don't know.
Oddly enough, its not distressing me. Every morning when I do my 40 day kriya, The Brain Doctor, I'm feeling better and better. Not necessarily like a million bucks, but a little better, and more conscious, more aware of things as they are happening rather than noticing whats happened two days later or something.
This process is not new for me, I've been working on it for 10+ years now, but with the teacher training, the white tantric yoga courses, the solstice celebrations, the many upon many 40 day meditations, the almost daily sadhana and kriya practices its become exponentially quickened, this process, and I've noticed it. The hatha path took its time, this leaves no time, so you either have to embrace the letting go of all the things that are coming up so quickly or you tighten a hold on things that no longer serve you, clean house so to speak. Mental House!
Its all good and I love it and can tell its taking me to better and better places, deeper and deeper things and more intense personal relationships. I signed up, so am along for the ride! Sat Nam
I think I may still have a lot of rottenness to work through, and in my feeling so wonderful through all these practices and through this teacher training, its fighting its way out.
I'm saying things and doing things that are normal and feel as if I'm doing them in an appropriate way and yet everyone is getting pissed at me! lol, I know that weeding through the riff-raff is part of the process, it happened when I first started yoga many moons ago and has happened again and again, but now with the kundalini yoga training its happening again! I am seeing those things that are in me made manifest in others. I know that goes with the mirror theory, that everyone is a mirror of you and reflects back only those things within yourself you need to make a shift on, in judgment or thinking usually, not necessarily in action. I also know Yogi Bhajan always said that you will be ridiculed, treated badly and made fun of, amongst other things, when you chose this path but it helps you clear that stuff out and helps those you teach it to clear their stuff out. THat is why you're doing it, not for the non-believers, they will always be there.
I of course put that into my own words, not quoting him directly. That is the way I read the statement. So maybe that is whats happening? I'm weeding out the riff-raff, those who don't serve my path are falling away, via my pissing them off? I'm also creating stronger bonds with many folks through trial and error with my behaviour.
How do all those Sikhs make it look so easy to be so knowledgeable, kind, loving, open and forthright? Many of them have been doing it for a longer, much longer, time than me so they've had more practice? I don't know.
Oddly enough, its not distressing me. Every morning when I do my 40 day kriya, The Brain Doctor, I'm feeling better and better. Not necessarily like a million bucks, but a little better, and more conscious, more aware of things as they are happening rather than noticing whats happened two days later or something.
This process is not new for me, I've been working on it for 10+ years now, but with the teacher training, the white tantric yoga courses, the solstice celebrations, the many upon many 40 day meditations, the almost daily sadhana and kriya practices its become exponentially quickened, this process, and I've noticed it. The hatha path took its time, this leaves no time, so you either have to embrace the letting go of all the things that are coming up so quickly or you tighten a hold on things that no longer serve you, clean house so to speak. Mental House!
Its all good and I love it and can tell its taking me to better and better places, deeper and deeper things and more intense personal relationships. I signed up, so am along for the ride! Sat Nam
Monday, October 18, 2010
Teacher Training, weekend 3
So, we're supposed to pick a 40 day practice and journal about it.
After the 2nd weekend I had some old patterns of thought come out, quite a bit, and found a kriya in the level 2 book, Transformation, called the Brain Doctor. Its a crazy bunch of exercises, that leaves me feeling awesome and has helped balance out any stuff I feel coming up, seems to regulate me so I can think about it and let it go, before acting on it! lol
Last week before I found it, I was having lots of mental crap go on that I took out on a couple people, and it felt really bad after the fact. Even after finding it on Friday I had a whole full of ugliness in my thoughts and was even an hour late to teacher training because of what I allowed to happen due to the thinking patterns I found last week.
What I discovered when I got there was that I felt disconnected from the group because they had already started the checking in process, but found that when I woke up the next morning, I felt connected and peaceful and amazing. Just being in the ashram does that for me though, its such a supportive, loving place.
So I skipped part of sadhana to get my 40 day kriya completed and then joined them for most of the chanting and gurdwara and breakfast. It ended up being an awesome day, that made me realize I have these people for a suppport system, we're all going through it together and can talk to one another and share and become closer and closer.
I love the group of folks that I'm going thru this with, they are a great bunch of people, full of diversity, peace and love. We're all different and yet finding ourselves so much the same as we all have stuff pulled out of us and have to deal with it.
I find that this is going to be one of the biggest things in my life and as I'm living the teachings I see changes in the people around me, or rather maybe I am seeing them through new eyes?
A Facebook friend who is also a Sikh just reminded me that the Siri Guru Granth Sahib states over and over again how we are all divine, or god if you like. He was saying it in support to me being the only out and proud Sikh he knows, but I'm saying in support of everyone around me, including myself.
We're all divine. Yogi Bhajan said in a lecture I just watched last night, there is no god, we are god. Everyone and everything is god. Wow, I know this, I actually do know this and it seems to be time I started living as if I know it. And so, off into my day to express my life looking at everyone as god, that same god that lives in me, in you, and in everyone.
This is the time and we are the ones we've been waiting for!
After the 2nd weekend I had some old patterns of thought come out, quite a bit, and found a kriya in the level 2 book, Transformation, called the Brain Doctor. Its a crazy bunch of exercises, that leaves me feeling awesome and has helped balance out any stuff I feel coming up, seems to regulate me so I can think about it and let it go, before acting on it! lol
Last week before I found it, I was having lots of mental crap go on that I took out on a couple people, and it felt really bad after the fact. Even after finding it on Friday I had a whole full of ugliness in my thoughts and was even an hour late to teacher training because of what I allowed to happen due to the thinking patterns I found last week.
What I discovered when I got there was that I felt disconnected from the group because they had already started the checking in process, but found that when I woke up the next morning, I felt connected and peaceful and amazing. Just being in the ashram does that for me though, its such a supportive, loving place.
So I skipped part of sadhana to get my 40 day kriya completed and then joined them for most of the chanting and gurdwara and breakfast. It ended up being an awesome day, that made me realize I have these people for a suppport system, we're all going through it together and can talk to one another and share and become closer and closer.
I love the group of folks that I'm going thru this with, they are a great bunch of people, full of diversity, peace and love. We're all different and yet finding ourselves so much the same as we all have stuff pulled out of us and have to deal with it.
I find that this is going to be one of the biggest things in my life and as I'm living the teachings I see changes in the people around me, or rather maybe I am seeing them through new eyes?
A Facebook friend who is also a Sikh just reminded me that the Siri Guru Granth Sahib states over and over again how we are all divine, or god if you like. He was saying it in support to me being the only out and proud Sikh he knows, but I'm saying in support of everyone around me, including myself.
We're all divine. Yogi Bhajan said in a lecture I just watched last night, there is no god, we are god. Everyone and everything is god. Wow, I know this, I actually do know this and it seems to be time I started living as if I know it. And so, off into my day to express my life looking at everyone as god, that same god that lives in me, in you, and in everyone.
This is the time and we are the ones we've been waiting for!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Teacher Training
So, I'm back from my second weekend of training in Kansas City, to become a kundalini yoga teacher. Its awesome!
The first weekend was overstimulating and I left feeling like I'd taken on too much but this weekend was just amazing and I love all the people in the class and especially the teachers.
Karta Purkh and Sat Inder (yes, she and I have the same name!) are two very humble, lovely and just plain awesome beings to have as teachers and I love staying at the ashram with them, I almost feel like I could move there! lol
The training is very different than I had anticipated, they're making us do the work! lol. Example, last week Karta Purkh gave us each a pranayama technique to learn and study and then teach it to the whole class on Saturday. Rather than them teaching us, they are having us do the work and then when it comes to sharing it with others, its easy because you own the experience of having learned it, practiced it and then taught it already.
I just love it. I guess I was thinking they would be sitting up there telling us things, rather than making us find the info ourselves and then pulling the truth from inside us, so we know what we're talking about when we are sharing some teaching with others.
We also watched our first Master Touch video, which I've read the book, but the video is fuller and it feels like Yogi Bhajan is in the room with us, so its an experience in itself too.
Well, I'm not articulating so well anymore, had a busy day, so I'll log off and go read some more and internalize some more, process some more and grow some more! lol
Love to you all and may you come from a place of love as well when you're out there moving around through your lives.
Peace, Sat Nam!
The first weekend was overstimulating and I left feeling like I'd taken on too much but this weekend was just amazing and I love all the people in the class and especially the teachers.
Karta Purkh and Sat Inder (yes, she and I have the same name!) are two very humble, lovely and just plain awesome beings to have as teachers and I love staying at the ashram with them, I almost feel like I could move there! lol
The training is very different than I had anticipated, they're making us do the work! lol. Example, last week Karta Purkh gave us each a pranayama technique to learn and study and then teach it to the whole class on Saturday. Rather than them teaching us, they are having us do the work and then when it comes to sharing it with others, its easy because you own the experience of having learned it, practiced it and then taught it already.
I just love it. I guess I was thinking they would be sitting up there telling us things, rather than making us find the info ourselves and then pulling the truth from inside us, so we know what we're talking about when we are sharing some teaching with others.
We also watched our first Master Touch video, which I've read the book, but the video is fuller and it feels like Yogi Bhajan is in the room with us, so its an experience in itself too.
Well, I'm not articulating so well anymore, had a busy day, so I'll log off and go read some more and internalize some more, process some more and grow some more! lol
Love to you all and may you come from a place of love as well when you're out there moving around through your lives.
Peace, Sat Nam!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Why do I have to title every post?!?
Well, heading back to Kansas City tomorrow morning for my second kundalini yoga teacher training weekend. I feel anxious about it, once I'm there I'll be fine, just having anxiety about it.
I've posted about my draw back to my former ashtanga practice and have been wondering about it. I'm reading a book called Guruji, full of interviews with many of K. Pattabhi Jois's more well known students and teachers of ashtanga, one of them stated you can't poor tons of energy through a thin copper wire, it won't hold it and will burn out, or break, so the ashtanga system he sees as a strengthening tool for the physical body to be able to handle the amounts of energy our bodies can have going through them, once the clearing out begins.
So, I've been doing kundalini daily for a couple years now, practicing for about ten years altogether, but with no alcohol, less meat, now no meat, more healthy things going in, so my channels have been cleared out, mostly, and the energy work from a kundalini practice is intensely pouring through my being. My body has recognized it needs to be stronger to be able to handle it and now I'm drawn to a more physical practice to balance out the energetic one.
Sounds good to me, makes sense too. Now, how do I find the time for all this practicing?!? lol Off to do some asana now!
I've posted about my draw back to my former ashtanga practice and have been wondering about it. I'm reading a book called Guruji, full of interviews with many of K. Pattabhi Jois's more well known students and teachers of ashtanga, one of them stated you can't poor tons of energy through a thin copper wire, it won't hold it and will burn out, or break, so the ashtanga system he sees as a strengthening tool for the physical body to be able to handle the amounts of energy our bodies can have going through them, once the clearing out begins.
So, I've been doing kundalini daily for a couple years now, practicing for about ten years altogether, but with no alcohol, less meat, now no meat, more healthy things going in, so my channels have been cleared out, mostly, and the energy work from a kundalini practice is intensely pouring through my being. My body has recognized it needs to be stronger to be able to handle it and now I'm drawn to a more physical practice to balance out the energetic one.
Sounds good to me, makes sense too. Now, how do I find the time for all this practicing?!? lol Off to do some asana now!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Ashtanga Yoga
Wow, I just practiced the primary series of Ashtanga Yoga for the second time this week! What is going on?!? lol
Here I am, I've gotten into Kundalini Yoga so much that I've become a Sikh, a baptised, full Amritdhari Sikh, which isn't even common within the Indian Sikh community I'm told, and I'm being drawn back to my yogic roots, which was a daily Ashtanga practice. I can't imagine I would ever practice it daily again, its too much for my body right now, but I'm enjoying it and approaching it from a different perspective completely.
Before I used it as my morning sadhana, daily discipline and body sculpter. Now that I've explored Kundalini Yoga to the level that I'm starting my teacher training this weekend, I am so in touch with energy movement thats its changed my approach to the practice. I now see it as what it is, opening up the body from the lower chakras to the upper to free up the energy and leave you energized.
I was inspired to practice it again one day after watching Ashtanga, NY with my friend and first student Patrice in Collinsville one day. So I went to class with it in mind and my second student Susan was there and was like, lets do ashtanga primary series today, ok? I said yeah! So I've done it at home once a week since then. This week I did it Monday morning and then again this afternoon, not the whole thing, but enough that I was feeling good, did closing sequence and pranayama and savasana. Now I'm sore, but a good sore and feel open, energetic, am even vibrating almost a little too much lol.
So this book came out a couple months ago to commemorate Guruji's demise, or rather celebrate his teachings, and its all interviews with his first
American students and some of the most prominent Ashtanga teachers around the globe. Its awesome, and my teacher, Nancy Gilgoff, has the best interview in it, just love it. But what I'm coming to discover is that he used to change the sequencing based on you and what you needed at the time, only formalizing it once the classes got too big to do that. He even, while working through his practice, used to hold postures for a long time, to feel their effects and to master them before moving on to the next one. Wow!
This is something that is a big deal, to most ashtangis anyway. Its unheard of to change the sequence of asanas in most cases. So now I have even a different approach to it. I can skip something or work on something differently if I want. I mean, hell, I always could I suppose, no one would've known since I practiced on my own, other than me. But I had found something that tapped into my fundamentalist christian roots and stuck to it, until about 2006 maybe anyway, then I started straying.
Hmmm, approaching an asana practice as a way to open up energy channels? What a novel idea! Thats the point of it anyway. I guess now, being Sikh, not drinking, no meat, not much to clog me up physically anymore and having cleaned out my nadis through Kundalini Yoga, I am actually able to finally see what hatha yoga was originally meant to be.
Hmmm again, much exploring I see in my near future, I do. Kundalini teacher training on one end, learning more in depth about the systematic movement of energy and a renewed interest in hatha yoga, just in time for winter when I'm hibernating anyway and have nothing better do.
What could be more grand?!? Lol, a bit dramatic I know, but for gods sake I am a gay Sikh male living in the midwest, I think drama is meant to be happening in my life, hahahahaha!
Here I am, I've gotten into Kundalini Yoga so much that I've become a Sikh, a baptised, full Amritdhari Sikh, which isn't even common within the Indian Sikh community I'm told, and I'm being drawn back to my yogic roots, which was a daily Ashtanga practice. I can't imagine I would ever practice it daily again, its too much for my body right now, but I'm enjoying it and approaching it from a different perspective completely.
Before I used it as my morning sadhana, daily discipline and body sculpter. Now that I've explored Kundalini Yoga to the level that I'm starting my teacher training this weekend, I am so in touch with energy movement thats its changed my approach to the practice. I now see it as what it is, opening up the body from the lower chakras to the upper to free up the energy and leave you energized.
I was inspired to practice it again one day after watching Ashtanga, NY with my friend and first student Patrice in Collinsville one day. So I went to class with it in mind and my second student Susan was there and was like, lets do ashtanga primary series today, ok? I said yeah! So I've done it at home once a week since then. This week I did it Monday morning and then again this afternoon, not the whole thing, but enough that I was feeling good, did closing sequence and pranayama and savasana. Now I'm sore, but a good sore and feel open, energetic, am even vibrating almost a little too much lol.
So this book came out a couple months ago to commemorate Guruji's demise, or rather celebrate his teachings, and its all interviews with his first
American students and some of the most prominent Ashtanga teachers around the globe. Its awesome, and my teacher, Nancy Gilgoff, has the best interview in it, just love it. But what I'm coming to discover is that he used to change the sequencing based on you and what you needed at the time, only formalizing it once the classes got too big to do that. He even, while working through his practice, used to hold postures for a long time, to feel their effects and to master them before moving on to the next one. Wow!
This is something that is a big deal, to most ashtangis anyway. Its unheard of to change the sequence of asanas in most cases. So now I have even a different approach to it. I can skip something or work on something differently if I want. I mean, hell, I always could I suppose, no one would've known since I practiced on my own, other than me. But I had found something that tapped into my fundamentalist christian roots and stuck to it, until about 2006 maybe anyway, then I started straying.
Hmmm, approaching an asana practice as a way to open up energy channels? What a novel idea! Thats the point of it anyway. I guess now, being Sikh, not drinking, no meat, not much to clog me up physically anymore and having cleaned out my nadis through Kundalini Yoga, I am actually able to finally see what hatha yoga was originally meant to be.
Hmmm again, much exploring I see in my near future, I do. Kundalini teacher training on one end, learning more in depth about the systematic movement of energy and a renewed interest in hatha yoga, just in time for winter when I'm hibernating anyway and have nothing better do.
What could be more grand?!? Lol, a bit dramatic I know, but for gods sake I am a gay Sikh male living in the midwest, I think drama is meant to be happening in my life, hahahahaha!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Read this
THis blog entry by someone I know, not too well, but I do know him and am good friends with his brother just came out and it states exactly how I feel about Sikhi and how I approach it, without judgment. If I want judgment I can go back to my Baptist upbringing!
http://www.mrsikhnet.com/2010/09/13/look-in-the-mirror/
http://www.mrsikhnet.com/2010/09/13/look-in-the-mirror/
Monday, September 13, 2010
Training
So I just received my curriculum for the kundalini yoga teacher training that I start this weekend. Reading it I felt excitement, but I also realized I feel nervous about it too!
It dawned on me that I've never taken a training before, not like this. I have never deliberately paid someone to learn from them, thereby admitting that someone knows more about something than I do. LOL. I know, I know, I should be beyond that by now after almost 11 years of practice, but that is what I realized about how I feel about it.
I've used a kundalini yoga practice so intensely for the past two years, to clear out physical issues as well as mental issues, maybe even energetic blockages, to the point that I came to the conclusion that I need to share this with others and then so began, then immediately also realized that I need some more schooling in this area to feel completely comfortable being able to present it well. Not that I'm not presenting well, just that for some reason I don't have all the answers when it comes to this practice. It is very regimented but within that small amount of discipline (small as in time and sequencing for just a bit a day)I have gained more freedom than from any other practice that I've ever done, mainly being ashtanga and Anusara, both variations of hatha yoga.
So now I feel clear most of the time and its an amazing feeling, love it, and its only exponentially expanded when I add in my Sikh sadhana. So, this morning I slept in and then got up and did ashtanga primary series! WTF?!? I have no idea, other than the fact that change is in the air, much change. As per Yogi Bhajan's teachings and the astrological community, the Age of Aquarius is finally coming into play, so thats one huge change. Energy opening up for all of us on a major level. Then there's Mercury that just came out of retrograde today, yet another astrological thingee to contemplate, especially when one thinks of the tumultuousness of the past 3 weeks! Then I turned 40 this year, then I took amrit and became a full-fledged, baptised Sikh. On and on and on . . .
And the changes coming up that I can feel boiling around in the stew of the Universe. Just feel it, maybe I am anxious for those changes to emerge too? Maybe not, who knows. I am allowing it all to unfold as it will and roll, to the best of my ability, with the punches as the saying goes.
I love change, and embrace it, usually anyway, and can observe when its coming on just not too sure normally what form it will take. So I'm anxious, yes, for this next phase in my life and yes, for the other stuff beyond that, but will be okay until it choses to rear its head. And then I'll walk up to it and give it a big hug, tell it I love it and move forward towards the next thing while I incorporate it into my being.
Sat Nam!
It dawned on me that I've never taken a training before, not like this. I have never deliberately paid someone to learn from them, thereby admitting that someone knows more about something than I do. LOL. I know, I know, I should be beyond that by now after almost 11 years of practice, but that is what I realized about how I feel about it.
I've used a kundalini yoga practice so intensely for the past two years, to clear out physical issues as well as mental issues, maybe even energetic blockages, to the point that I came to the conclusion that I need to share this with others and then so began, then immediately also realized that I need some more schooling in this area to feel completely comfortable being able to present it well. Not that I'm not presenting well, just that for some reason I don't have all the answers when it comes to this practice. It is very regimented but within that small amount of discipline (small as in time and sequencing for just a bit a day)I have gained more freedom than from any other practice that I've ever done, mainly being ashtanga and Anusara, both variations of hatha yoga.
So now I feel clear most of the time and its an amazing feeling, love it, and its only exponentially expanded when I add in my Sikh sadhana. So, this morning I slept in and then got up and did ashtanga primary series! WTF?!? I have no idea, other than the fact that change is in the air, much change. As per Yogi Bhajan's teachings and the astrological community, the Age of Aquarius is finally coming into play, so thats one huge change. Energy opening up for all of us on a major level. Then there's Mercury that just came out of retrograde today, yet another astrological thingee to contemplate, especially when one thinks of the tumultuousness of the past 3 weeks! Then I turned 40 this year, then I took amrit and became a full-fledged, baptised Sikh. On and on and on . . .
And the changes coming up that I can feel boiling around in the stew of the Universe. Just feel it, maybe I am anxious for those changes to emerge too? Maybe not, who knows. I am allowing it all to unfold as it will and roll, to the best of my ability, with the punches as the saying goes.
I love change, and embrace it, usually anyway, and can observe when its coming on just not too sure normally what form it will take. So I'm anxious, yes, for this next phase in my life and yes, for the other stuff beyond that, but will be okay until it choses to rear its head. And then I'll walk up to it and give it a big hug, tell it I love it and move forward towards the next thing while I incorporate it into my being.
Sat Nam!
Friday, September 10, 2010
Right now
I sit here right now, having the computer down for the past two weeks and now its back up, and I had about three different ideas for blogs, now nothing! lol
So now what? Do I just write the crap in my head? I think thats what these things are for maybe, catharsis? lol I really don't have anything floating around my head today. I'm anxious to get out of the house and head to Starbucks for my iced soy chai and to continue reading the second book in the series that the show Legend of the Seeker was based on, great stuff. But for some reason I sat down to blog, maybe in the hopes that some great shit would flow out of me.
Hmm, not going to happen methinks! I shall away then and see what inspiration comes and maybe write some more once I'm home again.
Sat nam
So now what? Do I just write the crap in my head? I think thats what these things are for maybe, catharsis? lol I really don't have anything floating around my head today. I'm anxious to get out of the house and head to Starbucks for my iced soy chai and to continue reading the second book in the series that the show Legend of the Seeker was based on, great stuff. But for some reason I sat down to blog, maybe in the hopes that some great shit would flow out of me.
Hmm, not going to happen methinks! I shall away then and see what inspiration comes and maybe write some more once I'm home again.
Sat nam
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Rules in yoga?
I just heard one of my roommates say there are no rules in yoga and the other one say, oh yes, if you don't do it the way the ole bugger says, it will all go to hell.
So, just made me think. While within certain systems there are many rules, kundalini kriyas are a set thing, Anusara alignment principles are set, ashtanga sequencing is set ... so on and so forth, yoga is really about your connection right? Yoga=union, or union with the divine.
What is the divine? To me its different to each and every one of us on this planet. Even within a religion or spiritual practice, there is always your own opinion of what should happen, or whats going on, right? So you create your own belief system and its yours and even though someone else, outside yourself (is anything really outside of us?!?) agrees with what you're saying, they may vehemently oppose another of your ideas.
Its not like we all have doctrines written down to follow, most of us evolve which each new thing learned, and adjust our thinking and beliefs to accomodate said thing. Even as I am now a baptised Sikh, or amritdhari Sikh, I still haven't learned all the things they believe yet. But I know that all of the other Sikhs I know are open and allowing of your own personal ideas of almost everything, not closed off to your interpretation of it.
It makes me think of a story Abraham, as being channeled by Esther Hicks, told on a dvd I was watching. Some skeptical lady called in to talk to them saying how the bible was her guidance system, Abraham teaches your emotions were given to you to be your guidance system, and Abraham asked how the bible came to be and she said its the word of God and Abraham said, who wrote it down, interpreted it? She had never thought of that. Abraham, or the spirits known as Abraham, are Source and Esther is interpreting what they are putting in her head and speaking out loud, or writing down in a book. Abraham propones that the same thing happened back then, Source (or God if you're a fundamentalist and needs to hear that word)spoke to these beings and then they wrote it down. SO who is to say that it stopped happening way back then? And then each book received for each faith system on the planet, all being written the same way, and we all thinking ours is right.
Every one of them is right, or was right to the being who interpreted the voice or feelings they were getting and then wrote them down. Same can be said of any creative venture, novel, painting, everything!
The same is in yoga, you take classes in asana or pranayama, or Body Electric techniques, or Feldenkrais, or Zen meditation or kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, or whatever! And you process what worked for you in that class, maybe you try some of it at home. Maybe you go to another class and try something else and then see what connected you that time. Maybe even trying the exact same thing again with a totally different result. And you feel your way through what works and what doesn't work, FOR YOU. Not for anyone else.
Everything on this planet and can create a connection to Source for one being or another, create a yoga in other words. So lets all just chill out, and let my system work for me, yours for you and his for him or hers for her and let every be! Let it be, right?!? Live and let live!
Find your own peace, or your own yoga within your heart and let everyone else find theirs too, in their own way, in their own time, with their own feelings, not yours! I know its hard when they just lay on the couch watching tv, but they too are working their way toward Source, just in their own way. Love them anyway, the world needs more love, or rather has tons of it, but needs more beings to be conscious of the love that lives in their hearts. So lets love one another for what we are, sound good?
Sat Nam ji's, love, peace, happiness and unending joy to you all!
Sat Inder
So, just made me think. While within certain systems there are many rules, kundalini kriyas are a set thing, Anusara alignment principles are set, ashtanga sequencing is set ... so on and so forth, yoga is really about your connection right? Yoga=union, or union with the divine.
What is the divine? To me its different to each and every one of us on this planet. Even within a religion or spiritual practice, there is always your own opinion of what should happen, or whats going on, right? So you create your own belief system and its yours and even though someone else, outside yourself (is anything really outside of us?!?) agrees with what you're saying, they may vehemently oppose another of your ideas.
Its not like we all have doctrines written down to follow, most of us evolve which each new thing learned, and adjust our thinking and beliefs to accomodate said thing. Even as I am now a baptised Sikh, or amritdhari Sikh, I still haven't learned all the things they believe yet. But I know that all of the other Sikhs I know are open and allowing of your own personal ideas of almost everything, not closed off to your interpretation of it.
It makes me think of a story Abraham, as being channeled by Esther Hicks, told on a dvd I was watching. Some skeptical lady called in to talk to them saying how the bible was her guidance system, Abraham teaches your emotions were given to you to be your guidance system, and Abraham asked how the bible came to be and she said its the word of God and Abraham said, who wrote it down, interpreted it? She had never thought of that. Abraham, or the spirits known as Abraham, are Source and Esther is interpreting what they are putting in her head and speaking out loud, or writing down in a book. Abraham propones that the same thing happened back then, Source (or God if you're a fundamentalist and needs to hear that word)spoke to these beings and then they wrote it down. SO who is to say that it stopped happening way back then? And then each book received for each faith system on the planet, all being written the same way, and we all thinking ours is right.
Every one of them is right, or was right to the being who interpreted the voice or feelings they were getting and then wrote them down. Same can be said of any creative venture, novel, painting, everything!
The same is in yoga, you take classes in asana or pranayama, or Body Electric techniques, or Feldenkrais, or Zen meditation or kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, or whatever! And you process what worked for you in that class, maybe you try some of it at home. Maybe you go to another class and try something else and then see what connected you that time. Maybe even trying the exact same thing again with a totally different result. And you feel your way through what works and what doesn't work, FOR YOU. Not for anyone else.
Everything on this planet and can create a connection to Source for one being or another, create a yoga in other words. So lets all just chill out, and let my system work for me, yours for you and his for him or hers for her and let every be! Let it be, right?!? Live and let live!
Find your own peace, or your own yoga within your heart and let everyone else find theirs too, in their own way, in their own time, with their own feelings, not yours! I know its hard when they just lay on the couch watching tv, but they too are working their way toward Source, just in their own way. Love them anyway, the world needs more love, or rather has tons of it, but needs more beings to be conscious of the love that lives in their hearts. So lets love one another for what we are, sound good?
Sat Nam ji's, love, peace, happiness and unending joy to you all!
Sat Inder
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Summer Solstice...the actuality of it
I keep getting emails from folks, "I expected you'd have a blog up about your experiences by now"! Well, I don't think I'm ready yet, not even now as I type it!
So here it is.
I had a wonderful drive with my friend Pavan Deep, singing, talking, sharing, not-talking/just riding along. She is a very easy travel companion, doesn't even snore. Then we got there, to Espanola and spent the night with her teacher Pritpal Kaur. Very good experience, even woke up super early for sadhana at the ashram. Wasted a bit of time walking around town after breakfast, saw Yogi Bhajans property, his ostriches and peacocks and horses, illegally I may add, but it all turned out okay. Then we decided to head up the mountain to Ram Das Puri at about noon, which was way too early but we didn't know that then.
Got up there and put up our tents and ate dinner and I was having issues about being in the tent. I was already having them, but now the reality of it had manifested, and it as a borrowed tent and the zippr was not working so well, hmmm. So went to bed, no biggie, heard coyotes much of the night, and their babies, still no biggie.
The next day we worked set up crew a little bit, not much, but a bit and then it was time for bed again. The zipper broke completely, then there was a windstorm. I was having an emotional breakdown because of all this and then had the still moment. The aha moment that let me let go and completely surrender to the process and booom! The wind stopped and I fell asleep, got up the next morning too late for sadhana but early enough to drive into town and buy a new tent, come back and put it up and move my shit over. It was my first transformational experience of the 12 day/11 night time period spent in this dry, very dry, dirt infested, cold water shower taking, did I say dry?!? place.
Then the luggage crew experience started, its lovely. Lots of hard work but majorly great because of the amount of folks you meet and create relationships with, both on the crew and the people you are serving as well. So mostly the rest of that week went that way, I went to sadhana only a few times but had deeper ones than ever and enjoyed Mirabai Ceiba, Snatam Kaur, Sat Purkh Kaur, Dev Suroop Kaur and many others voices performing the prescribed mantras each morning. Even in my tent or the shower I would sing along with them, since you could hear them all over the camp. I did take one awesome class with Mahan Rishi Singh Khalsa, an amazing guy and had a block around my heart space move during that one!
The actual solstice, the 21st, a Monday, was the day big things happened for me. I awakened to take a sat kriya class which has been changing my life lately, and we did it for 31 minutes along with a talk and warm-ups. Then at 10:30 class with Gurmukh, the lady who got me into all this wonderful stuff. A class mind you that both tore me up physically and cracked open my heart spiritually. It was amazing and there were about 1100 people in the class with me, crazy amounts of energy! Lots of blocked energy got cleared out that day, especially after that and then the four hour Sat Nam Rasayan class I took next. Its a subtle energywork built around healing and cleared me out completely. Not going to elaborate too much on that art, you can google it to find out more if you like.
Then the three days of white tantric yoga began. I started the first day with Penny as my partner but it was too much for me. I felt so clear from the day before that I don't think I needed it. So I left at noon and went and watched the luggage tent for a while and had a few things to move for people. Then the second day I monitored, so I sat in line for someone when they needed a break, bathroom or otherwise. Very odd experience. But I did the third day and partnered with Dev Suroop Kaur, a lovely songstress amongst other things in the Sikh/kundalini community.
Friday was back to business as usual doing luggage and eating and all that. Then that night was the last night celebrations, ransabi (all night kirtan) and the amrit ceremony at 3am. I was lined up to take amrit, but couldn't sleep much, so much energy bouncing around the mountainside. So was up at 1:14, taking a cold shower, and getting dressed for the ceremony. My choli on, my kirpan on, turban to be opened up on top and on I went.
The ceremony itself will be described another time, it was lets just say, intense, long and transformational and I shared it with 29 others for a record of 30 people tkaing it at once. It lasted 4 hours and 40 minutes and then we were out and celebrities of a sort. Many greeted up with Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh (the typical Khalsa greeting when they meet another amritdhari Sikh), which was great to be able to say and actually be a Khalsa! Very good stuff.
Then the leaving, the drive to Colorado SPrings for the frst night of the trip home where we got to see Garden of the Gods, Pavan Deep had never seen it. Then drove to Omaha to stay at my aunts for the night and then home on the 28th of June, having left the 13th. Gone 15 days total and still processing all the stuff that went on.
That, very perfunctorily, is what happened. Now the stuff that is going on inside will take another time to come out, or maybe even more than that. Its still in there purcolating, pumping around,figuring out where it goes and to what purpose its being used. And may not be able to be typed out or verbalized for a while.
Its all good though, just good stuff. Okay, off here for a while. Soon.
Sat Nam
So here it is.
I had a wonderful drive with my friend Pavan Deep, singing, talking, sharing, not-talking/just riding along. She is a very easy travel companion, doesn't even snore. Then we got there, to Espanola and spent the night with her teacher Pritpal Kaur. Very good experience, even woke up super early for sadhana at the ashram. Wasted a bit of time walking around town after breakfast, saw Yogi Bhajans property, his ostriches and peacocks and horses, illegally I may add, but it all turned out okay. Then we decided to head up the mountain to Ram Das Puri at about noon, which was way too early but we didn't know that then.
Got up there and put up our tents and ate dinner and I was having issues about being in the tent. I was already having them, but now the reality of it had manifested, and it as a borrowed tent and the zippr was not working so well, hmmm. So went to bed, no biggie, heard coyotes much of the night, and their babies, still no biggie.
The next day we worked set up crew a little bit, not much, but a bit and then it was time for bed again. The zipper broke completely, then there was a windstorm. I was having an emotional breakdown because of all this and then had the still moment. The aha moment that let me let go and completely surrender to the process and booom! The wind stopped and I fell asleep, got up the next morning too late for sadhana but early enough to drive into town and buy a new tent, come back and put it up and move my shit over. It was my first transformational experience of the 12 day/11 night time period spent in this dry, very dry, dirt infested, cold water shower taking, did I say dry?!? place.
Then the luggage crew experience started, its lovely. Lots of hard work but majorly great because of the amount of folks you meet and create relationships with, both on the crew and the people you are serving as well. So mostly the rest of that week went that way, I went to sadhana only a few times but had deeper ones than ever and enjoyed Mirabai Ceiba, Snatam Kaur, Sat Purkh Kaur, Dev Suroop Kaur and many others voices performing the prescribed mantras each morning. Even in my tent or the shower I would sing along with them, since you could hear them all over the camp. I did take one awesome class with Mahan Rishi Singh Khalsa, an amazing guy and had a block around my heart space move during that one!
The actual solstice, the 21st, a Monday, was the day big things happened for me. I awakened to take a sat kriya class which has been changing my life lately, and we did it for 31 minutes along with a talk and warm-ups. Then at 10:30 class with Gurmukh, the lady who got me into all this wonderful stuff. A class mind you that both tore me up physically and cracked open my heart spiritually. It was amazing and there were about 1100 people in the class with me, crazy amounts of energy! Lots of blocked energy got cleared out that day, especially after that and then the four hour Sat Nam Rasayan class I took next. Its a subtle energywork built around healing and cleared me out completely. Not going to elaborate too much on that art, you can google it to find out more if you like.
Then the three days of white tantric yoga began. I started the first day with Penny as my partner but it was too much for me. I felt so clear from the day before that I don't think I needed it. So I left at noon and went and watched the luggage tent for a while and had a few things to move for people. Then the second day I monitored, so I sat in line for someone when they needed a break, bathroom or otherwise. Very odd experience. But I did the third day and partnered with Dev Suroop Kaur, a lovely songstress amongst other things in the Sikh/kundalini community.
Friday was back to business as usual doing luggage and eating and all that. Then that night was the last night celebrations, ransabi (all night kirtan) and the amrit ceremony at 3am. I was lined up to take amrit, but couldn't sleep much, so much energy bouncing around the mountainside. So was up at 1:14, taking a cold shower, and getting dressed for the ceremony. My choli on, my kirpan on, turban to be opened up on top and on I went.
The ceremony itself will be described another time, it was lets just say, intense, long and transformational and I shared it with 29 others for a record of 30 people tkaing it at once. It lasted 4 hours and 40 minutes and then we were out and celebrities of a sort. Many greeted up with Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh (the typical Khalsa greeting when they meet another amritdhari Sikh), which was great to be able to say and actually be a Khalsa! Very good stuff.
Then the leaving, the drive to Colorado SPrings for the frst night of the trip home where we got to see Garden of the Gods, Pavan Deep had never seen it. Then drove to Omaha to stay at my aunts for the night and then home on the 28th of June, having left the 13th. Gone 15 days total and still processing all the stuff that went on.
That, very perfunctorily, is what happened. Now the stuff that is going on inside will take another time to come out, or maybe even more than that. Its still in there purcolating, pumping around,figuring out where it goes and to what purpose its being used. And may not be able to be typed out or verbalized for a while.
Its all good though, just good stuff. Okay, off here for a while. Soon.
Sat Nam
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Summer solstice ... part 2
As I sit here, I should be packing, but the anxiety of the trip is keeping me from it. I was nervous about going, staying in a tent and having another intense experience, but now I've surrendered to it and am so excited!
I will get to see people I haven't seen since winter solstice, make new friends with others and have a nice road trip to boot!
We're leaving in the morning and it will be nerve racking until we get away from the St Louis area I'm sure, it always is to me. The first leg of any journey to me is the hardest, maybe because you're still close to home and you could turn around and head back, maybe other reasons that I'm unsure of, who knows.
WOW, I took a beginners trapeze class today and my hands hurt so bad that the typing is hard! lol. I can do a handstand in the middle of the room, hold my arms in the air for an hour while chanting and breathing in a pattern or put my leg behind my head and yet there are almost raw spots on my hands from pulling my own body weight up onto a metal bar!
So this is going to be a very short blog entry, see you all soon, or rather type to you all again after I get back from solstice and process a little bit of the work I'll have done there.
Sat Nam, Peace and Love to all!
I will get to see people I haven't seen since winter solstice, make new friends with others and have a nice road trip to boot!
We're leaving in the morning and it will be nerve racking until we get away from the St Louis area I'm sure, it always is to me. The first leg of any journey to me is the hardest, maybe because you're still close to home and you could turn around and head back, maybe other reasons that I'm unsure of, who knows.
WOW, I took a beginners trapeze class today and my hands hurt so bad that the typing is hard! lol. I can do a handstand in the middle of the room, hold my arms in the air for an hour while chanting and breathing in a pattern or put my leg behind my head and yet there are almost raw spots on my hands from pulling my own body weight up onto a metal bar!
So this is going to be a very short blog entry, see you all soon, or rather type to you all again after I get back from solstice and process a little bit of the work I'll have done there.
Sat Nam, Peace and Love to all!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Summer Solstice
I am heading out Sunday to the celebration put on by the 3HO organization with the above name. Its based around said time of year but involves a 3 day course of white tantric yoga (wow!), yes 3 days. I did one at winter solstice and it was intense.
This being the year that the organization is celebrating fire I can only imagine how intense this experience will be. Going deliberately into the fire! Yes I am. In the middle of the desert none the less!
So each year there is a meditation based around the elemental theme and so I just checked on it and its a biggie. Of course, you're just sitting there but your arms are floating with the elbows at shoulder height and the fingers intricately wound up and an intense mantra chanted four times one one breath. I am going to try it in a few minutes for the first time to see the effect it has on me.
I'm curious about this draw to keep going into the fire; the fire of practice, the fire of intense introspection, the fire of life! Its a metaphor of course, but also not. Its intensity is just that for a reason, to pull forth the things that have been buried and are needed to work on to get them gone for good.
But this is my path, to go into those things with intention and draw them out, and allow them their space (sometimes, most times the hardest part of the process) and then let them go through processing. Hmmm, off to do that meditation. Lets see what it brings up and what direction I head in with what comes up!
Sat Nam
This being the year that the organization is celebrating fire I can only imagine how intense this experience will be. Going deliberately into the fire! Yes I am. In the middle of the desert none the less!
So each year there is a meditation based around the elemental theme and so I just checked on it and its a biggie. Of course, you're just sitting there but your arms are floating with the elbows at shoulder height and the fingers intricately wound up and an intense mantra chanted four times one one breath. I am going to try it in a few minutes for the first time to see the effect it has on me.
I'm curious about this draw to keep going into the fire; the fire of practice, the fire of intense introspection, the fire of life! Its a metaphor of course, but also not. Its intensity is just that for a reason, to pull forth the things that have been buried and are needed to work on to get them gone for good.
But this is my path, to go into those things with intention and draw them out, and allow them their space (sometimes, most times the hardest part of the process) and then let them go through processing. Hmmm, off to do that meditation. Lets see what it brings up and what direction I head in with what comes up!
Sat Nam
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
White tantric yoga
Sounds kinky yes? Well according to Yogi Bhajan there is black tantric, which is voodoo or black magic, red tantric, which is the sexual energy kind and white tantric, which is the pure movement of energy stuff.
I was just in Chicago and finished my sixth one. It was one of the easiest ones physically, but most moving of all of them. I partnered with someone I've know for years, which added to the experience of course, but I'm also more cleaned out now from not drinking or being in smoky bars, so apparently my energy channels are freer flowing. I felt every bit of movement of energy and the blocks I've held onto for years were swept away, well, some of them anyway! lol
You sit in rows of men facing women on opposite side of the line and with the balance of energy that way (masculine/feminine) and the amount of people there (166 this time) it builds a big amount of energy and moves through you for 40 days, helping to cleanse the crap out of your subconscious, sometimes abruptly! So one must watch what comes out of ones mouth at times, usually for the whole 40 days.
I have had some emotional release yesterday and today but am good with it. The first one I did last year in Chicago made me feel full of peace and love and happiness, then the one in Knoxville made me more melancholy and the one at winter solstice, which is 3 days was the intense one, cleaning a lot of stuff out of my closet, and then I felt amazing after and even chose to change my name and become a Sikh! This one feels more balanced, I don't feel bad and like I want to slap people, just like I'm working through some things and letting go of them but all the while feeling happy and balanced. Good stuff!!!
Just a quick, short post, but wanted to put it out there. Love to you all! Sat nam
I was just in Chicago and finished my sixth one. It was one of the easiest ones physically, but most moving of all of them. I partnered with someone I've know for years, which added to the experience of course, but I'm also more cleaned out now from not drinking or being in smoky bars, so apparently my energy channels are freer flowing. I felt every bit of movement of energy and the blocks I've held onto for years were swept away, well, some of them anyway! lol
You sit in rows of men facing women on opposite side of the line and with the balance of energy that way (masculine/feminine) and the amount of people there (166 this time) it builds a big amount of energy and moves through you for 40 days, helping to cleanse the crap out of your subconscious, sometimes abruptly! So one must watch what comes out of ones mouth at times, usually for the whole 40 days.
I have had some emotional release yesterday and today but am good with it. The first one I did last year in Chicago made me feel full of peace and love and happiness, then the one in Knoxville made me more melancholy and the one at winter solstice, which is 3 days was the intense one, cleaning a lot of stuff out of my closet, and then I felt amazing after and even chose to change my name and become a Sikh! This one feels more balanced, I don't feel bad and like I want to slap people, just like I'm working through some things and letting go of them but all the while feeling happy and balanced. Good stuff!!!
Just a quick, short post, but wanted to put it out there. Love to you all! Sat nam
Saturday, May 8, 2010
What to write about?
Not sure, but I feel like I want to write. So here it goes...
Today was the kickoff to the Tower Grove Park Farmers Market and therefor the first yoga class involved with it, that I teach of course. 92 people showed up to listen to me tell them what to do, where to put their feet, when to inhale and exhale, curse (which I do a lot, but it gets funny reactions), talk to them about about the earth around them, the air brushing across their skin and tempt them into hanging out and buying crepes, baked goods, and some of the best locally grown veggies around.
It was a lot of fun, a lot, and then slowly everyone left. Very often its a large group that hangs out and plays frisbee and enjoys one another and long talks, long walks. Today, none of that. Many, many people I consider friends came, but then they all left. It was okay, I just got in my car and came home, then I took a nap. Sometimes being out in nature gives me a rush of energy and today it proved to be too much, my friend was telling me that vata is high right now around here so thats why, who knows. The energetics of being in nature does flow thru me though and even more so now that I'm so clear from all the energy work of kundalini yoga I do, and the hatha yoga too.
So, anyhow, I took a nap which usually helps that dissapate. Not so today, it got worse, so I took my turban off thinking uncapping the bottle would release the pressure, not so again, it just got worse. So I went for a drive, took a walk, then called and got some thai foot reflexology, which is awesome btw,and it cleared out the headache but opened the channels for the energy to flow freely so now I'm feeling loopy! lol
Okay, thats all fine and good, but in the midst of some of that I began feeling lonely. Lonely like, wanting a partner, wanting to cuddle, that type of stuff. Loneliness is not something that visits me often these days, since I feel so connected to source almost all of the time I feel fulfilled all of the time. I did not feel a disconnect today, so why the loneliness? Are we destined to want the company of other corporeal beings? Maybe so. I also think I'm craving to be around a bunch of like-minded beings, and will be next month at summer solstice. I love all of my friends and all of them are so supportive of my lifestyle, maybe not all of the gay friends since they don't understand why I wouldn't want to be out partying and drinking with them all the time like I used to, but would rather stay at home with a rage wrapped around my head meditating! lol, thats their problem, the ones I converse with often are understanding and even supportive, but they aren't in the same belief system so its still different.
Now, I'm a big believer in the fact that everyone has their own religion, because we all formulate our own systems of belief even within a religion or spiritual path, but you get what I'm saying right?
I'm good, really, just letting some of this stuff out which sometimes helps to process it and let it move on its merry way. But we all have thoughts, we all have questions, even when we are strong in our connection to source, strong in our sense of self, right? Or am I the only one? I don't think I am. I think we're all so different and yet so much the same that you get what I'm saying. I hope you in your time of doubt, or questioning, or disconnect have someone to chat to about it or something cathartic like this to let go of it into and allow it to help you through it.
On this the eve of mothers day, I say to you who are mothers, bless you. We really do know that you're doing the best you can with what you've got going on in that head of yours, even if we don't realize it until much later in life. Our ji's or souls know, even if we may never figure it out in the physical form, once we move on, we remember. So happy mothers day to you and yours.
Sat Nam ji's, much love to you all. Many blessings on you too!!!
Today was the kickoff to the Tower Grove Park Farmers Market and therefor the first yoga class involved with it, that I teach of course. 92 people showed up to listen to me tell them what to do, where to put their feet, when to inhale and exhale, curse (which I do a lot, but it gets funny reactions), talk to them about about the earth around them, the air brushing across their skin and tempt them into hanging out and buying crepes, baked goods, and some of the best locally grown veggies around.
It was a lot of fun, a lot, and then slowly everyone left. Very often its a large group that hangs out and plays frisbee and enjoys one another and long talks, long walks. Today, none of that. Many, many people I consider friends came, but then they all left. It was okay, I just got in my car and came home, then I took a nap. Sometimes being out in nature gives me a rush of energy and today it proved to be too much, my friend was telling me that vata is high right now around here so thats why, who knows. The energetics of being in nature does flow thru me though and even more so now that I'm so clear from all the energy work of kundalini yoga I do, and the hatha yoga too.
So, anyhow, I took a nap which usually helps that dissapate. Not so today, it got worse, so I took my turban off thinking uncapping the bottle would release the pressure, not so again, it just got worse. So I went for a drive, took a walk, then called and got some thai foot reflexology, which is awesome btw,and it cleared out the headache but opened the channels for the energy to flow freely so now I'm feeling loopy! lol
Okay, thats all fine and good, but in the midst of some of that I began feeling lonely. Lonely like, wanting a partner, wanting to cuddle, that type of stuff. Loneliness is not something that visits me often these days, since I feel so connected to source almost all of the time I feel fulfilled all of the time. I did not feel a disconnect today, so why the loneliness? Are we destined to want the company of other corporeal beings? Maybe so. I also think I'm craving to be around a bunch of like-minded beings, and will be next month at summer solstice. I love all of my friends and all of them are so supportive of my lifestyle, maybe not all of the gay friends since they don't understand why I wouldn't want to be out partying and drinking with them all the time like I used to, but would rather stay at home with a rage wrapped around my head meditating! lol, thats their problem, the ones I converse with often are understanding and even supportive, but they aren't in the same belief system so its still different.
Now, I'm a big believer in the fact that everyone has their own religion, because we all formulate our own systems of belief even within a religion or spiritual path, but you get what I'm saying right?
I'm good, really, just letting some of this stuff out which sometimes helps to process it and let it move on its merry way. But we all have thoughts, we all have questions, even when we are strong in our connection to source, strong in our sense of self, right? Or am I the only one? I don't think I am. I think we're all so different and yet so much the same that you get what I'm saying. I hope you in your time of doubt, or questioning, or disconnect have someone to chat to about it or something cathartic like this to let go of it into and allow it to help you through it.
On this the eve of mothers day, I say to you who are mothers, bless you. We really do know that you're doing the best you can with what you've got going on in that head of yours, even if we don't realize it until much later in life. Our ji's or souls know, even if we may never figure it out in the physical form, once we move on, we remember. So happy mothers day to you and yours.
Sat Nam ji's, much love to you all. Many blessings on you too!!!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Death of P. Keith Mitchell
Not really, literally, but figuratively.
Today I changed over the last little bit of anything that had to do with that name. Last week after getting a court-certified copy of the name change order in the mail to send in to get a new birth cert (yes, they make you do that!) I realized I had two, so I went to the dmv and got my license and my title changed over to Sat Inder Singh Khalsa, both within 7 minutes, a new record for the dmv, or maybe a sign this is supposed to happen?!? So I went to the social security office and got my new card ordered, supposedly to take 2 weeks but I got it Tuesday of this week, 6 business days later (the title came on Friday of the SAME week I ordered it, signs again?). That part only took another 15 minutes. Two of the most difficult things to deal with both done in the matter of half and hour to 45 minutes including drive time, what?
So I got my bank account switched this week after receiving my ss card and just today got my cell phone switched over as well as my car insurance.
Now I should be excited yes? I am, but a weird feeling crept upon me after the bank account yesterday. Not sure how to describe it, just like a loss maybe, of a friend? Hmmm, not sure.
So last week a friend of ours was in town and staying with us and she asked first thing like it was expected, well, didn't you have a death ritual?!? I'm like no, not really into that. Then thoughts of many things flooded my head that night. In India when you take vows to lead a life a certain way and recieve a new name from your guru (in the Hindu tradition) you actually have your things and burn them as if you had died and the new being with the new name is sprouted forth like Athena and moves on ahead.
Not knowing if this is what Cheri meant it did occur to me, maybe I need that. It could be that the ritual would help with the feeling of loss, or rather help with the incorporation of the old me and the new me, or be symbolic of the transformation I feel I've gone through that made me chose to take the spiritual name as my legal name. Something like that anyway, maybe.
So for now I decided to write this little blog about it and see how I feel. I have changed my name legally and committed myself to this new lifestyle but have not taken the vows of a Khalsa yet, which I plan to do at summer solstice in New Mexico in June. Maybe after that I'll do the ceremony/ritual? Maybe not. I'll see how I feel then, maybe I'll do after I get off this computer, maybe not. What do you think?
Sat Nam, Sat Inder
Today I changed over the last little bit of anything that had to do with that name. Last week after getting a court-certified copy of the name change order in the mail to send in to get a new birth cert (yes, they make you do that!) I realized I had two, so I went to the dmv and got my license and my title changed over to Sat Inder Singh Khalsa, both within 7 minutes, a new record for the dmv, or maybe a sign this is supposed to happen?!? So I went to the social security office and got my new card ordered, supposedly to take 2 weeks but I got it Tuesday of this week, 6 business days later (the title came on Friday of the SAME week I ordered it, signs again?). That part only took another 15 minutes. Two of the most difficult things to deal with both done in the matter of half and hour to 45 minutes including drive time, what?
So I got my bank account switched this week after receiving my ss card and just today got my cell phone switched over as well as my car insurance.
Now I should be excited yes? I am, but a weird feeling crept upon me after the bank account yesterday. Not sure how to describe it, just like a loss maybe, of a friend? Hmmm, not sure.
So last week a friend of ours was in town and staying with us and she asked first thing like it was expected, well, didn't you have a death ritual?!? I'm like no, not really into that. Then thoughts of many things flooded my head that night. In India when you take vows to lead a life a certain way and recieve a new name from your guru (in the Hindu tradition) you actually have your things and burn them as if you had died and the new being with the new name is sprouted forth like Athena and moves on ahead.
Not knowing if this is what Cheri meant it did occur to me, maybe I need that. It could be that the ritual would help with the feeling of loss, or rather help with the incorporation of the old me and the new me, or be symbolic of the transformation I feel I've gone through that made me chose to take the spiritual name as my legal name. Something like that anyway, maybe.
So for now I decided to write this little blog about it and see how I feel. I have changed my name legally and committed myself to this new lifestyle but have not taken the vows of a Khalsa yet, which I plan to do at summer solstice in New Mexico in June. Maybe after that I'll do the ceremony/ritual? Maybe not. I'll see how I feel then, maybe I'll do after I get off this computer, maybe not. What do you think?
Sat Nam, Sat Inder
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Spring
Well, its here finally. Here in the Lou we're having our second day of full sunshine in a row and supposed to move up into the 70's today, so very nice!
Taking a walk in Forest Park yesterday, things were starting to bloom and I saw some buds on some of the trees. Its that time of renewal each year,a time that I usually feel very intensily energetically. As well, yesterday was a full moon and a very powerful one at that. At least to me and a few friends who had texted me asking if I felt it. And of course I did!
Tomorrow I embark on the next phase of a tranformational process I've been going thru for the past 6 months to a year. I go to a hearing to have my name changed legally. Many of you many only know me as Sat Inder, but many others know me as Keith Mitchell.
Having taken the past 10 years to build a name for myself as a yoga teacher in the St Louis area, under the name of Keith Mitchell, this change is a biggie and an interesting one for my students. As well as for my friends. Family is another matter. I'm sure I haven't approached it right with family, not necessarily telling them ahead of time, other tan the ones who are on facebook and noticed the name change back in December, and now seeing the photos of me in a turban and the quotes I post on there. But we'll see how it goes, I was not led to have conversations with them about it,maybe other than my mom and I will with her soon.
My father found out about the name change on facebook, asked me about it and I told him about it being my spiritual name given me through the Sikh path that I'm following now. Then he was being smart during a chat one day, acting as if he didn't know who it was that was talking to him and so I told him I'm changing it legally so he should get used to it, now he knows! Don't know whom else he told but again, we'll see. I did have some friends of mine who are parents tell me how they'd feel and it made me understand where he was coming from but it will not stop me from changing it. It is something I am doing for me, to reflect my path and to embrace who I am now and has nothing to do with anyone but me.
So I'm embracing the changes and don't have to expect everyone to be so open, but the becoming more open is what I'm working on now, accepting everyone and everything as an expression of the divine and a mirror of an aspect of my own consciousness, reflected back to me for me to learn from! Isn't that a bitch, but true, when you get irritated with someone about something they are doing, look toward yourself and see where you act that way yourself and see why your irritated, not because of them at all, but because you do the same thing!!!
I didn't say it was an easy path, but a fulfilling one for sure. And the growth I experience daily through these practices and my daily sadhana is just amazing, especially now that I can observe it happening, am aware of it.
Sat Nam all, much peace and love to you and yours. May he longtime sun shine upon you, all love surround you and the pure light within you guide your way on.
Sat Inder
Taking a walk in Forest Park yesterday, things were starting to bloom and I saw some buds on some of the trees. Its that time of renewal each year,a time that I usually feel very intensily energetically. As well, yesterday was a full moon and a very powerful one at that. At least to me and a few friends who had texted me asking if I felt it. And of course I did!
Tomorrow I embark on the next phase of a tranformational process I've been going thru for the past 6 months to a year. I go to a hearing to have my name changed legally. Many of you many only know me as Sat Inder, but many others know me as Keith Mitchell.
Having taken the past 10 years to build a name for myself as a yoga teacher in the St Louis area, under the name of Keith Mitchell, this change is a biggie and an interesting one for my students. As well as for my friends. Family is another matter. I'm sure I haven't approached it right with family, not necessarily telling them ahead of time, other tan the ones who are on facebook and noticed the name change back in December, and now seeing the photos of me in a turban and the quotes I post on there. But we'll see how it goes, I was not led to have conversations with them about it,maybe other than my mom and I will with her soon.
My father found out about the name change on facebook, asked me about it and I told him about it being my spiritual name given me through the Sikh path that I'm following now. Then he was being smart during a chat one day, acting as if he didn't know who it was that was talking to him and so I told him I'm changing it legally so he should get used to it, now he knows! Don't know whom else he told but again, we'll see. I did have some friends of mine who are parents tell me how they'd feel and it made me understand where he was coming from but it will not stop me from changing it. It is something I am doing for me, to reflect my path and to embrace who I am now and has nothing to do with anyone but me.
So I'm embracing the changes and don't have to expect everyone to be so open, but the becoming more open is what I'm working on now, accepting everyone and everything as an expression of the divine and a mirror of an aspect of my own consciousness, reflected back to me for me to learn from! Isn't that a bitch, but true, when you get irritated with someone about something they are doing, look toward yourself and see where you act that way yourself and see why your irritated, not because of them at all, but because you do the same thing!!!
I didn't say it was an easy path, but a fulfilling one for sure. And the growth I experience daily through these practices and my daily sadhana is just amazing, especially now that I can observe it happening, am aware of it.
Sat Nam all, much peace and love to you and yours. May he longtime sun shine upon you, all love surround you and the pure light within you guide your way on.
Sat Inder
Friday, March 5, 2010
Transformations cont . . .
So, I filed the paperwork with the circuit court to legally change my name! I began using it more and more after my amazing experience at Winter Solstice and when my grandfather died, for some reason, made the decision that I am going to become a Sikh. The kundalini yoga path is made for me and is working for me and inspires me so much, and has led me to where I am and in the direction I am going so much so that it only makes sense to keep flowing with this river, so I did it.
I am also planning to take amrit at the Summer Solstice celebration, which is the ceremony in which one takes the vows to live the life of a Sikh. Which in this country includes kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan.
I've also decided to take the month long teacher training immersion in New Mexico August 7th-September 2nd and have put it out there that I need the money and have already received $840 in donations towards it. So, everything is amazing and flowing downstream, to happiness! LOL
My life is so awesome that I just can't believe I'm the same person I was, even a few months ago. I feel like a new person, which I guess is why the name change is appropriate. And everyone is being so supportive, for the most part anyway, family hasn't been dealt with yet but we'll see how that goes.
The kundalini yoga club I hold at my place every Friday is just going so well too that it makes me want to teach this and make a living sharing this thing that has began and helped facilitate this transformation. Just amazing. I know, I know, I've said that thirty times already LOL but thats how I feel right now.
So just an update, hope anyone who may read this is realizing that all that stuff is just contrast, meant to bring you to greater wanting of things that are amazing as well, and not drawing your attention to the lack of those things, but following the vane of feeling the abundance of the things you are desiring and then allowing them to enter into your life, just as I am!
I wish blessings, love and peace to you and yours and those you don't even know but may bump into during your day. Sat Nam, Sat Inder
I am also planning to take amrit at the Summer Solstice celebration, which is the ceremony in which one takes the vows to live the life of a Sikh. Which in this country includes kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan.
I've also decided to take the month long teacher training immersion in New Mexico August 7th-September 2nd and have put it out there that I need the money and have already received $840 in donations towards it. So, everything is amazing and flowing downstream, to happiness! LOL
My life is so awesome that I just can't believe I'm the same person I was, even a few months ago. I feel like a new person, which I guess is why the name change is appropriate. And everyone is being so supportive, for the most part anyway, family hasn't been dealt with yet but we'll see how that goes.
The kundalini yoga club I hold at my place every Friday is just going so well too that it makes me want to teach this and make a living sharing this thing that has began and helped facilitate this transformation. Just amazing. I know, I know, I've said that thirty times already LOL but thats how I feel right now.
So just an update, hope anyone who may read this is realizing that all that stuff is just contrast, meant to bring you to greater wanting of things that are amazing as well, and not drawing your attention to the lack of those things, but following the vane of feeling the abundance of the things you are desiring and then allowing them to enter into your life, just as I am!
I wish blessings, love and peace to you and yours and those you don't even know but may bump into during your day. Sat Nam, Sat Inder
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Dear Pop (Grandpa),
I love you and just wanted to put it in writing. I know you know how I feel now that you've left your body and are soaring in spirit. You did the very best with the tools and influences you were given and I will miss you. "The women in our family," as was our private joke so often (because they're such big worry worts) will miss you being here with them in your physical body much more than I, for I know that there is so much more to you. The full expression of your spirit is so much larger than the very little bit of it that squeezed into that body to keep it animated, and that I will always have contact with and will talk to and embrace on those times I do miss your physical presence. May you poke me here and there with little insights or reminders when I am less than noble in my behaviour and may the peace you feel now make all that struggle at the last part of your life worth it. How blessed am I and my sister and her two kids and Connie's kids for having even known you! Most people don't have an opportunity to know and care for their grandparents. How blessed am I to have been influenced by you, who always had such a strong love and sense of family and may I learn from that as I embark on my life path and grow with my new spiritual beliefs along with the family, including them, not excluding them as I often have.
Thanks. You were one great man and I shall love you always. Sat Nam!!!
Thanks. You were one great man and I shall love you always. Sat Nam!!!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
New Year
Hmmm, been a long time since I posted. Life has been changing and growing, like it always is, but I'm actually observing it happening these days. Rather than letting it happen and catching it a bit late lol!
In December I went to Lake Wales, Florida, to attend the Winter Solstice celebration put on by the 3HO organization, or the kundalini yoga people if you'd rather. I actually did a service scholarship so for a reduced fee I got to attend things as well as work my ass off to pay for the part I did not do! lol
And yes, lots of work it was. Inner and outer. I carried luggage a lot, from peoples cars to their cabins or tenting area and then in reverse. Which is all waaay more physical work than I do normally at home, anyone who knows me knows this to be true! So that in an of itself was a challenge. I also got to bond with some of the best people I've met in years, on said luggage crew, but also at the camp with those not on the luggage crew during meals, during early morning sadhana (and early is the truth, 3:45am, including chanting, a kundalini yoga set, another hour of singing/chanting a specific set of mantras in a specific order and then visiting the gurdwara to finish up), during white tantric yoga and many other activities.
The crux of the event is the 3 days of white tantric yoga. Previously I had only done one full day of the event in Chicago last April and one full day in Knoxville in October, both of which I had met people who were here for the the solstice event as well. 3 days is intense, to say the least, but is so much more than the one day in a myriad of ways. Each day was a different program, mostly sitting exercises, for 62 minutes or 31 minutes, one included a two hour nap, timed and a certain song played for it and the biggie; a 3 hour blind walk. Google it, I don't have the time or energy to explain it, just thinking about it is wearing me out! Ha!
All of this work affects you energetically and internally of course, and unfolds things within you over a 40 day period. I have quit drinking and eating most meats, and have been eating healthier and keeping up with a strong early morning sadhana of my own and hatha yoga and kundalini yoga almost daily, so that allows the energy movement to be freer and cleanse you of things no longer needed, subconsciously, much more easily. The time in April I still drank a bit and so wasn't as clean and had some major emotional goings on, to say the least. But this unfolding is interesting in that its intense but more smooth.
I feel like I'm completely changing and growing into a new person. My thoughts are moving in ways they never have before. They are more open, less judgmental and inclusive of things I never considered options before. I will be more specific on that once the unfolding slows down and I figure out exactly where I'm going in life. The thought of moving has always been there, but now I feel as if I'm finally ready. The idea of loving has always been there, but now I'm open to it and finding it around every corner from every person I encounter, just open hearted love and peace when met eye to eye. I feel more and more that I must share all this with others, and so exude the love and peace while I teach my hatha classes and am including some more of the kundalini type meditations to build the energy individually for my current students. I want them all to be happy and peaceful. I want to be more in touch with family and friends than ever before and just love them all unconditionally.
There is so much more swirling around in there, all good stuff, that I want to share but need more time to allow them to flow thru me first and figure some things out.
This year is amazing already, but is only going to get more amazing as it opens up and becomes more energized and free flowing and unlocks us more and more toward the Aquarian age. We are already feeling the intensity of the energy of that age unfolding all around us, within us, and hopefully I/we can all help one another as it builds more and more and grows us into who we really are---little balls of light wrapped up tight in these flesh packages. Little bits of divine energy! Look into peoples eyes, you will see it there, or not, that fire, those burning white irises, the color lightening, the intensity of their gaze.
Take a look at this little window a great friend of mine sent me on facebook, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3zJm98UXzQ , good stuff.
Think about it. But not too much, more importantly, feel it. Feel yourself and let those feeling unfold you into who you really are. Are you with me?!?
Sat Nam, Sat Inder Singh
In December I went to Lake Wales, Florida, to attend the Winter Solstice celebration put on by the 3HO organization, or the kundalini yoga people if you'd rather. I actually did a service scholarship so for a reduced fee I got to attend things as well as work my ass off to pay for the part I did not do! lol
And yes, lots of work it was. Inner and outer. I carried luggage a lot, from peoples cars to their cabins or tenting area and then in reverse. Which is all waaay more physical work than I do normally at home, anyone who knows me knows this to be true! So that in an of itself was a challenge. I also got to bond with some of the best people I've met in years, on said luggage crew, but also at the camp with those not on the luggage crew during meals, during early morning sadhana (and early is the truth, 3:45am, including chanting, a kundalini yoga set, another hour of singing/chanting a specific set of mantras in a specific order and then visiting the gurdwara to finish up), during white tantric yoga and many other activities.
The crux of the event is the 3 days of white tantric yoga. Previously I had only done one full day of the event in Chicago last April and one full day in Knoxville in October, both of which I had met people who were here for the the solstice event as well. 3 days is intense, to say the least, but is so much more than the one day in a myriad of ways. Each day was a different program, mostly sitting exercises, for 62 minutes or 31 minutes, one included a two hour nap, timed and a certain song played for it and the biggie; a 3 hour blind walk. Google it, I don't have the time or energy to explain it, just thinking about it is wearing me out! Ha!
All of this work affects you energetically and internally of course, and unfolds things within you over a 40 day period. I have quit drinking and eating most meats, and have been eating healthier and keeping up with a strong early morning sadhana of my own and hatha yoga and kundalini yoga almost daily, so that allows the energy movement to be freer and cleanse you of things no longer needed, subconsciously, much more easily. The time in April I still drank a bit and so wasn't as clean and had some major emotional goings on, to say the least. But this unfolding is interesting in that its intense but more smooth.
I feel like I'm completely changing and growing into a new person. My thoughts are moving in ways they never have before. They are more open, less judgmental and inclusive of things I never considered options before. I will be more specific on that once the unfolding slows down and I figure out exactly where I'm going in life. The thought of moving has always been there, but now I feel as if I'm finally ready. The idea of loving has always been there, but now I'm open to it and finding it around every corner from every person I encounter, just open hearted love and peace when met eye to eye. I feel more and more that I must share all this with others, and so exude the love and peace while I teach my hatha classes and am including some more of the kundalini type meditations to build the energy individually for my current students. I want them all to be happy and peaceful. I want to be more in touch with family and friends than ever before and just love them all unconditionally.
There is so much more swirling around in there, all good stuff, that I want to share but need more time to allow them to flow thru me first and figure some things out.
This year is amazing already, but is only going to get more amazing as it opens up and becomes more energized and free flowing and unlocks us more and more toward the Aquarian age. We are already feeling the intensity of the energy of that age unfolding all around us, within us, and hopefully I/we can all help one another as it builds more and more and grows us into who we really are---little balls of light wrapped up tight in these flesh packages. Little bits of divine energy! Look into peoples eyes, you will see it there, or not, that fire, those burning white irises, the color lightening, the intensity of their gaze.
Take a look at this little window a great friend of mine sent me on facebook, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3zJm98UXzQ , good stuff.
Think about it. But not too much, more importantly, feel it. Feel yourself and let those feeling unfold you into who you really are. Are you with me?!?
Sat Nam, Sat Inder Singh
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