It is just What is. You Don’t have to Realize anything.

 

 YOU ARE LOVED YOU ARE NURTURED

AND YOU LOVE AND YOU CARE this is the Natural State

There is no need to try to realize anything in the conventional spiritual effort of Yoga and meditation or philosophy. It is just a matter of seeing how things are, what is actually happening, what is actually the case. Not spiritual language and not poetry but really how things are. Then we just relax into that. Reality is a nurturing abundant, always regenerating healing force. Your body is the unfolding, blooming effulgence of nurturing source. If reality is a nurturing force then everything happening in reality is nurturing, including pain. Pain is the healing. It is the regeneration and new growth. In this understanding we have a new grateful relationship to pain as she does her work. We can accept pain, we can face pain and are no longer blinded in an attempt to get rid of pain through yoga and meditation and all religious attempt and denial of the real situation, the natural state, which is a nurturing abundance, motherhood.

 

Your Yoga is to engage the real, the ordinary conditions of Life in the intimate embrace of Life. This is the embrace likewise of nurturing source. It is not about trying to manipulate the mind in trying not to feel pain, stepping back from experience as awareness, as the witness only or some such religious nonsense. It is intimacy we need, not enlightenment and it is indeed possible to learn how to do an actual Yoga that is right for you. It is about perfect connection to reality in every way.

Teachers who spontaneously  who are born or fall into peace are said in the Yoga Sutra not to be the best teachers because they do not understand Yoga or the individualized process of Yoga. It even says such people are dangerous. Through their charm and power they mislead humanity with their idealism and hopeful ideas. It is not to deny that some folk with a predisposition for non attachment find them selves in a deep state of carefreeness. That is interesting for sure. But we have had a long history of such people describing their experience and think up ways that everyone else can have it. But they do not understand Yoga. They do not understand the ordinary life and the process of moving from restriction to intimacy, suffering to freedom. Further more some have been completely dishonest about it and claim to be in a state they are actually not in. They make the claim as a power mechanism. It is hard to find someone who actually understands yoga that is right for you.  That is why we are here.

I

In ancient culture of Yoga everything was known to be arising from motherhood taking form as everything. Everything is her, known as Shakti and by many names and forms, yantras and mantras and human form. There is some ancient poetry that describes the Mother Source as a bee that comes out of the Hridaya, the first cell of life that is created when your mother and father surrendered to each other. The Hridaya blooms in all directions to form your perfect body. This is of course is literal. You start off as one cell from which the whole body grows. It is just that you come from this primordial power that creates all existence. You are presently sustained by this delicious nurturing. And your decline and death perfect nurturing of mother reality. Like a bee Shakti moves among the petals of your lotus heart that blooms as the whole body as she constantly arranges the petals in Life’s perfect appearance as you. At death mother source goes back in to the inner ovary of the lotus, which then folds up and dissolves.

Some speak of this as the subtle body or life energy or prana body as if it is different from the gross body but it is not. Without the subtle there is no gross, so they are the same. Your body is perfectly nurtured. You are loved and cared for. And you love and care. This is the natural state.

Toronto Yoga Festival

I was so pleased to participate at the recent Toronto Yoga Festival. It was a gathering of local teachers and students with a few other teachers visiting Canada. It was a very successful experiment in creating a conference that transcended the commercialism and fake celebrity that has surrounded yoga education. The venue was low cost and beautiful, a ballet school not an expensive hotel conference center. The teaching was sincere and the mix of local teachers and visiting teachers created a rich mix of people offering support, information and spirit resource to each other. It was a kumbha mela! I see that this model will become the new form of Yoga Conference that will flourish around the world. It does not take a huge commercial challenge, just sincere people getting together to share. It will give a lot more opportunity for people to get a genuine Yoga education, not the commercial marketing of the brands and styles of yoga forced on a gullible public. As UG used to say, “shoddy spiritual goods sold in the market place!” With the economic down turn, expense of travel etc we must offer a Yoga education at costs that people can afford. As the secular world becomes less and less attractive and consoling we can dive deep into our sacred intimacy with Life. It is such a better and easier option that in time will correct the secular mess we are in. So please think about creating your own Yoga festival in your town. Invite some good teachers to meet your local teachers and offer classes at moderate cost. I was so pleased to meet the local teachers and students. Michael Stone a wonderful teacher from Toronto made this curious statement, “When you look at the river it is the river looking at the river.” Hellaluiah! I knew exactly what Michael was talking  about and knew that he did too. The wonder and powers of the natural universe are of course  our condition too. The nurturing flow of life, extreme intelligence, beauty, perfect harmony is active in everyOne of us, in us as us. .It is our natural state and birth right to enjoy. Like no other time this depth of feeling is  possible. It is our personal and public peace even in the midst of the pain of a “world gone wrong.” Yoga was developed in ancient wisdom culture to gentlly reveal what we already have.

2 Useless Guys

and I say this with completely irreverent reverence. (UG used to say that ‘U’ ‘G’ stood for Useless Guy). love to you both.

Mark and UG circa 2002 in Palm Springs, California