week 4
Day 22!
ZOOM LINK Class 7 am Vancouver Time
“My religion is based on Truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him… The word, Satya (Truth) is derived from Sat which means ‘being’. Nothing is or exists in reality except Truth. That is why Sat or Truth is perhaps the most important name of God, In fact it is more correct to say that Truth is God than to say God is truth. But as we cannot do without a ruler or a general, such names of God as 'King’ or 'Kings’ or ’ The Almighty’ are and will remain generally current. On deeper thinking, however it will be realized that Sat or Satya is the only correct and fully sign fact name for God.”
~Mahatma Gandhi
Day 23!
~ Gossip is the Devil's radio. ~ George Harrison
I’ll tell you one thing for sure, once you get to the point where you’re actually doing things for Truth’s sake, then nobody can ever touch you again, because you’re harmonizing with a greater power…
So if you stand back and criticize the rest of the people, it’s again, Christ said, “Put your own house in order.” Automatically, if I’m to criticize someone else, I suddenly come back to me-self and realize, until I’m straight, then I’m in no position to be able to criticize others. So, it helps.
Also it helps in as much as you can, any time of the day, any situation you’re in, you can get control of yourself, just by sitting quietly, and by turning off from the external problems we have — noise, and all this society. We can go inside, inside yourself, where it’s always calm and peaceful. It’s like, being on this level of consciousness, it’s like the ocean which is always changing, and the bottom of the ocean is always calm and still. And if you’re not anchored to the bottom of the ocean, you’re at the mercy of whatever change goes on. And this process of meditation, or different types of yoga, is all just a way to anchor yourself securely to that pure state of consciousness, to that state of Being, so that you can still act out your life on the surface, but you remain anchored securely.
…Yoga incorporates lots of different techniques, but the whole point is that each soul is potentially divine, and yoga is a technique of manifesting that, to arrive at that point that is divine.”
George on Meditation: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthlingstrings/video/7239308186392513818
Cool Interview : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBZUetjx7jg
Day 24!
Day 25!
Class 9am Vancouver Time Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81654153796?pwd=ZIUi9fxkl7jtaSKHlbtnQjOB3VAhEb.1
Meeting ID: 816 5415 3796
Passcode: 108108
Yoga Master Vanda Scaravelli
"Yoga is an effortless dance with breath and gravity. It is health, it is comprehension, it is creation, and it is above all love. When you are open, love comes in. It is when you are defensive and fearful that you close the doors. When you are open, you can communicate with the person that is near you, with nature, with the world, and you become One with everything that surrounds you”.
(Photo Vanda Scaravelli with BKS Iyengar from his masterpiece, Light On Yoga))
Vanda Scaravelli didn’t begin studying yoga until her mid-life (nearly 50 years of age); she made the practice her own, devising a way of working that was harmonious with nature and centered around rest, continual listening, learning, and discovering with clarity. A true and yogin,“I did not know that it would help me because I practised it like tennis or any other game, for me it was fun. But it acted on me much more profoundly than I could understand at the time. A new life entered my body. In nature flowers bloom in spring and then again in autumn. This is what I felt was happening to me” -Esther Myers
“Vanda used many natural images in her teaching; in addition to waves, she spoke of whirlwinds and volcanoes, trees whose roots grow deeply down as their trunks and branches grow up, waterfalls that drop powerfully and rebound into clouds of increasingly light spray, flowers that blossom without striving.“ (Yoga International article by Nan Wishner)
“Vanda often uses metaphors to help us experience gravity. Vanda blossomed through her practice, and therefore one of her favorite metaphors is the image of a plant. If we were plants, ground level would be waist high, our legs would be the roots, our spine the stem, and our heads like the flower growing upward. The essence of the experience is that we are being pulled into the earth, without effort or action on our part. “Don’t ask the flower to push,” Vanda says, “The sun brings it out, and the roots are pulling it down in the same movement. The body is pulled up by the sun, but only if the roots are down. The deeper the roots, the higher the flower goes.” Through this gravity connection we experience the elongation of the spine, which comes with the wave of the breath.” - Esther Myers
“You have to learn how to listen to your body, going with it and not against it, avoiding all effort or strain. You will be amazed to discover that, if you are kind to your body, it will respond in an incredible way…
Incredible Footage of Vanda’s asana practice at 77 years young. (She comes on at 00:32)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lxFQ0Mg9lE
Day 26!
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.”
~Bruce Lee
Day 27!
ZOOM LINK Class 7am Vancouver Time
“While inhaling, it should be smooth as drinking water through the stem of a blue water lily. Just as when you drink water through a straw it has uniform flow, so should be the flow of air. The exhalation should be like the flow of poured oil. When oil is poured from a ladle, it has a uniform flow, unlike water, which is not viscous.”
~ Sri Ramaswami
Day 28!
“Svādhyāya is an inquiry into one’s true nature.”
– T Krishnamacharya on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 1
“Svādhyāya –
Reflecting on our actions will tell us something about oneself.
The word means going toward oneself.
The re-action of Tapas should lead you towards Svādhyāya.
(It) allso means study of texts.
For example Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā and Pūrṇa Matsyendrāsana.
Is the effect different from what it said will happen?
This leads to Svādhyāya and Anumāna or to a teacher.”
– TKV Desikachar France 1983
"Whether things get better or worse depends to a considerable extent on our own actions. The recommendation of a yoga practice follows the principle that through practice we can learn to stay present in every moment, and thereby achieve much that we were previously incapable of.”~T.K.V. Desikachar
"Giving attention to and reflecting and re-reflecting in practice is essential to develop skilfulness in sadhana so that the hidden impurities clouding the intelligence are eradicated.~Guruji BKS Iyengar (Core of the Yoga Sutra)