Imbalance is disruptive

I haven't posted for a long time as I have been focusing on my yoga teaching and trying to develop that thread of my life.  I have been struck time and again in the last few months by how disruptive an out of balance condition is to so many people's lives.  My daughter went off to college this fall and hearing her describe some of her fellow students and how messed up their lives are just horrifies me.  Are we developing our childrens' lives with a solid foundation of balance upon which they can build a life of fullfillment and wellbeing?  Or have we acquiesced to our children's cravings and allowed them to move towards imbalance?  I suspect that there is so much ignorance about this subject that our young people are in trouble.  I pray that we can wake up to this opportunity before it is too late.

I went to a yoga workshop this past week called Yoga for Stress and I was pretty disappointed in what was offered just from the standpoint of scale.  The tools that were offered just did not seem adequate for the levels of anxiety, panic attacks, depression and more severe conditions that we are seeing.

Pink ribbons are everywhere to help raise funds for cancer research but as I look at it, it just doesn't make sense to throw money at a problem with the basic assumption that it doesn't matter how I pollute my body with inappropriate substances for years and years, and then expect you to be able to fix it when it breaks down into cancer.  

Let's see if we can bring the body to a basic stability and balance and then see if we still have these problems.  Let's start with a pristine and valued body rather than one treated like a trash can.  Let's hold the human system sacred and use some common sense about what is appropriate to place inside.  Can we bring the intelligence that resides in us to move from compulsion to consciousness in our activity so that we can control our lives and take responsibility for our future?

The very future of our human race depends on this.

Thanks for reading,

Steve

Spirituality yin to Survival yang

In the US and increasingly around the world we have not understood what our role is in a world that is needing our physical labor less and less to produce a level of comfort that is unprecedented.  Survival used to take a lot of work, especially in colder climates and in the farming life.  As mechanization has increased we have become more and more sedentary with more discretionary time.  But now that our survival has been well organized and taken care of in many ways, we do not seem to be able to move on to explore what else life has to offer.  Our accomplishments have made us physically comfortable but uncomfortable within ourselves.  We have not achieved a comfort that is based on balance so that we feel at ease, content.  We are easily upset by inconsequential incidents in our lives that should not phase us.  Many are on a hair trigger and will go off at the least provocation.  Is this success?  Where do we go from here.  Do we just go on consuming more and more and use up all the resources our planet has to offer?

Instead of being satisfied with our prodigious achievements, we want more and more and more.  It is not sustainable and it is a glorification of a survival process that should be simply a given which allows us to pursue higher dimensions of consciousness.  We have become so unbalanced that turning inward does not look attractive to us because our mind is a scary process of runaway thoughts and emotions that does not seem to be able to be calm.

This excessive survival process is a result of the excess yang building up in our bodies.  It is expressed by excess action, the need to do:  work, exercise, consume, build, "improve", raise the bar, increase the standard of living.  This is compulsive in nature and threatens our very mother earth.

Spiritual process is the yin side of this equation and right now it needs to be brought into balance.  Turning inward is the only way to explore higher dimensions of life, that which is beyond the physical.  As we turn inward, we find that our lives are capable of being filled with bliss and that we are fantastical creatures of unlimited capacity to expand our consciousness.  Bringing balance to the physical allows us to access our spiritual possibilities and to grow on a path towards our ultimate enlightenment.

This does not require more stuff, just more attention.

Blessings and thanks for reading.

Steve

Yoga teacher

At the end of last year I completed six months of intense preparation and practice of hata yoga at the Isha Yoga Center in South India.  Since that time I have been establishing a teaching practice and have had the honour to teach many friends and fellow meditators new practices from hata yoga.  Many of these practices have a profound balancing effect on the human system and bring stability to the body and stillness to the mind.

In my travels this past year I have encountered many people who dispite practicing extensive yoga, are still struggling with issues of imbalance on a daily basis.  They have blood sugar issues or have difficulty sleeping.  They carry too much weight or they suffer from anxiety.  They are stressed or angry often.  Many of these issues can be significantly helped by proper yoga.  But proper yoga with the support of a lifestyle that brings balance is much more effective at bringing about transformation.  

So I remain committed to contribute in both ways to the evolving balance of my community by continuing to share the technology of balance both thru diet and lifestyle and through the practice of yoga.  I deliver yoga through my company Spiritual Yoga of Southwest Ohio.  Our website is spiritualyoga-swohio.org. Please contact us if we can be of service to you.

Thanks for reading

Blessings

Satisfaction

When the year 2000 came along, the radio stations had some lists of the most popular songs of the 20th century.  In the rock and roll category the song that was the most popular song of the 20th century was "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones.  This was a metaphor for my generation.  In many ways my generation was first to experience certain phenomenon.  We were the first to experience TV.  Frozen food, processed food, fast food, super markets, prosperity at unprecidented levels, comfort at unprecidented levels.  Many of these phenomena created a severe imbalance between yin and yang in the general population.  In general, when we came out of high school, we were predominantly excess yang.

I deduce this because of the result that it produced, a rise in the use of drugs and alcohol.  These extreme yin substances were in high demand because of the imbalance that was the result of what we did as children.  In many ways, prosperity leads to excess and when the system is in excess, it does not feel satisfied.  So this dissatisfaction was a critical factor for my generation.

Many of my generation have never found the kind of profound sense of satisfaction that is the result of becomming balanced.

When I was 40, I was a wreck.  I had screwed up my career and my marriage.  I was overweight (185) and I was aggressive, boorish, sluggish, and depressed.  I knew I had to make a change.  I heard about a diet that was supposed to bring balance to the system and I was curious so I got a book about it and read it.  It said that to bring balance you need to eat foods from the middle of the spectrum of foods yin to yang.  It said that for where I lived, medium grain whole grain brown rice was in the middle as well as other whole grains.  It said to combine these grains with vegetables and fruits that were locally grown and in season, chew everything well and enjoy.  I decided to try it.

I had a box of brown rice in the cupboard and I got it out and cooked it.  I added a cup of cooked brown rice to my meal twice each day and did not worry about giving up anything.  After two months, I had lost 25 pounds, my desire for meat had reduced by 90% and my desire for sweets had reduced by 50%.  The most impressive effect, however, was a feeling I had never felt before, which I can only describe as satisfaction.  Suddenly the world looked very different.  A whole array of opportunities opened before me.  People at work noticed the change.  They said I was more peaceful, more approachable.  I was less angry, less moody, more even.  I had more control.

Since then, I have continued to evolve in many ways, but the feeling of satisfaction has never left me and has become the basis to explore higher dimensions of life.

Find satisfaction in your own life.  You will be glad you did.

Thanks for reading.  Blessings.