A YOGA ADVENTURE — What Goes Around, Comes Around

During the summer of 2010, I went on a tour of Northeastern India. The tour was presented by Know India Travel and was titled “Great Indian Religions and Cultures”.  Organized by Kelly McHenry who works as a librarian at Seattle Central College – in love with the country – she had led nine tours previously, mainly so she could share in the enjoyment of the experience.

The itinerary was planned so we explored mosques and temples of all the major religions and visited the Taj Mahal the final day. One thing that added so much depth to the experience was our guide, Dr. Arvind Singh. An expert on Indian religions, history, and culture; when we saw something exotic he could tell us what we were observing.

We flew into New Delhi and visited the beautiful Muslim Red Fort. On we traveled overnight by train to Amritsar, to the heart of Sikhism, the amazing Golden Temple. Then we took a long bus ride into the foothills of the Himalayas, to Dharamsala. This is the residence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

To get there, we bused over winding narrow roads with spectacular views looking over cliffs deep into mountain valleys with the headwaters of the Ganges winding through. At one point we met another bus coming the other way, where some of the road had partly washed out. Our driver backed to the outside edge of the road to let the other bus pass by. Looking out a back window, I could see the very rear of the bus hanging over the precipice with the back tire only a foot from the red clay drop-off, down what looked like miles, into the valley below. The other bus passed and we continued up the mountain, business as usual.

We arrived in Dharamsala just before dusk, and our hotel was right where the road entered town. We had another fabulous meal and went to bed. I’m in the habit of waking at 4:00 in the morning getting up and doing some yoga and meditating. I wake exactly at 4:00 without an alarm. I was surprised, when we arrived in New Delhi near midnight two days before, that next morning – after a 17hour flight and half a world away, I still woke exactly at 4:00 India time.

After my yoga that morning in Dharamsala, being from Seattle, I started to look for a cup of coffee.  I walked out of the hotel and into the dusky predawn morning. I’d only gone a few doors when an old man left one of the houses ahead, waving over his shoulder to an elderly woman in the doorway whom I took to be his wife. Walking a few yards ahead of me, I was intrigued by his wholesome grandfatherly appearance.

Ahead and behind us, as if on cue, persons were leaving other residences and all walking the same direction with us. I soon noticed each person had a string of beads in their hand. After only five blocks, we started to leave town on a well-tended path into the woods. The spirit of the occasion caught me up and I continued along following the old man, who somehow seemed my guide. The dirt path wound through woods that had much the same appearance of mountain terrain in the Pacific Northwest. At intervals, at the side of the path, were rows of prayer wheels that each passerby would give a spin. To our left, between the evergreens, we looked out over deep valleys filled with fog. Some of the walkers were monks and by their dress, what I took to be the female equivalent. Most appeared householders. The trail wasn’t crowded with ten to twenty feet between walkers, but I noticed all seemed to be softy repeating “ Om…Mani, Padme…Hum”.

courtesy Fabi Castro-McLernon

Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama’s Temple Complex

After a long time, I began to wonder if this was a holiday and we were a procession to another village and made a silent plan to find a taxi on our arrival to get back to Dharamsala. After a good hour, we passed below the walls of what appeared a large temple complex, walked around the temple and into a town. I was taking in the strange narrow streets with seemingly crooked multi-story buildings clinging to the steep hillside as I wandered three blocks into town. Ahead I saw two persons who were members of my tour and for the first time realized we’d made a big circle and I was back where I’d started. Later I learned this walking meditation, this circumnavigation, is a ritual many of the local residents perform every day. The temple was Suglag Khang, the place of worship of His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama — Tenzin Gyatso.

BLACK ELK’S GREAT VISION (from Black Elk Speaks —by John G. Neihart)

MEDICINE, Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

MEDICINE, Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round beneath me was the hoop of the world.

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw;

for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit,                                                                                                                   and the shape of all shapes as they must live together as one being.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops                                                                                                                           that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all of the children of one mother and one father.

And I saw that it was holy.”

Black Elk    1931

DREAM CATCHER, Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

DREAM CATCHER, Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

YOGA FIRST, Weight Loss Consequential

HARMONY OF SPHERES

HARMONY OF SPHERES

WEIGHT LOSS THROUGH YOGA, JEWEL IN THE LOTUS was inspired by the realization many, because of their size, were effectively being denied access to yoga. Because in America, when people think yoga, they think asana or physical exercise; many of the other aspects of yoga, that make it a holistic science, are ignored. Of course exercise is good and should be encouraged, but humanity is entering a new stage of evolution… Spiritual Being. At one stage of our development, strength was the important factor determining success. Then mental intelligence. Now the definitive is spiritual development.

Just as a good weapon, devised with intelligence, can make brute strength laughingly ineffective — so spiritual acumen completely changes the game. Weight Loss was used a an example of how effective the techniques explained in the book are, how quickly everything can change, because overweight is such a big problem with no effective previous solution and the overweight were being ignored. The techniques work for everyone. Something very important is happening that changes everything you have learned to be reality. Many are coming to realize this shift is beginning to happen. If you get with the total holistic program that is yoga in its complete form — all mundane problems like overweight will correct themselves.

There are things to do to participate fully in this ‘New Age’. WEIGHT LOSS THROUGH YOGA, JEWEL IN THE LOTUS  is a simple, concise and complete manual for transformation — so you can “get with the program.” Effort is required on your part. It helps to know what to do.601216_10151466479579923_102069885_n Get a book and read it. Perform the ‘work’ necessary for your self realization. It isn’t difficult and the rewards are overwhelmingly rich. I promise you love, joy, and understanding beyond your greatest dreams.

 

A Reflection on Alaskan Winter Nights

130126Living in Alaska, the days get very short in winter. Where I had my home, Cordova, we would get down to about four hours of light in the dead of winter. To spend time outside, you would be out a lot in the dark. Both in the long days of summer and the short days of winter, the dimension of time can seem strange. Because it makes no difference during your near hibernation, I would find myself wandering around at three in the morning. Often when it is the coldest, it is also clear. There is very little ambient light, so the stars appear numerous and bright. The air is very still and the cold makes an almost inaudible whining sound.  When it is that cold, the moisture is drawn up out of the snow, and minute crystals frost the snow’s surface. Like tiny prisms, they glaze everything, breaking-up and refracting the starlight.

In the near complete silence, you crunch along through the snow. It is so reflective, if the moon is out, it is almost bright like daylight. To make the magic even more complete, often there will be an Aurora or Northern Lights. Sun particles cast into space by solar flares get trapped in the earths gravitation and are drawn to the magnetic poles to fall through the atmosphere in beautiful ever changing wave-like patterns of  neon-pastels. These colors and their undulating waves dance across the snowscape. Oh the beauty — Alaskan Winter Nights.602872_480094362025713_1849830905_n

EVERYTHING IS CONSCIOUSNESS

MANUAL OF TRANSFORMATION

MANUAL OF TRANSFORMATION

 

Compassion… inspired this book. Anyone can use yoga as a path for personal transformation. As it is now practiced in the West, yoga is mainly a system of physical exercise. While yoga postures are an important element, they are only a small part of the whole science of well being that yoga offers. Even a person paralyzed with spinal cord injuries can experience the physical, mental, and spiritual metamorphosis that is a result of a sincere, complete yoga practice.

Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus   page 1

MEDITATION IV

Spiritual growth takes a lot of energy. The yogi is trying  to conserve energy, create more energy, and direct life force towards higher goals. Meditation can make us much more efficient. The time we devote to meditation is paid back many times over. The importance of being aware enough to see what is really going on can’t be overstated. A lot of time and effort can be squandered when viewing reality from a diminished perspective.

weight loss through yoga

weight loss through yoga

BEING

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN        II    “Take Your Light From Beneath The Basket”525576_469660079760912_898527108_n-1

Each of us is reading this page, a manifestation of the physical plane, with our eyes that exist at a frequency within the range of vibration that comprises the physical plane. The life force energy that animates the physical body and the mental body exists  at a higher frequency. Thought, assimilating this stimulus, at yet an even finer vibrational level. The unacknowledged natural wisdom that coordinates these functions vibrates at an even higher frequency.

Consisting of a different frequency from the physical senses, the finer wave lengths comprising our ‘Being’ can’t be perceived with those physical sense organs. At an even higher frequency is the sensation of ‘Being’, the joy of existing right next to and feeling the presence of all that is Divine. The Divine is our SELF.

The ‘light’ of Self shines through these concentric layers of ‘Being’ producing the hologram others consider you.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

A Stairway to Heaven

There is a pathway inside you to the highest realms of Consciousness.

Everything is Consciousness.

It is your Destiny to walk this Path.

Destiny has brought you here now to begin this interior journey.

Over the next few days, the Path will be explained and we will begin our Ascension.

May I Be Your Guide

May I Be Your Guide