Innate Beauty

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My Ayurveda teacher Dr. Vasant Lad always emphasized, when doing client first sessions, to see the innate beauty in each person - each person as a unique flower.  Health for that individual is then a unique beauty to be cultivated and ever-improved through gardening - not a generic baseline that is gradually lost.

My Yoga teacher Yogananda said "Every person is innately wonderful; he has only to rid himself of the mask of ego consciousness,"  which is an apt metaphor on this Halloween.

Tomorrow is November, and the beginning of a transition in the school where the collective group of teachers and staff begin making more decisions about the school's direction.

We have several new classes which reflect their desires to share what they love when they love.  Please do attend these classes and offer feedback as to what you enjoyed and what could be improved.  The new schedule is up online here.

Thank you to the 75 of you who filled out the survey about new classes.  Those of you who did not, we are always open to feedback.  

Blessed week to you -

Pierre

Perseverance

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This week I celebrate being married with my American family.  (We had our Indian wedding in February.)

My journey to marriage was a long broken road, as Rascal Flatts sings. 

Similarly, it has taken 5 years for our Santosha studio to break even financially, but it has.

I share this for each of you who has a dream and is encountering doubt.

I too often doubted.  How did I make it through?

- I kept good company (including nature)

- I kept a daily practice (meditation, t'ai chi, yoga)

- I asked for help

- I was willing to turn it over to Grace and trusted that how my Dream would manifest was not up to me

- I kept a secret private place inside where my version of God was always alive and with me

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Each of you is a unique flower.  No other like you has ever been nor ever will be.  

That unique beauty that is in you - let it bloom!

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We worked for almost 2 years, doing  30 minutes of construction here and there in between classes.  At long last, we finally painted a couple walls this week!

Blessed week to you -

Pierre

Autumn Balance: Celebrating the Fall

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Recently I drove West on 86th street at sunset and witnessed that glowing orb directly in line with the street.  One of the beautiful aspects of Indy's gridlike road system is that, at equinoxes, the sun will rise and set mostly on those gridlines.

Autumn brings the simple changes in self care that involve balancing the dry quality by incorporating more oil (except for larger Earth body types, who naturally enjoy autumn and need no more oil).  Oil on dry skin, medicated oil in the nose (nasya), oil swishing and gargling, and even eating more oil.

If you are not sure which oil to use, come to the Sunday yoga and ayurveda class.  We also offer some of the most amazing Ayurveda bodycare oils on the planet.

Blessed week to you -

Pierre

Self Study: the Luminous Lifelong Learning

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Many people fall into ruts in life, where each day drags in monotonous predictable emptiness.

Each of us needs a going toward, something to be aiming the consciousness and heart toward that keeps life growing.  This becomes even more important once a person is no longer young.

Yoga as the 8 limbed path - ashtanga yoga - is best pictured as 8 concentric layers.

The 8 layers lead progressively inward - inward past my physical body and bioenergetic body into the still place within my own spinal cord and brain.  This samaadhi or total absorption allows me to be completely One with the moment and with All That Is, where the endless unfolding of the panorama of life is viewed in ever-new bliss.

Along the journey inward, in the second limb, is svaadhyaaya - luminous Self study. 

This luminous Self study implies a study that will bring me out of my little world and into an EXPANDED awareness of why am I alive.  Traditionally it involves ritual and chanting to one's lineage of Divine masters  so that one felt that Presence awakening inside; and also the study of sacred scriptures, whose information we would grow in understanding as our years progressed.  

For non-religious Westerners, studies like art, music, science and even learning a new language are possibilities.  I have been inspired by life long learners like Georgia O'Keefe who took up painting late in life.

The growth of our Santosha school and the deep yearning I see in so many of your hearts is testament to me that the Vedas (wisdom texts of ancient times) are indeed coming alive in a new land.

Encouraging you to keep your childlike, innate curiosity for learning alive and sacred - blessed week to you -

Pierre

Simple Devotion

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The fast route to yoga (union with the Divine, experienced as moment-to-moment ever new unfolding bliss) is described as the internal alignment with the Holy Spirit within.

In yoga one can feel this Presence by using the senses to go inward, rather than outward.

The process starts with faith, though, which is not natural for rationally-minded modern folks.

I look back now at my stubborn years of dry faith-less practices where I thought my willpower and sweaty efforts were enough.

Now I emphasize the importance of a simple devotion before starting practices.  "Oh Cosmic Infinite, for so long I have been living life out of strain.  Please - You come !  Remind me to no longer strain.  "  Or a simple childlike prayer, "Help I want to have fun again".  Or better yet sing a song until the mind absorbs in it.

Then do practices.