Do our emotions control us? Or do we control our emotions?
Emotions are our automated physical responses to our environment. Sometimes they are useful, sometimes not.
While practicing your yoga postures be aware of your emotional responses and take a mental step back from them.
Breathe; relax; watch; allow, and observe your emotions with equanimity and calmness.
From a detached perspective sample the temperature, texture, colour and sound of the emotion.
Allow some distance between the stimulus and your response.
References: 1) Kripalu yoga school. 2) New Scientist 2nd Jan 2016: Control Yourself.
Wednesday, 6 January 2016
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Now
We commonly think there are three kinds of time: the past, the present and the future. We often guide our actions on the basis of regret for our past actions and missed opportunities, or from concern for our future well-being. The problem with living for the future is that the future never arrives. It doesn’t exist except as an invented concept. There is only NOW. Now extends in all places and at all times. The past does not really exist, either. Now, the present, is the only time there is, the only time there has ever been, the only time there ever will be.
This is why it is so absurdly easy to gain enlightenment -- the infinite light is already here, now, within the grasp of each of us. Nothing more is required than ceasing the attempt to live in the past or the future.
The Sun is always shining; we have only to stop identifying with the clouds passing in front of it to be free.
[From Ascension, MSI]
This is why it is so absurdly easy to gain enlightenment -- the infinite light is already here, now, within the grasp of each of us. Nothing more is required than ceasing the attempt to live in the past or the future.
The Sun is always shining; we have only to stop identifying with the clouds passing in front of it to be free.
[From Ascension, MSI]
Friday, 10 July 2009
This week I shall be...
This week I shall be mainly thinking about responding to events in the moment.
'Simples'
'Simples'
Now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga...
When I think about yoga I know there is something drawing me towards a personal experience of consciousness. How do I begin to express that experience? Fortunately I am not the only person to have asked; Patanjali threaded together a systematic explanation over 2000 years ago.
“With prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga...”
When I started teaching people one-to-one, and then classes, I was obsessed with having enough work planned to fill the time allotted. I planned the class minute-by-minute to have an elegant flow of postures; a good balance of types of posture and counter-posture. I tried to challenge experienced students, and yet also give easier options for beginners with plenty of detailed instructions and adjustments. I wanted to take people to the edge of their conscious ability and allow them to feel their other-than-conscious ability beyond; asking them to “be present”. I must make time for Pranayama and relaxation at the end of the class… Wait a minute. Did I say that? The one thing no one can do is to make time.
Time is such an elusive concept. We can observe time: we can measure it…the clock ticks. But we can’t control it. We can predict it at a gross level, but at a sub-atomic scale events have a bizarre random nature predictable only by statistical average. We have no direct knowledge of time other than our own physical and mental experience of events in the present moment. It may be that it is the propagation of events that is the reality and time is only a secondary comparative measure after the event. As a pre-supposition, a working definition of time might be as an experience of the unfolding of events.
We are just a formation of seething, boiling, random events unfolding at the microscopic level; blood flows, synapses connect; and at the macroscopic level? We can be agitated and self-conscious; or we can be detached observers. Consciousness is this strange process in time of self-observation. Simple recursive rules can lead to complex behavior, and self-reference leads to our introspective awareness of our own inner states.
So how should I approach the teaching of Yoga? Fortunately I am not the first person to have been concerned about this. Patanjali sewed together this formula over 2000 years ago:
“With prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga.
Yoga is the cessation of movements in the consciousness.
Then, the seer dwells in his own true splendor.
At other times, the seer identifies with the fluctuating consciousness.”
[Ref. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, verses I.1 to I.4 Iyengar’s translation]
“With prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga...”
When I started teaching people one-to-one, and then classes, I was obsessed with having enough work planned to fill the time allotted. I planned the class minute-by-minute to have an elegant flow of postures; a good balance of types of posture and counter-posture. I tried to challenge experienced students, and yet also give easier options for beginners with plenty of detailed instructions and adjustments. I wanted to take people to the edge of their conscious ability and allow them to feel their other-than-conscious ability beyond; asking them to “be present”. I must make time for Pranayama and relaxation at the end of the class… Wait a minute. Did I say that? The one thing no one can do is to make time.
Time is such an elusive concept. We can observe time: we can measure it…the clock ticks. But we can’t control it. We can predict it at a gross level, but at a sub-atomic scale events have a bizarre random nature predictable only by statistical average. We have no direct knowledge of time other than our own physical and mental experience of events in the present moment. It may be that it is the propagation of events that is the reality and time is only a secondary comparative measure after the event. As a pre-supposition, a working definition of time might be as an experience of the unfolding of events.
We are just a formation of seething, boiling, random events unfolding at the microscopic level; blood flows, synapses connect; and at the macroscopic level? We can be agitated and self-conscious; or we can be detached observers. Consciousness is this strange process in time of self-observation. Simple recursive rules can lead to complex behavior, and self-reference leads to our introspective awareness of our own inner states.
So how should I approach the teaching of Yoga? Fortunately I am not the first person to have been concerned about this. Patanjali sewed together this formula over 2000 years ago:
“With prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga.
Yoga is the cessation of movements in the consciousness.
Then, the seer dwells in his own true splendor.
At other times, the seer identifies with the fluctuating consciousness.”
[Ref. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, verses I.1 to I.4 Iyengar’s translation]
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
My web site is updated with details of my Sandhurst Class.
Wednesday Evenings 7:30
Sandhurst Community Hall
GU47 9BJ
Drop-in class, beginners welcome
http://www.bobburtonyoga.com
Friday, 6 February 2009
Silence
"Hear the silence, see the Silence, taste, touch and smell the Silence. Silence is truth, Silence is God, Silence is the peace that passeth all understanding. Close your eyes and become one with the Silence" Swami Vishnu-devananda, founder, International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres
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