Sutra Discussion, Casey Vacation, Support Schedule, Preview of 6 week immersion, notes.

Sunday night sutra is on. Tomorrow 6 to 730. A shorter time, starts at sunset. More discussion on what we know thus far. See you then.

Starting Monday morning I will be out of town attending a yoga conference in San Diego. Tough work I know but someone has to attend these things.

*See my notes after the announcements regarding unsupported Mysore.

830-10AM Mysore w/Dena

530-7PM Unsupported hosted by Sarahji

AM Unsupported (no host) Mysore

530-7PM Mysore with Liza

AM Unsupported Mysore hosted by Liza

7-830AM Group Primary w/Dena

9AM Mysore w/ Sarahji

I’m currently organizing an Ashtanga Yoga Immersion beginning March 31st at 11:30AM and end on Saturday May 19th. The meeting times are Monday and Wednesday, 730-9PM (note that note the times are later in the evening). The immersion cost will $165 dollars, meet 17 times. It will also include access to some of the Mysore class times. It’s for folks both new to ashtanga and new to yoga. The Saturday sessions will especially focus on basic 8-Limb yoga philosophy and establishing a practice that can last. The intended result of this immersion is to practice yoga in the Mysore style, but not geared for perfection which we all know takes time and begs the question; is it ever really perfect, is it ever not perfect? Having the time and opportunity to understand the method and remembering the process is crucial to lasting practice. I believe a lot of people want this but find the method of learning it outside a beginning group structure difficult.

Official fliers for the event will be sent out next week. For now I’m asking you all to spread the word to that one friend who has always threatened to practice but can’t make it. Now is as good a time as any to do the preliminary work that can lead to a lasting practice.

I’m officially inspired.

After years of chronic pain in my back I’m finally on the mend. I’m not pain free but I don’t expect that to be possible anyway, just free of the cause and abiding in the result. Day in and day out for the past 4 years, since Bush was president, the year 2012 just a concept and the economy had yet to collapse, I have been constantly working on healing my back (which is connected to everything it seems). I tried everything under the sun to get it feeling right again. I practiced day in day out, studied day in day out, contemplated day in day out. I did the wrong things and the right things. I got deeper into yoga that I ever would have had I simply been endowed with pain free life. I saw so much, tried so much and gained an entirely new respect for a healthy body that can last. I would not trade it in to loose what results I have acquired. Nor can I. And I suppose there is more to come of pain and comfort anyway.

In light of the recent buzz about yoga wrecking your body (which has passed and been forgot, like every thing else that ever gets acted out or uttered and commented on so eloquently) I have to thank my pain (via an injury) for teaching so much about yoga. Not only did it teach me a lot about yoga, it taught me a lot about healing and living. Without my nasty, daily, sometimes bitter (and sometimes in false remission) and always exhausting relationship with excruciating back pain, I would never have healed or at least confirmed that to heal is possible. A strange paradox for sure.

Back pain been my constant companion and teacher since I was last in India (2007) (and before really) and the best teacher I’ve ever had. I know it sounds strange but it takes what it takes. So I’ll be blunt for all those folks who think yoga is only supposed to be a fun ride where suffering never happens and everything has to be peachy for yoga to be ok. Our bodies will ultimately betray us and if we don’t get into who we really are (self-reflecting awareness) we will struggle to achieve getting a better one, which in death translates as reincarnation, for better or worse.  I don’t think anyone living authentically believes yoga to be only fun etc anyway… On the contrary, if we get on a mat or a cushion and something pleasant or unpleasant does not arise we can’t really call it yoga and we are either blinded, in delusion or fooling ourselves. Because something will always be coming up. Unpleasant, pleasant. Not relevant. Embracing  the origin of those states in what yoga is for, not the endless pursuit of one or the endurance of the other. We look within the pleasant and unpleasant to know from where they arise. I wont try to explain this now. I know what I mean. You may as well.

In 2007 I was ready to have any shaman wave chicken feather over me or have an accidental chiropractic incident that put it all right. I was still ready last week. Those things never happened nor would they have worked. In light of my personality, which is how I got myself in the mess in the first place, I had to do the work and get myself right. No other person in the world can do this for me but me. Some people help made it worse because I wanted to let them try to for me what I needed to do for myself. A few helped me a great deal to make it better, taught me a great deal and offered me method and process that helped me acquire insight. With their personal work and living example of tirelessly carrying on, no matter what, my relentless struggle was reflected back at me as something valid and true and worth pursuing. They did not try to talk me out of anything and supported me in finding my own path among the many paths.

The reason I’m writing this? I want to encourage you to practice while I am in San Diego and keep the method up whether you have help or not. I want to support and encourage those of you who are set on making it work for yourself. To invite you do the method that stirs up then forces the poison out and gives rise to the remainder, knowledge of subtle awareness, pure awareness . Near East Yoga is going on it’s 10th year and for all that time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it’s been open for people to practice Ashtanga Yoga Vinyasa. That said, the mat, the cushion the street corner, yoga studio, Safeway etc… where the awareness of mind is concerned, there is no difference. Why wait to practice tomorrow when we can practice now. Workshops are great, teachers are great but what about knowing our state of being is arising from within?  Is that not our endowment? Self originating awareness? “Do your practice all is coming” are the Jois “words” (a nod to Game of Thrones) but they could just as well be “Do your practice because there is nothing else to do but practice”. If you have a practice, then keep it up. The only thing that stops people from practice is they stop practicing.

All of that said, I’m off to get support and insight from some Senior teachers.  Three months ago I when I paid the money to do this conference I was not convinced it was for me. Some trusted friends said they wanted me there with them and I needed that support so I signed up. I certainly did not want to go to the conference with my practice as it was.  Since I was going all the same, I had better get down to it and prepare. I had two big things to work out. One was the afore mentioned back-pain. The other, my gigantic ego and the effect it was having on my practice. Ego is one of the klesha’s. Klesha means pain. Ego is pain. One day it dawned on me that ego-pain is basically summed up like this- my Ego calls me on the phone, then deceives me about me and others by making it about Ego with the result being pain. That’s how I know my Ego has called me up- I hurt. What the past four years have taught me is how to hang up the phone. My objective is to put that karma behind me. Patanjali has pointed all of this out in the Sutras. It’s up to me to do it.

And in San Diego, the Sun is shining. Ah, the Sun. I’ll gladly bow to that teacher anytime.

Looking forward to seeing friends there and friends here when I return.

Peace to you all, Casey