30 June 2021
29 June 2021
28 June 2021
27 June 2021
25 June 2021
This task of dismantling the false self to arrive at some truth lurking beneath is truly herculean and it cannot be tackled alone. Firstly you need a teacher to tell you what to do and then to correct what you do. Left to your own devices you will always pick and choose unwisely and end up doing things your own way rather than the right way. And secondly you need companions (what my teacher called comrades in arms) – fellow travellers for support and inspiration when things get tough, otherwise the chances of you continuing, let alone progressing, are very slim. The teacher (it must be one rather than many otherwise again you will pick and choose) will set a work regime which, if you are serious, you will follow religiously. My own teacher told me to practise at least three hours a day on my own and as much as possible with others. He was adamant that class work, either as student or teacher, does not constitute practice. Then it's just a matter of perseverance. The only other thing that needs to be said is that if you are serious then you cannot expect to live a normal life. Normal lives are for people dedicated to preening and bolstering the false self, and are governed by principles of acquisition and accrual. Our lives are dedicated to the opposite and are governed by principles of reduction and sacrifice. This requires real courage – to willingly live against the grain of society. It means everyone you know who isn't a comrade in arms will be disappointed in you, and you shouldn't expect anything else.
24 June 2021
23 June 2021
Why is being so terrifying? Why do we endlessly fidget with our bodies, minds and gadgets rather than settle into simple presence? The only reason I can fathom is that Being is Divine, Being is God, so when we come into our own being we at once become realised as divine but also subsumed into the Divine, and this is just too awful for most. Hence our constant escape into busyness.
22 June 2021
21 June 2021
Students complain that when they practice alone it never feels like it did in class. This is because their practice is intermittent at best. If they practised daily then gradually they would encounter and befriend the gentle delicate spirit of solitude and those sessions would take them far deeper than a class ever could. The work is not social, it is hermitic: deeply private and sacred.
20 June 2021
19 June 2021
18 June 2021
17 June 2021
Each of us a wound, a gash, rent in the fabric of reality, through which something inexpressibly other seeps into this world from another dimension. It's our function as humans and as beings to bleed and to be aware of it, to communicate not with words or actions but with aware being, by being aware.
16 June 2021
15 June 2021
14 June 2021
13 June 2021
12 June 2021
11 June 2021
10 June 2021
09 June 2021
08 June 2021
07 June 2021
'Bum in' is less a physical correction than a point of awareness. Sacrum as place of bifurcation: where sinking energy splits into the legs and where rising energy becomes the twine of spine. It is the most important bone in the body and we need to be aware of it all the time. Sit down into it and the heart lifts naturally.