Everyone with a heart experiences emotion. These emotions are felt as sensations in the body. When emotions are uncomfortable or painful, we tense up, we try not to feel what we are feeling, and this distorts the body posture. After the emotional episode is over the mind moves on to another experience, but the body has not forgotten! The impact of emotion is imprinted in the body and it retains the painful memory in muscular tension, even though we have lost conscious awareness of it.
Read MoreDear Friends
Many thanks to those of you who have been supporting my writing projects. Although I have been working on the Yoga Sadhana book for several years, the material that has recently motivated me to write is the subject of the Meditations on Pain book.
This feels more relevant because it is part of my current research and recent experience, and because I feel it is a way forward for all of us who are interested in spiritual practice and meditation.
Read MoreThe last two years have provided me with a wonderful opportunity for reflection and deepening of my own personal practice. During this time I have discovered something unique and valuable that I now feel moved to share.
It started around ten years ago when I discovered that despite decades of yoga practice when I came to sit for meditation, there was still a lot of tension and pain in my body. A few years later, something my teacher Acharya said caught my attention:
“Pains in the body experienced during meditation are caused by previous sins (wrong thoughts and actions).”
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After 30 years of traveling to India, studying, practicing and teaching yoga, it feels like time to record some of my thoughts on paper. I have several projects in mind. The first is a book that would offer students support in practice - advice about diet, injury, breathing, life phases, orientation etc., that I have accumulated over this time. The working title of this book is “Yoga Sadhana - How to Practice Yoga.”
The second is a book reflecting on my own personal practice as it has evolved over the years and, in particular, during the period since the coronavirus pandemic closed the shala doors two years ago. Stepping back from teaching has permitted me to go much deeper into my own process and practice. The working title of this book is “Meditations on Pain” - you can read something about my process here: here - and below.