BYC Newsletter #6 Dear Yoga students and those interested in Yoga,
You need cold to appreciate warm. That observation struck
me this morning as I went through several freezing rooms in our huge
Victorian house, which doesn’t have central heating, and reentered
our living room where the Franklin gas stove keeps two large rooms
warm as a cup of fresh tea. If we had central heating, my appreciation
of the room as a refuge from the cold would not have risen in my consciousness. And now to this week’s BYC newsletter. We have all noticed that
as the six weeks of yoga classes have moved along to the end, it has
been more difficult to find the time to make the class. A few have
been regular, but most have been interrupted by the “call of
the world.” Even in our small town life here in Blackstone,
the world makes great demands on us. When we take a yoga class and experience deep relaxation,
the mind is still,and we let go of our reactive problematic mind that
is
bound up rreacting to the demands of the world. In its absence a
deep peace and spaciousness rises. We feel relaxed, rejuvenated, and
at
peace
with
the world. When our world is frozen in sameness and leaves us feeling unfulfilled,
it only takes one moment with a Franklin stove to realize that cold
is necessary so that we can appreciate warmth. The practice of yoga
is keeping that stove lit so you can walk into your warm living room
anytime you want to. Now for some general news. Every Thursday evening, starting
November 30, our “living” room will be an Eckhart
Tolle Stillness
Center. (I just made that name up) We are registered and one of ten
groups in Virginia. The evening session will begin at 7 P.M. with a
30 minute audio from one of Tolle’s recorded retreats, followed
by a 20 minute practice of stillness (meditation). My wife and I
are doing this because we are already doing it, and this evening
will just
be a sharing of what is already enriching our lives. Personally, I have found Eckhart Tolle, the author of
best-selling The Power of Now, to be a synthesis of all the wisdom
teachings I
have been studying all my life. In very simple words and images,
he lives
the essence of Swami Satchidananda’s core teaching: “Truth
is One, Paths are many.” No matter what faith, or non-faith,
one is practicing, there is space in Tolle for you. And you cannot
sit with him for long without discovering the space of stillness
within. Stillness...peace...is our essential Self. It is only our mental noise that keeps us from hearing it. Thank you, 11/04/06 |
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