BYC Newsletter #9
Dear Yoga students and those interested in Yoga,
An invitation to Awareness
As noted in the last newsletter, the yoga classes will now be open
for drop-ins. Instead of having a class that is structured in a time
frame, with one lesson building on the other, the class will not be
time dependent. Each class will be what it is, an experience rather
than a lesson plan. Instead of signing up for a six week class for
$60, you will be able to just pay for a $10 single class when you drop
in, or buy 8 anytime sessions for $64, a $16 savings.
The session (no longer a class) will have a modest structure. First
there will be the invitation to awareness of the present moment. A
bell will be sounded and a brief meditation will focus awareness within.
Then we will move through a set of asanas, slowly, with the awareness
turned within on the inner body and breath. (No chance for thought
to grab hold here) Since the asanas will always be directed by the
teacher, it won’t matter if you have done them or not.
After the asanas, a conscious relaxation will take us into the ocean
of stillness, leaving thoughts way back up on the surface. Thoughts
are okay, but they will just slip farther and farther away, losing
their power to disturb the mind, and cutting us free from our identification
with their storms of worry and doubt.
After coming back to the surface, we’ll be open to whatever words
rise. A question, an idea, an insight...something will rise out of
the great ocean of being and surprise us.
Then we will put our shoes and our everyday mind and return to our
world, refreshed by our visit to the ocean of our being. We will be
ready to apply what we have learned to our world—our conscious
breathing, our awareness of the inner body, and our presence—and
to remember when the rough seas come that the ocean of our being is
always present beneath the waves of our thoughts.
While the rest of the world is tossed and churned on the surface of
the mind, unable to find peace or meaning, we will be like submarines,
able to be in both dimensions at the same time, in the world but also
beyond it...aware of the waves and the ocean at the same time.
As you can see I drew these images from my three years on a submarine.
I’m also struck by how similar this has become to my wife’s
massage. She too offers a refuge from the troubled sea of the mind,
a place where the toxic tensions of the body are released, and a connection
with the inner peace that we have lost in our world. The difference
is that with yoga you are learning how to give yourself a massage.
The four sessions open right now are Monday evening, Tuesday evening,
Wednesday afternoon, and Wednesday evening. Sessions are always at
7:30 or 2 P.M. Thursday night will remain Eckhart Tolle night, with
a recorded session from one of Tolle’s retreats and then a stillness
practice. I love Tolle because he can not only show me where peace
is, but then he takes me to its edge so I can fall in.
This week Wednesday and Thursday will be closed for the holiday.
May all your moments be a Thanksgiving. If we thank each moment for
being what it is, then all of our moments will fill us with grace.
First we accept, then we receive the blessing.
Thank you,
Om Peace
Ed Conley
11/09/06
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