YogaPoint Blog

I have been having a holiday at home in Australia for the last month or so. It’s been unusual not teaching classes but it has been very interesting observing the western culture. Before I even reached my home from the airport I was astounded by how self-absorbed people were, how preoccupied they were by how they looked, talked, walked…Now with the “global financial crisis” people have become more worried about what they have, want and what they need. Though want and need have often not been differentiated.

Though this is natural it made me realise the even greater need of yoga in the west. Though Yoga is growing there is still not much of an understanding of true yoga, the wholistic science. It is still pretty much asana based with a bit of meditation thrown in. At least it is something, a beginning but imagine how much happier people would be if they learnt and started to follow the Yamas and Niyamas…..to loose the attachment to STUFF, to accept what they have, to be content, to be thankful for what they have and be aware of what they use and the effect it has on others and the world, just to be more aware in general…..

This is why it is so important that people learn more than just asanas. It should be the duty of a yoga teacher to follow the principles of yoga and share them with others. If you read and study the teachings of Swami Sivananda you realise that there is nothing that is more important than the principles of serve, love and give….   

Just a thought…..

I just came back from the funeral of my 97 year old family friend. It had been time for her to go for a quite a while. I am not sure why it hadn’t happened yet, maybe the pacemaker she had or maybe a fear of death. No matter how much we talk about death we still get scared towards the end. Whatever we believe, if it is some kind of heaven, a new incarnation or nothingness almost everyone has this underlying fear to some extent.

We don’t like to be reminded of it and that’s what the elderly do. As people get older less and less people want to visit them, it makes them uncomfortable or upset so they avoid it. I can admit that it has also happened to me. When I went to visit her at the nursing home it made me think a lot about death, about the loneliness of the elderly, about how people like to forget about the elderly to make themselves feel better. Also, looking around at their rooms with nothing in them I thought about how we are born alone with nothing and die the same.

Why do we spend our lives accumulating this and that, trying to find ways of making us happier. Why not work on making ourselves better people, to become free of attachments, to overcome our fears of death and being alone. Most people spend the majority of their lives working to gain money for themselves and their family. They look only at their family, not at the world as a whole. The yogic view says that we should look at the whole world as one family, to look at every child as if they were our own, every elderly person as our own parent or grandparent. This is also a way of getting over our insecurities that we feel, to make us realise that though we live and die alone we are all in this world together.  We always have something to learn and to teach to others.

Today I learnt that we will always do what we can to avoid these fears, even if it means not being true to ourselves. We need to learn to face ourselves in all circumstances, learn to care and look at others as part of our one big extended family and learn to do the things that make us feel uncomfortable because we will always learn something from them.

We show a mask to the world outside

To conceal the tumults going on inside,

We smile politely, say ‘thank you’ or ‘please’

But though appearing calm, we’re not at our ease.

And when there’s not tumult but a rebellion inside

We’re no longer polite and we don’t try to hide

Our pent-up emotions; we’re hurtful, unkind,

For the moment not caring, so ‘Please, do you mind?’

When we’re hurt or unhappy or angry within

And hateful to others due to the state we are in,

When we snarl or bite back, it’s the animal in us,

Our very grossest aspect, that is making all this fuss.

And when there’s reaction on  another person’s side

No purpose is served, for nothing’s gained thereby

Except to add fuel to the inferno in the mind,

So it’s best to be silent and to be kind.

Just let him be, his emotions expressing,

Getting rid of them, instead of repressing.

Understand his hurt feelings, understand his way

But don’t let it affect you ands poison your day.

Why should another’s reactions react upon you?

Don’t allow what they do to have an effect on you.

Those tempests and turmoils come from outside

They are temporary – what storm ever abides?

When the waves of your  mind keep on coming

Why wait for them to subside?

There’s a place of calm at your centre

And that’s the place to reside.

- Author unknown

In this Dream I am sitting in front of my Guru
In this Dream I am crying out of pure joy
In this Dream my tears are sweet like jaggery
In this Dream my Guruji sees me cry and says
In this Dream with a firm but warm tone like delicious warm milk why the tears
In this Dream I reply and say because of your grace my Lord because of your grace.

In this Dream I will tell my Guruji that you are the divine essence within me
In this Dream I can say that to me you represent Love and all that is true and beautiful
In this Dream I will say thank you for being you and for being in my life and hopefully in the next.

In this Dream I wish to Dream forever.

Hari Om Tat Sat

This poem is devoted to His Holiness Paramahansa Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati, who shines the light for so many.

Hansraj Ramlugun
www.swanyoga.webeden.co.uk

Why is Mother Kali so radiantly Black?

Why is Mother Kali so radiantly black?
Because she is so powerful,
that even mentioning her name destroys delusion.
Because she is so beautiful,
Lord Shiva, Conquerer of death,
lies blissfully vanquished,
beneath the red soled feet.
There are subtle hues of blackness,
But her bright complexion
is the mystery that is utterly black,
overwhelmingly black, wonderfully black.
When she awakens in the lotus shrine
within the heart’s secret cave,
her blackness becomes the mystic illumination
that causes the twelve petal blossom there
to glow more intensely than golden embers.
Her lovely form is the incomparable
Kali- black blacker than the King of Death.
Whoever gazes upon this radiant blackness falls eternally in love
and feels no attraction to any other,
discovering everywhere only her.
This poet sighs deeply,
“Where is this brilliant lady, this black light beyond luminosity?
Though I have never seen her, simply hearing her name,
the mind becomes absorbed completely in her astonishing reality.

Om Kali! Om Kali! Om Kali!

Ramprasad Poems