Archive for the ‘journey’ Tag

the mystical journey continues

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photo: Katalin Kurko

 This path of yoga is something that feels true on a deeper level.  Finally I get answers to many of my questions. We had evening lectures with an Indian philosopher this week .  After a long day of lectures I reach a state which is close to dreaming and I see very vivid pictures in my head.

Part of the lecture was something like this:

… A woman goes to hairdresser for 3 hours. She comes home and her kid comes up to her and drag in her hair. It is alright ! the mother have love for the child. In the same way our love for god makes us accept all the things around us even the things that are not so pleasant …  

The focus is clearly on Vedanta and hinduism but there is also room for other religion. Sivananda, The founder of this yoga tradition wrote a prayer which includes Jesus , Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna etc. and he described these people as very good teachers on the spiritual path. The teacher on this level has realized the underlying truth about reality and now he spend his time to communicate this teaching to his fellow man.
 
the main goal of this school is not to make us yoga teachers but to make us into messengers for peace throughout the world ! a messenger who understand the difference between being a spiritual seeker and a religious fanatic :)

heart of darkness

“ It’s a way we had over here with living with ourselves. We cut ‘em in half with a machine gun and give ‘em a Band-Aid. It was a lie. And the more I saw them, the more I hated lies. “

 It is from the movie Apocalypse now and I have seen it more than 7 times over the years. In the documentary “heart of darkness” Francis Ford Coppola’s wife is telling us that they risked their own money and property in making this movie and she was willing to take that risk. I think that kind of willingness to risk everything you have is something that really gives a rich life. The movie itself transcends the Vietnam war and explains the painful dreamlike journey that life can be.
The pain was more than I could take and I released my legs from the Lotus pose. I started to see the connections with lines like ”Break on Through To the Other Side ” and how I experienced life. A journey where there is a dimension of peace and happiness which you cannot reach with logic. In the quest for this eternal truth and blissful state people have used psychedelic substances, alcohol, religion and meditation. The more I saw of the daily struggle for different people the more life seemed like a bad dream. The guy I talked to in England who had been living like a dog in a small house on the yard with his father beating him regularly was something I could not understand with logic but i could understand the pain to some extent. It opened a painful insight about human behaviour. For a long time I had dreams where the only option I had to survive was to kill other people. I get surprised with my own reactions to fear. My daily life was rather peaceful but then I had this dreams which really scared me beyond reason.  After a long and intensive period of meditation and yoga I had a dream where I was chased as before but this time I decided I rather die than being in this loop of violence. All of a sudden the dream changed and everybody was walking around peacefully. It was like if a stone was lifted from my chest and I woke up full of energy. But this was just a short glimpse and The nightmares returned in other variations . An attitude I want to avoid is to become one of those “holier than thou” yogis.

“In short, most of us think we really are “holier than thou,” although we may not be willing to admit it. Most of us know we wouldn’t do the awful things that set us apart from those ordinary people who stumble along the way — all those folks who are just average. ” from abcnews

. This holier than thou mentality creates a setting where you have to put a lot of dreams and emotions under the carpet and suppress them to fit in. I have tried kick-boxing, tennis, weightlifting, Ashtanga yoga, Sivananda yoga, Satyananda yoga etc. and I pick something there and something there and out of that i build something that suits me. If I should give some advice it would be to try to stay open in life and find the flow which feels good and right inside. here are two people I really find inspirational. First it is Travis Barker on drums   and then Junior in break dance .

ashram life in the middle of the swedish forrest.

I think I have stayed with the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School through the years because they deliver a down to earth version of yoga. After my first session with them on a health exhibition in Gothenburg  my whole body was totally relaxed and this was a new experience for me.  After some evening classes and a trip to India I decided to give their 3-months course at Haa Course Center in the south of Sweden a go.

28_cirkel_haa_image_550_wI had never been to their coursecenter before and I thought it was going to be like a vacation with a little bit of yoga in between. The following weeks of hard physical labour and a lot of physical yoga was not something I had expected. After years in front of a computer it was a great relief to work with the WHOLE body.

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I have to admit that in some ways this is the toughest thing I have done in my life. Not because of the physical work but because of the deep confrontation with what is really me.  In the long silent period a lot of thoughts surfaced who I had suppressed in my daily life for a long time. I was grateful for the heavy labour such as wood chopping and lifting stones which I enlisted for as much as I could. It was like training in an old school gym. I had doubts during the course and as the course intensified I really had to struggle.

If I should summarise this course it would be that it really focused my thinking and it brought clarity to my mind.  I started to study at university shortly after this course and My first year of study was with really good grades. I felt totally focused on the studies and I think the course was the reason for this.

this is what you get at a course in Haa course centre

- a lot of yoga
- teachers who are very focused and most of the time friendly
- good value for money
- good discipline in the yoga room and on the course

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