Reading from Class: Beyond Struggle

“Your work really begins when you release struggle. To let go of struggle initiates a change of vibration within you. This change puts you in touch with the flow of Life Itself, which is essentially what you are.  To cultivate your awareness of this flow is your real work. When you’re in touch with the flowContinue reading “Reading from Class: Beyond Struggle”

Reading From Class: Openness

“The openness to Life Itself that we cultivate frees us from a great deal of conditioning and many inherent and inherited assumptions…Life is not about answers.  It IS about learning to live in the middle of complete uncertainty, and doing so gracefully.” – Swami Chetanananda     Shared from Yoga Gems.

Reading from Class: Self-discovery

“Yoga is meant to give us a way to discover or rediscover ourselves. It teaches us how to find the great margin of maximum capacity that we have inside us so that we are able to expose ourselves to ourselves and find out what we really are.” — Geeta S. Iyengar

Reading from Class: Awareness of Intentions

“By making an effort to notice our intentions with honesty and clarity, we gain a great deal of freedom. If we take the time to pay quiet attention, perhaps through meditation or contemplation, we may develop a completely different understanding of why we do the things we do and a new perspective on how toContinue reading “Reading from Class: Awareness of Intentions”

Reading from class: Power of Intention by Sharon Salzberg

“By prizing heartfulness above faultlessness, we may reap more from our effort because we’re more likely to be changed by it. We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it.” – Sharon Salzberg   This is my third sharing from this article.Continue reading “Reading from class: Power of Intention by Sharon Salzberg”

Reading from Class: “Bootstraps” by Sharon Salzberg

“If we fall, we don’t need self-recrimination or blame or anger—we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit, to be wholehearted once again.” – Sharon Salzberg My mind easily wanders down dark alleys of fault, mistakes, failure and disparaging thoughts. After faulting, I can be consumed with worry, guilt and frustration.Continue reading “Reading from Class: “Bootstraps” by Sharon Salzberg”

Reading from Class: Persistence by Sharon Salzberg

“Often we can achieve an even better result when we stumble yet are willing to start over, when we don’t give up after a mistake, when something doesn’t come easily but we throw ourselves into trying, when we’re not afraid to appear less than perfectly polished.” – Sharon Salzberg This reading is from a greatContinue reading “Reading from Class: Persistence by Sharon Salzberg”

Reading from Class: The Power of Freedom (Presence) by B. K. S. Iyengar

“If there is anxiety in the body, the brain contracts. When the brain relaxes and empties itself, it lets go of its fears and desires. It dwells neither on the past, nor the future, but inhabits the present. Freedom is about dropping the shackles of fear and desire. When freedom comes, there is no anxiety,Continue reading “Reading from Class: The Power of Freedom (Presence) by B. K. S. Iyengar”

Reading from Class: Openness by Thomas Merton

From Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander: “The things we really need come to us only as gifts, and in order to receive them as gifts we have to be open.  In order to be open we have to renounce ourselves, in a sense we have to die to our image of ourselves, our autonomy, our fixationContinue reading “Reading from Class: Openness by Thomas Merton”

Reading from Class: Happiness by Noah Levine

“We are addicted to pleasure, in part because we confuse pleasure with happiness.  We would all say that deep down, all we want is to be happy.  Yet we don’t have a realistic understanding of what happiness really is.  Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure. TrueContinue reading “Reading from Class: Happiness by Noah Levine”