Sacred Words

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” ~ Jawaharial Nehru

*It is only when man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream that he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed, that he is set free. That he has set themselves free for higher dreams, for greater things.*

"i submit to life and then i find the beautiful explanation for my act. i make the piece fit into creative weaving." ~ Anais Nin

"Unless we know the value of other religious traditions, it is difficult to develop respect for them. Mutual respect is the foundation of genuine harmony. We should strive for a spirit of harmony, not for political or economic reasons, but rather simply because we realize the value of other traditions. I always... make an effort to promote religious harmony." ~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Yoga lesson learnt today :: Uddyanabandha (upward abdominal lock) creates agni (fire), roots your core centre to the ground (apana) and activates the life force (prana) that awakens the spine.

The way lives touch // touch and spring apart // the pulse synaptic, local, // but its stretch electric - // as when cities lose themselves in velvet // under winking planes, binding black hostilities with gold chains. Anne Stevenson (b.1933)

"Yoga is an accelerated vehicle for life
learning. When we feel a certain emotion on the yoga mat in a
challenging posture it is often a trigger for a repetitive emotional
state in our lives. By focusing on the breathe, the posture and point of
attention within you are able to stay in the present moment, cultivate
an equanimous mind and break away from damaging behaviors." ~ Kino

Leo Tolstoy inspired him, Rabindranath Tagore counselled him, and Martin Luther King Jr carried on the torch of peaceful mass-resistance after he had died...

“In ancient tantric societies, when real yoga first flourished, the supreme relevance of male-female polarity and equality permeated society to great effect. This is the way it has been, and will be again. We are just finally getting around to again confronting the dominant male doctrine.”

Pay my respects to grace and virtue // Send my condolences to good // Give my regards to soul and romance // They always did the best they could...

"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude". Aldous Huxley/The Doors of Perception

*As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.* ~ Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does n...ot serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.' Marianne Williamson

"think deeply, speak gently, love much and laugh often"

Magritte, The Dangerous Liaison, 1926
Gli Hindu chiamano Maya il concetto di illusione e, come in questo dipinto, credono che guardare nello specchio sia fuorviante. Meglio rivolgere lo sguardo altrove, professano gli scettici. Ma invece di ritirarsi dall’incertezza dell’illusione, Nietzsche ci incoraggia ad accoglierla. <> Anche se possiamo vedere solo una frazione del cosmo, ogni frammento che osserviamo arricchisce la sua entropia, contribuisce alla diversita’ del tutto e induce cambiamento.

yoga lesson learnt today :: get rid of your limiting thoughts and honour the body you live in.

the energy that is put into a belief and makes you feel superior negates life as it cuts you off from any real connection that you and I may have.

to laugh is to risk appearing the fool
to weep is to risk appearing sentimental
to reach out to another is to risk involvement
to expose your feelings is to risk exposing your true self
to place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss

to love is to risk not being loved in return
to live is to risk dying
to hope is to risk despair
to try is to risk failure
but risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing

yoga lesson learnt today :: where awareness shines, there flows the creative energy. let your awareness be a butterfly hopping from darkness to light to darkness to light. there can't be an upside without a downside.

*live to be in the present. safety, security, knowing and being right are all synonyms for death.* ~ Cheri Huber

"We seek it here, we seek it there, we look for love everywhere! We expect it to come to us, usually through another person. All our conditioning says love is something that happens to us ... and yet real love cannot be acquired, possessed or accumulated. The ultimate paradox is we are it. We are love."

' I want my life to be one of love, not rage. Kindness, not contempt. Joy, not suffering. I want to be alive and present in this moment, not lost in thought and delusion. ' ~ Zen poem

*It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.* ~ e. e. cummings

“the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing
she may avoid suffering and sorrow, but she simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love and live chained by his certitudes, he is a slave, he has forfeited his freedom
only the person that risks is free”

Yoga lesson learnt today :: generosity is an act of letting it go.

* Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.* ~ Rumi

*Longing in its purity is divine, longing when it longs for nothing is divine. The moment an object of the longing arises, it becomes mundane.* ~ Osho

"some we know to be dead even though they walk among us; some are not yet born though they go through all the forms of life; other are hundreds of years old though they call themselves thirty-six" — Virginia Woolf (Orlando)

*There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.* ~ Milan Kundera

*nothing happens until something starts moving* A. Einstein

yoga lesson learnt today :: the third eye is the chakra of the "I": intellect, intuition, intelligence, introversion, insight... When you close your eyes the third eye opens.

*I've decided to be happy, because it is good for my health.* ~ Voltaire

Yoga lesson learnt today :: acceptance is to be able to forfeit expectations. If the fruits of your actions come back to you, let be it. If they don't, let be it.

Recognition is the first step in the process of understanding, acceptance and caring attitude...

Yoga lesson {within the lesson} learnt today :: cultivate the unseen: the spirit, the soul and the breath - your source for nourishment, support, courage and healing.

To see a world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour - W. Blake

"My mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it. I never felt my mind repose upon anything with complete and undistracted enjoyment- upon no person but you. When you are in the room my thoughts never fly out of the window: you always concentrate my whole senses". 

John Keats

Yoga lesson learnt today:: Don't ask: What does the world need? Ask: What does make me come alive? The world needs just that: people who are alive. No go and do that.

How? through tapas (burning what doesn't serve you), svadhyaya (self awareness) and openess to the world which we can't control.

"When, like the tortoise which withdraws its
limbs on all sides, he withdraws his senses from the sense
objects, then his wisdom becomes steady." ~ Bhagavad-Gita, 2-58