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Patanjali, Amma & Erwins

AMMA:

“If you want your suffering to end, pray that your desires are eliminated. Also pray that your faith and love for God grow. If you can do this, then the Divine will fulfill all your needs.”

PATANJALI:

“To eliminate your desires, think and act in accordance with the Serenity Prayer – and meditate, meditate, meditate!!”

 

As my new friend and fellow yoga teacher Erwins Cazeau reminded us in class yesterday, yoga isn’t about what we do on the mat – quite the opposite!

This picture of a keychain hanging in front of sheet music for Amazing Grace captures the essence of Patanjali’s & Amma’s yoga:

The keychain reminds us of our three essential, non-physical aspects: the two skulls represent our conscious & sub-conscious mind, and the Lego Superman represents our immutable consciousness – without which we don’t realize we’re alive!!

My life has become an homage to Patanjali who – before there was an alphabet!! THANKFULLY!!! – outlined the practice of Raja Yoga forever in the Yoga Sutras.

Gratitude and blessings to Amma, Erwins and all yoga teachers who in their own unique ways help preserve and promote Patanjali’s work.

Stay warm and “meditate, meditate, meditate!!”

Hugs & love, Allan <3

January class schedule

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MY FOOT FETISH (PART 2)

## OPEN OFFER TO MEDITATION PUBLICATIONS ##

To the ”xxxxxxx” team:

I teach Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, an outline of the prehistoric science of mind control.

I invite you to check out my holiday blog post:

Holiday Challenge

and/or my FB page:

The Marblehead School of Raja Yoga

….specifically, any of these recent posts:

  • FORGET WHAT YOU SEE IN THE MIRROR
  • MY FOOT FETISH
  • THE HOLY TRINITY

I’d be thrilled to share with your readers the prehistoric science and practice of mind control as outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, a prehistoric, 200-line, four-part poem.

The first part of Patanjali’s poem explains how and why the practice works, and the second part explains how to PREPARE to meditate.

[If you type “sutras” into the search bar on my blog, the first two posts that come up are simplistic line-by-line translations of the first half of Patanjali’s poem.]

Over the last 15 years, I’ve become a devotee of Patanjali. No orange robe, and no shaved head, but it’s fun teasing Mrs. Dowds and our grown kids that I might!

I hope this makes you smile! 😉

God bless, Allan

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Sadness

I just heard the saddest thing. A friend told me that even if she could come back again after she dies, she doesn’t want to.

She’s not suicidal; far from it. She believes in reincarnation – she just doesn’t want to come back here!

Life is sacred.

My heart weeps for anyone who’s “so done with this life” – even more so for my friend because she embodies the yogic concepts of mindfulness and service, making her among the most blessed among us!

Life IS suffering. I get it. Buddha said it. Patanjali said it. We know it intuitively if for no other reason than that everything (including our self) dies! BUT life is as miraculous as it is sorrowful and fleeting! HOW can we not all see that?!

Holiday Rx

If someone you love is having hard time particularly during the holidays, or they’re just “so done with it all”, here’s a yogic RX (yes, get a little exercise, watch what you eat and all the rest of the things we all know, but sprinkle in a little of this):

community service + religious service + meditation

Draw serenity, courage, strength and faith from within YOURSELF! Harness the life-altering power of meditation!

God bless. May you smile more than you frown especially at this time of year!

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Class Info

stretching classes

This is for Mary, who inquired about classes:

Cost: $15 per class

Who: Allan “Skip” Dowds is a 500-hour certified Raja Yoga instructor with 14 years of training

When:  [please confirm ahead of time!]

          Mon, Wed, Fri            8am, 9am, 3pm & 7pm

          Tue                                 7pm

          Thu                                3pm & 7pm

          Sat                                 8am, 9am & 10am

Where: 211 Essex St. – Suite 5 – Swampscott, MA. Plenty of parking!

What: Raja Yoga is the science of mind control (your own – not other people’s)!

Instructional classes are small, last an hour, and consist of 5 segments: philosophy, and 4 types of exercise (2 physical & 2 mental) intended to facilitate self-induced, deep relaxation.

The physical exercises improve range-of-motion, balance and muscle condition for everyday living, as well as calm and regulate one’s breathing.

The mental exercises improve focus and quiet the voice in our head! 😉

 

Why: Learn techniques and practices to reduce stress, tension, anxiety, and a litany of other mental and physical woes!

Meditation – it’s what’s good for you!

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Pray like you mean it

Fifteen years of diligent pursuit of the meaning of “yoga” and one of my favorite descriptions of the practice is still the introduction to Iyengar’s “Light on Yoga”, a must-have resource for the serious yoga student. Iyengar says that yoga isn’t a religion; rather it’s the study of religion.

Sue & I attended a three hour service at the Greater Bethlehem Temple Pentecostal Church in Lynn last night.

OMG. First of all to my Bhakti Yoga brethren and sisters (btw – Pentecostal devotees refer to each other in family terms as well) you HAVE to go to a Pentecostal service! They take kirtan (devotional chanting) to a whole new level!

The only difference between the two services (admittedly, I’ve only been to one of each) – aside from length – was the name of God they use to evoke a sense of union with the Divine. Technicalities and semantics aside, both Jesus and Krishna are perceived by their devotees as manifestations of God.

Well, there WAS one other difference: when you get a church full of devotees dancing and chanting, professing their love of God, the entire building literally shakes! At times last night’s service was reminiscent of a rock concert held in honor of God and love! It was truly awesome!

Services intended to evoke a deeper connection with the Divine are one way communities pray together. We get together to hear testimony, sing, and if the spirit moves us, to move with it – and otherwise express humility and heartfelt gratitude. It’s all beautiful……

……the fellowship made all the sweeter by, as Sue and I were reminded by the Bishop’s wife last night, living right OFF THE MAT!

It strikes me that what I teach, Raja Yoga, or living Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, is nothing more or less than a routine for “living right off the mat.” ❤️

God bless.

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Holiday Challenge

Try simultaneously counting and reciting the alphabet.

Right. That’s not happening. Our conscious mind (the aspect we’re aware of) can literally only do one thing at a time!

But we constantly multitask even when we’re not aware of it. Thankfully, we don’t need to consciously think about every breath and step! Walking and chewing gum would be difficult!

That’s because our sub-conscious mind is silently processing all of our less challenging mental and routine physical tasks. Anything an alligator can do, our sub-conscious mind is capable of: walking, breathing, chewing, pooping.

Knowing that our conscious mind can only do one thing at a time, and our sub-conscious mind is silent…..

…..do a math problem in your head.

Got it? OK. Two things just happened simultaneously. WHAT?! YUP:

  1. Your conscious mind did the math problem, and
  2. You were aware that you were doing it.

The latter is your consciousness.

Without it you wouldn’t know you were alive, let alone doing math problems!

Meditate – it’s what’s good for you!

We are literally three dimensional beings: our awareness OF our thoughts is as distinct from our thoughts as our thoughts are from our bodies.

Here’s the real challenge: #meditatein2018. Restore, refresh and recharge. Tap into the aspect of you that’s unaffected by anything: your consciousness.

How do you know you’re getting close? Consciousness is evidenced by three things: awareness, intuition and bliss. It’s also the source of curiosity and compassion.

Meditation literally provides access to a different dimension of our self, deepening our intuition and fostering a relationship with the Source of the universe.

This holiday season take a break and see for yourself. Meditate and be transformed by your essence.

May you know peace, health and awareness,

Allan “Skip” Dowds

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DEAR DIARY

My teacher reminded me again today that in order to be truly yogic (loving all, including myself) I need to release the painful, negative energy attached to my own memories.

In short, I need to sympathize with my self.

HOW? It takes faith and balance: equal amounts of courage and wisdom – and it MUST come from a place of love (the absence of judgment: acceptance).

Yes – it’s the Serenity Prayer. THINK IT. ACT IT.

THAT gets us 80% of the way to eternal bliss according to the ancient Raja Yoga text. That’s the easy part: thinking and acting with complete self-awareness.

The last 20% of the journey to everlasting peace consists of preparing to pray (15%) and actually praying (5%) – but not the way I was taught as an Episcopal Acolyte, to look outwardly for guidance.

Meditation

Meditation preceded prayer as we typically think of it. The practice of reverently searching for universal Truth is literally prehistoric; it’s the basis of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras which are the basis of the Serenity Prayer.

The practice of sitting still in reverence and gratitude for the miracle of one’s life grew out of a time in human history when our ancestors were beginning to realize that the whole “sacrificing something to please God” only worked half the time (like flipping a penny).

Meditation turned the whole “Hey God” thing upside-down, inviting us to sacrifice/offer the most valuable thing we each uniquely have to give: our time.

When we meditate, we sit still, maintaining a reverential attitude of appreciation and compassion, settling first our conscious mind (thoughts accompanied by the voice in our head) and then the three progressively-subtle functions of our typically sub-conscious mind: senses, memory, and ego: the source of our fears and desires.

We do it with love, curiosity, compassion, patience, and awareness – without judgment (mimicking consciousness itself) all in an effort to draw closer to consciousness.

Why? The awareness OF our thoughts (our consciousness) is as different from our thoughts as our thoughts are from our body!

The awareness OF our thoughts is not of-this-earth!! It never changes!! As far as we’re concerned, it is eternal and universal: yours is EXACTLY like mine, yet simultaneously uniquely aware of our respective personal, perpetually-changing thoughts and bodies!

Prayer

Somehow over the millennia the mental discipline of meditation…

searching internally for Truth or evidence of God – lovingly calming one’s mind in hopes of glimpsing – behind the chaos of normal thought – our eternally-still, serene, compassionate essence: the awareness OF our thoughts (the aspect of each of us that Amma says is essentially divine).

…itself was turned upside-down and morphed into an exercise in looking outside of ourselves for guidance, fulfillment and restoration.

Personal story

Part of me died when I was 12….

When I was 12, I had my heart ripped out, squashed and stomped on. We’ll call her “Holly”.

Part of me died that sunny day at the public swimming pool when one of Holly’s friends returned the ring I’d given my true love earlier that summer, and let me know that I was “too slow” for Holly – evidenced by the fact that at that moment, I had no idea what the hell she was talking about!!

I consciously killed a part of myself that day out of self-preservation. I NEVER wanted to experience THAT again. I was 12.

Now I’m 60, and my teacher says if I want to be more emotionally available to students, I have to suffer through it all over again. Lord, I hate her sometimes!

But it didn’t really…it was just buried.

But it wasn’t a 12 year-old pubescent girl that gutted my heart and triggered a tsunami of grief (that kept me bedridden and in tears for two days) and consciously began construction of an emotional wall that would give 45 a stiffy – she was just the last straw. My emotional suffering and scars go back almost 12 years before she came along.

So how do I get release the pain that fuels my anger?

Like a witch’s curse, my teacher says that I must re-experience the pain that 12 year-old Holly dropped like Thor’s hammer on my blissful naiveté. OUCH, and here’s the tricky part: the re-triggering must be precipitated by someone else.

The idea is that now – as a presumed adult – I can absorb and release the emotional trauma I’ve been lugging around in this old memory bank – and thus weaken its ability to derail my good behavior!!

“Suffering is growth” says my @#%^& teacher!!

So please bear with me as I chase down my own inner dragons, so that I may better connect with and assist those who come to me in pain!

Meditation isn’t easy, but neither is suffering. The teacher is also a student.

Meditation provides stress relief and is available to everyone.

God bless us all, Allan

Class schedule

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Happy Birthday!

This is a shout out to the young lady I met at Starbucks this morning! I hope you had an awesome birthday! It’s always a pleasure to meet kindred spirits – especially those who meditate!

I wish we’d had longer to chat. As you know, meditation is a deeply personal, unique experience every time we do it!

The easy part is sitting as still! The effectiveness of doing so depends on our intention, preparation and experience level – which is part of the reason we’re encouraged to meditate daily!

Here’s how Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (the prehistoric poem I mentioned: the bible of Raja Yoga) breaks down the practice in terms of emphasis and priority:

80% – to be practiced all day, every day: think and act with serenity, courage, wisdom and devotion, treating others and ourselves lovingly.

 20% – to be practiced routinely: (15%) three types of physical and mental exercises to still the body and mind to facilitate meditation; (5%) actual meditation.

In other words, 95% of what’s required to find eternal bliss takes place before we even sit down to meditate!

That makes intuitive sense: if we’re constantly scheming or otherwise playing mental ping pong over what we could or should have done, we’re going to have a much harder time settling our emotional energy and the thoughts it triggers.

And if we haven’t stretched our legs, practiced rhythmic breathing and concentration exercises, we’re not as likely to have a fruitful quest to witness our True Self – which requires prolonged physical and mental virtual stillness!

Patanjali’s Mind Control

While we’re sitting there simply witnessing our thoughts, the aim is to become intuitively (NOT cerebrally) aware of the source of the emotions > that trigger our thoughts > which precipitate our actions > which account for 80% of what’s preventing us from experiencing eternal bliss: effectively, union or “yoga” with the Divine! Yes – Amma says consciousness is essentially divine – and I believe her!!

To do that we first need to distinguish between our mind and consciousness; specifically, between our a) conscious and b) sub-conscious mind – characterized by words/thoughts, and images/sensations, respectively, and c) our awareness OF the voice, sensations and images reflected in our conscious mind. Our mind obscures our underlying essence: our consciousness.

  • Conscious mind’s words and mental chatter obstruct awareness of what our body is sub-consciously sensing and doing, and keeps our memories at bay.
  • Sub-conscious mind’s images and sensations – including manifest affects of our fears and desires – obstruct awareness of our essence: the immutable awareness OF what we’re thinking and doing!!
  • That awareness – our consciousness – is the aspect of each of us that’s not affected by time and space; in that sense, it’s eternal – at least for as long as it’s associated with our body/mind.

Consciousness is evidenced first and foremost by our awareness, but also by curiosity, compassion, intuition and true bliss. Exposing fears and desires to the eternal compassion of consciousness lessens their energy!

New Age Stuff

I haven’t read Tolle or any of the other – what did you call them? “Modern Transcendentalists”(?) because I’m a devotee of Patanjali.

While I certainly applaud and admire the help they’ve provided millions of people, it ALL seems to trace back to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the original treasure map to eternal life: Truth and nothing less than union or “yoga” with God.

Our [My] True Self

The Truth is that we ARE intangible, eternal beings living a tangible, temporary experience.

At our essence we are the awareness OF what we are thinking and doing.

That awareness – our consciousness – is NOT of-this-earth. It’s literally the only “thing” known to exist (remember, without it you don’t know you’re reading this) that’s NOT affected by time and space.

That immutability becomes abundantly clear once we understand the distinction between our own thoughts and consciousness. Without the latter we wouldn’t know we were alive – let alone reading another of these paradigm-shifting, life-altering posts!

Once we accept that part of us is immutable (“bulletproof” according to the adolescent in me), life becomes MUCH less stressful and our time and experiences – on and off the mat – become turbo-charged!

Wishing you many more happy birthdays, and wonder-filled journeys on and off your mat!

Allan