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PROFESSOR YOGI BEAR’S WEEKLY APPEAL FOR NEW STUDENTS

Meditating isn’t easy, but neither is suffering.
 
What makes The Marblehead School of Raja Yoga unique? That’s a loaded question to ask a yogi!
 
What makes me, the school’s founder, standout is my passion for and dedication to this discipline.
 
I literally believe it’s my purpose – the way a knife’s purpose is to cut – to spread awareness of consciousness.
 
Send me the people you love who seem lost or disconnected. I can help.
 
Thank you, Allan Dowds
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The Irony is Palpable

The irony is palpable: using private equity capital call skills to “call out” for new students! The universe has a crazy sense of humor!!
 
If you receive a snail-mail letter from me with an insert and a couple business cards, it’s simply to ask you to consider meditation when treating your clients or congregants.
 
If you didn’t get an autographed snail-mail appeal with color pictures and would like to receive them in the future……..I just realized that NO ONE wants to receive extra junk mail! Sorry…….but on the off chance you would, please send your contact info to:
 
 
It’s not as much fun stuffing the envelopes as it is when there are a couple other people sitting around signing and stuffing and chatting – but I’m happy to do it, especially from the comfort of our home with an adult beverage nearby!!
 
Because a friend insists the “spam monsters” are out to get me, from now on, I’m going to include the following notation in all such “student calls”:
 
“I sent you an email the day I posted this snail-mail. If you didn’t receive the email, either your email above is incorrect, or my email below is being blocked by a spam filter that can’t tell the difference between yoga and yogurt – which is what my grandmother used to call it!”
 
Pause, breathe in cool air, breathe out warm, and be deeply grateful for the ability to do so!! Hugs. ❤️😎
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Morning class itinerary, 6-7-17

7:30am Meditation

Lesson (10 min) – sutras III.9 to 13; continued discussing the three phases or levels of meditation: focus, prolonged focus, and absorption. The latter is effectively a self-induced trance: like dreaming, though you’re aware that you’re controlling the content of your thoughts, so much so, that you’re simultaneously unaware of anything else: where you are, what day or time it is, even what you’re doing!– until something brings you out of it like a doorbell or phone.

We read from Swmaij.com about the three states of transition between the three levels of meditation. He uses the analogy of attending a concert:

As you wait for the concert to start, your mind is naturally scattered: chasing sensations, drawn to sounds of conversations, smells of food and perfume, sights of people.

  1. As the concert begins, you experience the first transition: from a scattered state of mind to a focused one (dharana) as you turn your attention to the stage. Satchidananda says in dharana, you experience the end of desire.
  2. As you begin to enjoy the performance, you experience the second transition: your focused state of mind becomes prolonged (dhyana) as the performance holds your attention. Satchidananda says in dhyana, you experience the end of sorrow.
  3. After prolonged focus (dhyana), you experience the third transition: you become absorbed in the concert to the exclusion of everything else (absorption = samadhi). Satchidananda says in samadhi, you experience the end of fear.

Seated conscious abdominal breathing (15 min)

Seated concentration (5 min)

Seated stretches (5 min)

9:00am Practice

Standing stretches (5 min)

Tadasana (5 min) https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/mountain-pose

Gigong monk’s boat (15 min) mindful standing synchronization of movement, breath, and thought https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icS_WezFlJE

Sun salutation (15 min) mindful flowing sequence of seven different classic yoga poses, again synchronizing movement, breath, and thought https://www.yogajournal.com/videos/salute-the-sun-modified

Utthita Trikonasana (10 min) 2x each side; hold each pose 90 seconds https://www.yogajournal.com/videos/extended-triangle-pose

Seated conscious abdominal breathing (5 min)

Seated concentration (5 min)