To the recipients of my latest marketing masterpiece, my apologies for any and all real or imagined unbalanced – specifically, “aggressive” – energy communicated!

I hope there are people in your life who love you unconditionally – and if not, a pet of some sort!

I’m uber-blessed to have both. Thankfully, my daughter Sarah is one of them. She and I have a three-tier cause > effect response system for my behavior:

1. flinch
2. flinch & eye roll
3. “DAD!!”

My latest snail-mailing (pictured) elicited a wide range of responses: from loving support and encouragement from my mother-in-law Gladys to various versions of “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” from business associates which were received with more incredulity than sympathy.

As I told an old friend this morning, almost two years ago I either:

1. a) completely lost my mind, or
2. b) became divinely-inspired

AND SCHOOL’S STILL OUT!!!

 

The good news is that between faith, family & friends, I WILL expedite someone’s enlightenment before I die!! 😊❤️🕉

Sorry – back to the point: Sarah said my most recent mailing – with the HOT PINK insert and BOLD font was

“a bit aggressive”

Thankfully, it didn’t warrant a #3 but was “worthy of comment!”

LMAO!!❤️

It’s difficult not to channel my inner Joan of Arc! [Yes Mr. L, it’s OK to have female heroes; they’re called heroines. After all, some of the fiercest Greek gods were female!!]

Inner-self guide for hire!

$15 – scheduled group “meditation prep” classes

Current class schedule

• Skype lessons
• seminars
• lectures
• private lessons

Proud sponsor of Yoga Instructors Association (MA)

#BringBackPatanjali

I was given a gift that isn’t mine to keep – it’s mine to share.

The gift is simple: I see something you don’t (yet!!) and my purpose is to help you see it for yourself!!

Here’s how it works: we’re born spiritually blind, but at some point we will each come to terms with our own true nature.

We can wait until we’re literally dying (read “Gone From My Sight – The Dying Experience” by Barbara Karnes, hospice nurse and 2015 International Humanitarian Woman of the Year) or we can explore THAT aspect of ourselves while we’re STILL HERE!!!!!

 

Seeing yourself differently only requires a paradigm shift. It’s like the attached picture: initially we see either an old or young woman’s profile. It’s not until someone points out the other image that we see it’s actually both!

Spread the word: There’s a LOT more to you than you see in the mirror and hear in your head!! Please forward this to friends interested in their own spiritually – particularly if they’re in a position to influence public opinion!!!

God bless, Allan

$15 – scheduled group “meditation prep” classes

Current class schedule

• Skype lessons
• seminars
• lectures
• private lessons

Proud sponsor of Yoga Instructors Association (MA)

#BringBackPatanjali

When we left off before the holidays, we’d learned that Bhakti Yogis get right to the point: theirs is entirely a devotional practice. They:

1. Hear about God
2. Sing about God
3. Remember God
4. Serve God
5. Worship God
6. Glorify God
7. Devote themselves to God
8. Befriend God
9. Surrender to God completely

No need to endure the rigors of the path to realization that we stubborn “generic” yogis slog through – frustratingly, only to arrive at the same place: singing some version of

HALLELUIAH!!

 

But the intuitive truth about getting there the hard way is – it sticks. It changes you. When you “get” the whole other-dimension thing about your consciousness, it’s a game-changer.

SERVICE

We’re up to the fourth of the nine devotional practices of Bhakti Yoga, serving God.

Not sure what the usual reaction to truly realizing of the existence of God is – let alone that part of the Divine resides in YOU! – but an educated guess is that – after recovering – you’re moved to express gratitude for your own life by helping others, because once you realize the whole Father-Son-Ghost relationship includes YOU personally, you no longer need anything. <3

Not sure if he’s still speaking to me given my defensive posturing with respect to the source of my own devotion – Patanjali 😉 – but here’s a quote from Edwin’s latest tome on the source of his:

From Edwin F. Bryant’s “BHAKTI YOGA Tales and Teachings from the Bhagavata Purana”:

“Most definitions of bhakti scattered in various [classical ancient] texts featured the ideal of service, which we noted is synonymous with love. While the word “service” sometimes carries a negative connotation associated with servitude, we can understand from our own human relationships that the more we deeply love another person, the more we try to please him or her with service.”

 

In other words, love thy neighbor! Tap into YOUR inner power; meditate!

#BringBackPatanjali

RAJA YOGA – originated in India; seated meditation; like trying to touch the Divine within YOU!

QIGONG (medical) – originated in China; moving meditation; like trying to dance with the Divine within YOU!! [classes coming in 2018]

January ’18 class schedule

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.

Edwin F. Bryant is an authority on all-things-yoga. He’s one of two or three people who will forever be known as successors to the traditional yoga commentators. Mr. Bryant is a devout Bhakti yogi.

I am NOT an authority on anything, though I have a good depth of knowledge on two subjects: one I made a living at – the other is Raja yoga.

I am a Raja yogi, a devotee of Patanjali’s. The strength of my conviction has turned my family upside down, as I recently quit a lifetime of punching numbers for a living to – as I told an old friend yesterday – “introduce people to God.”

One of my problems is that I still want to punch something!! Service announcement: be kind to anyone who’s good at accounting; they don’t process information the same way other people do!!

It seems to me that if Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (Raja or “generic yoga”, according to my Bhakti friend and teacher) are a treasure map to eternal life, Bhakti yoga is a celebration of it.

The nine practices of Bhakti yoga are:

1   hearing about God;

2   singing about God;

3   remembering God;

4   serving God;

5   worshiping God;

6   glorifying God;

7   considering oneself God’s servant;

8   considering oneself God’s friend;

9   surrendering completely to God.

This holiday season express appreciation to the universe for your miraculous life. Be thankful for your body (the part that functions), your mind (the part that thinks) and your consciousness (the awareness OF both).

Love, Allan “Skip” Dowds

Meditation or prayer brings relief to those of us who feel “harassed by the suffering of an un-fulfillment inherent in embodied existence” (Edwin Bryant). In other words, for the same reasons we escape by indulging in unhealthy habits: we’re unhappy!!

RAJA YOGA is the practice of meditation or mind control. We practice to improve self-awareness and control, and to reduce emotional stress and its symptoms. Raja Yoga is about tapping into our own immutable, compassionate sense of awareness (consciousness) to find relief from suffering. The practice brings realization of the Truth of our energetic and divine nature – akin to developing faith in the existence OF God [in the sense that – whatever the source of our consciousness, IT is unquestionably divine.] (source text: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras)

BHAKTI YOGA is the practice of expressing devotion TO God. (source text: Bhagavata Purana)

In the intro to his latest work, “Bhakti Yoga – Tales and Teachings from the Bhagavata Purana,” Edwin Bryant says he wrote it for people interested in “Bhakti as a lived reality.” <3

Copies of the following works by Edwin Bryant are available to members of the Yoga Instructors Association at 50% of cost:

The YOGA SUTRAS of Patanjali

BHAKTI YOGA Tales and Teachings from the Bhagavata Purana– This is the second book I’ve recently literally hugged to my chest after reading it. The other was Amma’s biography.  <3

My sincere best wishes to all, Allan