teaching yoga

I was on a workshop recently with my teacher, Harijiwan and in the midst of all of the discussions I was compelled to write down certain things because they resonated with such brilliance. The italics represent my commentary.

“Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” (actually said by a woman named Carol rephrasing what Harijiwan said.) This is purely brilliant. When you expect a certain outcome and don’t get it, you’re disappointed. 99% of all our problems in relationship with others comes because we expect them to do something we want them to do and they’re not doing it. The only way out of this, other than controlling the other person or conflict, which are not desireable, is to drop your expectations and attachment to how someone or something should be. The flip side of this, and a very powerful tool for countering expectation and attachment is Acceptance.

“The energy wants you more than you want the energy. The energy (of the universe) wants you to succeed and do what you came here to do.” This is the same as the idea that “if you take one step toward God, God will take more steps toward you than there are in the sands in the hourglass of time. ” There are many versions of this that come from various religions but the basic idea is that the energy of the universe is a perfect benevolent mass that wants to come through the human to have experience and hopefully gain knowledge so that it can make a contribution. The mind is the limiting factor. We’re given a mind to master so that we can pull in the energy of the soul and project it to our highest ability. Good luck with that. (more…)