Eoin's Bliss Blog

It’s coming again. The sixth annual Yogathon and Blissfest Sat, July 12 at Thunderbird Stadium, UBC. This promises to be a breakthrough year, a full cultural event our city that people plan their schedule around. It is exciting to see because the vision is so powerful.

At the end of the day, the festival acknowledges that none of us exist in isolation but are who we are due to our relationships to others. In times when we get so busy and are bombarded with news media, business and life commitments it is so easy to forget this. And as a society we have been getting low marks for our ability to create a social model that honours local community.

Still, deep in our hearts, when we take the time to recognize it, we know that life without community bonds is incomplete. The force that binds us together is called love which means we focus less on ourselves and more on others. In yoga, we call it Karma Yoga. This is what we are celebrating.

Whether you can do yoga or not, come out for day. Start a team and fund raise, or just pay the $20 admission. You’ll be sending kids who are impacted by HIV and AIDS to go to camp for a week.

Besides the amazing lineup of all levels yoga, enjoy this event for the music, the people, to enjoy products from sustainable businesses or to watch the delight on the faces of all the kids there. Let’s play and dance and each one of us bask in the energy that is created by so many kind and conscious people gathered in one spot.

As an example of how, to use the title of a book my friend Tony gave me the other week, “Why Good things Happen to Good People” here is a video clip someone just emailed to me yesterday of the (Rainy) event last summer. Every year it is so apparent that people have incredible hearts, they just need the forum to let it out. Thanks to Bruce Yu for this footage.

Yoga in the rain - Camp Moomba Yogathon 2007 from bm1contact on Vimeo

Namaste,

The root of Vinyasa according to Srivatsa Ramaswami in The Vinyasa Book is “Vi” variation and “Nyasa” means “in a prescribed way.” Literally then, it is variation within prescribed parameters.

It becomes confusing because we have a style of yoga which has emerged called vinyasa yoga or vinyasa flow yoga, and you’ll hear Ashtanga Yogis referring to “doing a vinyasa” (ie: lifting up, jumping back, doing upward and downward dog) between every seated pose.

Really, the essence of Vinyasa is to complete a cycle with a goal and intention.

This means that we have a clear idea of the beginning, middle and end of a cycle and where we want to be at the end of it. The whole yoga practice in this way can be seen as a vinyasa. Inside that larger vinyasa are a whole series of mini-vinyasas that each have there unique goal.

If Yogis were tennis players, they would eliminate the terms, game, set match with vinyasa, vinyasa, vinyasa. Game, Set and Match after all are all just a series of larger and larger cycles.

In another way, it is a lot like a musical album. The whole album is a vinyasa, then each independent song makes it’s own smaller vinyasa. Artists put a lot of thought into how they lay the songs out on an album; yoga teachers should too.

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Logical sequencing

, building up to a peak. Each pose complimenting the poses that are coming next. For example a series of hip flexor openers before backbends (front body stretches)
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Time to digest between

vinyasas the way a tapas restaurant gives you time to digest before the next dish comes out (serving food is another great vinyasa example). Note: think about how little time our society has to digest anything. It is a constant flood of one thing following another
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Breath.

The poses are the notes, the breath is the way we play the instrument of the body.

A skillful vinyasa teacher will recognize the needs of his or her students and apply what is best needed. The gunas are a good hint at understanding the sequencing. Understanding people’s injuries or skill level is key. We also have to asses their physical needs. For example, a group may hate a chaturanga vinyasa cycle and want to take the path of least resistance, but that may be precisely the reason why they need to be challenged in that way.

As we prepare for the Teacher Training coming up this April 17, I have been writing summaries of books, ideas and philosophies that have been influential to me. One of those books is Power vs Force which is an interesting scientific attempt to calibrate the levels of consciousness that most mystic traditions present.

The idea is that when we are acting from the lower levels of consciousness, we are acting from force, meaning that we are trying to control, to manipulate and to achieve ego gratification.

Acting from higher levels of consciousness, we are “tuning into” a power that resonates with people and they do not need to be forced and one’s inner core values of what is true and right do not need to be compromised.

Those levels of consciousness are

700-1000 enlightenment
600 peace
540 joy
500 love
400 reason
350 acceptance
310 willingness
250 neutrality
200 courage
175 pride
150 anger
125 desire
100 fear
75 grief
50 apathy
30 guilt
20 shame

Furthermore, each level of consciousness has it’s attractor patterns – meaning that the same way a magnet attracts iron filings, the consciousness of a person sets up certain attractor patterns for events in one’s life.

Implication to the yoga teacher:

Although I am yet to be convinced of the validity of Applied Kinesiology as a science, the book is an excellent summation of the levels of consciousness as presented in different wisdom traditions, like the Tantric Chakra system

What I hope resonates with you is that, what your biggest gift is a yoga teacher is to choose a lifestyle where your work is to rise up the levels of consciousness so that you can you can 1) live a full life yourself 2) you can by your words, actions and very presence influence others to rise to their highest levels of consciousness.

It is an important lesson. So often, we need to remind ourselves where the average person is ‘resonating’ at… with the effects of TV, gossip magazines, advertising, commuting, selling and so on, there can be a very low frequency level of consciousness. As the Author David Hawkins points out, the average level of consciousness in our society is 175. I wrote in the Happiness Map that “there is and will always be a force in society dragging you down to a life of uninspired mediocrity.” It is the same idea. There is so much psychological inertia to overcome, that to stand in the presence of someone who is calibrating at a higher level of consciousness has a powerful effect.

Always remember, as a yoga instructor 80% of what you are doing is offering the gift of the wisdom that comes from the higher states of consciousness like joy, love and caring. You can do it in a relaxed way. People will get it.

Watch a master of this like the Dali Lama. He doesn’t need to prove his big intellect. In fact he often admits to not knowing the answers to people’s questions. It is his presence and the work he does to remain in the highest levels of consciousness that draws crowds by the thousands. It really is a palpable force… er, I guess that would be a power, in terms of the Power vs Force book, but you know what I mean.

Your Mantra before and during yoga classes: Be in your Power, Don’t Force. Trust this and it is amazing what you will attract.

Every day in Bali, we made offerings of freshly cut flowers in a small banana leaf basket. It became our ritual, as almost everyone does in Bali. Now back in Canada, I smile a warm and wide smile to that magical island of Bali and make an offering to you not with flowers but with a bowed head expressing gratitude for one of the warmest cultures on planet earth.

We just had the most amazing YES retreat at Desa Seni.
It was the most incredible retreat setting and we have already booked for February 2009. The eco-village consisted of antique and elegantly furnished villas disassembled in Java, shipped to Bali and reconstructed amongst the rice paddies close to Cangu Beach. The service and setting were so personal, genuine and gracious. I salute all of the amazing staff there for providing us with the environment to both, relax, to cultivate new friendships and to grow on our own personal evolution.

I pray that the people of Bali have the courage to keep the flow of commerce balanced with the wisdom that comes from your land. As the ubiquitous black and white checked cloth of the Balinese represents, there is always a dark side.

I am sitting in the passenger seat of Madeh, my driver’s car, on a gorgeous 5:30am surf check over the hill and temple of Nusa Dua. I take in the golden light of the morning and the green of the cow pasture below us. I see why temples were built on the cliff below, because the astonishing beauty of this vista truly opens you up to the mystery of being alive.

Madeh turns and says to me in his Indonesian accent, “this would be a great location for a hotel.” I am kicked in the gut by this statement. It is true, I have seen it around the world, where there is a view, there is or will be soon condo development or hotel.

Later that day, Madeh throws an empty plastic water bottle into the gutter. Another kick. Reality check.

I know that the inequity of the world economy has left the whole third world clambering to reach our first world standard of living at any cost, and I pray that, we can help people in these countries appreciate the value of nature in their quest for abundance. Even more, I hope we can lead by example.

In spite of these fears, I am touched by Madeh’s kindness and true friendship that he extends to us all.

This is life unfolding and I am grateful that there is so much to be celebrated in the spirit of those islands. My spirit is free and soaring. I have Bali high and I am riding it. Even now. I salute the philosophy that grounds you, Bali, and allows warmth that radiates from your hearts and shapes all who are touched by it like the molten lava shapes the island landscape.

for more photos, check out our flickr page

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out some of the things that make people good teachers. Not just good yoga teachers but a teacher of anything.

I apply what I learn surfing to teaching yoga. The best surfers can recognize the patterns of waves. The ones who are suffering on the water have no clue.

To an untrained surfer waves have no pattern, but are just evil forces flowing through the water that pick you up and slam you down crushingly hard onto the bottom.

But with enough time and experience, and with the right instructor, you will see that, in fact, there is a pattern amidst the chaos. Waves seem to be small for a while, then come in sets of 4 waves with the 3rd and 4th being the biggest, there seems to be one shallow spot on the sand bar that slows the wave down and causes it to break and so on.

The subtleties are endless.

It is amazing to practice teaching yoga not by teaching yoga at all but by trying new activities and trying to pick up the patterns. Or to try teaching something else you know. This winter I have been teaching Insiya an athletic, but tropical Bombay girl how to cross country ski. It is a thrill to break it down, “push glide, glide” we repeat to find the rhythm of the skate ski technique. Likewise she teaches me what the underlying patterns are to Indian cooking. It is such a high when that knowledge is transferred.

Likewise with yoga, if you can see the fundamental patterns, then creating the poses is so much easier than having a series of random instructions uttered to you to spiral one leg one warm to lengthen on set of muscles and contract another with no clue of how they all fit together.

This is the basis of the positive force alignment workshop. It is also something we will be focusing a lot of energy on during the upcoming teacher’s training.

For students, try and find the pattern in what is being repeated over and each pose. For teachers, try and find what is constantly repeated as a pattern and see if you can transmit this knowledge into your students.

Ideally it is best if the student gets a first person “somatic” experience of the what the pattern feels like in his or her body and is not just a cerebral concept.

When the pattern is not grasped and there is mere instruction, you are, to quote an old Chinese proverb, “giving a man a fish to eat for that day”, When the knowledge of a pattern is transferred you have “taught a man to fish and he will eat forever.”

Yep, it is something that I have been doing over the last few days. Why?

Yoga and mediation are about checking in with our bodies and minds and not just letting bad habits overtake us.

I know nothing about pop culture. I see about 10 movies a year and watch about 3 hours of television a year. I have nightmares about being on game shows and having to answer those ‘pop culture’ questions.

‘Nature Facts’ would be my dream category, but they never seem to have those. The point is, that even someone who is probably in the bottom 5 percentile for pop culture intelligence like me cannot help but be impacted by Britney Spears.

I see her every time I walk into a magazine store, wait in line for my groceries or on those rare occasions when I leaf through the Vancouver Province.

A friend of mine told me the other day that the Britney Spears gossip industry generates 13 million dollars per day. Even if that figure is inflated, the point is that we need to look at our reactions to the onslaught of these stories. There is a level of our minds that makes us feel better by taking delight in the demise of others.

Britney Spears mediation is about sitting quietly and generating kindness to everyone. We simply sit, and visualize that person, and try and feel kindness in our minds, hearts and bodies towards them. It is easy to do with people who are close to us, but much harder when we are dealing with famous people who are so far removed from us that we barely seem them as human at all and just entertainers.

It is hugely empowering to do this mediation for several reasons. For one, we can break the spell that mass media puts on us. Instead of giving our power away to this lower state of mind, we can tap into powerful vibration of love.

What Yoga, Mediation and chilling out in nature have taught me is that you do not have to delight in the downfall of anyone. You do not have to knock anyone else’s tower to have your house seem tall, beautiful and inviting to others.

In fact, truly wishing the best for others will give us fuel to live a happy and full life. We will be the biggest winner. Never forget, as I often say, “love is the ultimate renewable resource.”

happiness is the underlying theme of everything i am trying to promote. happiness in the form lasting, deep and sustaining contentment.

it was incredible to write about this in the new ‘peak vitality’ anthology. to put a voice to the force which is behind every offering that i make whether it be a yoga class, a dvd, or a conversation on the street.

sometimes i joke that from my studies on happiness, which were formal in university when i majored in philosophy and the less studies but unceasing in the rest of my life, i have learned one certain thing about happiness. if you want to be happy, don’t ever try and work with the digital medium. if you ever have, you’ll know exactly what i am talking about.

over the course of the last year, i have been producing ‘power yoga for happiness 2, the surf edition’ dvd. now that all the pressing and stamping of the dvds is happening, it feels great to be giving birth to something that your heart and soul has gone into. but what a process… so many tests of my ‘yoga for happiness’ have been encountered along the way.. files crashing, technical issues, just proofing the dvds alone involves watching 380 minutes of footage with bleary eyes to find inevitable glitches that need to be attended too. in total i think that almost 1,000 hours of my personal time have gone into creating this offering!

what lessons i have learned? first of all, it is incredible to feel how powerful the yoga practice is - both the asanas and the philosophy. it is amazing how you can be so drained from a day in front of a monitor and just feel like collapsing. after yoga that underlying attitude of contentment is restored and the happiness flows deeply.

secondly, i have put it out to the universe to have a team of talented people produce the next dvds, whenever that time comes. some exciting leads have already presented themselves. my resolution for the first half of 2008 is to spend minimal time in the digital world and maximum time around people sharing what i love or alone in Nature basking in the joy of being part of this incredible web of life.

expect more writing this year too - the Positive Force Alignment system needs to get written down as does the expansion of “the Happy Map”, aphorisms for a life of lasting happiness and a positive perspective. guaranteed, it will happen by pen.

Hola from Costa Rica. Even though we only have 3 days left here, that’s the way things get done here.. slowly.. tranquillo.

The YES Retreat a few weeks back was amazing. All the breathing exercises paid off as we read an email four days before the retreat saying that the place we booked was not going to be finished being renovated, so we calmly made the switch to an all new location employing the same formula I have used since I was 16: “Don’t Dwell, Just Gel” and “Everything that doesn’t go right, goes wrong for all the right reasons.”

Ins’t that the truth? Our new location just outside of Tamrindo called Panecea de la Montagna was perfect. As the name suggests, it was in the in a peaceful hill setting with ‘to die for’ views of the sunset over the infinity pool. The yoga palapa was capped with an immense 25 foot roof of thatched palm fronds. Staring up from the centre of our sacred yoga space, felt like being a bug inside a Mexican Ranchero’s sombrero.

About half way through the week, the howler monkeys arrived in force. We did almost every yoga practice to their strange ‘Chewbacca-like’ howls as they easily meandered from tree to tree completely unaffected by the vinyasa-ing and smiling yogis below. They had one thing on their mind. Food. Tasty, green leaves – and lots of them. Not many nutrients in those.

We, on the other hand, at like the spoiled retreaters we were. The staff of Panecea were gracious, fun and highly evolved beings who set the tone of chill and relaxation. Fresh local food, a lot of it grown right on the property was served to us daily. It sounds like nerd talk, but you have to try the ayote (squash) from Costa Rica. I met one traveler recently who said it was the biggest and best surprise of his 7 months in Costa Rica so far.

Lively conversations were part of every dinner. A lot of them about the progress everyone was making on the ocean. And it was true. This lot totally got the surf bug. We even made a stop/start animation about the surf bug, called “Surf Bug gets Tubed.”

Let’s just say that one team who wasn’t so good at Cranuim sure rocked with the Play Doh provided with the game.

The yoga was great an hour and a half every morning and night. Combined with the hot weather and festive attitudes, our bodies were buzzing with aliveness.

With a small group on this retreat of only 10 people, we became close so quickly. Laughter went on into the night combined with the clanking of glasses.

One of the highlights was the closing ritual on our last night where we toasted to one good quality of everyone on the retreat or, after our last practice, when we performed a healing circle, where anyone who needs to feel the support of a community and let go of pain and sorrows that we all harbor, could go into the centre of the circle and release it. It was hugely bonding. When you open up to the grief in yourselves and others, so much more love flows through us.

In the end, the retreat was really like a Tamarindo sunset; powerful, brilliant to the point of stopping you in your tracks and always leaving you wanting more.

We are now amping up for Bali, but want to raise our glass of vino tinto one more time to the beautiful souls who came together to make this trip the amazing event that it was.

View photos on our flickr site.

This post came about when my friend and fellow Yogi, Susi Hatley Aldous (www.functionalsynergy.com) asked some Yoga Teachers what their one piece of advice would be to other yoga teachers:

“Be confident.”

Artists and yoga teachers alike wear their hearts on their sleeves. Every
class we teach is such a profound offering – of course we want people to
like what we are sharing. When we feel that people are not getting our
vibe, it is so easy to become deflated and filled with self-doubt.

Here are two major reasons why you should teach with full confidence:

You are teaching only what you enjoy. Have you ever noticed that how
you practice is how you teach? For example, on a day when you move in
a slow and detailed way in your own practice, that is the way you teach
that day. Think of what you are doing more as sharing than as teaching.
When you lead your classes, just remind yourself, “This is what I love, this
is the way I love doing it, and if it is good for me, a lot of other people will
enjoy it too. . . .”

Second, when I am teaching well, it feels as if it is not even me doing what
I am doing. As yoga teachers, we just need to open ourselves up to
become a conduit so the energy of love and happiness can flow
through us. People will be connecting this way for years after we are all
gone. A new generation will be sharing love with each other in a new way.
Love is so powerful. Feel it. Right in your chest and radiating out of every
pore. It is far more powerful than any of us, and when you realize that, you
can be confident that your teaching is going to make a significant positive
impact on people’s lives. It is one of life’s greatest gifts.

Next time a collector car passes you by on the street, think yoga. The collector car has become one of the symbols of the benefits of the yoga asana practice in my mind.

Think about it? For every car you see like this, there are 10,000 that have become scrap. What is the difference?

If a car can last 50 years in mint shape, why can’t a body? What it requires is the right mindset, the right tools and a proper education about biomechanics.

The mindset is of respecting the feedback that your body is giving you, the same way that you would never ignore squeaky brakes.

The right tool is, assuredly, yoga. Isn’t any exercise good? Sure, but there is something special about the openness that comes through yoga.

Furthermore, when you can combine this mindset that is willing to listen, the tool of yoga with proper an idea of how the body is meant to be aligned and to feel, then the path to a full and happy life is set. The next Positive Force Workshop in January will be about these aspects.

Generally speaking, cars and bodies don’t last when you go too fast, so slow down. Enjoy the ride. Fuel up with a great dose of Nature, Friends and Community often.

If we apply the same principles as this to the planet, the collector cars of the future will not run on fossil fuels…

Vrrrmmmm….