Understanding nature is to expand our understanding of the Creator. Its infinite variety in form, colour, quality and expression leaves us in perpetual wonderment.

Philosophers recognize the invisible Supreme Spirit or Universal Consciousness and Its outer expression in the visible material world of Nature are One.

Natural life on our Earth offers us a visible comprehension of the limitless wonders of the Cosmos. It reminds us that in the face of this immensity we have benefit of the natural world around us and bear a responsibility as custodians to help maintain it.  This is not hard to accept if we love Nature or aspects of it and seek to improve our efforts to widen our embrace of the entire natural world.

We need to keep mindful of our limited capacity to contribute to Nature itself and yet retain our sense of personal power and confidence that we can live within the human realm and contribute to the wealth and wonder of human culture and achievement.

There are many amongst us who recognize and appreciate the Natural world around us and are aware of the natural laws that function and imbue all life as we know it on our planet.

To the extent that we refer to these laws and seek to live by them we gradually grow in comprehension of the truths and realities of great Nature itself.

Nature is our eternal guide and teacher and we are in our role as its students. When in doubt we can apply the litmus test by asking ourselves as to what is natural. Whereas other creatures react to instinct alone, humans possess intuition or the voice of free will and choice complicates matters for us. We must learn to blend instinct and intuition in our choices.

To choose to rebel against Nature and challenge the known natural Laws leads to chaos.

To choose to apply natural Law to our lives leads to harmony and order.

Our relationship with Nature, as our relationship with all things, with people and with God, is based upon the consciousness that Love as the vital ingredient.

As we feel our direct relationship with Nature develop so our sense of spiritual security grows and we can expect human stresses to melt away to know peace in our hearts and minds.

Greek Philosophy on Exercise

Only exercise when you’re going somewhere!

 Zen philosophy offers a similar idea –

It is not necessary to walk unless you are going somewhere……..

Solon when asked to go to the Games to see an athlete who could swim like a fish, jump like a deer, run like a hare – he declines, saying it is not comely he thinks, that man should imitate animals, but if there was a man who could think like the Gods – he would travel to see him!

 There are differing opinions upon the importance, the type and the potential health benefits of deliberate physical exercise.

Those who are already engaged in physical labour and tasks demanding physical exertion are of course less concerned about conscious exercise as a self discipline. But for the majority in the western world of our time, exercising has become an extremely popular pastime.  We are bombarded with many contraptions, with exercise bikes and other machines for use in the home. To attend a gymnasium is essential in the trendy social and commercial worlds if you are concerned with your physical image and muscle tone.

In the midst of this, yoga classes quietly continue to offer a peaceful, gracious and stress free method of building muscle, stretching tendons and revitalizing one’s being through the application of breath control together with dynamic body movements and the use of controlled static postures or Asanas.

The two systems are very different.  Each has its value but the first is demanding and requires repeated effort and discipline that is twinned with a philosophy of ambition that aims to accomplish a goal.

The yogic approach is more passive, requiring a non-aggressive attitude of persuasion. This is in line with its unique philosophy and system designed to help an individual achieve self mastery of the body through a harmonious co-operation of mind and muscles.

Yogic exercise is based upon a limited number of traditional exercises – the prime one being the Sun Exercise or Salute to the Sun. This comprises a flowing of 12 successive movements to 12 static positions together with specific use of the breath.

All dynamic exercise is instructed to be balanced and rhythmic. Breath control is co-ordinated with each movement.

All exercises are performed with equal attention to the balanced polarization of right/left; up and down; standing/lying; upright/inverted so that the entire body is involved.

A brief relaxation is taken between exercises to become aware of how the body is feeling and responding after the exercise.

The most important factor that identifies the difference between the commonly known exercise programmes and the yogic approach is that the mind and consciousness is turned inward, not outward to outer display. The mind and consciousness is totally engaged with the practices which are not in any way competitive.

Last is the factor of the speed or rate of body movement. Yogic exercise is seen as more elementary if the movement is quicker and more advanced the more slowly the exercise is executed. In this it is similar to the philosophy of its cousin system, Tai Chi.

Skill in yogic techniques allows slow physical controls that are more difficult that dynamic movement. The system is designed to help also slow down the rapidity of the mind and assist consciousness to arrive at stillness.

We test the validity of this system by our own experience.
 

There’s a world deep inside us

As a gentle kindly dream

Where Love is ever present

And beauty is always seen

It’s the spirit of Christmas

When remembered all the year

That brings joy, peace and laughter

Of life’s music to our ear

So Christmas is inside us

An expanding, growing dream

Of love forever present

And beauty everywhere seen

Echo of Christ within us

Outwardly seeking new birth

As human beings perfect

Creating a heaven on earth.

…………………………..

It is a time to think of heroes – not sporting heroes but spiritual giants and leaders who by their lives exemplify the ultimate reason for our earthly life experience.

We all tend to have heroes and heroines we admire and select according to our birth sex.

Heroes of all kinds offer us an example of having achieved the goal.

Sporting heroes serve as a focus for general adulation as well as inspiring a few to become equally great. Not many can hold the vision and so, by comparison there are very few who become followers enough as to put effort into similar achievement.

Christmas time is the time for Christians to celebrate the birth of the Christ and to focus upon Him as their Guru. To many millions of people He is the epitome of human excellence, wisdom and spirituality.  But it is not sufficient to feel awed and inspired with devotion, we must if we are sincere, take seriously the role model we have before us and gradually seek to grow to become like Him.

The teacher or Guru represents by example the vision and goal to which we aspire.

We should not feel shy to acknowledge that the essence of the Guru’s teaching is to encourage us to become skilled in emulating those qualities that will result in our becoming to some degree a likeness.

So the Christian way is to gradually become Christlike.

The way of the Buddhist is to become Buddha-like as with other spiritual teachers.

Any spiritual devotee seeks to become greater in capacity to radiate life energies of the spirit and so grow in health, wisdom and understanding. Refreshment comes maintaining the concept of his spiritual teacher or Guru.

It is therefore appropriate that we refresh our concept and personal vision of the nature of Christ at this time.

…………….

Refreshing our interpretation of the word ‘intuition’ offers a simple reminder that it means learning from within rather than without.

Intuition is the faculty within us that encourages us toward what we consider to be right action, feelings and thoughts.  Intuition teaches us and helps us to be true to ourselves and to live according to our aspirations and highest aims.  It tends to develop as a dominant faculty particularly with females and has a vast potential to aid all of us in the art of living. But in order to be aware and receptive to this inner guiding voice, we must be sensitive to it and learning to trust it takes a little practice.

Awareness of intuition may vary with each of us, sometimes occurring with a subtle but repeated or sustained feeling about something or someone. Sometimes like a bolt out of the blue we may feel compelled to act upon a strong ‘hunch’ when we seem motivated by an inner shout rather than a subtle whisper of what to do.  Some of us may choose to be ‘deaf’ to the inner voice, and can only find trust in logical thoughts as they arise from a familiar basis.

However, we are most likely to benefit by our inner guidance and wisdom, if we are conscious of the existence of the faculty and are prepared to listen to our own inner counsel.

The result is of benefit to us in several ways – by the expansion of our sensitivity and awareness of everything around us and in our lives; by increased perception of factors in our relationships that allow greater exercise of compassion; it offers a means of trusting ourselves and gaining greater self confidence;  and discovering and utilizing intuition allows us to know that we are capable of accessing inner wisdom as to how to direct our lives constructively.

Learning to appeal and to listen to this inner voice of wisdom and to apply it will invite direct proof of its value.

All those inclined to believe in God as Love come to experience expansions of their heart’s growth and personal capacity to love, rather than allowing a contraction of feeling.

But as we know, love is a very real primal emotional force and feeling that  has to be cultivated and directed into the various avenues of personal life as we see is appropriate, as well as existing as a general state or attitude.

Although the example of the traditional Bhakti is often used as a point of reference in Yoga, it is in fact the universal path we humans all traverse in seeking spiritual realities beyond the material world. We all dream of a greater and more beautiful life -a world that is at peace and we are loved.

World values fall short of reflecting our aspirations for noble human lifestyles. Yet in the freedom of each individual and because of our free will, we can if we wish, succeed in fulfilling our human potential for expressing goodness, peace and love.

Beyond the limitations that religions and dogma impose we all share the  the heart of all wisdom teachings and agree that love is the vital key and common inspiration – for our personal life, for that of the community and for our spiritual evolution as a civilization.

But we must feel love and as our emotions and feelings grow and extend outside the limitations of our personal ego, we gradually move into closer association with the Creator of all Love… to realize and experience Universal Love.

Is it that simple?

Rabindranath Tagore, the revered Indian Poet, was a Bhakti who writes of the Beloved as God in his ‘GITANJALI’  ………

” Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower. Knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inner-most shrine of my heart.

And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.”

One of the most important realizations in understanding a little more about the mysteries of life – lies in the value and importance of sound.

The sacred texts of all cultures include this factor, even to the point of suggesting that all natural creation is the result of Divine Sound as is given us in the Bible, the Vedic wisdom, and in fact is inherent in all of our present religions.

Whereas ‘Amen’ is the ritualistic recognition of cosmic energy or Divine life in the Christian prayer, so ‘Aum’ is the recognized traditional sound that represents the Allness that we call God.

In classical yogic and Asian tradition it is written as either ‘OM’ or ‘Aum’ but in the sounding of the mantra it is the 3 fold trinity of sound that is expressed. This involves the guttural, tongue, and finally the lips.

As with all mantra or sacred sound, it is as important to focus the mind upon the quality we aspire to as we use our voice to ‘tune us in’ to the power and energy of the universe.

It is therefore never to be sounded casually.

The 20th Century at an end we are now in an Age of the Kali Yuga as named in the Hindu wisdom of ages “Vishnu Purana”.

Those of us who see the negative trends upon the Earth and its people – the lifestyles, habits and values observe how decadent the world is becoming. Certain prophesies of the bad period before a Golden Age seem to be manifesting – the following is taken from The Secret Doctrine.

“Periodic catastrophes and upheavals of Nature are to be expected as part of the natural order of evolution of the Earth itself. Such will be true now, in preparation for the next and future phase of man’s life on Earth.

In the Kali Yuga, matter is supreme over spirit – it is a time of dark materialism where evil appears to triumph over good.  It is the Age of Iron.

The secrets of occultism will be exposed to the masses by the Masters of Darkness and there will be a breaking of the sanctity of many things.

To quote from the sacred book of the Hindus Vishnu Purana -

“There will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness.  They will inflict death on women, children and cows; they will seize upon the property of their subjects (alternative translation“ be intent upon the wives of others”) they will be of limited power… their lives will be short, their desires insatiable… People of various countries intermingling with them will follow their example; and the barbarians, being powerful (in India) in the patronage of the princes, whilst pure tribes are neglected, the people will perish (“the Mlechchas will be in the centre and the Aryans in the end.”)_

Wealth and piety will decrease day by day, until the world will be wholly depraved… Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification… External types will be the only distinction of the several orders of life; dishonesty will be the means of subsistence; weakness the cause of dependence; menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; a man if rich will be reputed pure; mutual assent will be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity.. He who is the strongest will reign….the people, unable to bear the heavy burdens (of taxes) will take refuge among the valleys… Thus, in the Kali age, will decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation (pralaya). When…the close of the Kali Age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being which exists, of its own spiritual nature (Avatar) shall descend upon the Earth, endowed with the eight superhuman faculties… he will re-establish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of Kali Yuga shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal. The men who are, thus, changed….shall be as the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita Age (Age of Purity). As it is said: “When the Sun and Moon and (the Lunar Asterism) Tishya, and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion (house), the Krita (or Satya, pure Age) shall return…”

Vishnu Purana Book, Ch. xxiv

An age old but unfortunately accurate account of the negative features in modern culture. We need to take heed and revive the classical values the make us nobly human.

This simple guidance of the Buddha is invaluable:

Cease to do evil

Learn to do good

And follow the 8-fold Path to perfection.

The 8 -fold Path is outlined in Raja Yoga or Asthanga Yoga and is the classical basis for training in self control-  in a nutshell!