2010 ...

With the experience of the past, live in the present. Travel light without the weight of worries and fears rooted in the past. Face situations and decisions in the light of your reason.

I wish all of you, friends and students, an aware 2010.

2009 is ending for me in a psychedelic stream of memories and dreams ....

Doubts and Devotion ...

As I grew increasingly more aware of who I really was, I found that help in keeping me on the path I had

embraced was constantly appearing from nowhere. People crossing my life, practical advices, synchronicity, serendipity, inspirations and dreams all conspired to keep me going often despite myself. Swamiji used to tell us that a true path of self discovery, where devotion to the Ultimate Truth is unwavering, protects us from any negative obstacles and grows in us a sense of invincibility during our life experiences. Doubts dissolve faced with the devotional loyalty to our inner reality, our deepest feelings. Many times I found myself in tears when some emotional mountain had to be climbed, tears of resistance, tears of anger and tears of fear. Once in the Canadian ashram of Val Morin I walked to a place where Swamiji used to land a small plane, called the 'airstrip', a lonely spot above the camp. I was taking part to the Teacher's Course and experiencing a very strong resistance to the teachings and massive doubts whether I would be able to finish the course. Soon, I found myself sitting in lotus by the little forest of trees at the top of the airstrip. The landscape was awesome: massive sky, vast land. I felt overwhelmed and tears begun pouring out of me like a torrent. 'Swamiji help me' I was repeating like a mantra " I am 40 year old and I have wasted my life. I cannot go back to my old ways, I feel deeply hurt by them, and I do not know where I am going, no idea what is ahead of me". An hour or two went by and when I got up to return I felt empty, emotionally drained, very weak on my legs.Within me, by contrast, a strength I never experienced before had appeared: I felt an immense love and a deep, deep gratitude. I could never find out for what: it just was. Any doubt had drastically vanished and I never looked back since that event.

Christmas ...

We've got to the end of another year. Looking back to my past Christmases I see the ones I spent with my teacher Swami Vishnu in the Bahamas shining brighter than all others. I was working in the ashram as a teacher, as a cook as a shop manager and as a photographer. I was in my early forty and a professional man yet I felt like a teenager on his first trips abroad. I would spend 2 and half months in Paradise Island and back in London at the beginning of March where my studio team was waiting for me to resume my photographic work/projects. Every year I grew happier and healthier after those months spent close to Swamiji's powerful teachings on Hatha, Spirituality, the philosophy of Yoga lifestyle. After the whole day spent on karma yoga duties, often without stopping, I would collapse in bed at around 10:30 and fall asleep before hitting the pillow. It was such a novel experience for me to be so physically involved and so motivated to inspire the student guests of the ashram to explore a different lifestyle and allow the emergence of new horizons in their minds and visions. I discovered a level of love in me I never suspected I could be capable of. All my life I struggled with the lack of that feeling, the warm feeling of being meaningful, the feeling of belonging. My surprise was that I found that love by cooking food for a couple hundred people, sweeping floors and selling t-shirts and spiritual souvenirs in a ramshackled place by the caribbean seas... What happened to my glorious, high powered, creative photographic career? ....

Faith ...

"If you have faith in me I will be with you all the time and raise your vibrations to a higher level" my teacher was constantly telling us in his talks after morning meditation. Having faith is like keeping a door open and let energy in and out without filtering it. The object of faith may change till it reaches the depth of one's feelings and finds

the Soul, the Spirit, the Essence of one's Reality. Soooo, the point is : have faith in yourSelf and make it the end of a journey. There is nowhere else you need to be but in the warm hug of 'faith in yourSelf'. Negative thoughts lower your vibrations and keep you locked in your heavy emotions as in a vicious circle. Faith is like a hand that pulls you higher on a different bandwidth lifting you from the quicksands of negativity.

Awakening ...

I feel it is so important to grow the ability to witness (observe) one's feelings and one's actions with detachment: a step removed from the experience of them. Only then one can assess their value with clear objectivity.

Without detachment one has to wait for time to pass and wait for the benefit of hindsight. I always felt a sense of

anxiety in looking back at past events and realise that, with the vision of hindsight, I had not understood them and, worst of all, acted blinded by my misguided emotions. I always cringed at the fact that I was continuously missing the point and again, worst of all, of my ignorance of doing it. My life, as it happens, has been this far a long series of mistakes, misunderstandings, sadness, arrogance and violence. It all changed when Yoga begun to expand my consciousness: my anxiety turned into determination. I would never let a moment pass without the awareness of it and fully accepting the responsibility for it. I often cannot believe that my intelligence did not help me then to see the enormous crevices in my attitudes, the ignorance of my assumptions and on ... so long went by before I realised that my very intelligence was the problem, my mind. I desperately needed intelligence in my feelings, that compassion ...

Since my awakening, life lit up for me and a growing flow of enthusiasm begun to irrigate my feelings and motivate my actions. What a change, man!

Back in action ...

Last two months have been quite intense and have kept me away from the blog. After my summer break I felt a need to deepen my practice and refine my teaching ability in order to achieve more efficacy for my students.

Teaching for me is a job that has to be performed with the highest skill possible and has to produce results.

My motivation, my call, is a complete different affair. Yoga, in its deepest form, is my life. I am totally committed to the evolution of my consciousness as I have an insight into the stages to be apprehended. When I stepped into my first yoga class at the Sivananda Centre in Albany st. many years ago, I knew my life would be turned upside down, literally. I was 42. I gradually faded my photographic career and begun following my teacher in his various ashrams. Two wives and three kids later, I settled my body in Notting Hill and begun sharing my experience

hoping to make enough of a living to be able to dedicate my efforts entirely to my spiritual evolution.

My quest was, and in part still is, "how can a modern man achieve liberation and live a successful life as a man, as a partner, as a professional and as a citizen ?" ...

Sunset in motion ...

Some moments are so special ....

fleeting instants forever engraved in my memory.

The engine is roaring but my heart is still.

The value of practice ...

I am pleased of this recent flurry of activity within Innergy.

I feel like the work I have been doing in the Centre is continuing to be real and effective.

The Yoga I am sharing is about relationship: how to relate to the environment that surrounds us

in the most effective way. How to relate in a community, how to relate as a human being.

The function of a Yoga Centre is to bring together people who practice relating to their bodies,

feelings and minds in order to operate in a wider world with a sense of fullfilment.

It is important, therefore, to participate and contribute to a community based on truer values

and more spontaneous exchanges.

One practices by partecipating.

One practices by experiencing togetherness.

One practices by accepting and value others.

One practices by letting the energy of one's feelings flow without judgements.

One practices by....loving.

((((((omshantihugs))))))

Sunsets ...

why are sunsets so moving wherever one is in the world?

Meditation ...

When I sit in meditation I am still dealing with the baggage of my past. Less intrusive and more rarefied, naturally, but still ... Meditation is about the past, all that has already happened and that is inside me, somewhere in my psyche and in my body. Every bit of memory that surfaces in my awareness carries a feeling in my body. Very often the feeling is negative. I sit as still as I can manage and in no time memories appear as images in my mind. Thoughts project as images while feelings (being movements of energy) project as colours. After so many years of practice, I have reached a stage of no-reaction and begun to really experience moments of deep joy as I feel the freedom from the thread that links my thoughts to my emotions. Can you imagine what fun is to be present to all the traffic and noise in the mind and the discomfort that follows in the body (which generally forces one to get up and abandon the practice) and NOT feel it? It is like watching a film: mind being the screen and memories the film, the plot. I laugh or cry as the plot unfolds but the plot isn't me. I finally lost the connection with my memories: they now come and go leaving no trace. I feel sooooo liberated! ... :)

Twilight in Sabina ...

As darkness was creeping in, my mind wandered back ... far back when my mother tucked me in bed and left the room, the window open and twilight fading into night. I felt so frightened staring at the darkening sky that was taking away from me the joys of the day, the games with friends and the warm touch of my mother. That fear mixed with sadness stayed with me for very long time, the end of something, the passing of time, the fading of a memory ... In my meditations, during my spiritual practice, I begun seeing the root and the meaning of that fear and realize that I had to face the primeval terror of death which was uncannily sabotaging my innate joy of living.

I begun seeing that death happens in the now, at every moment that rises and falls out of my consciousness. It took me few years to clean my act and accept that 'what is just is' leading, through its death, to the birth of next one. Soooo ... in the mind (which operates in time&space)

one continuously experiences the terror of impermanence of life. In the heart, instead, there is fearlessness because one can only feel the awareness of the moment, with its birth and death, and the joy of its purity.

Nature ...

The world out there is just energy. There is a constant motion: outer movement and inner vibration.

Feelings pick up the rhythmical inner flutter of the environment and ... dance with it.

Peace ...

The other evening I was walking back home through the Kensington Gardens as the light was rapidly fading around the pond. Beautiful summer evening with very few people about and a seducing quietness in the air.

I couldn't help stopping to breathe the twilight and sit on a bench by the pond. I was sensing a magical moment coming to me when my feelings and the environment would merge together in balance. I felt so privileged to be able to catch these moments and hold them in my awareness, kind of digest them, with total humility. No judgements, no possessiveness, no glory. Then I saw two ducks ... two ordinary ducks floating on an ordinary pond.

I sat for a while in that stillness as a subtle sense of joy was pervading me. Time was melting away and that ordinary, every day scene became eternal like the history of the world. My camera came to my eyes and I clicked.

When I left the bench and resumed my walk I felt a wealthier man.

The principles of Shiva&Shakti are inherent in your breath. When you inhale the Shiva principle, active - positive,

is present in your Prana. When you exhale the Shakti principle, passive - negative, is present too. They represent the polarities of Energy: positive - negative. They are opposite, like male - female, and they need to be integrated to be effective and complete. The key element for integration is Kumbhaka, the retention of breath, central to all Yogic practices. You inhale Prana (Shiva) - you hold breath for a moment in Kumbhaka - you exhale Apana (Shakti).

What happens is that in Kumbhaka, Shiva(prana) is held consciously (with practice) awaiting to be distributed where is needed in your body by Shakti (apana). When the practice develops you will notice that Shakti (exhalation) has become your healing power, the release of tension in your body chemistry. Sooooo ...

Inhale ... hold it briefly and ... consciously relax your body.

See what happens ...

A change of direction ...

When I understood that my mind is capable of evolving from a conditioned state, due to the physical,cultural, national environment in which I live in, to a higher stage of raised values and refined quality of living, my life changed dramatically. I embarked on a path where being conscious of my actions ( and more deeply of my thought process) was the most important element of my daily routine. Growing the awareness of Me living and expressing My Life was paramount. The 'lower' mind expresses itself automatically, reactively and unaware.

I lived like in a sleepwalk for years doing all the right things one does like working, having a family with all that that is involved, having 'good friends ' , original holidays and predictable hobbies. I begun asking questions when I realized that I was aiming for my death without the 'inner joy' of having lived my life. The spiritual books I begun reading where highlighting that mysterious (to me) feeling of 'bliss' that was almost totally alien to my understanding. And then one day ... the penny dropped. It came to me, kind of brightly, that the only way to move out of my torpor was to evolve by climbing the mountain in order to reach a higher perspective because from where I was I couldn't see anything else apart from my programmed day to day existence. Soooo, I made it a job to become aware, more and more closely, of my daily actions and feelings. I wrote about them in my diary and spoke to my partner and close friends about my predicament. It turned into an obsession. Soon ... it became obvious to me that I had to become the guy I am now.

The new job ...

The moment I awakened to my inner space I was recruited by the UNIVERSE. I am now on its payroll.

My job is to listen to the big boss orders and then follow the directions I get. 'Feelings' is my new communicating mode which, by the way, is the essential requirement for the job. I keep doing this and that, this shirt and that hat, this name and the other and it all feels like being on a stage.It is an inner holiday the seat on my Universal Desk.

Inner Space ...

When I get up in the morning, these days about 6:30, go to the bathroom, have a glass of water and back in the bedroom to sit in siddhasana. I have been in that room all night with my dreams and energy and now that I am awake I want to explore the feelings which are still, with one foot, in my unconscious. It is fascinating to me to observe, to witness, the modulating motion of my inner world with feelings, images and thoughts emerging from an unconscious space to travel through my observing awareness. I want to catch the purity on my inner music before the mind begins to corrupt it adding the loud interference of my ego. Having practiced this intimacy for few years, I can now easily spend up to 2 hours in this warm embrace that keeps my all day in the healing cradle of awareness. It is such a gift to be 'feeling' my life without the need to rely on my thoughts to describe it. The confidence that allows me to say, quite often these days, 'I know' without having to back it up with reasons...

Well, my friends, you should try it too ... :)

Portrait ...

Yesterday Lou Stanion took a picture of me which I like. She has a talent to catch a moment ...

Photographs have become a major element in our lives because of the incredible progress in technology.

Anyone can now express their visual views which, when uploaded to the net. become part of a global experience.

Think of Facebook (and similar) ... photos are vital there. When my job was to photograph people, mainly fashion, I used to give my subjects one or two big prints of portraits I had shot of them and suggest they could put them up somewhere on their walls, with no ceremonies, kind of blue-tacked. The point is to be exposed to different views of oneself, daily, and get therefore subconsciously used to a broader and possibly truer public image of oneself. Isn't it probable that one dislikes a portrait of oneself at first glance? One never recognizes oneself in it? So, try next time: look at it and learn.

A fact ...

My real love in this world is communicating and evolving. Unfortunately, I understood that later in life and therefore I begun enjoying myself onlyin the last 20 years. Until my 40s I have been pretty unhappy in an almost furious search for the meaning of it all. Done so much, achieved so little ... till the Universe decided I had tried enough and kicked me into the path I was meant to be in.

Wow, what a struggle!

Destination ...

It would be so convenient if I were a teacher proud of my teachings and ambitious enough to want them to be followed and forever remembered. One of my students, now an accomplished yoga teacher, was telling me how odd it felt to him when, asked who he had studied with, he had mentioned my name and what he got back was a smirky "Who?? ..."

My student was deeply affected by the realization that I could not be described to anyone in common words whether as a person or the content of my teachings. Any attempt he made sounded quite ordinary. He then said to me warmly :" You've got to get famous ... got to get out there." Well, what to do. He is too bright to have felt 'let down' by me but he did feel a gap, a kind of blank, in the experience.

... ... the fact is:

I am no teacher with a mission and therefore I have no teachings to claim. I am a student on the path to freedom who happens to share his journey with whoever has a longing, conscious or unconscious, for a similar destination. I do not need to be followed or even understood because I make no extraordinary claims. I share the inside story of a trip that 'needs' ultimate physical health, effortless flow of emotions and a crystal clarity of mind to reach the destination.

All one has to 'do' with me is holding my hand and ... then move on. :)

The witness ...

Growing more conscious, more aware of my environment was one of my practices when I got on the bandwagon of evolution. I used to take in as many details as I could in any given situation.

Whenever I felt be taken in by the experience, perhaps just an emotional exchange with a friend or my partner, I shifted my attention to the immediate surroundings in order to empower my bird's eye view and include myself into the whole of the moment. Outwardly I looked involved and committed but inwardly I was subtly taking a snapshot, physically and emotionally, of what seemed to me the moment. On and on, more and more frequently. It has now become an habit: a deep groove in my awareness.

A glowing jewel ...

It is so easy to trade the inner treasure of your feelings for the bondage of an external life with its events, pleasures and pains. Only through much suffering and disappointments you will move towards that internal glow in a desperate search for healing. I remember vividly the moment I touched my inner diamond, the multifaceted gem in my heart. I was on a plane back home to London from two hard working weeks in Rodeo Drive LA. I had photographed clothes for a client and a magazine. Lots of noise and ego dramas and intense role playing within that powerful environment. During the night, back on my plane seat, I was restless in my aching body; I was exhausted and so strangely sad. "Why am I so sad?" I kept asking myself anxiously reviewing the events of the past weeks. I wasn't happy with anything I had done and begun to doubt whether my career or my lifestyle as a whole had any real meaning at all. I felt increasingly empty and became aware of a acute pain in my belly or chest, I couldn't tell. Silent tears were streaming down my cheeks: tears of intense sadness and despair. Within the depths of my emotions, a mantra-like litany begun to surface: " I don't want to live like this any longer" on and on like a child. As dawn appeared through the windows, those pure colours which only exist above the clouds, I knew something major had happened to me: I had connected with a space within where my feelings were still and glowing totally oblivious of the turmoil I was going through.

I desperately hung on to that space and felt it, felt it ... felt it. As I got up from the seat back to Heathrow, I was a different person ... and my life took a sharp turn.

Positive attitude ...

When I realized that a positive attitude in life needs to align its components I begun working on it.

I needed to accept without resistance any situation that life ( karma) presented me with.

No resistance meant No judgements, No blame.

I needed to cultivate the Joy of expressing myself, truly, in any situation I found myself in. The Joy

would come if I dropped any agenda or wanting. Having accepted the situation I would then be joyful

of being there. Going through life smiling ...

The last component would be the Enthusiasm (powered by love) of doing what was required for me to do

in any given situation which, in reality, was a test for my resolve. Was I coming from my heart (no agendas) or from my mind (ego, agendas)?

During the practice of this commitment, it became obvious to me that the essential ingredient of a Real

Life is Awareness. I couldn't carrying on smiling without the awareness of my feelings at any given moment.

Ahhhhhh!!!

My Yoga starting line ...

My beginning with Yoga was very difficult as I had reached a high level of toxicity in the lifestyle I had adopted before the magic appearance of this ancient discipline: God had come down to earth to lift me out of the mud, showered me and put me back up standing. It all happened around my 40th birthday.

In the photo my brother, about 1978, is convinced that I am on the right path and that soon I will feel more at ease with myself. Not bad for a forecast ...

Who am I? ...

The fundamental question raised in Raja Yoga, who am I?, has to burn in your heart because it is raised there, in your heart, and not in the intellectual mind. If you awaken to the question, life will turn a page in your personal story and take you to next chapter where the Great Unknown unfolds on the horizon year by year. To achieve survival in that challenging space of self enquiry you need a total commitment to the discovery of the Truth. Any less than that and the voracious mouth of compromise and mediocrity will chew you and spit you out in the dull

ache of disappointment.

Dharma ... Destiny

When I stepped beyond my personal story my life begun to shine. The brilliance happened within, like I needed sunglasses to protect my third eye, because I experienced so much more brightness: inner and outer.

Gradually my days became somewhat longer and much more intense but, strangely, less complex and felt instead a simplicity about life never experienced before. Simplicity is the beauty of clarity. As the years unfolded I learned how to trust my intuition and those inner moments of inspiration which kept opening the doors of opportunity into new horizons. Sooooo ... I kept going till the point when a vision came to me during my customary morning meditation: I saw a path, smooth like sand, with deep footprints on it leading far into the distance ... I was standing, still, before the footprints and, looking down at my feet, I noticed that I had stepped on a kind of word written roughly on the surface : Dharma.

It didn't take me long to figure out the incredible message appeared in my consciousness: the footprints of my Destiny. Just follow the signs (intuition) and I'll get where I am meant to be.

Mind ...

Mind is the most beautiful and miraculous event in the Cosmos capable of evolving to the ultimate step of merging with it. The fraught journey of the Ego from ignorance and separateness to the brilliance of Awareness and the dissolving into cosmic energy... and to be reformed and regenerated for the next journey. A real miracle.

Soon after I awakened to this reality, an expert friend gave me a Tarot reading that generated in me an intense feeling of recognition, kind of deja-vu. The strongest card produced at that session was the 'Magician'.

I knew then, with goose pimples on my skin, that my future path was to manifest that 'miracle that I was'.

My heart begun bursting with enthusiasm and determination and a strange sense of urgency. I wanted to refine my human act to achieve the least possible resistance to separation in order to ... dissolve smiling into nowhere and everywhere: the Universe. I felt I had no time to waste ...

My Teacher's Diploma ...

It was a distant 1983 july when SwamiVishnu made me come up to the stage to give me the Teacher's Certificate.

My back had given in few days earlier and I could not stand up. It had been agonizing and had to crawl to reach him. Swamiji had a beaming smile as he was making fun of my misery ...

Obama , the man of our time in his Cairo speech ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l2glv/Briefings_Barack_Obama

Happiness ... the mirage of our lives.

http://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_etcoff_on_happiness_and_why_we_want_it.html

Great sound ...

http://www.ted.com/talks/rokia_traore_sings_kounandi.html

Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti begun the process 0f my awakening when I was given one of his books for my birthday.

His words pierced my heart and opened a flood of emotional energy that slowly changed my life. Hatha Yoga at the Sivananda nurtured that energy and helped it blossom to new heights. I recall the day when, during my TTC

(teacher training course) at the Sivananda Val Morin Ashram in Quebec, I saw, as a vision, what I would become in the years ahead. I would discontinue my photographic career to step onto the path of freedom by sharing my knowledge with others. That vision hit me so deeply that I retreated for 3 days and nights with no food and in silence. When I emerged from it, soon after, my back gave in and I had to take the final exams sitting on a mountain of cushions and against a wall. Pretty embarrassing for an aspiring Yoga Teacher ...

Desire ... the passion

Desire is the ground of my life. I feel it when it begins to generate passion. I compare it to the engine of a car (desire) when it develops power to move (passion). In relation to the spiritual path, desire is often misunderstood, particularly in the realm of advaita-vedanta philosophy of non-duality. As we awaken to the truth of what we are, it is true that our desire for the superficial and the ephemeral things of this world will become less because our spiritual desire will be gradually increasing.  So enlightenment is not about ending desire. It is about shifting it naturally to higher truth,deeper into awareness,  until all desire is dissolved in the reality of Oneness, the unending outpouring of  love. 

As I keep practicing my sadhana (spiritual practice), my desire for the Truth, the Meaning, is generating more a more passion for it. More horse-power.....

My Ego...

The day I awakened to the reality of my soul my life was instantly transformed. The light showed me the door out of the small space I was living in. I discovered the Universe as a feeling of space within me, a playground of so many choices. I then realized that every action I took had to be motivated by a choice. The light was now on.

The urban monkhood ...

It is fascinating to me observing how subtle and confusing at the same time the path of evolution really is.

I am deeply grounded in awareness and in the clarity of my vision yet ... my emotional world is still in the grips of karma. I am still craving for deeper emotional involvement with my fellow humans and, what is more, a physical connection  with them. A community of goals, a shoulder-to-shoulder, an ashram ...?

The Future ...

The Universe gave me the chance to bring together Innergy for my own development, my own evolution. I was 59 and had a rich, adventurous, creative and intense experience of life behind me. From day one, I realized that my private life would be fading and a new public experience would begin. The Universe had obviously decided that I was ready to subjectively evolve and objectively share my growth with others. Innergy never looked back and grew and grew to my amazement considering that the 'Centre' never fitted in the model of commercial enterprises. It took a great effort to keep away from the temptations of success and fame and financial gain. My great reward has been that thousand of students have found their lives transformed through the Innergy experience and many of them begun seriously walking on the spiritual path of Awareness. Today I find myself at a crossroads and I am awaiting for the Universe to inspire my next step as my inner expansion has begun feeling the restrictions of the old model. The discipline of Yoga has reached, in the mainstream, a new plateaux where the mass industry has swallowed the integrity of a deeper search giving way to the superficial world of appearance. It is just another stage of growth, naturally, but a difficult one for me to blossom into. At present I feel like I am stalking ... the future.

Feelings ...

Awareness of a 'moment' , of a 'now',  generates a 'response' in my prana or vital energy field. That response happens before my mind and is intuitive, kind of a flash. The nearest description of it is possibly 'gut feeling' and the rational mind cannot grasp it.  So: awareness+response = feelings. bringing us to: feelings are always in  the present because awareness happens always in the present and so is its response. 

I can become aware of a 'moment' , a present situation, that moves me, touches me, and tears come to my eyes or an open smile with no apparent explanation. Ever happened to you? In most people this response happens spontaneously at random and often is given no attention because has no reason, it is not rational.

Awareness (and feelings) are difficult to sustain because they require a detachment  (in degrees) from the ego-mind. The whole point of our Yoga practice is to arrive to a sustained awareness  and, therefore,  a direct "feel" of the moment, now. Living in one's feelings = living in the present, in the moment. The emotions, on the contrary, 

are always of the past (and projected future). 

Hi Markos, finally I hear from you :).  Feeling keys on your keyboard belongs the senses (and therefore mind). It is a sensation that can be observed. The whole subject of feelings is difficult to explain rationally in words.

Truth....

The search for the Truth is very arduous and takes infinite determination. I find that the best path to get closer to It are my feelings. It is a constant balancing act between the actions that life forces me to take and the feelings that I have at any given time. Very often my feelings are overruled by my actions. When my actions are, in fact, reactions (unconscious) my feelings are repressed  and ignored. The only cure to remain in  balance is awareness. 

Knowing what I feel as I approach action will keep me on the wire ... just like in the picture.

If I don't feel, my actions are devoid of me and therefore are reactions. An empty disaster because karma is created in that state of ignorance. And I keep falling ... and I don't know why ... and I lose the confidence I need to remain in balance ... I don't feel so I am not there ....

My feelings are the only proof that I exist and the only chance to subdue my ego.

Owning the universe ...

my mood today is best described by the image I created. Often after a Yoga practice one can  feel kind of weightless and with a great confidence of movement. Prana flows undisturbed...

A mission...

My focus is to keep the essence of Yoga , the valid discipline to take us away from our suffering, here in an urban environment where is mostly needed. I feel it as a kind of mission as I am strong, resolved, talented and needing no escape routes to get away from the difficulties in the reality. The reality is that most people live in a state of numbness and not able to listen and discern what is good for them. Too much information, too many distractions. When I feel a little weaker, more vulnerable, I find it quite challenging too keep to my commitment.

Sometimes I struggle to hold back tears of frustration as I am faced with the indifference, selfishness, superficiality and greed in the very people I help to discover  new horizons.

Feelings....

Feelings belong to Spirit, your Soul. They are not negotiable, they just are. I remember when I was never aware of them, not really knowing what to look for. It was so difficult for me to express them especially when I was being asked: what do you feel.... I used to search for them, within and in panic,  in a futile attempt to describe them. I could never find them and,  ending up  embarrassed, I learned how to avoid the questions. So I lived in limbo and in my head which was full of reasons and excuses and blame. I lived in a constant state of defense, reacting to every situation and without an obvious centre. Exactly... without a centre, a home to relate to, a home to feel.

The difference now is that by 'feeling' where I am I 'know' where that is and any 'situation' is happening 'out there' 

not 'in me' so I can deal with it objectively. My feelings are the reality in which I live; what happens in my life is an 'out there' , a something that happens to me and therefore I deal with it guided by my intelligence.

Being myself...

The only serious responsibility I have is to 'be myself'. Myself as in 'the Self of me'. Once I awakened to the existence of it my life as 'me' has been totally transformed. Today, for example, having had an intense practice in the early hours and then taught an asana class to a group of very good students, 'myself' is very powerful and cannot stop expressing itself in disparate ways: I project Art, my digital style, I play music , my voice and guitar, I write, my vision of life.... and on. In this way 'me' is so full of creativity and totally comfortable by being alone in my environment. The bank holiday is beginning....

Nature ... and you.

I met a student/friend in the street yesterday whom I hadn't seen for a while. He told me he had moved to the country to be regenerated and be surrounded by nature. He had spent about 2 years at Innergy's Raja Yoga struggling  through the challenges  gradually emerging in his consciousness. I always liked his courage and openness in accepting  his ignorance of the spiritual dimensions of his life. With a glint in his eyes, he begun telling me how those 2 years os asanas and Raja combined had changed his life and brought him to sit on a hill, close to his new house, to watch a sunset that blew his mind. "That evening" he said " I realized, as a shock, that I had never 'seen' nature before in that manner: I never felt it. " I giggled, pleased to hear that statement  and nodding "Do you remember our Raja evenings" I said " when we investigated what feelings are and what they mean?" his face opened "do I remember...??" he smiled. " Nature is just there, inert, not beautiful nor ugly." I continued " The beauty is in your awareness and in your feelings you manifest it."  " Yesssss,...  that evening on the hill I wept for no reason at all, actually on second thought, I wept of joy. I felt alive." he exclaimed.

I left him after a while with a grin in his face and " I am soooo glad to have met you in my life"  statement in his heart. " I'll come back to Innergy soon."

Back to Innergy....

Saturday I celebrated my return with a walk in the Hyde Park . The afternoon was splendid and my companion decided to fix that moment in time into her camera. I find it always so special to spend some time, leisurely, with a woman friend whom I feel attracted to.

I appreciate the female vision of life and the intricate ways we differ in such a variety of ways. I love hearing how a woman 'feels' about her experiences as I realize I could never come from the same places.

It's intriguing and educative so I walk and chat and have a drink and get photographed.... :)

LOVE.....

Love can only happen in freedom. The love that everybody talks about is based on fear: fear produced by insecurity and, therefore, no trace of freedom in  it. I love you and you love me so we can get locked in  a whirl of dependance. The day you place your love on somebody else, I will hate you because you shattered my secure emotional nest. I am now on a limb and in the rain and in fear. To be able to trade my heart again I need to trash the amazing love I had for you. 

And the mess keeps on....

ITALY...ROME...

I left Innergy behind and I am now in Sabina, the hills about 1 hour from Rome. In the Sabina Retreat Centre Giulia has had built an incredible tree house used for massage and ayurvedic treatments.

LOVE

You don't bring to focus who you really are, from deep within your roots, because it conflicts with what you want. Your 'wants' come from your ego, your conditioned mind, and you 'believe' that-  that is the YOU you need to nourish. Anything in your mind is fantasy, an illusion. Don't trust it. Who YOU really are is powered by your heart and is the intrinsic purpose of your living. Let it flourish it, slowly but deliberately.

Confusion...

Sometimes that picture in your mind that seemed so clear, sharp and colorful, and you were proud to call it your 'purpose' begins to change. Colors slowly fading without warning and some kind of mist emerges from nowhere. Pangs of insecurity creep within your actions..... and you get busy: the cover up. You mesmerize yourself with more and more thing to do till one night, perhaps, lying in bed unable to fade gently into sleep, you realize that you are confused and apparently aimless. You seem to have lost power. You have many 'things' and you are super engaged with life and yet ... the story is familiar.  

That 'purpose' WAS your power. That purpose didn't belong to 'deeds or things': that purpose was the motivation to live and express the reality of your soul. 

Don't fear confusion, just trust the sun to be always there even if, sometimes, obscured by clouds. 

Your purpose is your birthright being the 'engine under the bonnet' that motivates your desire to live.

(((((omshanti)))))

From Bahamas to....Chelsea Reg. Office

well, after 7 years of globe trotting around the hemispheres we ended up in Chelsea a beautiful day in september '95. What does a relationship mean? We divorced the following year.....

Innergy 1998

HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYONE.

The Centre is silent, Easter took everyone away. I feel so at home in the energy that surrounds me and slowly spreads inside me. Contemplation is the only choice ... and my mind goes back ... the early days. We had a good team teaching intensive classes and yet so lighthearted. Innergy in '98/99.

Canada-Val Morin- 1983

My early days with my teacher Swami Vishnu. I spent one month in Swamiji ashram in the Laurentian mountains behind Montreal and after a week of silent meditation I was initiated into the use of a mantra.

It was quite an emotional event as I recognized the importance of that moment. I felt I was stepping into a bigger world of joy and unity and that I was letting my old life fade slowly away.

 

Full Moon...

Easter break...

There is such an exodus this year for an 'away-from-home' Easter break. Most of my student-friends are off on exotic trips or family gatherings in the countryside. Given my urban-monk lifestyle, I love being in the city during these times and enjoy more freedom of movement with less traffic around. Flocks of tourists populate the streets creating an atmosphere of lighthearted fun. This year I feel very calm about my life as I probably have reached a state suspended balance. The past 12 years have been such an intense 'escavation' into the archeology of my soul the buried skeletons, the flushing realizations.... and now.... e fresh horizon is emerging. The past belongs to museums now while the future is just unfolding. The paradigm shift that we are seeing in the world at present is leading us towards an inner space where we are going to find a wealth of resources new to us, more intimate, more powerful. We NEED to be who we WANT to be.

Life & Death

Markos from Athens has sent me an email about an insightful review of the recent Flamenco performance at the Sadler's Wells. It is indeed an inspiring trip into an art form rooted in ancient history and belonging to the shamanic heart of the Gipsy tradition. I really enjoyed reading it. I will try to post a summary of it, being quite long for a blog. The major insight of the writer is when he 'sees ' the deep experience of 'life & death' that a genuine work of art can generate in the observer. Indeed, the observer is transformed in a participant: a magical event. I feel like expanding on that and take the essence of it to our Raja Yoga, the discipline of our consciousness.

Being born and die are clearly the opposite polarity of the same axis: time, a lifespan. Raja enquiry takes deeper into the microcosm and the smallest fraction of time: the moment, now. In this 'exact' moment, if we are totally present to it, if we see it 'as it is' without the filtering of our conditioning, we experience death. The death of ego-persona and the dissolving of it into the cosmic sea of eternity. My game of impersonating Fausto is, therefore, transformed into a 'feeling', a 'being'  Fausto at One with the universe. The Art of Enquiry that Raja Yoga offers us entails the permanent evolution of consciousness but... any genuine work of art, being dance, poetry,painting etc will transport us to the edge of our rationality to dive into a sea of feelings and timelessness.

Kirtan with Faustomaria and friends

Lovely evening with great energy and so many friends surrounding me. It is always a surprise to me to see people turning up without being incessantly prompted by marketing. I rely on the cosmic energy of "what's right". I want the survival of the most esoteric facets of the Yoga  discipline: Kirtan  is a very powerful channel of emotional energy in its mantric use of sound. Furthermore, I really enjoy the thrill of not knowing who and how many people are going to appear to form our audience. Well.... this time too we survived...:)

Raja Yoga sessions...

On the second and third friday of the month I explore the essence of Jnana and Raja Yoga philosophy and interact with the participants the applied psychology. "Who are we?" and "Why do we live the life we are living?" "How can we improve our relationship with the immediate or extended environment?" "What is the practice of Yoga doing for us?" "What is spirituality?" "What does integration with mind-body-feelings mean?" Etc, etc....

Some theory behind the practice will enhance the experience of an asana class.

Feeling versus Thought

The moment I awaken to the reality of who I really was my life, as it were, was transformed. The feel of me (the "I") existing in this world had become such a reality that was absorbing  all my attention. I could no longer be the Fausto I had known all those past years. Strange occurrence I thought;  the feeling of who I was had taken over the thought of who I was. All the achievements in my career and my social status had no impact on me any longer as the paramount importance had shifted to how I 'felt' about myself in skin I was wearing as Fausto.

It is difficult for me to decide how I REALLY look like.... 

Perhaps like this?....

Awareness

(photo by Fausto of East Row in full moon)
Awareness is the presence of my Soul, my Spirit. Before I became Fausto I just was;  an immense landscape lost

beyond the horizon. No thought could possibly emerge in that space because there was no mind, the receiver and transmitter of electromagnetic wavebands. My mind came as a package with the creation of a human body that the mind quickly called Fausto. When I realized that the guy I called Fausto was a projection  my mind, a kind of hologram,   I 'saw'  in a flash the vastness of my Essence. Once aware of my Awareness, my world became fuller and more fascinating. I couldn't take photographs any longer as a commercial job because I could not 'see' what everyone else was seeing and calling Reality. I slowly grew out of a profession to grow slowly into another: Yoga.

Awareness home is the right hemisphere of the brains: the ability of perceiving data without the presence of thought. A direct connection with the Spirit. 

Dee's urgent news

http://deedee100.blogspot.com/ Visit Dee's Blog and check her 'URGENT NEWS'. Can you do something about it?

A red energy moved through me....

This morning I woke up with a strong feeling of motivation. As usual, after a shower and a shave, I sat in siddhasana with the intention to get closer to that stirring feeling within. I let my mind fade gradually away by allowing my breath to diffuse in my tummy as I inhaled and as I exhaled I let my shoulders. arms and wrists drop.

After a while, that disturbing feeling that was unsettling me begun to surface. A warmth developed in my solar plexus, diffused rather than sharp, and my breath changed texture. Smooth as velvet but full and confident in the journey between the in and the out breath. I remained still... awaiting, while the warm sensation continued to  spread in my chest, then my throat.... soon ... my eyes and forehead begun melting, kind of losing shape, and tears surged from my eyes, literally, like in a mountain stream. Some time went by... the warmth had gone....

I felt so light, almost floating above the floor. Soon, like in a kaleidoscope, my sensations shifted away and a new, fresh experience appeared: I felt in love. I felt love in every nuance of my feelings, love for everything, for myself and my life, for everyone in the universe, 360 degrees vision. As I opened my eyes, after time had passed, I got up and got involved in my daily routine as nothing had happened. It felt just like that, like nothing had happened.

Moving through the morning, though, I noticed that , physically, I felt like dancing, supple and in harmony, and emotionally absolutely still and glowing.  (((((omshanti)))))

A brilliant website to visit....

A place where the most radical and intelligent speakers gather to touch on  a variety of deeply interesting subjects. Visiting is a must. Navigate through the subjects or speakers and watch the videos.

http://www.ted.com/ 

Watch out...

Stormy weather...

Remember that behind the clouds and a storm, a beautifully serene, deep and unchanged blue sky exists.

In the "I" one just exists untouched by the story that unfolds in the "ME". When in Triumbhakam it is suggested that  Shiva ( the Lord of Yoga) is guiding us from mortality to immortality, what is meant is that in the  "ME"

one identifies with the storm (Ego and Mortality) but through Shiva's help one journeys to the "I" (Spirit and Immortality)