Thursday 31 December 2009

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 ....

Tuesday 22 December 2009

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.

Tuesday 15 December 2009

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? ....