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.