Bye bye... I gotta hit the road

I've just finished packing my suitcase. I am traveling on Tuesday to Serbia. I will visit my father, sister and other family over there. I will stay two weeks, then I am coming back to Toronto, I'll stay here three days and then I am going to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. It is an interesting time, isn't it?

I am just about to start ashtanga yoga practice, but before that I want to tell you a little secret of life - there are no problems. Believe it or not but there never were any problems, there are no problems today, and there will never be any problems.

If you have an identity, a personality, strong opinions, firm character, then there are problems, because your personality always gets into trouble of some kind. There is always friction of your expectations and the "reality". But if you learn to forget yourself, where are there problems?

What I write here on my blog other than ashtanga yoga is utter nonsense. It really has no meaning because you are reading from standpoint of your personality. You are judging my words but I have nothing to tell you. This blog is simply my confession. It’s useless for many of you.

I’m not telling you to do yoga, or to meditate or to drink tequila and beer. This is just my personal confession, the way that I feel. Now, Does it brings some new understanding to the people reading this? I don't know..

My main articles are in AWAKENING category. If you ever read them, please, do not try to analyze or judge or come to any conclusion. And, do not believe a word you read, why should you? Try to see for yourself the falseness of everything in this world including your personality.

Unfortunately, many of you believe in a official news. Even you say you do not, you actually do. You have programmed in such a way that you strongly believe that there is a cause for everything. In truth I tell you there is no cause. There isn't any cause for anything. Everything in this world is happening spontaneously, randomly, without any cause.

Since there is no cause there is no effect. So don't look at reasons, for why you are like you are, or this world is like it is. You have to accept simple fact that "you" are not and the world is not, "you" and the world are just temporary appearance.

The only sin you do in this world is that you have forgot this fact. That is a meaning of Jesus Christ who was on the cross. It is actually you, in this world. The thoughts take all your attention and it effectively blind you in the vicious circle of "what-if". What-if is the mind, what if that happens, what if I lose my wife, what if I lose my job, what if I buy that car...

Jesus Christ had to die, in order to raise to Heaven. So "you" also have to die, your personality must die, everything that you believe, cherish and hold to, so dearly, in your mind have to die.

Let me be straightforward as much as I can...  the world is here because you exist. And you exist forever. Your personality has no existence, the world has no existence, the universe is a big lie, without you it is not there. And you are unborn. No one was ever born. If you are never born how can you die? You were never born and you cannot die.

Personality is born and it must die. Again, I’m expressing my confession. That’s how it appears to me. That’s what I mean when I say, this blog is useless to most of you, because you can't do anything with this, things happen on it's own.

Think of these things instead thinking about your useless fears. Have you noticed, all your thinking is related to fear. You don't know who-you-are so you are afraid.

In young age, your thinking is about your appearance, the presentation in this world, you fear getting married. As you get older you fear about your family, about things you have, you fear getting divorced, and you try to acquire things as much as you can, so having them, you fear of losing them, as a old person, you fear poverty, you fear getting sick, and finally you fear death.

Whatever you fear is a lie created by your own stupidity. Nothing matters in this world. What matters is how you react to the happenings, how you see it, what you expect and hope of it. This is true of every aspect of your life.

You've been trained to believe that world is true, since you were a kid. Kindergarten brainwashed you, your family brainwashed you, the school brainwashed you, the system brainwashed you, and here you are, reading this page to the end. Congratulation.

Your ideas, concepts, notions, feelings, attitudes makes your world. Realize what do you believe about yourself and about the world is the most important thing in your life. Wake up.

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While waiting to die... by Charles Bukowski

Listen to parents. Go to school. Get a job. Toil through eight or nine hour days. Go home. Go to work. Get married. Make kids. Go to work. Go home. Get divorced. Go to an empty house and eat leftovers while watching re-runs. That's it.

Charles Bukowski ~ ♡ ~ What matters most...

We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. 

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery - isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.  

I don't know about other people, but when I wake up in the morning and put my shoes on, I think, Jesus Christ, now what?

We waited and waited. All of us. Didn't the shrink know that waiting was one of the things that drove people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn't have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink's office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one. 

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. 

I am not interested with what most people want to do - mostly with my time. 

I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn’t understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.  

Life is primarily about our minute sensations... Our presence to them is like an inner instrument that allows us to know what is good for us. Even the meaning we give our life needs to be evolved from, to be congruent with our sensations. It's all about the little inner things really. Remember that life is to be lived from within because the world is but a mirror. 

We have come so far and gone nowhere. We have lived so long and hardly at all. 

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. 

...and those who succeed know this secret: there isn't one.  

There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.

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Let me ask you...

Tequila & Beer 💖

How do you live your life?

Do you rush through the present, thinking there’s always something around corner, there’s always something you need to finish? No matter how far you get and how hard you work you always want to go further looking for better.

Sure money matters, material things bring comfort, but unfortunately they don’t bring happiness. You will always be unsatisfied until you realize that life isn’t about things.

You’re alive, and most of the time you have to do things you don’t want to do, you have to survive. But if you find yourself working for things that don’t matter like a big house or a fancy car, you’ve missed the point.

You already have everything you want.

Do you have a vague feeling of being cheated?

An unfortunate pitfall of growing up is that you're at a high risk of getting disappointed and hurt by life. Kids are left, you're divorced and probably overweight, your sleep pattern is disturbed, you've started drinking and panicking about health issues, you've started asking yourself "is this all there is"...

After 50 you have reached maturity to see that you cannot improve your reality, you can just lower your expectations. You have no hope that something better will come and you've realized that "expect the unexpected, believe in the unbelievable, and achieve the unachievable" is a bullshit.

You're feeling as if you are less seen and less heard, although you still have hope for something better to come. My dear friend, nothing better will come, Elvis has left the building, and there’s no one to help you to get through this crap of old age.

The list of your needs grows daily, and you wonder how you’ll get it all done and still make your mortgage payment.

Do you wait for retirement to start living?

In meanwhile, you work more hours so you can do that other stuff “someday.” You save your money so that you can retire - comfortably.

It is so ridiculous, you are not seeing that you will be too tired to live up to the expectation you have of retirement.

The retirement, that's your ultimate escape. You pushed aside living at present moment so that you could live up to a hope that doesn’t exist.

To live, you’ve got to let go of hopes and expectations.

Cherish your life and the present time. If something happens, it happens, it is not that you make it happen, it just does. If it doesn’t, then it wasn’t meant to; let it go. You think if you don’t interfere things won’t happen.

Life is meant to be fun.

It doesn’t go anywhere it just is, in this very moment. It is easy and effortless, but by waiting for retirement you rarely recognize it for what it is.

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Ashtanga Yoga? Well, Watch Your Knees!

Monday, August 5, 2019, I am about to start my 3rd yoga practice this month. I am tired and I feel sharp pain in my left knee.

Having everyday yoga practice is not that hard. What is hard  is letting go of ideas and convictions around what practice should look and feel. I do not expect something from the practice. I think it is important to do it.

The main reason we struggle in life is because we are holding on to our imagination and expectation, some idealized version of what our life should look like.

Ashtanga is really nothing special, it is a simple postures intended to support us as a human being and makes us a little more aware of our shortcomings. If we really want a consistent daily yoga practice, we need to let go of the idea that the practice leads somewhere. It does not. It is actually a moving, daily meditation.

In July, last month, I found my practice to be just struggle. I've had total of 15 practices and every single one was a product of my self-determination. I have no reliance on or cooperation with God, teachers, gurus, swamis or any other agent, only authority is my self will.

Let’s face it. It is a hard practice with a ton of daily obligations, not enough sleep and inadequate eating habits but ashtanga was never meant to be easy. The same sequences are practiced each day, I hear people say they need variety, but if you pay attention, ashtanga yoga practice feels completely different every single time you practice it.

Many people blame ashtanga for injuries, the truth is ashtanga yoga heals. Rather than blaming ashtanga, let’s find out why the injury occurs so we can make necessary modifications. 

Is Ashtanga bad for knees?

No, it is not, but goal oriented practice is. We have to be very mindful practicing ashtanga yoga.

Arddha Baddha Padmottanasana, Janu sirsansana C, Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottonasana just to name some of the knee-dangerous asanas that have been injuring students due to stubborn attempts to get into the pose with a no-pain-no-gain attitude.

Ashtanga Yoga is physically demanding and so dangerous for anyone who cannot do lotus properly. It is so often connected with things like knee-pain and inflammation. The knee is most vulnerable when it is bent with an external rotation of the hip when the front of the thigh moves to the outside of the hip.

Generally speaking, one of the most vulnerable components of Ashtanga yoga is repeated pressure on the lateral knee ligaments since the practice sequence repeats almost daily. For the students who are not so flexible, the practice can cause the repetitive stress syndrome.

I’ve heard from and worked with a number of physical therapy (physiotherapy) patients who suffered MCL, LCL or other knee injuries that began in their Ashtanga practice. Usually, this was from a Mysore-style practice, sometimes from teacher adjustments. I’ve also fielded many email inquiries from students about Ashtanga and knee pain. - Dr. Ariele Foster, Yoga Anatomy Academy

In the beginning of my ashtanga yoga practice after just a couple of months of practice, I have thorn left knee's lateral collateral ligament (LCL) which connects the outer thigh bone to the outer shin bone. That happened 10 years ago and still, I have a problem with the above-mentioned asanas.

Regarding Astanga being a balanced practice, the first series (primary) has a lot of forwarding folding in it. The vinyasas become the counterpose and are peppered through the practice. But this works solely in the Sagittal plane. Some dedicated and skilled Astanga teachers are increasingly questioning the balance of the series in light of growing scientific knowledge, and encouraging variations, making up their own sequences sometimes. – Ruth H., yoga therapy practitioner, trained in Ashtanga Yoga

Over the years, I have learned that Ashtanga Yoga is not defined as the mastery of asanas although for many, many practitioners the goal of Ashtanga is binding the hands in Marichyasana D in order to progress through primary series or standing up from a backbend in order to move to intermediate series.

Frankly speaking, goals like this are very harmful. I just like many other practitioners will never be able to bind in Marichyasana D. People will compromise their knees in order to get into the posture. So Marichyasana D becomes the source of a medial meniscus tear.

As Pattabhi Jois used to say, “Health will result from good yoga, ill-health will result from bad yoga.” Clearly, the goal-oriented Ashtanga practice is a bad yoga.

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KPJAYI is no more!

Click on KPJAYI (K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute) link kpjayi.org now directs to a new web site of big boss, the Paramaguru. (https://sharathyogacentre.com/) As a web designer I know the power of re-direct. It is not really so complicated... The king is dead, long live the king! I like the new logo. 😍

I am not going into reasons why this re-direct happened, what is Sharath's relationship with Sharaswati now, where is the list of certified teachers, who will be there when it appears etc.

Ashtanga pilgrims will now go to the Sharath Yoga Center. It just sounds like any other wellness center isn't it? The new location is a bit different so if you are used to go to Goculam here is the map for the new ashtanga yoga center so you don't get lost.

Unofficial sources tells me big boss the Paramaguru is building a private infrared saunas inside his new center. The infrared sauna "after shavasana" will be the safest and most powerful way to remove your toxic thoughts and chronic jealousy from the body. It will support your daily ashtanga yoga practice and it will work as a natural detoxification process, increasing circulation, promoting rapid healing and increasing flexibility and mobility.

Once a week, on Thursdays, a chanting class will be held in sauna itself. This acoustic place with an increased heat will give you a unique experience of your own being.

Besides offering saunas to ashtanga yoga customers, one of my favorite change is a new outdoor pool with a place for ashtanga barbecue parties. Believe me, nothing beats experience of being a western ashtanga yoga customer in Mysore. The new pool, beach and aquarium will be finished and open for Christmas.

I am all for changes. I like to see positive, healthy lifestyle changes and they are incredibly rewarding. If you are probably feeling anxious to get started with ashtanga yoga I heartily suggest new sharath yoga center lead by big boss, the Paramaguru.

You have to go through extensive ashtanga training and to go to Mysore at least three times, to get to conclusion that you really didn't needed it. I know, you can't wait to start teaching ashtanga yoga yourself. There aren't necessarily any rules to follow when you can start teaching, but your trip to Mysore is definitely an essentials thing you absolutely must have in your yoga resume.

I recommend this new center to all  ashtanga yoga customers. Please have your own mat, primarily for sanitary purposes. In mean time I will practice at home missing the old days.

 Bon Voyage.

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