Is it possible to love Richard Freeman even more?
Yep
Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and can almost see Richard smiling warmly at all the divisive comments from across the different yoga camps and bringing us all together for a group hug.
Such a pleasure to watch this over tea following a Sit and before starting the next session of practice ( see yesterdays post Practicing sunrise to sunset ? PLUS Daily routine of a Yogabhyasi), a much better choice than the UK election results.
I'm busy all day with practice but want to come back to this post later and transcribe some quotes from the video, so so many good bits, perhaps also some quotes from Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman and add links to my earlier Richard Freeman post So come back again later perhaps or better still quote some of your favourite bits in 'Comments'.
Here's the intro that comes with the video.
"Richard Freeman shares his thoughts on yoga - from his first awareness of early yogic philosophies written about by Thoreau and Emerson to his journey of being a student of Pattabhi Jois and then eventually becoming a teacher to others. Richard reminds us that yoga is all about waking up and seeing how the mind works - and that though we may fall off the path many times a day, if we practice enough, we see what is not conducive to our happiness or the happiness of others. Yoga allows for the natural push and pull of true awakening. It is about gradually falling in love with life, with immediate experience, with reality as it is. Yoga helps you realize that you make yourself happy by making other people happy and that you make yourself sad by focusing on making only yourself happy. Ultimately, Richard finds yoga to be a powerful tool that helps us be nicer to each other".
And the original link on YogaGlo LINK
If Ashtanga is your thing, I highly recommend practicing along to Richards Ashtanga DVD once a year (at least), I always rediscover my practice when I do.
Richard has quite a few videos on Yogaglo that I've been meaning to practice along with. If you don't feel up to a full Ashtanga class then he has some short form videos and even this one, 90 minutes on the sun salutation LINK that you could practice along wih on their 15 day free trail.
Oh and pick up his book 'Mirror of Yoga' TODAY (LINK), can't recommend it enough, quite wonderful.
Back to practice....
(Walden pond ) "A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate between land and sky".
Thoreau
"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour".
Thoreau
"This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul".
Whitman
"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us".
Emerson
Yep
Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside and can almost see Richard smiling warmly at all the divisive comments from across the different yoga camps and bringing us all together for a group hug.
Such a pleasure to watch this over tea following a Sit and before starting the next session of practice ( see yesterdays post Practicing sunrise to sunset ? PLUS Daily routine of a Yogabhyasi), a much better choice than the UK election results.
I'm busy all day with practice but want to come back to this post later and transcribe some quotes from the video, so so many good bits, perhaps also some quotes from Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman and add links to my earlier Richard Freeman post So come back again later perhaps or better still quote some of your favourite bits in 'Comments'.
Here's the intro that comes with the video.
"Richard Freeman shares his thoughts on yoga - from his first awareness of early yogic philosophies written about by Thoreau and Emerson to his journey of being a student of Pattabhi Jois and then eventually becoming a teacher to others. Richard reminds us that yoga is all about waking up and seeing how the mind works - and that though we may fall off the path many times a day, if we practice enough, we see what is not conducive to our happiness or the happiness of others. Yoga allows for the natural push and pull of true awakening. It is about gradually falling in love with life, with immediate experience, with reality as it is. Yoga helps you realize that you make yourself happy by making other people happy and that you make yourself sad by focusing on making only yourself happy. Ultimately, Richard finds yoga to be a powerful tool that helps us be nicer to each other".
And the original link on YogaGlo LINK
If Ashtanga is your thing, I highly recommend practicing along to Richards Ashtanga DVD once a year (at least), I always rediscover my practice when I do.
Richard has quite a few videos on Yogaglo that I've been meaning to practice along with. If you don't feel up to a full Ashtanga class then he has some short form videos and even this one, 90 minutes on the sun salutation LINK that you could practice along wih on their 15 day free trail.
Oh and pick up his book 'Mirror of Yoga' TODAY (LINK), can't recommend it enough, quite wonderful.
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| LINK |
Back to practice....
Update
(Walden pond ) "A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate between land and sky".
Thoreau
"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour".
Thoreau
"This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul".
Whitman
"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us".
Emerson
