“They put us to ground without knowing we are trees”

Life somehow resemblance a lot with the life of a tree. At first you are just a seed and you just suck all the nutrition everything the earth provides so you grow from this little speck into a big tree. The same happens to us, and we rely on parents, kindness of nature, humanity, to grow until we can provide for ourselves. But as the tree, we are always in need of what the earth provides, all our flesh and existence here is not due to our parents, but to earth, nature and all the food we put in our body, all that matter, that we eventually transform it into human body.

You put an apple into your body, and the body acts as an alchemist transforms it into cells, tissue, organs, blood whatever is necessary.

But it comes a time, when you should give something back to nature, a tree creates oxygen, fruits, for animals, humans, and it is like he has a purpose. And everything has a purpose here on earth. We are the only aliens here, still searching for one, some of us will never find it, because we go against the heart and we surrender to the ego,to the mind, to whatever society wants us to be. And it s nothing wrong with that, it is just that society is very unbalanced, it still has a lot to understand.

My teacher used to say “Understanding is One, Misunderstanding is Many”

There was a video these days on the internet, saying that the world would be such a better place without humans, all we do here is to interfere with nature, we destroy, we think we know better, we kill, we are in this moment the disease of the planet. But the planet as the sun doesn’t create separation, they give their love and energy to everyone, their love is unconditional. Either you are a thief, a teacher, or just a normal person, the sun shines the same for everyone.

But we try to learn, to adjust, to wake up…

Until the time will come when we learn from “good” positive actions, that doesn’t cause us any pain or discomfort, we will experience a lot of the opposite. It seems like this is the way for us to learn, by suffering, these are the best lessons that life give us, whenever we are uncomfortable.

When I see all the drama and “bad” things that are happening in this world, all the sufferance and ignorance, greed and wars, all the disabled people and sick people, I realize, that all of this is needed.

You need a homeless person to remind you how lucky you are on a winter to have a home, a
sick person to know how we take health for granted, a tsunami to realize how lucky we are each day to have such a stable climate, an old person to see that life is short and you still have to enjoy everything before and do some yoga, so in your 60’ty years of age, you would not need a wheelchair or medicine, or someone to clean after you because your lifestyle consummated your body before your age.

We get so engaged in what we are doing, that we forget to be thankful for what we have and we take everything for granted.

We cannot learn other way, so things will just get worse and worse, until a day will come and you will say “I had enough” and a change is producing inside of you. That is the moment that you have the courage to do and try new things, because what it was before didn’t work.

Some people are more sensible than others, for some of us, the drama already existing is enough, so we change our behavior alter our perception and start building a heaven here on earth.

This is another face of karma to me, some pain for you in order to get back on the track. As a  person will cut some of the tree or plant branches to concentrate the energy on other parts of the tree, probably to produce less fruits, but bigger and more tasty, and with more nutrients, the same karma is making you suffer so you place your energy where is needed.

Karma is not a bad thing, karma for me is the hand of the universe, showing you the way whenever you are lost. Karma is your guru, teacher, your best friend who has the courage to tell you in your face that you are wrong, and ignorant, and your ego needs to shrink.

This is how my teacher will summarize yoga.

What, Why , How? – what is it, why to do it, how to do it…

Three questions that you will need to use them eventually in every single thing you do or try in life. Understanding everything “Less is not enough, more is not possible.”

In some yoga classes you will fell sometimes that some exercises are  not really from the scriptures, that the teacher/instructor is somehow bending the rules, he’s being sometimes to flexible or too harsh.

Well in the conception of my teachers and many gurus, yoga is understanding.

So you are trying to understand how your body works, and try to improve the things you feel or lack in your body.

Lack of exercise and a sedentary life style or improper thinking will bring imbalances to the mind, body and here is where yoga intervenes and is slowly bringing everything back to its balance.

Buddha used to say life is like the strings of a guitar: “If you pull a guitar string too tight, it will snap. If you let it out too loose, it will make no noise. Only medium tensions allow the guitar to work. So too is the path to contentment.”

So we are trying to adjust life in such a way we feel contentment at a regular basis.

If you are in a kitchen and you understand how to cook something, sometimes you can bend the rules, and add some personal things, some of your taste into that cooking, is the result a disaster? No, it’s your perception that what you bring to that recipes will improve it.

And this is what we try to bring to the world, by our existence, an improvement.

Every yoga class will be different, even if we all are talking about the same thing. Everyone is trying to trigger something in you, some different muscle, or some different perception about the same thing, and it seems like every time we look from a different angle, it is like things change, but fundamentally it is the same.

It is like looking at someone from different angle, it is still the same person the same body, is just that your attention gets fixed on different aspects.

So for example if we want to relief-improve the lower back pain-muscles, in the begging we can start stretching that part of the body, creating space and flexibility for nutrition to come in, for oxygenation, everything what the tissue-cells-molecules-atoms need in order for us provide the necessary condition for our body to heal that area.

And we don’t stop here, just on the gross part, we can add some subtle practices, chanting, breathing, awareness, the healing energy or warmth of our hands to heal that particular area, or meditation, which is such a strange concept to most of us.

Now, the body is an incredible mechanism, we cannot understand even a small percentage of it, but we are trying to use all our knowledge in the best way we can to support the body needs to keep this soul inside so it can manifest itself freely.

This is the whole feeling of levitation, so levitation is mostly how you move through life, you feel like you are flying, everything is easy, you are just putting a thought in your mind, and that thought is manifesting itself with the indulged speed of the universe.

We still follow this cosmic, universal law, so since we are matter, we follow the rules of matter on this earth, like the force of gravity. The same laws apply to us.

After we have relief the lower back from pain, we go to the source, what was the source of this pain? And how can I prevent it the next time for happening?

So you go to your posture, to your abdomen, and most of us we lack a lot on this subject, or even deeper, the thought. What was that thought that made me bend like that?  or depleted me from all the energy so I could put all this pressure on the lower back? Am i working myself too much? Is my life style against the health of the body? How can i serve ?

So yoga for me is a science, for which the main purpose is to observe the body, mind and energy implied for this arrangement to work at his best.

Just because you do yoga doesn’t mean you have to stop here, yoga is a 24h practice, is the laboratory that you take with you every day of your existence.

Go and explore the beauty of this world, go paint, do Pilates, run, do cycling, enjoy yourself in every activity but do it with awareness, be  less harmful with yourself and your environment, be honest and strong, show compassion and love, try to build your understanding and be less ignorant each day.

We are doing yoga so we can enjoy life more. So we can move easily trough life. Yoga is just a mean for you to experience yourself to the most of your potential.

Stop comparing yourself with everyone, you are not the same, you had different experiences, different start, the universes never makes a copy.

Everything is the same, fundamentally, but has slight differences, embrace this differences and allow the universe to observe itself through your perception.

And just enjoy this short experience…

Being thankful, showing gratitude, is all that you have to release into this universe…that is the purpose of your existence.

Plato used to say you should practice death daily.

It’s about you reminding yourself that you are not immortal. Your soul is, but your existence here on earth is limited.

When you imagine yourself dying today, or tomorrow being your last day here on earth, you remind yourself of what is of value to you, what has meaning.

I am saying this to bring one subject into discussion. Sleeping.

We believe that 8-10 h of sleep a day is a necessity. Yes it may have been when we were growing, at a young age. But now sleeping is mostly due because we feel we have nothing beautiful to wake up to. Or there is no other form known to us, of how we can relax.

When we talk about work and we feel “compelled” to wake up early, we do so much effort, alarms, cold water, coffee, whatever will get us on our feet.

But when we have to wake up for ourselves, when we “enjoy” a free day we just go for a 12 h sleep. And for most of the people it is because there is no pleasure greater than this. There is no planed day for which they should get up to do some interesting things.

It is like life it is not worth living.

It is like we are sleeping our life. Sleeping, eating, reproducing, the basic needs of any animal.

“We do so much efforts into creating problems, stress, we create so many thoughts that can bring our energy down. But when it comes to happiness, we just sit and do nothing, like we expect everything just to fall from the sky.”

We where trained to work and dedicate our time and energy for someone else’s dream rather than our own.  

It is very peaceful to sleep, when your brain and thinking process is out of the way, and you forget about your identity, you are just peaceful.

But will you do the same if this where one of your last day on earth? Or would you call everybody to meet, say to them whatever you didn’t got the chance to say, your parents, that you love them and they did a great job, your loves one, how much they mean to you, go and see nature, have healthy food, do some exercise for the body and thanking him that he supported you for all this years, and all the bad choices you made. Showing love and gratitude to everyone. And probably trying out the things you never had the courage, time, resources to do.

The body is happy when you sleep because it seems like you’re not giving him a choice to experience bliss, to jump from a parasympathetic “fight or flight” when the mind is under stress to a sympathetic mode “rest and digest”- grow and heal, when the mind and body is at peace.

For me one of the purposes of you being human, is to be conscious, if not, your experience would have been reduced to one of an animal. But your purpose here on earth is so much greater than this, and you know it, that is why you are not satisfied about your existence.

It’s like being drunk on some kind of products and unconscious, and people telling you that you had fun, or you being aware and having a memory of being blissful. It is scary, and there is no fun of you being unaware, if you where in some kind of other activity that doesn’t involve sleeping.

You feel you are awake now, just because you didn’t experienced other states of being awake. But you have felt the same in other circumstances, for example when you thought your body is at your peak, until you didn’t get to do some physical exercises for at least 30 min.

So what if you can develop the means to go-jump to this state consciously, what if there is a chance that yoga with all its myths about meditation and breathing and other practices, can make your experience being awake and blissful like being asleep and unconscious, or even more, would you take that chance, would you try it?

“The eyes are the mirror of the soul and reflect everything that seems to be hidden; and like a mirror, they also reflect the person looking into them.”   ― Paulo Coelho

 As a part of the “warm up” in yoga there are exercises that emphasis also eye movement. Just because we didn’t got the chance to practice them until now, doesn’t make yoga less complete.

These days there are many workshops helping people with eye problems, doing various exercises so they improve their sight viewing. A part of the exercises come from a long time ago, because it was understood that vision disability is mostly, like all things, related to muscles of the eye, and there are only imbalances that trough exercises they may improve, prevent or heal.

But we are looking at the bigger picture today. It was a subject that I was paying attention more this week.“When two people meet and make eye contact they find themselves in an immediate state of conflict.They want to look at each other and in the same time they want to look away (*duality of thought*). The result is a complicated series of eye movement back and forth” Body language – James Borg

Emotions as feelings, as many other things are expressed through movement of the eyes, different muscles, vocal cords, gestures, postures etc. So even if the mind is thinking she can hide the truth, the body is always revealing the truth about someone. Some of them can be controlled, but there is always a part that is out of our reach.

“Three things cannot be for long hidden: The sun, the moon and the truth” Buddha

You can tell somebody’s mood just by looking at them. The body is like an open book. Are the eyes looking, relaxed, anxious?

We just need to pay more attention to the body. We developed an intuition that sometimes tells us not to trust, some people, even if they communicate something that sounds truth, the body contradicts the words.

So you may pay more attention to your intuition, since you are such an amazing machine beyond your knowledge or belief.

Every time a speaker is trying to deliver a message it will start by giving a gaze to the listener, just to verify he got the attention. After the eyes are looking away, in order not to have distractions in conveying the message. When the message is delivered, he looks back to notice the impact of his message delivered to the listener.

The listener in the meantime, if he’s interested, is keeping 70% of his gaze on the speaker eyes, gestures, voice etc.

If the speaker is looking too much at the listener it means he’s trying to force a message, if the listener is looking too much time away studying the surrounding it means he lost the interest in the subject

If the speaker/listener is keeping his eyes relaxed he will express confidence and trustworthy, if his eyes look anxious, fast movements, you will feel something is wrong.

When you are speaking with someone and you keep the gaze to their eyes and higher, most probably that person is a stranger.If it’s going to be in his eyes and to his mouth, he’s probably a friend, colleague, someone familiar.If a person is looking even lower than the chin, it means that probably that person is interested for more.

Staring to much in the eyes of someone brings discomfort. Usually if you will look too much it means you think you are dominant, usually the person who feels dominated/irritated it will look down.

If you feel superior you will raise your chin up, and blink slowly, like people don’t deserve your attention, your look.

When someone is speaking and looking:

-right and down, they most probably are accessing feelings

-left and down: talking to themselves

-right up: imagine something

-left up: visualize something like a memory

-right middle: reconstructing a sound

-left middle: remembering a sound

So what has this to anything related to yoga? Well yoga is studying all the behavior of the body through its postures. Every posture in yoga is a posture of strength, it activates something, either the strengthening of something, healing of a particular part, release of some stack emotions in the body, or just preparing the body for higher energies.

Some of the postures are there in a position of strength for the body, mind, something that is changing the perception about yourself, that keeps you present, that reminds you who you are, accessing a forgotten memory or dwelling in the future.

There are so many things that cannot yet be explained, and probably never will be. But what we are interested in is the results. Is the result of one action that really counts, not how the alchemy takes place.

“One can talk endlessly, describing, pilling words upon words, coming to various forms of conclusions, but out of all this verbal confusion if there is one clear action, that action is worth ten thousand words“

The consequences of an action. Yoga is making you aware of the consequences. So instead of being a victim and just falling into situation, you become an aware being, taking the decisions and life in your hands.

 You can notice a fake smile, just by looking at the muscles that activates during the smile, the symmetry of the face.

 Every single feeling, every single thought, every imbalance of the mind is manifested in the body either through a chemical reaction- subtle or a diseases-gross.

 Technology and ignorance are mostly creating more comfort to our sedentary life and poison our body with artificial products and unnatural food, thoughts and misdirected actions. Makes it impossible for the soul, to live in this “temple”. It is not the soul who is feeling bad, the soul is immortal, is the body who feels all your decisions and choices, like you are lowering/depleting your body of energy instead of rising it.

Practicing yoga is healing, bringing balance back to the body due to your imbalance life style, thinking, and actions. We are helping the body to perform its duty, to keep ourselves happy and healthy. We increase our awareness into the body, bring more sensibility to each part of the body.

How can we listen to the body if we are “deaf”? The body for long periods of time sent us messages through disease and all kind of reactions, saying that we have to make better choices. But it is like after years and years of ignoring, we don’t feel anything anymore. We just get sick, instead of preventing it from the first signals the body is sending. The body just got numbed.

Let’s remember who we are, and what this body can do for us. Yoga is just another mean to your betterment. Used to reach the full potential of the body, not only the physical one. 

|Improve your own being.|

What is happiness? Happiness may differ from one person to another, but we are all in pursuit of almost the same things: love, peace, abundance, health, longevity, and other.

How do we express happiness?

This is almost universal. First you want to share the feeling, it seems that if you are the only one who enjoys your “victory” it is just sad, and so you need someone to share that joy. Sharing is what makes us feel even better, the sweeter is the victory.

So separation, individualism is not the way to happiness.

Another thing you may feel is to jump out of joy, to scream, is like every chakra has touched a full potential, like every cell of your body is energized. You fell so good that you can run for miles, there is no fatigue in your body, and you have to let it out. To send that vibe as far as possible.

So your mind will always understand happiness trough the expansion of your body, through the cells when they are energized, proper nutrition, oxygenation. A healthy body generates happiness. Your brain doesn’t make the difference, you can use movements in order to generate signals to your brain which are similar with the ones the brain is generating when a feeling of “happiness” takes part.

It is your soul who wants to expand, when he is experiencing positive vibes. He wants to explode, because it follows the same rules as the universe, his purpose is to expand, and it needs to have space in the body to manifest, to create a flow of energy without blockages.

All this blockages are either due to lack of inactivity, suppressed emotions, unfulfilled desires, etc. And they are sucking the energy of your body, or acting as blockages for the energy to pass freely.

Sadness manifest itself the opposite way, you want to destroy things, you want to get small, to hide, to be alone, “flexion”.

Hell was described by many wise minds as a lonely soul. A lonely soul is the hardest thing to bear, you can be in hell but if you have someone by your side, things are just easier. Sharing pain makes it goes away, even if just a little. And that is the expression-expansion of your heart chakra speaking, socializing, creating vibration.

Yoga’s main preoccupation is to open the body, to energize the cells, to reduce/destroy blockages, is preparing the body to experience a new level of energy. Is like enlarging the resistance of your body so it can support higher forms of happiness and energies, and maintain them.

Yoga is just creating space for the soul to manifest, to trust who you are, to fall in love of yourself, doubt less what you feel, use your intuition more, creates a fearless expression of yourself.

This is what everyone is actually searching for, to feel free and not judged, for what they are and what they feel, a fearless expression of who they are, so they don t feel the need of approval or justification in front of anybody.

You may say no, but then take a close look to the people surrounding you. Are  they not your friends, the people who makes you feel appreciated, loved by who you are, yes they may judge, but they do so, because your ego is to big sometimes, they correct the impure things in you, search for your betterment.

Society created an utopic image of what a person should be, something that cannot be reached, and is making you frustrate and follow that your whole life. Just because you want to have a feeling of belonging.

But this is your beauty, your perfection, your uniqueness, the “bad and good” together, the fact that you work towards your betterment, that you follow your heart and passion, that you are euphoric, enthusiastic about your hobbies.

Paulo Coelho said something like “When you do what you love, and get lost into that action, you have a feeling of God in you, you create something out of love, out of God, you are being used by God in that moment.”

Love all the sides of you, accept and have more patience with the things you want to change about yourself. Develop kindness and patience towards all living things. Do not harm yourself, try not to harm others.

Open your mind, be more in touch with your soul, increases the empathy you have toward others. Become more compassionate. Raise your awareness level.

You will realize that the pursuit of your goals and happiness is by taking joy, in your actions, it may take sacrifice sometimes, but doing what you love will get you less attached to your goals.

Make small changes every day to your betterment. Even if is one more breath that you are aware of, or a small kind of kindness. A thought of gratitude, for who you are today, and take pride in all the courage and situation you have dealt with. Being here today is just another proof of how strong you are, and how stronger you can become.

The awareness and search of spirituality, is growing all around us. It is your decision if you want to do small steps towards your happiness, or steps behind, hiding in your comforts and fears.

“You can only die once, but fear, can make you experience “death” 1000 times.”

How can you enjoy anything in a sick body?

During my yoga training, we had this beautiful approach to anatomy, from a yogic point of view. And it is very interesting to acknowledge what is happening to your body, understanding how the physical aspect of yoga is influencing your health.

Even if 99% is still magic.

One of the most important subjects during anatomy classes was to understand how your mind is connected to your body, and how thoughts influences your body.

So I took a special time trying to explain the functions of hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus is a part of your brain that has a vital role in controlling the mainly bodily functions including the release of hormones in your body. So this pea size part of the brain is there to maintain homeostasis, keeping the body in a stable condition.

The hypothalamus responds to the exterior and interior environment, sending different signals like regulating temperature, hunger, feelings, telling the body when it should stop eating, sleeping, how to regulate blood pressure etc. He is like the headmaster, CEO of hormones, he has under other glands that take orders from him, one of the most important ones is the pituitary gland.

So on a gross level everything you are feeling in the body is due to this small part of the brain. So love, pain, excitement, sickness, joy, everything that is felt by the body is either an command from your automatic nervous system or your unconscious-conscious thoughts.

So you can either blame yourself, Karma, or this little fellow. But instead of wasting time on blaming it is better to find solutions and the source of the imbalances in our body.

You can numb your senses, using different inhibitors or slowly and gradually ignoring the pain, not paying attention to your body, and eventually creating all kind of disorders inside. Like a doctors can give a pre-op sedation, then cut all your body and you will feel nothing. The same way you  are slowly losing connection with your body.

You may see a desert, and your mind starts thinking “oh that looks so delicious”. Your are creating a chain of thoughts, that will create a demand to your hypothalamus which will eventually generate hormones to travel to your stomach telling “there is a space to be filled”, or “you are hungry”. Even if you already had a copious diner 2 h ago, enough for the whole day.

Why is it so hard to stop eating peanuts, chips, or other kind of foods?

There are foods that contains neuron-inhibitors that block your brain from stop eating. It is like your are always sending signals, commands for more, but nothing is sent back to tell you it was enough. As a late response you get your stomach tissue yelling he is going to explode if more is sent, which is the last resort.

There is a delay between your stomach and your brain. It takes some time for the signals to reach the brain and tell him, that it was enough. But we have a habit to fill our stomach with as much as we can as fast as we can, so we don t feel hunger anymore.

I loved when my teacher used to talk about diseases, and he said diseases are just another word for imbalance. So overweight is not a disease is an imbalance that takes part due to imbalance of your hormones. Is like somewhere on the way a connection was lost.

Instead of having a signal from your stomach telling that all the vitamins, fibers, proteins, where provided, you get a late signal that your belly is about to explode. Try eating slowly, chewing slowly, and give time to your stomach to reach the brain and tell that one plate was enough.

So overweight may be an imbalance due to your thyroid, sedentary life, way you are eating, or what you are eating.

The length of your whole circulatory system,veins nerves etc, is 2 times the distance around the earth. Sometimes the connection between one system of your body and another may be blocked, and the body loses control over some senses, and that is how you get imbalances that creates “diseases” in your body.

Yoga is there for you to reconnect with your body, you “clean” the electric circuit through all the body so you may get the right signals for the body to balance itself. It is like a reset to your body for all its functions. Using simple movements, you create a better connection between your mind and body.

So like “flexibility” is an outcome in yoga, the same  other imbalances will regulate.

Before you could have easily went to McDonald having a big happy meal with no problem. Now you are going to feel pain when you eat something that is not good for your body, and the pain will increase because you are more connected to your body.

So yoga is balancing yourself without any big efforts, you are just practicing and everything else will come. Yoga postures are the external work you do for your body to repair, or remember whatever was forgotten.

Using breathing and postures you’re strengthening the connections through your body, so all the organs, tissue, brain, muscles, nerves, cells can perform their job easily. You are cleaning your body of all the blockages due to the interior or exterior world, all the imbalances you have created due to your choice of life.    

The same amount of time you spend investing in your future,Relationship, financial security, retreat, or other projection, start investing time in your body. How can you enjoy any of them in a sick body? 

After a beautiful indoor cycling, the best thing you can do is to have a cold shower and going to a sauna to relax those quads, calf, hamstrings. Breathing slowly, diaphragmatic breathing, cross-legged.

And yes I know what you are thinking, you are practicing yoga, why would you do something else than yoga. Well just because you are a yogi doesn’t mean you cannot do anything else than yoga. We have the bad conception of what a yogi really is.

You see all the gurus, and all the images of how a yogi should be, flexible, and a skinny body, eating vegetables, or being vegan.

Well it is like we are always following these stereotypes created by everyone, how you should be, not to do etc. How is this any different from the stereotype the society is creating, what it means to be the MAN or the Woman, both business successful very rich, because if not you are not “successful”, expensive cars, diamonds so you can show yourself in big events, that you are so much better than everyone else etc. The thing is that if you fell dominant, you will not prove it, if you know you are better there is no point proving to someone that, because it is just stupid. You don’t have to prove nothing to no one, you just have to believe it yourself.

But the idea is that, success is different to everyone of us, has different meaning, some in their frustration want power, some want “everything”, to compensate the fact they feel they are nothing inside, so you need everything to fill an infinite empty space, and so on.

It is about loving yourself, and realizing you are more than all those people, just because you chose your own path, that makes you special, not choosing a path that has already been walked.

So for me when two yogi are the same, one of them didn’t understand what this existence is all about.

Yoga is about being yourself, unique. I am not trying to be neither Jesus or Mohamed, Patanjali or Buddha, I don t wish for supernatural powers to fly and to heal everybody, I just want a better version of myself.

Yoga is not about being super flexible, doing handstands for hours, bending your body like a contortionist.

For me being like that, and bragging about it, or the need to show your students how advanced you are is like Showing a “special”(handicap) person in a wheelchair how fast you can run. You just don’t do that.

And I m just pointing out the difference between practicing “on and off”, and be devoted to your practice.

Yoga is about raising yourself, and then help others to raise themselves.

Is the place where there is no judgement, where you came and face your fears, the fear of new, the fear of being yourself, the fear of committing to something, the fear of silence, the fear of knowing who you are.

Yoga is about being conscious, awake, and when you take a decision like eating meat, you will know how that will affect you.

When you have one glass of wine more, you know what that will bring in you. When you eat chips and drink coke, you know the pain you are inflicting to your stomach. But is a choice, you are making and being responsible for it, to yourself, not to others.

You have the freedom to do whatever you want!

Now you can still make those choices and nothing is wrong or wright, you just have to realize the price you are paying.

It is ok to do mistakes, that is how 99% of people learn, just some small percentage learn from the mistakes of others.

Mistakes is what makes us human, and let us change this word “mistake” is like something is bad. It is ok to have experiences that are not all, positive.

“Good judgement comes with experience, experience comes with bad judgement.”

It is like the best lessons in life, we take by suffering. We need this kind of drama in our life , to see the beauty of this world, there is no good without the bad. So having a beautiful life is not about, dodging the bad all the time, is to realize, that when something bad comes into your life is ok, is like rain, it will pass, and the sun will shine again, and the fact that you are in that situation to learn something, and the lesson will be amazing.

There is no beauty in our idea of a God without the idea of Devil, so we should be thankful to the devil, he s doing a great PR job. Even if God and Devil, are one and the same, but we ll come to that understanding later, when the mind starts seeing the bigger picture.

Yoga is about building a strong unique identity, being yourself, fearless expression of yourself. Rising to the full potential of your mind, body and spirit.

Create your own stereotype, and make of yourself the example you want to follow in life.

My teacher used to say: “Once you put a word on something, label a thing, you limit that which you are trying to describe.”

The truth is, we cannot put a real value or explaining something for what it really is.

My teacher was asked about his journey, when did he start knowing his purpose, or dharma for this life, when did he realize he was different?

He says he was like this since he can remember. He had millions of questions, like:

“what is water!?”Yes, I know is H2O, I know about its proprieties or how it can be used, but what it really is?!

And the truth is nobody knows. We don t know what something truly is. We know how something can be used, but we have not a true definition on nothing. Because everything is so complex and infinite that our understanding cannot explain.

Nothing can be explain fully, it has to be experienced, and even when it is experienced it is subjective.

I am me. I am a human being, I am loving, I am strength, I am intelligence, I am revengeful, I am weak sometimes, I am scared, I am different, I am unique, I am so many things

So who is this me? Because he changes every time.

I really loved when Jesus was presenting himself. “I am that I am…I am before Abraham was, I am”

So when he said we are all Gods, and the fact that God is in every one of us, can we exclude the he really is even in every sentence we use? when we say “I am me”:

“I am” is the God inside of us the energy that keeps everything together and the next word is what we think define us.

So you are a God, the universe who experience himself in this particular human experience, in the character you built your whole life, the decision you made, the action you did.

Jesus also said “If you want to be like me, i can help you …”

So to be like him you just have to separate this sentence “I am …<something>” and just identify yourself with “I AM” like this you become infinite, whatever you put after you become something that has limits, can be described.

I am Samy.

“I” the God, in this short time experiencing myself as this person called “Samy”

So the foundation of our existence is the “I” we use in every sentence, there is no basic-fundamental difference between us. We all have that “I” which has nothing to do to our body, our wealth, studies, intelligence, we are all connected.

This small differences we give so much attention is something else, is society that taught us, and indoctrinated us to think in a certain way. The place you where born or the circumstances you where given to evolve, to use that to create a separation between you and the god inside of you, inside everything, To create duality and EGO is one of the biggest mistake we ever made.

For me you are infinite potential.

Un-manifested potential, wherever you direct your attention, and how much discipline you put into that, or passion, that much you can achieve. There are universal laws that this body has to follow. But everything else is infinite.

There are yogis who chose their moment of death. Who can read minds, and have all kind of abilities. Some people are born like this, some develops this kind of powers.

Their only purpose is to make you realize everything is possible, the impossibility of one thing is only a wall in your head. And the purpose of all this “magic” happening around you is to make you realize who you really are.

You are a part of God, you just have to allow it to be. So instead of limiting yourself saying you are something.

Just say … I am infinite, and I can be whatever I chose to be.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T.S Elliot

With each new information, each book you read, each experience, there is something in you that is growing your level of understanding is growing.

Perception is changing, you start seeing things differently. The world in front of you changes with that.

How things turn to be better or worse is due to your own personal perception. You and you alone are responsible for what you are feeling.

Reading the same book twice, the first time it seem interesting, but try reading it after 1 year, and see now how many things you have neglected, how is it possible that the same book, had more messages than you were prepared to see before? that the writer was passing a message a lot deeper that you where expecting? and you missed that before…

The same thing is happening in life, improving your understanding and perception, this world transforms also.

“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”

“We don t see things as they are, we see things as we are”

Heaven for me is not a place, is an idea, that you have the power to transform everything you want around you, but first you have to have a “transformation” inside.

That you can break a pattern of thoughts that have built since you were born until today, and re-pattern them. Changing what was “a bad” experience in “a needed” experience for you to grow and to become who you are today. To see that every little choice or action took you here, in this present moment, for you to have an understanding and the necessary intelligence for you to enjoy this experience.

That everything has a meaning. When you see someone argue in the street, your mind goes for compassion that you reject that kind of behavior between two people, when you see two birds building a nest, you figure that you love the idea of commitment. And the list goes on.

For me bringing awareness in your life, on your action comes with practice. And it may start with yoga, since for me this is what brought me to the understanding of many things. But even Asanas- yoga postures, the physical aspect of yoga, are just the beginning, just another step towards something else.

It like going to a restaurant, the waiter is bringing you your order to the table and you start eating.

Or he comes to the table, giving you information about how the food was cooked, what spices are inside, and how the order of the spices while cooking is essential. The fact that the vegetables come from a village nearby, from a family of passionate field workers. And what kind of drink is preferable to have, so it can wash your taste buds so each new mouth feels like the first. And the fact that you are not only eating for your mind J but what kind of nutrition facts are in the meal.

Life has just more meaning, when you make your first steps from ignorance to understanding.

We are all expressing happiness and sadness in the same way. We are all smiling using the same muscle, there is a universal look for happiness, power, dominance, agility, strength, wisdom.

So just by the looks of one body, gesture, and muscle contraction you can say so many things.

What is a smile? if not a contraction of particular muscles, when you feel dominated, you tend to get smaller so your body flexes, becoming smaller. When you dominate you have your chest open, you are walking with a straight back, full of confidence, and is not even important what other believes, if you believe it yourself. They will just act to the vibe you are sending. All the postures in yoga, you can fake them until your mind believes them.

You become happiness just by feeling a back-bend, forward bend, a sun salutation.

So feelings can be express just by muscle contraction.

Everybody when is happy wants to jump up in the air, scream, raise the hands, share this happiness with someone else. You feel like something inside of you is expanding. Your soul wants to explode. And that is his only desire, like the universe, expansion is their nature.

If the soul feels trap, it will not feel good. How do you feel as a prisoner? Or when somebody tells you what to do?

Just remember when you were a child and your parents where stopping you from doing things, from exploring, from expanding your soul. You were outraged, starting crying, yelling, because someone put rules, someone put a cage to your soul, someone is telling you there are limits.

When you experience happiness, your cells are so energized that you feel you can run for miles. But the idea of expansion is interesting, why do you feel you have to create space? And for who? Didn’t yoga learn from this feeling, and created posture so the soul may walk freely through your body.

We still follow some universal rules. For me yoga is the science that studied how to bring your body and mind to their full potential.

For me happiness is extension, your body gets bigger, you expand, you are flexible, a flexibility in the body and mind. Being sad, you are exactly the opposite you are stiff, your range of motion is reduced, you are lacking strength and energy.

And isn’t it when you feel stiff, you feel like your energy is being absorbed in the body in those points? And as you open those energy channels, you just start feeling better, is like someone has blocked the energy trough specific points.

The same thing are happening with emotions, feelings, they are rising or depleting the energy of the body. How do you feel after sitting to much? How do you feel after a yoga class?

So yoga for me are just the means to use specific muscles that creates happiness in the body, creates awareness of the body. When somebody is smiling, just by looking at that you are smiling also, you feel the energy rise. This is another example that we are all connected, we feel just by looking at others, we can feel a small sensation of what they are feeling.

Let s try kindness, respecting the opinions of other, take joy in our differences, be more sociable, smile more, and if you are not doing it for you, do it for others.

Say a hello, say a bless you, make people feel they are not alone. The hardest thing to bear on this earth is the feeling of a lonely soul that no one cares about your existence. Everything is easier to bear when you feel there is someone supporting you, even if you were in hell just having someone next to you, give you strength to go on.

Wish you all a beautiful weekend. Change the world by small gesture of kindness each time, a situation is given to you.

God bless you ! Namaste … 

My God is too big to fit in one religion.