Surrender in trust

This week we are doing partner yoga. We are doing yoga asanas in pairs - helping each other with the poses. Usually I do not like to tell people what to expect in classes -- they'll find out for themselves. But I would like to tell you this this week so that you have a chance to bring your friend or partner and build the trust between you through these practices.
Ok! I'm not saying more than this for now.

Differences in height/body shape does not matter. Don't worry. Come with an open mind. Have fun.

FAQs on Yoga: What can I expect in my first yoga class? Are there any do’s and don’t’s for yoga classes?

Most yoga classes have the following general format:

• You may start with some pranayama (breathing techniques),
• then warm-ups to loosen all your joints and warm the muscles,
• this is followed by a series of yoga poses called Sun Salutation (the sequence varies from school to school),
• various yoga poses or asanas in standing, sitting, prone (laying face down) and supine (laying on your back) positions, with each pose followed by a counter-pose (e.g. forward bend complemented by backward bend, left twist by right twist, etc.)
• deep relaxation in savasana (corpse pose) where your teacher will verbally guide you through a thorough relaxation of the whole body part by part,
• most teachers will end the class with a series of pranayama techniques, some may do chanting or meditation.

Other Do's and Don'ts:

• DO arrive early. Arriving 10-15 minutes early for class means that you will have time to settle down and have the right frame of mind for yoga. DO sit or lie down quietly rather than start chatting with your classmates. This way, you can start tuning in to your breathing and drawing your attention away from distracting thoughts.
• DON'T enter class late or leave early. This disturbs your classmates’ practice. Arriving late means that it is likely you have missed out on the breathing exercises or warm-ups and your mind and body are not well-prepared for you to launch right into the asanas (yoga poses). If you leave early, skipping the final deep relaxation at the end of the class, you body is unable to fully enjoy the benefits of the entire yoga class.
• DO switch off your mobile phones before class. DON’T answer calls during class.
• DO be quiet. Respect that there are others in the class practising and that the quiet is essential to their practice and to enable the teacher to conduct the class well. DO ask the teacher, not your classmate, your questions on instructions and poses.
• DO arrive clean. DON’T wear overpowering perfumes and make sure your feet are clean and odour-free. Use a towel to mop up your sweat from the yoga mat or floor.
• DON'T force yourself to adopt a painful position. DON’T compare nor compete. Practise the poses to the best of your abilities without straining yourself. DO observe your own body’s limits and accept that any change for the better takes time. DO inform your teacher if you experience any pain when doing the poses. DO rest if you must anytime during the class. Just lie down on your back or assume the child's pose.
• DON’T practice yoga asanas if you are very tired or if you are sick.
• DO help to roll up and put away yoga mats and props you have used in the yoga studio after the class.
• DO try and recall what you have learnt after each class. Perhaps you would like to write down any instruction your teacher gave that helped you in the session. DON’T worry about memorising the entire sequence of asanas in the class. You will develop your home practice naturally after you have some experience with yoga classes.
• DO practice yoga for a while with the same teacher so that he or she can understand your needs and you can have the chance to experience the full effects of the practice.

FAQs on Yoga: What to wear? What to eat? What to inform the teacher before class?

What do I wear to yoga class?

Wear comfortable stretchable clothing (sports/aerobics wear with 95% cotton and 5% lycra or spandex is suitable). Wear clothes that are not too baggy so that your teacher can check your body alignment in poses and so that you will not have your clothes’ fabric flopping over your face in inverted poses. Yoga is practised without footwear.

Can I eat just before a yoga class? Do I have to change my diet when I practise yoga?

Avoid heavy meals anytime less than 4 hours ahead of the class. If you are hungry, you can have a light snack 2-3 hours ahead. If you have a heavy meal before yoga class, you will experience discomfort during class as many poses will twist and bend at the abdomen. Also if your stomach is digesting a heavy meal, you will be lethargic during class. And yes! You can and should eat after class!

You do not have to be vegetarian or change your diet when you start yoga. Some yoga practitioners are vegetarian because they believe in Ahimsa, non-harming or compassion for all beings. However, this change is a personal choice and it is up to the individual. What I find does result from yoga practice is that you will naturally tend towards healthier food choices because you have developed a sensitivity to your body. This heightened sensitivity allows you to feel which foods promote a sense of well-being versus those which do not make you feel good after consumption. You will be able to differentiate between what in yoga we call the sattva (pure, fresh, light), rajas (fiery, processed, spicy), tamas (stale, cold, heavy) as the qualities of different foods. As your meals become more sattvic, your body and personality also adopts the same sattvic qualities.

What do I need to inform my instructor at the start of a new yoga class?

If you have any serious medical conditions or injuries, please consult your doctor on the suitability of yoga classes before you begin. Generally, if you have any heart problems, high or low blood pressure or if you had any recent surgery, accidents, fractures or sprains, you should mention these. Slipped discs and other spinal problems need special care too.

Many teachers make adjustments to your posture during yoga class. If you are not comfortable with the teacher touching you or if any of such adjustment is too severe, inform the teacher immediately. I find it helpful when a teacher lightly touches a muscle that is too tensed to draw my attention to it. But everyone’s comfort zone is different so you need to give your teacher some feedback on how you feel about these kinds of contact. It is possible to teach you about proper posture and adjustment without any touch at all. Indeed, we were trained by our Indian instructors to correct a student’s posture without any physical contact. However, as a teacher, I found that nothing beats a gentle momentary tap on the shoulder, for example, to remind the student to bring awareness there to relax the shoulders and ease the whole body into a steady warrior pose.

Reason isn't the only reason

Some of you have been at the end of my instructions to "just do it, don't think! Once you think, you are not doing!" during yoga classes recently (especially during those warm up wrist rotation repetitions). Perhaps not that easy an instruction to follow -- especially while you are trying to think it through. . .

Okay -- for those of you who still believe that yoga is just an exercise for the body, this might sound weird: there are other ways of knowing the world and being in the world besides relying on your analytical thinking AND yoga is a way of helping you see and develop all these other ways.

There is nothing occult about this. The problem is that we have allowed logical thought to dominate how we approach the world, drowning out the possible contributions of other approaches of feeling, intuition and your body. Observe for yourself: how many times when you do a warrior (veerabhadrasana) pose are you thinking the pose, how many times are you feeling the pose?

"Yoga" means "to unite" and in yoga practice, the aim is to seek unity in your person. In yoga, we let the analytical mind take a back seat. The breath is in the driver's seat, the other passengers are feeling, intuition, action. The vehicle is the body. This is why yoga is a refuge for you. You step into an place where you can experience things through all the aspects of yourself, where there isn't just logical analyses, comparisons and judgments -- this is where you can just exist. . . in entirety. As your yoga practice matures, you will grow to experience, not just the phenomena within your yoga classes, but everything in the same holistic way.

Yoga Class Schedule Updates

Here's the latest class schedule.

Please note that the change in Friday evening time starts this week. I'm doing some classes in the lunch time slot for one of my previous students -- if you want to come down for these please call in advance to check if they are on. Also, this week, I am starting a private class for United Arab Shipping Co. on Wednesday at 5.30pm-7pm -- so Wednesday 7pm people, please kindly wait outside the studio quietly if you are early. Thank you.

Tue:
7pm-8.30pm
8.30pm-10pm

Wed:
12.30pm-1.30pm
7pm-8.30pm

Thu:
8.30pm-10pm

Fri:
12.30pm-1.30pm
7.15pm-8.45pm

Sat:
6pm-7.30pm

Cave in the Snow

I've been engrossed in the book "Cave in the Snow" on a western nun's search for enlightenment. Tenzin Palmo stayed for about12 years in a small cave in the mountains in the Himalayas meditating and living alone. On emerging from a 3-year continuous solitary retreat, when asked what she had realised in the amazing stint, she replied : "I was never bored."

While this may have stunned her visitor, I was immensely relieved by her response. My own experience limited to a 3-day retreat compared to her 3-year retreat, I am so glad to hear that. I too realised, to my own amazement, that I was not bored. I thought this one of the greatest personal discoveries I made during the retreat although I had felt it a little silly a revelation at the time. So if I had persisted for a longer time like Tenzin Palmo had, I too may find that I'll still not be bored. There is so much challenge in mastering our minds, in living with full awareness of life in every action. I felt that I was at last really living -- doing the real work of living in the retreat -- rather than working at some imaginary life that is supposed to bring us all we need to live. Each day we go out our doors to "make a living" in a semi-automatic mode. How many of the tasks we do daily really feel like they are real. That they have a real contribution to our and other's living well and being happy?

One taste of this real living is all you need to wake up. The real reason for going into the cave for Tenzin Palmo is so that we can return into the world with our developed selves to help others. The retreat into our selves is to shape ourselves, to learn to see the real nature of our minds and to realise our full potential. Then comes service. If you are ill at ease with yourself or if you have little understanding of your own mind, how can you help others? How do you even get along with others? I wondered how the retreat will affect me when I "re-entered" the world. After 3 days and 3 nights in a patient, loving environment, will I be culture-shocked once I step back into Bishan Central and the MRT, back into the weekend crowd spilling into town? I was surprised to see that I wasn't shocked. I saw the same scenes before, I simply saw them after the retreat with more patience and understanding. Yes, we are in a sea of suffering, desires and delusions. OK. This is what we have to start off with. OK. Understand that there is not one person on this MRT train that is different from me. OK. Let me start where I am. OK. Let me help others where I can. OK. -- Something loosened within you and real love spills out.

As Tenzin Palmo says while a cave may be necessary for our meditation practice, it is back in the world that the skills we learnt and character we built are put into their proper use and tested.

May you progress in your practice, may you be well and happy.

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Cave in the Snow: A Western Woman’s Quest for Enlightenment
Vicki Mackenzie. London. Bloomsbury Publishing: 1998
;-) Those of you interested in reading this, I'm returning the book to Orchard Library today: reference number: 294.3923092MAC

Tenzin Palmo's official website: http://www.gatsal.org/index.htm

FAQs on Yoga: What do I need to bring for yoga class?

Usually yoga studios can provide yoga mats for new students. But it is a good idea to invest in a good one after you have gone for trial classes and have decided to commit to a regular yoga practice. This means that you can clean the mat yourself and also means that you can practice at home.

Yoga "sticky mats" are essentially flexible PVC sheets normally 3-5mm in thickness and measuring about 60cm by 160-170cm – an area large enough for you to lie down flat on. They provide cushioning and traction in yoga poses. As the yoga mat is probably the only essential equipment you need for yoga practice, it makes sense to invest in a good yoga mat. Yoga mats range widely in prices from about $20 to $100 or more. This is often a confusing situation for new yoga students. These mats are usually produced in China, Taiwan, Australia, Germany or the United States and the prices largely reflect the relative costs of production and shipping from these countries: those from China and Taiwan costs less than those from Australia, Europe and the U.S. Sometimes more stringent environmental protection regulation means that the mats produced in the European Union costs more as the manufacturers need to use environmentally safe materials.

For your own purposes, choose the best mats within your budget. Be sure to check the following qualities of your yoga mat buy which are not necessarily reflected in the prices:

• Does the mat provide adequate support? Press the mat layer between your thumb and index finger – Does the mat as soft as a sponge, too soft to offer any support? Or does it display some good firmness under pressure?
• Is the thickness of the mat suitable? Generally, a yoga mat that is too thin 3mm or less is not recommended for beginners as it may not provide you with enough cushioning. Interestingly, a mat that is too thick 6mm or more may not be a good idea either! So never do yoga on your mattress!
• Does the mat provide slip resistence? Use your palm to press and slide against the surface of the yoga mat. Does your hand slide too easily against it or does the surface texture or stickiness provide you with some helpful grip?
• How durable is the yoga mat? The price of the mat must be considered together with its durability. If possible, scratch the surface of a mat sample with your fingernail or a coin: a good mat can take several scratches without its surface showing any signs of crumbling. Some mats crumble after just two or three scratches.
• Is the mat easy to clean and maintain? Some manufacturers can guarantee that their mats can be thrown into your washing machine to be washed! Usually mats only need to be surfaced cleaned – just wipe with a damp cloth and allow to air dry.
• Is the mat ecologically safe & are its materials tested against harmful ingredients? You will have to discard your mat one day. If possible check to see if the manufacturers ensure the safety of the materials so that these are not toxic to the user nor the environment.
  

Besides a yoga mat, a large bath towel is a good thing to have with you as you can lay it over your mat if you have sweaty palms or soles. You can also use the towel as a blanket when you lie down at the end of the class for the relaxation session. Some yoga studios can get quite cold when your body starts to cool down after a good workout! Do not attempt to use the towel in place of a yoga mat though. It does not provide adequate cushioning and it tends to slide around on a smooth floor.

Bring your water bottle – drink up before and after class to keep well-hydrated. Remember to go to the toilet before your class though. It would be hard to hold it in when you are trying to do some of the yoga poses. . .

FAQs on Yoga: How do I find a suitable teacher or class? What are the questions I should be asking in my search?

Some of my students found me in the phone directory but you can ask your friends or colleagues to recommend a teacher of yoga centre. Visit the yoga centres and take a look at the facilities. Are they quiet and conducive to practice? It is best if the yoga class is conducted at a convenient location so that it is easy for you to attend classes. You do not want to get yourself in a position where you experience more stress rushing to yoga class that the amount of stress that your yoga practice alleviates! Try out different teachers and different venues to find a class that you like and one that is suitable for your current physical fitness. Talk to the other participants in the classes you try out after the sessions and ask for tips on teachers and venues.

Ask the teachers about their yoga teaching experience and if they have any relevant certifications. Also ask about their own practice and current training, what is their preferred style of practice: is it a more slow, meditative style or a fast, aerobic style, etc? If you have any special health or physical problems, discuss this and see if the teacher feels confident in teaching you. Generally, if you have any heart problems, high or low blood pressure or if you had any recent surgery, accidents, fractures or sprains, you should mention these. Of course if you have any of these conditions, do consult your doctor before that to ensure that it is okay for you to start yoga classes.

Find out the average size of the class: More people in a class means that the teacher has less time and attention for each of you. I feel that one teacher to a class of less than 20 is fair. Any more students than that, the class becomes a little hard to teach if most of them are beginners or if there are people of different levels of abilities in the same class. Ultimately, ask yourself if you feel if a particular teacher is one you can trust and try to do a series of regular classes with the same teacher for a few months. Allow for a period of consistent practice to feel the effects of the practice and then decide how you want to develop your practice, whether you want to continue with the same teacher.

Ask about the duration of a class (usually most are about one hour to an hour and a half) and get the weekly timetable. Enquire if there are any provisions for making up for classes that you miss when you are away on the odd urgent business trip occasionally. Ask about the cost of classes bearing in mind that many venues and teachers offer class packages which offer a better deal on price of an average class if you prepay for a set number of classes. These class usually come with an expiry date so do ensure that your schedule permits you to finish all the classes you are buying.

Find out if the venue provides you with yoga mats and towels or if you have to bring your own. Even if yoga mats are provided it is a good idea to bring your own large bath towel so that you can cover the shared mat with your towel. This is more hygienic and also provides a surface with better grip for beginners to work with. It is a good idea to invest in a good yoga mat if you are going to commit to yoga practice.

FAQs on Yoga: What are the types of yoga? And how are they different?

There is much confusion over differences between names and schools of yoga. Don’t worry too much about the differences. There are as many types of yoga practices as there are people simply because we are all different and need different paths. There are, after all, many paths to enlightenment. Instead of difference, think about the commonalities: Any practice that helps to unite you, body, mind and spirit, in a state of happiness is yoga. Gardening could be yoga if done in the right spirit! A good practice can be a combination of paths. For example, you keep a regular daily practice of yoga asanas to keep your body in good condition (Hatha Yoga), you study the scriptures to grow in wisdom (Jnana Yoga), you do your prayers in the tradition of your religon with devotion (Bhakti Yoga) and do volunteer work on your weekends in the service of others (Karma Yoga).

The way to select a yoga class is not to be too concerned by the name of the type of yoga but to keep an open mind. On a practical note, attend different classes at different venues conducted by different teachers. Find a class with a kind of practice that you like (suits your temperment and physical health condition), in a convenient location (so that you will find it easy to attend class and not have to create more stress getting to yoga class!), conducted by a teacher that you can relate to (someone whom you feel you can trust). All these factors are important to start off your practice in a good way, ensuring that you continue to be motivated and continue to attend class. When you have practised for a while, you will be able to appreciate the differences and unity between the streams of yoga -- and hopefully, you will be open to trying out the other forms of practice so that you can find your own path to samadhi!

In any case, it is good to understand the meaning behind the common terms we hear in yoga:

Hatha Yoga

Hatha yoga is a very disciplined form of yoga focusing on asana and pranayama practice. Hatha is also translated as ha meaning “sun” and tha meaning “moon”. Similar to the Chinese concept of yin and yang, hatha practice develops the body in a way that keeps strength and flexibility as well as effort and relaxation in a good balance. Most of what you see being taught in gyms and yoga studios today is hatha yoga. Usually, hatha teachers will remind students to be mindful of all eight limbs of yoga as a way to transcend the focus on the physical body and to set the proper intention of physical conditioning: the body being ultimately just a vehicle for the mind or consciousness.

Ashtanga Yoga

In a general sense, ashtanga yoga refers to any form of practice along the lines of the 8 limbs from the Yoga Stutras. The confusion over this name arose from it being adopted by a famous modern teacher, Pattabhi Jois to refer to his particular system of yoga practice. According to a Pattabi Jois Ashtanga Yoga teacher, Richard Freeman, Pattabi Jois emphasised the correct performance of asana, the 3rd limb as a means of realising all the limbs. So somtimes, when you encounter an Ashtanga Yoga class at your community centre, this could mean that your teacher is trained under the Pattabi Jois school or that it is a "general" yoga class.

Raja Yoga

Raja means “king”. Raja Yoga is seen as the royal path of yoga. This noble path of practice follows closely the eight-fold path as outlined by Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. People who are drawn to meditation and a more instrospective form of practice will find themselves along this path.

Karma Yoga

Karma means "action". All that happens to us is a result of our own past actions. Our future depends on our present actions. Good deeds result in good outcomes, bad deeds in bad. This concept puts our fates in our own hands. Karma yoga focuses on our actions as a means to happiness and unity with all. In Karma Yoga, we pursue happiness through the practice of selfless service to others with no attachment to any rewards from our deeds. If you are doing any volunteer work, you are already keeping a good practice of karma yoga.

Bhakti Yoga

Bhakti yoga is the path of devotion. Through devotional practices like prayer and chanting (regardless of which spiritual tradition), people with a loving, sensitive nature learn to channel their emotions and to transform all their actions, their mind and their speech into yoga practice. Ultimately, the Bhakti path leads to a realisation of the divine in all beings. The happiness is found in this union with all.

Jnana Yoga

Jnana Yoga is the path of intellect. This is often considered the most difficult path of yoga. Through study of the scriptures and yogic texts, Jnana Yogis develop themselves through intellectual inquiry.

FAQs on Yoga: What is yoga? etc

I'm writing some articles for a magazine to answer some frequently asked questions on yoga. I thought I'll post them here in a series for your information too, especially for those of you who have just started yoga classes. Feel free to email me if you have any questions on what's posted or if you have any other queries on yoga: saufen@yahoo.com

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Introduction

These days, it always makes me happy when walking down the street, I see someone carrying a yoga mat. This means that yet another person is enjoying the wonderful benefits of this ancient practice. Before I started yoga, I never could have imagined the remarkable power that yoga has for self-transformation and helping you to find peace and happiness within.

Yoga has transformed my health, changing me from a person who takes medical leave for weeks at a time to a full-time yoga instructor. With yoga’s emphasis on daily practice and maintaining mindfulness in all our actions, it has also provided me the motivation to put what I have been taught into real practice and helped me to appreciate the wisdom of these teachings. This is not just the case for me, I have seen so many people benefiting from the practice and their stories always have a common theme: yoga enables you to look within, to understand yourself, to live well and be happy.

Indeed, my teachers from India call yoga “an ancient technology for happiness”. Now that it has become the latest fitness craze, I am sure you have also heard many good things and perhaps some conflicting things being said about yoga. Perhaps you are thinking of giving it a try but are confused by all the Sanskrit names and a little frightened by the pictures of people with their bodies “tied up in knots”.

What is yoga? How does it benefit you? How do you start yoga? Here, I provide some answers to these questions. May you have the chance to learn this “technology for happiness” and may you be well and happy on your path.

What is yoga?

The word yoga has the Sanskrit root yuj which means to “yoke” or “bind”. “Yoga” has often been interpreted as “union”. At one level, this is to unite the body, heart and mind. The practice also extends to unite all aspects of our lives. What is the point of these unions? Sometimes we live as though we have no bodies: recall those times you skipped your meals to finish an important project at work. Sometimes we live as though we have no mind: recall those times you spend an entire day seeking out the place with the best char kway teow. In the long term, these are not feasible ways of living and they result in much unhappiness. Both the body and mind become unhealthy because there is no understanding of how to live in a wholesome way.
Yoga can be understood as a way of living. Its purpose is to ensure that all aspects of our living form one consistent whole so we are no longer estranged from ourselves and our universe -- this gives us a sense of unshakable peace and happiness in the here and now. It can be said that the basis of all yoga practices is happiness.

Where did yoga come from? Is yoga a religion?

Yoga originated from India. Artefacts from the Indus Valley, dated to some 4,000-5,000 years ago, have depictions of people in the same yoga poses that we still practice today. It is believed that yoga practices and philosophy has been passed down the years in an oral tradition from teacher to student. Patanjali is acknowledged as the father of modern yoga as he collated the practice of yoga into the Yoga Sutras about 2,000 years ago. The Sutras contains 195 statements of the principles of yoga and these continue to exist alongside the practical tradition as guidelines to good practice.

Yoga is not a religion. It is best understood as a way of life. Through the course of its long history, it overlaps into practices and beliefs associated with Hinduism and Buddhism. However, as “yoga” is such a general term, meaning simply to seek union, it is not meaningful to talk about yoga being a Hindu practice, for example. Everybody needs to find their own yoga, their own path in life. There is no need to give up your religious beliefs to practice yoga, rather, in the spirit of yoga, you need to look for union between all aspects of yourself.

What’s the difference between yoga and other forms of exercises?

While some forms of yoga practices involve the development of the strength and flexibility of the body, in yoga, the body is seen as merely a vehicle for the self. A healthy body is a foundation for deeper personal development. Even within asana (yoga posture) practice, the emphasis is on drawing your attention inwards by focusing on the breath. This helps us to develop a moment-to-moment awareness of the changes of within our bodies and our minds. In this way, mindfulness practice differentiates yoga practice from other forms of exercise. This is also a great advantage of yoga body conditioning as mindfulness helps to prevent injuries caused by careless or reckless exercise.

All yoga practice are guided by principles (see yamas and niyamas below) setting the proper intentions which help us to understand why we are working hard on our bodies, to set realistic goals and to take care of our bodies while we exercise. So while a good yoga asana practice may help you to lose weight, on a deeper level it also helps to lose your attachments to your body – changing how you view your body and developing an acceptance of the impermanence of all things.

What is Ashtanga Yoga?

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, he mentions an eight-fold path called Ashtanga Yoga. Ashta means “eight” and anga means “limb”. Just as we use all our limbs in a learned coordination in our daily lives, we need to practice all eight limbs of yoga together. The eight-limbs of yoga provide the guidelines on how to practice yoga and form a recipe for happiness in life:

[1] Yama: yamas are ethical restraints. These help us to set the right intention for all our pursuits in life. The 5 yamas are: Ahimsa: non-violence, Satya: truthfulness, Asteya: non-stealing, Brahmacharya: continence, Aparigraha: non-grasping.

[2] Niyama: niyamas are observances. These guide the conduct of our practices and the conduct of our lives in a way that helps our spiritual development. The 5 niyamas are: Saucha: purity, Santosha: contentment, Tapas: literally means heat, refers to spiritual austerities, Svadhyaya: self-study or study of the self, Isvara pranidhana: surrender, a celebration of the spiritual.

[3] Asana: Asanas are the yoga postures that most people are familiar with. However, physical exercise and health are part of yoga rather that the whole of it. A healthy body helps us to take the next step in our development, the inward journey to understand the mind.

[4] Pranayama: Prana is a concept similar to the idea of qi in Chinese culture. In yoga, we believe that all things, “living” or “non-living” have prana or energy. This energy is constantly in a process of transformation and exchange between beings or things. We take in prana through the air that we breath and this energy is circulated throughout the body before it is breathed out. Pranayama refers to mastery of breath and consist of practices that manipulate and help us to gain control over our breathing.

[5] Pratyahara: Pratyahara is mastery of our senses and our actions. Practices include those that maintain the good health of our sense organs like eye exercises to improve our vision. Other practices guide the actions of our sense organs to hone our mental skills leading to Dharana, the next limb. For example, building concentration skills through certain focusing practices for the eyes. Importantly, these practices help us to understand our senses and how these are linked to sensory desires. We learn to master our senses and avoid being mastered by our senses.

[6] Dharana: The previous 5 limbs deal with the more external aspects of ourselves and lead to the next 3 limbs which deal with the subtler internal aspects of ourselves: our minds and true Self. Dharana means “concentration” or “focusing” and is a pre-requisite for meditation. Some of the practices help to develop memory, others build mental strength: both of which are necessary for the practice of meditation.

[7] Dhyana: It can be said that all the other limbs help prepare you for meditation, which is Dhyana. Meditation is perhaps the most useful and important thing you will ever learn -- no exaggeration here. In yoga, it is a tool to understand ourselves and leads us to the 8th limb, a realisation of the kind of happiness that surpasses our ordinary comprehension: a clear perception of the truth of life, and a complete unity of your being with that truth in Samadhi.

[8] Samadhi: Samadhi is the “peace that passeth all understanding”. It is the liberation from the ego-self and merging into the larger Self that is the universe. This 8th limb is the natural consequence of the practice of all the other limbs.

Yoga Class Schedule Updates

[1] Please note that this Thursday (5 August) night's 8:30pm class has been cancelled. As I would be attending a lecture on 5 Aug evening this change will only affect this Thursday -- next week's Thursday class will be at the same time at 8:30pm-10pm.

[2] Just to clarify: Friday evening's class is still at 7pm-8:30pm. The change to 7:15pm-8:45pm will only start from 20 Aug onwards.

[3] I have noticed that Tuesday 7pm-8:30pm class seems to be the timeslot new people like to do trial classes in. So for regulars from the other days, if you are planning to re-schedule your class for a particular week and come to the Tuesday 7pm class, please call ahead to check on availability. It is a good idea to call ahead for re-scheduling to any class. Priority will be given to regulars who come on their designated day and to those who have called to reserve their slots.

I ask for your forgiveness for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your kind understanding.

See you in class!

Practise with heroic effort

As I was reading information on meditation retreats on the internet this morning, I chanced upon the following instruction to would-be participants at a particular retreat:

There is only one task to be done by the meditators, i.e, to practise with:
* respect and sincerity
* diligence
* heroic effort
* perseverance
* patience
* sustained continuous, moment-to-moment mindfulness from the time of waking up in the morning to the time of falling asleep at night.

I believe the same instructions could be given to all yoga practitioners. I like the mention of "heroic effort". This is no exaggeration. When times are tough, say when you are undergoing the loss of a loved one, or when you are in depression, or are experiencing pressure or doubts regarding your sense of place in the world, you must persist in your practice with heroic effort. Your consistent practise in the face of the ups and downs of life will become a source of solace to you and a source of inspiration to others. The practice does not stop beyond the yoga mat. Outside of classes and your private practice sessions, a sustained careful participation in every task important or mundane expands our yoga practice to all aspects of our lives. Yoga afterall means union of all parts of ourselves, our lives, our practice, all other beings. All is yoga.