Practical Philosophy Articles
Bhagavad Gītā Chapter Three at MCY April 2020 Session Notes One
This season, my live teaching engagements are cancelled/suspended for the time being. I'm feeling very grateful for the chance to continue sharing some programs online. This month a course on...
Haṭha Yoga Tantra
Haṭha yoga is a tantra Tantra and Yoga are classic examples of Sanskṛt words that encode vast oceans of meaning. Tantra and Yoga are huge, vast topics. I find it somewhat tragic how narrow and...
Yoga, Authenticity and Authority
One of the ways that an advanced state of yoga is described is as kaivalya - to stand alone: to be in a state of 'all-one-ness'. Not lonely, but whole and integrated. The more we can establish...
Econo-Bee
On how ecology - the understanding of the ecos: the environment, the resources - is the foundation for economy - good management of the ecos. On learning from other species, especially bees, and...
Into the Grey
For some time now I have been feeling to write an article about what I see as the need to go beyond divisive black and white thinking and step ‘into the grey’, to honestly, courageously wrestle with...
The Yoga Method – Some Notes to Self – September 2019
Cutivate the medi-state as best you can. Whenever you come away from the centre, patiently, kindly, invite yourself back to the centre. Pay close, honest attention to what draws you away from the...
Practical Bhakti
Bhakti yoga is the yoga of devotion. It is associated with practices of singing, dancing, with selfless service, with the dedication of one’s actions to that which one considers the highest, with...
Pain and Yoga – Note to Self
Pain is inevitable. Pain is an intrinsic and very necessary part of the human experience. Pain helps protect us. It can be our friend. Yes, pain and suffering can beat us down, if we let them, but...
What is Practice – Mysore Morning Freewrite 4th March 2018
What is practice? Life is practice. Life, as it is said, is the field of bondage, and the field of liberation.Yoga techniques are preparation for the practice that is life. We get what we need. If...
Representing That Which is Beyond Representation
At school, I was taught many things that I have since come to consider as being highly inaccurate, misleading, or mistaken. One of these was the idea that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion,...
Inquiry: Five Acts
The first imperative verb in the Bhagavad Gītā is pasya meaning look, be alert, be attentive, pay attention. So we might say that the basic practice in yoga is attentiveness. Yoga practice...
A Few Words About Ganesa Saranam
In the Bhagavad Gītā, one of the most treasured texts of the yoga tradition, yoga is described as ‘samatva’ – ‘evenness’, or the integration of all the powers of our awareness; and as ‘karmasu...