Being

We live in an extremely competitive world. Learning to improve ourselves without feeling the need to be the best at everything is an improtant life lesson in well-being. Living with compassion for ourselves, easing our self judgment regarding our sense of success or failure means we do not have to be the fastest, strongest, richest, thinnest, most powerful or any other thing that we sometimes think we have to be to be.

Everything is relative, and success is a very relative concept. And ultimately anything we do or achieve is relative to our own viewpoint or understanding and situation. Someone who achieves moderate health overcoming a serious illness may have achieved more than a person endowed with natural health in abundance. Wealth and happiness earned has the same relative earning power: the process of achieving it outstrips the goods earned, and, depending on your vantage point, is a real measure of achievement.

A lot of people achieve great success at the cost of the greater whole, their health, families or happiness, others achieve great personal happiness without finding worldly reward. Many others find a measure of This kind of relativity is of course relative in itself, makes sense that sustainable personal development means holistic, balanced success.

Taking it easy embodies an effortless way of being that brings out the best in us. It asks of us to look in on our own lives and evaluate what we have achieved and what our goals are, and to find ways to be our best, truest selves, no more, no less.

Press release/newsletter:

This note serves to announce a radio interview, but really is an opportunity to share a thought.

I have been given a whole hour this coming Monday the 7th of April to talk about my work on the Cape community station, Voice of the Cape. VOC predominantly serves the Muslim community, with a listenership of some 250 000. I always welcome opportunities to present yoga to non-practitioners, and in light of its universal application to achieve greater physical and spiritual well-being, to other cultures. Integration of especially common sense principles of mobility, breathing, integrated, holistic and natural health principles and practical spirituality is the driving force behind my work, and to expose and
educate people to the simple things they can do to take better care of themselves. How to do this is another matter: we can easily discuss our mutual interests with other like minded people and friends, but sharing our passions or beliefs, especially with those who do not adhere to our belief systems and opinions, without seeking to convert them or creating hype around our beliefs, is always a challenge. I trust a good way to go about this to get out there in our communities and talk about it, and best of all, to become examples ourselves of holistic, integrated living.

I should also get to play some of my music . Or you can go to mp3.com/artist/beingmusic”

Tune in on 100.4 FM between 10h00 - 11h00 or stream on http://www.vocfm.co.za/

Nourish the body, mind and spirit

I am often amazed at how simple it is to achieve well-being in theory, and how, in reality, how hard it can be to achieve the Body-Mind-Spirit Integration necessary to achieve it.

All matter, material as well as non-material, is energy. The being is energy. This is why attaining glowing well-being has to include the entire being: the body, mind and spirit. All energy will have either a positive or detrimental influence on some aspect of the being, and this will influence the total being in one way or another.

Satisfying the body’s nutritional needs, drinking enough water, getting enough rest, exposure to a positive and stimulating mental environment and contentedness is therefore as important to establish vitality as is good posture, effective breathing, mobility and freedom from stress.

This is why the principle of Body-Mind-Spirit Integration is so important. Read the rest of the above article, and watch the 40 second video clip illustrating “Being”.

Music has always been a first love for me, a twin vocation next to yoga. Problem has been that I never felt I had enough time to do it well enough to release CD’s or perform regularly, and I never wanted to suffer the life of a working musician either

So, after years of fiddling with guitars and stuff and trying and then denying and trying again to make music I got to sit down long and frequently enough this year to record a 2 CD set of music.

As I wrote in a recent newsletter Do what you love, love what you do I suddenly discovered that the joy of the act of creativity is more important than the final product. I discovered that living the creative and life passion that I desire is fed by a natural energy when I am in this flow, and the opportunity to be creative arise as I create. The process was sparked of while recording some music for the CD and DVD that accompanies my Five Keys book - one thing leading to another, literally.

I composed, performed and recorded Being at home, and another idea sparked into action - having started Being Events I thought I might as well start Being Music, and am now releasing “Ambient Music” as the first album for Being Music - a Beautiful Music Label.Being has one disk with beats for ambient listening/yoga/driving/chilling , and one disk for relaxation/healing/therapy/meditation. Influences on Being are me being a yoga teacher, my appreciation of blues, folk, 60’s and 70’s rock, world music, ambient electronica and the Buddha Bar/Claude Challe/Cafe Del Mar stuff.

Melodic acoustic- and slide guitars and keyboard are layered over a unique “slidescape” of slide guitar pads and synths. Disk onefeature gentle driving loops behind quietly passionate instrumentation for a spacey, soundtrack-type listening experience and an unplugged. The slower unplugged track, two uplifitng mid-tempo pieces and a 25 minute electronica beats epic, “A long way to love”, contrasts with the two 28 minute meditative tracks on disk two. These atmospheric pieces are ideal for deep relaxation and for therapists.

FREE MP3 SAMPLES of entire album
2 Tracks for FREE DOWNLOAD - USE THIS LINK I get 1 Rand/download and you get it for free, no catch, just a simple sign-up, and get other local music for free also)
BUY DOWNLOADS per track
ORDER CD - international shipping

If you like the music, please forward the links to your friends!

The Being festival is all about promoting well-being - on a personal level as well as in the community, in areas of eduacational and environmental health. “Celebrating Being - a Well-being Celebration” is about promoting a better understanding of what well-being is, and inspiring everyone to take steps in the right direction to obtain greater well-being.

“Being” is a call for those already on the path to well-being to share their skills and insights, and promote their services and products to another and to the larger public. This festival is not about preaching to the converted, or about converting, it is about lending greater visibility to well-being within the greater community.

Follow the “Celebrating Being” festival links in the side bar on the right.

Is Being then about changing the world? I prefer to not to use this expression though I do feel, strongly, an awareness and urge that many people around the globe are waking up to - the fact that we need to make quite an effort to take better care of ourselves and our planet.

Exactly how to do this is a matter of debate (and one that is featured at the festival - see the program). However, acknowledging and raising conscious awareness of what well-being constitute is as good a place as any to start. Another thing is that these efforts could be light and filled with joy - let’s celebrate well-being by setting an example of becoming, “being” peaceful change, compassion and positivity, not making war on indifference or anything else. It is also always a good idea to remember that well-being is a personal journey, and our personal journeys are inseparable from nature and our network of communities, local and international.

A few years ago when I started writing a yoga book and ended up with a huge, complicated work that made less sense than I hoped. What made more sense to me was to break the whole project down into the basic principles of well-being - after all, this is what yoga is all about.

In the process my career expanded from a yoga teacher to a search for well-being in the larger sense. I realised the very obvious - to be well is to be, and to be we need all facets of our being to be whole or on the mend, and in harmony with another.

So yes, Being is about changing the world - by improving our own awareness of what holistic health is, and sharing our positive energies with like-minded friends, family, partners, at work and play - our community.

We are, after all, our environment: the ecosystem as much as our social structure are interdependent. Our well-being starts with our personal health as much as the health of our planet and its communities. Let us honour and celebrate this, every day of our lives.

Someone who knows me well remarked the other day that I seem like such a nice guy when I teach my yoga class, but often less so when I am not. I was a bit offended. After asking myself what it is then that makes me stubborn, difficult, moody and even miserable when I am not so nice I understood something quite vital - it is when I am not in the flow of things that I become “less nice”.

I become less nice, or pleasant when I do things I don’t like doing. I am far more pleasant, excited and passionate when I am “in my flow”, in the fullness of my being when I am living my passions. We all do.

After a lot more thinking about being in the flow two options came to mind. I can aim for less of the things I don’t like doing and more of those I love, and I can change my attitude to the things I don’t like doing.

Of course getting a balance between doing what we like doing and embracing “the other” apsects is one of the major challanges that lies at the centre of well-being. It is very do-able to occasionally wash the dishes with a Zen-like approach of “I did the dishes when I was unenlightened and then now that I am enlightened I still have to do the dishes”. As it is another matter entirely doing dishes for a living when you rather want to be a chef (even if you have to do your own washing up :-0), I realised that I need to continue making the changes neccessary to do “more cooking and less washing up”.

While there always are and will be compromises, even, or especially when gearing up towards shifting into a zone of doing what we are passionate about, there is a huge difference between sacrificing an ideal by not living it at all, and not living the ideal, unreal dream of a perfect, seamless life 24 hours a day.

But the fact that we have to do the things we like doing to be a nice person came up with a resounding “Yes!” in m heart. The same person that got me thinking about this in the first place also remarked that I seem really happy, glowing when I am creative. I thought about this too, and then decided to make every effort to be more creative. This person noticed my passion and good mood when I was in the flow, composing and recording music. I worked with this idea and opened my schedule to allow more creative time.

An important detailo here is that I also realised it was not only about the result - how “good” the music I created was, but rather about how good I feel when I am playing, literally. Especially when I realised that the challenge is not really about how good my class or how perfect my product is - it is not my ego that is at stake, but precisely the opposite. When I achieve simple being; sharing and developing whatever talent I have, I achieve my “being-ness”, the Zen practice of the extraordinary ordinary.

There are compromises of course - working at your craft on a Friday evening instead of going out, technical hassles, budgeting considerations, learning curve frustrations, and let-downs but hey, I always found that being a guru and an artist (i.e. bein gyour own wise, creative self) is not easy but not that hard either. It is your attitude to learning, obstacles and growth that detrmines the “hardness”.

I always try to remember the Louise Hay affirmation that goes something like this: “Bless your current workplace, your job, your boss. Then visualize your ideal occupation and workplace”. Aim to do what you love, but love what you do now. Create a space to move forward into without hating the current. It may be a gradual process or a sudden shift, a 360 degree turnaround with massive changes. It does not matter, as long as you open your mind, and heart, to change.

You may have to give up job security, or you may land up challenging yourself immensely and then doubting your decisions. You may even find that the new life you chose has just as many compromises as the old one: you may become “more Zen”, but life, gravity and new challenges remain firmly in place - you still have to do your dishes.

The one compromise you should not be making is to stick to your limitations and limiting thoughts. If you are unhappy with your life then start looking for change right now. Look even if you are happy, or think you are content - don’t be nasty and discontented, just start looking for a move to a nicer office, another part of town or even another area of employment, anything that will improve the quality of your “being”.

And find ways to start doing what you like. Think about setting up your life to accommodate your passion. The money you are making right now may enable you to make to change your hobby into a business. The connections you have at work or socially may land you the job you would rather be doing. You may start something on the side, do a photography course and publish your pictures on the web. Start fixing things, turn you garage into a carpentry shop. Don’t wait for the day you retire to live your life.

You may be a high powered figurehead, or fill any level of position, but either way you are probably almost always busy; doing things, work, chores, chasing good times. If you are doing what you like doing and it makes you happy then fine, but chances are that you are not. If your busyness does not allow you to also do the things that makes you happy than you are not truly happy. Then you are either extremely Zen or gravely suppressing your true spirit.

Think about this. Consider how nice you are really, and when you are nice - or if you are just being nice because it is a conditioned response, or if you are radiating a deep sense of happy be-ing, being in the flow. Check your niceness out. Evaluate whether you are doing what you love doing, if you are driven by your talents charged by the energy of a profound connection to the purpose of your life. You will know if you’re not.

Ask for guidance to remedy the situation if you’re not. Ask your heart what it is that you really love doing most, and then find a way to do some of it some of the time. Meantime learn to love what you are doing at the moment, knowing that you are moving towards doing more of what you love doing.

Continue to follow the path indicated by your heart.

Navel Gazing; the “where do I come from, where am I going, what is this stuff (“stuff” when the going is good, “shit” when it’s not so up) called life????” Yip, can drive you crazy …. unless you take a few minutes to gaze at your navel - in a yoga stretch, and not in your headspace

I texted a friend of mine who recently left town, to find out how things were and all, and she replied that she was in a bit of a state, thinking too much. I suggested she should stop navel gazing, but rather gaze at her navel, made up some vague wordplay of sorts that asounded very Zen instructive. I received the following txt from her this morning:

“I’ve been in a lot of pain 4 over a week. Serious anxiety - debilitating. I left my yoga mat in Cape Town. I haven’t been to the sea for too long. My mind has been racing me into a most awful state. Aneathetised, almost in fear. But this morning I found my navel, legs over heels in the cold on the stoep. And it’s quiet again inside. Body and mind together at last, spirit free.”

She also wrote “I am so glad there is yoga and yoga teachers” and “that I am a wise man….” well, yoga makes it very easy to offer good advice! Or I guess my sense of humour and yoga has taught me that the best answers to serious questions aren’t found by reason. I wrote back to my friend: “Glad you are in Body-Mind-Spirit Oneness - it’s a better state than anything else I know!”

Cross-posted on May 24th, 2007 from my blog on www.zaads.com a leading community site worth checking out.

As a child I was fascinated with light. Illumination was at once a science I could investigate and a mystery that intrigued and inspired me. When I was big enough to read I read all I could to understand life better - I was on some kind of quest for knowledge and experience of life ever since I remember. The stars and moon held a special magic, I was amazed by sci-fi stories and the unimaginable distances between earth and the heavens. I started to see art in the science, and the science in the art. I wondered who God was.

As a teenager and when growing up through my twenties I loved watching the day as it faded into night. Sometines I would stay up the entire night so I could experience the darkness displaced by the first rays of the morning sun. Dawn to dusk was an amazing and ever changing shifting of light and shadow. During these years I thought of myself as an artist and though the science part of me became less important my enquiring mind remained. I questioned if there could be a God.

When I discovered Yoga philosophy and art merged into a metaphysical interests combining my many interests. A love of nature and an increasing sense of experiencing the body as vehicle for attaining spirituality fed off my natural love of physical activity and inclination to understand things and express myself creatively and appreciate others artistic expression.

I stopped reading novels and spent my free time meditating, getting closer to myself and what I perceived to be spirit. God re-entered my reality, now no longer an authority, a concept or a vague presence, but something I could actually sense. The mind and body started blending into a bodymind with compassion for myself and others that seemed intensified and objectified by mindful contemplation and doing yoga. The subtleties and awesome power of love and life became an everyday reality I could explore without getting wiped out by its immensity. I started feeling more and more oneness with God.

My interest in life became an appreciation of how profound life actually is. How simple it is, and just how much we as human beings need to be one with life and the rhythm of the universe, local and macrocosmic, to achieve well-being. Well-being became my passion, my passion for life became life-affirming. I started to see the magnificence of everything in everything. Art became life, life became a connection to the natural world, the mind a tool to understand it all in harmony with the senses and feelings, not by rationale alone. The rules of society was no more something to rebel against but simply the rules of a game played with minumum fuss; the greater the ease the greater the mastery of successful living. My quest for understanding life could not have been served better than by yoga.

Yoga and Tai Chi has taught me that the breath is a line that links dawn to dusk, dusk to dawn, a line drawn between art and the art of life. I am learning to draw the line with awareness, and what a beautiful line it is. The breath is so much more than an unconscious intake of air. Ideally it is the beautiful brush strokes of Chinese caligraphy, a movement, a flow that defines how we carry ourselves, how we think and feel. And the way we think and feel defines our quality of breath and our way of being.

Breathe with an angular breath, with tension, sharp around the edges of the area where the inhalation changes into the exhalation and the exhalation into the inhalation. Then breathe with slow, smooth pauses beteen breaths. Note the difference in how you feel, how there is no artistic epression, only scathing, scratching lines in the angular breath, how it affects the mood in a similar way. Breathe a slow, deep, smooth breath. Note the shade, the push, the pull, the dusk, the dawn, changing light of day. This is the Tao of breath, the ebb and flow of the universe, the closest I can get to feeling God.

Friday 7.30 a.m. I am cursing my internet connection. By 8.30 I decide to rather go surfing on the ocean than surfing a dead connection. What a great idea - why do on Friday what may be left for Monday?

Some 20 minutes later and my mood lifted: no wind, the sea, clear, turqoise, gentle 5 or 6 foot waves, perfect. It would have to be a quick outing, I have an appointment at 11 (some things can’t be left for Monday:-)), and around just after 10 a.m. I spy for a good wave to ride to the shore. I see a great swell rise on the horizon, and as the wall of water moves towards me I say out loud “God of surf, God of man, show me that I can!”. Exhilarating - I move down the face of the water mass and for a few moments I am one with the awesome force of nature. Hight on the thrill I get to the beach, the shower, run for my car, change at the parking, load up and dash for my waiting client.

It struck me what I fool I would have been had I remained stuck trying to do something that really could wait for Monday. Friday 6 April could have been the last nice day of summer, my last day on earth, whatever. Sometimes, perhaps more often than we are brave and wise enough to admit, some things can wait, while going out and having a life shouldn’t.

Read another piece I wrote on going surfing.

I love Yoga because it promotes consciousness
- of Body, Mind and Spirit - vitalizing the whole being, in every way.

Yoga promotes conscious control of muscle, producing
good posture and mobility for agility and effective breathing.

Yoga teaches conscious breathing
- effective, whole trunk breathing for bodymind vitality.

Yoga is about Self-realization/Consciousness.
Its focus is based on meditation and mindfulness, of the environment, of Self and our realtionship to others.

Mindful conscious awareness maintained throughout the day makes
for greater well-being.