Wholistic Fitness

Namaste Noble Warriors!

I�ve gotten many emails over the last couple of weeks asking for spiritual insight into the most recent versions of the World�s WarGames.

Before my insight comes a wish.

I wish it law that United Nation leaders must share in fitness workouts, yoga, and meditation before they assemble. Body follows the mind. Those old wrinkled men with so many agendas need to move and breathe and dance a bit in their bones before making worldwise decisions.

Spiritual wisdom cannot be legislated into people any more than can common sense. We have all sorts of laws, but only Awareness and an individual�s relation with their Higher Guidance animates political and social well being.

When bicycle commuters get killed by cars, the drivers weren�t disobeying laws for the most part. They just weren�t practicing Awareness or respect for others. Norm got killed by a kid in a SUV who was changing CD�s. Tribal Brother Shane got paralyzed when the car driver who hit him prioritized her cell phone conversation with her girlfriend about shopping. Melanie had her pelvis shattered as the truck driver who struck her was sipping coffee. Laws and politics only point toward Harmony. Individual integrity and fitness of body/mind actualize Harmony.

What will it take to bring the Light of Awakening to the old men who initiate young wars?

You.

Me.

Us.

Our personal Practice is what matters most.

Traditionally, Karma Yogis are decidedly apolitical at best. Yogis are firmly ensconced in the global sangha, and do not consider themselves citizens of a country but of Atman – the Godsource within.

Yet, i am one Karma Yogi who cherishes �Turtle Island� – as the Native American�s called the land upon which our Nation now resides. Perhaps my devotion to the United States is not very Yogic. But it is a true love born from Colorado alpine meadows and frost tinged mountain creeks giggling under an sea of stars. It is a love born from being Blessed to live in a country where i could single-handedly create my own Path, call it what i want, take it to the Marketplace, and share it with others without fear of reprimand or reprisal. It is a love born from being able to voluntarily practice simplicity and energy conservation instead of having no other choice.

If anything, my professional and personal practice of Yoga has made my political perspectives as aqueous as this rainstorm thundering through Los Angeles. Any staunch political position i once held has steadily dissolved like a tight hamstring restriction into a heated Ujjayi breath. I�ve lost interest in the Political Storyline because of the ocean of Work to be done within the Moment. Since a society is but a manifestation of the individuals in it, my duty as a Karma Yogi, is to take the Light of Yoga to the people. One by one. Individual by individual. Never, not once, forgetting that my own Personal Practice is what empowers my ability to carry the Light to others. �We must first ourselves glow, if we are to enkindle others,� so the saying goes.

So, at forty years old, having lived my entire life in a world threatened by narrow minds and weak spirits wielding mighty weapons, i still ride my cycle among the big cars and in-Joy my own courage to be as brave as noble and as elegant as i can in difficulty. I hear birdsong instead of the traffic. I feel the wind instead of insulating myself from her. I do my best to stay involved in the outer world only in those Ways most measurable to my spirit.

Fifteen years ago i created a

Wholistic Fitness maxim that offered me confidence during extreme mountaineering and climbing adventures. I think i can offer no better counsel to those who seek spiritual security in this era of insecurity:

“Prepare for the worse,

visualize the best,

commit to the Present,

and enjoy the Moment.”

May the rest of this update inspire you…it beams with your words and your ever growing Awakening.

from the helm of our humble Way,

coach ilg

wholisticfitness.com

���

Dear Coach,

i would like to start to contribute to Direct Lines, as part of my continued practice with the yamas and niyamas, and the 8 fold path and how WF Warriors can use this to help along the way to knowing ourselves better.

February 8, 2003

II Sutra 35 of Patanjali�s Yoga Sutras- �On being firmly established in ahimsa, there is abandonment of hostility in his vicinity.�

from Four Chapters on Freedom by Satyananda:

Ahimsa � Keywords: love, harmlessness, non-killing, non-violence; absence of enmity (disapproval), hostility and harm; and lack of harmful intentions; compassion.

There are many ways that Wholistic Fitness� warriors can practice ahimsa (one of the yamas of Patanjali’s raja yoga � refer to Crash Course! at the Yoga icon at wholisticfitness.com!) in our daily life. How can we make our environment a less harm-ful place to live?

Start with the Shower

When showering this morning, I was having a great old time, soaping up, getting all the corners cleaned out then as I was going to take my SUNRIDER Shampoo to get my hair cleaned it came to me to turn the water off. That�s it, turn the water off while you are shampooing your hair. Simple? You can even turn the water off while you soap up. Why not? You will be saving a ton of water. Mother Earth will be grateful so will your water bill!

Garbage or Opportunity?

As I was walking back from teaching High Performance Yoga this morning I was given the opportunity to bring �less harm� to the earth. There is this garbage can in the park and by Saturday of each week it is full. It is so full it is run over by garbage and spilling over its edges. I have walked by this many times saying to myself, �man what a mess, I should phone someone to clean this up.� Then I would keep walking. Today for some reason, I stopped, rolled up my sleeves and cleaned up the garbage. I started to practice the action of ahimsa. If it is kept in the mind it will pass through us and out, not really that helpful.

As I was cleaning up a police officer, who just arrested someone for being intoxicated in a public place, not more than 20 feet away from where I was working, thanked me for cleaning up the mess. He suggested I call the city to get �them� to clean it up. I smiled, thanked him and continued to finish the job.

To take action in ahimsa is to allow for harmlessness to be an appropriate response to what you see in front of you. Instead of how can I defend my position, one can ask how can there be no harm here? It is easy to get someone else to pick up the garbage, but that will just continue my illusion that I am separate from all that is around me. This practice extends to how we think about ourselves and others; how we act in our relationships and with strangers. All of our worldly interactions are asking us to be more aware of our impact on those places, people and things around us.

– heikosan

{note by Coach –

Heikosan is the Master Student name i gave to Grant Couture after he completed five years of intensive study in WF. Grant now owns and operates The Wandering Yogi studio with his wife, Rhonda, in Vancouver:

1707 Grant Street @ Commercial Drive

Vancouver, BC V5L 2Y6

(604) 251-1915

practice@wanderingyogi.com

www.wanderingyogi.com}

�

�Unless you do the work that is close to your heart you will remain unfulfilled.

And the meditator finds immediately what his work is.

The meditator finds intrinsically that this is his work; he does not have to think about it. It is so clear and so loud that he knows that he has to be a musician or he has to be a poet or he has to be this or that. It comes so clear that there is no question of doubt. And then he starts working; that work is his meditation.�

– Osho

�

As some of you know, one of my spiritual mentors and most beautiful friends, Stephan Frease, passed away recently. His ashes now grace my puja table in my Practice room. i converse with a dear friend of Stephan�s, Diane, a beautiful Soul who sings her Way in the world and helps children in Uganda among other places. together, her and i recollect moments of our time spent with Stephan. most of these recollections are humorous, for Stephan had a Tibetan like flair for mining humor out of the most serious of any situation and certainly of intellectual spiritualism. Diane found this, which was Stephan�s response to her question about what kind of Buddhism he had practiced. That is, during those times when he considered himself a Buddhist. As Diane writes, �It’s packed full of that special Stephanian brand of humor that I miss so much!�

Diane and i hope you enjoy it…i think it is a classic �Stephanism�:

�Darling, i am a hereavada. if one is a thereavada one would have to be there instead of here. i am here now. i am a hereavadanowavada. yogananda was a mayananda because yoga and maya were his parents. the important thing is to be a vada or a nanda. vada represents vadism…nanda represents nandaism.

if one were a thereananda as opposed to a hereananda, he or she could never marry a vada. hereanandas do not marry people, they marry Time because they are the epitomy of hereness and nowness. no one comes to their weddings.

their children are known as littlemerryhowynowyherytheryeverythingvedaanandas

which makes them rather unacceptable in society because no one can pronounce their names. no one has yet come up with a nick name.

happy to clarify this question for you sweetheart, s.�

�

I�d like to welcome back to formal Online Study,

Master Student Blair �Konryu� Lyon, a Physical Therapist in Pennsylvania.

In his ReActivation Application he writes,

�

�Just to update you on a few things, i was the series champion in my age group in the solo division of the Ohio Adventure Race Series. i attained the podium in 5 of the 7 races.

i would like to comment on the Direct Lines portion of the website. it is extraordinary, such a wonderful way for the tribe to maintain and to deepen our connection with you and with each other. it has been there for me in the darkest of times and always sheds light. a while back, a student of Coach Sheader’s mentioned having some foot problems. Coach Sheader gave some excellent advice and i would like to add that stretching the calf/plantar fascia before weight bearing in the morning usually helps with the early weight bearing pain that is associated with the heel pain symptom package. one of the better ways to do this is to do paschimottanasana while passively dorsiflexion the ankle and the toes of the involved leg with your hand.

should this student or any other student want any additional injury advice, please let them know to email anytime. i will answer quickly. that is enough for now. ai imawa! konryu

�

got a question for a professional Physical Therapist who also happens to be a WF Master Student? ask Konryu at:

konryubl@yahoo.com