Wholistic Fitness

in my intermediate and advanced work with Online Students we begin a long journey of Yoga Sutra Study. In fact, in over two decades of Teaching Yoga, i have never had a single Student finish my Sutra Studies.

Come to think of it,
i have not even finished it.

Would not want to…
they are far too juicy and ungrockable for me to want to finish anytime soon!

the Yoga Sutras do not make Sense until enough sweat and hours of stillness have attained a particular Pranic shift in the aspirant of Internal Fitness. when an Intellectual reads the Yoga Sutras, it’s like having a fish jump out of water, flop around on the shore for a bit, gasping for air, then going back into the water telling with bravado all the other Fish Bros,
“Yeah man, i have been to the Other Side…it ain’t all that.”
really, the arrogant Fish knows nothing about this oxygenated world. yet he thinks he does. that is called Ignorance.
we ALL are ignorant, until Enlightenment. our Ignorance just is a matter of Levels, that’s all.

that is why you should never trust opinions from those who do not match their grand intellects with the grounding of Daily Practice in sweat and stillness. Intellectualism is a very sturdy and well rooted tree of Ignorance.

For example, when it comes to Sutra Study, our Ignorance throws off a lot of Westerners because of our associated emotional digestion capacities of the word, Lord. Or, God.

The yogic Masters thought they had gotten around all religious connotations by using the term, Ishvara…which means Your Connection To Your Source. However, even those Grand Masters of Life and Death did not realize the magnitude of spiritual darkness that yogic philosophy would encounter as it finally reached the West. As is the anal retentive tendency among Westerners, we read Religion into areas where not even a Fig Newton� of religiousness lies.

Oh well. It is a cryin’ shame i tell ya. This negative tendency of Westerners to get all puffy when around any word like God or Lord just really stagnates spiritual appreciation and inward acceleration of Purusha (individual soul).

MY TECHNIQUE AROUND THIS?

Pre Fatigue By Sweat, Stillness, and Sincerity.

That is why i only begin Sutra Study with Advanced Online Students. My cherished Noble Warriors who are doing Early Morning Practice, who put their money where their spirit is and stay committed to Online Studies. I do not teach Sutra Study to the wannabe yogis. That would be dishonoring the Masters. They never Taught you the Real Stuff until you, like Haikuin once did, literally chop off your physical or metaphysical arm and throw it at the Masters Cave to show him you mean Business about Spiritual Growth. We are no longer that kicked up about Inner Work. Which is precisely why our Outer World is in the chaos that it is. No spiritual foundation equates to no outer foundation.

SUTRA STUDY LIKE SUCKING A SUCKER
the Sutras are meant to be sucked upon like a child might linger with a popsicle or Tootsie Pop�. This is the Way of the Ancient Masters. Not Tootsie Pops�, they were not invented yet back then. At least, i do not think they were. I meant to imply that The MahaRishis, the Great Teachers would assign one or two Sutras to their Disciple saying,

“Here, suck on this Sutra during your Practice for the next few weeks. Come back then and we will expound on what you have found.”

That takes too long for us busy Westerners. So, we think we can Glide into Enlightenment with SUTRA STUDY FOR DUMMIES tucked under our upper arm.

WF Online, on the other hand, continues the Ancient yogic tradition of Sutra Study in the Manner with which the Masters intended; One on One. Teacher with Student. Guru to Aspirant. That is the Way the Transmission is secured, and that is the Way it should remain.

However, since many of you will not, for one reason or another, ever join the Esteemed Ranks of my Online Tribe of Advanced WF Warriors, i wish to take a moment and impart a Coaching of the Sutras to help you or other yogis that might be feeling off put by any “Lordish” nomenclature that is encountered in Sutra Study.

I trust it will be of Benefit to some sincere yogi out there in the dim peripheral Tribal Light of DL’s remarkable cast.

Oh, and you really are not Practicing Yoga if you are not at least giving a small amount of Svadhyaya (Self Study through Sacred Scripture) an honest go. The Yoga Sutras, particularly Pada Dwi (Chapter Two; Portion on Practice), is the most cherished blueprint toward Enlightenment.

FINDING THE LORD’s PRESENCE
Of course you have found a Way to live with the Lord’s Presence…

it’s called, your breath!

News Flash:
The degree to which you have appreciated,
developed, and consistently apply your Conscious Breath
is directly the degree to which you have appreciated,
developed, and consistently apply your Love of God…your Lord.

If your Breath is NOT your Lord,
then i ask you Oh Mighty Yogic Warrior…
What or Whom is?

How can this Other Being That Is Not Your Breath
be more powerful or precious than your breath?

Think about it. Get back to me. Have your Breath People contact my Breath People and
we’ll do lunch sometime.

Seriously, WF Warriors,
It ain’t like i have been tellin’ you something that is new all these years in DL and my books, coaching, retreats, etc.

the Yogic Masters were Teaching us that our Breath is our Lord eons ago!
…that is why They interchange the terms Breath and Prana.
Prana is Lord; Prana is the Life Force…

you know, like in Star Wars�?…’Luke, use ‘The Force!’…
‘The Force’ should have been more accurately called, Pran…

‘Luke, use the Pran!’

Guess HollyWood didn’t think ‘Pran’ sounded as hip as ‘The Force’.

Oh well, I guess Pranic Junkies� like me
are just sentimental old farts that are too attached to the World Class spiritual athletes..the Golden Oldies like Padmasambhava, Patanjali, Milarepa, and all those other “old gnarly dudes” that woulda kicked the likes of you and me to the curb if we pulled our sorry asses up to Them and asked timidly to study Spiritual Work…They probably would just give us that Infinite Smile that knows Lifetimes
and say something like,
“I don’t think so, maybe next lifetime…” and then impart a Wink to us
that shook our Sushumna from Here to Eternity.

LET’S KEEP IT REAL, YOGIS!

Do not limit the Unlimited by your limitations.

Do not attempt to de-FINE the Lord…
instead,
do as i have been coaching you this week in DL:

Just Listen.

Just Listen to your Breath
and
when you do that…
guess what?

you are hearing the Lord’s Prayer Through You.

Just Listen.

oh man, i have intellectualized too long and am late for my damned bicycle training race workout that is gonna slaughter my ass all over Flag, again. will my contacts stay in today?! shit, this is gonna hurt. Man, it would be sooooooo easy to just sit here and write clever books on this or that aspect of spiritual stuff, body/mind stuff…however, that ain’t IT.

Sweat is It.
Testing our Faith in ourselves is It.
Applying Intellect into Intensity Workouts that kick your friggin’ ASS is indeed IT!

Otherwise, you just end up like all the other so called, “experts” that make the big bucks on the Spiritual Speaking and Book Writing Tour…
to me,
they flap around like,
well,
a fish outta water.

Where is the Sweat behind your Scripture?

Thanks for reading.

om,

coach ilg