Be The Moon: Teaching 'At Home In Your Own Heart' session 3 of 3 at Yoga Loka: Reno, Nevada: September 1, 2018

Green Tara has one foot in meditation and one foot firmly on the earth and is the essence of wisdom in action.

The teachings of yoga are practical. They are meant to help us in our daily life. Because what you're practicing on the mat is what you are practicing out in the world. In our Saturday classes we have been endeavoring to cultivate our loving, awesome, magical selves in order to walk the path in the world, in service to the highest good. It takes a massive amount of practice and strength, courage and humility. and its impossible to do if we cling to our small selves. According to Buddha,

“There is one thing that when cultivated and regularly practiced, leads to deep spiritual intention, to peace, to mindfulness and clear comprehension, to vision and knowledge, to a happy life here and now and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening. And what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centered on the body.”

We did more standing poses this evening giving some attention to the manipura chakra, rumored to be the seat of our will. Just as the hands are the motor organ of the heart, the feet are the motor organ of the will. It matters how we walk our Path. The play is to be grounded and centered to give stability to our heart in daily action, full of love, dreams, and magic. A definition of yoga from the Bhagavad Gita is "yoga is breaking the bonds of suffering". We must be willing to transform our small selves to manifest our authentic self so we can shine brightly in service to the highest good out in the world through our daily lives.

Buddha said,"there are three things that are never hidden: the sun, the moon, and the Truth". We used these alignments to assist us in loosening the grip on our usual identity. For fun we also played in Tree pose since its summer and the trees in Reno are in full radiant bloom.

It sounds like a weird practice, to be the sun and the moon and a tree, but it wasn't. Not really. We've been talking in our time together about tapping into Love and dropping away that which blocks our view from the Truth.  Seeing ourselves as heavenly bodies is a natural course of learning, to turn our hearts (parivrtta and pratiprasava are some of the sanscrit descriptions) from the dark to light, from small to vast, from untruth to Truth.

Here is our sequence:

Seat circles

Sit

Green Tara with twist and side stretch

Sit
YAM

Navasana x 2

Downdog
Uttanasana
Tadasana
Uttanasana with shoulder stretch
Tadasana with Sun, Moon, Truth meditation
YAM

Sun salutations with low lunge and twist
Hamstring stretch

Tadasana

Lunge
Warrior I
Warrior III
Revolved half moon

Tree

Malasana

Windshield wiper

Easy twist
Star

Savasana

Sit
YAM
Namaste

It was an honor to be with the "At Home In Your Own Heart" yogis for these three Saturday evenings. Gratitude and Love have moved in to my own heart in new and magical ways because of you. Thank you.

Health, Love, and Rock N Roll

Dance of the Sun and Moon, artwork by Freddie Hangoler.