My wife Martha and I are returning from Las Vegas the city where fantasy, greed, and materialism are merged into a single response—a response that makes fiction seem truer than truth. We were invited there for a wedding.

I look down at the Grand Canyon from 33,000 feet. Martha sits at my side. She is reading Light on Yoga by B. K. S. Iyengar. She is preparing to teach the yoga class that I was supposed to teach at our yoga center in Clearwater tonight. I was asked to talk to another group about proper breathing—a group suffering from emphysema brought together by the American Lung Society.

What will I tell these emphysema sufferers? I must avoid the old saws, “you must exercise, you must stop smoking, you must change your diet, you must, you must, you must.” We’ve all heard these injunctions a million times. What is not clear to most people, including President Obama,–who still smokes at this writing–and everybody else—smokers and non smokers alike—what is not clear is that we are driven into poor health and dysfunctional habits. Yes we are driven, it’s not something deliberately chosen anymore than a child chooses the food his parents prepare, or the neighborhood the child lives in, or the teachers he has in school. These un-chosen influences shape our lives more powerfully than anything else, and to break from these influences one must make changes more powerful than the influences that drive us into ways of being that we have not chosen.

We live in a huge matrix of unconscious tribal influences. Everything we do is a reflection of our culture, our families, and nation. None of us does anything much different than what others are doing. We copy the masses. The habits we’ve formed are being reinforced every day through corporate advertising, television programming, lobbying, and government control. The reasonable way of doing things is derived from our cultural-religious heritage. We think we need to be reasonable. Reasonable means we follow the masses, that is we follow our form of government, and other institutions. Our form of government—usually labeled Democracy—supposedly represents the greatest good for the greatest number. Democracy is a good form of government only in an enlightened society, a society where the masses are educated sufficiently enough to make healthy choices. In the U.S. we are not. When the masses are uneducated they cannot make choices that result in responsible leadership, or healthy living. The reasonable life—which is manifested by the masses—is the lowest form of living as compared to what is possible when we give ourselves to a wholehearted effort for creating a healthy physical-mental-spiritual life that is un-copied, and addresses our best interests. Universities do not educate for the common good. University education in the U.S. is controlled by corporate interests. Former corporate heads often act as presidents of Universities. Our elected officials are primarily agents for corporate interests. Lobbyists own them. Corporations provide the funding that makes a politician’s election campaign possible.  They do not represent us. There are many dedicated, honest, people who work tirelessly for our good, but when we look at the overall state of our environment, and our families, we must be extraordinarily naive to be unaware of the overall burden of disease, starvation, and war that plagues our world.

Now consider, what, or who is God? Well, God is what anybody thinks he is, and what man thinks about God is derived from their tribal-cultural influence, just like their appetite for chicken wings, or Big Macs. Wars are fought and social problems develop for no more valid reasons than our desire for Big Macs and chicken wings. These problems are real, and they are pervasive, and we all participate in one way or another. Therefore if we’re told to cultivate habits of good spiritual, mental, physical health we’re being asked to go against the social norms—against the influences and habits of the people around us. That’s a pretty bold request. Only the most courageous can do it. People will not support you, they will dislike you. Yet some of you are determined to realize the greatest good in spite of all obstacles. So here’s a daring approach that will stand against all odds. Begin this way.

Think about how good you are. The doctrine of original sin was created to control you and your forbears. When it is believed that God created you with original sin then there is no remedy because the Almighty created you that way and you can’t change God. next Don’t think about your misbehavior at all. You can overcome your weaknesses, and it’s not really hard to understand how. Beyond the social norm and the popular way of doing things there is a part of you that is un-copied. It stands apart from tribal-social influences. Think of the infant you were and still are before your consciousness was impregnated with social influences. Real beauty is not so much in anybody’s appearance as in their spirit. Let your spirit be magnified. How can you do this? Look for the answer in the next post.

Let’s get beyond the marketing gimmicks of style, and entrancement for profit. If you insist on marketing a stylish list of classes, however call it ALLSTYLES YOGA. And here’s a mission statement that every good marketer needs “LIVE A PEE-FREE LIFE.” All you marketers who are using yoga for cash will recognize immediately that this mission statement needs explanation and you will also recognize that that’s why it’s a good statement–precisely because it needs explanation, and that’s where your marketing skills will really shine. So let me explain. LIVE A PEE-FREE LIFE refers to the fact that (according to the St. Pete Times) …

Centenarians, once almost nonexistent, will soon be the fastest-growing age segment. Once virtually nonexistent, the world’s population of centenarians is projected to reach nearly 6 million by mid century. That’s pushing the median age toward 50 in many developed nations and challenging views of what it means to be old and middle-age. The number of centenarians already has jumped from an estimated few thousand in 1950 to more than 34,000 worldwide today… their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest -growing age segment.

So all of you will get much older than you might expect, unless you have the good fortune of dying in your sleep, or from something else at the current age median. And if you’re going to take up space on this planet, where will it be? Will it be at an assisted living facility where many are being diapered with the attendant pervasive smell of pee?  If you should wet yourself, you might have a nurse to clean you up and put on a fresh diaper, but there’s still the smell for longer than your dulled senses will detect. Some of you won’t care. You might say, “Well if I can’t smell it then who cares.” Or you may not be uncomfortable with the smell at all because there are smells from other inmates worse than your own pee. But if you want a better life, forget the cash flow from styles and dedicate yourself to creating a solid foundation for living, because cash is not a guarantee of living a pee-odor-free life. Forget styles. Of course you’ll be living a diaperless life without being stylish. After all who wants to live a life of being spoon fed and diapered? ALLSTYLES YOGA is about having a diaperless life at any age.

For more information call 727-216-6533.

We’ve been told to “Obey God.” “Seek His guidance.” “Follow God’s will rather than your own.”  And God’s will has been defined, augmented, and ordained by religion. What God intends is proclaimed by the church/temple. What God intends for each of us is supposedly inscrutable without the church/temple’s ordination. Many, however, have found it difficult–even undesireable– to follow the mandates of the church/temple when their mandates are permeated with corrupt, outdated, abusive premises. So here’s a few suggested premises for the lone traveller, or threshold person who chooses to explore meditation without the stricures of mainstrem society. Consider that God is never to be understood, or followed exactly as He intends, because His intentions are inscrutable. Rather God is a doorway that opens to legios of mysteries, upon regions of mystery without end, and since His mysteries can never be understood they carry great revelations of truth–powerful truth whose power depends on always being inaccessible, and therefore incorruptable by ordinary thinking. If you want to experience beauty, if you want be loved and give love, lift your focus to the mystery that can never be completely expressed. Step into the unknown. Spiritual awakening, or transformation is nothing less than awakening to a level of awareness beyond where you’re at now.

” A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction, and at such a speed. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.”

~ Richard Bach

Look at your skin. The shell of flesh you see is not you. Bodies are painted, dressed, manicured, wigged, dyed, pierced, surgically altered, clipped, tattooed, overfed, underfed, massaged, photographed, and more. But these are dressing room facades. The real you is elusive, beyond anything you can see. Yet it this hidden part that is responsible for most of your behavior, thought, and overall response to life. The result is that most of the things you think about, and most of your actions are done without conscious decision. What you like to eat, why you like doing some things rather than others is beyond your comprehension. So it is not surprising that much of your life is lived without direction, or singleness of purpose.

Conceited men are often not conscious of their conceit? A man may be considered a model to the outside world, and may have a reputation for justice and gentleness, but to those nearest him he might be thought of as  a cross, sour, ungenerous, snarling animal. He may expend a vast amount of energy in controlling his temper, with strenuous will and tense muscles, trying to force himself to ignore the things that irritate him.

If you are not practicing meditation you’re life is seriously curtailed. You’re not using the main pathway to harmony with the external world and the larger world of your hidden self. What is creative is free, and what is not creative is mechanical. Yoga tells us that we are not robots. We are pure spirit. We imperil our personalities by depressing the exercise of our creative powers. Knowledge and right use of knowledge are not the same. Mechanical knowledge has often destroyed mankind.

Through meditation it is possible to become more aware of your hidden self—the self that is always in tune with the universe, always at peace with the world, and ever moving toward harmony.