Yoga in One Syllable

“Learn to go beyond your limits”. It’s a popular self-help mantra of many modern gurus. Our world seems full of people, books and billboards telling us we don’t need to live according to our limits. That instead we should push beyond them. I’m not going to deny that our mind can keep us trapped by [...]

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In the spirit of thinking less, I’ve been doing more. I’m not randomly filling my time with busy-ness rather I’ve begun a campaign of consciously and mindfully doing and acting. Doing more may seem to run counter to many spiritual philosophies – doesn’t yoga advocate retreating to the Himalayas and meditating in a cave? Yes. [...]

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Here’s a riddle for you. What do fairy wrens have in common with riders in the Tour de France? On first inspection it would seem very little. But if we learn to look at them as examples of cooperative behaviour, they can both shed their own light on the same important lesson.

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Last post I talked about focusing on the breath as a way to stay in the present moment. This technique works well because we are working with ourselves, observing our own experience and determining how we will respond to whatever comes our way. But you’ve probably noticed that however we decide to run our lives, [...]

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If you think you can, or if you think you can’t. Either way you’re right. Henry Ford We all tell ourselves stories about what we think we’re capable of achieving. But despite belief in the legitimacy of these tales, they could often be archived in a library’s fiction section.

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You’re sitting in a train carriage. The carriage is a narrow, confined space, and the people across the aisle are talking to each other in tones that are louder than they realize. You don’t want to listen in on what they’re saying, but you can’t help it: the voices drag you in, and before you [...]

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It’s been a big week for weather. We’ve seen people swimming down Flinders Street in Melbourne, a so-called Snowpocalypse over the eastern USA, and hailstones the size of oranges cannoning off cars up here in the Blue Mountains. The drastic and disruptive power of weather is a sharp reminder of something that humans are generally [...]

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The human mind loves patterns. We search for them in the things we see, our ears listen for them in music and the rhythm of waves on the beach. And, the mind itself generates them through our behaviour. Have you ever noticed that when life throws you a familiar situation you tend to repeat actions you did in the past?

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