Out of SP and Back to Florianopolis

Dear Blog readers…wow, I am eternally grateful and actually a bit surprised at how many of you are reading these posts and taking the time to write to me personally to comment on the state of (my) life these days. I feel totally loved and supported and appreciate all the communications.

I had a good last few days in Sao Paulo with a return to Casa do Zezinho for a small and more intimate group yoga and music event. It was super sweet and I have some new photos in the Sao Paulo page of pics…and then a great afternoon being ‘the star’ again for www.informeyoga.com.br where my new friends interviewed me in Ibirapuera Park about my philosophies of yoga, Vinyasa, teaching and living yoga and then made a little short video clip that will soon be edited and posted on YouTube for the world to see! I am now back in Florianopolis and and very happy to be back on the ‘Ilha de Magia’ (Magic Island) where I am leading Greenpath Teacher Training Module II all weekend. The honor and pleasure of leading Teacher training never ceases to amaze me and my experiences of late (loneliness, self judgment along with bliss and ego inflation!) are serving me wonderfully with new rich material with which to lead and live yoga by example!

Before I left Sao Paulo though, I had an interesting insight…the traffic in Sao Paulo is really some of the worst in the entire world. My last day there, there was a traffic jam that was measured to be 90 KM long…really. As a result of the traffic along with a very lackadaisical society my insight was this: Traffic in Sao Paulo is a legitimate excuse for inefficiency!

The last post about comparison and judgments brought about a series of replies ranging from compassion and empathy to acknowledgment and sympathy. Its interesting to still be in the space of comparison of how things were in those moments when I was comparing myself to other teachers to what is happening now where I am comparing myself to my state a few days ago. All the observations are very insightful and as I have been teaching lately, the first steps of transformation are becoming aware of triggers and initiators of self defeating and distracting thought forms so that we can work with them. I am now more and more aware of my triggers and have also been listening to some pretty potent teachings on MP3 that are teaching me ways to ‘flip the script’ so to speak when I have these thoughts / distractions. If you have a chance, check out:

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/

and The Lost Teachings of Yoga by Georg Feuerstein…both are very mind and heart opening sources of knowledge.

I also received this thoughtful post from a friend which draws a clear distinction with with what I have been feeling and sheds some Yogic insight to the process:

“When you are alone you are not alone, you are simply lonely – and there is a tremendous difference between loneliness and aloneness. When you are lonely you are thinking of the other, you are missing the other. Loneliness is a negative state. You are feeling that it would have been better if the other were there – your friend, your wife, your mother, your beloved, your husband. It would have been good if the other were there, but the other is not. Loneliness is absence of the other. Aloneness is the presence of oneself. Aloneness is very positive. It is a presence, overflowing presence. You are so full of presence that you can fill the whole universe with your presence and there is no need for anybody.”
Osho The Discipline of Transcendence, Volume 1 Chapter 2
All the best from the Ilha de Magia…next post is going to explore the distinction I am working with between Dedication and Discipline. It seems to be coming up a lot as I talk to Yogis here in Brazil ad reflect upon my own dedication and discipline…

And for the record, since I’ve been back in Floripa, I went out 2 nights in a row and feel my energy and vibes on the up and up again! I had a great day on the beach on Thursday and made a beautiful and profound ritual and offering to Yemanja on Friday coinciding with the Full Moon…Look out !!!

Light and Love,

David