Hatha Yoga Pradipika on the Winds of Change

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Autumn is a time when the air element (vayu) is predominant. There is more lightness, dryness and coolness as the “winds of change” blow ever more erratically.

These qualities in nature have a tendency to aggravate the air and ether element within our bodies, thus affecting our nervous systems, and how well we digest food.

Autumn is naturally a time of balancing vata and reducing any symptoms of wind, dryness and erratic behavioiur….the vayu should be skilfully inhaled and exhaled and retained.

Hatha Yoga Pradipika

John Marshall on Enabling Silence

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“I have the power to enable silence.”

— John Marshall, Lakota Tradition

Buddha on Allowing the Soul to Speak

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“Quiet the mind and the soul will speak.”

— Buddha

American Lakota Elder on the Gifts of Silence

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“You don’t convince anyone by arguing.
People make their decisions in their heart.
Talk doesn’t touch my heart.
People should think of their words like seeds. They should plant them, then let them grow in silence.
Our old people taught us that the earth is always speaking to us, but that we have to be silent to hear her.
I can understand all the trees.
The wind.
All the animals.
The insects.
I can tell what a color of the sky means. Everything in the natural world speaks to me.
Teaching our children well.”

— American Lakota Elder

Francis Lucille on the Experience of Love

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“The experience of love is really the understanding that you and I are are the same being, that your being and my being is the same being. The understanding that there is only one reality leads to the experience of love. This is love in the deepest sense.”

— Francis Lucille

Ram Dass on Changing the Meaning of Suffering

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Joan Halifax (Santa Fe, New Mexico), CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“When you have that level of awareness, the meaning of suffering changes and all suffering is showing you is where your mind is still clinging.”

— Ram Dass

Ajahn Brahmasovo on the Hindrances to Shamatha Meditation

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Goh, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Heaviness of body and dullness of mind which can drag one down into inertia and depression is considered one of the five hindrances to Shamatha meditation. Any problem which arises in meditation will be one of these five hindrances, or a combination.”

— Ajahn Brahmasovo

Thich Nhat Hahn on Right Action

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“The basis of Right Action is to do everything in mindfulness.”

— Thich Nhat Hahn

Sadhguru on the Bhagwad Gita

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“It is never what you do which entangles you. It is the expectation of what you should get which entangles you.”

— Sadhguru on the Bhagwad Gita

The Upanishads on the Ultimate Reality

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“So’ham is a Vedic mantra or chant meaning  “I am That”….”I am what She/He is” — It means identifying oneself with the universe or ultimate reality or awareness.”

— Incl. Max Müller translation of The Upanishads