Photo taken by Hiroki Tamiya.

Take time to turn your attention within. There is no greater gift to yourself. Whatever you can do to encourage more of this inward turning of one's mind and attention has more value that you can imagine.

I just became aware of a man named Charles Genoud. He just wrote a book entitled, "Gesture Of Awareness: A Radical Approach To Time, Space, And Movement". It is a book that melds spiritual ideas with one's relationship with one's body.

In this age of obsession with physical objects and with the world of sensual experience, this book is extremely relevant.

Here are some of the words from the book that touched me the most....

It's not what we may do that's
important,
it's the doing of it . . .

we're not concerned with the content
of our experiences
touched or being touched . . .

we are concerned with being . . .

what we're exploring
is not the body
but the body's awareness . . .

our being is not less or more
complete
when touching
another person

or when standing alone . . .

we're not concerned
with the body

we're concerned with
being present

This passage is so beautiful. It brings our minds and our attention onto what is truly real and important. In asana practice, it is easy to become overly focused on the physical, on the superficial details of our bodies, when the "juice" of our practice is in the phenomenon of our awareness, the sweet fullness of pure presence.

Here is another excerpt...

The willingness to change is rooted
in the acceptance of what is.
What is can only be present.

The wish to change is rooted
in the what should be, and can only
be made of past and future images.

Willingness to change
doesn't mean choosing the future.
Rather it means being patient

in an open way,
not anticipating
what could happen next,

and not holding on
to what is happening.

The willingness to change
may be the risk to be present
without clinging.

The battle between the machinations of our ego, our false self and our awareness, our true Self is ever present. Life and practice is a constant process of remaining diligent to the distinction between these two states. Every single thing we can do to remind ourselves of this distinction is important.

OM Namah Shivaya...!!

Govinda Kai