We’ve been a bit quiet the last 9-12 months and we are sorry if you have missed us or if we have been slow to respond.
Where have we been? Let us bring you up to speed…
Traditional Yoga has the lofty goal of enlightenment; freedom from suffering in this lifetime.
Practices like meditation, hatha yoga, devotion and spiritual study are not quick fixes or band-aids, but methods that help us to probe the depths of our own experience as a Soul, as a body, a mind and a human on planet Earth.
To be free though, we must become aware of the shackles that bind us. In order to break out from jail, one must first recognise that they are indeed, locked in a jail.
As many of you will be aware, I served within our Special Operations as a Sniper for 13 years. One of the many environmental hazards was the repeated exposure to significant explosions from weapons and demolition charges.
It is coming to light that these exposures can damage the brain, leading to psychological challenges that are based in physiological causes.
The brain is the seat of the mind and is responsible for governing the interoperation of the various biological systems, largely through hormones, and when these go out or change… well, it can be unpleasant (can I get a nod from the ladies who have been through menopause?)
For many years I thought I had escaped the Army in good health. Copious amounts of Yoga, Meditation, the odd bit of plant medicine kept me together as I began my life out here in the mountains. But part of me was still in jail and I had yet to realise it.
Last year after decades of sadhana (spiritual practice,) the wheels began to come off. Surprisingly, I found myself burnt out. I was deeply tired, exhausted to my core.
Professionals will do what they are trained to; apply the framework they learned onto you so that they can try to help.
In the West, we tend to view the mind as a distinct entity apart from the body and that issues with the mind stem from our psychological processing of experiences we live through. I saw a psych; they gave me some labels you would expect most veterans to have. It didn’t fix much.
In the Yogic worldview, we see a deeply woven interrelationship between the body and mind; this is why Hatha Yoga makes one feel centred, peaceful and alive. Harness life’s energy through the body, and the mind will become peaceful.
At its pinnacle, great Hatha Yoga masters are able to enter into hibernation and stay absorbed in meditation for as long as they wish. Weeks. Months. For some, even years.
If we experience difficulty in mind, and in my case, body (the brain is a organ) Yoga can help us, but so too diet, sleep and supplementation.
Our belief at Kailash Ashram is that spirituality is the core of your wellbeing and that without the connection to the Soul, all of the superfoods and crystals and cold baths or saunas or whatever you are into, will fall flat.
But this doesn’t mean that these other methods should be avoided, just that they should be taken for what they are; supports.
Rajni and I had well and truly ticked the spiritual box, but in the haste and busyness of founding an Ashram, we neglected some of the other gifts of life that are here to support us.
The last year has been a journey in which we gave ourselves permission to rest and have learned to be supported, which surprisingly, wasn’t easy for us.
We are far more comfortable running a million miles an hour and serving others, and it felt clunky to be prioritising our own wellbeing, especially in light of the challenging symptoms that surfaced.
So, here we are, a year after making the Ashram by Pay-it-Forward, rested, supported and keen. We are eager to continue to the mission of the Ashram, which is to support you all on your journey through life with the practices that have served us, albeit from a more relaxed and dare I say, sustainable place within.
Ultimately we have learned that there is no sense in being a martyr for the cause, a sentiment we knew by heart, but one that took every ounce of our Soul to embody.
SO! How to get engaged?
1 – ONLINE
We are resuming our weekly sharing (Tuesday) + collective meditation at 8pm Melbourne time. We will also resume our 630am daily live meditation from the Yurt.
Meeting ID: 899 8710 5788
Passcode: kailash
Note: Same link for morning meditation too
2 – RETREATS
Given we love them, we are focusing our energies on getting back into the swing of things with our Retreats
You can find the dates for the upcoming Retreats here.
3 – WORKSHOPS
Later in the year, we will add monthly Melbourne based workshops to progress some of the skills learned on retreats such as Hatha Yoga. Stay tuned!
We’d love to see you again (or for the first time.)
