Working with the body to balance the emotions

It's true Nichola, this kind of practice requires some concentration and isn't for everybody - it's easier to focus on the externals, alignment or the breath. Space is the highest element in the tattva's model (both from Patanjali's teachings and from Kashmir Shaivism) - we want to feel space to feel omnipresence and omnipotence. Being able to be with that spaciousness but be 'spaced in' is a wonderful sign of maturity in practice, and a growing capacity to be with both movements - pure awareness and localised sense of self. Delightful!

Thanks James - really helpful; corresponds nicely too to the 'clarity' work I've just been experiencing on a wonderful retreat with Esther and Taeske. There will be more questions, for now though I'll explore them through the practice and looking forward to your next video!

Hi Will, Sure thing! I'll give it a crack here... Ultimately, our practice tends to lessen our investment in our beliefs and thoughts (samskaras) yet our ego, as a function, continues on with a subtlety. There is indeed still a sense of 'I' around, and we will answer to our name etc, but there is now a remembrance of our expansive self which feels spacious and interconnected. When we respond to life from this sense of spaciousness, as you talk of, we are more aligned with our essence. Here's the thing though; the I-thought still lives on, but like the other thoughts and beliefs, we can see thought it now as just another thought and belief. It's not that we get rid of it, it just looses its power and grip over us. It can then live on and support our lives as we live the paradox of expansive wholeness and localised 'I'. The i-thought/ego (asmita) in an Eastern sense simply means a function of preception, not the complexities of our mind and personality. Asmita literally wraps itself around our perceptions and makes them personal, even when they are not. So, in that way, you will never loose your ego. Please ask me more/for clarity if you need it, and thanks for asking such a rich question here! Warmest wishes to you.

Hi Leslie, I'm glad you enjoyed the clarity, calm and pace of the class. Yes, distractions can happen sometimes, and this noise (from memory) was from the neighbouring studio, so hard to intervene/manage. Our challenge in these moments is to be with it all; the distraction, our response to it and the presence that still continues as an underlaying movement, even if we've temporarily lost our connection to it - it's still there. A tall order eh?! Warmest wishes to you, hope to see you for the rest of the series....

Thanks for the feedback Laura, wishing you many more happy Sunday mornings :)

Thanks for the feedback Carmit, I'm glad you stuck with it. The purpose of feeling is two-fold; it helps us gather concentration (stops the thinking process which is ever-moving and gives us a focal point for our attention) and develops the felt-sense for the later stages of meditation. If we haven't sensitised the body through regular experience of feeling, we will likely find it harder to move to more subtle states of meditation, which are more of a feeling than a thinking. I hope you can try some more of these classes in time, Warmest wishes James

Thanks Marissa - sometimes the nicest things are our biggest challenges too :-) Hope you can try some of the remaining series too... warmest wishes

Hi Patricia, These are the two I have: Yoga & Ayurveda: Self-Healing and Self-Realization - David Frawley Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution - Robert Svoboda (can type is name easier than I can say it!). Happy reading... Warmly James

Lesley Anne, I cannot top this comment; "My whole being was absorbed into this practice." this is it, and that is that! With love James