This is my second time reading this post. I wanted to spend more time with your words as my first time with these words prompted much reflection. Reflections of much conflict within.
I can relate to your experience and felt much of it in the few classes I took with you over this time you write about. Some Zoom live classes, others in the early darkness of morning with a Vimeo video. I very much felt your exploration and questioning, which opened my own. The space was created.
My conflict is not so much with the practice itself.
As my Ram Dass words of wisdom reminded me today, "Are all methods to be avoided? It doesn't seem so. But it does seem useful to see them in perspective. Methods are ships crossing the ocean of existence. If you're halfway across the sea, it's a little silly to decide methods are a bummer if you don't know how to swim; but once you get to the far shore, it would be silly to keep carrying your boat because there is no more water."
My conflict lies as a teacher of these practices. How do I create that space breaking down the walls of the old ways of teaching/classes? How do I stay strong and steadfast in my convictions in our current society with all its trappings in relation to these practices? How do I let go to honor each individual's way and not identify with the role they want me to play?
I have played with these questions over and over and over with no answer for myself yet. I have left teaching and come back and left again and come back. I have tried new ways and been frustrated. I have had vision and not known how to bring it forth. I have pondered and reflected ending in the same lost feeling. I have so many things that all make me want to scream!
I know my failures and foolishness quite well. Part of my process. This comment being part of that process.
So, I leave you with a deep bow of appreciation. Thank you for inspiring me to inquire within through your clear simple open hearted wisdom. I'm pretty sure I just stole that from Jack Kornfield's podcast intro. I may have a Heart Wisdom addiction, please forgive me 🤦♀️
And, I'm pretty sure my rambling on this subject has just begun. What a great gift I have received 🙏
Hi Eddie thanks for your honesty around your practice. I have had the same experience but was too afraid to follow my feelings for the fear of “getting it wrong” or “not doing it right”. Even though it felt right. Do you think lockdown and the Covid 19 period forced you into the awareness you described?
Hey James, I find your question interesting and do hope Eddie will give some insights into how Covid 19 inspired, affected him. At the same time, I wonder do you feel you were forced into an awareness during Covid 19 as well? I've been reflecting on that time a lot lately. Some of it about the awareness developed during that time that opened me in beautiful unexpected ways. Some of it the residual unattended "WTF just happened" grief and anger that I still hold in my heart. The world seemed to move on without tending to the suffering that was caused, experienced, created. Sometimes seeing doesn't always mean freeing until it is tended and integrated into being. Much peace, love and mud!
Hi Nicki, in answer to your question yes I did feel the covid lockdowns forced me to face a lot of situations and circumstances that I believe in hindsight I was avoiding. I was comfortable using distractions that I didn’t know were present in my life. The time forced me to reflect and go inward deeper than ever using the tools of yoga and meditation which was very uncomfortable at first but I slowly got used to it and felt the benefits of spiritual and mental growth. This period of time changed me profoundly. I noticed that Eddies timeline coincided with the lockdown time and that’s what resonated with me. Hope that makes some sort of sense. James
James, that makes more than some sort of sense. I appreciate you sharing your experience. It's nice to know I'm not alone. That's mostly what Eddie's words touched within me. Currently, I'm needing to hear other's experiences of this time as it feels the world moved on without taking a moment to acknowledge that time. I know the only permanent thing is change and we need to adapt to the world as it is now. At the same time, for me, it takes time to integrate all that was experienced. It would be easy to avoid and fall asleep. Sometimes I just need to know I'm not alone as a reminder to keep opening.
You’re not alone. It’s easy to avoid and fall asleep. I’m surrounded by those people and at times it does get lonely when you start becoming awake and aware and they don’t. For me being awake and aware is to be alive. Yoga and meditation (and sobriety) have got me to this place so far and I don’t want to go back.
Hi Eddie I relate to your experience and thanking you for sharing your inner thoughts and emotions you being a Master Yogis I feel aligned with your directions am following you
Thank you for this beautiful read. Your wisdom has so much clarity and simplicity that it gives me courage and belief. That I’ll also be guided. Thank you for everything you do and share 🙏🏻
As a novice to any form of meditation - much less yoga, this post was hard for me to read - yet so intriguing and worth it. I wrote down many relationships of words, thoughts, and ways of being....My background consists of a lifelong struggle with institutions, going against the conventional grain of civic duties, and "the church." My calling is to give voice to liberation theology - advocating for those on the margins; and proclaiming reconciliation and restitution. Now, I'm aware of dynamics of judgment, grasping, maybe blaming. How can I jump into righting wrongs while allowing space?. Is being aware enough, or shall my nature and character listen for a more nuanced call? It seems I need a whole new language in order to find my way.
This is wonderful and resonant. I radically changed how I practiced in 2021, letting go of the Ashtanga practice I’d held sacred since 1997. I’d floundered all through 2020. I’d always been a lone practitioner, so it wasn’t lockdown. Ashtanga had simply lost its shine for me: it felt awful whenever I tried to do it. My body rejected it.
Ultimately, I remembered my old friend Anthony Grimm Hall’s extensive blogging on all things Krishnamacharya—and his love of Srivatsa Ramaswami’s teaching of Vinyasa Krama. I was lucky to find an amazing teacher, one of his students, Khushi Malhotra—zooming from a primary school in Uttarakhand. She is comparatively “under the radar”, yet is perhaps the best teacher I have ever studied with. I don’t say that lightly.
Reading your words here makes me feel something in the Ashtanga world started shifting, maybe even before COVID. Maybe it’s just all of us aging?! Regardless, I’m so much more at ease practicing VK— less compulsion, more freedom. Less pain! More awareness, too, as you say. It’s a deeper practice— for me anyhow.
Glad to know you’ve found a new groove, too, Eddie. All things change.
This is my second time reading this post. I wanted to spend more time with your words as my first time with these words prompted much reflection. Reflections of much conflict within.
I can relate to your experience and felt much of it in the few classes I took with you over this time you write about. Some Zoom live classes, others in the early darkness of morning with a Vimeo video. I very much felt your exploration and questioning, which opened my own. The space was created.
My conflict is not so much with the practice itself.
As my Ram Dass words of wisdom reminded me today, "Are all methods to be avoided? It doesn't seem so. But it does seem useful to see them in perspective. Methods are ships crossing the ocean of existence. If you're halfway across the sea, it's a little silly to decide methods are a bummer if you don't know how to swim; but once you get to the far shore, it would be silly to keep carrying your boat because there is no more water."
My conflict lies as a teacher of these practices. How do I create that space breaking down the walls of the old ways of teaching/classes? How do I stay strong and steadfast in my convictions in our current society with all its trappings in relation to these practices? How do I let go to honor each individual's way and not identify with the role they want me to play?
I have played with these questions over and over and over with no answer for myself yet. I have left teaching and come back and left again and come back. I have tried new ways and been frustrated. I have had vision and not known how to bring it forth. I have pondered and reflected ending in the same lost feeling. I have so many things that all make me want to scream!
I know my failures and foolishness quite well. Part of my process. This comment being part of that process.
So, I leave you with a deep bow of appreciation. Thank you for inspiring me to inquire within through your clear simple open hearted wisdom. I'm pretty sure I just stole that from Jack Kornfield's podcast intro. I may have a Heart Wisdom addiction, please forgive me 🤦♀️
And, I'm pretty sure my rambling on this subject has just begun. What a great gift I have received 🙏
Hi Eddie thanks for your honesty around your practice. I have had the same experience but was too afraid to follow my feelings for the fear of “getting it wrong” or “not doing it right”. Even though it felt right. Do you think lockdown and the Covid 19 period forced you into the awareness you described?
Hey James, I find your question interesting and do hope Eddie will give some insights into how Covid 19 inspired, affected him. At the same time, I wonder do you feel you were forced into an awareness during Covid 19 as well? I've been reflecting on that time a lot lately. Some of it about the awareness developed during that time that opened me in beautiful unexpected ways. Some of it the residual unattended "WTF just happened" grief and anger that I still hold in my heart. The world seemed to move on without tending to the suffering that was caused, experienced, created. Sometimes seeing doesn't always mean freeing until it is tended and integrated into being. Much peace, love and mud!
Hi Nicki, in answer to your question yes I did feel the covid lockdowns forced me to face a lot of situations and circumstances that I believe in hindsight I was avoiding. I was comfortable using distractions that I didn’t know were present in my life. The time forced me to reflect and go inward deeper than ever using the tools of yoga and meditation which was very uncomfortable at first but I slowly got used to it and felt the benefits of spiritual and mental growth. This period of time changed me profoundly. I noticed that Eddies timeline coincided with the lockdown time and that’s what resonated with me. Hope that makes some sort of sense. James
James, that makes more than some sort of sense. I appreciate you sharing your experience. It's nice to know I'm not alone. That's mostly what Eddie's words touched within me. Currently, I'm needing to hear other's experiences of this time as it feels the world moved on without taking a moment to acknowledge that time. I know the only permanent thing is change and we need to adapt to the world as it is now. At the same time, for me, it takes time to integrate all that was experienced. It would be easy to avoid and fall asleep. Sometimes I just need to know I'm not alone as a reminder to keep opening.
You’re not alone. It’s easy to avoid and fall asleep. I’m surrounded by those people and at times it does get lonely when you start becoming awake and aware and they don’t. For me being awake and aware is to be alive. Yoga and meditation (and sobriety) have got me to this place so far and I don’t want to go back.
Thank you James, I smile this morning reading this.
You are so refreshing modern and inspiring the true essence of yoga practice as I believe in myself thank you always for sharing
Hi Eddie I relate to your experience and thanking you for sharing your inner thoughts and emotions you being a Master Yogis I feel aligned with your directions am following you
Thank you for this beautiful read. Your wisdom has so much clarity and simplicity that it gives me courage and belief. That I’ll also be guided. Thank you for everything you do and share 🙏🏻
This resonates deeply! See myself in <every> paragraph... beginning to end.
Deep bow, Eddie Stern—genuinely realized and beautifully said. Thank you.
Lokaha samastaha sukhino bhavantu.
As a novice to any form of meditation - much less yoga, this post was hard for me to read - yet so intriguing and worth it. I wrote down many relationships of words, thoughts, and ways of being....My background consists of a lifelong struggle with institutions, going against the conventional grain of civic duties, and "the church." My calling is to give voice to liberation theology - advocating for those on the margins; and proclaiming reconciliation and restitution. Now, I'm aware of dynamics of judgment, grasping, maybe blaming. How can I jump into righting wrongs while allowing space?. Is being aware enough, or shall my nature and character listen for a more nuanced call? It seems I need a whole new language in order to find my way.
This is wonderful and resonant. I radically changed how I practiced in 2021, letting go of the Ashtanga practice I’d held sacred since 1997. I’d floundered all through 2020. I’d always been a lone practitioner, so it wasn’t lockdown. Ashtanga had simply lost its shine for me: it felt awful whenever I tried to do it. My body rejected it.
Ultimately, I remembered my old friend Anthony Grimm Hall’s extensive blogging on all things Krishnamacharya—and his love of Srivatsa Ramaswami’s teaching of Vinyasa Krama. I was lucky to find an amazing teacher, one of his students, Khushi Malhotra—zooming from a primary school in Uttarakhand. She is comparatively “under the radar”, yet is perhaps the best teacher I have ever studied with. I don’t say that lightly.
Reading your words here makes me feel something in the Ashtanga world started shifting, maybe even before COVID. Maybe it’s just all of us aging?! Regardless, I’m so much more at ease practicing VK— less compulsion, more freedom. Less pain! More awareness, too, as you say. It’s a deeper practice— for me anyhow.
Glad to know you’ve found a new groove, too, Eddie. All things change.