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Showing posts from September, 2016
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Taking Back the Reigns... Katha Upanishads Week 3 So this week us Yogis gather around again - first to freshen up our understandings so far, before we continue to deepen into the mysterious teachings of The Katha Upanishads . We begin with a small recap of our story…our “Death chat” with Nachiketa and the Lord of Death himself, Yama. After seeing his father’s false generosity is all for show and image, Nachiketa has challenged his father by asking him, “To whom would you give me! ?” Nachiketa’s father, sick of Nachiketa’s smart-arse comments, bites back; “ I give you to DEATH!” (The modern-day equivalent being somewhere along the lines of, “drop dead you little…*bleep!*”) Hmm, Nachiketa ponders – what would it really mean if I was given to Death? What would happen? Who, or what, would ‘die’? Eager and very brave, Nachiketa sets himself off on a daring expedition to find Yama, king of Death, to explore these very questions. But poor Nachiketa had no idea that he’d be sign
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We only ever have two choices… So,  week 2  of the Katha Upanishads….following on from the opening cliff-hanger of the teachings from the beginning of our dance with Death! Our young and persistent protagonist  Nachiketa  has managed to convince  Yama , the lord of Death, that he is worthy of his third and ultimate wish – to know and to abide in the  unchanging place  within himself that even death itself cannot steal from him.  To know the very secret to immortality. Yogis gather close around our teacher Steve, of course all eager to know more so as to feed the little Nachiketas living within us all. But inevitably, the answer to such a deep and brave question does not come with just a simple reply. This evening, we delve into the first teaching that Yama reveals unto Nachiketa,  the beginning of taking our life back into our own hands. “The first thing Nachiketa, that you must understand”, says Yama, “is that YOU have a CHOICE in how you live your life. Therefore every
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The Katha Upanishad Omm Yogis, welcome back to the Living Wisdom blog. At the cusp twixt Summer and Autumn, it is time to go out into the fields of wisdom and harvest another crop, which has been lovingly cultivated and tended to by countless generations of Sages and Seekers. This time we must sharpen our scythes for the reaping, as the Grim Guru, Lord Yama (deity of death), dispels the darkness of our ignorance with His uncompromising truth and teachings. We’ll be taking an enlightening journey through the Katha Upanishad over the coming months and this weeks blog is by way of introduction to this ancient fable which stands proud amongst the vedantic canon of India and which carries sapient weight across the ages and indeed across the continents.   So the set up in brief … Nachiketa is our hero in this legendary story, a young boy and the son of a man of some wealth and public standing. His father is known for his charitable giving within the community and is someth