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Outrageous Openness.... ( Katha Upanishads - Week 8 ) ~ By Adele. It is okay to feel broken and wounded sometimes. It really is. Your pain, sadness, discomfort, confusion and anger are not signs of your “spiritual weakness”; they are important and precious parts of you that just long to be held. Can we hold these inevitable feelings as unique invitations not to turn our back on our experience? Not to try and ‘think’ ourselves out of feeling something? Our beauty lies in our willingness to keep saying ‘ yes’ to letting all experience flood in; not just the good parts, the “spiritual” parts and the happy, positive feelings, but to all feelings, to feel them all fully, at last. To stop trying to “fix” whatever is happening, or telling someone to “look at the bright side”, but to instead accept that invitation to break away a part of our boundaries, in order to leave us bigger . What a huge relief it is to know that whatever we are feeling, it’s not ‘wrong’. There’s nothing wrong...

You can only grow out of your own soil…(Katha Upanishads Week 7) A quick recap of the Katha Upanishads journey so far… In week 1 , we learnt of Nachiketa and how he came to meet Yama, the Lord of Death, and how he came to be granted his 3 wishes, or 3 ‘boons’. Week 2 , Yama taught us that we only have ever 2 choices in any situation; that which is Preya and that which is Shreya. Week 3 , we learnt from Yama that our being is a vehicle that we must learn to navigate through this life – understanding that behind the driver of this vehicle, there exists a higher consciousness which is witness to everything. Week 4 , we understood that our body is like a city with 11 gates, and to fill up our inner cities with energy, we must become aware of what it is that lifts our Prana higher and what it is that drains it. Week 5 , we came to know that the key to enjoying the outside world is to become the IN-joyer; to raise our level of internal energy higher so we can look to the world through the...

Bliss Bubbles from the Beyond - 6th Week of the Katha Upanishads Throughout the study of the Katha Upanishads, we’ve been receiving the teachings through Yama, the Lord of Death, via the story of his encounter with the young boy Nachiketa. Nachiketa and ourselves have essentially (and bravely!) chosen to make Death our  Guru , as we boldly begin to delve into it’s deep mysteries. However along this journey, we are also starting to recognise the wonderful paradox that Yama – Death himself,  truly and   totally believes in our capacity for LIFE .  In our complete entitlement to freedom.  It turns out that Yama is actually 100% life-affirming, utterly pro-life and absolutely life  LOVING . This week, Yama brings us deeper into the untouchable – the unshakeable place within us all that even Death cannot reach. For this, he gives us the gift of one word. “I will give you the word all scriptures glorify, ...

The fifth week of the Katha Upanishads….an invitation to come and sit near to the Guru within yourself. Throughout the journey, we’ve been downloading the wisdom of Yama, Lord of Death, through the story of the brave boy Nachiketa. We start off this week with a note on wisdom, and how we can deal with the sometimes overwhelming supply of it all! We’re always learning, and especially when we are choosing to enquire deeper we can be presented with so many awesome insights. This could potentially lead us to think we need to suddenly become completely enlightened with all the wisdom we have received, and perhaps never make a ‘mistake’ again. We can think learning is a 1-2-3 step process…learn the wisdom, and BAM that’s it - you’re perfect and you have all the ‘answers’ and you’ve officially NAILED IT. Off you go! How terribly boring that would be. The thing is, wisdom is not designed to be ‘nailed’. It is beyond nailing. It is non-nail-able . We can sometimes start to ta...

Ruling your own Inner City…(Katha Upanishads week 4) We continue on to week four with the teachings of the Katha Upanishads – essentially in truth, a deep conversation with our highest self.  Up until now, we’ve explored the first two teachings that Nachiketa receives from Yama, the Lord of Death. Questioning the idea of what it is that can ‘die’ within us and what it is that cannot.  We found out that we only ever have two choices in front of us, Preya and Shreya – what isn’t beneficial in the long run, and then what is ultimately better for us. And to further understand how to make these two choices, we learned an analogy of our being – understanding that our body, mind and senses are vessel which we must learn to control to navigate through this life. Which brings Yama to his next point in how to defy Death itself….A challenging statement: “Nachiketa, what most people are actually experiencing of life, is really just a slow process of death”, says Yama. “A...

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...

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 ...