photo: Jay Rossi
Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#3069 - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - Editor: Jerry Katz
This issue features a gem-like, beautiful, small book: Yoga of the Ancient Kashmir Tradition, by Jay Rossi.
There is no link for purchasing the book and no price is listed. If you are interested, visit Jay's website at http://www.kashmiryoga.com, then email him at yogacentrenottm@btinternet.com.
Jay writes that his is "the first ever book in English on the non dual bodywork approach of Jean Klein, written from my own explorations over the last 17 years. This small book is a very simple & practical series of explorations based around body sensations & breathing,that completely questions our assumptions of who & what we are."
The book is a remarkable gem. It is exquisitely designed and illustrated, and printed on heavy, glossy paper. What follows are photos of Jay, and the front and back covers of the book. Then I have typed out a couple of introductory pages. A number of spelling, grammatical, and formatting errors tarnishing this volume. I corrected them as I typed, and would still highly recommend this book of Yoga for its beauty and spirit.
--Jerry
photo: Jay Rossi
photo: Yoga of the Ancient Kashmir Tradition,
front cover
photo: Yoga of the Ancient Kashmir Tradition,
back cover
Here are excerpts from Yoga of the Ancient Kashmir Tradition, by Jay Rossi.
Discovering Your Inner Song
Let me tell you a story I heard a while ago. For me it conveys a quality of attention that can come from this approach...
In a village in Eastern Africa, when a child is born, they don't count the birthday of the child as the day it comes from its mother's body, nor when it's conceived, but from the day that it was a song in its mother's heart... let me explain.
As soon as the mother and her partner realise they would like to have a child, the mother would go off into the forest and sit under a particular tree and start to listen inwards, she waits and listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to be born in her heart.
As she begins to become aware of the beginnings of the song, she begins to hum it to herself and as it turns into a song she sings it to herself and returns to the village to teach this song to her partner.
When they come together again in love, they sing this song and invite their child to be conceived. Later as she becomes pregnant, she begins to sing this song to the unborn child in her womb. She also teaches the song to her family, so the first moment the child is born, the first sound the child hears is their own unique song.
As the child grows, all the people close to the child in the village learn the song. If the child falls, whoever picks up the child can sing the song and soothe them. When the child grows and marries, both songs would be sung at the wedding.
When the child becomes an old person, the song is sung by all the villagers at the funeral for the very last time, and the song dies with the person and is never ever sung again.
So as we approach these explorations I wonder if you can begin to hear the notes of your own song inside you...
My wish is that you do...
~ ~ ~
Getting Started
[the text in brackets is not part of the instructions intended to be read aloud.]
[Have someone read aloud the instructions, or record this for yourself. Don't just read it as you experiment or you won't get the full experience.]
Let's begin. Please start by sitting, either in a crosslegged position or on a chair, or even kneeling. The arm is to sit in a position where your body is least noticed. Now close your eyes. Let quietness by there ... just for a moment.
Feel your contact with the ground ... your base heavy and soft, making a deep quiet imprint into the floor. Let the energy, the feeling of the support underneath you come up into you ... receive the support.
Take your attention to the top of your head, and imagine a tiny point of light at the crown. Then take a thread of that light and extend it up into the sky. Let the image create the verticality.
[You may begin to notice your upper body already becoming lighter and freer. You can continue to open up and fill the space around you.]
Radiate outwards, allow your warmth to expand.
[Don't worry if you are not sure, because that "I'm not sure" mind has an immense energy. It's an open doorway to new learning and possibility.]
Still with your eyes closed, try to feel the shape of your body, from the sensation alone. What do you feel?
Maybe you are not sure. Maybe you don't have a definite outline ... maybe no shape at all. Not sure? Good. Stay not sure.
As you continue to explore, you may begin to discover the spaciousness of your awareness and the calmness that it brings.
You can continue to expand and open up into the surrounding space.
It's as if the soft space around you were becoming very alive and active ... maybe the space is whispering for you to merge with it ... asking you to grow in all directions.
Feel and sense and hear the space on your left, expand and open up to that space. Open up to the space to the right...
Feel the space behind you, as if you could feel the wall behind you with the sensitivity of your back.
Be aware of the space above your head ... extend upwards. Can you feel your energy growing as you fill into the space?
Keep this open feeling. It is your natural way of being. As a child you moved from this feeling.
Allow the soft and supportive space to absorb and nurture you. You may begin to notice even your breathing has changed, slowing to almost nothing at all. Your breathing becomes a deep reflection of this natural global feeling.
[Stay present in this natural, open freedom ... you see you are already a master of this.]
[Do you remember how you moved as a child, the fluidity, the lighteness, the energy which carried you?]
[Your cells have an organic memory of this state of being. Your nervous system can perfectly remember, so as you go through the explorations you begin to reawaken this memory.]
~ ~ ~
Yoga of the Ancient Kashmir Tradition, by Jay Rossi. There is no link for purchasing the book and no price is listed. If you are interested, visit Jay's website at http://www.kashmiryoga.com, then email him at yogacentrenottm@btinternet.com.