These are the main themes we cover in our instruction.

⋄ body
⋄ breath
⋄ energy
⋄ emotion
⋄ thought
⋄ person
⋄ life and the divine

preface

The main themes are life and the divine. All the rest are tools. But tools establish the foundation. Nature takes the foundation and creates a beautiful garden. That beautiful garden is your experience of life.

We present here the themes of our instruction. Some of these themes may be relevant to you and some may not. And some may be irrelevant now but may become relevant later on. It depends on your natural tendencies, your talents, and your obstacles. And it depends on your timing too.

But before getting into it, let us note: life and the divine are the main themes in spirituality. All the rest are tools.

This may sound vague, nonsensical, or just distant. So, let us start with the tools. Because these are the foundations of the garden. And every gardener knows, if the foundations are set right, nature takes care of the rest.

By the way, the writing in what follows can seem, at times, haphazard; strangely jumping around. But that is on purpose. On one hand, it has to do with staying brief. On the other hand, spirituality is not mathematics; it is not a strictly analytic discipline. Thus, room must be left for personal insight to arise, on the side of the reader.

Lastly, the writing sometimes may seem overly complicated; do not worry about it. If some words speak to you, get hold of the impression that they make on you. If they do not speak to you, let them drift away; you do not need them right now.

body

We take care of the body to assist spiritual practice. Food and digestion are key. Pain, outlook on our bodies, outlook on our environment: all need to settle into positivity. Body is gold! An opportunity for awareness. An opportunity for practice. Look and look and look. Simply look. Then you see.

We aim to heal (and to still!) the body. But, really, is it the body that we heal? Saying that we heal the mind may be more proper. But that is misguided too. One thing is for sure; healing a chronic condition is not simple.

However, focusing on the body is not in vain. For example, it is extremely difficult to have a good practice if our digestion is not working well. Such a tough nut to crack. Digestion, and other aspects related to food, deeply affect the workings of the mind. We cannot ignore it in the context of spirituality. There is hardly any way around it.

Pain and our outlook on our bodies are key points too. Also, what is this body? What is its relationship to the earth? The parameters are so many. Normally, a few shifts in our perception are necessary to handle our bodies well. Then it will not seem that complicated anymore.

Bodies give us so much trouble but they are gold! Awareness is the corner stone of spirituality. And the body may be the greatest tool when it comes to practicing awareness. Whatever is "real" and it is easy and pleasant to see (for each individual), we look and we look and that will be become a stepping stone.

breath

The great doorway. Stay with the breath. Just for thirty seconds. Again and again. You will create distance from the body. Distance, is, the key!

The hand of the divine! Let us know our breath and the world shall be our oyster.

It is not that complicated. We see the breath in a manner similar to how we see the body. And it is happening all the time. Stay with it.

It is a key to creating distance from the body. ("Creating distance" is an important theme. Note it down.) A lot of masters have used it in ingenious ways to go around the mind and the body.

energy

Energy? What is that? Some hand-waving nonsense? Well, there is something to it. Substantial. "Energy" is a very useful term in spirituality. In terms of practice, there is an aspect of it that has a special connection to the breath and the sense of touch. For some people it becomes very relevant in their lives.

Energy is a term we borrow from physics and it essentially stands for, well... everything!

In the context of spirituality, we use the term to refer to certain phenomena (experientially available to humans) whose qualities may be important for us to get to know. The animated quality of these phenomena (in terms of our experience of them) has led us to use the term energy.

We, here, in this school, have a long relationship with the notion of energy. And we are very excited to guide you through its various expressions.

Some people have a sense of touch that seems to be a little broader somehow than that of others. Often they are termed as very sensitive (in a good way, or a bad way, or both). Sometimes they know it, sometimes they take advantage of it, almost always they suffer it.
    If you think you are touching something in those lines and do not know what to do with it, get in contact with us. If you have a good practice, keep it up. But do not just play around with it; it will disorient your system!

emotion

Everybody's favorite! Drama! Full moon, fireworks, music, rollercoasters!

We all ride on emotion, all the time. But, too often, we do not choose our rides! Seeing emotion, knowing emotion, choosing to be or not to be with the emotion: can we do that? Of course we can.

Basically, in spirituality we do not believe the mind (thought, emotion, etc.). The mind takes all kinds of shapes all the time. Most of us regard these shapes to be some mirror of reality. It rarely is.

We, here, in this school, like to get dirty with emotion. We like to get to know it before letting it go. And this process helps, because it builds awareness. Thus, we categorize, we recognize, and we analyze emotions.

Note, however, that we do not try to find solutions (for our suffering) in the realm of emotions. That is not part of the spiritual process.
(Although, take this with a pinch of salt.)

thought

We see the thought, and we know the thought. Again and again and again. That is key for most of the technical paths to spirituality.

It is good if we can see how thoughts whiz under the surface of the mind, how they come out of emotions, and how emotions come out of thoughts. And how thought and emotion become interwined and act like one.

It is great if we can see the intellect in action, and if in time we recognize the intellect for what it is: a faculty that organizes impressions.

Thought can be tedious if we believe it. Many spiritual practitioners get lost in it. As such, it is great to learn to look at the moving mind. But for most us, that is not enough; we should go ahead and complement this practice with additional elements if we are to get somewhere.

person

Oh, the person! Emotion may be our favorite, but nothing is grander than the person!

The "person" is not some new-age concept. It lies in the absolute depths of the spiritual process. Some of you may have heard of it as "identity". But "identity" normally corresponds to a wider concept. As such, we prefer to withhold the term for different uses.

The person, the ego, the mask, the personality. We think of it to be stable.
"I am this person! You are that person!" So, absolutely, misguided!!!

We make up an image of a person that we like. And then we turn it into a god and worship it. That is how the human psyche works.

We take untruths, images of society, emotionally-ridden impressions and (subconsciously) imagine a person. Then we make it our purpose, our compass. We need everybody to see that person in us, and we see the world through the eyes of that person.

Are you terrified by the weight of the person? We hope you are. Because that will be the motivation to look into its eyes.

Fortunately, the person takes the form of thought and emotion (among other forms), and we can see thought and emotion. And we can know the person to be fluid and ever-changing. And that means a lot! That is key. Because, the human psyche will not settle if you identify with an ever-changing form.
It does not like it that you identify with the person.

life and the divine

First of all, if you find the term "divine" difficult to swallow,
you may use the term "profound" instead.

There is something profound in the experience of life. And it arises when we get into the habit of not living in our imagination.
When we stop living in the fantasies that we support with our grand thoughts and emotions, when the person starts to subside, life itself becomes our purpose and misguided ambitions lose their grip on us.
Then something profound arises.

If you are the type that is fascinated with life, we will use life as practice. If you are the type that is fascinated with the divine, we will use the divine as practice. Whatever gets us going. Everything can become a tool towards spirituality.

epilogue

Somehow the whole process is very convoluted. Somehow it is also very simple. We will keep the morale high. There is a way. There are many ways. Just do not waste your time on useless things.
Find something that speaks to you.