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Mary Reilly Nichols

Mary Reilly Nichols

Yoga • Meditation • Tantric Philosophy

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Quotes

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The Empyrean (highest heaven), from the illustrations to The Divine Comedy by Gustave Doré.

There is a paradox that establishing an awareness of emptiness results in a greater sense of abundance. What takes our breath away when looking at the majestic empty space of a natural vista? Yoga has a way of making us cognizant of natural vastness and of our connection to it. In removing noise from the mind, yoga practice makes us sensitive to the simple, boundless beauty of the world.

— Artha: wealth and beauty

We cleanse and beautify the mind through pranayama – i do, because the mind easily gets cluttered with judgment or envy or things that depress me, and soon enough i look around and everything is ugly. What I do is love the prana. It is the easiest means to beautify the mind instantly.

— Artha: wealth and beauty

The Shiva Sutra declares “Prayatnah sadhaka” (2:2) : A seeker is one who makes an effort. The effort is about learning to extract enlightenment from the heart of each circumstance. We learn a repertoire of physical and mental alignments that tap into the uplifting current of positive energy, and we learn the skill of releasing the maladjusted positions that block or inhibit it.

— The Discipline of Love

The gist of the Bhagavad Gita is contained in that saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Mathew: “Take my yoke upon you, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Love is the easy yoke, the discipline which removes every burden. Please dont do yoga practices without love. Love is so easy; one moment of immersion in pure love dissolves all burdens.

— The Discipline of Love

Peace is the consort of Joy, and there are more and more exquisite layers of peace that can be experienced. But we have to make our awareness exquisite in order to perceive them – this is why in hatha yoga we do these things with our breath and our nervous system: to sharpen and hone our perception so we can extract a delicate thread of bliss from our daily experiences.

— Absolute Joy

Lack of contentment, the habitual failure to appreciate, is a kind of poverty that no money or material can alleviate. It takes courage to be satisfied.

— Artha: wealth and beauty

Hatha yoga is a means to assist us in assimilating the highest spiritual teachings. When we do hatha yoga we are feeding our body the food of the knowledge of unity.

— Assimilation

A tantric story we all know is the story of the Three Bears: Papa Bear’s chair is too hard, Mama Bear’s chair is too soft, but Baby Bear’s chair is “just right.” Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. When we put our bodies into yoga postures we are acting out this statement about the nature of reality. The poses are done to express the body’s bilateral symmetry, and in doing this a somatic sense of the perfect interior point of balance, where two opposites are exquisitely united, is magnified.

— St Patrick and the Trinity

In hatha yoga practice, enacting a series of postures named for animals is a way of awakening the reptilian and limbic (mammalian) aspects of the brain, and of yoking those elemental drives to our ultimate purposes.

— Intention

“The Self has to be seized in the body by means of the syllable Om”
– Shvetashvatara Upanishad

Chanting Om or listening acutely to it’s delicately pervasive reverberations sends the luminosity of non-dual consciousness, which is the true bread of life, into the cells of the body and brain.

— Om as Guru

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Featured Posts

Meditation on Vision

Moksha: Liberation, the fourth goal of life

“Of all the instruments of emancipation, Love is supreme.” So wrote the 9th century yogic sage, Shankaracharya who spread the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta: the doctrine of unity. Moksha is the

The Depression of Arjuna

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The Glance of Shiva

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The skill of relinquishing

There’s an article in today’s Science Times about kidneys that we may find interesting from a yogic point of view. The kidneys filter impurities from the blood, impurities which are then eliminated. Yoga itself is a purgatory or purifying movement and practice. So we do yoga to purify, eliminate toxins physical, mental and even spiritual. […]

Om

Om as Guru

One who chants Om, which is the closest form of Brahman, approaches Brahman. This liberates one from the fear of the material world. – Rig Veda, circa 1500 BC Rare is the yogic text or scripture that does not extoll Om as a method of Self realization. You will find there that Om is sometimes […]

Flammarion engraving

Intention

You will find that intention on liberation is the means to it. When this intention is full no other means is necessary. But when intention is weak what is the use of a thousand means? Therefore the principal means to liberation is intention alone.” – Tripura Rahasya. (date unknown) There is an interesting story of […]

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