Clear Path Yoga w/ Jai Hari: April 2012

Greetings Friends!!

What a beautiful day we are having, yes?!!

This weekend my group, Answer The Muse recorded our first cd at Wilburland Studios!! What an amazing journey and experience it is to watch more of my own personal dream unfolding. Everyone that participated in the recording session brought such heart and musicality to the project; AMAZING!! I am so grateful.

As beautiful and fulfilling as this process is and has been, there is this little nagging voice,(I'm sure you will recognize it because I've shared it with you before and you may have your own personal version) it sounds something like, "Oh am I good enough to do this"? or "Did I bring enough Soul to the music"? or "What about the laryngitis I was recovering from"? and on and on....sounds like doubt and longing for validation and attention.

Well, looking through my notes and yoga manuals for this week's class I found some very interesting reminders about the ego that helped me put this "voice" into perspective and I'd like to share this with you now. It is quite long, but I found invaluable and informative.

Taken from "Mastering the Self, Volume One"

"The ego is here to serve us, but just as we must train the mind in order to make it into our faithful servant; so, too, the ego must be trained and aligned to the soul's purpose, our True Identity. Otherwise, it simply plays out all of our unresolved subconscious agendas and uses our anger, pain, childhood resentments and phobias to serve its own ends. You've go to admire the ego's fortitude as it strives, against all odds, to get attention and recognition. This unending quest for attention and recognition is an addiction we all share. It must have it at any cost, and it will take it in any form it can get it. Praise is welcomed, but if that's not available, the ego will accept sympathy, and if that's not available then abuse will do. Its hunger is insatiable. No matter how much attention it gets, it's never enough. It eats and eats and eats but can never be satisfied.

The ego is housed in a body that is but a speck of animated matter, on this tiny dot of rock we call Earth, hidden in a far corner of a minor galaxy in a seemingly unending universe. Add to that equation the billions of other tiny animated objects that garner more attention, accumulate more wealth, or worse, even become famous--and let's face it, it's a recipe for disappointment. No matter how hard we strive, we simply never get the respect we are due; or the status we believe we have earned; or the love we think we deserve. No wonder everyone seems so angry!

Anger expresses itself in a variety of ways: your anger may bubble up to the surface of your personality ready to explode at the slightest hint of provocation; or, terrified by this wild uncontrollable force, you might control your anger by dominating it with your rational mind, which always finds reasons to calm you down and explain away your frustrations; or you might simply keep it veiled by a thin veneer of civility and social manner. But when you scratch the surface, you are really angry! No matter how hard you try to cover for it or control it, your anger is going to express itself. And no matter how it expresses itself--overtly or covertly, consciously or unconsciously, externally or internally, that anger is going to harm you.

Why does it stay with us perpetually? Because it becomes ingrained in our psyche as a neurosis. Yogi Bhajan gave us a simple formula to understand this: ego plus anger equals neurosis. Neuroses are habitual reaction patterns. When we're confronted by life's challenges, our neuroses are triggered automatically, which sets off a series of actions and reactions, a sequence of cause and effect we call the "wheel of karma". Trapped in our own particular self-fulfilling prophecies, which bring us back, angain and agin, to the same point, confronting the same situation over and over, with the same results, whcih cause the same effect ad infinitum; our neuroses lock us into a circular pattern. Like a hamster on its whell, we find ourselves spinning the wheel of karma and never getting anywhere.

So your ego is an attention-seeking junkie, who will do anything to get the attention but will never be satisfied no matter how much it gets, which causes frustration that in turn triggers anger, which creates a neurotic pattern that traps you, over and over again. Luckily there is some good news: You are not your ego. The essence of your being is a little piece of God we call the soul. If you identify you Self with your soul, then the fire tattva, often expressed as anger, transforms into will power, which you can use to break the karmic cycle of cause and effect. By consciously acting, instead of unconsciously reacting to the challenges of life, your ego is given the chance to perform its most important functions: individuation, protection and survival. The ego is your fundamental survival mechanism whose job is to create an individual identity for you, providing boundaries, information and motivation to get you what you need. This is the recipe for consciousness: soul plus will power equals consciousness."

"When you are angry, your entire energy consolidates into the wavelength of the angry thought; you stay in anger perpetually Your anger takes away nourishment from your body, takes away heat from your stomach and energy from your circulation. If you realized the cost for even one moment of anger, you would never become angry." Yogi Bhajan

WHEW!!! So guess what we are working on this week folks? You got it, removing inner anger. This is a big one; even if you don't consider yourself to be angry person, chances are your body/mind is or has been affected by anger at some point. Please join me this week to release anger and clear the subconscious mind so that we can be more of who We trulyAre!!

ALSO, Answer The Muse ensemble will be joining Vox Lumina on Sat, May 5 at Fine Spirit Studio for Yoga, Music, Healing and More!! There is a free Yoga Class at 6:15pm. See below and Join Us!!

Peace to you.

Love to you.

Jai Hari

DEAREST MUSIC FRIENDS...DEAREST SPIRIT FRIENDS....

I AM SOOOOOO PLEASED BE PLAYING WITH ANSWER THE MUSE, AND JOINING MY DEAR FRIEND BROOKE SMOKELIN (VOX LUMINA) THIS COMING SATURDAY NIGHT...CHECK OUT THE DETAILS BELOW ALONG WITH OUR VERY GROOVY FLYERS ATTACHED...WITH VERY GROOVY PIX OF US!!

THIS WILL BE OUR MAIN GIG FOR THE MONTH OF MAY....SO DO TRY TO CATCH US....MEET BROOKE...AND SPEND SOME TIME WITH THE SPIRIT AND THE MUSIC

SUSAN!

VOX LUMINA

and the River Gypsy Medicine Show

with Answer the Muse

@ Fine Spirit Studio- 201 Dey Street

http://www.finespiritstudio.com

SATURDAY MAY 5

7:30- 10:30 pm (right after FREEYOGA CLASS)......$12 suggested

Earthy, rootsy, Organically-grown SOULmusic from the brand spanking new cd, Vox Lumina'sSONG OF LIGHT-

as well as trance-chant/kirtan favorites from her MUSIC IS MEDICINE album!

www.voxlumina.com

With very special guests:

*** Erik Lawrence on flute and sax (from the Levon Helm Band, Honey Ear Trio) ***

***Brian Dozoretz on upright bass (Jennie Stearn's Band and others)***

***and Zaun Marshburn on drums!***

PLUS a special set from ANSWER THE MUSE-

Ithaca’s own new music collective with a unique

style of Transformative Musical Performance Art. They create a fusion of Originals, Covers, and Ambiant music that includes Sacred Chant and meditations with Yogic audience participation. With Jai Hari Meyerhoff on lead vocals, Jonathan Meyerhoff on back up vocals and guitar, Ceili Murphy (composer/lyricist) on keyboards and woodwinds-whistles, and Joey Arcuri on bass.

http://answerthemuse.com/

Wow! WOW! And more WOW!

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!!!!