IHT Institute of the Himalayan Tradition - Yoga St. Paul, MN

21/02/2020

We are pleased to offer a new title by Theresa King (Ma Devi). This is a collection of her poetry written during her lifetime.
In the words of Swami Jaidev (Justin O'Brien), "The author’s words, as she travels over hill and dale, in and out of seasons, beckon a broadening vision of life’s wonders. Not only for your mind, these pages awaken the contemplative echoes of your soul. Hence many of your settled conclusions and confusions about living may quietly drop away. So cast off and follow your heart."

https://www.yespublishers.com

14/02/2020

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14/02/2020

An IHT student wants to give his girl friend a stupendous Valentine, so he climbs to the top of Mt. Sinai to get close enough to talk to God.

Looking up, he implores: "God, what does a million years mean to you?"

The clouds separate and the Lord thunders, "A minute."

He asks, "And what does a million dollars mean to you?"

The Lord replies, "A penny."

Smiling with anticipation, he asks, "Can I have a penny?"

"In a minute."
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The lover's holiday goes back to the 4th century BCE. The Romans held an annual lottery wherein young men would draw a young woman's name from a box. The couple would be assigned to each other the entire year for entertainment and pleasure. This celebration, traditionally held on February 15, also included banquets, dancing and foot races run in the n**e (exceptions were made for inhabitants in Minnesota).

Around CE 496, early Catholic Church fathers sought an end to the pagan practice, but knew better than to upset the citizens by removing the lottery completely. Instead, they had teenagers pull the names of saints from the box. The teen was supposed to spend the year emulating that saint's life as much as possible, which was probably not as much fun as naked marathons. St. Valentine was chosen as the patron saint of the new event, and young Roman men resorted to courting females by sending handwritten notes delivered on February 14.
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07/02/2020

Life –an Exploration of Surprises

Acts of discursive reason are not involved in Contemplation. One is now in a different landscape. Before an enthralling sunset, there is no analyzing of shapes, comparing hues, or estimating its duration. instead, reasoning is put on hold. One simply gazes.

Wonder…a seizure of awe. It awakens the person beyond sheer mundane limits.
A hidden echo of the Delphi Oracle: know thyself.

Character isn’t built by meditating on it.

Self–knowledge is learned in action, the acts of living. There is no substitute for success and failure, give and take, gain and lose, promise and disappointment, remember and forget, ponder and question, observe and dismiss. We mature more thru those acts than wishes and promises.

Not living for the sake of knowing but knowing for the sake of intelligent living.

Ego is not abandoned to become wiser; rather, it simply matures the way it should.

The act of meditation is not to become thoughtless. but to discover the meaning of silence.
The Wanderer

Being calm is a power not found in the external world. It is only in you.
Swami Rama

22/01/2020

Who Art thou Mind?

If the totality of colour is presented to the eye from the outside in the form of an object, it will be pleasing to the eye, because it thereby encounters the sum of its own activity as reality.
Goethe **His remark prompted J.M.W. Turner’s comment…’this is the objective of painting’.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts…
Marcus Aurelius

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that
Break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
Longfellow

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
Milan Kundera

I must have a prodigious amount of mind, it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!
Mark Twain

Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

If the totality of being is presented to the eye of consciousness, the mind will be astonished into blissfulness, it thereby encounters the pristine plenum of its own natural striving. This is the ultimate objective of intelligent living.
The Wanderer

Here, in life on earth where opposites clash together, the general level of consciousness can be raised. The development of intelligence and physical power and moral ethics are equally necessary for a human being to grow and unfold himself for the purpose of living.
Swami Rama

22/01/2020

Please check out new updated website for events, local yoga classes, and inspiration on your path.

Institute of the Himalayan Tradition is a holistic yoga and meditation center in St. Paul. Join us for classes, special events, and satsang the first and fourth Thursday of the month.

31/12/2019

A New Year's Resolution...

There's a story about a distraught mother who wanted an appointment with a certain leader. Her young son craved sugar. It was ruining his teeth and making him emotional unsteady. She was at her wits end to make him stop; he wouldn't do what she wanted. She pleaded to see the revered rescuer of India. After many postponements, her plight reached his ear. He called to her. Overcome, she could hardly articulate her reason for him to speak to her son, who admired him. One word of correction was all she begged. He listened, turned his eyes to the boy. A few moments passed. He then turned to his mother and said: "Come back next week."
She was nonplussed. How could he be so indifferent? Did he not know that she walked 20 miles in the hot sand from her village to get here? Drudgingly, she took his little hand and returned to the village.
The following week it was even hotter. She clinched her jaw and marched right up to the appointment table where the great one sat.
He remembered them. He motioned to the lad to come near him. "Son, I want you to stop eating sugar. Can you do that?" The boy nodded.
Gandhi turned to the mother and said farewell. She starred, "Why did you not say that to him last week when we were here?"
"Last week I had not given up sugar."

Can we become the change we want to see?
The Wanderer

Determine that no matter what happens, life or death, you will sit down to meditate. Many times the mind goes through fluctuations and roams around, but just sit down and do the practice. If you do not want to meditate, then do not meditate. You should not fight with your mind; you should have a gentle dialogue with your mind. You will learn many things when you enter into this kind of self-dialogue.
Swami Rama

30/12/2019

Oh Winter Wonderland

The Snowman got you down...cold winds...stuffy nose…longing for Florida…
Fight them if you will, but consider discovering something intriguing in these grey skies. Is your imagination shivering so that you can't appreciate this time of your life?

If you meet the Winter on her own terms, you might find it more than invigorating.
Consider how enterprising is She in her wares. One day the clouds conspire and decide to expose their creative handiwork by releasing their sky-high watery droplets.

Those liquid visitors descend for miles through space slipping and sliding through differing temperatures and sheens of humidity, and eventually supercool into not tiny blocks of ice, but astonishing crystalline forms. Some actually congregate into frozen balls due to their melting and refreezing collaboration, with occasional offshoots as pellets to land in Minnesota.

To be sure, imagine the untold billions and trillions that descend in a typical Winter. Undoubtedly, Nature is both alchemist and mathematician in her glistening shower of manifestation.

Examine the crystal guest as she alights on your glove hand. You gaze upon a traditional six-fold radial figure. Peer at another one nearby and, while they appear exactly the same, yet each is unique in its icy hexagonal symmetry. Like triplets and twins in a family, these wee molecules of water grow independently into their varying shapes due to the collaborating interplay of the weather environment.

Did you know that back in Montana of 1887, Nature awed us with a snowflake 15" wide. And then one morning, lo and behold, the warm sun smiles, evaporating our temporary visitors to their heavenly abode. But don't feel sad, our snowflakes are anxious to return, for soon they reincarnate.
Déjà vu!
The Wanderer

A lifestyle that is suitable for both worldly fulfillment and spiritual enlightenment is the best. You should always have confidence that the light of life really is within you.
Swami Rama

13/12/2019

A Bird in Hand

A very successful businessman, highly skeptical and very pragmatic about life, was yet surprisingly intrigued by meditation.
Up in his Wisconsin cabin one Autumn weekend, he sauntered toward the dock and spied two tiny objects, each about as long as your ring finger. He looked closer and saw claws. They were two baby Hummingbirds. He stood engrossed by the radiance of their colors, but they weren’t moving.
He called his wife over and in her rush she accidentally stepped on one. The companion flew away. Well, that ended that.
Nevertheless, he felt an urge, reached down and very carefully picked it up and put it upon his palm. For all practical purposes it was dead. He decided to hold it and cupped his other hand to protect it against the wind and elements.
He kept peering at it and after a half-hour, it quivered. Now, he got excited. Standing near the bird feeder, he tilted his hand to get the beak at the edge. Nothing happened. So he continued to hold the creature for another half-hour. Again, the quivering came but with the legs moving. Its throat began to warble. Suddenly it turned over, paused to glance at him, and flew away.
I asked him his intent throughout the experience. He replied: “Simply to enliven it. I sustained it as well as I could.”
I mused: did he enkindle its ebbing life force? There in the warmth of his hand with its radiant heat, his gazing calm demeanor, plus his abiding intent something magical emerged.
The Wanderer

You need to create the conditions within yourself for truth to reveal its treasures. Truth hides itself until one is ready for it.
Swami Rama

04/12/2019

Our next Satsang gathering is tomorrow,
Thursday, December 5th,
7:00 - 8:30 pm with Swami Jaidev at Unity Church.

Come and enjoy an evening of sharing, contemplation, and meditation. Donation. www.ihtyoga.org

Satsangs at Unity Church will be held on the lower level in Meeting Room OWL 034.

Park in church lot off of Holly Ave, another lot off Portland Ave, or street parking on Portland Ave or Grotto St.
Unity Church

733 Portland Avenue, Saint Paul