The Freedom Project- in reverence to 2zerozero9

she spoke, 

words of bitter resistance to the way it was, 

she spoke, 

we listened, 

we took her in, her voice was a reminder of illusion, and how it easily enters our frame, 

the invitation is open, 

she painted our pictures, we trusted.

she dressed us, we wore out her song... to the very last moment we missed the poetry in her message,

till the very last moment.

2009 will join us, in the clarity of 2010 but she won't be what she was, her foundation will have shaped us but her slander will have faded, her ability to create order out of chaos drove her into business, 

with hype that fizzles our rhyme takes over with sizzling truths,

when the fight is taken out of us, there is room made for power that was born to heal through inspiration. She is free to transform.

On this blue moon, I've stepped aside, off the continent to return to the paths origin. 

The Peek, may your walk down be soft and careful, cautious, and full of a silence that the stars translate into love, 

we may have missed her poetry, but at the very last moment, we caught it, and read it back to her.

Every sonnet matures with age, 2009, bows and leaves the stage, 

wardrobe placed on auction, that fight that was lost made room for 2010's simplicity. 

All its humility, the spotlight soft, the spotlight of the new decade reframes the stories told. 

The costume is worn out and thrown out, 

she changed our style forever.

Our style.  

Freedom Thoughts- Blogged it. The Right Revolution

It’s been a while. And I’m ready to return. Back to the scene of opinion sharing. There is so much on my mind, my soul, and my body…

“the brain” is commonly the topic these days, whether it’s a phone call to my mom, a discussion that is filling the full hour of a private yoga session I’m teaching, or a side bar prior to debauchery at a music festival; all are my best chances to attempt to explain the classification of duties that each hemisphere of the brain provides.

I’m completely floored by the topic. It’s the next level to me. In the same way as I feel that dance is the next level of freedom in movement, this moment I am presented to a new level of evolution of my mind. Talking about it is like an active approach to understanding my two brains, and their individual contributions to my experience of life.

Here’s the break down:

the right hemisphere is:

• the side of the brain that is thought of as the creative side;
• the hemisphere that is responsible for all our senses of the present moment… all of it, all that we hear, all that we see, all that we taste, all that we smell, all that we touch and all that connects with us through the senses;
• a constant receiver and expresser of energy.

It’s interesting to me that the general concept of creativity is aligned with all feeling. Something to consider: what we feel is what we express – that what we bring out of ourselves into the world. What a useful exercise in itself to understand!

Sensations and emotions team-up for the image of ‘expression’.

the left hemisphere is:

• the information center;
• the carrier of all opinions that we have;
• the chatter in our heads
• operating in language; whether it’s English, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, math, or any system of rules.

It is a constant separatist of energy into individual items of existence.

To define what that means, imagine that all that is seen through your eyes is blurry-colored, as in one color fusing into another that fuses into another and so on: like a water color painting.

This IS how we truly see the world until the left hemisphere begins to operate (which for the most of us is 100% of our life experience). As soon as the left hemisphere begins to operate, it instantly sharpens the image, giving the blurriness a shape and turning this light of colors into a common language with a meaning that a computer screen would understand – like television settings, only sophisticated to levels far beyond.

Where I get intrigued is here: our understanding of the process of experiencing, tells us there is one mind. In fact, there is a constant layering occurring. The right brain and left brain contributes to each other, collaborates with each other, dominates each other, supports each other and pulls away from each other continuously and nearly simultaneously.

This is how I have seen creativity for some time: it is the collaboration between system (left brain)) with the ability to intelligently break through it, while expressing beyond language (right brain) yet using that language, all at the same time. The constant layering is begging to confuse but it’s the confusion that opens up the state of thoughtlessness where meditation is.

To use a yoga system analogy, the Iyengar system goes so deep into technical alignment, that at some point in the process, the left brain can’t keep up with the rights hemisphere’s sensual experience. At that point, it is creating a gap in thoughts, maybe only for a moment, but that moment of thoughtlessness is meditation. It is just that moment of thoughtlessness where you would be completely in being (as opposed to thinking).

Dance, or Ashtanga vinyasa do a similar duty with a different path. Through repetition of movement until it’s completely programmed into the body, there’s no thinking needed (left brain). Because there is no thinking needed, it creates an uncommon space for thoughts to cease. Not that they always will, but the opportunity becomes heightened when breath focus and visual focus limit external stimuli. It’s like putting a stop to the ticker of thoughts that parade though our heads like the CNN ticker shares news that only by chance has anything to do with what’s going on in the show airing.

Another great example of a practice that follows the principles of flow is running. Yet the constant stimuli from music and sights increases the difficulty to further to a depth of peace.

What a vivid exploration! The deeper that western culture goes into office jobs, and number crunching, deeply entering the left hemisphere, the closer to atrophy we collectively bring our right hemisphere to. Moving into the right side is a version of giving up control, of surrendering. It almost feels like a betrayal to the controlling leader on the left side.

As a cry out for help, our present experience when heavily guided by the thinking mind-tendencies creates insanity, which feeds a ‘healthy’ pharmaceutical industry, and not to mention, alcohol, drugs and other products that numb our senses.

By numbing our emotion’s cry for attention (feelings/right brain), we allow the left brain to take control again. There is this constant fight between the left and the right side for a space to safely lose control. But, to safely lose control is a modern luxury; extreme sports have come into technological existence, due to the systemizing of the world, the balancing act that is nature…

What I realize now is that although the “thinking” left hemisphere is the controlling leader, it’s the “feeling” right hemisphere that has the power to move the world, to connect to a deeper knowledge. It is the right hemisphere that is the part of ourselves that has the deepest knowledge, deeper than any piece of information could ever make us privy to. It is the side that reads light and vibration, the subconscious that is intuitive. Not only does it read energy, but according to it, all that exists is energy, including the thoughts that are made up by the left hemisphere. Nothing but energy and everything is energy…

So if you’re still following and if you are not, here’s the insight - the right brain is so amazingly evolved, that the left brain could never understand its experiences fully. Yet we live in a global zeitgeist that has surrendered to the left hemisphere’s accumulative resources, which are disconnected with the holistic experience the right brain can provide. As such, strong walls have been created between the two that shut out the trust in the right hemisphere’s depth of experience. It is the left hemisphere’s feed of a survival mechanism, so we can feel safe, by adhering to that which we can seemingly understand.

One thing, no matter the belief system one is aligned with, that is a ubiquitous, is the understanding that no one really knows. All of life always comes down to a mystery, of a faith in a greater power, whether its labeled by ones left brain (all labeling is a left hemisphere duty) as nature, or as a god, or whatever it is you see the world as, it’s your right hemisphere that reads and translates the mystery, while the left, perpetually desires to explain it. Re-read that before you read this:

It‘s the egotistical left brain that would ever claim to know anything, the right has no agenda nothing to prove: it just is, it just does.

Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.

Update.

Here’s the update, I have handed in my notice to Pure Yoga, I will be teaching my last class on approx. Dec 27th,2009.
I will be teaching at YaleTown Yoga In Vancounver, as well as other Yyoga studios for Jan and Feb, during the Olympic games period.
I’d like to thank the students, in HK and Quarry Bay.
I’ll be In Asia, again by May for the Bali Spirit Festival, and other special events please stay posted by email or facebook.

thefreedomyogaproject@gmail.com

LJ

thefreedomyogaproject.blogspot.com

Angel's art

Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.

The Freedom Yoga Project -Blog 11- That's Deep

Location: Old Saybook Connecticut, Schuyler Grant’s, Director of Kula Yoga Project Summer Home, Kula Yoga Flow Advanced Training

I just spent about 10 min falling asleep as a hard working trainee, Lauren, was taking notes, as she was piling information into her computers memory, I realized, I could do more, more consisted of getting up out of a dream state, and pulling leftovers out of the fridge, sneaking the food so Lauren didn’t see me, saluting her good night, and taking off to hit my bed, with cold soufflé in hand. Weird.

Lauren was completely unphased by my interest in her story, before we met I pulled her email from the trainee email list, and got to see her website. I was impressed with a picture on her website, so I posted it on Facebook as my profile pic, it still sits there today, as yoga is spray painted on a building wall. Not all connections prove to be profound, and a lot of time the profound is in the lack of celebration that comes with coincidence. She’s a Princeton grad, was a wall street trader, then a quick transition to yoga teacher, we come from different worlds, but we find a common practice to help us live in the overlapping the is our world.

Bali...clear

After flying in from Asia, and coping with jet lag, I’m starting to feel better in my body now. It might also have something to do with the obsession I’ve had lately with jumping off completely stable and safe surfaces into seemingly dangerous waters, the most dangerous thing about the water is my fear of the unknown that may reside below the waters surface, and that’s why I do it, jump to make the seemingly dramatic mundane. The first time two Sunday’s ago in Bali while touring the volcano region with Sarah, and tonight I skinny-dipped if you can call it that, in the cool Atlantic Ocean.

This training is different then my others, the access to the teacher is like nothing I’ve ever experienced from someone so capable, a sense of nothing to hide. The overall vibe of this thing is tangible. Spirituality is an excepted companion to what we learn here, but far from the priority, or the discussion topic. After leaving a spiritual vortex like Bali, I was quite upset at the lack of dreaming that happens here, at least at first, yet, growth is still finding her cracks into the experience.

After I finally taught this afternoon, Schuyler humbled me with her feedback, she said the same thing I’ve been hearing for a while, “okay so your good, now relax into the space you’re in”, she said my teaching was on the verge of motivational, and not in a good way, more like a bad version of Anthony Robbins. I love the show within the show, and that’s the major thing that is necessary drop to grow, leave the actor behind…undefine the identity. It’s being smoothed out, it has to, growth follows intention.

I left Bali, into a coaxed extension of my time away from work, because growth to me is paramount. Yet it doesn’t have to be biblical, as much as Moses parting the red sea is epic, it can also be a simple as making a choice to go to bed early to create space for a miracle.

Tonight it became clear to me; it’s no longer good enough to play in the same waters as others that are good, in fact that alone would drown me out of those waters. I’m in NY now, where authenticity is the language. Authenticity has nothing to do with others; it’s a relationship with ones self, that relationship is only truly matured, when the present moment is entered. And the present moment is turbulent, It requires breath, and focus.

Schuyler has the same vibration as another New Yorker, Lori Triolo, my acting teacher that spent 2 years waking me up, by calling me on my shit, back in 2005-2007, never for a moment letting me get away with anything. I only left when I felt mistreated, as part of the theatre company we were part of, my writing a parody of the company became insulting, I thought it was genius. I said good-bye in a meeting that had both Lori and I in tears. It was a release, at least symbolically. I quickly became a yoga teacher, the space in my life that was emptied at the time carved out a whole new identity, and lifestyle.

I needed the space to grow, till now; no one with the exception of Ana Forrest has even brought up the idea of what Lori layered my life with. Truth. Deep Truth.
Here it goes again, truth in a time of great leaps.
I haven’t been in HK in over a month, other then the one night I joined some amazing people to rock that city.

My dream along side my yoga-teaching career is to ROCK OUT. To grab the Mic, and share my poetry, my touch, my excitement for life, and it’s potentials.
Can I do them both while separating them? Yes if I want to.

my other home
photo-Patrick Haley

Freedom Yoga aligned them into a definite gray area, fusing creation, performing and boundry breaking. The next stint in HK will be an amazing chance to Rock it out on many levels, in many layers, find a dance with both my own needs as well as common expectations. Drop the drama, because a lot it is simply there to create interest. The interest is present without a pushing of it, the hues are bright and interesting. The story is self told by just showing up, and getting out of my own way, let the light shine, let the light shine out the cracks.

The true moment will come with a jump, a leap into a world of unknowns, that leap is being foreshadowed with every body of water I jump in, every new culture I pierce, everyday I live, and as I write this blog. But the Drama can go.

My road as a teacher is also my road as an artist, and to step into the authenticity that I try to hold for my students, and my teachers, I see that to talk the talk, I must trust the walk, even if the path leads towards unknown land.

This is ‘a choose your own adventure’, only the choice leads to a leap, and the leap continues after the splash. A whole new world awaits, your presence.

Do it.

Open up.

Do it.

It’s the only way.

Go Bee Free

There are no answers only questions that re-create the previous questions, listen to the questions, and nurture their quality. They will nurture you.

Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.

The Freedom Yoga Project- Blog 10- The Seed of Silence

In slow motion, I held the handlebar of the motor bike, I wouldn’t let go, even though the tight turn was steering us into oncoming traffic, I held till my cognitive wiring made sense of grasping the left handlebar brake and bringing the vehicle to a halt with my face looking at a Balinese man in the eyes, I laughed from complete embarrassment, and drove off. As I edged away from the intersection, I heard the voice of my friend Samantha Miller, Acro Yoga teacher and yet another raw food enthusiast that was trailing just behind say, “good save”, it perked me up and kept me going, but not without checking in with Sarah, she was hanging for dear life as my passenger for the moment that felt stretched into a lifetime. The universe has the courtesy of slowing down time and expanding space when death is within reach.

No damage, and plenty of humility.

After resolving the shock, the day proved to be informed by the powerful moment within the moment.

Somehow, a moment that was inches away from disaster was avoided. How? By gripping, holding on to something so tightly. I could swear that it was Sarah’s presence on the bike that got me holding from a deeper place, a silence within, that had me glued with ease and relaxation.

Unscaved, we went on with our day, spending most of it on a Motorbike, and really relaxing into the involvement that an open-air vehicle provides. A car driver is so disconnected from the road in relation to a motorbike driver, on the motorbike your part of the action, in a sheltered vehicle the option of presence is just that, like a family night in front of the television one can opt in and out of the goings on. On a motor bike in Bali, stay aware, Hati Hati (Balinese term on road signs for ‘caution’) because at any moment a dog may shoot out into traffic, a hole in the road might demand a last second swerve, or a 12 year old kid with more motor bike experience then you, might graze your ride with an ear to ear smile, within the ordered-chaos a constant extension of the practice that the lifestyle here makes possible.

The day was rich, full of meetings that took us beyond the Forest of Ubud through the freeways, and exhaust of polluting cars, back into the freshness of beach towns. From the amazing Constance of tribal temples, that act as homes, to the insidious reality of western superficiality that paints logos across people minds. A day with manifesting qualities that will flower in the silence of moments to come.

As the sun set, Sarah remained holding her thighs to my hips, hours on a motor bike can make you go nutty, but even though our asses numbed out and needed a lil’ mushing to feel again, we both relaxed deeply into the depth of conversation that was possible on a cross island trip. I needed to hit up a bathroom, and started feeling a tad lost; the day was full of maps. I randomly stopped off at a building that seemed lifeless, there was a spark of spirit, a guitar playing Balinese man, who reminded me of Lawrence P, enough reason to stop, as I left Sarah with the official map duties, I sauntered off to search for a toilet, walked up the back stairs of what first seemed to be a restaurant, only to have a rush of silence wash over me.
I had stepped into an art space that was full, at least 30, maybe 50, maybe more, Mandalas.

An art form that in the past I’ve had little experience with, none really other then when Patrick Creelman, my Karmic Brother, and one of the first men that allowed me to dream the dream of a male stepping into the role of Yoga teacher; he placed a large mandala ceremoniously above the Puja for our teacher training, in the summer of 2007.

But now I’ve been shown the light, the same way my mom and I once saw the amazing transformation of our awareness, by me getting my motorcycle license back in 2005, motorbikes were deeply imbedded in our conciseness, and everywhere we would look we would notice them. Since Sarah came into my life Mandalas have become ubiquitous, not only because she has two tattooed on her back, but it’s her language and when someone comes into your life with a message, the message tends to reveal itself by illuminating not the words as much as the silence that words soak in.

There’s a wealth in the Sanskrit term Sundi- meaning the space between, giving life to the seemingly empty.

Like a kid, or a Man, I returned, took over the Mapping duties, and knew that Sarah was about to meet her soul mate, all I could do was give my discovery away, step aside and let life unfold, I gave her time, knowing the language she was about to drench herself in was beyond alien to me. Me and the map, her and her life’s purpose over and over and over again.
I figured out the way to the Gaya Fusion Gallery where my friend Made Surya works, (I call him my brother from another mother-land, a local Balinese artist, and fast friend, that Daphne Tse introduced me to) then headed back to experience the spotlite art work that Sarah had lost herself in.

a Ordered-Chaos Mandala

This amazing trip has made things obvious to me, clear, and without options; within no options, many options do exist. The next step in my life has been unveiled. The discovery came in the silence, silence has been searching for me, destiny if you will, it can’t be avoided it will happen, it just will.

A small crisply tanned Balinese man softly stumbled out of his living quarters to show us his life’s work, with a smile that made my heart melt, and could have brought me to my knees as a student, he was inherently wise, explaining how his one trip to Los Angeles (Sarah’s home), made it obvious that his home was paradise on earth, even though he had no way of knowing prior to leaving the island.

He dropped wisdom in one comment that rode through my veins, commenting on the creation of his work “it all is born from a small seed, that seed is silence, I try to make the world a more silent place”, “ahhhhhhhha” I was relaxed in and inspired to live every moment in that frame of mind.

A day later, after having lunch and introducing Yoga to Wayan the medicine women Elizabeth Gilbert writes about in Eat, Pray, Love, I Walked over to a highly anticipated date with one of my favourite people in the World Cat Kabira. (A women way ahead of her time, we connected with a special dose of energy in May of this year during Ana Forrest’s advanced teacher training program in Rhode Island, Cat has an amazing story, and a solid Forrest Yoga DVD, contact me to buy one) Cat has a big part in Freedom Yoga, her ability to see into the spirit of an individual is magical, and back in May she made it clear to me that my creativity was not being harnessed in a productive way. She read my palms as if she was reading ancient scriptures that she had studied for lifetimes, knowing Cat, I know she has.

Even though Freedom Yoga has attracted a great amount of resistance from many people, including myself, it lives with purpose, and if for other no reason then for me to dance with adversity of creating something and sharing my depth with the world. That is more then enough.

This time Cat simplified her read on me, with five months of development behind us “listen to your body” was the advice, “listen to the stillness, and allow what is already decided to be informed by how you feel now.” As I held my hands in a high ten fashion she read “don’t settle” her gaze then lifted from my hands, pulled into an eye lock with me, dissolving her tender, wit, and as she does so often with me in the midst of core work she went from friend and contemporary to medicine woman, her determined tone vibrated deep into my being “promise me, you won’t settle”, “I won’t”. She is superhuman in many ways, yet she is only two months older then me and a human being with love as her dance partner, finding ways to allow her love and truth align, so very human, this wizard is.

I’m mid-air of this amazing journey.

Bali has re-introduced me to my true self, the stillness that a half a decade ago took MDMA and Eckhart Tolle’s ‘Power of Now’ to locate, now was attained by ‘being’ on an island with a culture of acceptance.

This morning prior to leaving for the airport, sitting on the toilet, while Sarah was four feet away in the shower, I was struck with an obvious truth, so I shared it with her. “ Obviously our connection has been moments of yes. Yes we are soul mates, Yes we found each other, Yes it’s magical, and at the same time obviously, we are finding ourselves needing space, questioning why we have invested all this time in each other. It is exactly where we are in our lives, we are not only mirroring each other, we are mirroring our own lives within this relationship, neither of us know where life is taking us, neither of us have any idea what lies ahead, all we do know by looking at the other, is that the other one of us has so much to offer the world, and it’s going to be big, it’s going to be special, and it’s going to take practice. We are exactly where we are supposed to be, with no idea where this road leads, only a clear path of a small showing of what lies immediately ahead.

For Sarah, her Bali trip was extended, from just over two weeks to close to three months, and potentials of growth in all directions that had a sweet incubation period.

As for Me, I’m in the meaningful intermission of this 5-week play, the Sundi, the space between. The stillness locked in, a return to another Island, Hong Kong, for under 24 hours, to perform with my friends at Gecko Lounge , then the awaited return to the third Island of this adventure Manhattan. Only willingness set as an intention, and the ability to listen to the silence within, will turn the page to the crystallizing story of my first year in my 30’s, into the rest of my life.

The Freedom Yoga Project, means more to me as a Blog, or as a Band of Musicians, but the seed came watching elderly Hong Kong women dance on a sunny Tuesday morning walk in late March, that I never would have went on had my heart not been broken.
Thank you.

For all of you have been my bridge to GOD.

This is the leap into the water; see you on the other side.

Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.

Blog - Undefining Moment (tm)

When I woke up on the 11th day of my Bali adventure, I got up real fast, I was well rested, even though my sleeping hours were under 6. I did a Kundalini yoga class, and it felt F’n amazing, my veins were bursting with Shakti, a creative flow, I knew that things were changing in my life, AGAIN!!

The moment I woke I was acutely aware of the difference in the way I experienced the world, subtle, but distinct. I was seeing the pulse in everything, the complete rise and fall and this rise and fall was something that I am not only aware of but actively teach. I am seeing and feeling the pulse in my belly, in my veins, and I let the amazement barely affect me when I saw it in the Balinese jungle that I have been waking to for now almost two weeks.

Then I saw Sarah, a talented body worker from LA who just recently arrived at here at this amazing artists compound; her heart was palpating just to the left of her sternum, like a animated cartoon character, who had been stricken with love. I could see her organ begging to express beyond its vessel, in layers, rising forward from the center, then making a staircase down to her chest, a sacred mandala . I was no doubt amazed, and started questioning my eyes. Linking sight to vision and feeding the brain, I was wondering if I was lost in the Balinese daze, or maybe just yet again falling for the vision of a goddess in my presence.

the freedom yoga project

When we both entered the space for the yoga practice, I eagerly got on the mat, as if it would protect me from myself as a shield it has displayed in my life many times before. As I sat I refused to glance at Sarah, in fear that I would be locked in a gaze with what was building by her cleavage. So I sat and stared straight ahead and buzzed. The teacher, from Spain, was explaining how her name, which I missed, was a gift that a friend dreamed up for her. I don’t remember it, but it is an exotic sounding name starting with the letter A, and it means a musical instrument I’ve never heard of.

She was however listening attentively and I thankfully took that at a chance to look at her. Her curly locks resembled that of many a girl I grew up around. Thick tight curls, brunette ringlets that hung throughout her head like a Hasidic Jewish man’s Peyos would. Her hair had life, it had a pulse, and my mind took the dance with the pulse of both the terror and the excitement of such an intense perspective of the world. Pulsing hearts, typhoon-like curls. Both as an escape and a grounding mechanism as I was shocked and mesmerized at the sights I was seeing in my minds eye, I closed my eyes.

We see better with our eyes closed. What I saw was a completeness that brought me back to the single time it has touched me: my days of experimentation back in 2005, when I was spending time with the wrong people at the right time. People that were unconsciously exploring their consciousness, through a curiosity in social lubricants. About two years later I became part of a yoga community in Vancouver that was, and still is consciously experimenting with the expansion of their consciousness by stepping through doors that are only unlocked by either nature’s gifts, or scientific design based on nature’s capability.

Today there was only assistance from mother nature herself. I’m in Ubud, and the spirit tends to expedite in an environment like this. Funny how in a place like Hong Kong where everything is expedited, the soul sacrifices her transformation process, to clear the path for an expedited way to Mt. Money. Whereas in this paradise, Mt. Money is already there. Maybe not in the wallet, yet in a way that transcends the physical tangibility of the monetary value. The path up to the top of Mt. Money actually goes beyond the house in which the stereotype Hong Konger has positioned himself; it’s a shift in perspectives: in a way that would place the common Hong Konger’s identity in a half way house, it’s just not that important, the poor are rich here, because the entire world is so obviously connected to the mother, the earth, the dirt.

The pulse that I am describing can never be fully explained to you, yet you know it. It is occurring in your heart as we speak, and that’s on the more superficial level, but that same pulse is happening deep within every part of you and everything that exists on subtler levels.



I’m spending my post lunch afternoon at the local spot, Kafe, a restaurant that offers western cuisine at affordable prices, ranging from beef burgers to raw vegan cuisine (a lot of which is designed by a Goddess chef Goddess chef Leah, killer raw chocolate), and it’s all good. I choose an outdoor comfy couch setting so I can order a coffee and spark up a Clove cigarette. I’m not a tobacco smoker, but "when in Rome, do what the Romans do". It’s a chemical experimentation I’ve become quite fond of on this trip, the jacked up nature of the gourmet coffee, brings me to a sharp awareness, raising my fire/pita level, bringing my inner heat to the surface of my being, the Clove, tends to make me flow, a light-headedness, which gets me both into my breath (albeit not in the healthiest of ways) as well as into my body. This combination is completed with the marriage of story telling devices. The words of Anthony Kedis pulsate off the page of the 'Red Hot Chilli Peppers' lead singer’s autobiography Scar Tissue , while the rhythm of ‘Helios’ beats travel out my earphones through my eardrums resting in an amalgamation with images that the book conjures up in my impressionable mind.

I’m 30 and bowing down to the psyche gods, my brain is impressionable still. I want to learn, and through my yoga practice have become acutely aware that I am a learning machine, in fact the process of yoga makes it obvious. When we do something with care and awareness it will sink in to our cellular memory and our cognitive filing cabinet; add an emotional texture to it, and the learning process is attainable with patience.

I am doing so within the lessons of the pulse of life, many yogi’s have guru’s, teachers and mentors, I’m not one of those yogi’s. I have a pulse that beats experience through me and breathes me through life. I have an understanding that deep within my being there is a guidance, and that guidance has a voice which I can heed the call of, if I’m at the right place to listen to it’s clarity. That is my practice: to connect to the pulsation, of my soul, everything else is out the door.

I’m in process of un-defining every bit of me, because the flux that is my calling has no shape except in the present moment. If you take a picture of it, it’s obsolete, I’m not a yoga teacher, nor a writer, not an artist, nor a poet, not a Jew, nor a smoker, I’m none of these things, because in any given moment I am any and /or all of them, and guess what? so are you.

The paradigm shift is here, your path to Mt. Money starts with the step into the freedom of ordered-chaos, and find the complete freedom of un-defining yourself, your practice, your very is-ness. Eventually as you lay on your death bed and gasp the final earth breath, you will complete your life by an un-defining moment. Why wait, expedite towards the inevitable, and discover the layers beneath the skin, beneath the western idea of who we are, and touch your energetic center, your essence, I dare you, and implore you, I love you, and am you, So let’s.

We will rock we will roll, when the yogi’s take control.
Global Mala 2009 ignites this weekend!! Rise Up!!
I'll be there as a poet, to the Yogic tunes....BALI Pulsate to the rhyme.

GoBee Free

editor-Rani Kamaruddin

Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.

Freedom Player
-Sarah A. Green

The Freedom Yoga Project Blog-8-You can’t stop destiny

You can’t stop destiny; something that is supposed to happen will occur, it just will.

Now that doesn’t mean that we have no choice in our lives, to the contrary, we have plenty of choices. The choice comes within our destiny, within the shape that our life was meant to take. I believe that what is meant to be, will be, even if our choices are incongruent. Lovers will meet, even if it’s only in the graveyard burial side by side.

It is a practice to continually make choices, and this assortment of directions that we are blessed with is based on our capacity to imagine. The more we can perceive the more we can conceive, and the more we can layer existing perceptions. The mash up creates a brand new cuisine.

smiles all around

When I was growing up my non-artistic dad got creative with what he connected with most, his food. He loves all food, he would get the leftovers, whatever they were that day, and slice up some wieners, glob in some ketchup and mayo, throw in an egg, and voila the Russian heritage allowed for a westernized version of a midday snack – in his Russian accent he’d call it “Meesh –Maaash” - Mish-Mash.

My friend Daphne, here in Bali, loves to use the word “visualize”. This process and our ability to plug into it as a practice is where our creativity lies, completely. Our ability to establish the visibility of an idea provides the possibility for it to manifest into reality. But before reality is bestowed upon any idea, the possibility to mold it, change it, fuse it, test it and taste it, is a freeing process. It is giving it a chance to organically evolve.

That’s where it all originates: an idea. Ideas are rich and so the creation of an idea is the beginning of wealth. Real circumstances (or boundaries) already in existence may be perceived to condition the process of our creation, but in fact they are a way the world collaborates in our creation process. The creation progresses with any choice you consciously make: instead of working under the conditions, work with those conditions, particularly when “idea” meets “reality”.

Whether it’s in finding your way into a yoga pose, writing a song, or making things work in a relationship, the ideas of how it should be like are naturally confronted with the boundaries of reality (e.g. a tight muscles, writers block, different needs or world views). When we feel confrontation, our natural reaction is to withdraw from it, but what if we realize that in fact, we are now presented with the chance to mold the idea? Instead of reacting to a confrontation, how about confronting your reaction itself?

We must test the boundaries, and I promise the boundaries will test you in return; it is a wonderful dance, that is uncomfortable because it’s confrontational, but if avoided, it’s a sad existence.

It's struggle of letting go of the struggle before you find the route into a pose; it’s the frenetic hair pulling that brings the shadows of your inner world to the the surface in the lyrics of the ultimate poem; it’s the dropping of the need to be right at all times which will break down the tension to finally plug in that one missing piece, which makes friends of enemies and torrid lovers of stale companions.

As poet Charles Bukowski puts it best: “if there is a spark that still lives, then a fire can burn again.”

The Mish-Mash: musicians have been doing it. In the 80’s kid’s taped songs from their favorite artists, compiled them and made personalized playlists, it did so well that today the top selling albums are compilations and on top of that, iTunes has made it possible to make your own mix tape by buying one song at a time.

The Mish-Mash: yogi’s are doing it, too. Ashtanga is so popular that schools have meshed with the variations they are teaching. We are in an age today, where things have shifted, we have such a wide array of practices available to us today, that a mish and mesh of all styles with vinyasa has become inevitable; and why not?

the Hip to the Hop set up

We say yoga is life, many comfortably say everything is yoga, I agree, if the intention is yogic, like Chandni said to me washing dishes is her yoga practice. Who I am on the mat is who I am in the world but the equation should work both ways; who I am in the world, is who I am on my mat. If we practice on the mat to make our lives more conscious, then why shouldn’t we practice our life in such a way to make our mat time more conscious? It works both ways. When the worlds collide they become one. The practice deepens to a place where it doesn’t start or end, it just is.

That’s the theory; the practice is to flow in the Mish-Mash of presence, on and off the mat. And the yogi steps into a place, where the only distinction between them and a non-yogi, isn’t the physical movement itself but the way the yogi breathes life into his ideas and his intentions that then becomes the personification the expression of a lifestyle that crosses conditions and predefined boundaries the Freedom Yoga movement.

The challenge of describing the Freedom Yoga Project as a system that has definable elements, has exposed the deep truth, that this is a constantly evolving artistic experimentation, which can only be authentic, if its elements are in a continual flux.

For me this means a constant presence, simply the ability to exist in this very moment. The eight limbs of Ashtanga yoga don’t need to be approached in a climb from one to eight, simply be all eight and any others you can perceive NOW. Mold them into one experience, a Mish Mash. The lifestyle has a name, she’s called Grace. Grace is a state of not thinking, but fully doing.

editor-Rani Kamaruddin

Copyright © Lawrence-Jacob Milman, 2009. All rights reserved. The reproduction or transmission of all or part of the work, whether by photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means or otherwise, without the written permission of the owner, is prohibited. Any unauthorised use or act in relation to the work appearing on this website will result in both civil and criminal liability.