First smell the roses

Human beings have a very high tolerance for pain and suffering.  Perhaps if she, the mental body became the emotional body for a day, she would change her ways-give up so much of her power.

In 1.17, Patanjali discusses the various types of cognitive absorption.  Remember from the last sutra, we learned that the highest form of knowledge is the knowledge that elimates suffering.  I mostly spend my time acting locally-meaning meditating myself, trying to practice, practice, practice.  I benefit greatly, of course but one day I just realized that the only way to make real change happen is to start by changing my own consciousness first. 

Did you ever have a friend that you loved and tried to talk him out of something?  Pretty hard to change someone else, isn’t it?  So, I try my darnest to “burn the citta-vritti” my citta-vritti (fluctuations of the mind), so that I can see more clearly and “be” more clear. 

I have been asked to help make changes in all different areas: global warming, child abuse, cancer.  I ty to support others toward their goals in this.  However, I have never felt this huge drive to take on a cause of any kind.  I used to hide that fact thinking that I “should” be actively “fighting” for something good!  One day it hit me like a ton of bricks.  The way human beings really “change” is when we clear out the “citta-vritti” -the fluctuations that make us mean, destructive, depressed, sick.  I can not make my friend do it but when I do it for myself, I make a change in the vibrational make-up of the collective mental body.  I am FOR all people seeking their own truth- and to some that is fighting a cause.  However, I believe that if everyone saw their true nature, there would be no fighting at all and the mental constructs of war, famine and sickness will cease to exist.  Those things will not have a chance when human consciousness does not mistaken itself as the mind.

Do you know that arcade game when you bang one of the heads down, another pops up.  This reminds me of war.  I know war is complex and I believe it is only so because the one in charge is the mind.  It is really quite simple.  Ask a child.  What is ‘right” a.) kill someone or b.) not kill someone.  Samadhi is quite simple.  It just is being in truth.  I feel like this is a downer post of sorts.  I stayed up late last night and watched Kite Runner and I have not fully recovered, really.  Ah, heck with it.  I know that the depth of human potential, love, compassion is so much greater then the depth of hate.  It is just that we as humans are taking so darn long to wake-up!  It is all in perfect order.  I am going out to rent that spelling bee movie Akheelah and the Bee (spelling?) that will help to equalize the movie heartburn!

 

Timing is everything

I have Spring Fever.  NIH Yoga Week and the Thrive ISHTA Yoga teacher Training has kept me and Dave very busy.  But there is something about Spring (I guess it is now summer!) that slows me down and has me carefree.  It came just in time. Pictures of Yoga Week coming soon!

Back to 1.16  commentary by Govindan…

By practicing yoga, the peace of mind grows.  We begin to gain some control over the desires and to cleanse the subconcious tendencies.  There is some detachment from the objects of desire, which were former sources of pain and pleasure.  But we are still subject to their memory and consequently we frequently fantasize.  At first, detachment requires effort.   

I love this next part….HOWEVER, WHEN WE PERMANENTLY REALIZE THE SELF, THE JOY AND PEACE IS SO FULFILLING THAT AUTOMATICALLY WE GAIN DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE NONSELF, AND WE LOSE THE DESIRE FOR THE INVOLVEMENT EVEN IN THE SUBCONSIOUS MOTIVATED DESIRES, MEMORIES AND FANTASIES.  THEY LOSE THEIR FORCE AND WITHER AWAY.

I used to believe that this was not attainable.  It went something like this.  I would practice and then coast awhile and not practice and then suffer, binge, drink, whatever.  Then I would get it…got to practice, Susan it somehow feels better.  I would practice and get back on track.  Over and over. 

Now, I have lost the desire for most things other then the self that I am when I meditate daily.  Being with my teacher, Alan Finger (www.ishtayoga.com) doing ordinary things like getting coffee has taught me one other important thing-more Tantric Philosophy-Being the true self is quite ordinary and fun and not mystical or superior.  Not guru-scary.  It is non-suffering.  No BIG mystery.  I don’t even have to leave Rockville to find it.  No mystical land or sacred place.  Havng a latte with Alan Finger or by myself, I am interested in just being free from the push and pulls of who I am when I don’t practice.

I think this just happens with time.  Practice and time.  I met many teachers just in time. I meet my teacher in meditation every time.  Timing is everything.

ISHTA Blog spot and Kudos to Dr. Levine

I found a great blog about ISHTA Yoga and the ISHTA Yoga system at http://ishtasystem.blogspot.com  Yogiraj, Alan Finger will be introducing ISHTA Yoga at Yoga Week.  Alan also leads the 200 hr Teacher Training Program at Thrive and we will be announcing a 300 hr Program shortly.  The New ISHTA Center in New York has just opened!  I was delighted to be at opening night with Seanne Corne, Alan, Sarah Platt and the ISHTA teachers.  If you are in New York, take a class and check out the Ayurveda Treatments-unique and hard to find in our area…uhm…that is an excellant idea, lets bring Dr. Manjula Paul to Maryland.  More about the treatments at http://ishtayoga.com

May 19-23 is NIH Yoga Week.  Dr. Rachel Levine has worked tirelessly to put together this event with very little staff.  Most events this size are called Conferences and have staff to organize it.  Rachel’s comittment to spread the word and benefits of yoga are extraordinary and Thrive Yoga is honored to be a sponsor.

 

It takes guts to watch the mind

In baseball very talented athletes need to “get more at bats” before entering the Major Leagues.  The “at bats” are not just about getting experience but about guts and watching.  Guts to know that even though your mind wants the next pitch, your self needs to stay steady and watch a few pitches.  Understand the pitcher, the balls trajectory, the game plan.  Some call that experience, I think it might be closer to meditation.  I have always loved baseball.

We will take a few posts to dive into 1.16. 

Tat Param Purusa Khyater Gunavaitrsnyam

When there is non-thirst for even the gunas (constituents of Nature) due to the realization of the Purusha (true Self), that is supreme non-attachment. (translation Satchidananda)

In the higher non-attachment, you don’t even think of attaching yourself.   Samadhi is such bliss that you have not even a speck of desire to attach yourself to those things that the mind remembers.  I sometimes pass on a margarita in a place of pure choice for clear mind.  Other times, I remember-(impressions or samskaras) the freedom that I had when I drank to relieve emotions-and I make the decision based on the samskaras.  I drink the maragaita.  Now, don’t misunderstand, this in not denial of pleasure in the present moment but instead a decision based on an attachment to pleasure that lives in the mind.  Should I chose the green drink freely, based on present moment clarity and nonattachment-then that choice is yogic.  The alcohol, in the drink-that is another sutra.  We are talking about choice, and the highest form of nonattachment here.  I really like the salty rimmed glass…..

 

Nonattachment might be far fetched

I believe myself to be a positive person.  In fact one time after a yoga session, I was struck by an overwhelming sense of the beauty and potential of humanity.  Sounds a little fluffy, I know.  I must tell you that I do not collect teddy bears and wear lace.  I was really struck by it.  Then I was saddened.  Perhaps by my own reality that ego is so strong and we live in the mind to the point of madness.  (See Eckhardt Tolle and Oprah, Monday nights www.oprah.com).

Sutra 1.15 drsdtanusravika-visaya-vitrsnasya vasikara-sanjna vairagyam

Translation from Bailey…Non-attachment is freedom from longing for all objects of desire, either earthly or traditional, either here or hereafter.

1.15 is just a definition but I am already ATTACHED to the how is this done?  Really “all” objects of desire?  I have over the years, through practice become less attached to just about everything.  Can one be less attached?  Is there a degree, a gray area?  OR are you either attached or non-attached? 

I have learned much about the “present moment” recently.  If there is only the “present moment” than YES, I can be non-attached in the present moment, can’t you?  One present moment at a time is not so far fetched.  In looking at the future of life or the past, it seems much more difficult.  Ah, to stay present, that is the practice of non-attachment, non-labeling, non-judgement, non-fear, non-blah, blah, blah.  Off I go to meditate…

Let go of my eggo

Ah, the hit commercials of the 70’s and 80’s.  Do you have any doubt how powerful TV is or how powerful the subconscious mind is, just complete this jingle, “Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce…”  Remember “let go of my eggo!”

Today we are ready to let go of our eggos…that would be egos in yoga.  I have been so excited to come home every night to read more of Eckhart Tolle’s new book that I can hardly stay present.  He would say to “stay present and forget about the future and reading the book that teaches you about staying present”  Oh, how we all start to sound like Dr. Seuss.  I can’t help but give it up for Dr. Seuss.  He was on to something.  A true yogi, teaching us to suspend ego-based reality and get silly and land in a world of nonsense. 

OH, before I forget, please post me a comment or two.  I know some of you are reading this blog and it would be more interesting if you shared your thoughts.  Some of you do this via email but pretty, please send me SOMETHING to post!  Yoga Dawg, you out there, buddy?

So, per Mr. Tolle, Pg 111 from A New Earth,  “…anger or resentment strengthen the ego enormously by increasing the sense of separateness, emphasizing the otherness of others and creating a seemingly unassailable fortresslike mental position of “rightness”.  If you were able to observe the physiological changes that take place inside your body when possessed by such negative states, how they adversely affect the functioning of the heart, the digestive and immune systems, and countless other bodily functions, it would become abundantly clear that such states are indeed pathological, are forms of suffering and not pleasure.”  From page 110, “Unhappiness is an ego-created mental-emotional disease that has reached epidemic proportions.”

Yogi’s have been teaching us to let go of our eggos long, long ago and Dr. Seuss has been teaching us to be silly because it is all made up anyway.  Mr. Tolle, explains that now is the time, the earth is waiting, evolution is inevitable. 

So, I am preparing…well not like my dear mother-in-law has me prepare with emergency water and crank flashlights.  I am so excited to practice yoga with all of you as we let go of our eggos and move on to the present moment where the this thing and that thing (form) is silly non reality.  I am also signed up for the Oprah and Tolle Monday night class (thank you Margaret for sending me the link!).  Join us go to www.oprah.com  An official 10-week free class on consciousness.  How cool it is to live in 2008.  Get on it folks, it is all evolving.  We are in the next level of existence starting 2012.   More on that topic another time or just google 2012 and get your feet wet.

On to the Sutra…I love the yogis…knew this so many thousands of years ago.  It takes some of us much longer to evolve.

Sutra 1.14 Sa tu dirgha kala nairantarya satkara-asevito dirdha bhumib

Translation, per Roach and McNally, You must cultivate your practice over an extended period of time, it must be steady, without gaps, and it must be done correctly-for then a firm foundation is laid.  Changing the mind, the heart is infinitely more difficult than anything else we do-more demanding than education or work or raising a family.  It takes time, and we need to give it that time for as long as it takes.

Mr. Roach, Ms. McNally meet Mr. Tolle.  He believes humankind has been going MENTAL and suffering and now is the time, NOW, we must practice and evolve or well, regress and become extinct.  I don’t know if “as long as it takes” was meant to mean this many thousand years.  The good news is that the greater the suffering, the greater the desire to become conscious.  The Sutras tell us that, the Buddhists tell us that, Jesus told us that.  Practice, practice, practice, each day practice being aware of your mental states and patterns and let go of that eggo and The Places We Will GO!

ISHTA Yoga Teacher Training and letting yourself be sold

This entry is mostly a sincere sales presentation for the Thrive ISHTA Teacher Training Program. 

Before starting Thrive Yoga, I spent 15 years in sales.  There are all kinds of selling.  You sell yourself  every time you speak an opinion, give advice, smile at someone.  Selling is a great verb.  Remember in the movie Jerry McGuire, “help me, help you”  I just love Cuba in that movie.  I loved selling.  Sometimes I was afraid to ask clients directly, are you buying this or not?  Most of the time I was not afraid, though.  No matter if I was selling to a very powerful CEO, I was standing in truth.  Are you in or are you out?  The rest usually falls into place.  

I always believed in what I sold and when I no longer believed, I switched what I was selling.  I saw people around me suffer because they either did not like what they were doing (not iving in truth) or they did not believe in what they were selling (talking truth) OR the biggy, they did not like the people that they were selling to (hard time allowing others to BE).  You can pick just about anything in life as the gameboard for the lessons of being present-of practice.  Sometimes it is your job others, a relationship.

One time I had a crazy CEO of a famous product that you likely know, throw something across the room because he was not happy with the news that I was delivering.  He became a very good friend of mine after that sale because in selling, the salesperson must ALLOW the buyer to BE.  I don’t mean to get all Dale Carnegie with you and I know that there are many advertisements with false products.  BUT when a truthful salesperson sells a truthful product to a buyer who seeks it from truth…it is the flow of life.

On to yoga…I now take payment from students for yoga practice.  I sell for a living.  We live in the West and I have a mortgage.  Students need practice more than a night in a restaurant so they pay to practice in a beautiful studio. Win-win.  Truth. 

Last June, I visited a man named Alan Finger in search for a Yoga Teacher Training Program that was authentic, truthful, and high quality for Thrive Yoga.  I just did not want to sell junk.  This March, we are offering the best service that I ever sold, the Thrive ISHTA Yoga Teacher Training.  

Yogiraj, Alan Finger has practiced yoga more than 40 years…people 40 years!  He founded ISHTA Yoga which stands for the Integrated Science of Hatha Yoga, Tantra and Ayurveda.  He is funny, he is present, his team of teachers are so very knowledgeable.  Mostly, I now know that I have met a yogi.  (not a Bogi-see a previous post on Bogis) In my short history with Alan Finger and his teachers, I have learned that Samadhi is possible. You can read more about his story at www.ishtayoga.com and more about the teacher training at www.http://www.thriveyoga.com/workshops/teacher-training.htm  The Teacher Training Program will teach you to be your own teacher, to understand your energy, guide you to peace more often then pain (Samadhi) and transform and evolve your body, mind and spirit.  Truth-seekers apply!

If you are experiencing a draw toward yoga and don’t know why, you are likely awakening to a newer consciousness-a Teacher Training Program is an immersion of yoga to expand your awakening.  This is not religous.  Are you experiencing peace more than pain?  Yoga practice leads to peace.

If you know why you are drawn to yoga and have lots of reasons why you can’t do the training, “help me, help you”, choose: “are you in or out”, the rest will fall into place.  Either way, it falls into place.

If you are a yoga teacher and seek depth in your own practice and in your teaching, read about the ISHTA system, www.ishtayoga.com and the Thrive ISHTA Yoga Teacher Training, and be true to your calling whether it is at Thrive or elsewhere.

ISHTA Yoga was also named in honor of this sutra:

SVADHYAYAD ISTADEVATA SAMPRAYOGAH
(Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Book 2, Sutra 44)

Translation from Shearer:  Refinement brings communion with the desired celestial being.

Translation from Jnaneshvara:  From self-study and reflection on sacred words, one attains contact, communion or concert with the underlying natural reality or force.

From the ISHTA Yoga website,

Recognizing the uniqueness of each practitioner, ISHTA yoga recognizes that every individual needs their own unique practice. ISHTA embraces a variety of elements from multiple styles and all eight limbs of yoga to help its students discover the practice that will best address their needs and free them to explore their fullest selves.

Peace to all…Namaste

The Way We Were

1.11anubhuta-visaya-asampramosah smrtih

Translation by Govindan

Memory is not letting an object experienced be carried away (from one’s consciousness).

We all get sentimental over special people that we remember in our lives.  That teacher that guided you or that special friend that made you laugh.  It is often the people that we remember people or events that were not so terrific too.  A sad goodbye or a betrayal.  Listen to an old song on the radio and watch the mind flush out the old memories.  If you have not been able to watch the mind in meditation, this is a great exercise because you will likely be able to watch all those memories flood in and out when you listen to an old love song or song from your past.  The mind is like the junk drawer sometimes.  It holds the soy sauce and the ticket to the concert.

Yoga involves cleansing one’s consciousness of subconscious impressions (samskaras) through detachment (vairagya) and living more consciously in the present.  Through detachment these desires and subconscious impressions lose their force.  Memory becomes more and more of the voluntary type.  Yoga helps to purify and increases awareness.  Asana, pranayama and meditation practice cleans the junk drawer.  You can freely chose to keep the concert ticket and throw away the sticky packet of soy sauce.

Back to Ordinary Days

I have been very intrigued with the book by Eckart Tolle, The Power of Now.  I can NOT put it down.  I recommend it for all of you seekers. 

1.10

abhava-pratyaya-alambana vrittir-nidra

The fluctuation of sleep is based on a belief in non-existence.

This sutra will not be the stand out sutra, will it?  Sleep at its climax turns away from everything except the one experience of nothingness.  After one awakes one remembers that one was conscious only of the “nothingness”.  (translation Govindan).

Many people are reporting an inability to sleep.  Perhaps we are turning away from nothingness or is it that ego-the mind-is begining to lose its power and tying to keep us busy.  I like to believe that we are opening to a new consciousness that is “Being” and that the establishment (mind dominance) is getting rattled.  READ  Tolle’s book!

http://www.eckharttolle.com/

Looking Back to go forward

This is the time of year to reflect and make new promises for a new year.  In practice, the body gives us so much information and inspiration.  When I hold a pose in a Hatha yoga practice, I sometimes reflect on how the pose has expanded.  I notice how much deeper I can go physically, how much more mental endurance I have and how the pose settles me when in the past in might have rattled me.  That is practice-to repeat and rediscover and be inspired to continue! 

During a period of reflection years ago, I decided to research Jesus.  There was something about the teachings that inspired me even though most of the scripture to me seemed “off”. While I do not practice a specific religion,  I was so inspired by the translations of the New Testament by Emmot Fox and by scholars on the Jesus Conference.  As a requirement for my Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga Certification www.baronbaptiste.com, I compared the teachings of Jesus to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  As I re-read this 4-page document (I can not believe that I actually tried to compare these texts in 4 pages), I see how my yoga practice has deepened and how my understanding of yoga philosophy has changed from just 2 years ago. 

I am inspired to go forward because in looking back, I realize that all those present moments past have made all the difference in a wonderful life.  I would love to hear your 2008 resolutions for your yoga practice or any reflections of your practice in 2007.

I have attached my original essay below.

 Samadhi and the Kingdom of Heaven

Profound teachings of Jesus Christ and The Path of a Yogi  

When I first planned this essay, I was so inspired to write about the similarities of The Sermon on the Mount  and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  As I highlighted text and re-read passages, it dawned on me that this is not an EASY project-perhaps a project for a graduate student in theology.  I was intoxicated by the beautiful teachings and how they overlap.  I was overjoyed knowing that when Jesus does not quite tell me how, that the Sutras can give me the instruction manual. 

 I felt overwhelm and excited so I met with my father-in-law who is the most loving minister I have ever met.  Since he went to Harvard Divinity School, surely he would be able to give me the condensed version of the teachings of Jesus!  Then I could scan the Sutras and make a nice little chart.  HA!  What I discovered is that interpreting spiritual text is a process and comparing spiritual text could take a lifetime of  practice. 

The following essay is selected verses of the teachings of Jesus and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda.  I have selected a few of my favorite verses-ones that I can practice and speak about in my teaching..

 Jesus taught so much in so few years.  He left the structure of a temple or religious order to teach about what resides inside of us.  If we look inside, we see what is already present, we see the light.  Perhaps he cured a real blind man or perhaps we are all blind sometimes and it takes the miracle of inward thought to see the light.  I have researched the factual life of Jesus Christ and it is astounding to me how inspiring his life was.  I searched out the factual life of Jesus so that I could be free of the mystic of miracles and instead I was inspired by the beauty of his teachings.  Did Jesus turn water into wine? Multiply fish or bread to feed the masses?  Perhaps not. Did Jesus teach prosperity, to challenge the negative thinking of lack? Did He teach us to nourish the body with food and truth?  Yes.  That is the message that inspires lives for centuries and inspires the path of yoga.

I find the Yoga Sutras to be a more detailed instruction manual for the individual to move toward Samadhi. However, the message of a peaceful mind, nonviolence, non-stealing, charity, etc is the same truth that Jesus believed and taught.  The similarities are uncanny.

In Sutra 2, Patanjali states.”(Book One Sutra 2.The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda).

  

The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.

 In the New Testament-Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. 

(Meek=openminded and earth=everything that is).

One striking difference between the Sutras and the teaching of Jesus is in emphasis.  Jesus emphasizes prayer, charity and service in broad terms. Jesus seems to be speaking more to the masses while the Yoga Sutras speaks more to the individual attainment of peace. The Yoga Sutras gives students so much detail, so many practice tips. Christ’s teaching, however are more inspiring prose-less of an instruction manual. 

In, practicing Hatha yoga, I have learned “as within, so without”.  Jesus teaches us that mental states are everything.

  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Jesus taught that to empty yourself (become poor in spirit) of desire to exercise personal self-will to renounce all ego and judgment in search for God, will led you to the Kingdom.  In today’s chaotic western world, it has become increasingly difficult to drop our pride in search for the Kingdom.  Yoga can bring more people to that search for truth and oneness.  As the Sutras explains, the habit of attachment is hard to break but practice, will lead to Samadhi and in fact, practice calming the modifications of the mind and by moving the physical body (following the eight limbs), we naturally find the oneness that always is. 

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted

 Trouble and suffering are extremely useful in motivating one toward truth.  The Yoga Sutras emphasizes the importance of experience and that philosophically understanding something is not yoga.  Everyone can relate to having mourned and in today’s world to being so full of stress that we are sick.  At these times, we have an opportunity, an opening to experience the truth at a deeper level.  The motivation to search for an answer or solution is mental, physical and immediate.  When new students walk in to my yoga studio to try a class, I often see it in their eyes.  Are they here to “stretch” their hamstrings or are they here to stretch their minds, hearts, souls.  Of course, many that want to “stretch” one part often discover the path of transformation, like an apostle who just stopped in to hear the new guy on the mountain.  Next thing they discover is that all paths led to the present moment of practice.   For those who are not mourning, a little stretch for the hamstrings does not keep them practicing.

Jesus and The Yoga Sutras stress over and over again that the key to spiritual growth and experience is “right thought”.  Jesus takes the time in his teachings to speak to those who have an understanding of the power of the mind.  The Yoga Sutras carefully detail the traps of negative mind and the rewards of “right thinking.  Both spiritual texts explain to us the necessity of practice.  They also tell us that ego, evil and/or negative mind is likely to creep up on us when we believe we have “arrived” at Samadhi. 

 

From Matthew V,

Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?  It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.  Ye are the light of the world.  A City that is set on an hill cannot hide.  Neither do Men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick: and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

Jesus is talking to those who have some understanding of good and evil, of material bondage and those who have some experience of Being in Oneness. He explains if we just sit in the beauty and neglect to practice goodness and wholeness in our daily lives, then knowing truth is worthless.  When we practice goodness and truth (off the mat), we shine like the light of the world!  How can anyone of anything outside of your being cause you to be imbalanced if you are in oneness?  If our light shines, that in and of itself heals and melts away darkness. 

From Book 2-Sadhana Pada; Sutra 22 (translated)

           

Although destroyed for him who has attained liberation, it (the seen)still exists for others, being common to them. 

Sutra 52

           

As its result, the veil over the inner Light is destroyed. 

The Sutras details conditions of body, mind and free will that allow our enlightenment and connection to God.  We still live in the world and the world has affliction, temptation.  It is up to us to stay in our beings in the face of outer conditions.  The Sutras teaches us methods to stay in being and uncover the light.  In Book Two, pranayama uncovers the veil of our inner light. 

Again, we are inspired by the poet prose of Jesus and are can count on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali to instruct us along the same path.  Yoga practice affords us a way via our vessel (body, mind) to unveil our light.

Jesus teaches the yamas and the niyamas in his most popular and well know verses.  Do unto others…love thy neighbor….turn the other cheek…but did Jesus speak of karma?  Jesus taught us to follow Him and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Would NOT following Him bring back to us what we put out?  I believe that there are messages of karma in His teaching.

 

From Matthew VI:

 Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.They kingdom come.  They will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.Give us this day our daily bread.And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you:But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 

Perhaps, Jesus means Heaven is a place of being where the truth just is and we are in the presence of that beauty after we have forgiven.  Jesus stresses the importance of forgiveness as a path to heaven.  If we do not forgive, we are not forgiven-as in the Law of Karma. 

Book 2; Sutra 12

 The womb of karmas (actions and reactions) has its root in these obstacles, and the karmas bring experiences in the seen (present) or in the unseen (future) births.

           

Book 2; Sutra 14

 The Karmas bear fruits of pleasure and pain caused by merit and demerit. 

For yoga students today, a useful lesson for leading a path toward Heaven or Samadhi, is to practice peeling away the layers of hardness and negative thought.  Use movement and breathe to inquire within.  Come to a place of forgiveness and allow the light and goodness to shine throughout the days of darkness.  Practice, practice, practice and when we become aware of what is possible in the ones-ness (God) that is, we practice, practice, practice.