Video Podcast #1: Intentions

Over the next several weeks, we will be publishing a series of short videos that discuss various aspects of the spiritual path. These videos are segments of an extended interview conducted by Jonas Elrod, co-director of “Wake Up”. This clip discusses the gap between our actions and intentions due to our blind spots and some of the ways we can bridge them.

If you cannot see the video player or file download links below, you may alternatively access and play the video on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AbdiAssadi

Or, you may access this video podcast episode via your iTunes application:

 Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (14.6MB)

Relationship as Yoga: Podcast #2

Relationship is the ultimate and most arduous yoga. If we understand yoga to mean union, then relationship is a direct path to that union. A truly intimate relationship can be a powerful vehicle for spiritual development. It can be a safe place where we learn about ourselves while we dig beneath our socially accepted masks and learn what makes us tick. And yet there is one word that best describes the response we all have toward intimate relationship: terror. In this workshop aspects and issues that keep us from entering into or fully engaging in relationships are examined.

This workshop was recorded on October 25, 2009 at the Downtown Yogaworks in NYC.
This is the second half (Episode 2, 1:03:04 running time, 29.5MB) of the two-hour workshop.

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 29.5MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_yogaworks_v1_episode2.mp3

Or, you may access this podcast episode via your iTunes application:

 Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:04 — 28.9MB)

Relationship As Yoga: Podcast #1

Relationship is the ultimate and most arduous yoga. If we understand yoga to mean union, then relationship is a direct path to that union. A truly intimate relationship can be a powerful vehicle for spiritual development. It can be a safe place where we learn about ourselves while we dig beneath our socially accepted masks and learn what makes us tick. And yet there is one word that best describes the response we all have toward intimate relationship: terror. In this workshop aspects and issues that keep us from entering into or fully engaging in relationships are examined.

This workshop was recorded on October 25, 2009 at the Downtown Yogaworks in NYC.
This is the first half (Episode 1, 1:04:58 running time, 30.5MB) of the two-hour workshop.

In email or via RSS, you may use the following link to access/download the podcast directly to your computer (warning: approximately 30.5MB): http://abdiassadi.com/podcasts/abdi_assadi_yogaworks_v1_episode1.mp3

Or, you may access this podcast episode via your iTunes application:

 Launch iTunes and Subscribe to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:58 — 29.7MB)

Letter from a sister on the path

I am posting a letter from a friend this time around. It is the most honest writing I have read in some time. And it points to an authentic place where true inner work can begin and take hold: our ego on its knees. Most else is posturing and hiding under the false guise of doing spiritual work.

A,

I was chanting today, and it has stirred up some interesting emotions as it always does. Chanting has a very clear way of cutting through to the heart, I guess that’s why I love it so much.. .

Any how, I have hit a very important wall…

A wall that for so long I thought I could “work away” or “fix away” or “diet away” or “fast away” or “Forum away” or “travel away” from, but I know that trying to fix something on the outside, hoping for a lasting shift on the inside, doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because I’ve tried it, I’ve pretty much tried every external way I know how to fix these feelings/to fix myself, except becoming a raging alcoholic or drug addict, which really isn’t any different from starving yourself, except for the fact that starving yourself seems to be in these days. And I’m over trying to get away from these feelings of inadequacy, fear and judgment, the ones that drive me to over compensate, and fill my plate, and over whelm myself with tasks in order to avoid going into the depths of these emotions. I want to look at them head on, no crutches…

To tell you the truth I am just so tired of trying to change my external reality hoping that it will shift the inner, and I know that “the next thing” is not going to be “the thing” to make that shift happen.. I see that the shift I am looking for will come from the inside, if it is to have a lasting impact it has to, and that is scary because I have to let go of my crutches, and I have to finally go to the place I sometimes write about but avoid going all the way…

I am ready to know my shadow, and I am ready to make friends with it and try and understand what/why I have been trying to get rid of it for so long. It is hard for me to reach out for help, because I am geared to do things alone, but I am ready, and I will do what ever it takes because that’s what I am here to do, to heal this shit. I want to go all the way into the wounds, I want to stop bandaging them up.

The dessert of the desert

The cool, dark and star studded sky gives way to primordial heat and dryness my ancestors knew well. In the middle of the Baja desert, the eye adjusts to infinite tones of browns; foreign and seemingly monotone only days ago. Starting a rapidly obsolete mode of transportation, I kick the red metal mule to life. The dirt bike’s carbs suck in liquid dinosaur bones and spit out heat and a staccato barking sound. As the bike vibrates through my body, I think of my grandmother’s stories about traveling by camel through the deserts of her homeland, leaving the safety of the caravan oasis to travel to another village. I feel the excitement she must have felt, first time leaving her village as I let out the clutch and bury the tires into the sand.

Many decades have gone by since I first heard of this sacred place and here I am basking in its cleansing fire. Amazing how the mind works, projecting itself out into time and space borne out of desire. A young boy’s burning desires in the form of a poster of a desert racer on a bedroom wall in one continent and time are experienced by a man in another. The vastness of this place enforces a sense of an utter smallness that the boy could not have grasped but is humbling to the man.

I say a prayer for my grandmother; all the hardships she endured for me to be here today; propelling pieces of her DNA across this baking landscape. The little boy that envisioned it screams out loud with joy in my heart. And now I stand on these here foot pegs digging deep into this delicious dessert, grateful for each mouthful of sand dust I am being served.