Ashtanga Yoga Shala

05/09/2026

There are times when the world feels deeply unsettled.

And such times can remind us just how fragile human life is.

Bodies can be injured. They become ill. They age. They die.

The mind, too, can be deeply affected by what happens around us. It can become frightened, angry, grief-stricken, anxious or overwhelmed.

Yet within the yoga tradition there is an extraordinary distinction:
The state of the mind is not the state of the Self.

The body may be wounded, but the Self is not wounded.

The mind may be disturbed, but what we fundamentally are is not disturbed.

Body and mind both belong to prakruti - to the realm of change. Even a clear and steady mind remains part of this changing field. It does not thereby become the Self.

An ancient yoga text, significantly set on a battlefield, puts this rather beautifully: the Self cannot be cut by weapons, burned by fire, wetted by water or dried by the wind.

This is not a suggestion that pain, grief or fear are unreal. Love, grief, illness, separation and loss belong to the reality of embodied human life.

But we become so accustomed to saying I am angry, I am afraid, I am overwhelmed that we rarely stop to consider what that “I” actually is.

And perhaps this is where the teaching becomes both difficult and profound.

We have become so accustomed to understanding ourselves — and one another — through body, thought, emotion, personality, history and circumstance that these can come to seem like the whole of what a person is.

When circumstances change suddenly, or when a familiar physical presence is no longer there, it can seem that something fundamental has been changed or even lost.
But what changes, and even what passes away, does not exhaust what we fundamentally are.

We can become so completely absorbed in the movements of life — attracted by some, frightened by others, resisting, pursuing, remembering, anticipating — that we lose sight of this distinction.
And when the world feels particularly unsettled, perhaps there is some comfort — and something much more than comfort — in remembering:

Not everything that happens to us or within us
happens to, nor exhausts, what we fundamentally are.

28/08/2026

The news emerging from Nepal and the Himalayan border region is devastating.

So many lives have been lost, many people remain missing, and countless families and communities are waiting anxiously for news of those they love.

Among those unaccounted for are pilgrims returning from Kailash, including members of the Isha Yoga Foundation pilgrimage groups and a number of Australians, and so many other countries.

My thoughts and heartfelt condolences are with the people of Nepal and Tibet, with all those who have lost family and friends, and with those still waiting and hoping for news.

At times like this, words such as our thoughts and prayers are with them can seem terribly small. Perhaps they are, if that is where they end.

But to stop, even briefly, and allow the suffering of people we have never met to enter our awareness is not nothing. It reminds us that beneath all the differences of country, culture and circumstance, human life is extraordinarily precious - and extraordinarily vulnerable.

Perhaps that awareness can deepen the care with which we meet one another and make us a little more grateful for those who are here today. A little more ready to help where help is possible

Compassion is something we feel, but wherever possible it is also something we do.

Ashtanga Yoga Shala will be making a donation towards relief efforts in Nepal. I mention this not to draw attention to the giving, but because some of you may also feel moved to help. Even from a long way away, there are practical ways in which our concern can become support.

Prayer and good wishes have their place. So too does a meal, clean water, shelter, medicine, a blanket, or a helping hand.

May those who have died find peace.

May those who grieve be held by the care of others.

May those still missing be found.

And may the suffering we encounter not simply pass before our eyes, but awaken compassion — and may compassion find its way into action.

08/08/2026

Whether the asana is simple or demanding, the question remains the same.

Can you breathe? Can you observe? Can you remain calm?

If not, the posture is still teaching you.

Someone watching from the outside sees a shape.
From the inside, the experience is very different: breath, attention, balance, observation.

The posture itself may be demanding, yet the face remains calm, the breath deep and steady, and the gaze quiet and unwavering.

This is one expression of sthira sukham asanam. The posture reveals where steadiness and ease are lacking, while gradually cultivating both.

Ultimately, an asana isn't measured by the complexity of its shape, but by the steadiness, ease and awareness it gradually cultivates.

Perhaps the real posture is not the one others see, but the one taking shape within us. Every asana leaves something behind. The question is: what is your practice cultivating?

Brisbane's Home of Ashtanga Yoga.

05/08/2026

Independent testing in the US has revealed that 48 out of 54 Avocado oil labelled products tested were compositionally inconsistent with authentic Avocado oil.

In Australia, the recent ABC/Four Corners investigation reported that independent forensic isotope and trace-element testing by ‘Source Certain’ concluded that several tomato products by famous brands did not match their labelled country of origin, with claims that some sources may indeed involve forced labour.

Dishonesty in the marketplace is not surprising. It is simply another expression of the same forces that each practitioner discovers within themselves. The afflictions are not “out there”; they are universal tendencies, and it’s the purpose of yoga to both reveal them, then weaken and then eventually transform them.

The marketplace inevitably reflects something of the people who create it. When greed predominates, adulteration follows. When integrity predominates, quality follows. Yoga may not eliminate the need for regulation, but it can cultivate the kind of character that requires less regulation.

These afflictions and the tendencies they produce do not suddenly disappear because someone becomes a business owner, a politician, or a yoga practitioner. They simply find different ways of expressing themselves.
Yoga is not an escape from ordinary life.

A person may perform stunning asana every morning, but the real test appears throughout the day - in conversations, financial dealings, business decisions, and promises made to others. The Yamas become remarkably practical there.

Yoga practice does not require us to carry the burden of correcting the whole world. It provides the inner reckoning and insight to become one less source of confusion, one less source of harm, one more person whose words can be trusted. That may seem modest, but every trustworthy transaction, every honest label, every fair dealing strengthens the fabric of society.

That, to me, is one of yoga’s untapped contributions to society. It is not only about how we breathe, move, stand or meditate. It gradually finds expression in the way we speak, make decisions, conduct our work, and respond when no one else is watching.

Best,
Richard

28/07/2026

The full moon (Purnima) of the lunar month of Ashadha approaches. Guru Purnima is almost upon us.

Tradition holds that the great sage Bhagavan Vedavyasa was born on this day.

Salutations to you, Vyasa of vast intellect and lotus-like eyes. By you the lamp of wisdom, filled with the oil of the Mahabharata, has been lit for the benefit of the world.

May the soft light of the full moon awaken something within us. May the “guru-tattva” reveal itself.

It has been said that guru-tattva is "power, not a person." Maybe there is something valuable in that observation, yet I wonder whether the english word power quite evokes what is intended. To many ears it suggests force, control, influence, achievement, or extraordinary abilities. None of these naturally reflects the soft glowing atmosphere of Guru Purnima, and they can even feed the very tendencies that the guru is meant to soften.

Perhaps guru points to something more subtle: the mysterious capacity of truth to reveal itself through a teacher, a teaching, or even life itself.

Guru is not merely a person, but neither is guru merely a power. Guru is that illuminating presence through which truth becomes difficult to ignore. The guru-tattva is the principle of illumination that gently loosens the hold of ignorance and turns the heart toward what is real.

Guru Purnima invites reverence, gratitude, receptivity, humility, and the willingness to be transformed.

Remain alert.

It may be closer than you think.

23/07/2026

Yoga

Some words are learned. Others are practised.

There are words we can define, and there are words whose meaning gradually unfolds through experience. Yoga is one of those words.

For millennia, seekers have returned to this word. Not because it yields its meaning quickly, but because it does not. The deeper the practice, the more the word begins to find expression in every facet of life.

Yet deeper need not suggest a deeply buckled backbend. Rather, what first appears simple gradually reveals layers that cannot be grasped all at once.

Not because the word has changed, but because the one approaching it has.

One word.

Layers of meaning.

Endless discovery.

Many doorways.

A lifetime of practice.

Yoga endures because it addresses questions that never seem to lose their relevance. It invites a deeper enquiry into the nature of life and of ourselves. It is concerned not only with how we live, but with who we are. Its enquiry is never exhausted.

One word.
and it's still unfolding.

Best,
Richard

30/06/2026

I spend a lot of time in class talks covering the nature and purpose of yoga. Modern definitions frequently begin with the individual: "Yoga is whatever it means to you." I have had this stated out loud to me in a class, and from a new student who entered the room late, while I posed a question to the class, the preamble of which she had completely missed. So much for class etiquette.

Everyone has precious opinions, but none of the yoga traditions say, "simply affirm whatever you presently experience." They recognise that our ordinary experience is conditioned by habit, attachment, and misidentification, and that these require careful examination, rather than simple affirmation.

Yoga ultimately points beyond self-improvement. It is not merely about becoming a better version of the person we imagine ourselves to be; it is about seeing clearly through that imagined identity.

Many years ago, someone gave me a tiny picture frame, scarcely larger than a twenty-cent piece. It sits quietly on a shelf behind my bed. I rarely notice it, but every year or two I pick it up and read the words engraved around its edge:
"I bend above the moving stream and see myself in my own dream."

Those few words have stayed with me for years because they capture something profound. Much of what we take ourselves to be is a reflection, a story, an image continually reinforced by the mind. Yoga invites us to look beyond the reflection, not to reject ourselves, but to discover that which is present before the story begins.

Brisbane's Home of Ashtanga Yoga.

02/06/2026

From Four Notes to Infinity

Beethoven, Deep Purple, and the hidden depth of yoga practice
What can Smoke on the Water teach us about sadhana?
Recently I heard Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple speaking about how the famous Smoke on the Water riff was inspired, in part, by Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It wasn't copied, but inverted, reinterpreted, and reimagined.

Beethoven's Fifth begins with one of the most recognisable motifs in musical history:

da da da DAA

From that tiny musical idea, Beethoven unfolds an entire emotional universe.

One of the great lessons of art is that depth does not always arise from complexity.

Smoke on the Water: with a classic opening riff: slow, spacious, elemental …… a looming presence – reveals how structured discipline, motif, repetition, and development find their way from something simple into something timeless. These motifs endure - not because they are complicated, but because they are archetypal.

This is remarkably close to the logic of yoga practice. A conscious breath, a repeated vinyasa, one drishti, one mantra, even one posture repeated daily. At first, these may seem basic. But with time, attention, and sincerity, they begin to reveal layers.
Many modern systems train the mind toward novelty: more stimulation, more techniques, more experiences, more complexity. Traditional practice often moves in the opposite direction. Simplification. Repetition. Refinement.

Not because the practice is limited, but because repetition reveals what a distracted mind cannot see.

Born from difficulty: Beethoven was confronting increasing deafness while composing the Fifth. Smoke on the Water emerged from chaos - the fire at the Montreux Casino during a Frank Zappa concert in 1971. Both works, in different ways, arose through difficulty and limitation. And this too speaks to yoga.

Beethoven and Blackmore demonstrate something that yoga practitioners sometimes resist: that mastery is not accumulation but refinement. Practice is teaching us how to meet reality, not escape it. Beethoven could not control aging, bodily limitation, loss, or uncertainty. But he transformed his relationship with them.

The yogic path does not promise perpetual pleasure, endless comfort, or perfect circumstances. Rather it develops steadiness amidst change, clarity amidst confusion, refinement amidst limitation, and presence amidst suffering. And perhaps most importantly:
the ability to continue.

Musicologists often describe Beethoven's Fifth as a journey "through darkness into light." And this is why cinema has used that motif endlessly.

Those four notes instantly communicate: impending destiny, crisis, challenge, arrival of something unavoidable, and psychological intensity. The 5th Symphony for the yogis, might embody – tapas, perseverance, confrontation with duhkha, and transformation through disciplined expression.

The great traditions understand something that modern culture often forgets:
Profound things tend to begin as small things.
A seed contains a forest. A single vinyasa contains an entire practice. A simple motif can unfold into a symphony.

The question is not whether depth is present, but whether we stay with something long enough to discover it.

From four notes, an entire universe unfolds.

08/05/2026

Beautify your practice. Paint yourself with flowers, but not for display.

Let the form be touched carefully. Neither forced, nor taken.
Hold the asana as you would a flower - not with force, not without care.

Each asana has its own request - of placement, of breath, of attention.

And…. like a flower, the asana does not respond well to a tight grip.

Like holding a flower - Too much effort distorts it.
Too little, and it drops.

So, right effort is learned, not assumed.
And even then - it passes.

Petals fall, sensations shift, and forms dissolve.

What remains is the capacity to stay present as it all changes, as it all drops away.

The flower reminds us that form is impermanent
No-thing is kept.

Still -
the practice continues.

- Richard

04/05/2026

There’s a difference between doing poses…
and being guided through a method.

Coming from Bharatanatyam into Ashtanga Yoga,
the traditions may differ -
but the need for precision, rhythm, and internal awareness is the same.

It’s meaningful to hear reflections like this -
especially from someone with real discipline and experience -
who can feel the difference between simply taking a yoga class
and actually entering a method.

Because when a practice has structure,
it becomes something you can build on…
not just something you pass through and leave behind.

And thanks too, to all of the yoga teachers who try to teach this way and respect the various systems of Yoga.

- Richard