The Need

I’m reading a book at the moment called Simple Abundance by Sara Ban Breathnach. It’s a beautiful book, it has 366 simple messages for each day of the year, including the leap year. It’s inspiring and uplifting, and it has obviously touched the lives of millions of people (mostly women, it is written for women and has a pink cover) as it is still selling a decade after fist publishing. I have been reading sections of this book out loud in my class, reading the entry for that day. Guests seem to like it and are responding to the messages.

I started thinking about how many people I know who would find the book ridiculous. They would think it to be nothing but drivel, a mere stepping stone from gossip magazines and just as single minded. I know so many people would judge it as mush, who wouldn’t even read the back they would be so sure it to be a waste of their time.

But I find it special.

I know there is room enough in this world for everyone and their opinions, and I thinking about whether I am judging their judging, and if so, isn’t that exactly the same thing? If I appear to my own accord to be taking the higher ground – a path of self-enquiry, am I not still judging, as I am still supposing my way is better. Can I really accept that for some people, this more cynical and perhaps what I might judge as a path of denial is actually just as right and just as appropriate?

I find peace in the knowledge that there are others that share my same spiritual inclinations, longings and beliefs. I feel connections of energies with people and it further reassures me that my path is right and true. The universe unfolds and my kin and I watch it through the same rose-coloured glasses. But by that token, there is a tenfold mass that also see their perspective through their own unique tinted glass, and they too make up a substantial percentage of all the energies around.

Yet I never, for one single second, try to see life as they do. Instead I feel hard-done that those closest to me might laugh a suggestion that they read that book. Um.

I never doubt. I don’t know if I can. What if it is fear stopping me from trying? What if I am afraid of having TRUTH exposed, whatever the truth may be. That must be closing my mind? Meanwhile I perceive my mind to be open! Perhaps it is only into the particular spiritual doctrine that I know, that I resonate with, that I am comfortable.

So how can I really open? – I need to lose the fear. If I open fully, open to the suggestion that everything I know might be wrong and different and not as it appears. Even if the truth is that the naysayers are right, that we are no more than the sum of our atomic make up. Whether I am still standing on this side of the line, or if I cross over to theirs, don’t I still need to accept the possibilities of a truth I know not?

Something my Swami said to us at the Ashram in India comes to mind. Just because we are all experiencing the same thing, does not make it real.

Whether I am attached to my own laws of non-attachment, spiritual consciousness and open-minded enquiry, or whether I sit happily and assuredly in my life of duality, ignoring the hocus-pocus, hippy bullshit and focusing on mental intellect, history and fact, neither is necessarily correct, and not especially by the virtue that others share the same sentiment. Certainly not just because of that.

My head hurts because of this, this is a matter of the brain and the mind, and my beliefs, or so I have always imagined, have come from my heart and my gut. But maybe they were put there by my head, and maybe my head is also just as responsible for these ‘instincts’ of mine, as the high IQ of my atheist friends’ mind is for his conviction that God doesn’t exist.

Maybe the truth, is not found in any of those areas. Maybe the truth can only be known when it is experienced. And maybe it can only be experienced, when we let go of all our ideas of what is or isn’t out there, be it open-minded and some might argue ‘blind faith’ or having no faith at all.

What if the only way we can know the answers, and from those answers experience real peace, is by trusting, letting go and with eyes closed jump off that cliff and dive head first into the blind unknown.

A story comes to mind. It is the tale of the student who approaches his master teacher and tells him he needs to know the truth. The master takes the young boy out to the water’s edge and together they wade out to their waists. The master takes the boys head and pushes it under the water. At the first the boy is still, acquiescing to his master but after some seconds he starts to worry. As further time passes he starts to struggle against his masters strong grip and not before long he is kicking and flailing, and thrashing forcefully against his masters strength. Just when he is about to give up, his master pulls him out of the water and says ‘when you need the truth in just in the same way you needed that air, you come to me’.

Sow and you shall Reap

I started gardening the other day, I wanted to prepare a modest patch of ground to grow vegetables in. I had made half-hearted attempts before, never really getting stuck in, but this was to be my year. I was so excited, I did some research, decided what I wanted to grow, chatted to some friends who too were growing for the first time and we decided together that this was mightily the way to go!

I was told the best time to prepare the soil was in December, or even earlier before the ground froze. We didn’t have a cold winter this year, but November, December and January all came and went and still I hadn’t begun. Circumstances had meant that we had not spent those months in our home, we were away, spending the last precious time with a loved one at the end of his life.

February passed, and then finally March arrived. The air was warmer, the days longer and the hint that winter was almost gone was in the air. I arrived back to my home and the next day the sun was shining. I went out to my garden, with my shovel and fork, and marked out the area where I would grow. My job today was to dig up the area and remove as many stones as I could – you see this is really stony land and I would ultimately be using raised beds, the only way to grow in this terrain. However, the roots of some of my crops would grow deeper than the depth of my bed so it was in my interest to have the land as well tilled and cleared as I could.

As each dig of the shovel hit stone I began to realise the enormity of the job at hand. In my first square foot of digging I pull out a rock that was almost 2 feet in diameter and that I had to wedge out with my with body weight.

I know this is a massive task, I know it will take me a long time to complete my modest garden plot. I know there are times that I will want to give up, and that all my efforts might be futile as it will take me so long I might miss the window for this crop, or that. I know there are times I will ache from the work, and that in all probability I won’t remove all the stones. There are far more stones in mass than there is dense, nourished clay.

I also know that even though my little patch will be relatively clear, should I wish to expand, to grow further, there will also be more rock removal, more hard physical work to be done first.

Life is exactly like working this little patch of earth. It is a beautiful level playing field, ripe for bearing all the riches of the world. But before we can reap the rewards of our life, we have to unearth all the things that stop us from growing. These obstacles are not easy to remove and they require work, patience, kindness, diligence and love of what we are doing, in order to keep it up. Along the journey we will sometimes be faced with rocks bigger than we think we can handle, but with dedication and tenaciousness we can always find a way. We might put it off for a long time, some people might put it off until right into the summer of their lives. Sometimes we will want to give up and sometimes we will hurt. At times it will seem that it is easier to NOT grow, that the path of least resistance might be the one to stay on. But yet there we are, day after day, trying our best. We might not do this perfectly, and indeed we might miss opportunities along the way. But our rewards will be special to us, because it is we who have done all the work to reap them. Better still we can share them with others and we all get to feel the benefits together.

And yet, the deeper we go, the more rocks we encounter, the more tired we feel and the more bottomless the job becomes.

When we want to do more, branch out and grow ourselves even more, we will find we have to start all over – that there is an endless and unbounded minefield of obstacles to overcome because we are human, and just as the land has rocks, and all the land for as far as the eye can see has just the same rocks underneath, we all too carry the weight and burden that it is to be human. To feel. To love. To lose. To desire. To abandon. To loath. To hate. To envy. To hurt. But the difference is that some of us can recognise this, and we can pick up our shovel and our fork and we can go and do something about it, one little rock at a time. For somewhere along the way our efforts will allow a little space for life to grow, and where there is light, love and life will always grow.

The Early Morning Blues

I slept through a whole day once, a whole beautiful 24 hours that I didn’t experience other than in my dream state. I was young, around 19, and was studying in university. We had been up late both working on assignments and partying simultaneously, and early one morning I crashed before dawn and didn’t wake up until 2 calendar days later.

Now I get up before 6 every morning (or at least most mornings) to meditate and practice yoga. I used to be a night person, and now I am a morning person. When people enquire about my morning rituals, they are often compelled to share with me why these habits are perfectly beyond them as they are ‘a night person’ and therefore excluded from this far reached possibility.

I too believed this, and for the first year of trying to become otherwise I did nothing but continue to annoy my husband by my countless snooze-hitting. It’s amazing how my awake brain, the brain that sets the alarm, that makes the decision to get up and do good for myself, is a far removed personification from my cosy-sleep-enveloped morning brain who instructs me that under no circumstance am I to leave the warm comfort of my bed to conclude said morning rituals, and that absolutely – the next 40 to 90 minutes in bed are going to make my day FAR better than any amount of yoga or meditation could possibly achieve. Of course, this isn’t true, but morning brain wins this battle over and over and poor naive evening brain continues to set the alarm time and again in the hope that this brain, might some morning be the one to respond.


Why oh why is it so hard? Not only is the extra sleep going to mean missing out on valuable practice time, and perhaps the only available time all day (2 small children, self-employed yoga business job, house to run) but it’s quite possible it will render me feeling worse than upon initial awakening as deep sleep is disturbed for the second time. But morning brain is quite the trickster, and ultimately wins.



I used to smoke. I smoked all the time; first thing in the morning, after every meal. At bars, restaurants. After flights/buses/car journeys. I smoked when I was busy and stressed, I smoked when I was happy and relaxed. I made several attempts to quit before my final and successful time – 15th August 2002, which happens to coincide with India Independence Day. During my foiled attempts and in the beginning of my final one, friends used to say to me – I couldn’t imagine you not smoking. Now, when I tell new friends and acquaintances that I used to smoke, especially my yoga students, they say a similar thing: I couldn’t imagine you smoking.


Our stories are not permanent. They are ever changing and we are the ones with the power to change them. If we change our attitude about it, we can change anything we want.

And I wanted to be a morning person. I wanted to get up early, everyday or at least most days, and meditate and practice yoga. I have wanted this for the last 10 years of my life, yet it unscrupulously usurped me time and again. Until recently that is.

How did I do it? This might sound ridiculous, but by just ‘doing it’. I read a great Van Gogh quote recently, ‘if the voice inside your head tells you that you can’t paint, then by all means paint. That will surely silence the voices’. Likewise, if you just start getting up, that sneaky smart-as-a-button morning brain will be silenced, because you will have GOTTEN up before, and you will KNOW that you WILL feel better for doing it, that you will indeed feel 200% better than you would have if you’d gone back to sleep. That you will feel stronger, calmer, happier, fitter, wiser, freer, more at peace. That hauling your tired arse out of bed and getting on the mat, however cold and dark it may be, will leave you with a warm glow that will follow you all day until peacefully, at end the day and at a respectful hour, tired from a full and purpose filled day you will fall into a natural and easy sleep. The cunning morning brain will have no grounds, no words, and no leads with which to trick you, because morning brain’s power will be gone. If you keep listening to it, and never get up, it will reign supreme, but start the process and get up for just a few mornings, and that voice will fairly soon be silenced.

Yogataveller, Gozo, Malta - 5th September 2009 - By: Aubrey Lampkin

With: Inna, Yvonne, Colum, Louise, Nicola, Melissa, Fionnuala and Nora & Ramon.

September starts with a vivacious group of yoga vixens. (Don't be jealous I'm usually surrounded by fit, gorgeous women - just come on a yoga holiday.) We spent the week yoga-ing, biking, walking, swimming, exploring, eating, wine-tasting and just spending time together.

Sunset yoga.



Yvonne's beautiful smile.







Our mascot, and camera-man, Ramon.

Inna (my professional advisor) and I on Comino Island.

Melissa proves yoga does a body good.



Nicola and I (on Louise).





Gratuitous water shot (sorry, everyone at home).

Me being brave or stupid (up for debate).

Yvonne and Colum.

Ramon and Nora.

Xaghra festival - last big feast of the summer!

The gorgeous Nicola and Melissa.

Our very happy and content posse.

One more yoga week to go for me in Gozo ... stay tuned for our new, wonderful teacher... Michelle Bartolo (below with me).

Yogataveller, Gozo, Malta - 22nd August 2009 - By: Aubrey Lampkin

With: Lavinia, Ute, Deirdre, Linda and Claire.

Bring my favorite month (and my 29th year) to close with an intimate group of wonderful women to talk about yoga, philosophy and life seemed quite apropos! We spent the week doing the things we love doing most... yoga, scenic walks, swimming, dining out, getting massaged and becoming fast friends...

Above Otter's on Marselforn seafront.

Going on a cliff-side yoga/hike.









3,000+ year-old temple! (That's about as old as yoga.)

Comino Island's Blue Lagoon.

Cheers to new chapters for us all... and thank you for everything.

Yogataveller, Gozo, Malta - 15th August 2009 - By: Aubrey Lampkin

With: Ingrid, Morgan, Mary, Patricia, David, Tamara, Claude, Francesca, Pia and Karen.

If you've ever met someone who is fairly serious about their yoga practice (or maybe you've been fortunate enough to meet a group of people who are), you might have noticed there's something different about them... (if you're reading this, maybe you're one of 'them' yourself.) You can pick these people out of a crowd not by how they look, but by how they carry themselves, physically and spiritually. There's an enigmatic element to yoga that can't be explained in words, but can be picked up by your intuitive antennas. If you can get this part, the physical part will come much easier....

Lined up for evening yoga.

Ingrid, heading to Comino.

Ladies on deck.

This week's group brought together lots of new faces, friends and perspectives. I enjoy hearing about all of them. One of the most exciting parts of life (at least according to me), is hearing other people's stories - if you're lucky enough to meet the kind of people who are willing to share them with you. Fortunately, yoga teachers get to hear a lot of interesting things.

Practicing yoga with a big group of people is always exciting because you get to ride off the room's energy (and create your own). There's nothing more beautiful than hearing a room consciously breathing together, or seeing everyone in a different expression of the same yoga pose...

Striking a pose at Azure's Window.





It's a wrap.

Thanks to my late summer posse for continuing to make this work so fulfilling and for your personal contributions.

Yogataveller, Gozo, Malta - 1st August 2009 - By: Aubrey Lampkin

With: Irene, Ian, Dorothe, Olga, Ton, Stephanie, Peter, Chandra, Dinusha, Sinead, Lisa, Sangeeta and Catherine.

August opens with such an amazing mix of people... including another parent/'child' (this time father/daughter, so sweet), an amazing husband/wife couple who I want to adopt me (sorry, mom and dad), Irene and Ian (returning students from last week who I dubbed my 'mascots'). And, 2 doctors in the house! Incredible.

Group on Comino cliff.

Our private boat (thanks, Xavier).

The gorgeous Sangeeta, mermaid-style.

Chandra, our in-house physio!

Dinner party at Jeffrey's.

My ladies.

Dinner at Ta Furnar.

Ian's imaginary saccharin friend, 'Kinnie'.

  Stephanie and Peter.

 Stephanie under the sunset. 

My most amazing mascots... I missss you.

Sangeeta, just because.

Sometimes saying good-bye is the hardest part... but I've already seen one of you since and I hope to see more of you again soon!