When I was a young child up until about the age of nine years I remember my father would sometimes show us different exercises - postures he could do and then my sisters and I would try to do them.  It was great fun and we totally enjoyed doing something with our dad, which for me I now realise also included getting the attention I craved. I always loved doing exercises and being challenged to do even better. ​

The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit meaning to join, unite or connect and is generally attributed to Patanjali, a wise sage who lived around 2,000 years ago. However, how yoga has evolved is very different to the wisdom Patanjali offered humanity. Yoga has become about physical postures, and yet Patanjali said nothing about putting the body into physical contortions or fancy poses. Yoga is about stillness and connection.​

Images of a sadhu with a long beard sitting in a cave and dressed in nothing but a simple loin cloth spring to mind when you mention the word meditation, or perhaps your image is of people with their eyes closed chanting “Om” in a haze of incense smoke. But things have changed. It is hard these days to escape hearing about the benefits of meditation, whether it is to deal with workplace stress, or simply the stress and pressures of day-to-day life, or for a more serious medical diagnosis.​

The Gentle Breath Meditation® was one of the first things that set many of our writers for the book ‘The Joy of Ageing, Esoterically’, on the path of self discovery and true self-care.
As Jane writes in her story “one of the first things Serge Benhayon introduced in the workshops was the Gentle Breath Meditation®​, which was so simple yet so profound; this was the beginning of me building my relationship with myself – my inner heart where there was such warmth and strength – and that this is deep within us all.”

Right outside our dining room window a tree has sprouted and grown. It has fine fern-like leaves, a semi-weeping habit and pink pompoms which flower all year round. Every morning at breakfast with my husband, we watch the honeyeaters feasting on the pompoms, so light in their movements as they flit from one delicate branch to another, until they have finished their breakfast. Watching the honeyeaters makes me reflect, "How do I eat my breakfast? How am I with food?"