The Kelly Morris Yoga Podcast

THE STEPS TO BLISS RETREAT with Kelly Morris and Brook Cosby. Assisted by Lisa Jacobson

Kelly Morris, Brook Cosby and Lisa Jacobson invite you to spend a glorious and uplifting week in Italy, learning The Steps To Bliss!

Yoga is a roadmap to happiness, if we practice conscientiously and with proper motivation. But what does that mean and how do we start? For that matter, is real happiness, let alone bliss, even possible?

The Buddha replied ‘Yes, it is.’ His proven meditation practice for creating bliss will form the basis of this special retreat— 7 sacred steps that have succeeded in bringing so-called ordinary people to extraordinary states, again and again, for over thousands of years. The steps include finding and relying upon a spiritual guide, an investigation into where your world is really coming from, the cultivation of compassion, the purification of wrongdoing, the celebration of rightdoing and the offering of our humble attempts to the happiness of all beings. When done correctly, daily and with proper motivation, this practice re-generates you and your world anew, until one day, your world has turned from one of suffering to one of pleasure…the pleasure of goodness.

Immerse yourself in these holy and profound teachings in one of the most beautiful places on earth: The Ebbio, in Tuscany. Sink into 3 hours of yoga in the morning and then skip to Siena and explore it’s churches, divine shopping opportunities and perfect wines. Or, simply soak in the old wine barrel transformed into a unique floating pool or horseback ride, donkey trek, wander the grounds of the 14th c. farmhouse or hike Tuscany’s spacious hills in the dreamy afternoons. Bliss indeed!

Kelly, Brook and Lisa are lineage holders in the Gelukpa tradition of His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Kelly has been initiated and empowered into several uncorrupted mandalas and has been a leading teacher in NYC for over 12 years. Brook has been a close apprentice of Kelly’s since 2004. Both Brook and Lisa both graduated from The Conquering Lion Yoga Teacher Training Program/NYC.

Cost: 1500. per person for a shared room/2000. for a single room. Cost includes all yoga classes, kirtans, guided meditations, sweet lodging, breakfast and dinner.

For further info, please email Kelly @ info@kellymorrisyoga.com To check out Ebbio, please go to www.ebbio.com

“By whatever virtue I have here accrued, From the making of this song, This guide for entry on the Bodhisattva way, May everyone begin to tread the path to Buddhahood.” -Master Shantideva (8th century, CE)

Emptiness, the absence of everything, paradoxically, makes possible the presence of everything.

Without a profound understanding of this absence and this everything, nothing about the teacher/student relationship makes real sense. For example, when we see someone making prostrations, offerings, and paying obeisance to their lama/guru/teacher, it can come off as simple, stupid sycophancy, the sad behaviors of those who are lost, directionless and brainless. And it can be all those things; if you don’t have a clear understanding of karma and emptiness, and you are doing these things, you are a brownnoser, a flunky, a puppet. In short, a droid.

But armed with a understanding of karma and emptiness, you see that the lama/guru/teacher has no nature of their own. The only nature they have and could ever have is the one your karma decides you to see. Why else would some adore Christ and others, his own brother even, want him dead? Why else would millions adore His Holiness and others want him dead?

Here are the options,karma-wise, on this:

Terrible karma: “What a charlatan, brainwashing these these weak, lost people. What a hustle. I can’t wait to tell everyone what a con this guy is.”

Bad karma: “Oh, another so-called ‘Teacher’ who has surrounded themselves with toadies. Look how no one dares to defy the teacher. People are so gullible. I am free, I decide my own path. I don’t need help. Let’s grab a drink.”

Neutral karma: ”Oh, this person seems nice enough, they are saying some wise things in my opinion and also some stupid things. If it helps people, that’s nice. Its not really for me, though. Are we late for Terminator 22?”

Good karma: “What a wise person, and how amazing they have devoted their lives to helping others. I admire that. I think I’ll come back and check it out further.”

Excellent karma:”Boo-yah! This dude’s the bomb! He’s saying things I have been waiting to hear my whole life!”

Unsurpassed karma: “ This being is God, to me. I KNOW she has the answers. I will never leave her, wild horses couldn’t drag me away. I don’t care if the whole world thinks I am crazy, this is it. Period.”

Your karma (the perceptions you have of beings as gurus or quacks, in this example) all come from how you have thought about, spoken to and acted towards other beings in the past. What you see is being created by the goodness or not of your own mind.

The teacher/lama/guru has no qualities of their own. How you think about them, how you speak to them and about them, and how you act towards them creates them for you. The proof of this is very simple: not everyone feels about them the same way you do. Why? They have their own set of causes from the past that are forcing them to perceive what they perceive.

The karma each sincere practitioner wants to get as quickly as possible is the karma to perceive a Fully Realized Being in their life. Why? So that they can then receive the teachings they need to get to the goal of yoga, enlightenment (aka. HAPPINESS), as quickly as possible, so that then they can help others to accomplish the same.

If you are interested in creating the causes for perceiving a Holy Being who can actually help you get out of this unholy prison of dissatisfaction called Your Life (the one where you are born, suffer a bunch, get sick, get old, and then finally get dead), you find a being who is close enough to your ideal and then you start actually treating them as if they were the Buddha Herself, or Jesus or Moses or Mohammed or what have you.

Not for them! For you! After all, whose perceptions are you working on? Yours or theirs? How would you act if Moses himself walked into your yoga class? Would you stay lolling on the ground, chatting with your neighbor, hoping Moses comes up with something interesting this time? Or would you leap up in amazement and fall down at their feet in gratitude and beg for their help?

Which response creates the causes for the perception you seek? Use your noggin. That’s what it’s there for, after all.

All love, all the time, Kelly

Putting the welfare of others, putting the happiness, desires, needs and wants of others before your own is the key to your own happiness. As we progress along the path, it can feel as if we are doing this, or at least approaching doing this. But we know we are not really doing it if all it leaves us feeling is angry, resentful and deprived. When we really drop our self-concern and live each moment dedicated to the happiness of others, the feeling within us is matchless in it’s joy. Just keep thinking to yourself, with each being you meet, ‘what would make them happy right now?’ and then just do it, joyfully. By meeting and exceeding the needs of others, we find our own needs magically met. We find ourselves happier and happier, more and more confident, less and less lacking. As this happens, we are better and better able to help others out of suffering and into the potential for happiness.

All love, Kelly

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