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Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

THE POWER OF OM: rediscovering the deep, abiding peace of coming home in a frantic world.

Thank you OM Yoga and Lifestyle magazine (UK) for publishing my 72nd YogaInspirational, “Traveling OM,” December, 2018

Traveling OM

By Dr. Gregory Ormson

THE POWER OF OM: rediscovering the deep, abiding peace of coming home in a frantic world.

“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year old carbon…”  Lyrics from the song Woodstock suggest that we are made of cosmic energy and matter. We have a hard time believing it because there are very few places that affirm such a grandiose and luminous being. But when we yoga, we participate in a pattern that moves the stars, and positions us to touch an inner OM at the core of our being.

In a soft chant of OM, rooted and expressed from the core, our cares are set free. Then we note our deepest truth: we are beings at one with a divinely animated critical mass of stardust and carbon waiting to meet and welcome us home.

But cultural voices bombard us with an unending cacophony of negativity and dismissal. This poisonous milieu is designed to make us feel small and inadequate, serving us from a menu of strife and anxiety. News and current events can leave us feeling like we’re a nonsignificant cog in a great drama that’s happening elsewhere.

The world is effective at labeling and objectifying. It does so with convenient categories submitted for fast indexing and stereotyping: age, race, sex, job, income, and education level. But a mountain is more than a geode, a river more than an eddy, men and women more than insignificant pieces of something more important.

HAPPINESS

A central cultural narrative tells us that our happiness depends on our reach, grasp, and hard work to get ahead; but many of us discover that when we grasp for more, or comply with outer directives, we fall out of alignment with ourselves. We’ve forgotten that at the center we are stardust and golden children imbued with cosmic energy and force.

It’s easy to be caught up in the propaganda machine that tells us we must pay attention to outer things as a way to get ahead in life’s journey. But yoga provides us with a road map that is singular in its direction. It takes us to the inner-OM, where a direct relationship with self is the magnetic center leading to wholeness. Early traditions of yoga named this place of intimate connection, “primordial consciousness.”

The quicker we begin our living and stop reaching or grasping for some artificial cipher of happiness, the quicker we lean into our experiential moments, and let our minds rest in those moments. Then we learn to ignore the critical disassembly shaping our cultural dialogue and our psyche.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” Shakespeare wrote, but there’s no play more important than the one in which we participate. The play’s the thing for all of us, and our stake in the drama of life is important enough for us to choose our own form of risk. It’s also important enough to experience our play from the inside, here and now, rather than get caught up in someone else’s disconcerting storyline.

This need not be a problem for yogis. Most of us realize that our freedom and joy took flight when we traded our truest self for compliance with the machine and its false narrative that we are not good enough. From childhood to adulthood it happened so seamlessly and easily that we didn’t even notice how we’d lost our spontaneous, joyful living in the moment.

Yoga gives us a chance to find this by focusing attention on the inner OM. It’s not a new idea, Russill Paul wrote in The Yoga of Sound, “Meditation on the OM offers us the direct awareness that everything in the universe is held in existence by the Divine breath.” In the moment of OM, divine breath pauses our strategic and analytical brain while firing the existential and experiential brain.

COMING HOME

Creating the sound of OM and meditating on its meaning invites us to experience this divine breath that the Hebrews called ruah, the Greeks pneuma, and the yogis call prana. If we give ourselves time and space for the simple chant of OM, we may discover that the only thing missing from ourselves has been us.

Yoga postures take us to the core of our being – the only place where we may find true peace and contentment – and yoga counsels us to move there in firmness and ease while teaching us to be present in each moment’s experience.

There, in the great quieting and stilling of mind and body, we come face to face with a golden child. In the chant of OM, we step away from distractions and make a countercultural move away from the machine of disassembly.

The directions are clear: first, we slow down and breathe; then we focus attention and hold our minds steady with a concentrated gaze; finally, at the end of a beautiful hour, our body chants a sonorous OM.

It’s the OM of creation’s soul, the home to which our internal compass points, the unstuck sound of the heart, and the primordial consciousness in which we participate.

This luminous and internal state of OM, the meditative point of deep consciousness, brings us to the realization that the inner OM is a well-trod path providing yogis something the broken world cannot: the deep, abiding peace of coming home.

NOTE: This issue is available online. Contents include OM’s 5th installment of their 5 Part History of Yoga in the West. I recommend it. It also highlights the life and work of B.K.S. Iyengar as part of the commemoration of his birth 100 years ago on December, 14, 1918. Coincidently, his daughter Geeta Iyengar, a yoga teacher credited with opening yoga to women in India and advancing women’s health, passed away yesterday, December, 16, 2018.

REFERENCE:

Paul, R. The yoga of sound: Healing & enlightenment through the sacred practice of mantra. New World Library, Novato, CA: (2004), p. 179-181

Bio: Dr. Ormson saw yoga during his first trip to India 40 years ago. He teaches at MOTTO YOGA in Queen Creek, Arizona, and “Yoga and Leather,” yoga for bikers at Superstition Harley Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona. Ormson’s writing on yoga is published in 12 national and international journals, magazines, blogs and Web sites under #motorcyclingyogiG

Website: https://gregoryormson.com

#motorcyclingyogiG

Email:  gregormson@gmail.com

Email: g.o.oo@outlook.com

@gaormson

 

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About Greg Ormson

Musician, writer, yoga-loving motorcyclist teaching yoga for bikers (Yoga & Leather) at Superstition Harley Davidson in Arizona.

Free diving in Hawaii, Greg learned the importance of breath management and has translated that into teaching Yoga-Breath, Breath of Life workshops accompanied by his band, Sat Song.

He’s traveled through five countries and most of the US to study world religions and other non-formal spiritual expressions. His doctoral degree at the Chicago Theological Seminary was cultural interpretation through a theological and psychological lens. He focused specifically on the power of touch for healing in ritual environments.
He widely on yoga with nearly 100 columns in 18 publications with a combined followership of over 5 million; his writing often categorized under #MotorcyclingyogiG. He contributes regulary to OM Yoga Magazine (UK).

In 2017 he won the Lyric Narrative Non Fiction Award from Eastern Iowa Review for "Midwest Intimations," and in 2016 won Indiana Review's contest for 13 word stories. His nonfiction has earned finalist mention in New Millennium and The Bellingham Review.

Dr. Ormson is an alumnus of The Chicago Theological Seminary; Chicago, Illinois;
The University of Wisconsin, La Crosse; La Crosse, Wisconsin;
Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan;
Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.

https://gregoryormson.com
Twitter: @GAOrmson
Instagram:#motorcyclingyogiG

His yoga articles have reached millions of viewers through social media and have been translated and shared in Portuguese, Tamil, French, Hebrew, and Spanish.

They can be found searching links the following titles and sources:

98. “Yoga & Leather’ NMU alum leads class for bikers,” The Mining Journal, Marquette, Michigan July 23, 2020
97 "Yoga and Leather: how yoga is helping Harley riders and other bikers to find their Ze3n on and off the highway,” " OM Yoga Magazine July 2020
96 “Clearing Space,” OM Yoga Magazine
95 “Why We Need Yoga Now More than Ever,”
94 "Seniorgrams from the Successful,"
93 “Jesus, Yogi” Asana Journal
92 “Yoga Precis: six steps to a complete yoga practice”
91 “Yoga’s Outliers: Men” OM Yoga Magazine
90 “Yogatecture: Building Your House of Truth,” OM Yoga Magazine
89 “Conducing Heat to Cleanse the Self,” Yogi Times
88 “Silence and Slow Time,” OM Yoga Magazine
87 “Rough Road? Breathe . . .” HOG Magazine
86 “Yoga and the Pure Consciousness of Healing,” Asana Journal
85 “Conducting the Awesome,” OM Yoga Magazine
84 “Yoga: A New Road for Bikers,” Yoga Magazine (UK)
83 “The Way to Sacred Being,” Bad Yogi Mag
82 “Let It Be: When Your Yoga Becomes You,” Bad Yogi Mag
81 “Yoga as Commencement Ritual,” Yoganect
80 “Yoga, Jesus and the Pure Consciousness of Healing,” Bad Yogi Mag
79 “Traveling OM: rediscovering the abiding peace of coming home in a frantic world,” OM Yoga Magazine (UK)
78 “Conducting the Awesome: What I’ve learned from 7 years practicing hot yoga,” elephant journal
77 “Nine Ways you Give Back to Yoga,”
76 “Your Yoga Mat: Dimensions of Healing,”
75 “Yoga and Spiritual Questions,”
74 “Making Contact with Yourself and Your Practice,”
73 “How Many Limbs are Required,”
72 "Por que Precisamos de yoga mais do que nunca.” Why We Need Yoga Now More than Ever. www. boayoga.com.br/por-que-precisamos-de-yoga-agora-mais-do-que-nunca-gregory-ormson
71 “Fixing our Backs, Riding our Bikes: common benefits of yoga have every day application to motorcycling." AZ Rider Motorcycle News
70 “Hatha, Hawaii,”
69 “Armor On, Armor Off: The Psychology of Yin Yoga,” Sivana Spirit
68 “Yoga Script for Health and Joy,” Sivana Spirit
67 “Namaste: Nexus of a New Identity,” Sivana Spirit
66 “Embraced by Joy and Bliss,” Sivana Spirit
65 “The Delight Song of a New Architecture,” Sivana Spirit
64 “Transforming the Emotional Body,” Asana Journal
63 “The Real Power of Savasana,” Sivana Spirit
62 “Intention: Your Golden Egg for Change,” Sivana Spirit
61 “Yoga Tips: 6 Easy Ways to get the Most out of Your Yoga Class,” The Health Orange
60 “Mantra for Me and You,” Sivana Spirit
59 “Slow Down and Breathe,” Asana Journal
58 “Tradition Trumps Trendiness,” Asana Journal
57 “Yoga Teacher Training: Revelations Encountered” HelloYoga
56 “How Yoga Ruins our Lives” elephant journal
55 “Yoga Teacher Training: Encountering Self,” TribeGrow
54 “True Presence,” Asana Journal
53 “A Parable of Unmaking,” Asana Journal
52 “Yogatecture: The Elegant Arc of Change,” Asana Journal
51 “Truth Force on Your Mat,” Asana Journal
50 “What You Give to Yoga,” Yogi Times
49 “Enter the Master, Enter the Child,” Asana Journal
48 “The Honorable Yogi,” Asana Journal
47 “Finding Your Depth,” Asana Journal
46 “Teaching Yoga: It’s Not About You,” TribeGrow
45 “In the Midnight Hour: How Yoga Brought My Soul Back,” HelloYoga
44 “Gifts from the Core,” Asana Journal
43 “Release into Savasana,” Asana Journal
42 “The Bridge Within,” Asana Journal
41 “By a Thread,” Asana Journal
40 “Coaching Up: Yoga for Newbies,” DoYouYoga
39 “Your Beautiful Feet,” Asana Journal
38 “Lessons from Yoga and Freediving,” Asana Journal
37 “Five Tips and One Requirement for Coaching Yoga,” Seattle Yoga News
36 “The Immigrant Asana,” Asana Journal
35 “Making Heroes” Asana Journal
34 “Namaste: Nexus of a New Identity,” Sivana Spirit
33 “Sphinx Pose: To Rise in Righteousness,” Asana Journal
32 “Storage Wars and Yoga’s Emotional Rescue,” Asana Journal
31 “Asana Back to the Innocent Age,” Asana Journal
30 “The Year of the Monkey and Yoga’s Counter-Cultural Mathematic,” elephant journal
29 “The Missing Link,” Asana Journal
28 “Your Portable Home” Yoga International
27 “Yogi, Heal Thyself” Asana Journal
26 “Health and Joy, Why Not Us?”
25 “A New Planting, A New Harvesting,” Do You Yoga
24 “Three Stages of a Yogi’s Transformation,” Do You Yoga
23 “Peace: Just a Pause Away,” Yogi Times
22 “How Yoga Helps Us Release,” elephant journal
21 “Why Unpolished Prayers are Still Good Prayers,” elephant journal
20 “Yoga and the Place of Soul,” elephant journal
19 “Yoga’s Covenant: The Promise of Change,” Yogi Times
18 “What is a Kind Yogi,” The Yoga Blog
17 “Yoga and Social Responsibility,” The Yoga Blog
16 “Who Moved the Yoga Mat,” Yogi Times
15 “Yoga’s Touchy Subject – Touching,” DoYouYoga
14, “A Yoga Parable,” Yogi Times
13 “The Yoga Pose that Healed My Back Injuries,” elephant journal
12 “Becoming Your Own Life-Changing Quote,” The Yoga Blog
11 “Finding Your Mantra,” DoYouYoga
10 “Will You Yoga 30 Years from Now,” The Yoga Blog
9 “Ego, Injury, and Your Yoga,” elephant journal
8 “Silence and Your Practice,” The Yoga Blog
7 “Your Breath, Your Center,” elephant journal
6 “Your Practice, Your Inventory,” The Yoga Blog
5 “Aligning and Refining,” elephant journal
4 “Understanding a Yoga Teacher,” The Yoga Blog
3 “Yoga and the Unconscious Mind,” The Yoga Blog
2 “You’re Not Alone on Your Savasana Cloud,” elephant journal
1 “Changing My Story: 365 Days of Yoga,” The Yoga Blog

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