What is Yoga? In simple words: to remain with ease and peace. You might wonder what that ease is. I am talking about that ease, which you disturbed and then called yourself dis‑eased. Even to become a diseased person you should have had ease before, is it not so? If...
In North America, the Spring season will soon be behind us giving way to the Summer Solstice in June. Spring has long been a time of transition, when the dark and barren days of winter give way to light, warmth and new growth. Before summer is upon us, this month’s...
As someone who enjoys crafting, the advertisement for the “Original Magic Mat” (a die-cutting crafting aid), suddenly took on an entirely new meaning after experiencing Yoga teacher training. I’ve seen this ad before, but I’ve never thought about anything more than...
Wayne Teasdale (1945-2004) was a lay monk who combined the traditions of Christianity and Hinduism in the way of the Christian sannyasa. In The Mystic Heart (1999), he presented a bold and imaginative picture of the dawn of a new age of interspirituality when people...
I dropped the corn seeds in the furrow and wondered if they would grow. In the dark earth they glowed like citrine quartz; it seemed improbable that in two months the tiny dry seeds would grow into plants that would stand above my head. Many gardeners told me growing...
Loving-kindness is probably known to many as the Buddhist practice of metta, The formal practice of metta begins beautifully, by directing kindness toward ourselves or to someone to whom we can easily feel goodwill. Once we take a moment to actually feel that energy...
In order to have a better world we must learn to think of the globe as a whole. Our world leaders need to be more selfless and sacrificing. Only by having a universal and spiritual vision can we bring positive change into the political field. A person who is really...
It is a tradition in Integral Yoga that after daily meditation we repeat Shanti mantras, or peace prayers. These prayers are a beautiful way to end one’s formal meditation sitting and are a spiritual support in that they are affirmations of peace. The Yoga tradition...
I know so many people, that when I ask how they are doing, respond with something about how busy they are. It has become the status quo for our lives to be filled to the maximum and beyond so that we’re not really aware of how driven we are, how stressed our lives...
Dean Ornish, MD was invited to give a talk at the "Life Itself" conference in June 2022. The conference was organized by CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Deepak Chopra. To introduce his talk, Dr. Ornish said he was going to talk less about his lifestyle medicine...
Independence implies a freedom from being controlled or unduly influenced by an outside source. Spiritual independence suggests the freedom to live in harmony with the spiritual truth at the heart of our being. It implies freedom from depending on any outside source...
A few times a year anxiety sends my mind into a death spiral. I wake in the middle of the night with my stomach clenched like an angry fist. Thoughts race from zero to catastrophe and I am convinced that social interactions will only result in total alienation. By the...
One fine spring morning I stood on the deck as the sun crested the trees. Tucked into the raised beds, cabbages, and leaf lettuce glittered with dew. As if on cue a Mourning Dove landed on the topmost barn gable. I half expected a butterfly to land on my shoulder and...
In any Sanskrit mantra, one of the letters will be a sound that is considered a “seed” sound or a bija. The various bijas each have a different effect on our bodies and minds, and even on plant life. Mantra Shastra, is the science of sound. In Yoga, we have the...
If we pay attention to the world news, I think we can agree that our world is in dire need of more mindfulness, justice, and compassion. On an individual level, a deeply- entrenched sense of separation—and the resulting insecurity—has given rise to so much mistrust...
As March 2022 begins, it feels like our world is in a state of upheaval. The seasons are changing and many places in the world are lifting COVID restrictions, trying to transition back to a more “normal” way of life. But the seasons and the pandemic are overshadowed...