For thirty-two years, I had the great good fortune to sit at the feet of Sri Swami Satchidananda (Gurudev). There were happy times and sad times, countless comings and goings, many ups and downs, but through it all, he remained the same: peaceful, patient, balanced,...
If we want to make all our days holy days we should think of the inspiring thoughts of the great sages and saints. Otherwise, when we celebrate this holiday season, it will be just once a year fun. Instead, let us utilize the season to reaffirm that we wish to lead...
In the early 1970s, I was in the dance department at the University of California, Berkeley, and right when I passed from my apartment to the campus, there was the Integral Yoga Institute. I went in there, long story short, to take a Yoga class. The postures were...
We all look for excitement, thinking that it is a plus. But what is a plus? A minus crossed. A pendulum won’t swing to the plus side and remain there. When it swings to one side, it automatically has to come back to the other. When you want excitement, and swing to...
I first came across the teachings of Swami Satchidananda (Sri Gurudev) in a transcript from a talk he gave in which he said, “We have a natural state of ease and when we lose it we get disease.” I was in medical school at the time, and nobody was really addressing the...
We should all remember that a main aim of Yoga practice is self-mastery. When we follow the Yoga precepts and practices this leads to more self-mastery—the body and mind become more relaxed and sattvic so we can more easily recognize and abide in our True Nature....
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...
Integral Yoga Media recently announced that the recordings of the many chants and kirtans Swami Satchidananda led over the years is now available from all the various streaming services, such as Spotify and Amazon Music Unlimited, among many others. Albums include the...
I looked over the damaged carrot patch. Bunnies had shorn the tops off; turning the frilly fronds into scant spikes. I sighed and wondered, Why do I bother? I was headed for trouble when I focused on “getting something” out of the garden. But this time the bunny...
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...
I don’t know about you, but the spirit of sacrifice and service has never come easy for me. In the early days of my spiritual journey, due to my self-absorption in “taking care of Number 1,” I used to cringe whenever Swami Satchidananda (Gurudev) talked about Karma...
The End-of-Life Project is a living, breathing, and ongoing initiative to bring the Integral Yoga teachings to the end of our lives and beyond. We are grateful to Integral Yoga Magazine for supporting this program. During the dormancy of the pandemic a new branch of...
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...
(Join the Integral Yoga sangha for the 20th Anniversary Mahasamadhi Memorial of Sri Swami Satchidananda in person and livestreamed from Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville on Saturday, August 20th, beginning at 9:30am EDT, with programs throughout the day. The evening...
To know a Satguru you should know how a Satguru would be. That’s what Arjuna asked of Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: “How am I to know a person of steady wisdom (sthitaprajna)?” Arjuna then asked Sri Krishna to describe how such a person would walk, how they would...