Why Yoga Matters

Posted on September 23, 2012 by admin

1. Yoga strengthens basic units of society
The basic building blocks of society are individuals and families. Yoga improves physical, emotional, and spiritual health of individuals. All this has tremendous spin-off benefits on society. In addition, inner calmness and emotional balance provided by yoga helps put relationships on a stronger footing. This boosts stability in the family. By strengthening families, yoga strengthens society.

2. Yoga has the potential to reintroduce spirituality in education
Modern society is built on the foundation of secular education. But the lack of spiritual education and training can prove to be a stumbling block to the long term survival of our species. This is because rapid progress in science is putting increasingly powerful tools in our hands while our wisdom to use them lags. Yoga allows us to reintroduce spirituality to school curriculum without dismantling its secular framework. This is because yoga philosophy is secular and its methods are scientifically testable. Yoga provides us with tools to train future generations on how to access deep spiritual wisdom. This will allow them to come up with the right moral answers for the increasingly complex problems of tomorrow.

The most important purpose of Yoga is to bring about a deep transformation of the individual – an awakening of intelligence that is free of dependencies and romantic beliefs and ready to meet the accelerating challenges of the 21st century — Ganga White Continue reading →

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The Story Of An Ant

Posted on September 23, 2012 by admin

Ant StoryOne morning I wasted nearly an hour watching a tiny ant carry a huge feather across my back terrace. Several times it was confronted by obstacles in its path and after a momentary pause it would make the necessary detour. At one point the ant had to negotiate a crack in the concrete about 10mm wide. After brief contemplation the ant laid the feather over the crack, walked across it and picked up the feather on the other side then continued on its way. I was fascinated by the ingenuity of this ant, one of God’s smallest creatures. It served to reinforce the miracle of creation. Here was a minute insect, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to reason, explore, discover and overcome. But this ant, like the two-legged co-residents of this planet, also shares human failings. After some time the ant finally reached its destination – a flower bed at the end of the terrace and a small hole that was the entrance to its underground home. And it was here that the ant finally met its match. How could that large feather possibly fit down that small hole? Of course it couldn’t. So the ant, after all this trouble and exercising great ingenuity, overcoming problems all along the way, just abandoned the feather and went home.

The ant had not thought the problem through before it began its epic journey and in the end the feather was nothing more than a burden. Isn’t life like that! We worry about our family, we worry about money or the lack of it, we worry about work, about where we live, about all sorts of things. These are all burdens – the things we pick up along life’s path and lug them around the obstacles and over the crevasses that life will bring, only to find that at the destination they are useless and we can’t take them with us. Let us contemplate on Alexandar the Great’s last words:

“Bury my body, do not build any monument, keep my hands outside so that the world knows the person who won the world had nothing in his hands when dying.”

Credit: Author unknown. We found this ant parable via e-mail. It can also be found on various blogs, but the original author is unknown.

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Is He A Good Husband?

Posted on September 23, 2012 by admin

How Good Husband Is He?
In the Old Country, the Rabbi of a small town died. His widow, the Rebbetzin, was so disconsolate that the people of the town decided that she ought to get married again. But the town was so small that the only eligible bachelor was the town butcher. The poor Rebbetzin was somewhat dismayed because she had been wed to a scholar, and the butcher had no great formal education. However, she was lonely, so she agreed, and they were married.

After the marriage, Friday came. She went to the mikvah (a Jewish ritual bath to get rid of impurities). Then, she went home to light the candles. The butcher leaned over to her and said, “My mother, Hana, told me that after the mikvah and before lighting the candles, it’s good to have sex.” So they did.

She lit the candles. He leaned over again and said, “My father, Shmuel, told me that after lighting the candles it’s good to make love.” So they did.

They went to bed after saying their prayers. When they awoke, he said to her, “My grandmother, Rivka, said that before you go to the synagogue it’s good to have sex.” So they did.

After praying all morning, they came home to rest. Again he whispers in her ear, “My grandfather, Moishe, says after praying it’s good to have sex.” So they did.

On Sunday she went out to shop for food and met a friend who asked, “So how is the new husband?”

She replied, “Well, a scholar he isn’t, but he comes from a very learned family.”

Credits: Source unknown. Came to us via e-mail.

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Shavasana As The Doorway To Meditation

Posted on September 15, 2012 by admin

B. Alan Wallace in this beautiful video talks about his discovery of yoga and his encounter with BKS Iyengar. He then describes how BKS Iyengar showed him the importance of Shavasana as a doorway to Meditation. This is a must-watch video for those who practice meditation regularly or plan to become serious meditators. It shows how the asana practice forms the foundation of disengaging from daily stress and preparing the ground for Shavasna the corpse position. This then becomes the launch pad for preparing the mind for Pranayama and Meditation.

You may also like: Six Things Not Yoga

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The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget

Posted on September 15, 2012 by admin

Taxi Ride There was a time in my life twenty years ago when I was driving a cab for a living. It was a cowboy’s life, a gambler’s life, a life for someone who wanted no boss, constant movement and the thrill of a dice roll every time a new passenger got into the cab.

What I didn’t count on when I took the job was that it was also a ministry. Because I drove the night shift, my cab became a rolling confessional. Passengers would climb in, sit behind me in total anonymity and tell me of their lives. We were like strangers on a train, the passengers and I, hurtling through the night, revealing intimacies we would never have dreamed of sharing during the brighter light of day. I encountered people whose lives amazed me, ennobled me, made me laugh and made me weep.

And none of those lives touched me more than that of a woman I picked up late on a warm August night. I was responding to a call from a small brick fourplex in a quiet part of town. I assumed I was being sent to pick up some partiers, or someone who had just had a fight with a lover, or someone going off to an early shift at some factory for the industrial part of town. When I arrived at the address, the building was dark except for a single light in a ground-floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a short minute, then drive away. Too many bad possibilities awaited a driver who went up to a darkened building at 2:30 in the morning.

But I had seen too many people trapped in a life of poverty who depended on the cab as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation had a real whiff of danger, I always went to the door to find the passenger. It might, I reasoned, be someone who needs my assistance. Would I not want a driver to do the same if my mother or father had called for a cab?

So I walked to the door and knocked. Continue reading →

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