MyLifeYoga

When Paramahamsa Yogananda was in his late 20’s he established a residential school in a palace donated by the Maharaja of Kasimbazar. The palace came with 25 acres of land that had fruit orchards and wildlife. This school held its classes outdoors weather permitting. Besides normal school curriculum it also taught students a form of physical yoga-postures that Yogananda devised himself and called “yogoda”.

A young deer soon became the favorite pet of the students. Even Yogananda loved the fawn and allowed it to sleep in his room. One day he learnt that the fawn was terribly ill. Upset about this he kept the fawn in his lap and went into deep meditation. After hours of deep meditation the fawn seem to revive and began walking around feebly. A cry of joy went up with the student community and everybody thought that the fawn had turned the corner.

That night the fawn came to Yogananda in his dream and said, “You are holding me back! Please let me go!” In his dream Yogananda answered, “All right.”

Yogananda woke up with a start and realized his mistake. He knew that he had to allow the fawn to move on. He immediately woke up the boys in the dorm and announced that the fawn was dying. They all gathered around it. The fawn struggled up and tottered towards Yogananda, collapsed, and died at his feet.

This incident cast a deep impression on Yogananda. He realized that his love for the fawn was holding it back and preventing the natural evolution of its soul. From now on he no longer viewed death as a calamity. Instead he saw death as part of normal cycle through which a soul evolves. He now saw that ignorance of our true nature causes us to be deluded with the idea that death ends it all.

This story has useful lessons for us too. In our delusion and love there are times when we too try and hold back our loved ones and prevent them from moving on. It is the purpose of yoga to free us from such delusions and know our true nature. This direct experience of our deeper Self then gives us the wisdom to view birth and death as part of a natural cycle of an evolving soul.

Related post: Miss Me But Let Me Go

There is a side note to this story. Yogananda’s youngest brother, Bishnu Gosh, studied at this school in Ranchi and learnt the Yogoda system of hatha yoga. He then became the guru of Bikram Choudary the founder of hot yoga.

Natalie Warne is biracial and growing up in a tough south side Chicago neighborhood was not easy. High school was brutal, as she tried to fit in and be accepted. Not helping was the fact that she went to 4 different high schools and suffered from serious identity crisis. Her turning point came when she watched the documentary “Invisible Children”.

This is a movie about Africa’s longest running war. A war that is run by a man named Joseph Kony. This war is fuelled by thirty thousand child soldiers. These are children kidnapped by Joseph Kony, and are brutalized, drugged, and dehumanized to turn into these terrible child soldiers. The story of these invisible children so moved Natalie that she found it impossible to do nothing. In a bold move she postponed going to college to join this movement as an unpaid intern. She became an anonymous extraordinaire. This is somebody whose actions are driven by passionate belief rather than a need for recognition and fame. As Natalie beautifully explains in the video, the future of our world depends on the current generation embracing the idea of being an anonymous extraordinaire. Do you want to be one?

Related:

Kony 2012: Documentary watched by Millions
Invisible Children Web site

In 1878 a high school dropout by the name George Eastman purchased his first camera at the age of 24. This ignited in him a passion for photography and he worked relentlessly for a year till he had perfected the process of developing and making dry photographic plates. In 1879 he filed for a patent of his technology and in 1880 he set up the Eastman Dry Plate Company (later renamed to Eastman Kodak) that could manufacture dry photographic plates in large numbers. In 1885 George Eastman invented the roll film that essentially cannibalized the dry photographic plates business. However the roll film became the basis of the popular use of photography by everyday consumers and sparked the invention of motion picture films and the creation of the movie industry.

The spirit of innovation continued after the passing of George Eastman in 1935. Eastman Kodak diversified successfully into many different product categories. By mid 70s revenues hit $5 Billion. Eastman Kodak was a global brand name and the “Kodak moment” entered popular lexicon. In 1975 the digital camera was invented by a Kodak engineer, and by 1986 Kodak engineers had invented the first megapixel sensor. But the hesitation in cannibalizing its revenues was clearly evident. Bulk of profits came from selling film rolls and Kodak hesitated in building out the technology that threatened this. Too much time elapsed between the creation of the digital camera in 1975 and the creation of the megapixel sensor in 1986. In the meantime others innovated and in 1981 Sony released the first filmless camera. Instead of learning from its mistake and returning on the path of being unafraid to cannibalize its profits and revenue, Kodak dithered. Instead of going on a path that would have made it the leader in digital photography, digital editing, and the undisputed custodian of all our digital pictures and movies in the “Kodak cloud”, Kodak instead filed for bankruptcy protection in Jan of 2012. Continue reading →