From Bad News to Actual Happiness

The current news is challenging us. It seems that every day bad things are happening, and that every month disasters are striking. We live in a constant state of Orange Alert — the U.S. Homeland Security designation for a high threat level. That this level of challenge is stressful goes without saying.

When I was in elementary school, we were required to follow “current events,” to stay up on the news of the day so we could become informed members of society. Doing that today can be a full-time job and keep you on twitter all day and night. Then you have to parse the real news from the fake news, identify the spin to see what the facts are, and find out if there’s any “there” there.

To say nothing of trying to fix what is wrong in the world.

How do you find real happiness within this disaster? Continue reading “From Bad News to Actual Happiness”

Review of Yoga for Artists, by Joel Adas

I truly enjoyed reading Yoga for Artists. As a painter who has practiced yoga in the past, it spoke to me on many levels. With an economy of words and simple but eloquent illustrations, Peter Ferko outlined what a thoughtful, individualized yoga practice might be. The fact that it is more than a workout or a routine but rather a complete practice tailored uniquely to each person was a revelation to me. As a result of reading “Yoga For Artists”, I am strongly considering searching for a teacher who embodies many of the wonderful attributes to be found in this book.

Post-Election Yoga

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These are the five stages of grief, using one commonly cited psychological model.

It’s no secret that I would be disappointed with the outcome of the 2016 election. I have been mindful, this post-election morning, of those five stages cycling through my head, heart, and body.

I know a lot of you hung great hopes on this election. As you go through today and the coming months, remember that you, too, will cycle through these feelings. Each stage will pass, and likely come up again, to pass again.

Yoga philosophy, as presented in the Bhagavad Gita recommends that we strive to understanding that the drama of life is much smaller than the wholeness that we comprise. This leads us to realize that we shouldn’t look to the drama for our happiness, but to our wholeness. This can be done through selfless work, the explicit pursuit of wisdom, meditation, and then, letting go of the results of our efforts.

Relying on getting what you want to bring you happiness is the fuel of the drama of life. It’s what makes us put an unbalanced amount of attention on the winning and losing. Not the fight, not the work, not the discernment — these are all the good acts of life, living in each moment. The attachment to a particular outcome, desire, or abhorence of another, repulsion, will always ultimately lead to dissatisfaction. Things, events, relationships, officials, everything comes and goes.

So we continue our work. Democrats noted that love trumps hate and that we’re better together. Those principles are still true, even on the day you don’t get what you want. So be a vehicle for love. Aim to live together. It will be hard work. The beauty of the process is that this work brings you love and togetherness.

You may not hear me now. You may find it triggers anger, or depression, or whichever stage you’re in. Allow yourself the chance to heal, and recognize when you are cycling back into one of the five stages of grief. But when you get to acceptance, do your best to move on, to connect with your wholeness. Winning and losing comes from the outside; contentment comes from within.

It all boils down to this

We tend to get very complicated. We live in the era of specialization. We think in terms of expertise. This kind of thinking tempts us to hope that there’s a special, expert, complicated magic bullet that will bring us what we want. And there are a lot of people who offer to sell us such a magic bullet. Almost always, the sales job emphasizes impossible things: eternal youth, great success, unheard-of prosperity, flawless health, better looks, waif-like weight, control.

IMG_7457Yoga proposes an alternative to all that. Continue reading “It all boils down to this”

The Political Revolution, Working Together

Screen Shot 2016-02-18 at 8.56.20 PMA letter to my fellow Sanders supporters. (Clinton supporters, please peek.)

Hillary continues to gain votes, and delegates, and states in the primary. Many voters evidently are convinced that having the first woman president, a seasoned diplomat, and a strategic policy wonk in the White House is a good idea. I have to admit, it sounds positive.

What Bernie has done, and continues to do, is to keep the focus on the fact that the middle and poorer classes are suffering, thanks to many things, including policies that have failed to more fairly distribute the economic gains of the 80s–2010s. These policies are what Bernie has criticized throughout his career. Continue reading “The Political Revolution, Working Together”

Quote from the Kularnava Tantra

From the Kularnava Tantra, as translated by Arthur Avalon.

Yoga is the main process. The Tantra seeks to weave it into every detail of life, give a different meaning to each of man’s activities by making all of them means for the effectuation and expression of the inner yoga of progression from the human into the divine.

This beautiful passage summarizes Tantra yoga, the transformation of one’s experience of life, pervaded with Consciousness that we alternately feel as individual and transcendent.

Incarnation (another sneak preview)

Here’s another little taste of my upcoming book (which is being copy edited as we speak!). Enjoy:

~ India, 1988 ~

A seventeen-year-old with a shock of black hair sat with his schoolmates in the sun facing his guru. The Indian sun beat down on the boys, and they shifted restlessly on their blankets.

Krishna Anand ran his hand pointlessly over his incorrigible hair and looked intently at the guru. His teacher was talking about something that the boy thought might actually be useful for a change; something that might help in his ruminations about staying in Tumkur to be near the object of his teen obsession: the girl Kamalita. Krishna’s and his fellow students’ circumstances were about to change as they approached the final days of their Gurukula, the traditional Hindu education that gives students a foundation in philosophy and an attitude toward living honorably out in the world. Soon they would leave school and move on toward adulthood and worldly pursuits. Continue reading “Incarnation (another sneak preview)”

Average Guys Are Extraordinary!

When I ran my last Man to Man: Yoga for the Average Guy workshop, one of my fellow teachers said, who wants to be an ‘average’ guy? I want to encourage them to be extraordinary! While my naming of the workshop was meant to dispel concerns that you need more than average abilities to do yoga (need for flexibility is the myth I hear non-stop), my colleague’s point is well-taken. Yoga in fact makes you an extraordinary person.

What’s so extraordinary about a man who practices yoga? Most people stumble along looking for satisfaction in life through gain and accomplishment out in the world. The news is full of stories of that not working — successful celebrities who have just as many problems as anybody. Yoga teaches a different approach, one where you draw satisfaction from tapping into your highest potential. Continue reading “Average Guys Are Extraordinary!”