Greetings Reader, Next Saturday is “No Kings Day” here in the United States. Again. Technically, every day here is “No Kings Day,” but it's painfully clear that some people need to be reminded that the legitimacy of our government is still supposed to be derived from the consent of the governed. As opposed to being derived from the consent of the spiritually-enlightened intellectuals, which is what the yoga wisdom tradition recommends. It may sound anachronistic, but you can make a reasonable...
4 days ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader, My younger self never aspired to master the art of cooking. Nor did I ever think it would turn into an enjoyable outlet for creative expression. And yet, here I am, in the kitchen, riffing off a recipe to cook up another culinary masterpiece All right, so, perhaps I'm indulging in a bit of overstatement. Cooking has become a form of meditation for me. Once I'm in the kitchen, my mind locks into the process and stays there until the repast is ready. My meditative orientation...
11 days ago • 4 min read
Greetings Reader, I get a lot of questions from yoga teachers about how to explain karma-yoga — the yoga of liberation through action. And I frequently get asked for advice on how to speak about bhakti-yoga, the yoga of devotion, in yoga classes. Speaking about karma-yoga is challenging because it seems impossible to act in the world without generating some kind of reaction. Speaking about bhakti-yoga can be tricky because yoga is not a religion but bhakti is theistic by definition. But what...
18 days ago • 6 min read
Greetings Reader, Last summer, I posted an Instagram reel about how the principle spiritual equality provides a rational basis for social justice. How so? Materially, none of us are equal. We all have a little more of this or a little less of that and when we add it all up, no one is materially equal to anyone else. Spiritually, however, the yoga wisdom tradition tells us that we are all equal; that we’re all made of the same spiritual stuff and that we are all equally infinitesimal parts of...
25 days ago • 4 min read
Greetings Reader, My latest rationalization for not pulling my phone away from my nose? Watching reels of musicians explaining the brilliance of the Beatles. It’s fun to learn what makes their songs so great. And it’s nice to see that these reels are coming from relatively young musicians, not my antediluvian contemporaries with memories of Beatlemania. One of the many ways that the Beatles upended the rules of pop songwriting was by opening songs with the chorus instead of a verse. The most...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Greetings Reader, Did I ever tell you that I used to be a soda pop salesman? It’s true. Back in 1981, I got a job as a sales rep for a very small company with a tiny office in lower Manhattan. Their flagship product was the first all-natural soda pop to hit the health food market. My job was to sell soda pop to independent grocery stores around the city and health food stores around the country. There were only five people working out of that office. Of those five, I was the only man. I was...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, One of the central ideas in the Yoga Sutras is that the root cause of suffering is ignorance of the true nature of the self. According to the Sutras, our true nature is one of eternally joyful existence. What's keeping us from seeing ourselves that way? The Sutras tell us that there are five obstacles, the first and foremost of which is ignorance. When we’re trapped in a state of ignorance, we can’t see our own true nature. What we can see is our material minds and bodies, which...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Greetings Reader, My body has officially arrived at the threshold of old age. It’s a good thing I’m not my body. Don’t get me wrong: I feel fine, physically and mentally. But facts are facts: the time I have left in this body won't be nearly as long as the time I’ve already spent in it. Well, sort of. The body I’m in now isn’t the same one I was in just a few years ago. To say nothing of the one I was in 50 years ago. None of us actually stays in the same body for very long. Human bodies are...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Enrollment is open for my next live online course, The Yoga Sutras Saturdays and Sundays, February 14-15 / February 12-22 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST Each class will be recorded: replay links will be emailed to all registrants. Participants can receive 6 hours of CE credit with Yoga Alliance. Tuition: $108 This course is for yoga teachers and serious practitioners. Together, we explore yoga’s foundational philosophy with clarity and depth, connecting its insights to real-life...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Greetings Reader, I read a social media post recently that said we shouldn’t be comparing ICE to Nazis because ICE isn’t shoving people into gas chambers and stealing their jewelry. If anyone thinks we should wait until it comes to that before making such a comparison, they were clearly not paying attention the day they covered the 1930s in history class. We may not have to wait very long, though. They’ve gotten as far as murdering people in public with the whole world watching; I shudder to...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read