Greetings Reader, According to our friends at Merriam-Webster, yesterday’s Word of the Day was “senescence.” Senescence is a word that refers to the state of being old or the process of becoming old. It’s related to words like senior and senile. It's also connected to ancient Rome and the Latin word for the council of elders, the Senatus, which acted as an advisory body on administrative, financial, military, and foreign policy matters of great importance to the Roman Republic. This may...
1 day ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader, Last week someone told me how much they liked the way I rendered a Sanskrit phrase into English in my book, Journey Into the Bhagavad Gita. It was an especially meaningful compliment because I’d put a lot of thought into how to render this particular phrase. I felt obliged to honor the requirement of matter-of-factness in the delivery of one of the Gita’s heavier reality checks. I also felt the need to convey the message with a level of poetic sensitivity that would honor...
8 days ago • 4 min read
Greetings Reader, ‘Tis the season to light candles, decorate trees, spin dreidels, honor ancestors, exchange gifts, listen to Handel’s Messiah (or Mariah Carey), and, apparently, contemplate questions about chakras. A mysterious synchronicity in the questions I receive occurs from time to time. This time, the synchronicity revolves around the mystery of chakras, as several people have asked me the same questions (more or less) over the last few days: "Are chakras really referenced in the yoga...
15 days ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader, Last week I told you that I’ve been spending a lot of time looking into how yoga philosophy offers us a vision for the future. That vision begins with resistance to all that is intolerable about the present: extra-judicial detentions and deportations, making the world safe for producers of “forever chemicals,” one mass shooting after another, kleptocratic authoritarianism, . . . the list goes on and on. Successful resistance movements Understand and address the conditions...
22 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, I think you need the equivalent of a degree in High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy to drive safely in India. If you can imagine something between a three-ring circus and NASCAR with stops and starts and constant horn-honking, that's what vehicular traffic in an Indian city is like. Which is why you'll never see me behind the wheel of a car (or a tuk-tuk) in Mumbai, but I'm happy to report that I've successfully crossed the street there a few times. The first time I visited Mumbai, I...
26 days ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking into how yoga philosophy offers us a vision for the future? By which I mean, the future after Trump. And I don’t just mean Trump the person; I mean the racist, sexist, pseudo-religious kleptocratic authoritarian extremism that Trump personifies. It will crash and burn . . . eventually. It’s just a question of when. Personally, I would prefer sooner than later. But even a blue wave next November may only amount to a quick fix...
29 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, It’s an overlooked fact: God shows up in the teachings of yoga more often than any other topic. Want proof: count the number of sūtras in Patañjali's Yoga-sūtra that are about Īśvara, the Sanskrit philosophical term that, in this context, refers to the “Supreme Controller.” Or you can take my word for it: Patañjali spills more ink on Īśvara than on any other topic. And the Bhagavad-gītā? The Gītā’s overarching theme is dharma, but the primary subject is Krishna, the speaker of the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Greetings Reader - Our free monthly series, Community Conversations, continues next week. This month, we're going to begin my looking back over the past 12 months and talk about how the world has changed, how we've changed, what personal and political events impacted us the most, and which spiritual teachings or practices helped us adapt, grow, keep our balance, and otherwise get through a year that exceeded all of our expectations in so many ways. Then we'll turn our gaze to the future: what...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Greetings Reader, Holiday lights. Holiday music. Holiday shopping. Holiday movies. Holiday travel. We’ve officially entered “Holiday Season” here in America-land, an annual pageant that acts like a cultural amplifier for one of our most basic needs: the need to feel included. ‘Tis the season for belonging. It’s a season with an unspoken script — gathering, gratitude, ritual meals, shared stories, music, memory —that invites us to participate in a choreography of connection. Even when family...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader, Here it comes: the biggest shopping day of the year! The day after American Thanksgiving, otherwise known as “Black Friday.” I prefer to call Black Friday by its other name: Buy Nothing Day. Which means that, for me, it’s also Sell Nothing Day. So don’t buy anything I’m selling this Friday. Every other day, every other day, every other day of the week is fine, yeah. And if you were thinking about getting on the boycott train, Buy Nothing Day is a great day to cancel your...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read