Greetings Reader - In the Mahābhārata, the epic story that surrounds the Bhagavad-gītā, Arjuna and his brothers, collectively known as the Pandavas, faced isolation and hardship after losing their kingdom in a rigged game of dice. Forced into exile, they found solace and strength in their bond as brothers and in their relationships with allies like Krishna and sages like Vyasa. Trust, shared values, and support from their community gave the Pandavas the resilience to endure their trials and...
4 days ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader - In the Krishna-bhakti tradition, there's a beautiful song that's sung during this time of year called dāmōdarāṣṭakaṁ that includes this verse: “O Supreme Godhead, I offer my obeisances unto you. By showering your glance of mercy upon me, deliver this poor ignorant fool who is immersed in an ocean of worldly sorrows, and become visible to my eyes." Worldly sorrows and worldly joys come and go like waves in the ocean. Sometimes we have cause to celebrate, sometimes we have...
11 days ago • 4 min read
Greetings Reader - Some people think that a yogi should rise above the dualities of politics to a place of non-judgement and, subsequently, non-participation, through the cultivation of detachment. I think this is one of the most common misconceptions people have about the role detachment is meant to play in our yoga practice. The premises are right but the conclusion is wrong. Yoga does encourage detachment from conceptions of friends and enemies—the essence of politics—as well as equanimity...
18 days ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader - In his Yoga-sūtras, Patañjali describes the true nature of the self as being eternal, pure, and joyful. It’s nice to know that we have the potential to experience ourselves that way. The sutra also makes a clear distinction between the true self and the not self; the temporary material body that’s subject to so many problems. The differentiation between the infinitesimal spark of individual consciousness within the body and the body itself is a fundamental principle of yoga...
25 days ago • 2 min read
Greetings Reader - In the great epic, the Mahābhārata, the demigod Yamarāja asked a wise king, “What is the most amazing thing within this world?” The king replied, “The most amazing thing in the world is that hundreds and thousands of living beings meet death at every moment, but a foolish person, even after seeing friends and relatives pass away, nonetheless lives as if they won’t die and does not prepare for death.” It's true: we usually think of death as . . . something we don’t want to...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Greetings Reader - Cultural appropriation is a significant concern in our yoga community. However, despite our best intentions, we can unintentionally engage in it. And the reason may surprise you. Cultural appropriation in yoga is often seen as reducing practices to trendy aesthetics, taking traditional teachings out of context, and ignoring colonial histories that led to a commodified version of yoga that caters to Western consumer culture. While these points are all valid, they stem from...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Greetings Reader - Our free monthly series, Community Conversations, continues next week with my good friend, Sara Sheikh. Sara is a yoga teacher and a licensed clinical social worker with a trauma-informed holistic approach to therapy. She provides mental health counseling to people of all ages who are hoping to shed behaviors, feelings, and ways of thinking that no longer work for them. Her work is about empowering people to mindfully engage in a process of self-discovery and...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Greetings Reader - At the beginning of the Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna, the hero of the Gita, is paralyzed by grief and confusion as he foresees the death and destruction that an imminent confrontation will surely bring about. At the end of the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna, the teacher of the Gita, reassures Arjuna that the cause for which he’s been called to fight is just, his victory certain, and he has no reason to be fearful. Of course, a lot happens in between the beginning and the end to bring...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Greetings Reader - If you do a search on “spiritual leadership,” you’ll find descriptions that assume “spiritual leadership” means leading people along a spiritual path or inspiring people to engage more fully in their spiritual lives. That’s one way to think about spiritual leadership, and it’s a great way, but I prefer to think of spiritual leadership as the exemplary application of spiritual ideas and values to solving the problems of the material world. Among all yoga wisdom texts, the...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Greetings Reader - Yoga and politics might seem like strange bedfellows. In yoga, we embrace vairagya, or non-attachment, often interpreted as detachment from material things, people, and even ideas. We also emphasize the importance of tyāga, renunciation, and of seeing everyone and everything with equal vision. From this perspective, yoga can appear apolitical, and politics can seem un-yogic. We might conclude that yogis should remain detached, even to the point of not participating in...
2 months ago • 4 min read