Hari-kirtana is an author, mentor, and yoga teacher who shares his knowledge and experience of how the yoga wisdom tradition can guide us toward meaningful and transformative spiritual experiences.
The Perfection of Imperfection
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Greetings Reader - Our free monthly series, Community Conversations, resumes this week with my good friend and long-time bhakti-yoga practitioner, Yasoda Mensah. Yasoda will guide us into a discussion about what yoga philosophy has to say about making mistakes, and how bhakti, devotional yoga, helps us embrace the perfection of imperfection. Yasoda is the owner of Trifolia Natural Products and Botanicals and the Director of Three Leaf Farmden, a project that's dedicated to pushing the boundaries on what we know about health, healing and spirituality by raising consciousness through education, sustainability, utility and self-realization. She's been a practitioner, educator, and counselor in the bhakti-yoga tradition for over thirty years and has lived and worked on three continents, during which time her passion for and knowledge of the Earth, environment, health and herbal medicines has grown and deepened. Yasoda holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology, a Masters in therapeutic herbalism and is a certified facilitator through the Institute for Applied Spiritual Technology. We'll also talk about the opportunity that Yasoda offers to qualified volunteers for short stays at the Farmden, where you can reconnect to the Earth through sustainable agriculture, engage in practices designed to nurture spiritual awareness, learn about medicinal plants and their preparation and experience living in community. I hope you'll join us for our next COMMUNITY CONVERSATION a free monthly study group Live via Zoom @ 12:00 pm Eastern Time NEXT CONVERSATION: Wednesday, September 18, 2024 THE PERFECTION OF IMPERFECTION This conversation will be recorded and available for replay on my YouTube channel Registration is free – CLICK HERE to get updates and the Zoom link! Community Conversation is a FREE monthly online gathering where we connect spiritual ideas to real life. If you haven't registered for our free monthly Community Conversations yet, CLICK HERE to get updates and the Zoom link for the live discussion, and the recording link so you can listen to the replay if you can't join us live. If you're already registered, you'll get reminder emails with the Zoom link next week. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on cultural appropriation and the most constructive ways we can respond to it. Hoping to see you this Wednesday, - Hari-k |
Hari-kirtana das
Hari-kirtana is an author, mentor, and yoga teacher who shares his knowledge and experience of how the yoga wisdom tradition can guide us toward meaningful and transformative spiritual experiences.
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...
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...
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...