Greetings Reader, I feel grateful. Every day. Maybe it's because I've been lucky and have a lot to be grateful for. Or maybe I'm lucky to be able to feel grateful. Grateful to be lucky, lucky to be grateful . . . whatever: I'm lucky and I'm grateful. Let's leave it at that. My living situation is something I'm especially grateful for. I wake up every morning in a state of disbelief that I live in such a nice place. My amazement might be easier to understand if you knew how close I came to...
4 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I'm writing to let you know about my next live online workshop: The Yoga of Becoming Fearless Sunday, February 1 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST Investment: $27 The workshop will be recorded: a replay link will be emailed to all registrants. Participants can receive 1.5 hours of CE credit with Yoga Alliance. Click Here to Enroll The wisdom texts of the yoga tradition speak to the experience of fear in very direct and meaningful ways. And they prescribe spiritual practices that can help us...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Greetings Reader, I don’t remember exactly when I first read Frank Herbert’s epic science fiction novel Dune — mid 70’s or early 80’s? For a couple of weeks it was my constant companion on the New York City subway system. I clearly remember thinking that it would be impossible to make a convincing movie out of it, given the limited special effects capabilities of the time. Early attempts to do so proved me right (IMNSHO). It’s possible now, of course, but If you haven’t seen either of the...
11 days ago • 2 min read
Greetings Reader - The 2026 edition of our free monthly series, Community Conversations, kicks off next week. This month, we're going to explore the question of how to reconcile the idea of surrender to "divine will" with the moral imperative to participate in the project of making the world a better place.According to yoga philosophy, everything happens for a reason; there is a cause to every effect. However, the precise cause of any given effect can be hard to ascertain. Yoga philosophy...
21 days ago • 2 min read
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...
25 days 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...
about 1 month 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...
about 1 month 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...
about 2 months 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...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read