Photos by Natalie Ford, the exhibit’s creator. These are part of her collection, Sacred Art Series, Faces of Peace: The Buddha—photos of Buddha she has taken all over the world. She meditates and tunes in to each Buddha she shoots to get the right name and message for that Buddha. She sees animal treatment as part of “compassion for all living things, including the earth, the animals, and yourself,” noting that at the end of yoga classes, many sing the Sanskrit chant, Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu.  (May all beings in the world be happy and free.) “It’s important to represent your spirituality with meaningful action,” she says, and her vegan diet and view of animals flows from that. “Humans are not the only beings in the world that are suffering,” she says. New York’s Tibet House quoted the Dalai Lama when it showed Ford’s Buddha series: “If warriors would think of the face of the Buddha before they strike a blow or before they light a fire, maybe they would restrain themselves from doing that act of violence.”

Photographers act on their vision of animal advocacy in a compassionate and sustainable world.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“My love for animals touches everything I do,” says APA Award-winning photographer Natalie Ford, who recently organized a one-night exhibit of nine distinguished fine-art photographers. The evening was designed to raise awareness and compassion for animals and their place in the world, and, specifically, to raise funds for START Rescue (Shelter Transport Animal Rescue Team).

START Rescue is a nonprofit that rescues dogs and cats from high-kill shelters in California and finds placement in homes in the Pacific Northwest. It has also funded more than 5,500 spay/neuter surgeries for low-income families, and rescues some animals from Mexico and from South Korea where the animals are tortured as part of the process of improving their taste.

The Lois Lambert Gallery, in Santa Monica’s Bergamot (Station) arts center, donated its space for an event that drew artists, collectors, celebrities, philanthropists, and animal advocates from a range of communities.

“This is actually the fifth fine art photo show I have curated,” says Ford, “but the first group show that has included all compassionate photographers.” To Ford, there is a spirituality and sacredness to the photography itself; the captured energy of a moment that passes between the artist and the subject and connects to the viewer. “The deep truths of photographic images are raw and pure,” she says.

Ford and the other photographers at this exhibit join a long tradition of artists and celebrities who have used their talents and voices to encourage the ethical treatment of animals and point a wider lens on its implications for global health, spirituality, and the environment.

Photographer and event creator Natalie Ford, with event volunteers. Photo by Sarah Singer of Sarah Singer Photography.

Supporting START Rescue

While START Rescue’s co-founders Steve Spiro and Rene Ruston rescue 100 to 150 animals a month from shelters, they are not fully heartened. “I’ve got a picture on my phone of us clearing out a whole section of a shelter,” says Spiro. “That was on a Thursday. Friday, it was full again.” But, the increasing numbers of rescue and spay/neuter groups overall gives them hope. And, Ruston says they see the dramatic difference the spay/neuter part of their mission is making, which she says is important “because we realized we’re not going to transport our way out of these problems.”

Like most of the photographers at this exhibit, Ruston and Spiro see animal treatment as part of a larger story. And the larger story has to do with “compassion and what we’re doing to the environment,” says Ruston.

Animal Agriculture and Climate Change

“Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change, far beyond all transportation combined,” explains Jane Velez-Mitchell, a national and local on-air TV journalist for 40 years. She covered the photography event as the editor of her nonprofit digital animal rights and lifestyle news outlet JaneUnchained.com. “That

[impact] was documented years ago by the United Nations.” But she says that World Bank economists have since found that the damage from animal agriculture is even worse than the UN reported.

Billy McNamara and Jane Velez-Mitchell. Photo by Sarah Singer of Sarah Singer Photography.

As Velez-Mitchell reads the numbers, “If we don’t stop animal agriculture . . . we’re going to have an ecological collapse that is going to make Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Maria, and all those other storms look like a tea party. We are literally mowing down the planet to grow crops. Not to feed people, but to feed those animals. . . Our wild areas are being decimated. And [a recent New York Times article] says it’s from human behavior. But it’s really not human behavior, it’s the specific human behavior that is animal agriculture.”

Many of the people at the event seemed to share a common knowledge—the 70+ billion farm animals that are killed each year for food and fur, the destruction of land, the health dangers, the dangers to indigenous cultures, the emissions, and the widespread suffering it causes.

Mountain gorilla, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Photo by Cindy Landon.

Photographer Cindy Landon

Photographer Cindy Landon says as an animal advocate for many years, she has learned a lot about the plight of African wildlife. “The poaching, and knowing they are slaughtered for their tusks and horns, is heartbreaking. Trophy hunting is another horrific act I can’t wrap my head around. Every 15 minutes an elephant is killed, and they say in the next 10 years they’ll become extinct.”

Landon is the widow of actor Michael Landon (“Highway to Heaven,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Bonanza”), who died of cancer in 1991. “I gave up eating meat when I was 14, a young girl. I couldn’t eat it because I felt, and feel, I could never hurt anything. I made the connection probably at five years old, but my family convinced me to eat meat. And at 14, I finally said no more. And I became vegan about 18 years ago.”

An experienced traveler, she says Africa is her favorite place. “This last trip was the first time I witnessed the Great Migration [of wildebeests] and went trekking with wild gorillas. After seeing my first group of gorillas I broke down in tears. To see these amazing animals so close up, and to stand in quite solitude and have this experience, was beyond words. I am saddened knowing that if drastic measures aren’t taken, perhaps my grandchildren will not have the opportunity to share in these extraordinary moments.”

“Self-awareness is also part of the answer,” says  Cindy Landon. “We’ve been told that we’re not going to be able to keep raising animals this way much longer. But a change is happening slowly, especially in Los Angeles and New York. And, for me, it’s how do you take an animal, torture it, keep it in these factory farms and these crates, then slaughter them horrifically, and then sit down and eat them? Just spiritually and consciously, I can’t imagine how anybody can do that. So, I’m hopeful that people will wake up more and do things differently.

Photographer Sej Saraiya, with Scott Bramer (L) and Michael Petted; with her photos in the background. Photo credit: Sarah Singer of Sarah Singer Photography.

Photographer Sej Saraiya

Sej Saraiya, an award-winning photographer from India who documents indigenous and vanishing cultures, was invited to exhibit at this event and also coproduced it. “One reason I photograph indigenous people and their sacred lands,” says Saraiya, “is because these are places where there’s a direct connection between human beings and animals; something we need to bring back to our planet in order to save it.”

Recently, Saraiya was invited to mentor at a filmmaking and storytelling program for First Nations people in British Columbia. While there, she spent time with an old Nlaka’pamux medicine woman, who taught her about medicinal plants and herbs. “She was appalled at how little I knew,” says Saraiya. “She invited me to go medicine-picking with her, saying we would go at sundown, because in the morning the forest belongs to the animals, who go berry picking and catch fish. After they’re done for the day, the forest is ours.’ She taught me to put down an offering after collecting the food and herbs; an apple or an orange, or tobacco. ‘You trade. We respect Mother Earth because that’s where our food and medicines come from. We pray to the birds because they’re our winged brothers and sisters. And we respect the four-legged, the deer, the horse, the cows, the moose, the bear; they’re all our brothers and sisters.’ And to me, that was really beautiful, because we don’t talk like that; we don’t think like that. We think everything is ours to be exploited. We don’t really respect the other beings the way they do. ‘We can’t go in the forest to pick herbs because it’s the animals’ hour.’ So beautiful. Why don’t we think like that?”

 

Billy McNamara: The James Bond of Animal Activism

The fine-art photography fundraiser was hosted and MC’d by Billy McNamara, a film and television actor, and also the producer of such documentaries as Nat Geo Wild Network’s “Animal Intervention,” an exposé of the U.S. exotic animal industry. He is a longtime animal rights activist—with an emphasis on “active.”

The fall 2018 fire in Malibu. Cellphone photo by Billy McNamara.

During the recent Malibu fires, McNamara stayed up for three days straight avoiding flames, jumping fences, breathing smoke, and working with firefighters and others to rescue two horses (among other animals), give them hourly water, investigate the safety of the 250 safari animals (they were safe), and put out spot fires. The firefighters supported what he was doing and answered his call when he saw structures at risk. Above is a cellphone picture McNamara took at the Malibu 76 Station on PCH, where he hid between forays into the flaming hills.

In 2003, McNamara went to Taiji, Japan, with Sea Shepherd, a nonprofit conservation organization that uses “direct action” and information campaigns to protect marine life. They went to stop the town’s hidden government-sanctioned mass dolphin killings, and he was imprisoned briefly. “We were a very small team of activists and environmentalists,” he says. “We had to do some sabotage and subterfuge, and it was illegal. We were very radical and very aggressive physically. We were trained that way by Sea Shepherd.” But he notes that no humans were harmed by his efforts, saying that would have gone against the group’s humane purpose.

“I’ll tell you an interesting story,” he said. “In Taiji, the dolphins get killed with spears, and they scream. The screams are so loud, and the cove turns red with blood. And one of the things the Japanese said to us in their defense was, ‘Why are you so angry? Why do you Americans come here? The Buddhists [in a nearby Buddhist monastery] watch us do the killing, and they’re OK with it.’

“And I thought, Wow. I saw the Buddhists there in their orange robes, and I thought, ‘What the fuck?’ So I went over, and I said, ‘Anybody speak English?’ And one said, ‘Yes, I speak English.’ And I said, ‘So they said you’re OK with this, and you don’t care that they’re doing that?’ And he said, ‘We don’t make any judgment. But we’re here to witness it. We didn’t want it to happen without witnesses.’
“And I said, ‘Well don’t you want to do anything about it?’
“And one guy said: ‘You’re here.’
“In other words, ‘We’ve been praying and meditating that somebody would come. That’s what we do. We pray and meditate. And so that’s our part of it.’

“And when he said that, I thought, I get it now. It was powerful. They’re there witnessing the murder, and that’s an important thing to do. To witness. It’s not happening without people witnessing and feeling the emotion and the terribleness of it.”

More Compassion

Other fine art photographers at this exhibit included Donna Dennison, Andrei Duman, Sally Long, Carla Seidel, Todd Snyder, and Kurt Weiss.

“Events like this one for START Rescue remind people that there are more living beings on this earth besides us,” says Saraiya. “We get really busy in our 9–5’s, and then we come to this event and you see these people rescuing animals, and you see tears in everyone’s eyes. It creates a little shift in us.”

 

Jeffrey Ainis

Jeffrey Ainis is a freelance writer, book editor, and an author of books on world music and composing. He also leads kirtan around the world.

The post Picturing Change: Animal Advocacy through Art appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Ayurveda and the power of the breath

The breath is the connecting link between the inner world of the mind and the outer world of body and environment.  Meditation works by bringing an effect from the level of Being to the mind.  With the breath, we bring this effect to the physical level as well.

When an illness comes, first it comes in thought, often as the subtlest idea, in sound form.  And then it manifests in light form, in the aura.  The illness then manifests in the body.  Simple symptoms arise in a fluid form that can be eradicated.  And finally they manifest in the most gross form, where medication is needed.

Life and the whole universe are made of five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space.  Or you could say the five senses and their objects: smell, taste, sight, touch, and sound.  Even these five elements are not tight compartments.  One flows into another.

The subtlest element in us is space, which is the element the mind is made of.  The most gross is the earth element, which our bones and marrow, the skin, and structure are made of.  These elements are further divided into the three doshas — vata, pitta, and kappa, which are familiar ways to understand the physiology and its reflection in the mind.

If your mind is bogged down with too many impressions and too many thoughts, it will drain your resistance to disease.  If the mind is clear, calm, meditative, pleasant, the body’s resistance will increase.  So for good health, the first remedy is calming down the mind by attending to the sublets aspect of creation — akasha, the space element.

And then we come to the air element, the breath.  Even aromatherapy can come here.  And after that there is color therapy or light.  Before an illness manifests in the body you can see it in the aura of a person.   By energizing our system with prana, life energy, breath, you can clear the aura and prevent the illness before it comes.  That is what yoga does.  Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutra, says the purpose of yoga is to stop the sorrow before it arises.  It’s one of the most beautiful treatises, where, in just one sentence he gives a formula.  What is the purpose of this?  To stop the sorrow before it arises.  To burn the seed before it sprouts.

And then comes the water element.  Fasting or purifying the system with water can bring a lot of balance of the system.

Breath and the Doshas

In yoga and breathing practices, the three-stage pranayama uses ujjayi (a subtle sound breath), with the hands placed in different places, which directs the energy to the three major parts of the body.  And it has an effect on the three doshas.  There are breathing exercises for the lower, middle and higher parts of the body.

You might have noticed, if you have done the three-stage pranayama, that after doing it you feel the doshas in your body have altered.  The pranayama brings the system balance.

And, as we have seen with Sudarshan Kriya and SKY Meditation [a specific breathing meditation], definite rhythms or breathing patterns can correct those doshas and bring further balance in those areas.

Our breath has a lot of secrets to offer.  Because for every emotion in the mind there is a corresponding rhythm in the breath.  And each rhythm affects a certain part of the body.  You only need to observe it.

These things, you don’t have to learn from anybody if you have the sharpness of the mind.  If your mind is very keen and full observation, then just observing the people around, the children around, and the nature around, you learn a lot.  But our mind is preoccupied with so many things, so many judgments, so many opinions, and so many impressions.  We are unable to perceive the refined things in nature.  So we need to study.

What is that something that is in this body, which is feeling happy and miserable, which is expressing, which is experiencing, which is evolving, and which is moving through the events?  What is that?  This knowledge, this inquiry is the study of consciousness, the study of life.

Swastha is the Sanskrt word for health, and it means “established in one’s Self.”  This is the benchmark the ancient rishis have set forth.  The real degree of health is determined by the smile, by the serenity, the dignity, by the good behavior of a person, and the positive vibes emitted.

Ayurveda is the only system of medicine on this planet that is written in poetry and sung.  All the original knowledge is in verses.  The very knowledge is musical, bringing harmony between the right and left hemisphere of the brain, and indicating that life has to be lived with this holistic perspective.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a spiritual leader and humanitarian who is the founder of Sri Sri College of Ayurvedic Science and Research and its associated Ayurvedic hospital and centers.  He is also the founder of the Art of Living Foundation and International Association for Human Values which are among the largest UN-accredited NGOs.  He is also the founder The Los Angeles Art of Living Center where a variety of programs are offered throughout the year.  artoflivingla.org

Jeffrey Ainis

Jeffrey Ainis is a freelance writer, book editor, and an author of books on world music and composing. He also leads kirtan around the world.

The post Ayurveda and the power of the breath appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

From the Covered California home page, www.coveredca.com. Those outside California, see healthcare.gov, the national site.

When you start looking into it, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) actually seems fairly straightforward and not that complicated. In a recent presentation sponsored by California Lawyers for the Arts, someone from the Actors Fund gave a clear summary of the program’s benefits and who is affected. The Actors Fund got a grant to help with patient education, and they, along with the Affordable Care Act itself, are available for telephone assistance.

In California, the Affordable Care Act is implemented as something called Covered California. (They neglected to reserve the coverecalifornia.com website, so its coveredCA.com.) Apparently, California is one of the most prepared states in the country for Obamacare. Also in California, acupuncture is covered by some of the plans.

Policies for nearly everyone across the country with individual insurance or Medicare will now have ten essential benefits included in their policies, including both outpatient and emergency services, free physicals, maternity and newborn care, MENTAL HEALTH and substance-use programs, prescription drugs, rehabilitative services and devices, preventive and wellness services, pediatric oral and vision, coverage of preexisting conditions, and certain preventive free tests and procedures. Self-insured and group/employer plans are not covered and many group/employer plans are allowed to grandfather in their benefits or lack thereof, as long as they don’t change the benefits. But no ACA plan can exist that doesn’t also exist in the private sector.

If you are 65 or older, you can’t be on an Affordable Care Act plan, you have to be on Medicare (or you can be on Medicaid/Medi-Cal if you make less than $15,414 a year). However, most Medicare recipients making less than $85,000 a year have already been eligible for reduced prescription costs as part of the plan. And those who have Part B of Medicare (the medical coverage beyond purely in-patient hospital coverage) also get the ten essential benefits.

And Medi-Cal is now available to anyone of any age based on income. (You used to have to have a child or one on the way.) Again, California has taken advantage of the Medicaid part of the Federal program. Some states have initially decided not to help their poor through this program. And some states are intentionally not educating their citizens about the program. But, again, California is making a strong effort in this area.

If your employer already offers insurance you have to take that, unless it amounts to more than 9.5% of your income, then you can take a Covered California plan, which lets you get assistance if you’re eligible (which many individuals and especially families are). Some companies, like Trader Joe, are discontinuing their employee coverage, thinking that employees will get a better deal on their own, since ACA premium assistance comes with income levels below $45,960 a year. In fact, the government’s assistance to help pay the insurance premiums can be quite high. You can go to CoveredCA.com and navigate to a calculator that will tell you how much assistance you will get, if any, and what plans are available to you.

There are four levels of insurance plans you can choose from—bronze, silver, gold, and platinum—the more precious the metal, the higher the percentage of medical expenses covered by the plan/the lower the co-pay, and also the higher the premiums are. But all plans have the free prevention items, like free yearly checkups, blood pressure checks, vaccinations, and even stop-smoking programs. Mental health coverage will be a major new benefit for many.

There are 13 insurance companies you can go with in California, and of those, six serve L.A. County. When you are comparing plans on the Covered California site, the current site shows only four companies in a row, so look to see if there are more to the right. (When I viewed it, dots below the boxes showed if there were more plans to look at, and seemed easy to miss. But the site may look different as they refine it. It’s all new!)

During the first year, the amount of assistance you can get with premium payments is determined by your 2012 taxes. But if your income changes at any point, you just tell Covered California and they adjust. The Actors Fund kept emphasizing that the program is very consumer-oriented.

The initial enrollment period this year is  Oct. 1, 2013 – March 31, 2014. If you enroll before Dec. 15, coverage starts Jan 1, 2014. After this year, the yearly enrollment period will be Oct. 15-Dec. 7.

There is a single total penalty of $95 for the year or 1% of your income for not enrolling the first year, $325/2% the next year, and $695/2.5%  per year beyond that. And adults under 30 (“the invincibles”) can choose a catastrophic plan if they want to.

For assistance, questions, and information, you can call Covered California at 800-300-1506, go into an office (soon), or go online. You can also call the Actors Fund Covered California helpline, at 855-491-3357. The Artists Health Insurance Resource Center, at Ahirc.org, gives information about provisions that directly impact artists and entertainers.

A representative at Covered California said they were interested in making the system better as they go, and he said they were open to feedback.

For your interest, there is a fascinating article, called “Testing, Testing,” that appeared in the Dec. 14, 2009, New Yorker, that compares health-care reform to the reform of the U.S. agriculture system at the start of the 20th century, a comparison the article’s author finds hopeful. As part of that hope, he peers into some of the pilot programs that were tucked into the bill. Newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande

Jeffrey Ainis is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Southern California

Jeffrey Ainis

Jeffrey Ainis is a freelance writer, book editor, and an author of books on world music and composing. He also leads kirtan around the world.

The post ObamaCAre appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

“We have always used the water of holy rivers like the Ganga and Yamuna to purify ourselves, but today we have reached a point where we have to purify this water.” — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

For spiritual leader and humanitarian His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, both the inner and outer environment are an integral part of us.

According to the ancient Vedic knowledge, human beings have five sheaths or layers to their existence — the environment, the physical body, the mind, the intuitive sheath, and the innermost blissful Self.

“The environment is our first body,” says Sri Sri (pronounced Shree Shree), “so environmental consciousness is built into the human system. Historically, nature, or prakriti, has always been adored in India. It is only when we start moving away from nature that we start polluting nature.”

For the last 30 years, Sri Sri has focused on both the individual and society. His core programs for individuals include a workshop that brings the mind into the present with special breathing techniques, knowledge, and advanced programs of silence and meditation. He also offers special workshops that help veterans, people with HIV, prisoners, business people, and children.

However, Sri Sri considers service a key aspect of personal growth, and something that has the effect of helping people go deeper in their meditation.

“When the love blossoms, it has to flow out and express,” he explains. “Otherwise, it is suffocating inside. Service is not a favor that one does for somebody. It is not work that one is doing. It is the expression of one’s inner being; it is love. It brings one totally into the present moment.”

Volunteers from Sri Sri’s nonprofit organ-izations are active in more than 150 countries and have brought trauma relief to areas of conflict and natural disaster on a massive scale. They have inspired parties at war to lay down their arms, fought corruption and female infanticide, and brought hygiene, housing, education, and other programs to more than 35,000 villages in rural India.

If you looked only at the worldwide environmental initiatives of Sri Sri’s main foundations, the Art of Living Foundation, and the International Association for Human Values, you could easily conclude that they must be purely environmental organizations. They are involved in a campaign against genetically modified seeds, rainwater-harvesting projects, zero-budget organic and chemical-free farming, animal and plant-species protection, sustainable-living education in the U.S. and Canada, Haiti reforestation, and environmental campaigns in Bahrain.

As part of the Art of Living’s Mission Green Earth, volunteers in 36 countries planted more than 55 million trees. Last year, more than 20,000 people joined Sri Sri at the Yamuna River, as part of an eight-day cleanup event and awareness campaign. Over half of the estimated 3.6 billion tons of sewage produced daily in Delhi, flows untreated into the Yamuna. The Art of Living initiated the Yamuna cleanup project and has since inspired major local involvement with dozens of other NGOs and companies joining as partners.

“Spirituality elevates one’s consciousness and checks the greed that leads to environmental degradation,” says Sri Sri. “If you are devoid of spirituality or ignore it, you cannot become environmentally conscious, it’s almost impossible. Because somewhere deep within you, your cravings, your aversions, and your anger will, directly or indirectly, start affecting your environment.”

The Earth as a Living Being

In Vedic times, in India, the five basic elements that are in human beings and the rest of creation were treated with honor: earth, water, fire, air, and space.“Water was worshipped as sacred,” explains Sri Sri. “Every river was considered sacred and pollutants were not allowed.

When you consider something sacred, you will never pollute it.” An attitude of treating the elements as though they were living beings is found in Native Americans and tribal people around the world.

Sri Sri suggests that only when someone is aware and respects the Earth will they stop polluting. “When one can respect living beings, then respect for animals comes, and after that, inanimate objects. But a certain level of awareness, a certain level of awakening is essential. It takes a greater heart.”

“Treating the trees, rivers, people, and the rest of the planet as sacred, and seeing God in nature and in people will foster sensitivity,” he says. “A sensitive person can’t but care for nature. It is insensitivity that makes a person act callously toward the environment. If a person is sensitive, he will nurture the environment, thereby eradicating pollution.”

The Inner Environment

Even in the face of war and terrorism, Sri Sri feels environmental issues cannot be ignored. “Of course,” he notes, “if there is a war and bombs are falling next door, you can’t think about planting new trees. In those situations, whether it is Gaza, Lebanon, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, the immediate concern is to put an end to terrorism and to stop the war. At the same time, I would say that even war is part of the environmental concern. Dropping tons of ammunition and bombs in a small area damages that area for a long, long time. Trees are damaged, earth gets damaged, and water is polluted.”

There is one influence on the environment he says we should be paying more attention to — the effect of the negative emotions and vibrations we carry with us.

“It’s quite natural for negative feelings and emotions to come into the mind,” he says. “It’s not unnatural, it’s natural.” Of these, “greed is the greatest pollutant,” he says; “Greed stops a person from sharing with others. Greed obstructs the preservation of the ecology. While being aware of methods to prevent pollution, a person may not act upon them because they cost in some way. This greed not only pollutes the gross physical environment, but also contaminates the subtle atmosphere. It stimulates negative emotions in the subtle mind and impacts the minds of the people around.”

Sri Sri states that the negative feelings of hatred, anger, and jealousy are the root of all disasters and misery in the world, whether they are economic, political, environmental, or social.

“All that we need to learn is how to clear them away so they don’t stay there, ferment, and become more negative,” he says cheerfully. “That is why these practices of meditation, Yoga, and breathing techniques are there. Through them, you can create such a positive and harmonious vibration within you and around you.” He says that awareness of how things are, right now, and awareness of the positive and negative emotions, also helps.

Service & The Shade-Giving Tree

“Seva (service) is your inner attitude, not the action,” says Sri Sri. It is that attitude of saying ‘I am available, I am here,’ to everybody, to everything, in all situations and all circumstances.

Sri Sri tells the story of a rich but miserable merchant during Buddha’s time. After meeting Buddha and meditating, he felt so wonderful that he wanted to help others find that. He found a beautiful area for an ashram, not far from the city, but discovered that it was the pleasure park of the prince. The prince wanted a lot of money for this land so the merchant paid for it, and the place became Buddha’s ashram. At one time, there were ten thousand people meditating there.

However, the merchant eventually lost his business and became a pauper. He was penniless, but he still wanted to keep giving something. In his backyard, he dug up some manure compost and put it under some of the ashram’s plants and trees.

Says Sri Sri: “Someone asked, ‘What is this? This is amazing! Even now, you are doing this service.’ The man says, ‘Yes. A handful of compost I put under this plant. This plant will become a shade-giving tree, and we don’t know how many people will sit under this tree and find that peace within their heart and get out of all their misery and problems.

Just sitting under the tree, how many people will gain meditation? For centuries to come, it can do a lot of miracles and benefit so many people.’

From that attitude, says Sri Sri, “‘This tree is not just a tree for today. The manure I am putting is not manure just for today. It’s for generations to come. This will grow bigger and bring shade and solace to many souls burned down in the heat of the world.’ That attitude of seva, that feeling that generates from within us; seva, is just an expression of our inner love.”

In the memoir, Stumbling Into Infinity: An Ordinary Man in the Sphere of Enlightenment, Michael Fischman tells about Sri Sri Ravi Shankar when he was in his twenties, seeking advice from a 300-year-old saint named Devraha Baba. This saint handed Sri Sri a big melon, saying, “Water is flowing. It has to flow.

If it stagnates, it will rot. So satsang should flow. Satsang is that force that allows the grace to flow in the world. Satsang is essential in the world so the world doesn’t rot. You have to carry on the satsang everywhere in the world.”

For information on programs at the Art of Living, visit artoflivingLA.org, or call 310-820-9429. For more information on Sri Sri, visit srisri.org.

Jeffrey Ainis

Jeffrey Ainis is a freelance writer, book editor, and an author of books on world music and composing. He also leads kirtan around the world.

The post Serving The Inner And Outer Environment appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.