There are days when reality seems to unravel before our eyes. We are shaken, torn down, stripped of what we believe. A scandal breaks out at the ashram or Yoga studio. A friend turns against us. The person we married turns into someone we don’t recognize, or wish we did not know. The banking and [...]
Practice Pages: Yoga Therapy Yoga in Iraq: Inner Journeys Provide Sanctuary One of the keys to survival in a mortar attack is to hit the ground as quickly as possible. During one such moment, I happened to be close the ground already since I had just lowered my body into chaturanga (four limbs [...]
Practice Pages: Meditation I don't know about you, but when I meditate, my mind does not go blank. It’s an inner wilderness adventure. I close my eyes and blam, it’s wild in here. There is a whirl of thoughts and feelings, a hundred sticky notes of things to do. When I tend to each thought, [...]
Autobiography of a Yogi is a book with a profound impact over the decades since it was written by the great master Yogananda. Among many who have been touched by the words, physical presence or energy of this teacher is Swami Kriyananda, who was only in his early twenties when he met Yogananda and from that [...]
Around The World And On The Stage ONLY FIFTEEN MINUTES into the practice and we knew we were in over our heads. Guru Kal, (short for Kali), a powerful lion of a man, was barking out commands in a rapid and incomprehensible (to us) dialect of Malayalam. Following his direction, we awkwardly threw ourselves to [...]
Desi Bartlett Practice Pages: English Finding A Style Of Practicing Yoga Which Speaks To You DISCOVERING WHICH STYLE of Yoga speaks to you is largely a matter of taste. In Sanskrit, the word rasa means essence. When you are describing something’s rasa, you are talking about the qualities it has, the feeling behind those [...]
Practice Pages: Meditation Japa Breath From The Radiance Sutras, A New Version of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra AYURVEDIC PHYSICIANS ARE FOND of saying, “Have all six tastes on your tongue every day: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent (spicy) and astringent.” Whatever your body type, by treating yourself to diversity of taste (rasa) you will have more [...]
Brother Achalananda speaking at the Self-Realization Fellowship annual convocation in Los Angeles. Self-Realization Annual Convocation in LA August 2 - 8, 2009 There’s something both powerful and inspirational about sharing an enormous room with nearly 4,000 people, all poised and sitting silently, creating a meditative space that vibrates far beyond the walls. This [...]
Practice Pages: Yoga Therapy Observing Habits and Affecting Change Through Conscious Direction THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE provides teachings to allow people to listen to the body’s habits in movement and posture and reorganizing our internal coordination. Like yogis entering a pose with specific actions such as anchoring the legs, Alexander students watch themselves stand, sit, [...]
I HAVE A MILLION WAYS to avoid a pose: thinking about something else while I’m in it, slipping out of class to pee or judging everyone else’s poses. My favorite way to avoid a pose has always been to slink off my mat for a sip of water. But lately, I’m having a [...]