This past week was one where I felt spontaneously immersed in feelings of gratitude. For starters, I felt grateful for not having had my legs blown off by a couple of psychos with a twisted idea of how to use a pressure cooker. And I felt grateful that I don’t live in Syria, where massacres far, far worse than the Boston Marathon bombing happen every day.
I also found myself feeling oddly grateful that I live in the District of Columbia, where I’m not entitled to congressional representation by a United States Senator. Usually that bothers me but since it became clear last week that, if I did have a Senator, there would be an even-money chance that they would be more interested in who’s picking up their restaurant tab than what most people in America want, it doesn’t bother me so much. Read More »
Hari:
Well, either you’re closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a yoga class in your school district.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in Encinitas. Read More »
As is sometimes the case for those of us who become yoga teachers, my first few classes were a little rough. Fortunately my classes were so small that my early missteps were endured only by an unfortunate few. And, since some of my fellow Teacher Training alumni as well as friends with years of teaching experience mercifully subjected themselves to my classes, I got valuable feedback to help me improve. On one such occasion it was brought to my attention that I was so anxious to get everyone moving on their mats that I had forgotten the first order of business: I had forgotten to chant “Om”.
Of course, not every yoga teacher chants “Om” to begin a class. And some yoga students are just as happy to get centered and focused by other means. But as a general rule, at least in most yoga studios, we begin and end a yoga class by chanting “Om”. Read More »
By hari-kirtana
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Posted in Bhagavad-gita, Yoga Meditations, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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Tagged Bhagavad-gita, isvara, Om, Patanjali, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Supreme Being, Teacher education, Veda, Vishnu, yoga
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February 16, 2013 – 10:20 AM
prakrteh kriyamanani – gunaih karmani sarvasah /
ahankara-vimudhatma – kartaham iti manyate //
“The spirit soul, bewildered by the influence of false ego, thinks them self to be the doer of activities that, in actuality , are carried out by the three modes of material nature.”
Bhagavad Gita 3.27
I love to get angry. Few things make me happier than an opportunity for indignation, righteous or otherwise. And if nothing worthy of my fury comes my way, I’ll go out and find something. In fact, I’m so nuts that I’ll actually observe a circumstance, imagine it evolving into something I dislike, and then get angry about what I imagined. Read More »
January 31, 2013 – 7:57 AM
At a recent hearing about gun control legislation in Hartford, Connecticut, Mark Mattioli, whose 6-year-old son James was killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, urged lawmakers to address America’s culture of violence. “It’s a simple concept. We need civility across our nation,” he said. “What we’re seeing are symptoms of a bigger problem. This is a symptom. The problem is not gun laws. The problem is a lack of civility.”
Mr. Mattioli’s point may have been lost on the gun rights advocates who interrupted his testimony with shouts about their 2nd amendment rights. Be that as it may, it’s become clear that America has reached a tipping point on the issue of guns: a sufficient number of people are so dissatisfied with the results of the status quo that they feel motivated to change it. Read More »
By hari-kirtana
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Posted in Yoga Meditations
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Tagged Bhagavad-gita, culture, Ethics, gun control, guns, karma, Krishna, Lifestyle Choices, non-violence, prasada, Sandy Hook, Supreme Being, vegan, veganism, vegetarianism, violence, yoga, yoga philosophy
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December 17, 2012 – 6:34 AM
After the shock wears off what remains is a desire for understanding; we long for something that will explain the inexplicable. Convenient rationalizations like “it was God’s will” or “it was just their karma” top the list of platitudes that no one wants to hear. And with good reason: such banal consolations trivialize unfathomable depths of grief and anger by decorating God with causeless cruelty or blaming victims who are entitled to a presumption of innocence.
This most recent and particularly horrific tragedy has, predictably, been blamed on the ease by which ordinary citizens can acquire military-grade armaments, a collective indifference to the scourge of mental illness, and the glorification of violence in everything from video games to news coverage that relentlessly sensationalizes the very events from which we wish to be spared. Read More »
By hari-kirtana
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Posted in Yoga Meditations
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Tagged culture, Ethics, gun control, guns, karma, Newtown, Obama, Patanjali, Sandy Hook, vegetarianism, violence, yoga philosophy, yoga sutras
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October 22, 2012 – 4:59 PM
Some of my readers, including at least one confirmed scholar in the field of Vedic literature, have commented that when Krishna speaks of acting according to one’s own nature or ‘dharma’ in the Gita verse I referenced two posts back, he is specifically referring to Arjuna’s social duty as a warrior, which, in this case, is to uphold the cause of justice by fighting a defensive war. One may reasonably ask: ‘why is this duty specifically assigned to Arjuna?’ The answer is that Arjuna is distinctively qualified to be a member of the warrior class within the highly structured social system that Krishna advocates throughout the Gita.
What is Arjuna’s distinctive qualification to belong to the warrior class and not some other class? For one thing, Krishna consistently refers to Arjuna’s royal lineage that confers upon Arjuna a natural aptitude for martial arts, leadership and heroism. Krishna also encourages Arjuna by calling him ‘mighty-armed one’ and other names that indicate Arjuna’s inherent strength and soldierly skill. In other words, Arjuna’s social duty is not an arbitrary assignment; it’s a function of genetics and fate. Arjuna’s dharma is a function of his karma: he was born that way. Read More »
By hari-kirtana
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Posted in Yoga Meditations
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Tagged Arjuna, Bhagavad-gita, dharma, Dharma Shastra, Ethics, gay marriage, Gita, Krishna, religion, Vedic, yoga philosophy
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October 2, 2012 – 10:59 AM
In my last post I began to make a case for the idea that the Bhavagad Gita supports gay marriage, a proposition that, not surprisingly, has been applauded by progressive yogis and challenged by orthodox yogis. Being pre-disposed towards personal civil liberties (no, I am not a Ron Paul supporter!), I wrote the first installment on this topic thinking primarily about the rights and obligations that marriage bestows on the parties involved. Early in the Gita, Krishna confirms our spiritual status as eternally unique individuals (chapter 2, verse 12) and, at the end of the Gita, Krishna encourages Arjuna to make up his own mind about what he should do (chapter 18, verse 63). Hence, an essential lesson from the Gita is that we are endowed with free will; the right and responsibility to decide for ourselves how we should each respond to our own destiny.
When a government, secular or theocratic, imposes unreasonable restrictions on how we may respond to our destiny – such as restricting our right to choose who can visit us in the hospital when we’re sick, who is permitted to make critical decisions on our behalf when we are unable to make them for ourselves, who is qualified to inherit our assets, dispose of our liabilities, or take over legal guardianship of our children when we die, etc. – then that constitutes an unreasonable imposition of state will on our spiritually inherent free will; an injustice. Arjuna’s dharma – his social obligation – is to fight in defense of justice. The Gita presents Arjuna as a role model for aspiring yogis. One can therefore reasonably argue that depriving gay couples of the rights enjoyed by straight couples is an injustice that ought to be opposed by anyone who aspires to follow in Arjuna’s footsteps. Read More »
By hari-kirtana
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Posted in Yoga Meditations
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Tagged Arjuna, Bhagavad-gita, bhavagad gita, dharma, gay marriage, holy matrimony, human-rights, Krishna, religion, sex, Supreme Being, yoga philosophy, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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