Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category

As I wake up this morning, there are all these emotions and thoughts and ideas… where do I start to be able to even

Prem Mandir, Vrindavan, India

convey these feelings. In only a few days, we are, once again, on our way to the mystical spiritual lands of India. It just hit me last night, after our satsang (group mediation)that we are visiting the inauguration of Prem Mandir(The Temple of Love) in Vrindavan, India.

I remember at the age of 6 or so, I ran downstairs, with the curiosity and determination a child can have, I walked into my loving father’s study, where he was buried in books and the reading of philosophy and positive thinking. With the deepest of desperations, I asked, “Dad, what is Love?”. I do not remember his answer; I do remember and do know, however, my search since. There has been plenty of moments of pain and deceit, many moments of crying myself to sleep. There have been deep moments of suffering. I have looked in many places for love and happiness, even in the most unlikely places. I did find moments, sparks, glimpses of what that means; none lasting or really satisfactory – I always knew there had to be more. The disappointments led to deeper discouragement and frustration, maybe anger. I gave up many times.

I was hearing of a student’s reflection on how difficult the practice of hatha yoga has become. At the beginning yoga was (arguably) an easy, fun, enjoyable “light” work out. But to many of us the more we become present and stay in asana, the deeper we connect. Is that something I am prepared to do? Yoga is indeed simple, though not an easy task. The more we pay attention, we find loads of thoughts and emotions. For many of us it is easier to stop, avoid, and/or look away. It is a very common reaction. I do it all the time, I do know! Through my many years of practice, I realize now it has nothing to do with that movement, that physical pain and discomfort, or frustration. It has little to do with my hips or my shoulder, or my knee. The physical body, as we have heard many times, is more than a structure of movement. The hands are to hold things, but also to let them go. The chest is to protect, but also to open up the heart and emotions. The legs and hips are the means of motion, movement in our lives, or to simply stand in place, grounded.

So, our physical yoga practice is exactly that, a practice of rediscovery, re-membering of who we are. The process of discovery is never easy. The path is full of ups and downs. We have given up uncountable times, as the yoga philosophy teaches, for uncountable (truly uncountable!) lifetimes. How are we to change in one class, or one posture, or in one month, or one year, or a lifetime? We do change, but maybe in ways we do not realize or expect now. Every breath done in consciousness changes something inside of us, every time. The questions is, are we able to sustain it? Are we able to persevere and find encouragement? Are we able to maintain focus? The is not a right or wrong answer, simple our sadhana (practice) is what matters. Some days are better than others. Some (many) days not so good. That is the nature of our imperfection, though we may choose to place blame outwardly.

So, what is the loving thing to do? What is Love? Where am I today in my trying to understand the incomprehensible? I do not understand intellectually anything more than when I was 6 in my dad’s study. Although, I know my heart has experience the incomprehensible through practice and perseverance. My heart has been graced with experiences of Love, as I know we all have. To keep those loving feelings present it takes perseverance, patience, discipline, remembrance, and know there is not an only way or only one time. It took me 40 years of experiences to view Love as a daily action, rather than the misconceived romantic ideal.

Yoga means connection, is the path of search for the purpose of our physical experience, our body as a temple of our spirit, the temple or instrument to find Love, Divine Love.

How many times we have heard that “it” has nothing to do with us. Well, I think as I get older (or wiser) I realize how these saying are even more true and real. As I sit through satsang on Friday, and I hear the words of a devotee of Radhey and Krishna explaining this, the words become just so real. Of course, I immediately think of passing these just wonderful concept to “my” yoga students.

As I understand these ideas and listen to them in my head, I can see how it all connects. We try so hard all the time to do our best. We have so many hopes and expectations and desires about the outcomes of our actions. Yes, I do this all the time. I am always hopeful that this idea or thought or action might provoke change in this or the other person or situation. I guess there is nothing wrong is wishing the best to the people we love. However, these expectations do not have to turn into attachment. Let them be. The consequences of a deep breath we hope are to trigger that deep energy inside of us, and to open the alveoli, to remove impurities from the metabolites of our cellular respiration, etc. The subtle difference is if we sit and expect, desire, attach our thoughts to that result, and we wait. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it does not. Either way, it is ok. The result is not ours to control. There are many forces that will act and affect on the result of our actions. In the Bhagavat Gita Krishna tells Arjuna (and to us all through him) that we should always do our duty, and offer our results to the Divine.

Trust and Surrender

As I reflect on this, I can think of so many times that I am not even focused on the now, but on the reactions, the effect of my actions. It is so much simpler (not always easier) to be present, to do and live this moment the best I can. The fruit of my actions will happen. I will learn as I evaluate the reactions, and do this better next time. There are plenty examples where my actions have brought undesired reactions to others. Many times it is very hurtful and difficult to see this. All I can do is try to stay humble, and try my best again. I guess, it is another lesson learned from surrendering in yoga.

It is simpler to concentrate in the now, to do our best in the moment. Just listen, be attentive, do your best in this asana. The fruit of our actions is not up to us. The intent of our action is.

Organic is Better!

 Although eating conventionally grown fruits and vegetables is better than skipping fruits and vegetables altogether, it is important to minimize your exposure to the pesticides contained in conventionally grown foods as much as possible for good health. Pesticides pose various health dangers and have been linked to nervous system toxicity, cancer, hormone system effects, and skin, eye and lung irritation. Conventional farming methods are also damaging to our environment and local economies. By consuming organic fruits and vegetables, you improve your health and support more sustainable farming practices.

 How to Obtain Organic Produce

 There are several ways to obtain organic produce. You can of course continue shopping at your  grocery store or go

“When we support organic farming, our dollar supports a cause that is sustainable, healthy, and loving.”

 to Whole Foods and purchase organic foods there, but perhaps the price tags scare you away. The Environmental Working Group has created a guide that currently lists 49 items ranked from least contaminated to most contaminated. Simply by eating the least contaminated conventional produce and avoiding the twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables or replacing them with the organic option, you can lower your pesticide consumption by nearly 80% and hopefully keep your grocery bill in check.  The twelve most contaminated conventionally grown items to be avoided from most to least contaminated are: 

• Celery
• Peaches
• Strawberries
• Apples
• Blueberries (Domestic)
• Nectarines
• Sweet bell peppers
• Spinach
• Cherries
• Kale/collard greens
• Potatoes
• Grapes (Imported)

 You can access the full list here: http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php.

 Another option is to grow some of your own produce. If you’ve got the space and enjoy gardening, this could be a good way to go. However, it will require some research and materials and an upfront cost to get started. Of course, you’d be saving quite a bit over the long run as a packet of seeds costs about two dollars and will yield more than the one pound you’ll get at the store for the same price.

 A co-operative, on the other hand, leaves the farming to others while you sit back and enjoy abundant amounts of organic produce. A co-operative is a community effort that supplies local and organic produce at wholesale prices. Rawfully Organic Co-op, a non-profit, is one such example. Rawfully Organic Co-op “[supports] a raw food lifestyle, our local farmers, and our local economy!” By purchasing either a half-share ($47) or a full-share ($87) on their website, you receive a huge enough amount to last you and your household at least a week, depending on your consumption and size of household.

 Another co-op in Houston is Central City Co-op. This co-op offers a variety in sizes of produce shares  that are less expensive than Rawfully Organic; however, membership is required (there are different levels of membership, some costing more than others, and you can also volunteer in exchange for membership). I recommend asking around and doing some research on the co-ops in your area.

Conclusion

 Yes, please skip the chocolate sprinkle donut and extra-butter microwave popcorn (I don’t care if it’s whole grain) for the conventional apple if you need to, but hopefully you can start introducing more and more organic foods into your diet using the methods discussed above.

As stated by Rawfully Organic Co-op, “When we support organic farming, our dollar supports a cause that is sustainable, healthy, and loving.” Go organic and achieve good health while being kind to the environment.

- Roma Singh

Sources:

http://www.foodnews.org/

http://rawfullyorganic.com/index.php

http://www.centralcityco-op.com/

From murky waters, not of murky waters

The Lotus flower is the national flower of India, as mystical as it is beautiful. Many consider this flower to be sacred, however, beyond sacred it is a powerful metaphor. The lotus can be a symbol of beauty and purity, and Divine Energy, with mesmerizing presence, anyone gets absorbed by it.

It is impossible not to evoke emotions of softness and peacefulness when looking at a lotus flower. The flower grows usually in murky ponds. One of the unique characteristics of this flower making it different from the water lilies, is that the lotus leaves grows above the water surface. The leaves of the lotus are called emergent leaves. Truly a lesson in itself.

We constantly talk in yoga about the invasion of the world around us into the world inside of us. Many times, I know I struggle with the pull and the “distractions” of the senses. It is not easy for me to maintain that constant focus in my internal remembrance of the Divine Love. Yoga also teaches us that we have seven centers of energy called chakras. These start from the tailbone area, go through the heart, the middle chakra, and finish with the crown chakra at the top of our head. The crown chakra is symbolized a lotus flower of one thousand petals.

It is comforting to think of the lotus flower to help find and maintain that balance in our lives. The flower grows, emerges, feeds, and lives of the murky water. Eventually, a beautiful delicate water emerges, with such splendor, and from an unsuspected origin. In the same way, our energy rises up, through our spine, from the lower chakras to the higher chakras, ending in the crown chakra, with the desire of the ultimate realization, God Realization.

The lesson seems simple, though no easy. We have a body, the senses, the external world, to help us. it is our job to emerge, and rise above. Our intent might be to live like the lotus flower, coming from the world, but not of the world. Our meditations may be guided by the image of a lotus flower. The soft colors, the beautiful petals, the impressive flower that opens searching, looking upwards, for that Divine Love. Its beauty does not come from the flower itself, but from its intent – reach above, humbly.

 “The belief about or picture of the future”, that is the dictionary definition of an expectation. I hate my birthdays. As my birthday approaches, every year, unfailingly, I feel the child in me wanting to celebrate the birthday I feel I never had. I want lots of friends and lots of candy! I want loads of (eggless) chocolate cake, and (eggless) ice cream! I want all

Street action in Sangli

my friends getting along and having incredible much fun together… I really do not mind getting old, really! Through the years that expectation of a perfect birthday has not been fulfilled, maybe close in many years, but never to my expectation. And so it happens with so many things in my life, daily and long term… I experience, discover, and provoke disappointment in others from unmet expectations.

If we apply the Vedic concept of the innumerable lives we have lived, then the chances of us experiencing this frustration is uncountable. Of those uncountable times, how many I have been the cause? In my case, probably, more than your average soul. Therefore, it is easy to lose faith and find blame on self or others, because the pain caused and the pain felt is real. However, how many times we can go through the same process of expectations and disappointments? Well, as many times as we need to – truly. There is a lesson to be learned. I know for me, the lesson relies on love, what is it to really love?

Every time I rely on the transitory world, the result will be transitory. If I am expecting this job will make me happy, or the new relationship, or my newest car, then, most likely it will eventually result in disappointment. My job will end, and so will my car, so how can I be truly happy? Happiness and love are absolutes.

As I focus my eyes on a particular experience or circumstance, or even an individual, most likely it will result in transitory happiness and eventual disappointment. Love and eternal happiness are only found in permanent things. Happiness and love are absolutes. The only permanent aspect of our lives is the spirit. Thus relying on spiritual experiences and cultivating them, will be the best source (and only true source), in my experience of love and happiness.

As I step on my mat, all I ask is that I be present to the experience of opening my heart to the Divine Love around me. I ask that I can quiet down my expectations of the world, and learn to accept love without judgment. I hope I awaken bhakti or Awareness of Divine Love.

Traveling and taking a vacation is always an experience that is unparalleled. We take vacations to relax, to change scenery, to open our horizons to new cultures and places. It is always exciting to look for that renewal. This trip I am experiencing is, as I expected the trip of my life, in that and many others I am still to understand.

India is not only on the other side of the world, 11.5 hours ahead of Houston, but a world apart in history, culture, language(s), politics, spirits. It is one of those trips where every moment is an experience. It is finding life lived so intensely that is almost incomprehensible to my eyes. I do not pretend to understand the culture in a few days, or even grasp the pulse of the country. I can simple understand what all these experiences do to my mind and heart.

India can be at first glance a city of opposite extremes. The cities overflow with incredible amounts of people negotiating small spaces, traffic, roads, time, resources, communication, relationships with each other. It is at the same time a place of over acts of peacefulness, of pockets of spirituality. Riding on rickshaw, among the constant concert of honking (Honk OK Please!), the motorcycles, cars, pedestrians, and water buffalo (if not elephants) all struggle for the same piece of road. The rickshaw driver, a college educated man, who drives this tricycle for someone else for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, raises his hand out the side and lets the bus pass him in a complete act of peaceful reconciliation, a spontaneous act of ahimsa. And so it is on the streets, where every few blocks, many times on the same block, the scent of incense attracts your attention to a devotional corner, small mandir, where you will find a deity being looked after and revered by anyone who walks by.

And so it is, that in every step, we find life, spiritual life, as the background of all activities, names, businesses, marriages, and the desire to live intensely, in community, with all religions, with all peoples, with the understanding that live is there and will be there…we just need to open our eyes to live it, and live it intensely.

A strong armor in a dark field.

My mom and I are friends. Every time we talk, I am reminded of her mortality, as also the brilliant potential of life. Hope and despair shake me out of my somnolence. I wake up realizing there’s no time for prejudice, hatred, regrets, suspicion, selfishness, loneliness, small complains with life, depression, worry, narcissism. There’s only time to get up, do what needs to be done, and live life fully every single day, every single moment of every single day.

Mortality simplifies things to where we have no excuses for unhappiness. And I dare to drop those excuses every time I talk to my mother.

For, every time I talk to her I come close to seeing how fragile she is, yet how full her conversation runs the gamut of hope, optimism, and a bubbling enthusiasm for life. Often, this conversation is not concerning herself but others; not about how sorry she feels for any number of things but how funny the any number of irate things look to her. So, I linger on with my mom for over an hour sometimes. Balancing a coffee cup in one hand, I listen to her easy chat like we were in touching distance of each other at her old though shiny well kept kitchen table. Like her, it has stains and some creases, but it’s always inviting to anyone who happens to hover around it. “Come sit down. I will make you a nice strong milky coffee,” she might say, “and we will chat, just before starting our chores.”

What do we talk about? Usually she talks and I listen. Like a thirsty dog I lap it all up: how many paintings she made for her many sisters; what silly new fun she had on one those family trips; how she met this wonderful energetic person worth befriending; how I can look forward to my new salwar kameez on the front of which she is going to paint her own pattern; how she sang her new poem in Gujarati in front of a group of friends; how she’s going to write me a letter describing the entire trip she took with her sisters, minute details explained with juicy anecdotes; finally, how I need to start working on the next family reunion with my cousins and, yes, no presents please… on and on.

See how each word has hope and youthful enthusiasm written all over it? I am an addict. Like a baby crying out for its mother for warmth and care I too dwell in the proximity of these conversations because they sustain and nourish my soul. The child in me still craves these rejuvenating connections refreshed every time I hear that voice on the other end.

Yet, God forbid, how would I survive the loss of a precious dialogue? What IF? The thought burrows a dark hole, and I am reminded of the fleeting nature of our time on the phone. The fact is, I am, unlike my mother, a worrier, a pensive person. Yet, in the midst of my fears of losing her over a banale telephone, I hear hope; I hear that even when her voice is gone- ” You speak mom and I will listen or I will talk mom, and you listen” forever at rest-I will step into her shoes. I will meet someone hungry for a voice. Then when I hold up the receiver to say “hello” from afar, she and I will make a wave upon which we both shall ride. Hope will cyphon out of our voice just as it did between me and mom.

As they say, savor the blessing of one another and be a cheerleader to someone as someone else has been to you. Be thankful, receive the gift of the someone else in your life, and pass on the baton. Let a daughter, a niece, a daughter-in-law, a friend’s daughter, a grand-daughter receive the picker upper of a cheerful phone ring, and start one great picker upper of a phone conversation. Talk on………..Pass on the conversation……

In our house we light the evening lamp. Every evening just as dusk falls we refill the oil lamp, clean the wick, and then ignite the first small flame to dispel the darkness. Among the many traditions of my homeland India this one is the most universal and basic, if you will, a ritual that our family and all other families have observed for generations. Then in the beauty and personal liberties possible in our transplanted American life, we continue this tradition with even greater meaning, I imagine.

Back home, some things were simply taken for granted. Like lighting the small silver lamp, “samai” in our tiny, non-ornate altar. How ornate could it get in the cramped match box style “flat” in Mumbai? Still, mother would usually leave whatever she was doing to take care of the chief twilight business- go brighten the wall altar in our kitchen and invite goddess Laxmi’s auspicious presence. Laxmi followed the footsteps of the incoming light, however small, knocking only on those doors that had illumined Laxmi’s path with the first welcoming light of the evening hours. The rest, those that had forgotten to light the “samai,” she would dutifully forget to visit.

Lighting the “diwa” always involved chanting the evening prayers– invocations to goddess Laxmi to enter the abode and bless the household with health, wealth, and happiness. One line says, “Since I bow to the brilliant flame of this light, destroy all the ‘enemy tendencies’ that reside within.” Without ever paying much attention to the significance of this small daily practice in our childhood, the memories of that lit altar stay with me to this day. There is something to be said about oil lamps or candles and how miraculously they change the energy of a room. The bright lit candles along the church pews at a friends evening wedding, many years ago, stirred similar feelings of quiet, tranquil beauty. Acknowledging light, and then ushering it in, through the gentle resolute way of lighting a lamp or a candle during the fading hours of the day keep me linked to the chain of this long line of tradition that continues to hold meaning for me in ageless, boundless ways.

I remember Grandma’s hands joined quickly in prayer, even as her eyes shut instantly, just as soon as someone flicked on the only light switch of her living room. Always amused to see this programmed reaction, I now wish for the same depth of feeling and gratitude as the unfailing devotion of this resolute woman. She did not let by a single turn of the light, without acknowledging her nod to its divine presence. That’s why we light the evening lamp in our house, because of my mother and grandmother and all our combined families put together so that we too may acknowledge the power of light over the presence of darkness, wherever we are.

Our community

The Devanand yoga center, is not a regular place for yoga, it is truly a community. Through the many years of the yoga center’s existence, the center has been dedicated to provide opportunity to participate in what a yoga commune we understand it to be. We are so grateful.

People do not seem to understand what it means when we explain this center to be a non-profit center. Our culture many times trains us is disbelieve and/or distrust. We truly are a group of individuals that wants to offer an opportunity to experience yoga non-commercially. We desire of this yoga center to be very personal. We do want the best, the most individually significant experience for each present. We do not care who the practitioner is, young, wise, in shape physically or spiritually, skin color, language, religion. We are interested in the REAL you. We want to really offer the opportunity for each to experience their true identity, our real Ego. We want to share what we have learned, and continue to learn. We want to continue to grow together, in support of each other. We understand this center is not for all. We are looking for that special person that is looking for “that” experience, that personal experience, through our body and mind, to remember our spirit.

In the Devanand yoga center we try so hard to bring an honest sentiment of caring and love to each activity of the center. We try not create expectations, because many times they bring disappointment. However, we always put our heart and soul when we are there. Sometimes it is more successful than others, and it is ok that way too. We will keep practicing…

We do think back on the many eyes, and voices, and hearts we have seen. We are so humbled to think back of all these years of seva, service for the love of others. This is our motivation to see the thousands of people that we have touched, and that have touched our souls.

Our only prayer is to continue to have the strength and clarity of mind to maintaining this space open, our center, your center. You are the special people that make this a special place. We only hope for the future; we gain motivation from the past; we want to serve in the present!

Namasté!