Magic And A Military Burial

My friend and fellow yoga teacher John is a delightful paradox. It’s likely that your mental picture of a yoga teacher does not include a barrel-chested guy in his 50s with a neat salt-and-pepper beard, a happy face, and whose day job is working as a master auto mechanic. Yet this is John. Who better to understand the mechanics of a posture than an actual mechanic? Whether in yoga or in his auto shop, John’s goal is to do his part to help fix the world, either by aligning your poses or aligning the front end of your ride.

John’s true gift, whether in the studio or at his shop, is connecting with people. One way he does this is through stories. John told me a story once that I absolutely love, a story which he gave me permission to share, and which illustrates perfectly an essential life skill and spiritual principle that is often very difficult to arrive at, but which offers deep insight into the very nature of our being.

THE IMPASSE

Several years ago, John’s father owned a dog by the name of Hobo, and both of them were getting on in years. When Hobo passed away, John’s dad was devastated but always kept Hobo nearby, his ashes resting peacefully in a box. As often happens with aging partners, John’s father passed only six months after Hobo.

John has two siblings, but it fell to John to care for his dad during the last few months of his life. He also served as the executor to his dad’s estate. John told me that he gets on well with his sister but his relationship with his brother was quite strained. Prior to their father’s death, one thing that John and his brother disagreed about was what to do with their father’s remains when he passed. Their father was in the Navy during World War II and John wished to cremate his father and perhaps spread his ashes somewhere his father loved. John’s brother wanted something very different, to bury their father with the pomp and circumstance of a military funeral decorated with the proper honors.

When his father passed, as the executor, John was pressed to make a decision about what to do with his father’s remains and decided to cremate them. John kept two boxes of ashes, one of his fathers and the other of Hobo's, atop of the sacred automotive altar of his Snap-on tool chest in his auto shop.

As a Navy man, John’s father always had a reverence for the San Francisco Bay, because it was the port from which he was sent to war and which greeted him when he returned alive. John and his sister discussed the matter and decided that they would honor their father by spreading his ashes along the waters he loved so much.

John’s brother on the other hand demanded that John send him their father’s ashes to receive the honor of a proper military burial. They were at an impasse. In the end, John relented and sent his brother a box of ashes for burial.

As John was telling me this part of the story, he got a wry smile on his face and said, “And to this day, Hobo is perhaps one of few dogs in history to ever receive the honor of a proper military burial.”

I LOVE this story for so many reasons. First, the image of Hobo receiving a burial with military honors gives me a good chuckle. In many myths and spiritual traditions, the trickster is actually revered as a sacred entity because it has the power to alter the perception of our rigid thinking, the mindset that often mired us in the problem to begin with. John was the trickster of this story and in so doing actually served his family beautifully with a higher truth that could not be perceived by their current mindset. John was able to orchestrate everyone feeling that they got their way, and so it reminds me of a vital life skill and spiritual principle, the Both/And mindset or our Both/And Nature.

TANTRA

One of the ways of understanding this Both/And principle is through the lens of Tantra, an ancient eastern school of thought which suggests that everything in the universe is part of a larger whole and that everything in that whole is sacred. In many ways, the practices of yoga, meditation, and perhaps even auto mechanics, are the methods of discovering and remembering this universal wholeness. Our wholeness is our Both/And Nature, the composite of opposites that gives birth to everything else. It’s the magical place that exists at the crossroads and transports a person beyond opposites

In the Both/And mindset, opposites may come together to create something completely new. Often, this new thing contains magic, divinity, or at least the answers to a paradox, a crossroads, or an impasse. Many myths, spiritual traditions, and even the origin stories of gods themselves, whether Christian, Hindu, Native American, or Greek, have derived from some marriage between opposites that have given birth to something entirely new, holy, or magic. The Both/And principle is about blending opposites to create an apotheosis, the highest version of both opposites.

Anathema to universal wholeness is the notion of existing as separate beings from each other and from Source. Again, our contemplative practices are designed to help us remember our essential wholeness. The ancient Gayatri Mantra (Rigveda 3.62.10) states, essentially, that since everything comes from Source, I am no different than the very thing I’m searching for. This mantra expresses the epitome of our Both/And Nature.

YOGA NIDRA: TRAINING FOR CLARITY

Yoga Nidra is perhaps the one of the greatest practices I know of to help us effectively explore our Both/And Nature, one that can help us gain the mindset to creatively work through life’s problems, blockages, and paradoxes. In part, this is due to how it works directly with paradox as a mode of transcending paradox.

If you’ve never done it, Yoga Nidra is a relaxing form of guided meditation where you lie down, close your eyes, and listen to me guide you to pay attention to many different parts of your being such as your body, emotions, thoughts, etc. By learning to welcome, recognize, and simply witness all these parts of your being, you reveal the Universal element which is common between all these seemingly different parts: your Awareness.

During this process of Yoga Nidra, as your mind is becoming very relaxed, I guide you to become aware of apparent opposites (opposing body parts or emotions, for example), first individually, then to be aware of them at the same time. The experience of holding them simultaneously in your Awareness creates a cognitive dissonance which obliterates the paradox as you find yourself being the thing that is beyond opposites, Awareness itself. This process gives the practitioner immense clarity over any paradox, challenge, or impasse. The Both/And mindset isn’t just for monks meditating in a cave, it’s something we can use at home, at work, in our relationships, and in the world.

Experiencing myself as Awareness through the practice of Yoga Nidra, often by holding opposites, has been among the most illuminating experiences of my life and this is why I love to share this practice. When a person begins to identify as Awareness, it’s easy to want to dismiss normal life as something lesser than this beautiful new concept of Self. However, to do so simply creates another binary, an opposite, which keeps one trapped in that which is fundamentally opposite to Awareness, or this Both/And Nature. Instead, where the rubber hits the road with practices like Yoga Nidra, is to use Yoga Nidra to help you realign your identity as Awareness itself and then to marry that awareness back to your normal life: your job, your family, and your relationship to the world. True to form, when the apparent opposites of Awareness and your life merge, what is born from that marriage is a life that is full of magic.

Walking through life with a Both/And mentality, you may find yourself reacting less to life’s problems and instead responding to them with greater compassion. You may begin to notice the simplest of the world’s presentations and perhaps see them with complete delight. Even life’s problems and difficulties can take on an air of possibilities and beauty. Plus you can gain the perspective to see beyond those problems that seem insurmountable. In essence, this Both/And Nature can give you the sight to be able to see the world with brand new eyes.

BEYOND BINARIES

This poem excerpt speaks perfectly to this idea:

A Great Wagon by Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

~

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.

I would love to kiss you.

The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,

What a bargain, let’s buy it.

I invite you to bravely face the paradoxes in your life with your full compassionate Awareness, knowing that magic can happen when you expand your vision into a Both/And mindset. To help practice this vital skill, I invite you to join me this Saturday as we embark on a wonderful journey to the crossroads. On Saturday, April 24th, from 9–11 am MDT, I’ll be hosting an online Restore Yoga + Yoga Nidra workshop where we will combine these two practices and the result will be nothing short of magical. You’ll leave feeling clear-minded, rested, and with the magic to see the beauty of your life.

Everyday Mindfulness: A Guide To A Life Well-Lived

I was sent a book called Everyday Mindfulness: 108 Simple Practices To Empower Yourself And Transform Your Life and asked to review it. I found this book to be a breath of fresh air! 

Melissa’s approach to creating a every-day practice for 108 days is both simple as well as profound. Each day is a separate mindfulness practice with three headings: Purpose, Practice, and Reflection. It serves as a basic guide to establish a simple but regular practice of seeing experiencing your life with greater clarity and purpose. 

She’s broken the practices up into six different categories to practice mindfulness in a variety of ways so that we can truly begin to see lasting changes in our lives on all fronts. For example, there’s a way to practice eating mindfully, drinking enough water, and even creating a “Home Spa.” The book is helpful because it gives you a format to do some of those things that you know you’d like to be doing for yourself anyway. 

I like it too because it supports the notion that mindfulness isn’t just about meditating, but that it’s about living a more full life, like the like you know you always want to live and could live if you only had the focus to do so. 

I appreciate her warm and concise writing for its clarity impact. This is a great book of mindfulness both for the novice and the expert practitioner to help them move into a life well-lived.

I enjoy this book and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in a more mindful approach to life. 

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Meditate Before Watching The News

Something that's helped me and might help you …

There's been a lotta news lately—A LOTTA NEWS.

So. Much. News.

I find it very helpful to meditate BEFORE reading, listening to, or watching the news. This has two purposes I can think of. First, it's likely that if you digested a bunch of news before your meditation, you'll be processing that for the duration of your sit. Secondly, if you meditate before the news, you'll be able to ground yourself mentally and emotionally so that you won't be so thrown into a tizzy by it.

While there are some very, very important issues that we need to be aware of around the world, remember that is designed to grab your attention. It's engineered to be scintillating and shocking. Yes, there are events happening around the world that need very little "dressing up" to be shocking, yet remember that you're in control of your news intake. Approach the news mindfully and then put it down and choose the ways to respond to that information with your best self, full of wisdom and compassion.

Be mindful of how much time you digesting the news. Realize that point when the news starts to digest YOU instead of the other way around. We've all turned into a news addict at one time or other. Be mindful about your intake and concentrate on those things you can do to make the world a better place.

Then, concentrate on something positive. Make a list of 3 things you're grateful for. Call someone to tell them how much you appreciate them. Don't stew in the negative headlines or the resulting emotions from them all day. I'm not suggesting that we ignore the important things going on in the world. Quite the opposite. Find those mechanisms (like meditation) that allow you ground into your best self so you can effectively respond to that information rather than simply stew in it.

Here's a radical invitation: Try meditating as long or longer than you watch, read, or listen to the news. You could likely grab all the important headlines without being thrown headlong into the drama machine which surrounds the headlines.

Try it out and let me know how it goes.

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Barn's Burned Down

Years ago, Seneca and I had just started dating when she invited me to her birthday party. I was completely smitten by this woman and was thrilled for the invitation. It would be our second date.

The party was at Sonya’s house, her good friend who lived in the Salt Lake City Avenues. Sonya’s backyard was beautiful and lush and adorned with 5 formidable, old pines whose branches reach high into the calm summer evening’s sky.

Strung between two of these beautiful trees was the most alluring hammock whose siren song lured Seneca and me to lay down side-by-side and flirt as we swayed in the easy breeze, drunk on the scent of pines. Unbeknownst to us, we were laying the foundation of an extraordinary relationship, an incomparable love.

Who would have guessed that 5 years later, Seneca and I would be married, with a 1-year-old son, and the new owners of Sonya’s house in the Avenues. Fortunately, the trees were sturdy enough and the hammock large enough to now hold three of us.

Fast forward a few years, we were living in France, renting out our house, and we got a dreadful message from our renter. He said that our beloved pines looked sick. We called the tree whisperers who examined them and determined that all five of them were stricken with bark beetles. All five had to be cut down before they fell down and caused damage to persons or property. The several thousands of dollars to have them cut paled in comparison to the grief we suffered to lose them. They were our elders, our family and they were dying or dead.

When we returned to Salt Lake City in January, right in time for Covid, we moved back into our house in the Avenues. The first thing we did when we came home was to go into the back yard and see the destruction. As we looked over the decimated yard, we were gut-punched. We stood watching the living nightmare that was our yard—a few remaining branches, massive blankets of sawdust, and the scars of five starkly shorn stumps. It was like seeing a family member who had recently lost a limb—five limbs.

We grieved sorely over the loss of our trees.

We knew that after our grieving, eventually we would have to replant and rework our yard. It was going to take a LOT of work to heal the damage. The project became known as “Yardmageddon.” Little did we know that we would have several months of quarantine ahead of us which would afford us pleeeeeenty of time to rework the yard. I ordered another yard waste container from the city.

We would have never chosen it, but given the circumstances, what we were given in this bleak, newly-exposed backyard, empty of its beautiful trees, was a blank slate. We had no choice but to create the kind of space that would suit our family. No longer was it Sonya’s yard, it would become ours.

We planted herbs. We pulled neglected vines. We resurrected the dormant hot tub.

One day at the beginning of the summer, I was hacking away at a jungle of Virginia Creepers when Sylvia, one of our delightful neighbors, kitty-corner to and just above our house, came over to our house to talk through her Covid facemask about our trees. She and her husband moved from England to their current house in the Avenues 35 years ago. Sylvia, too, lamented the loss of our beautiful trees. As she spoke of our trees with such familiarity and affection, it dawned on me that she had known our trees for 3 decades longer than we had. She told me how she missed our beautiful trees, “But,” she added, “it’s the first time in 35 years that we can see the Wasatch mountains from out our back window and there’s nothing like watching the moon rise over those incredible mountains!”

Neither of us would have chosen it. Still, what a gift.

Last week, northern Utah was ravaged by hurricane-force winds, including Salt Lake City, blowing over literally thousands of trees. Our 5 trees had been removed the year before. Otherwise, I’m confident that in their compromised state, they would have all come down causing unspeakable damage. Another hidden gift. They were harvested with the blessing of time and care.

Last week, after the storm died down, that evening we went out on our nightly walk around our neighborhood to see the damage. It was a horror scene. We were dumbstruck to see armies of trees uprooted and felled across lawns, spanning entire streets, and ripped from the ground, leaning on the houses they once shaded as if to die in the arms of those who loved them so dearly. Debris littered the sidewalks, streets, and lawns.

A week later, many homes are still without electricity. Throughout the day, one can hear the constant buzz of chainsaws busy amputating the limbs of these mighty beings so their trunks can be cut into smaller places and removed completely, leaving only the scar where they once grew. People are clearing, replanting.

Whatever storm you may be facing at the moment, it may be difficult to see the gifts embedded in your circumstances. Certainly, Covid has amplified every struggle we endure, struggles we might otherwise take in stride.

It’s important to remember that what’s true is true. What is…is.

I believe it to be our task, what our mindful practices have prepared us for, is to acknowledge what is—including grief, including the hidden gifts of our sad circumstances— and to learn to simply be with the information at hand. Then, from the grounded and real place of observation, compassionately respond with steps forward. Replant. Life is a blank slate.

I’m confident that if we are patient, we will see the gifts of these circumstances on the rise. Perhaps, if you live in Salt Lake City, you may see one of those gifts tonight as it rises brightly over the Wasatch.

“Barn’s burned down—

Now

I can see the moon.”

— Mizuta Masahide

The Benefits of Starting Your Day with Meditation

Periodically, I get requests for people to write articles for me. Here’s one about the benefits of meditation by Stephanie James. Tell me what you think.

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Written by guest writer Stephanie James

How you spend your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day. If you hit the snooze button one too many times, rush through your morning tasks, and grab your cup of coffee to go, you will most likely feel like you are in a race against time for most of the day. Starting your day feeling relaxed and centered, on the other hand, will also carry into the rest of your day. You have the choice as to how your day unfolds based on your morning rituals, or lack thereof, in other words. A solid morning routine is a primary key to success.

One activity that you can incorporate into your morning routine is meditation, whether guided or self-lead. Here are just a few of the many benefits starting your day with meditation has to offer

No Need for Caffeine

Even if you wake up feeling tired, 15 to 20 minutes of meditation upon awakening will supply you with endorphins that will boost your energy without the need for caffeine. Although meditation provides deep relaxation by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, it also offers the benefit of longer-lasting, natural energy with no risk of a subsequent crash.

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Activates the Spam Filter

Part of what can contribute to a really good day is being able to sort through mental clutter as you work to be productive. Especially in our fast-paced world, there are numerous distractions that can interfere with our productivity, both internally and externally. Setting a positive mindset through meditation allows you to filter out the clamor and negative self-talk that can make accomplishing daily goals difficult and stressful. 

Increases Ability to Multitask

A recent NSF-funded study at the University of Washington revealed that people who practice meditation regularly are better able to multitask. Participants who practiced mindfulness two hours a week for eight weeks performed better in multitasking tests than those who did not meditate. And if multitasking doesn’t seem like an important skill, keep in mind that one by-product of poor multitasking ability is distracted driving. Improving this ability, then, can help you be safer while on the road.

Enhances Your Sense of Well-Being

Another amazing effect that meditation has is that it changes the way you look at things rather than changing circumstances directly. It provides a calm and accepting mindset that you can carry with you, regardless of difficult situations. Many times, we can’t change daily events in our lives that are causing us stress, but we can choose to approach them with more serenity and acceptance, making each day flow more smoothly.

Fosters a Cleaner Diet

Research has shown that when you’re sleep-deprived or stressed, you crave unhealthy foods. Incorporating meditation into your morning routine allows you to begin your day with a calm and rested mind that is conducive to craving healthier food choices. As you evolve in your meditation practice, you will notice that urges to reach for sugary, fatty foods will dissipate, and choosing healthier foods will increase your energy level and restore emotional balance.

Meditation is for Everyone

Many times, people are intimidated by meditation because they mistakenly believe that it takes a certain know-how or special ability. However, meditating takes no special talent or predisposition to be effective. In addition, meditation is not about perfecting serenity or reaching a certain level of enlightenment. Instead, it is about continuing to evolve in your practice, with no focus on perfection. You also don’t have to rush headlong into one-hour sessions to benefit from meditation. You can start with five-minute sessions and build up as you begin to see how practicing meditation is an ongoing process.

You’re More in the Now

Your head is much clearer when you first wake up than after you have met distractions later in the day. This leaves a clean mental slate that can become even clearer after 15 to 20 minutes of meditation. You add to your calmness of mind exponentially by practicing meditation first thing in the morning. In short, you want to maximize on your mental inventory by filling “empty” brain space with positive thoughts and energy.

There are countless overall health benefits of meditation and starting your day with the practice is a great idea. It’s a way to set the mood, focus, and momentum for the rest of your day, as well as keep you in the moment and not concentrating on the past and the future.

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Tuition for Life Lessons: A Mediation on Resentment

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Several years ago, while I was still in college and before I started on my yoga career, I worked in a little loan company processing loans. The man who owned this company (we'll call him "Jeff," mostly because that was his name) taught me several valuable things, many about people and others about myself. While some of the lessons he taught me were very costly both in money and in hurt, it was all great tuition for some essential life lessons.

One of the valuable things Jeff taught me, something I'll remember for the rest of my life, was that even more important than processing people's loans, my real job was connecting to the people I served through the loan business. He taught me that It doesn't matter if you're a doctor, teacher, or loan processor, you're real job is to connect to people. Your 9–5 is just the particular lens through which you're called to connect to others.

He also taught me how to focus under pressure and how to organize my tasks around priority. He taught me things about working with people that I've used everyday since I worked there. He showed me parts of myself waiting to come out.

But this article is about what he taught me about forgiveness. 

Everybody has their Kryptonite. Despite Jeff's shining attributes, he wasn't a very good business person. I grew very concerned the day that my paycheck bounced. When I approached him with this dilemma, he asserted that even though the company was in a little slump, everything would soon be ironed out.

It never was.

I liked Jeff and wanted to hang in there for him until he got things figured out. But eventually, I could see the writing on the wall and after a few months of not getting paid, I finally left. When I walked away, he owed me these few months of back pay. What he owed me was a lot of money for a starving student, not to mention that all this happened coincided with Christmas and the tuition deadline for next semester. 

Even though I was the one who offered to stay, I really thought that Jeff would come through and was really hurt when he didn't. I felt really betrayed. Jeff stopped returning my calls. My feeling of hurt turned into betrayal, turned into a bitterness, turned into obsession. I just couldn't let it go. For a while it was all I could think about.

I wanted some recourse so I called the Labor Commission and filed a complaint, adding to the other employees at the failed loan office.The process was fraught with bureaucracy and dead ends—unfruitful and painfully slow. Eventually, the courts began to subpoena Jeff to arrive in court. I soon realized that I could easily gain my money back if I were only paid five cents every time I heard the Labor Commission say the phrase, "Your file is under review and we'll notify you once we know anything different."

This empty search continued for over two . . . (I pause for effect) YEARS. Each new attempt to resurrect my file brought me more pain and frustration.

Then one night I had a dream. I dreamed that I met Jeff. I saw him not as the evil person I'd made him out to be but as just a simple dude with a five-o'clock shadow (that's the way he always looked, even at 8 am). In my dream, as soon as I saw him, I suddenly got tired of holding this grudge. I forgave him of the whole thing. Completely. In my dream, Jeff didn't seemed very thankful or changed by that fact, nor did he seem really to even notice, but that didn't matter because I had changed. Instead of angry and dark, I was light and free. So, I woke up that next morning let it go. I let it all go. I was astounded how easily it was to forget about after that moment.

It took me several years to understand that even though Jeff had done me wrong, he still taught me some very valuable things. I began to think that my lost wages as a tuition paid for some very valuable lessons. Unbeknownst to me, my lessons weren't over yet.

One day, more than a decade later, I heard something on the radio that reminded me of Jeff. I hadn't even thought about Jeff since I'd had that dream about a decade previous. By this time in my life, I lived in a completely different town more than 50 miles away and had given up the world of mortgage lending for yoga teaching. I don't even remember what it was on the radio but whatever it was reminded me about all the great things that Jeff had taught me. I felt not only healed from all the resentment and pain but like I'd even grown from the experience I'd had at the failing mortgage office. Proud, I said to myself, "If I ever meet Jeff again, I promise that I will vocally forgive him and thank him for what he has taught me."

Something else I've learned is that when you call out to Destiny, prepare for an all-out a bare-knuckle brawl. She'll come and she'll test you just like you asked her to. She'll give you what you wanted but expect a little more blood—your blood.

Beehive Tea Rom, the cafe where I saw Jeff

So, almost exactly an hour later after calling out to the Universe that I'd forgive Jeff if I ever saw him, I was nursing a cup of Raspberry Mint tea in a cafe when over my shoulder I heard a disturbingly familiar voice. I didn't have to turn my head to know that it was Jeff and despite the warm tea, my insides turned to ice. 

I sat there listening to his voice as I burst into a cold sweat. And despite the fact that I'd just told Destiny that I'd forgive Jeff if I ever ran into him, now that it came to it, I wasn't so sure. I hadn't seen him in a decade. There was bad blood between us. I'd even subpoenaed him in court. Would he even remember me? Would he want to hit me?

As I debated within myself, he started to get up to leave. If I was going to act, it had to be now. I took a deep breath, stood up, and stepped toward him. "Hey, Jeff. I don't know if you remember me but I used to work for you at the mortgage company." He paused for a moment with a stunned look in his eyes. He took a step back probably wondering if I wanted to hit him. I explained to him quite frankly how he had hurt me then just as mater-of-factly said, "But you know what? I forgive you." I then explained to him all the things that I learned from him and that if I ever ran into him, I'd thank him for those valuable life lessons.

He just stood there stunned. He made no apologies, no explanation. He simply told me that I made his day. I made mine, too.

And no, he didn't write me out a check for the back pay.

That day, I realized that the money I'd lost was a relatively inexpensive tuition for the life lessons I'd learned. Some of the biggest lessons I learned through that experience were that holding a grudge only hurts me and forgiveness heals that hurt. That and to watch out when you call out to Density.

Our yoga and meditation practice is one way of creating intention and therefore dancing with Destiny. It's a way of producing an Awareness to see that even the muddy waters of our bitterness and pain can lead us to see the lotus of our own love, the nature of our True Being. Ultimately, we'll find that our blossoming love rests in our ability to be flexible and teachable to the lessons that beset us each day.

Would you mind sharing this?

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Kissing Cops and Gilets Jaunes

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So, one afternoon as I was walking back to our apartment, I ran into a protest led by the Gilet Jaunes. I’m not sure if you’re up on French politics but the Gilet Jaunes are a group of protesters, a movement that’s been happening in France since November, 2018. These are yellow-vest-wearing protestors who oppose mostly the financial direction of the French government, namely the raising of taxes on certain things like gas.

Now you gotta remember that since the French Revolution, protesting for the French people has been a national pastime—they truly identify the ability to call bullshit on the government.

Well, unlike most protests in France, this one’s gotten violent at times and thousands of people have been arrested and several people have even died. Before coming to France, I was boning up on my language skills, listening to the French news, and hearing about these protests and I really hoped that I didn’t encounter any of them while I was in France.

Like I said, one day, I’m walking back to my apartment and I’m pushing my son in the stroller through one of the main squares in Nice, Place Garibaldi, when I see a Gilet Jaunes protest happening. But this is Nice, where everything is more tranquil and more laissez-faire and so instead of protesters lobbing bricks and molotov cocktail bombs, these protestors (most of whom couldn’t even be bothered to wear the damn yellow vest) looked like they were gossiping, dancing, or otherwise enjoying an afternoon together in the square. People were sharing cheese.

Now whenever a protest happens in France, the French riot police automatically show up. So on the other side of the square, a safe distance from the half-hearted Nice faction of the Gilet Jaunes, was a full arsenal of riot cops: big dudes who look like they were recently pulled from a rugby field somewhere but instead of rugby jerseys, they were wearing Kevlar armor.

I don’t care how tough you are, in France you greet your friends, both men and women, with a kiss on both cheeks. So I witnessed these riot cops filing out of their battle vans and arriving on the “riot scene,” each big and burly cop, dressed to the teeth for battle, greeting EVERY other cop with a gentle kiss on both cheeks. This created something akin to a wedding line of kissing cops.

Sure, there may be civil unrest but it’s no reason to be uncivilized. I wished I could have pulled out my phone to capture that priceless moment of lackadaisical protestors and kissing cops but I feared that doing so would violate some unspoken code of propriety so I merely pushed my stroller along my way.

A few days later, while I was holed up, writing in the apartment, Sen and Elio were down at the beach enjoying themselves until a really, really, obnoxiously drunk guy came up and started to harass everyone in the vicinity. Another guy, not far from Sen and Elio who was trying to enjoy the beach was really getting bothered by Drunk Guy

France has really increased its military presence in public places in the last few years due to terrorist attacks and so it’s not uncommon to see the camo-and-beret-clad, machine-gun-and-flack-jacket sporting army dudes patrolling in little platoons around town.

Well, the guy on the beach (heretofore known as Angry Guy) had finally reached his boiling point with Drunk Guy (who really was being an ass) and Angry Guy made a big to-do toward the nearest beret with a machine gun to do something about Drunk Guy.

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Army Dude then very calmly walked down the stairs from the Pramenade to the beach, loaded machine gun strapped to his chest, and spoke gently to Drunk Guy and Angry Guy. He then gently helped Drunk Guy by the arm up the stairs, away from the beach toward the Pramenade. Drunk Guy proceeded to sit on the 20’ wall overlooking the beach, fall off said wall (only 20’) get back up without anything broken, including his bottle of wine.

At this point, Army Guy gently walked down the stairs again and helped Drunk Guy up the stairs and sent him walking along his way with an encouragement to stop bothering people.

As Sen told the story, it was clear that Army Guy had 100% of the power. Drunk Guy was of African decent, by the way. But despite Army Guy’s power, he was still the most civilized, gentle, and rational one of the bunch and the entire event passed such that the perfect afternoon in Nice wasn’t disturbed by any unnecessary violence or drama. The worst thing that happened was probably the headache for Drunk Guy the next day who vaguely remembered falling off a wall . . . and something about camouflage.

A few days later, I was sitting in a cafe with Elio—I was writing in my journal and sipping an espresso while he was munching on a croissant—when a small platoon of these Army Guys came in, grabbed a few tables and proceeded to munch on their own croissants and espressos before heading off to make their patrols. Apparently this happens every day at this cafe.

What all of these snapshots show me is that even in times of unrest there can be civility, culture, and even gentleness

Meditations on Snow

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This is a picture of the Buddha.

He's in there somewhere, hibernating, meditating.

The Buddha is sitting where he likes it best, summer or winter: on the deck above the carport.

He doesn’t need to be on display, doesn’t need to brag to his massive Instagram following (and you should see it) that he’s been meditating under this blanket of snow for the last 42 hours.

He’s doing it now. Simply being. Watch him go. Or not go.

It’s quiet, standing in the snow just watching him.

Don’t we all have a Buddha in there somewhere? Maybe he’s hibernating, maybe he’s sleeping, but he’s there. It's the ability to simply be with what is, even if that's buried under several inches of snow.

This is a beautiful time of year sit by the fire, close your eyes, and go inside.
Winter snows brings life water all year long.

 

Here’s my favorite winter poem by Billy Collins which is perfect for this time of year.

Shoveling Snow With Buddha

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok

you would never see him doing such a thing,

tossing the dry snow over a mountain

of his bare, round shoulder,

his hair tied in a knot,

a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word

for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.

In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?

Is this not implied by his serene expression,

that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,

one shovelful at a time.

We toss the light powder into the clear air.

We feel the cold mist on our faces.

And with every heave we disappear

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and become lost to each other

in these sudden clouds of our own making,

these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,

I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.

This is the true religion, the religion of snow,

and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,

I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow

as if it were the purpose of existence,

as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway

you could back the car down easily

and drive off into the vanities of the world

with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,

me with my commentary

and he inside his generous pocket of silence,

until the hour is nearly noon

and the snow is piled high all around us;

then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,

can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk

and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table

while you shuffle the deck.

and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes

and leaning for a moment on his shovel

before he drives the thin blade again

deep into the glittering white snow.

Tantraic Meditation: A Simple but Powerful Practice

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Tantra Meditation

Tantra is a school of yogic thought. It’s a Sanskrit word which comes from the root words Tan meaning to expand and Tra meaning liberation. So, Tantra is the practice of expanding into liberation. The essence of practicing Tantra is to get the energy to flow into all areas of your life: your job, family life, sexuality, and spirituality or devotion.

Prana, or life-force energy, is the driver that makes everything flow with ease in your life. Learning to activate and manipulate your prana is essential to practicing Tantra. Prana is a part of your being that is more subtle than your breath and more gross than your thought. Therefore, thinking about your breath or visualizing your breath is an excellent way to get your prana to flow.

This Tantra meditation is great for getting prana to flow through your entire system of body, mind and spirit. It's an excellent regular practice to help you create a generative, embracing, and passionate flow for the energy of all areas in your life. This meditation will also help if you have stuck energy in particular chakras or if there are areas in your body that need some attention or seem to be calling all the attention. This meditation will help to generate and cultivate sacred sexual energy, not only for the act of making love, but for all the generative, passionate, and loving areas in your life. Don't be surprised if by doing this meditation regularly you begin to find yourself diving passionately into your work, family life, love life, healing endeavors, devotion to the Divine, etc.

I might suggest doing this meditation for at least 5 minutes a day, for a few weeks.

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How To Do This Meditation:

• Set a time for 5 minutes or more.

• Sit down, close your eyes, and begin long, slow breaths using ujjaiyi breath (breathing deeply in and out of the nostrils using a gentle whisper in the back of the throat to help elongate the breath).

• Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth while keeping your lips closed. This is a special type of mudra or gesture that closes an energy circuit in your body and also helps to not tense your jaw while doing this technique.

• As you inhale, contract mula bandha, the deep muscles in the pelvic floor, and visualize a bright white light traveling from the floor of your pelvis up the back of your spine to the crown of your head.

• As you exhale, relax mula bandha and allow the white light to travel down the front of your spine to rest again in the floor of your pelvis.

• Continue to contract mula bandha every time you breathe in and visualize the light traveling upward along the back of your spine, and relaxing mula bandha every time you breathe out and visualize the bright light descending back down the front of your spine into the floor of your pelvis.

• When the timer rings, relax and feel your seat on your cushion for a few seconds as you ground before you finish your meditation.

I’d suggest doing this meditation for 5 minutes or more a day for at least 5 days in a row or more. Give it a shot and send me an email or leave a comment about how it worked for you.

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Pratyahara: Meditation and Breathwork for a Deep Inner-Journey

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I want to talk about Pratyahara and offer a helpful breathing practice to accompany it. First I feel I need to give it a little context.

Yoga 101

Yoga is old. One of the earliest mentions of yoga comes from the Rig Veda, one of the oldest vedic texts dating somewhere around 1700–1100 BC. So, OLD.

Patanjali was a yoga scholar (some say a school of thought—doesn’t matter) around 200–500 CE who wrote a generalized guide to yoga called The Yoga Sutras. Sutra is a Saskrit word meaning suture or stitch. The Yoga Sutras are therefore 196 verses “stitched” together in order to create a larger patchwork of what yoga’s main goal is and how to practice it.

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali starts by defining yoga as the ability to calm the mind into stillness to arrive at a state of Oneness with all things. He outlines 8 limbs of yoga or ways to practice arriving at this Oneness. These 8 limbs are presented from gross to subtle ways to practice yoga.

The 8 Limbs of Yoga

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The first limb is the Yamas or outward observances, the way we treat the world. If we’re assholes to everyone around us, we’re missing the essential point that somehow I’m everything and only hurting myself.

Second is Niyamas, or inner observances, the way I treat my inner comportment, my cleanliness, contentment, and ability for self-discovery through work and submission.

Third comes yoga Asanas, or the poses, how literally applying this knowledge to the body, mind, and spirit of my personal being and attempting to discover the unification of all of these. This is what most of us refer to when we think of yoga. That’s fine—you don’t have to start practicing at the beginning—whatever gets you onto the path.

Fourth, Pranayama refers to how this work affects one’s energy through breathwork and other energy manipulation through the chakras, or primary energy stations located along our spine.

Fifth, and this is what I want to talk about most today, come Pratyahara or gaining control over external influences and learning to withdraw from our senses as the entrance into the inner-being.

Photo by Alex Adams

Sixth is Dharana, or fixed concentration on one thing.

Seventh, Dhyana, deeper concentration where you begin to lose your sense of individuality and the object you’re observing start to merge.

Lastly the eights limb is Samadhi, or the state of Oneness.

So now you’ve got probably more information than you need about yoga philosophy and ancient texts, what does this Pratyahara business have to do with me?

If you’ve ever tried meditating, you’ve likely tried at least a few ways of meditating and discovered one or two ways that really help you to go deep into your meditation, where something begins to happen and we start to get that meditation hit that everyone is talking about. In part, this ability to go deeper into ourselves starts with Pratyahara.

The senses are a wonderful tools of cultivating presence. Paying attention to our senses help us wrangle in our wild and wandering mind to a state that is here and now. We’ve used our senses perhaps with the “There Is” Practice or similar practices. However, getting stuck into this mode of paying attention to what is outside maintains external attention and might prevent a deeper inner-journey. So, learning to move beyond our senses inward to a state of raw here-and-now-ness may deepen your meditation practice.

Your senses are always firing and constantly giving the brain information. In fact, there’s so much information happening all the time, that our brains have to learn to filter and select what is essential and what it can turn off. Pratyahara experiments with learning to turn ALL the senses off to find a state of deeper inner-awareness on our pathway to discover that the answers are within instead of outside of us.

To to practice Pratyahara start by listening to your senses and then go inward beyond them.

Breathing Practice to Complement Pratyahara

Here’s a breathing practice followed by a meditation that can help you with just this

Brahmari: Bumble Bee Breath

Brahmari breath is kinda weird so bear with me. What you do is sit, close your eyes, and place your hands on your face with your index fingers over your eyebrows, your middle fingers covering your eyes, fourth fingers just below your nostrils, and little fingers under your lips. Your fourth and fifth fingers therefore create a cradle around your mouth. Your thumbs gently plug your ears. This closes all the exits, except your nostrils. Now, you release your pinkies to take in a big breath through your mouth, replace your pinkies and close your mouth and let out a long hum until you have no more breath. When you’re empty, breathe in again and do another round. Continue for several rounds. Have fun with this: try high pitches, low pitches, make up little tunes— whatever. Ideally, you’ll drown out all other senses except the sound of your own humming in your head.

You may also choose to omit the crazy hands-to-face business and use earplugs and an eye mask—less adventurous but probably just as effective.

This practice will confirm to your neighbors peeping through the windows that yes, you finally have gone nuts and that they should probably look for another neighborhood. Better just to have some private space to do this.

After several minutes of this, keep your eyes closed and choose a meditation that cultivates a strong internal focus, something like mantra meditation or mindfulness meditation.

I might suggest using the Insight Timer and setting your timer for 20 minutes using an interval bell to ding after 5 minutes. Do the Brahmari breath for 5 minutes and after the interval bell dings, try a mantra or mindfulness meditation for the remaining 15 minutes.

This will be a great 20 minute practice to really cultivate inner-focus.

If you’re curious, give this a shot and let me know how it goes.

Meditation/Mindfulness with Eating

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Meditation vs. Mindfulness

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There's a distinction between meditation and mindfulness.

I'd qualify mindfulness as the act of being present with whatever task is at hand. Indeed meditation is an acute form of mindfulness but usually constitutes a more rigorous form of concentration or awareness. Regular meditation practice causes us to live in a very mindful way, doing regular kinds of things with more presence. Things like eating.

Presence Through Senses

Many meditation traditions and philosophies argue that our identity relies solely upon our ability to be present. If we are not present, we really don't exist. Surely there's a lot to chew on there, but the essence of that idea is that our True Nature relies upon being here and now, no matter what you're doing.

Our senses are an excellent way of practicing presence because they are constantly giving us real time information about what is happening right in the moment. One of the particularly delightful ways of practicing mindfulness is through what we do hopefully at least a few times a day: eating

Not only does eating involve all of our sense, it is perhaps the most intimate thing we do on a regular basis besides making love. Why not make love to your food? And like any good lover will tell you, it's no good unless you're present.

I think food is fascinating. In fact, one of my favorite classes in college was called A Feast of Food Ways and was an entire semester exploring the folklore around food. We explored what food means culturally, spiritually, and globally. Not only was that semester a feast of information, but we literally treated ourselves to tantalizing delights in every class. That class made food such a sensual subject that I don't think I'll ever look at the ritual of eating food ever again

Food Ritual

So, why not make eating a ritual? A ritual is a physical action that evokes a spiritual significance. If eating is the sustaining of our very being, how can eating NOT be a ritual? How could we ever absentmindedly shove Cheerios into the largest hole in our face while not tasting a thing and checking our Facebook profile? With presence, even a bowl of Cheerios could be a feast.

One of my friends said that the best meal he ever ate was a granola bar on mile 20 of an ultra- marathon. It's all about presence and context, right?

So why not make your next meal and every meal, a seance of seduction, a ritual of resplendence? All it takes is a little bit of mindfulness.

How To Eat Mindfully

• Unplug. Put away your phone and turn it on silent. No reading, computer work, or television during meals.

• Sit. Put with your feet on the floor. This grounds you and helps to put you into the moment.

• Pause. Take a big breath and give yourself a moment of gratitude before plunging into your meal. Notice the smells, textures, and colors. Perhaps even contemplate the hands and energy it took to arrive at your table, including the miracle of Mother Earth growing it for you.

• Taste. As you put it into your mouth, close your eyes for a moment and taste it the way a sommelier would taste it: notice its signature of the earth, the subtleties and varieties of favors. Can you name all the different ingredients? Feel the textures and temperatures.

• Slow down. Chew your food and wait until you've swallowed before putting another small bite into your mouth.

• Notice when you begin to feel sated and stop eating before you start to regret shoving that last bite into your pie whole.

• If you have a moment after your meal, take a slow stroll. My Ayruvedic teacher taught me to take a 1000-step stroll after each meal. She also told me to eat until only 2/3 full and to eat what my body feels like it wants and craves rather that what I "should" eat (look up Ayruvedic diet information for eating tips for your constitution. My friend Sunny is an Ayruvedic practitioner and expert at such stuff. Contact her for a consult). Notice your level of satisfaction after each meal. A meal of candy bars feels terrible.
  
  I'd love to hear about your food rituals and what your experience is with mindful eating. Please leave a comment below.
  

A Ticket Home: Meditations on Homelessness

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What is a mindful approach to homelessness? Perhaps this story can be a meditation on the subject.

Once when I was 21, I saw a guy on the side of the freeway off-ramp with a cardboard sign that said he was stranded and hungry. My heart broke. He looked like a nice guy who just needed a break.

Discovering Darrin

I turned the car around and picked him up. I bought him lunch. As we ate together, he told me that his name was Darren. He told me bits about his life, that he said he lived in San Diego, worked construction, and had recently traveled to Nebraska to attend his mother's funeral. He said that he had a wife and two kids at home but had become stranded in Utah and couldn't get back home to keep working. Without work he couldn't get home and all he needed was money for a bus ticket.

Just a week before, I had executed a brilliant plan to quit my lame desk job, take out a loan, and travel to Europe to for 5 weeks to be with my girlfriend. I didn't have much money, most of what I did have was borrowed with interest, but my heart ached that I had the means to travel to be with the one I loved and he didn't.

So, with my travel plans imminent, pressing preparations looming, and two thousand dollars of borrowed money in my pocket, I did what any naïve 21 year-old, eager to solve the problems of the universe would do: I bought Darren a bus ticket home from Utah to California. I even bought him a ticket to the movies next door to the Greyhound station so he could kill some time while he was waiting the three hours for his bus to leave. I drove away from the bus station feeling great, like I'd really done something to make the world a better place and that I’d really helped someone.

Will Work for Food: Darren Double Take

I went to Europe, had an enchanting five weeks in Austria and Germany, and came back jobless and in debt but in love and the richer for my experience.

I immediately began an all-out assault on the job market, desperate to join the ranks of that elite class of society known as “The Employed.” While driving around looking for anyone reckless enough to hire such an bohemian, I came off the same freeway off-ramp and to my great surprise, saw Darren standing there—same dude, different sign. And though I felt I might regret it, I did it anyway—I turned around, picked him up (again) and took him to lunch (again).

Darren didn't seem to remember me. I told him that I was the kid who bought him the ticket to San Diego several weeks earlier and I didn't mind telling him that I was a little pissed off that he was still stranded in Utah when I had paid his way home. I asked him why he didn't go to San Diego. He said he'd lost his bus ticket while at the movies. I told him that I felt that he'd taken advantage of me. He just sort of shrugged and went about eating his Big Mac. We went our separate ways.

Lessons Learned

In the years that followed, I'd see Darren now and again. His hair would be longer and he'd grown a beard. Every time that I saw him, he looked older. Time on the street was certainly not being kind to him.

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Still, I couldn't judge Darren too harshly. Despite the fact that he didn’t use my “ticket home,” I couldn't help but worry about him, this guy I didn't know. The more I thought about it, Darren didn't seem all the way right in his mind, you know? How could someone who probably needed some sort of guidance, and maybe even institutional help, be out there at the mercy of the streets?

For me, Darren put a real face on the entire blight homelessness. He made something huge and abstract very small and personal to me. And I guess that was the deeper realization for this naïve kid who thought he could somehow fix the world's problems with a little pocket money: that homelessness is bigger than buying someone a Big Mac and or even springing for a Greyhound ticket.

And looking back, I have also learned that it wasn’t wrong to try to help, even if the results were different than what I’d hoped for. I learned that the answer isn't to stop trying, but to try in better ways. How could I not try when Darren in out there somewhere?

More than 20 years later, even though I think it's wisest to donate time or money to the shelter, I still can't resist giving a few coins to someone down on their luck. And though I wouldn't do it again, I don't regret buying Darren a Greyhound ticket to San Diego.

Yes, I hope Darren gets what he deserves: happiness, a warm meal, and the chance to be with the people he loves.

I'm not the less for trying. Nor am I a saint. Who knows, someday if I'm down and out, maybe some kid will buy me a burger and a ticket back home.

Compassion for The World Starts Within

I believe the entrance into compassion for the outside world is to first develop a ready and familiar compassion for Self. Yoga is the best way I know to honor and nurture all aspects of Self. It may seem oblique, but in this light, coming to yoga practice or practicing yoga on your own is a powerful preliminary to helping solve the world's problems. It doesn't preclude us from lifting a finger in other ways, it just helps us lift said finger from the place of a clear mind, strong body, and a pure heart.

Scott

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Meditation Is Good for Your Health!

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Everyone says you gotta meditate, right?

I know, I know. “Who has time for meditation? It takes time, and when I’m busy all I think about when I try to meditate is all the stuff I have to do, making me stress out even worse. What’s the point?”

But when we look at the data, who has time NOT to meditate? Studies show that regular meditators are more calm, less stressed, and when groups meditate the crime rates go down. Meditators are more productive, more creative, learn faster, and are generally more content with their life than those who don’t. People who meditate in a group are more likely to stick with it and have a higher sense of purpose and satisfaction than those who meditate alone.

Regular meditation has even been shown to dramatically improve physical health. Scientific studies have shown that coronary disease, congestive heart failure, diabetes, and high blood pressure have lessened or otherwise depleted with the help of meditation. Get this: health insurance stats show that people who meditate regularly have a reduced likelihood of being hospitalized for coronary disease by 87 percent, and the possibility of getting cancer by 55 percent. And people who meditate are psychologically 12–15 years younger. That’s nuts! The original article doesn’t exist any more but look it up, it will blow your mind.

If prayer is a form of meditation, Martin Luther, the historic religious reformer, certainly went against the grain when he asserted, “I have so much I need to do today, I need to pray for an extra hour.”

photo: https://www.danspapers.com/2018/12/paul-mccartney-ends-2018-tour-dates-video/

Paul McCartney has crooned some immutable truths but never has he said it better than when he shared, “In moments of madness, meditation has helped me find moments of serenity—and I would like to think that it would help provide young people a quiet haven in a not-so-quiet world.” Drop the mic.

So maybe you’re saying, “Ok, ok, I know regular meditation would help me but I need some basic instruction on what to do . . . and a little encouragement to get going.”

That’s where I come in.

There’s no time like the beginning of the year to start something new. That’s why I’m hosting my 31-Day Meditation Challenge starting TOMORROW. I’ll lead you through how to transform your life with a regular meditation practice. The challenge is to meditate every day for 31 days using whatever style of meditation you like for 15 minutes a day. That’s it!

One of the thrilling things about this challenge is that you’ll be doing this with a large group of people from all over the world. This will help increase your accountability and fun. You’ll be able to connect to each other for support and encouragement on our forum. We want you to be a part of our meditation community!

Not only will I and our community be helping you every step of the way, but if you call your mom and your best friends and let them know that you’re going to do the 31-Day Meditation Challenge and ask to be accountable to them, you’ll stick with it. Hell, invite them along and build a meditation posse, your sit crew. I know that whenever I want to make some positive changes in my life—I want to eat more healthy, get more fit, save money—if I am accountable to other people I stick with the program. If I’ve promised my wife that I’m not eating sugar, I’ll walk by that incredible bakery that sells the best pain au chocolat and not even give it a second look. So tell your nearest and dearest that you’re doing this and invite them along.

I’ll also be helping you by providing regular instruction, support, encouragement. I’ll give you some transformational and relaxing guided meditations to use if you want. Plus, I’ll lead you through a powerful visualization of 2019 that you can revisit regularly to blast yourself into an unstoppable year through the power of your own awesomeness.

The 31-Day Meditation challenge only costs $31 and as an incentive, if you complete all 31 days of meditating for 15 minutes a day, you can opt to get your tuition back. This is easy and fun and you’ll see some beautiful and transformational changes occur in your life.

Do this with me. Invite your friends to join us and together let’s have an incredible 2019!

We Three Yogis of Orient Are: How Does the Story of Jesus' Birth Reflect Hindu Ideas?

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Photo: https://medium.com/@WhiteFeather9/the-real-story-of-the-3-wise-men-2db6988859f8

Around Christmas time, there are many ways to consider the story of Jesus’ birth. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of the Three Kinds, Wisemen, or Magi coming to bring Jesus gifts from afar, maybe because Christmas has always been about receiving gifts. Are there any connections between Hinduism and the story of Christs birth?

There are many ways to interpret the bible regarding the teachings of and about Jesus and I to some degree or other, I subscribe to all of them. I believe that there is truth at the heart of all beliefs. It’s impossible to verify the exact history most of what is written in the bible but I believe that regardless of its historicity, a mythical interpretation of the bible allows readers to understand the truths that the authors of the bible intended to teach, truths which I believe are larger than facts. Some of these truths are mirrored in the ancient vedic traditions of India.

Were the Three Kings Yogis? 3 Gifts

The story of Jesus’ birth speaks of the Magi, or Wise Men who came from the Orient and came bearing three gifts, gold, frankincense, and Myrrh. Could it have been that what the authors of the bible are referring to as “the Orient” were wise men from India? The gifts that were offered to Jesus by the Magi were not random and represent Jesus’ noble birthright, his god-nature, and portend his death and what that means for the spiritual evolution of humanity.

The first gift that Jesus received from the Magi was gold. Gold is a symbol of Jesus’ royalty and spiritual lineage, despite his humble beginnings of being born in a manger. It was important that in Jesus’ history he be born of the spiritual line of King David as was foretold by ancient prophets. Receiving gold is a symbol of that royalty.

Photo: https://www.exoticindiaart.com/product/paintings/shiva-parvati-bless-ganesha-worshipping-shiva-linga-OR70/

The second gift that Jesus received was Frankincense which is a symbol representing his divine nature. Frankincense is burned in holy ceremonies both in both Jerusalem and India and suggests the presence of god. Presenting Jesus with frankincense was a declaration to all that Jesus was god on earth. In Hindu terms, this god-on-earth quality would be known as an avatar and similar offerings of frankincense would be burned to honor deities known as avatars. One such avatar is Krishna, a god whose name sound remarkable similar to Christos.

Lastly, Jesus was presented with myrrh which is another incense used at funerals as well as sometimes as medicine. This symbol portended Jesus’ death. The fact that myrrh is also used as medicine suggest that in Jesus’ death there would be healing for the rest of humanity.

These three gifts that Jesus received were a part of a trinity of gifts that represent Jesus’ destiny. The notion of the trinity is very important not only to Christians but also to religious and spiritual traditions all over the world, including India or “the Orient.”

Trinity in Christianity and Hinduism

One important trinity in Christianity is the trinity of a human and earthly mother, Mary, being coupled with a faceless god, and creates Jesus, a third entity that is both human and god. This trinity is not unique to christianity.

A similar trinity that mirrors that of the Christos myth is that of Shiva, Shakti, and Ganesh. In this trinity, Shakti is represented by the woman who is earth, changeability, and humanity. She’s coupled with Shiva who is known perfect beingness, something that supersedes earth as indicated by gesture of feet in full lotus, not touching the ground. They create a child, Ganesh who is half human and half elephant, and represents the spirit and body coming together to create a divine third. Ganesh only becomes a god after he dies and is resurrected, something that mirrors the Christos myth perfectly.

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One interpretation of these ideas presented in both Christianity and Hinduism is that we are all noble born, that we are children of the one great everything, whatever you call that, and that we are naturally divine because of that birth. Also that through our life as human beings, we evolve along a spiritual path that will ultimately end in death— literal, or perhaps interpreted only as the death of our old and simple way of seeing the Universe—and that we can be reborn into a truer knowledge of things as they truly are.

Whether or not you interpret the Christian or Hindu stories as literal or mythical, I hope that in this time of celebrating Jesus’ birth, we’ll appreciate the direction that these stories offer beautiful models which inform our own personal journey toward spiritual evolution.

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31-Day Meditation Challenge: Your Most Most Incredible 2019 Starts With This!

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Christmas is Over, Now What?

You’ve indulged. You overate, you overdrank . . . and might just be feeling in sum: over it. Hopefully these next few days before the new year can be quiet and simple. Consider my up coming 31-Day Meditation Challenge.

The week between Christmas and New Years is actually a very special time. It’s that dead-of-winter time where you get to hibernate, meditate, and plant the seeds for what will live for you in the new year. What are you visualizing for 2019?

Power of Visualization

I have a faith in visualization that borders on religious—religious, because it work miracles, both in my life as well as the lives of millions of other people. My belief is simple: If you can see it, you can live into it.

Modern neuroscience agrees with me. Scientists say that the brain does not differentiate well between the images it translates through the eyes versus what it translates via thoughts, images, or ideas. Think about watching a thrilling movie— your heart pounds and your hands sweat, though your rational mind knows they are merely images on a screen.

This proposes a provocative idea: if your brain can’t differentiate well between reality and other images, why not visualize your ideal life and enjoy the feeling of success now? Speaking of seeing is believing, my wife has brilliantly constructed images set to music that reflect her ideal life using “mind movie” software, which she watches on a nearly daily basis to see where she’s directing her life.

Just like countless world-class athletes have shown, visualizing yourself succeed floods your system with all those feel-good and excitement chemicals like Dopamine, Serotonin, and Oxytocin, just like if you had recently accomplished your dreams. It makes you perform at your peak. Plus, since seeing is believing, visualizing yourself succeed shuts off the amygdala, the part of your brain that puts the brakes on doing scary things like jumping out of airplanes, risking talking to your boss about a raise, or hell, quitting that soul-sucking job once and for all and stretching yourself to do that thing you’ve always dreamed of doing. In short, when you see yourself succeed, you live into your vision of it.

This is because you are truly more powerful than you can imagine. Most likely, the biggest thing holding you back from experiencing your own innate magnificence is your lack of vision for it. Do you ever get comfortable with “good enough,” lose your sense of purpose, or busy yourself so much as to distract your mind from what it truly makes you feel alive?

Well if so, starting today, that’s going to change. I invite you to join me for a revolutionary, 31-day meditative journey that gives you the tools and the support to visualize and live into your own magnificent life.

31-Day Meditation Challenge

We’ll start together on New Years Day with a guided and vivid visualization of what your incredible life looks and feels like. This meditation will relax your body and put your mind into a flow state that boosts your creativity, optimizes your learning, and inspires your productivity to work toward the fulfillment of your dreams. Then, for the the entire month of January, you’ll meditate every day for 15 minutes a day. You’ll regularly revisit your visualization for the year as well as use any other form of meditation you like.

Once you register, you’ll get all the details for how the challenge works as well as information about several styles of meditation you can choose to do in addition to our New Year Visualization.

If you’re new to meditation, no problem. You’ll love this. If you’re an experienced meditator, great. We can use your meditation muscles to bolster the spirit of our group. Either way, this will be a fantastic opportunity to join a group of people all over the world benefitting the world with greater mindfulness. All month I’ll be sending you regular emails that offer instruction, support, and encouragement.

This will be fun, easy, and the perfect way to start 2019.

This 31-Day Meditation Challenge will also bless the lives of the people around you. In addition to visualizing an incredible life in 2019, regular meditation will also:

Online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

• Lower your stress levels

• Decrease your reactivity

• Increase your mindful responsiveness

• Improve your sleep

• Reaffirm your sense of purpose

• Give you personal and spiritual insight

• Improve your overall happiness

Do this for yourself. Do this for those privileged (or not so privileged on those off days) to live around you.

This costs only $31. And guess what, if you complete the challenge, you may opt to GET. YOUR. MONEY. BACK. (drop the mic).

Please join today and share bless the world with a more-mindful YOU. Please share this with anyone who would benefit.

Happy New Year!

---

Your Online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

I’ve been studying and practicing Yoga Nidra for more than a decade and I’m here to say that this simple, relaxing form of meditation has changed my world-view, spiritual progression, and yoga career more than any other thing. I’ve just put together an online Yoga Nidra training and I’d be honored if you took a look.

I think the best bumper sticker for Yoga Nidra would read: “Yoga Nidra: Napping Your Way to Enlightenment.”

And I’m only kind of kidding, here. What Yoga Nidra does is give you the experience of yoga, the felt sense of Oneness with all things for a true understanding of Self, through a process of deep awareness and relaxation. The relaxation inherent in Yoga Nidra puts you into the Nidra mind state, a liminal state between waking and dreaming consciousness and allows you to experience yourself outside of the rigid confines of our ego. It might sound more complicated and philosophical than it needs to, but simply put: Yoga Nidra is as relaxing as it is profound.

Online Yoga Nidra Training

I’ve learned volumes about Yoga Nidra since I’ve been teaching it and would love to share it with you. I’ve shared Yoga Nidra with literally 10s of thousands of people and have discovered so much about teaching it. I have seen first-hand how easily and deeply this practice helps people and feel it’s my gift and pleasure in this life to share Yoga Nidra with the world. I’d love to help you learn how to teach Yoga Nidra so that you can bless the lives of the people in your realm.

Also, as a career yoga teacher who has taught in New York, San Francisco, Utah, Europe, and elsewhere, Yoga Nidra has been one of the factors that has made me stand out from the thousands of other yoga teachers.

I’ve created this 20-hour online Yoga Nidra Teacher Training which contains:

• audio recordings of lecture and practice

• Several Yoga Nidra practices

• Yoga Nidra Scripts to follow

• Breathing and mindfulness practices

• Helpful links and downloads

• Access to dozens of Yoga Nidra class recordings

What Is Yoga Nidra?

Yoga Nidra is the relaxing and mystical journey deep into the inner-realms of consciousness where through a guided meditation, you get to experience your True Nature, something that feels one with all things, infinite, and whole. Such wholeness leads naturally to profound healing, boundless equanimity, and and understanding of your life, unparalleled by every-day thinking. Stress, trauma, and scarcity seem insignificant after you've experienced the part of you that is infinitely larger than any of these smaller experiences. Truly, through Yoga Nidra you see into the vastness of the Universe that is within you.

Learn this transformative practice for your own soul evolution as well as learning how to lead others through this life-changing practice. This could be the most important work you do in a great long time.

One of the things that differentiates Yoga Nidra from other forms of mindfulness is its emphasis on getting relaxed as the gateway to experiencing your True Nature, that of Awareness itself. 

The effects of Yoga Nidra are as profound as they are relaxing. Through practicing  awareness, you experience yourself, your REAL self, without boundaries, fears, or limitations. You open up to astounding and beautiful clarity about who you are. It opens you to feel at one with all things, increases your capacity for love, and helps you to be more compassionate. It shows you your gifts for the world, shows you your strength and power, and helps you feel as though someone has turned up all the colors of your life. Yoga Nidra is perhaps the most effective way I know to manage and eliminate trauma and stress.

Indeed, Yoga Nidra has been one of the most profound and spiritual practices I’ve ever encountered. And I’m not alone. Millions of people love this practice. One of the reasons why is because people often receive expansive insight, nurturing relaxation, and deep healing from just one session. 

Personally, I discovered Yoga Nidra in 2004 and have had the  privilege of learning this  important practice from some of the worlds leading Yoga Nidra experts. I’ve spent the last 10 years mastering the art of teaching of Yoga Nidra and I’ve been privileged to work with literally thousands of students worldwide through live classes, recordings, workshops, webinars, lectures, and online courses.

The world desperately needs more Yoga Nidra and more qualified Yoga Nidra instructors. Practicing Yoga Nidra is easy but teaching it effectively can be complex. I’d love to share my knowledge of teaching Yoga Nidra with you. 

This 20-hour Yoga Nidra intensive is designed to deepen your knowledge of Self through Yoga Nidra as you learn to guide yourself and others through effective and varied Yoga Nidra practices. It is perfect both for teachers and students who simply want to deepen their practice of Yoga Nidra.

This intensive will be available through audio recordings and through a manual in the form of a PDF.

Upon completion of this immersion you’ll receive:

• A library of Yoga Nidra training that you can access whenever you’d like

• A deeper understanding of Self through Yoga Nidra

• A course of profound relaxation

• A full audio recording of the training for practice and continued learning

• Several Yoga Nidra scripts to use

• Yoga Immersion PDF workbook

• A certificate of completion

• Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Credit (if needed). This counts as 20 hours of non-contact hours.

What Others are Saying

“I have studied with Scott for years, since the days of his Prana studio in Trolley Square, and his compassion, engagement, and base of knowledge makes him one of my favorite teachers. He was one of the first teachers to teach me Yoga Nidra. So when he offered a Nidra immersion and training I jumped on it. Only ... I wasn’t in the area. I was in Michigan. I attended the immersion, training, and additional Sunday workshop remotely - in real time, using Zoom set up by Scott. It worked flawlessly, and the experience was wonderful. If you are interested in any classes he offers, but can’t physically attend, do not hesitate to attend remotely. You will still be a full participant and receive the full impact of Scott’s clarity and teaching skills.”

— Lesley DuTemple

“Scott’s Yoga Nidra Teacher Training was an excellent blend of information, inspiration, and application. I love his way of organizing and presenting of the abundance of material. Scott is very authentic and has a way of connecting and empowering his student to feel confident to utilize the tools he provides. I am so thankful to have the Yoga Nidra as part of my toolbox of offerings!”

— -Jackie Wheeler, Yoga Teacher/Studio Owner

This Course Covers

• Philosophy of Yoga Nidra

• Myths and Chants

• Yoga Nidra for Healing/Trauma/Stress

• Yoga Nidra for Performance

• The Power of Visualizations

• Subtle Body Study and Practice

• Koshas

• Pranayama

• Incorporating Yoga Nidra into Yoga

• Mindfulness

• Effective Teaching Methods

• Role as Teacher

• Self Practice

• Group Teaching

• One-on-one Teaching

By the end of this immersion you will be ready to teach Yoga Nidra!

When you register, you'll immediately have access to the information.

Please email me with questions!

Leaves Falling: The Beauty of Disillusion

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The following is a version of an article I wrote for Conscious Life News

I wish I knew the beauty of leaves falling.

To whom are we beautiful when we go?

~David Ignato

And to whom are we beautiful as we go? This poem seems to point to the fact that even in our failing, there is a part of creation and therefore a part of ourselves that can grant a magnificence to any loss.

A beautiful concept. A bittersweet truth. Perhaps this is why Autumn is so colorful: it is the opulent  funeral procession of the death of so much. It is the rush of fireworks before the quiet stillness of winter.

Shiva Nataraj

Many of the Hindu statues tell stories and offers insight which transcends dogma. The Shiva Nataraj, the Dancing Shiva, is a storytelling icon depicting Shiva, the creator of the universe, and illustrates his five acts which, in part, give understanding of death and dissolution. Through understanding the Shiva Nataraj, we too might understand "the beauty of leaves falling" as penned by poet David Ignato.

This statue depicts a person with several arms holding different tools, his hair on fire, body wreathed in flames, standing on an impish creature with one leg, and his other leg in motion.

Creation

In his first hand, Shiva holds a drum putting everything into motion through vibration. It's true that everything from the smallest particle to the largest galaxy, even the Universe itself, is in constant motion. As a musician, I love the idea of DJ Shiva laying down the backbeat that sets the Universe into motion. This represents the birth and spring in our lives and the events and circumstances therein.

Sustaining

His next hand holds a mudra or a gesture called the abhaya mudra. This Mudra is the power of sustaining. It's like Shiva is saying, "I've built this, now I'm supporting and nourishing it." For me this represents summer time when everything is in full bloom and thriving. It's also a reminder to be present, especially to our tendency to get attached to things when they are going well, or looking over our shoulder for the other shoe to drop. If possible be right in the moment as things are. The subtle message here is that things are in flux and don't get either attached or resist what's inevitably in flux.

Death and Disillusion

In his third hand, Shiva is holding a flame suggesting not to get too attached because just as soon as he will give birth to and sustain something, he'll also burn it down. This flame reminds you that not only does everything has a life cycle, but that even as things are changing and dying they do so as part of a perfect cycle. Shiva has no remorse about any of this, he simply stares straight ahead with a little grin as if to say, "This is what death looks like," meanwhile the beautiful fall colors are exploding in their passing.

Concealment

So, when you're at your lowest point, your house has just been razed to the ground and you're really hoping Shiva will give you a helping hand, he does just the opposite. His fourth arm is concealing his heart. At the moment when we are humbled and look to a higher power at our low points he covers his arm to say, "You don't learn heart of God for free." Sometimes this feels like just when you couldn't get any lower, you in fact do.

This lowest point is what Shiva is standing on, a little demon thing called the apasmara and represents the unrealized, naive or innocent part of ourselves. Shiva is standing on this representation of a part of ourselves, not in any way to be mean or spiteful, but rather as a way of literally taking a stand for our higher selves.

Revelation

And once the old self has fully been put asunder, with the only limb left, Shiva last leg is swinging upward to invite you back into the a new and elevated cycle of new birth, sustainment, death and dissolution, concealment and revelation. Here is where everything is revealed and we continue to ride the circle in a spiral of evolution and growth. After such revolutions, there is no going back. And after several times around one might begin to start to expect the different cycles as they appear.

With the full picture in mind, whenever we encounter death, change, or dissolution we can resist it less and perhaps see if for what it is, one of the beautiful steps on our way to our full understanding being.

Mary Oliver writes about learning to accept death and loss in her poem, Maker of All Things, Even Healings. I love the title of the poem because it suggests that the healing, the bringing back to life for a fuller measure of life as in the Dancing Shiva, comes only after accepting death which she does so humbly.

All night

under the pines

the fox

moves through the darkness

with a mouthful of teeth

and a reputation for death

which it deserves.

In the spicy

villages of the mice

he is famous,

his nose

in the grass

is like an earthquake,

his feet

on the path

is a message so absolute

that the mouse, hearing it,

makes himself

as small as he can

as he sits silent

or, trembling, goes on

hunting among the grasses

for the ripe seeds.

Maker of All Things,

including appetite,

including stealth,

including the fear that makes

all of us, sometime or other,

flee for the sake

of our small and precious lives,

let me abide in your shadow--

let me hold on

to the edge of your robe

as you determine

what you must let be lost

and what will be saved.

As we celebrate the panoply of fall colors, may we, too, remember the beauty of leaves falling, the beauty and magnificence of this amazing dance in which we are all twirling, living and dying.

Please share this!

Why I Wake Early

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I awake today and sit enjoying the silence of a beautiful morning. Even as I sit, I'm watching the bright morning sun dance its procession around my front room. It is playing with the crystal hung in my eastern window and splattering rainbow prisms across each wall.

Even as I look, the color changes and fades, showing me that the earth is revolving around this sun. Things are changing. As I look out the window the sun is celebrating these early autumn trees with its light, making the yellow leaves explode with color against a cloudless and pale-blue sky. I see a small bird sitting in a shadow who decides to leap up higher and rest in the bright sun's warmth. And then it begins to sing.

Aren't we all like this bird, eager for the creature comforts of warmth on our skin, eager to leave the shadows for the sun and the opportunity to feel life pulsing through our veins, eager to feel how we may reflect that same brightness and joy through our song?

And perhaps this is why in yoga we practice celebrating the sun with Surya Namaskar, or sun salutations. Surya means "sun" and Namaskar means "a deep honoring." You might notice the same root word Namas as the base of the word Namaste, another Sanskrit word meaning to honor the True Nature or heart of hearts, the most sacred element and potential of another. Surya Namaskar is like offering a Namaste to our source, the sun, as it brings life to us and everything on this planet and we're dependent on it for all aspects of our well-being. Sun salutations are also a physical practice, a ritual, for acknowledging and honoring anything else you feel is your source (God, Creation, the Universe, Buddha nature, or whatever). But just as important, this practice reveals that we are part of that source and reflect a bit of that same light within ourselves. By acknowledging this similarity between ourselves and our source we empower ourselves with the memory of our True Nature. We are not dark creatures in a dark world, and where there is shadow, we can choose to leave it for the sun or shine light into it. We are beings of light, filled with life and love. And we are here to celebrate that, to learn from it, and to shine our light everywhere.

Mary Oliver says in her poem Why I Wake Early:

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety -

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

Please join me this week as we practice Surya Namaskar and other poses to remind ourselves of this bigger picture. We show gratitude, rekindle our fire, and celebrate our own light.

Scott

Uinta Mountain Yoga Retreat October 5–7, 2018

Valuing Perplexity

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We all have problems. We all grapple with the unknown, about the big things like the origin of the Universe, sure, but more specifically about our own complicated life. We all want to solve our problems as quickly and painlessly as possible.

But sometimes it is only by questioning or struggling that we are driven to earnestly understand an otherwise hidden part of ourselves. Sometimes it is working through our struggles that we truly come to understand our full potential. Our questions fuel us to open our hearts, to seek for inspiration, to perform the necessary work, and more profoundly, to abandon our will to the grander wisdom of the Divine, whatever your concept of that is.

We must at once be willing to seek and do. What's most difficult is that we must also be willing to sit comfortably and simply be with what we don't know or understand. And sometimes to get real answers we must be willing to sit in our own darkness for a while.

This human tendency for control occurs regularly in our yoga practice as many of us strive to either know everything there is to know about yoga or try to perfect our poses.

Instead, let us practice this week the yoga principle of Santosha, or contentment, by learning to sit with and even value perplexity, to sit in the not knowing. There is a practice of allowing things to be just the way they are, perfect with our problems, as unseen forces that are working in mysterious ways to evolve your body, mind, and heart. 

The following poem by David Whyte seems to speak directly to learning from the not knowing and leaning into the darkness rather than running from it.

Sweet Darkness
by David Whyte
 

20-Hr. Yoga Nidra Training

Virtual or in-Person

September 28–30 2018

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb 

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

How To Meditate: A 30-Day Meditation Challenge

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I love to teach yoga and meditation because I feel it's my calling to help people become the best versions of themselves so that they can go and bless the world in best ways they know how. 

The world needs people who are present, living their lives mindfully, and growing into their True Nature with a regular, dedicated meditation practice. The world needs YOU to be operating at your highest potential. 

Regular meditation is perhaps the most effective way to evolve into your highest self. Presence is the key to experiencing your birthright of magnificence. A group of meditators benefits the world in vast ways, bringing magnificence into the world like expanding ripples in a pond.
Some of the most common personal benefits of regular mediation are:

• Spiritual awakening
• Reduced stress
• Greater focus
• Understanding your purpose for the world
• Greater compassion
• Being less reactive more responsive
• Greater happiness

Like any worthwhile endeavor, meditation takes practice. So let's do it together!

Join me in a meditation challenge, a group that will meditate every day for 30 days. This challenge will benefit you personally and will make the world a better place. 
 

The Challenge:

You will meditate every day for 30 days for 15 minutes or more. That's it. With the support of the group, you will have the encouragement and connection to tap into the power that happens when a collective of people are meditating together. Even if you meditate at different times, the power of intention that connects us will empower you and enable your greatest benefit.  

If you are new to meditation, this is a perfect way to start a new life-long practice. You will receive in-depth explanations, teachings, and follow up to demystify the art and science of meditation, and establish yourself firmly in your practice. 

If you are an experienced meditator, this is also a perfect way to join this powerful collective to bring new heights to your practice and open new doors and awarenesses. 

While I will be sending out guided meditations, you can also choose any style of meditation you'd like. We will each be tracking our meditations every day using Insight Timer, a mobile app designed to help you time and track your meditations.

Once you register, you'll receive emails and resources to encourage you and support you along the way, including teachings and explanations about the why and how of meditation. Plus, you'll receive an invitation to some live group meditations via Zoom or in person depending on where you live. Live sessions will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. You'll be able to see and comment to the others in our group who are also doing this 30-day challenge. 

This next 30 days will change your life as well as the lives of everyone around you! 

Once you Register

Once you register, you'll receive a welcome email with information about:

• Specifics of the challenge
• Live meditations
• Many forms of meditation you might choose to do
• Downloading the app
• Live group meditations, virtually via Zoom, an online meeting platform or in person
• A catalogue of guided meditations, both my catalogue of recordings as well as literally thousands on Insight Timer, which you can keep to help support you on your medative journey.
• Receiving supportive emails 

What does this cost?

I'm more interested in you succeeding and the world becoming more mindful than I am making money, so here's what I'm offering:
The 30-Day Meditation Challenge costs $30, so that you'll commit to it. And everyone who completes the challenge, meditates everyday using the app for 15 minutes or more, can opt to get a FULL refund of their tuition. No hassle. No questions. So, essentially this is free! My deepest desire is that I don't make a dime on this project!

I invite you to commit to your own wellbeing. I know you can do it and I'll support you every step of the way. Join me!

Register

Fill out the form and press submit, then click on the PayPal button.