"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."
~ Woodrow Wilson
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Inspiration...
Tao Porchon-Lynch is a 91 year old yoga instructor and ballroom dancer in White Plains, New York
Tao Porchon-Lynch learned yoga while growing up in India, in the former French colony of Pondicherry, but she didn't become an instructor until half a century later.
For much of her career, she danced, modeled and acted in India, France, England and California. She appeared in Hollywood movies and on television before landing a job with UniTel in the 1960s, establishing TV stations in India. "I was playing with life," she says. "There was so much to do and so little time to do it."
Porchon-Lynch has taught yoga since the 1970s and certified 400 other teachers. Until recently, she was able to suspend herself by her hands in the full-lotus and peacock positions before she broke her wrist. She's still a competitive ballroom dancer, despite undergoing hip replacement five years ago. "I'm not going to give up," Porchon-Lynch says. "I'm going to dance and do yoga for as long as I live."
By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Click here to view the video of this remarkable woman:
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/04/12/n_cmr_92_year_old_yoga.cnnmoney/
Tao Porchon-Lynch learned yoga while growing up in India, in the former French colony of Pondicherry, but she didn't become an instructor until half a century later.
For much of her career, she danced, modeled and acted in India, France, England and California. She appeared in Hollywood movies and on television before landing a job with UniTel in the 1960s, establishing TV stations in India. "I was playing with life," she says. "There was so much to do and so little time to do it."
Porchon-Lynch has taught yoga since the 1970s and certified 400 other teachers. Until recently, she was able to suspend herself by her hands in the full-lotus and peacock positions before she broke her wrist. She's still a competitive ballroom dancer, despite undergoing hip replacement five years ago. "I'm not going to give up," Porchon-Lynch says. "I'm going to dance and do yoga for as long as I live."
By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Click here to view the video of this remarkable woman:
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/04/12/n_cmr_92_year_old_yoga.cnnmoney/
Monday, April 12, 2010
Love Unlimited...
How would you like to be unconditionally loved, just as you are, without having to be or do anything special? What would it be like to feel truly, completely, radically accepted, with out feeling as though you had to hide or deny or apologize for any aspect of yourself?
All of us crave this kind of love and acceptance, but few can honestly say we offer ourselves such unconditional regard. The trouble is, if we cannot love and accept ourselves just as we are, we will find it difficult to truly love anyone else in such a limitless, unconditional way. And, perhaps even more unsettling to contemplate, if we are fortunate enough to find someone who accepts and loves us unconditionally, how can we be open to receiving that love from someone else if we haven't fully accepted ourselves?
Unconditional love becomes possible when you practice cultivating the four states of mind known as the brahmaviharas. Collectively, these four qualities of friendliness or lovingkindness (metta), compassion (karuna), joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha) are the qualities of true, authentic, and unconditional love. Both Patanjali, the Indian sage who compiled the Yoga Sutras in the second century BCE, and the Buddha taught the importance of cultivating these four states of mind.
"By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness." ~ Swami Satchidanada (1914-2002) (translation of Yoga Sutra 1.33)
"Consciousness settles as one radiates friendliness, compassion, delight, and equanimity toward all things, whether pleasant, unpleasant, good or bad." ~ Chip Hartranft (translation of Yoga Sutra 1.33)
Stachidananda says that these qualities are the four keys to establishing the mind in serenity.
Cultivating these states of mind is a way of restraining or reversing what Patanjali calls vikshepa, the tendency of the mind to be distracted and outwardly directed. Patanjali tells us that when we react haphazardly or callously to what people do around us, inner disturbance is the result. These four attitudes combat that disturbance and bring us closer to a state of balanced equilibrium.
For example, in everyday life when we see happy people, cultivating a friendly attitude toward them will help forestall feelings of jealousy and envy. When we encounter those who are suffering, we should compassionately do what we can to help - for our own sake as much as for the person who is suffering. And finally, when we are faced with those we deem non-virtuous, the classical yoga tradition teaches that we should strive to have an indifferent attitude towards them. Often, we indulge in judging and criticizing those who we feel are misguided. This hardly helps keep a serene state of mind! Commentators in the classical yoga tradition point out that the yogi should not divert attention from his or her own practice in order to try to reform those who are unlikely to heed advice. As Satchidananda points out, "If you try to advise them, you will loose your peace."
Reference: Yoga Journal 2010
All of us crave this kind of love and acceptance, but few can honestly say we offer ourselves such unconditional regard. The trouble is, if we cannot love and accept ourselves just as we are, we will find it difficult to truly love anyone else in such a limitless, unconditional way. And, perhaps even more unsettling to contemplate, if we are fortunate enough to find someone who accepts and loves us unconditionally, how can we be open to receiving that love from someone else if we haven't fully accepted ourselves?
Unconditional love becomes possible when you practice cultivating the four states of mind known as the brahmaviharas. Collectively, these four qualities of friendliness or lovingkindness (metta), compassion (karuna), joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha) are the qualities of true, authentic, and unconditional love. Both Patanjali, the Indian sage who compiled the Yoga Sutras in the second century BCE, and the Buddha taught the importance of cultivating these four states of mind."By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness." ~ Swami Satchidanada (1914-2002) (translation of Yoga Sutra 1.33)
"Consciousness settles as one radiates friendliness, compassion, delight, and equanimity toward all things, whether pleasant, unpleasant, good or bad." ~ Chip Hartranft (translation of Yoga Sutra 1.33)
Stachidananda says that these qualities are the four keys to establishing the mind in serenity.
Cultivating these states of mind is a way of restraining or reversing what Patanjali calls vikshepa, the tendency of the mind to be distracted and outwardly directed. Patanjali tells us that when we react haphazardly or callously to what people do around us, inner disturbance is the result. These four attitudes combat that disturbance and bring us closer to a state of balanced equilibrium.
For example, in everyday life when we see happy people, cultivating a friendly attitude toward them will help forestall feelings of jealousy and envy. When we encounter those who are suffering, we should compassionately do what we can to help - for our own sake as much as for the person who is suffering. And finally, when we are faced with those we deem non-virtuous, the classical yoga tradition teaches that we should strive to have an indifferent attitude towards them. Often, we indulge in judging and criticizing those who we feel are misguided. This hardly helps keep a serene state of mind! Commentators in the classical yoga tradition point out that the yogi should not divert attention from his or her own practice in order to try to reform those who are unlikely to heed advice. As Satchidananda points out, "If you try to advise them, you will loose your peace."
Reference: Yoga Journal 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Let life happen....
This may be an easy thing to say when you're happy, life is easy and going your way... but what about when what's happening isn't what you planned?
I'm in this "in-between" phase in my life where I'm ready to be finished with school and get on with my life but life is giving me little fires to put out along the way. So what do I do now? What is my mantra?... Let life happen.
I'm in this "in-between" phase in my life where I'm ready to be finished with school and get on with my life but life is giving me little fires to put out along the way. So what do I do now? What is my mantra?... Let life happen.
Life is the path we take.
What happens on the road to our destination is our life's story.
So many of us want to rush through life and get to our destination that we forget that life is the path. If we all jumped into this world in our "perfect" career or our "perfect" relationship how vain would we be? We would have no life experience, no wisdom, no scars. Our past makes us who we are, our present is our path and shapes our future, and our future is open for endless possibilities. No one knows exactly how your life is going to turn out. You may think you know what you want, but there could be something far better out there for you. You just have to leave your heart open and let life happen."It is better to do your own duty badly, than to perfectly do another's; you are safe from harm when you do what you should be doing" ~The Bhagavad Gita
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
