This is a Maasai saying. The Maasai people live in Magadura in East Africa, a small village in the highlands above the Serengeti. When I first read this quote the other day, I felt a tremendous amount of relief. It is simply another way of saying "life is a journey, not a destination" yet everytime I hear this I awaken to a new perspective of life and a deeper experience of peace and well-Being. Said another way:

"The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination." - Carl Rogers

Recently in class, I've been reminding students to experience the fullness of each breath. So often we are breathing with the intention of getting to the next place, the next moment, the next breath. This becomes particularly obvious in our Yoga practice. Not long ago, as I was practicing Yoga, I noticed I was hurrying through breathing in each pose. I began to see how this shows up in my life. This obsession with always looking to the next moment...

My practice is beginning to shift and slow down since I've had this awareness, as well as, my teaching. I am realizing the true practice of Yoga is in the quality of our breath, not the pace of our movement or the number of poses we get into in each practice. The true practice of Yoga and living Yoga, is in breathing each breath to the fullest. To feel each breath be complete and fully expanded, before we seek to take our next breath...

The following poem is called, Lost, by David Wagoner:

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat is as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same Raven.
No two branches are the same Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

May we awaken to the joy of the journey with each full breath of the way.

Happy, Full and Peaceful Breathing!Read more

I thought this would be a nice way to end the week. I encourage you to take 3 minutes out of your day to watch this beautiful piece called May You Be Blessed. As you watch it, allow yourself to read each line and really feel as you send the blessings throughout yourself and then out into the infinite univerese...remembering that thoughts are energy and energy creates matter. The first time you read and watch it, substitute the word "you" for "my". Then, watch it again and read through it with the word "you" sending the blessing out throughout the world, universe and beyond...

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become." - Buddha

May our thoughts be filled with light, love and goodness...

Namaste!Read more

If you are interested in Yoga, you will find a lot of incredible information about the philosophy of the practice and its teachings on Jivamukti Yoga. Sharon Gannon and David Life are the founders of Jivamukti Yoga in NYC and have been the beloved teachers of students such as Sting, Christy Turlington and many other well-known Yogi's. I have also had the good fortune of attending a weekend workshop with them back in May of 2005. It was an incredibly enlightening experience. I've also read their book called, Jivamukti Yoga, which is an awesome book if you are looking to expand your practice mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I incorporate much of the guidance I received from their book into my teaching even to this day.

Each month on their site, Sharon posts a Focus of the Month. I realized yesterday, they have all of the past months archived on their site, as well. I was so happy to see this as there was a Focus about Chakras I had read last year and wanted to reread. I'll have a lot I can catch up on and I'm looking forward to learning more from these incredible teachers. I hope you enjoy the wisdom and find it soothing and enlightening for your soul. Have a blessed day.Read more

I thought the weather would be better this morning. But, when I went outside to my car, I realized this was not the case. It felt even gloomier, foggier, and cloudier than it had the past couple of days.

Right before I walked into teach Yoga, I reminded myself how just last week I had been saying to someone how blessed we've been this winter with nice weather in Dallas. It's amazing how easy it is to forget all the beautiful days, when we have a few cloudy, cold and gloomy ones.

As we began class...

I reminded the students and myself to allow our Yoga practice to awaken the light and sunshine within us this morning. I really felt the truth of this as we closed our eyes and began breathing deeply with our legs crossed in our seated posture. The sunshine really does come from within. At its core, the practice of Yoga is about awakening to our inner light, our Samadhi, which in English means bliss. Clouds will pass over us from time-to-time, yet when we are awakened to our essential nature or our true selves, we feel the sunshine within always, regardless of what is going on around us. This doesn't mean we won't feel down at times, or affected by the temporary clouds in our life, yet the time we allow ourselves to spend "under the weather", or "gloomy" will grow shorter and shorter, until the light within us shines so brightly, it dissolves the clouds from our heart and minds. According to the teachings of Yoga, we suffer because we are ignorant of our true nature.

So instead of hoping for the sun to come out again on the outside, so we can feel a temporary sense of brightness and cheer, let's create an intention to awaken to the radiance, joy and light within us allowing it to blaze brightly and eternally with every breath we take, no matter what clouds come our way.

"'The light of a lamp does not flicker in a windless place.': that is the simile which describes a yogi of one-pointed mind, who meditates upon the Atman. (God, Soul) When, through the practice of yoga, the mind ceases its resless movements, and becomes still, he realizes the Atman. It satisfied him entirely. Then he knows the infinite happiness which can be realized by the purified heart but is beyond the grasp of the senses. He stands firm in this realization. Because of it, he can never again wander from the inmost truth of his being.

Now that he holds it
He knows this treasure
Above all others:
Faith so certain
Shall never be shaken
By heaviest sorrow.

To achieve this certainty is to know the real meaning of the word yoga. It is the breaking of contact with pain." - Bhagavad-Gita

Click the image below to purchase this incredible version of the Bhagavad-Gita directly from Amazon.com:
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I'll be signing off for a few days. It's been a while since I've taken an actual day off from teaching. One of the biggest challenges with loving what I do, is remembering to take time for myself. There have been a few times in the past two months when I've thought about having a substitute teach my class so I can give myself a day off, but inevitably, I find myself changing my mind and wanting to teach.

This weekend, though, my best friend from college is coming into town. So, tomorrow we will be heading down to Austin for the weekend.

May these ingenious words resound through our Being as we go throughout the weekend. Have a wonderful weekend...

"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment...Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller, and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen." - Leonardo Da VinciRead more

I guess you could say I woke up on the "wrong side of the bed" this morning. As I was getting out of bed, I was already thinking about everything that was wrong with the day, the things that aren't going right this week or aren't unfolding the way I think they should.

On my way to teach class at Natural Trends the list kept on piling up in my head of all the reasons I shouldn't be happy. However, once I got to the studio, and the students began arriving for class, I started to feel my mood shift. The amazing part about loving what I do, is that no matter how bad or awful I think (or am "making up") my day, week or life is at that moment, when I become engaged teaching and sharing my love of Yoga, I always feel better. It is such a gift to love my work.

In class this morning, I began sharing about Amma, the great spiritual saint from India, who is known as the Hugging Mother. I would like to write about her today on my blog, as for me, she is the expression of what is possible when we allow ourselves to BE the love we are.

Amma travels around the world holding darshans. In addition, she has created countless charitable efforts throughout the world positively impacting the lives of millions of people. In April of 2004, I had the opportunity of attending a darshan here in Dallas at the Hotel Inter-continental. Thousands of people attended the free retreat that weekend and received a hug from Amma...

"The Sanskrit term darshan means, "vision", and it is used to describe the meeting with a holy person, especially a Self Realized master. Amma's darshan is unique. As the embodiment of supreme motherhood, she welcomes every person who comes to her, listens to his or her problems, offers advice and guidance, and brings reassurance to a troubled heart.

Over time, Amma's popularity has risen to the point where in India she has been known to individually hug over 50,000 people in one day, sitting sometimes for over 20 hours. Amma travels all around the world to receive all her children around the globe.

Timothy Conway, Ph.D., author of the book Women of Power and Grace, describes Amma as "one of the most glorious lights to appear in the history of religion. Just her stamina - embracing these millions of people one by one, day after day, without a break, all over the world-is some kind of divine gift. No mere human resources could accomplish this."

As Judith Cornell, an internationally acclaimed speaker, and an award winning writer, in her book, "Amma Healing the Heart of the World", says, "for eleven years, I had simply perceived Amma, as a sweet "Hugging Saint." As my limited vision expanded, it was awesome to discover that Amma was one of India's most illustrious sages. She heals on a massive scale - Far beyond that of any saint or healer, I had ever known or read about."

One of Amma's senior disciples says, "Mother is an extraordinary saint, in the number of people she intentionally instills spirituality into - even to extent of hugging every single person who comes to her. Basically, every one is potentially what Mother is. Mother's presence is invoking that reality (of divinity) within that person."
-From www.amma.org.

The whole presence of love or happiness can only exist in the effortless. It can be our vision or inention/effort to awaken to being, experiencing and sharing the gift of true love, joy, peace, yet the trueness of each and all of these can only exist in the absence of effort or stillness. To BE our divinity is simply to be and allow ourselves to awaken to that which we already are...eternal love, peace and bliss.

"My point is this: the reason I am happy is because I am not unhappy. To be happy requires no effort." Happiness: The Real Medicine and How It Works, Blair Lewis, PA

...No piling up of lists in our minds when we wake up in the morning, on our way to work or anytime for that matter.

"It is hard to comprehend the source of Amma’s inexhaustible energy that flows from moment to moment, day after day, in the form of a loving, motherly hug. Often she sits for more than 18-20 hours straight without even a moments break. Over the past 30 years Amma has hugged more than 23 million people around the globe. When asked if she ever feels tired of listening to the same problems of people, and hugging over and over again, Amma answered with a smile, “ Where there is love, there is no effort.”"
-FromAmma.org

This Valentine's Day, may we awaken to the effortless gift of love in our lives as it flows into us and from us with each gift of breath we receive and give...

Happy Valentine's Day...May your Love BE effortless...

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In light of Valentine's Day, I thought I would feature a few persepectives about love on my blog this week. This well-known and famous passage from the Bible comes from 1 Corinthians 13.

Love
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.Read more

The other night as I was laying in bed I channel surfed upon The Shawshank Redemption, one of my favorite movies of all time. It was the very end where Tim Robbins (Andy) has escaped from prison and has transcended the unimaginable to make it all the way to his paradise on a beautiful beach in Mexico. I was so happy to have caught the movie at this place before I drifted off, because there is a quote at the end which I've been wanting to post on my blog.

Just released from prison Morgan Freeman (Red) makes his way along the wall in the field to find the box Andy has left for him. When he opens it, Andy has left him money to make his way to Mexico, as well as, a note. It is the quote from the note I wanted to post...

"Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies." - The Shawshank Redemption

Everytime I get to this part of the movie I begin to cry. I realize the message is really intended for me, to keep dreaming and hoping and knowing that anything is possible.

As Red leaves the wall and begins his journey to Mexico, he says..

"I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain."

It reminds me to be in the journey of my life and not to worry about the destination...and to know the conclusion is uncertain for all of us and that this is the miracle of being free.

One of the last things he says as he's traveling on the bus to Mexico is..."Get busy living or get busy dying." And at this point, I remember my life is a gift and it is up to me to receive the fullness of all that's possible and all I've been given...

The last line of the movie is Red saying, in a whisper as he arrives to the beautiful beach in Mexico and sees Andy for the first time since being released from prison...

"I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope. I hope, I hope"...

Have a wonderful weekend...

Namaste!

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Do you know who Jalaluddin Rumi is? I first was introduced to Rumi, by a friend, over 3 years ago and have been reading his poetry ever since. It has had a profoundly positive impact on my life...

He is my favorite mystical poet, beloved throughout the world for his incredibly beautiful, spiritual works. Amazingly, he lived in the 13th century from 1207 - 1273 in what is now present-day Afghanistan, yet, his poetry is just as powerful and timeless today...

Here is a poem from the collection of his poertry called:

Rumi-We Are Three, Translated by Coleman Barks...

Someone who doesn't know the Tigris River exists
brings the Caliph who lives near the river
a jar of fresh water. The Caliph accepts, thanks him,
and gives in return a jar filled with gold coins.

"Since this man has come through the desert,
he should return by water." Taken out by another door,
the man steps into a waiting boat
and sees the wide freshwater of the Tigris.
He bows his head, "What wonderful kindness
that he took my gift."

Every object and being in the universe is
a jar overfilled with wisdom and beauty,
a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained
by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth
more shining, as though covered in satin.
If the man had seen even a tributary
of the great river, he wouldn't have brought
the innocence of his gift.

Those that stay and live by the Tigris
grow so ecstatic they throw rocks at the jugs,
and the jugs become perfect!
They shatter.
The pieces dance, and water...
Do you see?
Neither jar, nor water, nor stone,
nothing.

You knock at the door of Reality.
You shake your thought-wings, loosen
your shoulders,
and open.Read more

Last night, as I was watching the Super Bowl, CONGRATULATIONS STEELERS, I saw an ad with Harrison Ford and other well known celebrities reciting Oh, The Places You'll Go, By Dr. Seuss. This is one of my favorite books, so I thought I would post a few lines from this all-time favorite on my blog today. Enjoy!

Oh, the Places You'll Go!
by Dr. Seuss

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go...

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any
you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.

It's opener there
in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

Click here to read the full version of this classic online.
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As a kid, I can remember asking this question during what seemed like unusually long car rides. Usually, my brother and I would be in the back seat of the station wagon playing games and goofing around having a great time. Sometimes, though, it seemed like we were never going to get to wherever we were going and one of us would ask..."Are we there yet?" or "When are we going to get there?" Typically, my parents would respond saying something like..."No, we'll be there in a little bit, just have fun, relax..."

Then, we would usually turn our attention effortlessly back to playing games and having fun.

I remembered this today as I was feeling impatient about "getting there." With much on the horizon, I feel excited about the opportunities before me, and yet, at times I find myself anxious and impatient about wanting to get to them and have them happen now.

"If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time, not tomorrow or next year...Today should always be our most wonderful day." - Thomas Dreier

I noticed how unlike when I was a child, I sometimes have a hard time turning my attention back toward the present and allowing myself to enjoy the journey, rather than worrying about the "destination." How I often allow my present circumstances to affect my happiness in the moment...

So, just as I did when I was a child, I will practice being in the moment and enjoying each one to the fullest, trusting I will reach my destination, and yet, fully engaged in all of the joy and fun of the here and now...

"The present moment is significant, not as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, which can fill our emptiness and become ours, if we are capable of receiving them." Dag HammarskjoldRead more