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Realize the Divine in You
“To love everybody or everything as the spirit, you should realize your spiritual truth; you should realize the divine in you.
“God bless you. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.” —Sri Swami Satchidananda
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Questions & Answers with Swami Satchidananda:
How to Handle Unhappiness?
Question: What’s your advice to an unhappy person?
Swami Satchidananda: Don’t be unhappy! Nobody can make you unhappy. You make yourself unhappy. Forget about your unhappiness and think of others. That's the simplest way. You can make yourself be happy, but that is just created by you. Compare that happiness with the joy and the peace that comes from serving others. That's why my motto is: "The dedicated ever enjoy supreme peace. Therefore live only to serve." Selflessness makes you happy and God happy, so you will enjoy super happiness. When you are that close to God, nothing is going to bother you. Once, a very rich man became a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. He came to Ramakrishna and said, "I want to be your devotee, but sir, I can’t get away from all my vices." Ramakrishna smiled at him and said, “All right, you be my devotee, and whatever you do, do it in my name. Offer it to me. Any vice, it doesn’t matter.” “So I can do anything I want and say, ‘It’s all for you!’” So, he immediately went to a prostitute’s house, opened a bottle of alcohol and began to drink. Then, he remembered he had to offer it to Ramakrishna. He thought, No, he never drinks. If I offer, it will go to him. I won’t do it. And that was the end of it. He couldn’t do anything bad anymore. The minute you offer yourself to God—offer yourself in service to humanity, and live a selfless, dedicated life—you will live righteously and you will be always happy.
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On November 4th, Zen master Bernie Glassman, Roshi, a great interfaith pioneer and humanitarian, passed away. Roshi Bernie was a LOTUS Honorary Advisory Council member and one of Swami Satchidananda's close interfaith collaborators—together they shared many platforms, programs, and interfaith initiatives. Roshi was a founding member of the Zen Center of Los Angeles and was named president after Maezumi Roshi's 1995 passing. He opened Greyston Bakery in New York in 1982, which employs people who conventional businesses deem “unemployable.” Greyston has grown into a large foundation offering many charitable services. In the 1990s, Roshi Bernie shifted his focus to establishing the Zen Peacemakers, an interfaith organization dedicated to the cause of peace and social justice, which became famous for its Bearing Witness retreats and Street Retreats. On the Bearing Witness retreats, participants meditate at sites where atrocities have taken place, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Rwanda. Roshi developed a friendship with actor Jeff Bridges. Together, they wrote a book inspired by Bridge’s leading role in The Big Lebowski, called The Dude and the Zen Master, about Zen lessons in the classic comedy. (Source: Lion's Roar)
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In 1977, Integral Yogi and music icon Carole Karuna King released a song titled “One”. Taken from her Simple Things album, the track encouraged people to unify and band together to fight social injustice. With the fate of the US government now again on the line, King has recorded a new version of the song, marking her first new recording in seven years. She noted, "It’s a song about wondering what we can do when we see injustice, and it expresses my long held belief that we—all of us humans—are most effective when we come together as “One” and stand up for our values such as dignity, inclusivity, equality of opportunity, and caring for our most vulnerable neighbors. Drawn to the piano like pins to a magnet, I was inspired to write some new lyrics for the last chorus to reflect my feelings about the 2018 election."
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To eat it or not to eat it? How many times a day do you bump up against this question (or one like it) in your mind as you navigate what, how, and when to eat? You are not alone if you experience moments of confusion or turmoil about nutrition, for we find ourselves embedded in a culture that complicates the definition of food and connects what we eat with our moral identity. Morality, by definition, is concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviors and the goodness or badness of human character. Right and wrong, good and bad, and the many-layered meanings of these words have been applied to food, turning the act of nourishing our bodies into an issue of morality....From inherited food beliefs to marketing, from “fat” talk among friends and even strangers to “thinspiration” memes and images on social media, we are regularly exposed to messages insistent that the moral fiber of human character depends on “food willpower.” The core message goes something like this: Depending on what and where we eat, we are either good or bad, disciplined or indulgent, virtuous or sinful, guiltless or greedy....Yoga philosophy teaches that we have everything we need inside of us to tend to all of life’s moments, from the happiest to the most challenging. MORE
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Curb Your Cravings: Overcoming Emotional Eating & Compulsive Behaviors
A Workshop with Amrita Sandra McLanahan, M.D. and Sampada Desai, M.A.
December 7 – 9, Yogaville
Ah, the holidays—so much joy and so much temptation! Holiday overeating and comfort food binging can be discomforting in the long run. Yoga provides fresh perspectives and many useful tools to help in developing and maintaining optimum lifestyle choices. This workshop will focus not only on maintaining balance during holidays, but learning the skills to protect yourself from the toxic effects of emotional overeating and other addictive behaviors. Pertinent information about the causes and symptoms of addictive behaviors such as emotional eating, excessive shopping, hoarding, emotional and serial affairs, sexual addiction, to name a few, will be presented. Packed with experiential, mindful exercises, you will learn ways to resist impulses, increase self-control, improve decision making, and harness personal accountability. Specifically, you will learn effective cognitive and behavioral tools, guided imagery, gentle Yoga postures, deep breathing practices, and meditation to calm cravings and dismantle addictive thinking and behaviors. Join two of Yogaville's most popular presenters in this unique workshop! More info here.
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In this talk, Integral Yoga senior monk Swami Priyaananda tells the story of a spiritual seeker who goes to a Guru seeking the highest teachings but only receives the shock of his life: he is told that in one month he will die! The Guru then tells him to come back just before the man is to die. At the end of the month, the seeker revisits the Guru and receives the teachings he has been waiting a lifetime for. (Filmed in Spain, October 2018, by by Les Anand Roberts.)
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Navigate the Holiday Season with Yoga & Ayurveda
By Letícia Padmasri
The holidays sometimes bring their own brand of stress: A frenzy of activity—eating, shopping and social obligations. Increased activity and expectations move us away from the natural call, which is to withdraw. In the northern hemisphere, we are experiencing low light, cold temperatures, and short days during this time of the year, making us naturally want to move inward. A healthy daily routine forges and encourages balance. For example, I do not start my day with a cup of coffee, a bagel, and TV news. I start each day with rituals of self-care that support my circadian rhythms, polishing the mind, body, and spirit and making me feel good all day. I plug into Yoga and Ayurvedic practices to find a balanced path through the holiday season....Ayurveda teaches us easy ways to honor the body and still enjoy the food of the season. A strong dinacharya practice (daily rituals of self-care) can soothe and satisfy the body’s needs. With the celebrations and travel that accompany the holidays, a routine of self-care is of utmost importance to keep the digestive fire high and the body balanced and immune to illness. Gentle Hatha Yoga practice, abhyanga (self-oil massage), and Yoga Nidra (deep relaxation) are some ways to attend to the body. MORE
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The much beloved Zen master, global spiritual leader, peace activist and poet Thich Nhat Hanh, returned, last week, to his homeland in Vietnam. In a formal announcement by Plum Village International Community of Engaged Buddhists, it was noted that since celebrating his 92nd birthday last month, Thay (as he is affectionately known by his students) has expressed a deep wish to go back to reside at his “root temple,” Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam, to live his remaining days. Thich Nhat Hanh has turned formidable physical challenges arising from the major stroke he suffered four years ago into a powerful teaching by continuing to live each moment peacefully and joyfully, with great presence and meaning. The announcement concluded with this: "Even at this moment, Thich Nhat Hanh remains steadfast and energetic in using every breath and every action to build and strengthen the “beloved community of compassion,” and to cultivate healing, reconciliation and transformation in his community, society and the world." Read the full announcement here.
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What do you love about teaching and practicing Hatha Yoga?
Being in the here and now is everything. Our monkey minds tend to get us into all sorts of trouble. When I am taking a Yoga class or teaching one, it is very difficult for me to think or do anything else for the duration of the class. Yoga demands one’s attention. That attention to the present moment is the key to a happy, productive, stable life. For years, I have been a teacher of acting. When we get to the nitty-gritty of acting, it boils down to the fact that actors must be present in the given circumstances of the play. Really good actors, while onstage, are living the lives of their characters. They are not trying to do it, they are not pretending, but for those moments onstage, they are living, breathing the life of that character. Now, for me, that seems to be a useful tool for all of us: every moment living our truth to its fullest! I used to remind my students that the best teachers of acting were babies. Babies take in the world and accept it as it is, without prejudice (which is a learned behavior). Babies breathe naturally, they explore physically, they tumble and fall, they vocalize freely, and they have amazing powers of concentration. All those attributes are found in my Yoga practice. MORE
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It was a very exciting and bliss-filled weekend in Yogaville with Jai Uttal and musicians Visvambhar “Vish” Sheth and Gaura Vani offering their program, “Awakening Bhakti: A Celebration of Divine and Human Love.” Yogaville community members were also welcome to join the workshop sessions. On Saturday evening, after the inspiring DVD of Swami Satchidananda speaking, Jai, Vish, and Gaura offered a two-hour concert. Jai Gurudev! Jai Jai, Vish and Gaura!
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Inspiring Meme of the Week
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