If you want to love all, serve all, and spread peace you first have to learn to love yourself. You also have to find peace within yourself. If you recognize the peace and joy within, then you will be able to give the same to everyone else. And you are not actually giving peace and joy. You are helping others to find their own peace and joy. So, first find it yourself. Everything begins at home. There is a proverb, “Charity begins at home.” I would say that everything begins at home. Everything. If you have joy, you give joy to others; if you have hatred, you bring hatred to others. If you judge yourself, you judge others. If you want to judge others, the first thing you should do is to judge yourself. In a court, you find Lady Justice shown holding a scale. What does that mean? A scale means balance. It doesn’t matter if you put gold or clay on the scale, it just balances the weight. To ensure neutrality, the needle should be in the middle. If the needle stands to one side there is no neutrality. The needle should be balanced always, and then you can judge others. So, keep your mental balance and have complete self-mastery. Then you are at the zero or neutral point.  MORE

Savasana (or Corpse pose) is well-known for being the most important pose in our Yoga practice. It is the moment when all the physical hard work of class can seep into our muscles and bones, our body can melt into the floor, and we can finally do nothing but breathe. It is the asana we have been building up to for 60 minutes. Unless, of course, you can’t get comfortable. Or you can’t quiet your mind. Or you are klutzy like me, so you knock into your reusable stainless steel water bottle with your foot. The (unreasonably loud) clatter of it on the hardwood studio floor makes you lose your Zen and startles the yogi next to you. Oops. The laundry list of things you have to take care of after class, your errands to run, the deadlines at work begin to buzz around in your head. Your sweaty Yoga topknot is not laying right, and you fix and fidget with your hair tie. You can’t get comfortable. How many more minutes are left before class is done? The next thing you know, you have mentally left your mat, and you are back to the races with your thoughts and worries. Staying present in stillness is not easy.  MORE

Recently, I took a cycle ride by the river Thames in South-West London and stopped at a spot that means a lot to me. As a teenager, forty-five years ago, it was where I experienced my first ‘opening.’ I was cycling then too, heading home from an afternoon playing table tennis at a friend’s house. As I swerved along the twisting riverside paths, I was suddenly overcome with a blissful sensation of what I perceived to be golden light coursing through my spine. My mind became quiet, a deep stillness and joy replaced my busy thoughts. It was as if my awareness was coming from a different place; I could observe my life but there was a distance to it, almost as if it was happening to someone else. Openings such as these, which occurred sporadically over the following years, showed me there was another experience of life totally different to the one society and my parents had taught me. It felt like life was gently saying: ‘Here, look at this: there’s more to this life than the model that’s been handed to you.’ Many people have these transcendent experiences of what we might call ‘Oneness’, but what do they actually mean?  MORE