Sunday, January 29, 2012: 4:30-6:30 pm.

Mudras, Mantras, and Meditations
A look at how hand positions, combined with sound and chakra meditation, can be used as a therapy for various physical, mental, and emotional health needs by channeling energy.

Supplies: Wear comfortable clothes. Do not eat or drink after 2 pm. Bring a yoga mat or rug to sit on.

Registration: Register by sending an email or SMS response to me by the Friday prior to the workshop, with your name and “I’m attending on Sunday”. Space is limited, so commit yourself only if you plan to attend. Cancel 24-hours in advance.

Cost: Rs 200

Kids at the Little Infant Jesus Home, and even kids I work with individually, here in India are quick to ask for a few animals, one of them being the elephant pose. Elephants are, after all, auspicious beings in this country. Many temples have a temple elephant that parades around town, and then lands up at the temple to “bless” everyone who comes by for “darshan” of the Gods.

(I visited one such temple in Pondicherry with a couple of Peace School buddies. I had been there 10 years before, and Lakshmi, the elephant, had grown from a youthful 5 years to about 15 years. Check out our pictures together!)

My mind raced…. Elephant pose? I’ve never done that before. I don’t even know what it is! EEEEKKK! What now?

I thought about it over the week, and came up with my own version. An elephant is a big animal, with a fairly flat back. One of the unique features of the elephant is its swaying trunk.

Peacebuilding requires creativity. So does yoga. You have to innovate new methods for every situation, for every student.

For Indian kids, you’ve GOT to make an elephant!  Since no major school of yoga (Iyengar, Bikram, Anusara, Sivananda, Kundalini, etc.) promotes elephant pose prominently, I made one.

This is what I taught the kids:

Starting out on hands and knees (4 legs) in a table top position, I wanted to create one arm into a trunk. Simple! Drop the head below the heart, relaxing your body. Lift one arm, stretch it out, extending your back in all directions. Now allow your arm to sway from side to side, up and down, and bless your own body!

Recommended Links:

http://yogabuddies.blogspot.com/2011/04/pose-of-month-elephant-pose.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXKDWisiKXo

Make Yoga the only purpose, aim, and real interest in your life. Plunge in Sadana now, and realize God. 

– Sri Swami Sivananda

If only people even knew about yoga! So many people don’t have access to this beautiful aspect of life.

My dear friend and colleague, Ms J’aime Tilston, MA, is a peace education researcher. Her Master’s Thesis was conducted on the role of nonviolence education (NVE) in transformation, focusing on how NVE can help prison inmates rehabilitate themselves and lead to a more peaceful life post-release.

In the process of interviewing individuals in the system in California, Tilston discovered that many inmates had never had a chance to learn anything but violence. Nonviolence was not even a remote concept in many of the incarcerated men’s minds when they entered prison (Tilston focused her work on men).

She, on the other hand, had been raised by a father who taught NVE in public schools in one of the worst cities in California for murder: Merced. While the actually class title was not “Nonviolence” or “Peace”, Ms Tilston’s says her father incorporated the lessons of peace and character-building into his daily routine. She attributes much of her own knowledge on peace to her upbringing by a peaceful family.

Today, Tilston is a graduate of the Master’s Program in Peace Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Over my life, I’ve met a lot of people, and none have inspired me to look within and make changes to my own lifestyle, and be a more peaceful person, than her.

I began to wonder, does the home environment have an effect on an individual’s ability to learn peace?

So I looked at my own life, and how yoga and peace evolved into my life. Was it largely due because I grew up in an ashram atmosphere?

Some moments of truth flashed into my mind: My peace was not mine alone. My yoga was not mine alone. Even my music was not mine alone. In fact, these gifts are things that run through my family, filling our home, and thus touching me.

My grandmother grew up a happy child, whose parents died at an early age. She married, and then, when she had a little time free in the 1960s, she and her aunt spent a moment of their own time in the presence of Swami Sivananda, one of the most prominent yoga “gurus” today and founder of several schools of yoga.

Author's grandmother and a friend with Swami Sivananda

Sivananda imparted many lessons to my grandmother, which she has shared over the years. These lessons didn’t come in the form of stories, or lectures, or even advice. Rather, my grandmother relays most simply how she ended up becoming the “daughter” of Swami Sivananda.

It was around 1964. Sachham (my aunt) had come to visit us in Lucknow. She was always wanting to be with them (swamis, monks). She had written a letter to a friend in Rishikesh, asking about staying at their guest house there. The friend wrote back and welcomed us. So we booked the train ticket and my husband dropped us off at the station, along with two other women friends. He did not have time off from work then. We all went to Rishikesh. Every day, we used to just do our daily work in the morning, then in the mid-morning we would go to see Sivananda Swami. We would sit with him and he would give satsang or just talk to us. Sometimes he would ask me to sing. I used to love to sing and sang some bhajans. Later he gave me a certificate in music. Then after one or two weeks, my husband got leave and he also came. Sivananda Swami greeted him joyously, honoring him highly by calling him “son-in-law”. My aunt was so happy: I, who was without parents since a small child, had become the daughter of Sivananda Swami. 

Those days impacted my grandmother deeply, and she has continued her musical endeavors, devoting her spare time, even in her 80s, to singing for God in temples and functions wherever she is (mostly California).

After listening to these stories time after time, I began to realize the value of being brought up in a relatively non-violent environment. It has served me well, and over the years, I’ve started to find and share peace through both yoga and music.

In the same way, nonviolence education in prisons, Ms Tilston writes, has the power to inculcate peace and nonviolence among inmates. Peace begins at home, and when your home is in the prison, it is important to bring peace into it!

Related Websites:

http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/2543?utm_source=DailyInsight&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=DailyInsight

http://www.sivananda.org/

In conflict zones, and even in every day life, we might meet people who don’t have legs. Or their legs aren’t strong enough to stand on.

I was reminded of this when a friend posted a picture of boys with crutches playing soccer.

I also work with some children whose legs are special. So how does “legs-up-the-wall” work to create peace within?

Actually it is the act of releasing whichever part of the body we rely on most. In the average person, legs are the foundation on which we sit and stand. But if you’re walking on crutches or pushing yourself in a wheelchair, then maybe you’re putting more pressure on your arms.

In this case, you can still scoot your hips up the wall and perform the act of swinging your legs up. If you don’t have legs, then do the opposite: bring your head as close to the wall as possible.

Then place your arms on the wall, allowing the blood flow to be reversed, thus relaxing your arms. To give your arms even more love, pad them with blocks and blankets for support. You can also bend the elbows and rest your hands on your head. Now there is support on all sides, using the wall, head, and blankets or pillows.

Find a way to relax yourself and your body parts that are given the most stress and pressure. You’ll find some peace here!

A Beautiful Butterfly

Heart-felt meditation

A few people have been asking for pictures from my work in yoga therapy with NGOs. After receiving permission from the members and staff, I took a few.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words….

Heros!

Ramani in deer

Kids in Peace

more kids in peace!

Little Lions Make lots of noise!

I typically don’t play their—or any other—music during a yoga class or therapy session. I’ve learned over the years that every song or type of music has a different effect on each individual.

(I do, however, use their music for myself when falling asleep, in savasana, or anytime during my own yoga practice, sometimes playing it all day long to keep a calm in the home; and I always use this music to relax myself before and after working with a client–it allows me to let go of any negative energy within so that I can completely focus on the client).

More than the music, though, it is the calm that comes after the music– the calm after the storm, so to speak. The calmness is a sense of silence.

Deva says,

“Without the silence that follows the chants, you get only half the story. It’s like the climax of a good story. The silence is there because it exists in the music. It just needs to be exposed and acknowledged. It’s so easy to overlook the silence inside the music… and it’s that which is healing us… if we allow it to be there. This is really one of the main reasons Miten and I sing – to bathe in Silence. It’s our nourishment. It’s what keeps us on the road. For me there is nothing more precious than having sung with an audience, ecstatic with bliss, and then entering the deep silence that the mantra brings… so deep, that with closed eyes you really feel there is ‘nobody’ there at all… all personalities dissolved for a tiny sacred moment.”

In some way, we all seek silence. Silence is not necessarily the absence an audible sound. Rather, it is the moment when our soul is completely still; when all beings dissolve and become one with our Self; when we can walk through life with equanimity, without being disturbed. In this moment of silence, we have a sense of detachment that allows us to stay in Samadhi.

The silence of detachment, however, does not mean that we are indifferent. As peace workers, we must still care about the causes we choose to carry. We continue to wage peace, knowing that we do not know the long-term (or even short-term) outcomes of our work.

It is said that if a butterfly in one part of the world flaps its wings just once, a hurricane can happen in another corner of the world.

Similarly, we do not know the results of our actions to the entire universe. We only do with devotion and dedication, and detach ourselves from the outcomes, knowing that we have tried our best to be silent.

With that, I offer now a day of silence—in completely peace—on November 30, the Day of Silence for those who cannot raise their voices. It is an opportunity to remember and recognize the suffering of children all over the world, who are abused, forced into labor and servitude, or stuck in positions without being able to fight for themselves.

Please join me in remembering the children, through Yoga for Children’s Issues, a part of Yoga for Peace.

Recommended Links:

Surrendering to Silence

I will learn to listen deeply without judging or reacting. ~-Thich Nhat Hanh

Not too long back, I decided to stop drop-in classes and start private lessons.

Then a group came along. I love the people, so I said yes to the class.

Not too long back, I said that classes should be 90 minutes.

Then I started at NGOs. Working with mentally challenged women, I dropped to 1 hour, then to 45 minutes. Working with HIV+ kids and special needs kids, 30 minutes would be plenty!

Another group asked for 3-4 classes/ week. Others only want sessions during their vacations. Some people want to come for workshops. Some want a gentle session, and others want more rigorous workout. Some want to focus on therapeutic needs, while others want to exercise or meditate.

This journey has helped me realize that if yoga is for each individual, then I should be flexible enough to let go of my preconceived notions about the structure of the class, and cater to each individual’s needs.

Yoga for YOU allows you make the decisions.

Peace workers, when in the field, should also focus on the individual and community needs as appropriate, without coming in with preconceived structures in place. We’ve got to give in, and use our skills and expertise to benefit people and places the way that works best for them.

It’s not about being right. It’s about doing right.

The Gift of Yoga

Working in the development field as a journalist is not an easy field. It requires satya, the first of the ethical guidelines of yoga. Satya is truth.

It may be difficult for a journalist to incorporate satya into fieldwork. Sometimes there are political and legal issues at stake, and other times, there is personal reputation or bias at stake. Lately, a series of pictures have been floating around on email and facebook that show how different media groups show different parts of the whole, skewing the viewer’s ideas.

Here is the series:

How can we use yoga to ensure our journalistic work is done with truth?

Remember Gandhi’s crusade for satya-graha, insistence on truth. When in the field, use satyagraha to resolve a conflict about how to represent the truth in media. In this, there is a lot to be said about new social media such as blogs, facebook, twitter, mobile applications, and other sources, which may, due to non-partisanship,  provide a different version of the truth.

As a consumer, outside the media, one can decide how much to take in from any given media source. I personally choose to use a few reputable newsmedia outlets for basic information, then interact with friends from a given region for more on-the-ground detail. I always try to bear in mind that each gives a different perspective, and all are part of the same larger truth. There may be a conflict among the views, and Gandhi would ask us to resolve the conflict by seeking the higher truth.

By cultivating an attitude of satya, one can look beyond the journalism and know that the truth is found within the conflict, and by seeking the truth, find peace.

Possibly one of the largest Indian holidays, celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs (and several of my Indian Christian and Muslim friends admit to reveling in the buzz around the event), Divali is known as the festival of lights. It’s a time to share sweets, exchange gifts, and enjoy with family while praying for a good year to come.

On this day, people light up their homes with diyas, oil-lamps, and allow them to burn throughout the day, a mark of auspiciousness.

But the real meaning of Divali, or deepavali, goes beyond the lighting of a lamp.

Sikhs celebrate Divali as the day when their 6th guru was freed along with 52 Hindu kings, Hindus as a day when the Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya from exile, Buddhists as the day when Emperor Asoka converted to their religion, and Jains as a day of enlightenment for Mahavira.

For this day, I offer the Sanskrit prayer:

Shubam Karoti Kalyanam, Arogyam Dhana Sampada

Shatru Buddhi Vinaasaya, Deepa Jyothi Namostute

Meaning:

I salute the One who is the lamplight that brings auspiciousness, prosperity, good health, abundance of wealth, and the destruction of the intellect’s enemy.

So, what can be lamplight that brings auspiciousness, prosperity, and all that other good stuff to our lives?

It is Yoga.

Yoga can be the light of one’s life, bringing all goodness, because once we realize the truth behind Yoga, we are happy, healthy, and holy. We have everything we need in Love and Peace.

I offer you all the love and peace of this fine festival!

Enjoy Divali!

My answer is usually standard: I’m here until God takes me elsewhere.

I’d love to go all around the world. And I have a plan to make it happen. I just don’t know when it will happen.

It could be frustrating, but over time, I’ve learned to let go.

Part of yoga is to persevere and overcome the obstacles in one’s path to samadhi (nirvana/ enlightenment). You might not get the asana perfectly the first time you try it. You might not even understand what to do.

In the peace field, one must also persevere, struggling to get the message across. The first try, we may not succeed; but as the old adage goes, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”. When in the field, the peace worker may not know how to proceed in a new environment. Yet trying is what makes success. Without trying, there is no possibility for achieving the goal of peace.

A yoga practice requires the cultivation of dedication in order to bear fruit. In a similar manner, peace does not happen overnight. Palestinians, Kashmiris, and Tibetans have been fighting for it for generations. More recently, the Occupy protests have stirred an uprising in the working and middle classes. Their causes will not bear fruit in just one day. It takes time for each party to recognize other perspectives, time to come to the table, and time to create alternative methods and transform the issue.

Patience and perseverance are required for peace.

Maybe it seems like I’m not doing much. Not earning much, not giving back much.

What I have done is learn: I’ve learned patience in my project processes; perseverance in the projects; and patience with myself. The Dalai Lama says “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion; if you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

I’ve learned to be compassionate with myself, no longer beating myself over not having the job or career of my dreams, not being able to navigate in this new country, and not being able to affect the lives of those in need.

I’ve given myself the opportunity to reflect on my own self, understand my obstacles to samadhi, and begun to make small changes to my life. I’ve given myself the opportunity to observe others, and learn from them, appreciating their ways.

I know that if I try, and try again, persevering, eventually, with patience, my dreams of peace and Yoga for Peace** will come true.

**Yoga for Peace is a 10- 15 session course offered to students in universities around the world in peace, conflict, and development programs. Yoga for Peace also goes to NGOs and other organizations in need. To learn more, contact me!