Svadhyaya: Learning For Life

Svadhyaya:  Learning For Life

“Know thyself.” –the Oracle at Delphi Hello everyone, I’m back!  Between this post and the last one I took time to survive the holidays, set intentions for the new year, keep my children and marriage alive, teach seven yoga classes a week, maintain my meditation practice, and prepare myself for this moment of writing. If this is your first visit to my blog, and if any of the sanskrit terminology seems foreign, it might...

Read More

Tapas and the Fire of Transformation

Tapas and the Fire of Transformation

“Self-discipline burns away impurities and kindles the sparks of divinity.”  –Yoga Sutras Coming back to my blog right now feels like an out of the blue phone call I’m making to an old friend with whom I haven’t spoken in a long while–it’s bound to be a bit awkward, I’m feeling kind of nervous, and I have lots of anticipation and hopes for reconnection. I’m asking myself, Why did I get stuck...

Read More

Santosha–Experience Contentment in the Here and Now

Santosha–Experience Contentment in the Here and Now

  “Everyone is already the living Buddha, complete, whole, perfect as you are.  All this action and effort to become special is just making you very unspecial and creating a tremendous amount of pain and suffering.”  –Zen master Dennis Genpo Merzel Moving right along to the second niyama–santosha, which means “contentment.” I don’t know about you, but when I think of the word “contentment,” the word “happiness” appears...

Read More

Saucha–Get Clean!

Saucha–Get Clean!

“When the body is cleansed, the mind purified and the senses controlled, joyful awareness, needed to realize the inner self, also comes.”  –Yoga Sutras And now we begin our study of the niyamas, the second limb of the eight-limbed path of raja yoga.  Before we launch into them, I wanted to take a moment to distinguish between the first and second limbs, the yamas and the niyamas. The yamas are universal in their application, to be...

Read More