Asana should also be upasana: consistent meditation on a positive transformation.
Asana should also be upasana: consistent meditation on a positive transformation.
You all know the “tree pose.” You stand on one foot and raise your other foot, placing it on the inner thigh of the standing leg. You also raise your arms above your head, maybe bringing your palms together. When we call this a tree pose, we are connecting with… ...
Read MoreLet your new year bring meaningful connections and reasons for gratitude
Life is a Blessing – Make it an Offering The concept of yajña (offering) is central to the deeper philosophy of life as described in the ancient India traditions. Life is a blessing in its essence. It is an opportunity for connection—through offering and meaning. The term yajña can be roughly translated as “offering,”… ...
Read MoreWe need both the science and art of yoga!
The science of yoga is to understand the principles and practices with clarity and reasoning. The art of yoga is to see the whole person, assess their needs, and apply yoga in the way that serves them best. We need both the science and the art of yoga! One of… ...
Read MoreThe real and effective path to wellbeing is always holistic
When I teach yoga psychology, I sometimes introduce this little experiment. You can try it for yourself as below: “Stand on your feet and slouch. Collapse your chest, round your upper back, hunch your shoulders forward. Drop your head and look at the ground. Slacken your legs and feel gravity… ...
Read MoreYoga guides us to look beyond the thoughts in our mind
Most of us tend to have thoughts like these in our minds: “I must do this perfectly.” “I am a failure.” “What will they think of me if I do this?” “What if something happens and I am not able to handle it?” Such thoughts, to an extent, are normal… ...
Read MoreRelaxed and intelligent persistence is a key to positive changes
Self-care and positive change is vital to a good life. But the road to those changes is not always smooth. We do run into problems and challenges.When you run into problems with a skill or exercise, don’t try to force your way through it. You may have better options…. ...
Read MoreHolistic movement skills are an investment that pays lifelong dividends
In the previous post, I had pointed out that movement is vital to wellbeing in multiple ways. Let me add to that now, highlighting even more ways by which regular and skillful movement benefits us. Movement increases metabolic health. It reduces your requirement for insulin and mitigates spikes in blood… ...
Read MoreSkills of healthful movement are fundamental to wellbeing
Movement is fundamentally necessary for our good health and longevity. If we stay sedentary for extended durations every day, we risk increasing ill-health in multiple ways. You may have heard this catchphrase, “sitting is the new smoking.” In historical times, people were naturally moving around regularly throughout the day more… ...
Read MoreYoga Sutra: A clear path to inner quietness
All our experiences are internal to us. The objects that we experience may be outside, but the experience itself takes place in our mind, our body, and in our cognition. Yoga being a mental state, is also an experience, but unlike other experiences, it is the wholly internal experience… ...
Read MoreLayers in understanding the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali
The Yoga Sutra of Bhagavan Patanjali is a text of just 195 sentences, most of them quite short. Yet, it covers the breadth of psychology, philosophy, and practices of yoga. Understandably, it is a very dense text, with layers of meaning—if we know how to access those layers. To… ...
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