Author: pmcrose

Right now can be a taxing time of year (pun totally intended!).

Yoga and meditation can help us thankfully with the myriad of taxing things that come our way.

Such is life, right?!

Let’s do some yoga and/or meditation and get a little tax relief!

May your yoga and/or meditation practices be your loving courtship of the universal Self.

More than star-crossed lovers, relish the bliss of your union.

This is yoga!

The ego does not easily give up being the center of things.

Yoga and/or meditation are the journey of the self to realize at heart we are all this greater Self.

When we do the practices again and again, we repeatedly reconnect, renew, and refresh this truth.

Ego, phone home!

On the tipsy ego’s shoulders alone, we teeter and sway with its multitude of machinations.

Through the sustained practice of yoga and/or meditation, we gain greater stability and freedom and sheer bliss as the ego aligns with the universal.

Give to that which has given to you out of gratitude and love. It is a great honor to serve what you love with love.

It is the ego’s greatest service to serve That, the universal.

It is a great honor and privilege to perform such service, or seva.

This too is a yoga practice. Take your yoga off the mat!

Like melting ice, the ego in the midst of the universal melts.

Connecting to the universal, to that which is greater than oneself, via yoga and/or meditation provides the necessary heat or tapas.*

*”The third of Patanjali’s Niyamas is ‘Tapas’, which often translates traditionally as ‘austerity’ or ‘discipline’. The word Tapas is derived from the root Sanskrit verb ‘tap’ which means ‘to burn’, and evokes a sense of ‘fiery discipline’ or ‘passion’. In this sense, Tapas can mean cultivating a sense of self-discipline, passion and courage in order to burn away ‘impurities’ physically, mentally and emotionally, and paving the way to our true greatness.”

It often takes time as we sit in meditation and/or do yoga for the clouds to part and get a glimpse of the sun…

for the thoughts to slow and to feel the space between the thoughts…

for the veil of the ego to lift and reveal…

There is no space on this page big enough to record silence.

Thank goodness our minds and hearts know no such limits!

Thank the breath that fills these sails!

Our human struggles are not greater than we are.

After all, we are human.

In the midst of our struggles,

it’s sometimes hard to remember to return to the breath for a moment…

to return to the practices…

to take a breather.