Author: pmcrose

As soon as pleasure is over, there is a sadness or pain of its departure. And then of course, the next seeking of pleasure… etc, etc.

Banking on this cycle for happiness is a dicey game subject to the roller coaster of giddiness to devastation, satisfaction to disappointment–never steadiness and deep happiness.

Investing in this tank of pleasure and pain is not in your best interest. Some of us are thrilled by its vicissitudes, others sickened by its unpredictable careening.

Through regular meditation and yoga, we can find greater steadiness, peace and joy in the midst of all the vicissitudes.

You can bank on it!

Yoga is the active exploration of the embodied human and life experience.

All life is equally kissed by the breath of life–

each of us a unique valuable expression of it.

The will to do no harm, ahimsa, and our will to protect others from harm spring from a deep appreciation, valuing, and respect for the limitless unique expressions of this common source.

We have become so used to it, like our shadow. the accustomed social order that causes needless and perpetual pain may be hard for us to see through.

With creating and adhering to a social order based on at least tolerance and preferably mutual respect, we elevate ourselves as well as those who are oppressed.

Ahimsa in action, the will to do no harm or at least less harm–a call to action.

Yoga off the mat and meditation cushion–Yoga in action.

Let freedom ring!

The first teaching and cardinal guideline of yoga from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is ahimsa, doing no harm.

Any system or order that preserves the right to do harm to others or turns a deaf ear or blind eye to it needs to be changed or transformed.

This is yoga in action!

There are all kinds of places to grow our roots–in greed, in hatred and anger, in fear… in generosity, in joy and happiness, in love.

I choose to root myself in peace because it brings me what I most want.

Regular practice helps me grow deeper roots in peace.

Regular practice helps me gain greater steadiness from these roots.

I practice daily to rediscover and reinvigorate my roots.

Every day the way to peace varies. The same walk home every day is different.

Right now even niblets of peace feel like a feast!

Particularly during unrestful and tumultuous tense times, it can be most difficult to get ourselves back to our mats or meditation cushions.

But if and when we do, we might just find what we most hunger for.

Denying pain is like trying to come clean in a mud bath.

Good luck!

Recognizing, accepting, or witnessing pain is the only way to come clean and

start asking how to do less harm and how to heal and move on.

It’s time to drop our casual patterns of hate and harm to self and others.

Ahimsa, doing no harm, is the first of Yamas in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the foundational teaching of yogic thought and action. It springs from the unconditional love and respect for all life endemic to yoga. I see it more as a guideline for which we reach, not a goal to be achieved. It is a ballast for balance, a measure to bring to all thought and action.

To paraphrase Martin Luther King: During troubled times… The darker the night sky, the brighter the stars!

We don’t seek refuge to escape this world,

but to change it!

When the mind grows quieter, it can drop into the sanctum of the heart to become informed–to find the solace and inspiration of love,

and bring this to the world.

Now, more than ever, our parched world needs beauty–generosity, compassion, and love!

Through yoga and meditation practices*, we can cultivate our inner garden…

sit in it,

and share it through our words and actions!

*Yoga not only includes asanas, breath work, and meditation but the heart of the virtues that sustain the practices and good actions–the Yamas and the Niyamas, guidelines for action with others and with ourselves. Through the practices, we return to our common pure source.

The same light shimmers in all of us regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, religion or lack there-of, nationality…

the same light!

How can so many be blind to it?

May we become blinded by the light to all our “differences,” not blinded to the light by our hatred, fear, and ignorance!