Author: pmcrose

Through yoga and meditation, we can tune into the hum of the life force within us and feel its resonance.

As we feel its resonance and lose ourselves in it, we become more harmonious and at ease. These good vibrations are both an experience and a benefit of practice.

When we feel the hum within, we can begin to recognize it in others. With practice, we feel its resonance more strongly and learn to surrender more or let go to it.

Feel the hum of the mystery of life within, and be drawn inward to this, our source.

Feel the resonance!

Every year is a new year.

Every moment is a new moment.

Take a few deep breaths, do a few yoga poses, meditate a few minutes. Pause at a sunset, smell a flower, listen to the sounds in a garden or in the woods. If we stop and realize the spaciousness before us, we re-set. 

We begin anew.

Happy new year, happy new moment!

Now, the practice of yoga begins.* Right now is the possibility, and the truth that it is new.

Begin, now!

*This the first yoga sutra in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras--atha yoga anushasanam.

Yoga and meditation are about discovering, exploring, and sharing great love, about seeing and feeling the universal in everyone and in yourself.

We come to see and feel that we are literally surrounded by That; we are all rooted in That; we are all unique expressions of That.

As we venture to this vision, there’s obviously a lot to unpack and to learn ! This is the path.

Yoga and meditation are the practical tools we use on this noble and humbling journey to venture forth on the path to who we are.

Resonance. Vibration. In-tune.

Yoga and meditation are about resonance and vibration. The practices draw us into resonance.

But in resonance with what?

Into that which fosters our health and well-being.

This holiday season may we be drawn more deeply into compassion and love that supports all our well-being and health.

Resonance, vibration, in-tune…

Let yourself be drawn in!

This holiday, amidst whatever our activities, may we find moments to pause and experience lovely silence, the space between.

Between our breaths, between our thoughts, between yoga poses… may we find stillness, like that special moment of sunset.

We can relish this pause and find repose in it. Here we can smile and reset.

From this space, we can move, renewed, into the world with a little less darkness and a little more light…. just as the solstice marks our emergence into less hours of darkness and more time in the light.

If and when we find a break it all, may its blessings shower upon us.

Shhhh! I have a secret to share with you.

Actually, we already share it.

We are all flowing with this secret. It is the mystery of life that flows within, through us and around us–majestic.

As we get to know this secret more intimately through yoga and meditation, we cannot help but bow to it in awe and reverence. We live with this secret our whole lives. Like the flowing brook, it always is whispering to us.

Shhh, I have a secret to share…. we already share it.

Shhh!

If it’s universal, it’s in everything.

If through yoga and meditation we align with the universal, we will be able to sense or feel it in everything. And if through the practices, we not only tune in to the universal, but fall in love with it, then, at least theoretically, we can be in love all the time since the universal is present in everything.

Lofty aspiration, yes! Impossible? No… ask the sages.

A worthwhile pursuit? So far…

so good!

Yoga and meditation pay it forward.

However the practices “improve” or uplift our vibration or state, we carry it forward, quite often unwittingly, in all we do.

This is seva, work or action done for the good or benefit of everyone.

Yoga and meditation pay it forward. They are seva!

Our yoga and meditation practices obviously benefit us. But how they benefit others may not be so obvious.

Like the gong’s sound waves emanating outward, the vibratory effects of our practice emanate outward rippling to others.

As practitioners, we very often to not know or see these effects, but like the gong’s waves, they spread their effects outward in mysterious and wonderful ways.

Every time we practice, we strike the gong… for the benefit of all of us!

Recently at Thanksgiving, two people close to me shared the way they show or share their gratitude–by working on themselves so they have a “better” person to share with others.

In yoga and meditation, this internal work to better ourselves is sadhana. It is our life’s project, according to yoga, to come to know our self as the Self, to know how this individual being and all beings relate to the universal. In doing this project, we develop more love and compassion, deeper joy, and more light.

Much of yoga is about bringing more light to this darkness, to lessen suffering which is to some degree endemic to being human. The sages teach us this need not be our plight or fate. With effort and grace, we can transform how we live this life and share that with others.

This ultimately is the yogi’s “project.”

Not a bad “project” for this life, huh?!

May our life’s project be blessed with more and more light, with more joy and compassion, and greater peace and deep deep happiness!