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Through the practices, we bring a meditated person to the world.

This is not a panacea for the ills of the world or for our problems.

But there is no doubt that regular practice is good for our personal well-being and for those around us. Yoga and meditation can help buffer the headaches of this world by tempering our experiences and responses to them. The practices can help surgically remove impediments to our joy and love and help us lead healthier lives.

No, certainly not a cure-all, but the practices are very good medicine!

There’s an expression in AA a friend tells me: “No better, no worse.”

With such a vision, we put no one on a pedestal. In fact, there are no pedestals.

Just all of us equally human, doing our best.

The yogic sages tell us the universal or divine energy contracts to become each of us. This energy is alive in us as us, each of us contractions of this amazing and mysterious force.

Through the practices, we come to know and experience this force that dwells in each of us as us. We develop a relationship with it.

As we sense this, our perspective subtly, but significantly, shifts, and we begin to change how we see ourselves, and others, and how we live. Maybe with a little more love… a little more respect.

All of us, this infinite array of contractions at play, being us, doing our best for this world!

It’s easy to see how the droplet in the ocean is the ocean and still the droplet, being both the ocean and the individual drop at the same time.

It’s a little harder for us in this ocean of humanity and living creatures to see ourselves as the whole of living creation and an individual ego or person all at the same time.

Yoga and meditation can help us experience this merging of ourselves with all of life while still being this distinct person. We can begin to see and feel ourselves as the one in the many.

As the common allegorical story goes, it’s easy to know what part of the elephant we are and not realize we are all the entire elephant at the same time.

The practices can help us clarify the person we are and how we are simulataneously connected to all of life.

We are this distinct droplet in the ocean of humanity and life and, at the same time, all humanity and life.

The practices can bring this experience alive for us, helping us find our place in this world!

Addressing the chakras or energy centers in our being through yoga and meditation helps coordinate and align them to work together better, strengthening our sense of being and peace.

By doing this, we literally run better. It’s like going in for a tune-up.

Hummmmmm!

Our mind grows quieter at a sunrise or sunset, at majestic powerful sites such as the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall.

Wow!

We grow quieter seeing beauty–a stunning rose, a rainbow, a cool cloud….

When we are Wowed, we grow quieter.

For me, yoga and meditation are a tour de force of this Wow factor. The practices can open all of us to feeling more Wowed by life in so many ways.

Wow! Who among us couldn’t use a little more of this in our lives?!

Amidst the dirt of our lives are many golden moments that shine. We all know this.

Yoga and meditation help us pan for gold in the present, the moment we are living now.

This means having a broader vision… seeing the dirt as also necessary, as a means to carry the gold, as the stuff of soil that grows our forests and gardens and wildflowers.

The practices help us acquire the vision or perspective that unearths gold even in that which initially does not shine.

Golden, right?!

Though we are not water animals, we live in an ocean–an ocean of consciousness.

From our center, we witness and exist in this vast universe of being, of awareness.

Consciousness takes form as human beings so that we can be aware of this.

Why?

The sages say this is God’s sport, the universal’s game with itself.

Meditation and yoga are great tools to explore this game.

Play ball!!

Joy has a rippling effect that spreads outward like sound waves from a gong.

Through yoga and meditation, we pivot or turn towards joy. We start to vibrate more with joy, and its waves ripple out into the world.

Can you feel it?

When we practice our yoga and meditation with love, then in one step, even with just one pose or a few breaths, we turn or pivot towards love.

Such a lovely step!

The life force is teeming, scintillating… bubbly. Think champagne, effervescent. Celebratory.

Through yoga and meditation, we drink of this and come to know and feel life’s celebratory quality–to be honored, respected, and loved.

Cheers to life!