Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
Janice Lloyd of the USA TODAY reports that Olympic figure skater Sasha Cohen practices yoga at least five days a week. "The best thing about yoga--as opposed to the gym or weights--is that you have to use your own body, and it makes you really aware of all the connections and how to balance yourself." Sasha is currently in training to see if she can get back to the Olympics. "I just don't want to rush my decision," she says, "and yoga helps my patience and helps me manage stress." She also claims to be stronger physically. Sasha notes that yoga has helped her develop her upper-body strength. "Yoga works all the muscle groups through a series of poses that are held for periods of time while breathing." 

In Flight Yoga
The New York Post reports that actress Uma Thurman stays fit and relaxes by practicing yoga. In fact, during a recent flight from JFK to Salt Lake City, the star was observed doing gentle yoga stretches for 20 minutes next to the flight-attendant station.  

Additive-Free for Neti Pots    
For many years Yoga scientists have been using kosher salt for their neti pot practice because, unlike regular table salt, kosher salt contains no iodine. Now it has been learned that  Diamond Crystal kosher salt is not only free of iodine, therefore eliminating the harm from excessive iodine exposure, but also  contains no anti-caking agents that could be assimilated into the body through delicate nasal membranes.

Recommended Reading
In her new book, "A Blessing in Disguise," Andrea Joy Cohen, MD presents 39 life lessons from noted teachers who share their personal stories about their most challenging experiences and provide the healing wisdom that helped them emerge fortified with inner-peace and a deeper understanding of life. The book features Dean Ornish, Rachel Naomi Remen, Bernie Siegel, Joan Borysenko and Stephen Levine.

The Yoga of Sex
A recent study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that women who practiced hatha yoga reported improvements in their sexual relationships. Mindfulness played a key role in the study, which also cited research that found yoga to be beneficial in the sex lives of men as well. Have you noticed any changes in habit patterns since you began practicing yoga?

Without question, these are the times that try the soul. Certainly each of us must deal with occasional traumas like illness, the loss of loved ones and financial reverses, but recently all of us have been bombarded by an onslaught of momentous circumstances. Consider the crises we've lived through in recent years: the shock and heartbreak of 9/11, the Iraq War, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Darfur, Katrina, terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the unending insanity of the Middle East, and now, a new Great Depression.

The weight of any one of these situations might feel overwhelming; their cumulative effect could well be traumatic. But for a truly sensitive and practical person, pain and misery begs this essential question, "Is there anything I can do right now to end the sorrow?"

"YES," Yoga Science resoundingly answers--"but only if you are willing to bid adieu to some old, unhelpful habits." After all, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got.

Right now, if you're ready and willing to experience peace and happiness in this lifetime, there is no better path to the goal than the study and practice of the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient Indian scripture that literally means the "Song of the Lord." The authorship of the Gita is attributed to Vyasa, legendary compiler of the spiritual epic Mahabharata. Although it has been honored by the Hindu culture for thousands of years, its Perennial Philosophy is actually derived from the older oral tradition of Yoga Science. The exact date of the written form of the Bhagavad Gita is a matter of conjecture, but most scholars agree that the scripture is at least 5,000 years old. That would mean that the Gita came into the library of man 1,700 years before Moses, 2,500 years before Buddha, 3,000 years before Jesus the Christ and 3,800 years before Muhammad.

Four fundamental doctrines form the core of the Perennial Philosophy contained in the Bhagavad Gita.

First: that the phenomenal world of matter and individual consciousness--human, animal, plant and mineral--are all manifestations of one Supreme Reality, within which all partial realities exist, and apart from which they do not exist.

Second: that human beings are capable of experiencing the eternal wisdom and bliss of the Supreme Reality by direct intuition. Experiencing this undistorted truth, the individual knower unites with the one transcendent Divinity.

Third: that human beings possess a dual nature: a limited ego/personality or lower self and an eternal Higher Self or soul--an aspect of the Supreme Reality. If there is a sufficient desire, it is possible for a human being to unite with the Higher Self.

Fourth: that the purpose of life (and the secret of happiness) is to identify with and become an instrument of the Higher Self. This union is experienced through spiritual practice (sadhana)--the process of sacrificing the ignorance of the ego/personality and serving the perfect, intuitive wisdom of the Higher Self as reflected by the conscience (buddhi).

The Gita presents this Perennial Philosophy as an internal dialogue between the two aspects of mankind's dual nature. In this intimate conversation, Krishna represents the Lord, the Higher Self within each person, and Arjuna represents the individual personality seeking happiness and fulfillment while working through a mental maze of fear, anger and self-willed desires. Arjuna is a warrior-prince and the most accomplished military general of his time. He is about to do battle against family, friends and teachers to defend his older brother's legitimate claim to the ancient throne of his kingdom. Krishna is not merely Arjuna's trusted counselor and charioteer, but also the Bhagavan, the Lord and inner Guru within each human being, who fosters and preserves the universe against the forces of ignorance and darkness. 

The opening scene takes place on the battlefield at Kurukshetra, where civil war is about to begin. Arjuna asks Krishna to drive him between the opposing armies to survey the front lines. When Arjuna sees his relatives, friends and teachers prepared to do mortal combat against one another, he steps down from his chariot, drops his bow to the ground and falls to his knees. Overwhelmed by sorrow and despair he laments, "O Krishna, my limbs grow weak; my mouth is dry, my body trembles and my hair stands on end. I am unable to stand and my mind seems to be whirling . . . It would be better to renounce the kingdom than to fight with those who are so close to me."

In modern parlance, Arjuna has an anxiety attack. He has previously been successful in battles against foreign enemies, but Arjuna now finds himself faced with the responsibility of fighting a civil war against people he loves and respects. In this seemingly untenable position Arjuna finds neither defeat nor victory to be acceptable. In the face of deep-seated, personal attachments Arjuna forsakes his discriminative faculty (his buddhi) and cannot engage in the battle that his duty (dharma) requires of him. Deluded by the faulty perspective of the ego-driven personality, Arjuna misperceives his circumstances and is emotionally paralyzed--unable to make the skillful choices that would uphold the fabric of society by serving the eternal wisdom of his Higher Self.

The setting of the Gita is a battlefield because the scriptural war is a metaphor for the long and strenuous campaign each of us must wage to free ourselves from the tyranny of the ego, senses and unconscious mind. For the Yoga scientist, the Gita is not at all a military discourse. It is a spiritual handbook for Self-realization and daily living. The questions posed by Arjuna and the loving, compassionate answers provided by Krishna are meant to inspire each of us to do battle with our own self-willed limitations through the practice of meditation and its allied disciplines. Mahatma Gandhi once reflected that "When doubts haunt me; when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita and find a verse to comfort and inspire me. Then, I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow."

For one who practices Krishna's instruction to Arjuna, the Gita becomes a road map of life. It clearly illustrates direct pathways to the most rewarding of destinations. Recognizing the variety of human temperments, the Gita, like any good map, provides more than one route. Accordingly, Krishna offers Bhakti Yoga: the path of devotion (a spiritual practice in which an individual worships a deity primarily through chant, prayer, song and ritual); Karma Yoga: the path of selfless service (giving away the fruit of one's actions); Jnana Yoga and meditation (the Yoga of wisdom through discrimination) that is primarily for individuals who are eager to find answers to such questions as: Who am I? From where have I come? Why am I here? Where will I go? and finally, Raja Yoga (the royal path of traditional Yoga Science) which combines the elements of Jnana, Bhakti and Karma Yoga. Through all three--devotion, wisdom, and action--a spiritual aspirant is assured of reaching the ultimate destination of union with God.

The lessons of the Gita, written in elegant prose, do not require its reader to become a scholar or philosopher. Rather, Krishna offers imperishable comfort to any earnest seeker by His words, "Whoever comes to me with devotion will attain Me." The Gita explains that even though individuals have various dispositions that suit them for differing paths, the truth that each aspirant (sadhaka) experiences is one and the same. Therefore, the Gita does not endorse one path over another. Instead, it encourages each sadhaka to follow the path best suited to his or her needs and proclivities.

Throughout its eighteen chapters the Bhagavad Gita details the two forces pervading human life. The first (akin to the "Big Bang" theory of physics), is the outward thrust of evolution. This externally-oriented drive motivates us to seek happiness and security in the endless procession of objects and relationships that appear to come from outside of us. The second force is involutionary. This inwardly-directed drive (one of the definitions of Krishna) motivates us to seek and find true happiness and wisdom from within our own consciousness. Ultimately, the Bhagavad Gita is not a set of commandments from on high, but rather a practical manual of how to rely on our own inner wisdom to make conscious, discriminating choices that will inevitably lead us toward our greatest fulfillment.

But life's journey, as taught in the Bhagavad Gita, is not always easy--in part because Self-reliance is neither very fashionable nor valued in our modern culture.  A thought-provoking example of how easily we acquiesce to the suggestions of outside "experts" is presented in the 1979 movie, "Being There." In the movie Peter Sellers plays a simple-minded gardener named Chance who, through strange twists of fate, becomes a trusted advisor to the President of the United States. While Chance remains the naive and innocent gardener he's always been, everyone else in the movie assumes him to be a highly cultured man of the world--with great wisdom and insights about human, political and economic issues.

At one point in the film, the concerned President asks the supposedly wise Chance what he thinks the future will bring. After a moment of quiet reflection, Chance responds as only a gardener could. "There will be growth in the spring." Not knowing Chance is referring to the kingdom of flowers and vegetables, the President interprets the reply to be a positive and encouraging vision of the nation's economy.

The Gita teaches that it is never appropriate to rely exclusively on others for our happiness. At best, outside suggestions represent  hearsay, and therefore, are never completely reliable. That is why William Shakespeare echoes the Gita's eternal truth when he writes, "Above all else, to thine own Self be true." If we leave all external supports and instead rely on our own inner intuitive wisdom, Krishna promises, we are certain to encounter endless possibilities for rewarding and creative growth.

Today humanity is facing many challenges of historic proportions. Wars, terrorism, natural disasters and global economic collapse are dramatic evidence that our previous choices have taken us, and our children, in a perilous direction. To remedy these ills, no amount of intellectual discussion can be of much help.  Intellectual knowledge, however attractive and well intentioned it may be, has little power to change character, conduct or consciousness. Meditation and the timeless, universal teachings of the Bhagavad Gita are the mighty instruments that can transform the power of fear, anger and selfish desire into previously unimagined creative solutions. If we take to heart the loving words of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita and practice meditation sincerely, systematically and with sustained enthusiasm, our physical and emotional problems will naturally inspire their artistic and creative solutions.

As the Gita aptly concludes, our painful circumstances reflect a deep-seated struggle for supremacy between the forces of darkness and light within our own individual minds. Yes, we are the problem, but we are also the solution. While our past actions are forcing us to engage in this battle within, each of us must still decide on which side we will fight. To help us make this crucial decision, Krishna leaves Arjuna with these final instructions: "Make every act an offering to me; regard Me as your only protector. Relying on interior discipline, meditate on me always. Remembering me, you shall overcome all difficulties through My grace. But if you will not heed Me in your self-will, nothing will avail you."

And so for Arjuna, the Gita ends where it began--with his destiny in his own hands. For each of us today the message is clear and compelling: we are the architects of our lives and we determine our destiny--by what we trust in, think about, speak of and act on. When we consistently base our thoughts, words and deeds on the inner, intuitive wisdom of our Higher Self, we will find our troubled times transformed into a season of infinite, joyful and rewarding possibilities.

Leonard is a philosopher, educator, author and founder of the American Meditation Institute.

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According to the Mayan calendar, some folks claim, on the winter solstice of 2012 the world as we know it will come to end. It feels like they were off by four years. As I write, the U.S. is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Venerable financial institutions are crumbling; as a consequence, all over the country people are losing their homes, businesses and retirement funds. Even prosperous states like California are on the verge of bankruptcy. In the community where I live, people are genuinely frightened. They are losing their jobs-and health insurance-at an unprecedented rate. These are sobering times indeed. We're left with the unsettling question: if we can't rely on our leaders, much less our stockbrokers, to whom can we turn for security?

Yoga Science advises us to seek guidance from authentic spiritual masters. Their wisdom is rooted not in politics or economics, but in spirit. They see the fleeting events of the day from the point of view of eternity. And for at least 2500 years, the people of India have turned to the enlightened sage Krishna for comfort and counseling. His words are recorded in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the world's spiritual masterpieces.

The Gita opens with a crisis in one respect similar to ours today. Greed and short-sighted leadership have led a prosperous kingdom to the brink of collapse. In this case however, the kingdom is about to plunge into a civil war so disastrous, there can be no true victor. Arjuna is sitting in a chariot on the battlefield, contemplating the bloodbath that's about to begin. Even though he's a skilled warrior, he's sickened at the prospect of the seemingly needless death and destruction about to unfold. So he turns to his best friend, who's holding the reins to the chariot, and asks for guidance. Arjuna obviously has very good karma: his closest friend is none other than the illumined sage Krishna himself.

Facing Reality

Many intermediate level Yoga students have read the Bhagavad Gita; they know it contains 18 short chapters consisting largely of Krishna's practical instructions on how to engage life, even at its most horrific, from a spiritual perspective. Everyone has their favorite chapter. For me personally, chapter 11 is the most powerful and most challenging. It contains nothing less than the vision of God.

Up to this point, Krishna has been speaking about the importance of doing one's duty with courage and dispassion, and explaining to Arujuna how meditation can lead to a calm, clear state beyond fear and suffering. Noting that his guru is in a particularly generous mood, Arjuna takes this opportunity to ask Krishna, "Please show me God! Remove all the veils from my awareness and let me see the Divine Being as it really is!" My heart leapt when I read this passage for the first time. Arjuna is asking for cosmic consciousness. If I had been sitting with Krishna, that's exactly what I would have asked for, too!

If you've read the Bhagavad Gita, you know what happens next. Incredibly, Krishna actually grants this presumptuous request. Through the guru's grace, Arjuna experiences the infinite universe as the body of God. He sees numberless galaxies spinning in and out of existence. Across uncountable world systems he glimpses souls much like himself seeking a vision of the Supreme Being.

In this vast panorama, Arjuna perceives the Divine Being producing infinite life forms out of itself, and then swallowing them back into itself. The divine whole is full of light and creative power. It is also filled with terrible suffering and death. Arjuna also foresees the events of the days ahead as many of his friends and relatives are slaughtered on the battlefield. This is no consoling vision. It is stark, unvarnished reality.

"It's horrible!" Arjuna cries out.  "I can't bear it! Let me see the world as I always saw it before."

Smiling, Krishna waves the divine vision away.

I have always thought this is one of the most honest, and most challenging, passages in all of spiritual literature. As Yoga students, what are we aspiring for? We say we want to be enlightened, but could we bear it if we were? Are we really ready to face reality?

Ready or not, reality presents itself to us. Many of us have been living with the illusion that the value of our homes will appreciate forever, that other people may contract life-threatening illness but it won't happen to us, or that we'll never grow old-we'll just pay for botox treatments and hormone injections. But sooner or later each one of us finds ourselves sitting on the battlefield with Arjuna, facing imminent, inevitable catastrophe. There is nowhere in the physical universe we can hide from it-in every world system in the cosmos, living beings face the same fate. That's an awfully heavy realization when you think about it. No wonder Arjuna flipped out!

Of course what enlightenment really means is maintaining an inner state where we can indeed face everything life throws at us with calmness and some measure of understanding. Arjuna wasn't there yet-not many of us are-so the cosmic vision frightened and overwhelmed him. But it had shown him only the nature of samsara, something like what astronomers show us today: galaxies being born and dying in a seemingly endless profusion. The vision had not revealed the solution to the suffering caused by birth and death. Krishna, the spiritual master, would have to show Arjuna the way past fear and despair.

Here in America the closest many of us come to an experience like Arjuna's is when someone we love dies very suddenly. It jolts us as if we'd just been awakened from a deep sleep. For a few moments we're vividly awake to the sobering reality of pain and loss. But once the shock wears off, we quickly slip back into a sort of dream-like existence where everything is more or less fine, and will definitely get even better if we could just make more money.

The current global financial meltdown has had a somewhat similar effect, shaking many Americans quite badly. Completely unexpectedly, institutions and financial reserves we formerly relied on have vanished overnight. It's not clear when things will stabilize. We are in a sandhi zone. Sandhi is a Sanskrit word meaning an in-between state, like twilight which is neither day nor night. It's disorienting. The world around us seems to be dissolving as stores we've shopped at for decades go out of business, and our own job security becomes increasingly precarious. The reality is there is no fully reliable security anywhere in the material world. How can we handle such an unsettling situation?

Sage Advice

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna points out the importance of developing equanimity and establishing one's awareness in the unchanging state beyond space and time. He describes many methods for doing so:

• the processes of Yoga, including breathing exercises

• performing one's duties selflessly in a spirit of surrender to a higher power

• cultivating deep states of meditation

• unflinching intellectual inquiry leading to intuitive insight

• wholehearted devotion to the Supreme Being

Krishna is amazingly practical. He recognizes that a method that works for Arjuna may not be suited to you or me. For every individual there is a path to peace, the unitary state beyond ever changing appearances. Krishna promises that everyone who sincerely strives to find that state will be guided there. But how can that be? That state of lucid equanimity is already inside us. "The Lord abides in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna," Krishna counsels in the Bhagavad Gita. "Run to him for shelter with your whole being. By His grace, you will attain the eternal abode."

The Gita describes the Supreme Being both as a transcendent divine intelligence, and as a compassionate, loving friend. The funds in our 401K may not be there for us tomorrow. But that Divine Being, the one whose presence we feel in our hearts, is always here, always accessible. That Great Being calls the world into being, and dissolves it away. But in that magical interim in between, when this vast, magnificent universe manifests around us, grace is always available, invoked by our sincere efforts.

We souls, fragments of the Divine Being, wander sometimes in delight, and other times in grief and confusion, through the material worlds. For some it's an adventure, a quest, a pilgrimage. For others it's a trail of tears. I have often wondered why the intelligent force governing the universe allows terrible tragedies to occur, like the war Arjuna was dragged into, or the economic disaster threatening the prosperity of many nations today. I think the purpose is to wake us up, to remind us that the infinite cosmos Arjuna saw in his vision is only a fraction of a greater reality. The universe is majestic, a testament to the grandeur of the higher consciousness that produced it. But we're not here just to have a good time, watch TV, play video games, and jingle the change in our pockets. We're called upon to live ethically, dutifully, healthfully, and accept the lessons our Divine Teacher sends our way with gratitude and serenity.

As he did with Arjuna, Krishna advises us not to focus too much on creating and fulfilling desires. He asks us to demand more from life than to be preoccupied with what pleasures the world might offer. Instead we should be tyagis, renouncers, performing our duties in the world for the benefit of others, and focusing our attention on a higher reality that lies beyond pain and pleasure, birth and death. The experience of that reality is even more sublime than Arjuna's cosmic vision.

It is not our bank account, not our political party, not our house or our job that can provide lasting security. Only our spiritual practice has the power to permanently remove fear. Only our spiritual practice can help us see through the cosmic vision to the greater truth behind it. As Krishna explains, "He who is established in Yoga sees the same Divine Self everywhere. He sees the Self in all beings, and all beings in the Self." The Gita tells us that the man and woman who see this vision are never lost, and never insecure. They've found something that can never be lost: their own true Self.


Linda Johnsen, M.S. is a regular contributor to Transformation and is the author of "Daughters of the Goddess: The Women Saints of India," and seven other books on spiritual life currently available at the AMI bookstore.

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