I am blessed….

by L. Valdez Karl

….to have such readers.

Kevin is a long-time reader and has always been very supportive of my cathartic rants and musings about yoga. As what sometimes happens in the online world, we struck up an email correspondence about all things yoga. In fact, Kevin and his wife Erin had also planned to visit the ashram in South India where I was originally scheduled to spend two months but life gets in the way and they had to change their plans — so Kevin generously donated their deposit for my stay. I was overwhelmed by his gesture considering that we have never met. I will say again that I am always amazed at the support I’ve received in the global yoga community through this blog compared to my local “yoga community.” And those of you who have read about my misadventures with local studio owners know what I’m talking about.

Kevin and Erin have relocated to Mexico and have started blogging — Kevin and Erin in Mexico. So I was again overwhelmed to read Kevin’s latest post:

“How could I mention India without mentioning…..?

That “yoga and meditation” (if one has the hard-to-come-by understanding of what yoga actually is, pre-spandex and pre-group class zombie world) is a redundant phrase – and that if you want to learn why that is so, and so much else about yoga, meditation, life, music, great writing, wicked humor and what it means to really love India you must check out this blog:

Linda’s Yoga Journey

I find Linda’s depth and breadth of experience, writing chops and fearlessness very inspiring, and have learned (and continue to learn) so much about all of the above topics from her. Her blog is beautiful in so many ways, and a portal to a vast array of positive things going on in the world. Check it out.”

Wow, wow, wow. I am not only blessed but also humbled. Out of everything that he said, I am most touched that Kevin thinks I’m fearless, more so than being considered a good writer.

I want to take this time to thank Kevin and Erin and ALL my long-time readers — and I know who my regular readers are even if you never comment — for putting up with these “cathartic musings and occasional rants about my trips to India to study my heart’s passion, and my sweet adventures along the yoga path.”

I also want to thank all of the yoga bloggers who have put this blog on your blogrolls. I can tell from my site meter how people find me and I am amazed at how many blogs I’m linked to so mucho thanks for the link love!

May you all know happiness and the causes of happiness.
May you all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May you all never be parted from freedom’s true joy.
May you all dwell in equanimity, free from attachment and aversion.

peace
shanti
a-salaam aleikum
so shall it be.

addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

shhhhh…..

by L. Valdez Karl


Sindhu of Flower Girl’s Rural India commented on my sense of my new found spaciousness. She said that she felt the same:

“I practice Silence “Mouna”

My dad used to practice this for a Mandala period, when he would be on complete silence….I am refraining from responding unless otherwise required. I have reduced responding nearly 70% to 75%. (I’m very talkative)

It has given me real inner peace.”

In 9 days I leave for Spirit Rock Meditation Center to do the last retreat of my Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training. While we can talk a bit during the yoga training, the rest of the time we are in silence. I can’t tell you how much I love that. But when I tell people that I’ve been on more than few silent retreats, even yoga teachers say, “no way could I do that.”

Those sentiments lead me to thinking about speech in general, but particularly the first principle of ethical conduct in Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path which is RIGHT OR WISE SPEECH.

Silence makes people uncomfortable. I’m not a big talker to begin with, especially around people I don’t know, and that makes people uncomfortable.

We had to read Phillip Moffitt’s book Dancing With Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering for this retreat (and I highly recommend this book.) When I read the chapter on Right Speech I kept nodding my head:

“The practice of right speech is built around meeting three conditions simultaneously:

Say only what is true and useful and timely. If any one of these criteria isn’t met, then silence is the wise form of speech. This is such a simple formula and easy to recall even in moments of strong emotion, but it is very hard to execute even under the best conditions, because the grasping mind corrupts speech faster than it does action….

You may not realize the aggressive nature of your speech until you try to make it a mindfulness practice….

Applying the filter of saying only what is useful is even harder. We live in a culture where ‘speaking your truth’ is promoted as a form of empowerment and good communication. Yet this is not the case if your words don’t provide useful information or better understanding….

Practicing right speech includes actively refraining from giving unsolicited opinions or stating your view when it serves no purpose….You also don’t use the truth as a weapon for making yourself look better in comparison to another, or to put others in their place…don’t use speech to satisfy your ego.

Right speech involves listening from the heart…you give full attention to the words of others and listen without judging, preparing a response, or comparing….

You may utilize right speech with others, but have violent, unsettling or crippling interior speech.”
(DWL, pp.233-236)

I am the first to admit that my mouth has gotten me into trouble over these many years. Not that I say malicious or hateful things to people, but I am outspoken and am guilty of giving unsolicited advice (especially about yoga.) But the longer I am on this Path, I am much more mindful of things I say. Believe me, I try, and intention and motivation are everything. I think before I open my mouth and if it serves no useful purpose then I usually keep my mouth shut (my friends might disagree with that but they can also keep their mouths shut…;)).

I also pay close attention to when I listen with an open heart. I notice whether I am fully present when someone is speaking to me. I notice whether my Ego is telling me “I wish they’d shut up….hey, I have to get some rice milk on the way home…I have to call….” I think you get the idea. I have heard the Dalai Lama admit that in meetings even he thinks “this is boring. I’m hungry. I want some tea.” True story.

Now with the internet and things like blogs and Facebook, it’s this Buddhist’s opinion that Right or Wise Speech is even more important. Right Speech also refers to the written word.

As bloggers many of us have dealt with trolls on our blogs, people who write nasty comments or argue with everything you write or insult your other readers. Useless.

As for emails I’m sure there is not one person reading this who has not regretted firing off a nasty response to someone and it’s come back to bite them in their yoga butt. I am very familiar with that one. I wrote an unflattering email about someone and sent it to the person I was writing about instead of to the person I had intended to send it — definitely the epitome of mindLESSness, not mindfulness. But I had the guts to own up to it and called the woman to apologize. I knew that this yoga teacher had said some untrue and nasty things about me before I wrote my email but two wrongs don’t make a right.

As for blogs, online newspapers, and Facebook and MySpace, we all know the things that are said publicly on those websites. Accusations, misrepresentations, insults, oneupsmanship, always having to get in the last word, you name it. We can agree to disagree but it’s good to remember to “say only what is true and useful and timely.” As I told my husband four years ago when he was not supportive of my going to India the first time, “if you have nothing positive to say then don’t say anything at all.”

One of my students told me about her 9 year old niece who she said was out of control ADD. She said that ever since the girl was born there has never been a moment of silence in her brother’s house, that a radio or TV is always playing, ever since this girl was one day old. I thought that supported Jon Kabat-Zinn’s belief in his book Coming To Our Senses that it is not the ADD child who is dysfunctional, the entire family is dysfunctional — we are an ADD nation. Think of all the people you see and know who are always texting, talking on a cell phone, or listening to their IPods non-stop. The thought of never being still or silent boggles my mind. We all know people who talk just for the sake of talking and end up saying nothing.

I am far from perfect and it will probably take me another lifetime or two to get over my penchant for sarcasm. I can certainly be the queen of yoga snark. I will always speak my truth but I’m definitely more mindful of what I say and how I say things. Intention and motivation are everything and each moment of mindfulness and awareness is a step closer to awakening. As Sarah Powers said in the last workshop I did with her, her favorite teachers are the ones who are also human as they teach and try to live the dharma. I am certainly human.

addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

dog face down

by L. Valdez Karl

This is why my friends in India ask me whether I teach “real yoga” or “American yoga.”

Bonding With Their Downward-Facing Humans

“….Call it a yogic twist: Downward-facing dog is no longer just for humans.

Ludicrous? Possibly. Grist for anyone who thinks that dog-owners have taken yoga too far? Perhaps. But nationwide, classes of doga — yoga with dogs, as it is called — are increasing in number and popularity. Since Ms. Caliendo, a certified yoga instructor in Chicago, began to teach doga less than one year ago, her classes have doubled in size.

Not everyone in the yoga community is comfortable with this.

“Doga runs the risk of trivializing yoga by turning a 2,500-year-old practice into a fad,” said Julie Lawrence, 60, a yoga instructor and studio owner in Portland, Ore. “To live in harmony with all beings, including dogs, is a truly yogic principle. But yoga class may not be the most appropriate way to express this….”

Dog Face Down is what one of my students called Downward Facing Dog.

I feel sorry for the spaniel in the middle — he looks scared and his owner looks a bit intense. Put that dog down and step away from the mat, lady!

Can you do this with your Great Dane? The mind reels.

ARF.

addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

talking the talk AND walking the walk

by L. Valdez Karl

This is yoga.

“Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Hope flickers on
Siteki, Swaziland
4:30 pm 7/04/09

The world is full of tears.

Tears that would overflow the banks of any sea.

And yet I still believe in us. In humanity. In the power of love.

It has only been two days since I’ve been back on Swazi soil… The red dust is burning my eyes as I write these words at the ‘veterinary clinic’ which doubles as an internet cafe.

Each morning i spend an hour in clinic, before heading out into the communities to meet the people….

In every hut there is a story of sorrow.

Yesterday we drove up the most inhospitable hill…. Where there was a single hut perched upon rock after jagged rock.

In the hut we found a man with end stage HIV. He was lying naked in his bed, next to a pool of his own wastes.

Every bone in his body, literally every bone was palpable, visible. He had suffered a stroke secondary to complications of HIV/Toxoplasmosis and was unable to move his left side.

One of the wonderful Swazi nurses in the team explained that he had a caring daughter who washed him and fed him each day, but was only able to visit him once a day.

I cant remember a time ive seen someone so hungry.

We gave him an orange. He took it in his skeletal hands and devoured it.

We took out a bag of corn meal and the nurses mixed it with some milk into a paste.

He ate it faster than anything i’ve ever seen.

He held his hands in prayer and through wide brown eyes filled with tears said “Siyabonga” – Thank you.

There is a story of a sparrow, which my Dad told me once.

He was lying on a gravel road, with his little scrawny legs facing the open sky.

A horseman was walking past and seeing the sparrow, alighted from his horse.

He said “Little Sparrow, are you hurt? Why are lying there so awkwardly? Face up to the sky?”

The sparrow said “I have heard, that sometime today the sky will fall.”

The horseman laughed and said “And you think you can keep it from falling with those little legs?”

The sparrow shrugged his shoulders and said “My friend, I will do what I can.”

And that is all I am doing. What we are all doing here in this beautiful, little hamlet so filled with pain.

What we can.

From Siteki with love,

Maithri”

And this is Maithri.

My name is Maithri (pronounced MY3), and I’m a medical doctor living in Melbourne Australia.

I return to Swaziland for several months in April of 2009.

Swaziland is a country with the highest prevalence of HIV in the world (42%). 10% of its population are orphaned children.

It serves as a vivid microcosm of the most emergent and under-recognised humanitarian crisis of our generation: the cycle of poverty and HIV infection.

I have never seen grace, power, and hope so eloquently displayed as I have seen it in the lives of these beautiful people.

I want to share their stories with you.

Walk with me.

Together we will find ways of making a change.

My love to you, Maithri

____________________________________________________

I do not get to Maithri’s blog, The Soaring Impulse, as often as I should, but every time I do I am overwhelmed. I don’t know if Maithri has ever done an asana in his life, but he is a true yogi in my book. He is a buddha, an awakened one. Each and every one of us could take lessons from this man. He is the epitome of what Krishna speaks of in the Bhagavad Gita, about releasing from the fruits of our actions. If someone told me that I could only teach one class, I can honestly say that the only one I would continue teaching is the one where I am paid nothing — teaching to women in a domestic violence shelter. Karma yoga.

I am certainly not a holier than thou yogini — I still get angry and judgmental and I can still swear like a Marine on occasion (albeit all this is much less now) because I am only human. But when I got back home from my first trip to India and re-entered white bread suburban life, my reverse culture shock was severe. It took me about 6 months to get over it. I was not shocked at the poverty in India or being with slum children, far from it. I handled it very well when beggars with half their faces gone from leprosy would grab my arm for a rupee. But what I did not handle very well was the complacency, indeed the ignorance, of my fellow suburbanites.

I remember standing behind a woman and her daughter in a long line and listening to them whining and complaining about everything they were experiencing in the moment. I imagined twitching my nose like Samantha in Bewitched and dropping them in the middle of Chennai without their cell phones, surrounded by starving street dogs and beggars with no legs grabbing at their designer jeans. I wondered how long mother and daughter would survive without their Vuitton purses and Blackberries. I wanted to scream at them, “WAKE UP!”

And I wonder sometimes at how content and grateful yogis (or people who call themselves yoga practitioners) really are. After all, yoga teachers are supposed to be firmly grounded in the yamas and the niyamas and help their students know the concepts….like santosha, contentment. But it’s been my observation over the years that “yogis” are sometimes not very content at all. Especially on retreats. Especially when taken out of their usual environment.

I’ve been on more than a few retreats with lots of needy yogis. I won’t go into specific details but as a kitchen worker doing my seva, if it was up to me there would be a lot less choices for condiments. You’d be happy with ketchup and mustard and salt and pepper. And no white sugar for you. It’s bad for you anyway so stop sucking it down like there’s no tomorrow. Stop hoarding your food because the cooks really DO make enough for everyone AND YOU ARE NOT STARVING. Has yoga taught you nothing about aparigraha? And you would drink milk one day past its expiration date instead of complaining about it and throwing it out. I am sure the starving man in Maithri’s post would love to have that milk.

Two weeks ago I did a weekend training with one of my regular teachers and she told a story about the difference between Buddhist retreatants and yogis (we were talking about accepting things as they are.) She said she had just led a Buddhist retreat at a well-known yoga center with some well-known western Buddhist teachers and a yoga retreat was starting immediately afterward. They were sitting together in the dining hall after their retreat as the students for the yoga retreat were coming in. One of the Buddhist teachers said, “Ah…here come the yogis. With all their special dietary needs….”

Wheat grass indeed. Yeah, you know who you are. Sometimes it’s hard to look into that mirror that’s held up to your face.

So this is a long-winded way of saying that next time you can’t get your Starbucks mocha frappahooey done just right (OH MY GOD! I SAID TWO SHOTS!!) or you start salivating over the latest Lululemon pants that you have to take out a second mortgage to buy….

think about the dying African who is happy with an orange.

Cut out your Starbucks for a month and make a donation to Maithri’s Swaziland Appeal. I did…because I believe in sparrows holding up the sky.


addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

yoga wisdom from a rabbit

by L. Valdez Karl

“What is Real?,” asked the rabbit one day. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you’re made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you…It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
—The Velveteen Rabbit

I believe that yoga helps you become real (real-er? more real?) It strips away your layers like the multiple skins of an onion, down to your essence. As the Skin Horse said, Real is a thing that happens to you, you become. Sometimes It sneaks up on you. You can’t think your way into being, you can only be. You can’t think your way to freedom, you can only be free.

I wrote here about a new spaciousness I have felt recently and it really hits me now and again. This just being is a lightness of being that is freedom, at least for me. The physical sensation of it is floating. Sometimes there are no words for these Things that happen on this Path, but that is my felt sense of it.

I think about people or things that I was very attached to six months ago or even one month ago and those attachments are gone….POOF!…like they never existed. Those attachments literally brought me to my knees, you have no idea. Of course “they” still exist but it is…different. Transcended. Free.

At my age I’m worn around the edges and yet somehow feel more alive than ever (you hear that Yoga Journal, with your ageist yoga advertising?), even with my aching back (the price of being uber-flexible among other things.) But I am not this Body.

I’ve been too many years on this earth to care what people think about me anymore. I’m not responsible for anyone’s happiness, only my own. I don’t tell my students what they want to hear, I tell them what I think they need to hear and what they choose to do is up to them. I am merely a yoga facilitator, I am nobody’s guru — “your breath will change your life”; “mindfulness begins now, not tomorrow”; “detach from the outcome and be free.” You can give a person the tools and show them how to use them, but eventually they have to build their own house.

In 7 years of teaching I’ve had students quit after one class and I have students who’ve been with me since Day One and I’m grateful for them all. I’ve heard it said that as teachers we get the students that we deserve. Maybe so. One day not too long ago a (former) private student told me that she did not like the way I worded things, that I was too harsh. That night another student told me that she does not have the words to tell me how much she looks forward to coming to my class every week. Same day, same teacher, same words. My voice off the mat is my voice on the mat.

“….once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

I am not ugly. I am Real.

“I got lucky
I got everything I wanted
I got happy
There wasn’t nothing else to do
And I’d be crazy
Not to wonder if I’m worthy
of the part I play
In this dream that’s coming true.”
–“Pilgrim’s Progress”, Kris Kristofferson

I have heard these words inside me

by L. Valdez Karl

The narrator of the Gateways of Light video says that we are coming to some type of major defining moment in our history and “those people who are meant to unfold through this are unfolding and are doing it pretty rapidly.”

Words similar to those above were said to me about 15 years ago when I got back on this yogic and spiritual path. The first time I talked with a spiritual adept she stopped and looked me in the eyes. She said that the world as we know it will seem to split into two camps, and that those who have been working on their inner life will ascend while the others…well, it will take them a bit longer, so maybe not in their present lifetimes. Then she said, “and you will be part of this ascension on a global level, part of the new paradigm.” At the time I said nothing and took it with a grain of salt, merely nodding my head. I remember that conversation like it was yesterday.

I’ve had more than few conversations like that in 15 years, and things that were told to me have come to fruition, slowly but surely. Even before India was a thought in my mind a vedic astrologer told me that I would experience “divine grace” around 2010. At the time I did not even know what divine grace meant so I shrugged it off.

But I will be at the Kumbh Mela next year, the “great festival of the pot of nectar of immortality”, on an auspicious day and I’ve known in my bones for a long time that something will happen to me. I can’t say what, but something is calling me there like nothing else has ever done. I can’t explain it so I just let it be. I surrender. I have felt the shakti in certain temples in South India and have broken down. I surrendered. I’ve even thought that maybe I will die in India, and if so, all things happen for a reason. At least I will be on the Ganges and my body can be burned.

The narrator speaks of the disconnectedness of this world and I have seen this more and more in even long time yoga students, their disconnection from their bodies, the fear of closing their eyes. Students I’ve been teaching for over 5 years are suddenly like beginners again and they have no explanation. It is as if they have become afraid to feel.

I truly believe that all the turmoil that is happening in the world today is meant to be — the economy, the layoffs, the environment. This Kali Yuga is a cycle. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can begin the climb back up. Sometimes you have to lose everything in order to wake up.

My time on the cushion now brings me much more satisfaction than asana ever did. Sure I feel good physically after asana practice, but it’s always a dance between forms and formlessness. As Gary Kraftsow said, “…yoga isn’t about getting to know the postures. It’s about getting to know yourself.” In the past month I have a felt a new spaciousness inside me that was not there before and I know that what I do now will culminate on February 12, 2010. I know this in my bones as well as I know my name.

All I can do is surrender.


addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. Patanjali…..

by L. Valdez Karl

OK, that was NOT the latest cattle call for yoga teachers, but with studios cranking out newbie yoga teachers faster than you can say Utthitahastapādāṅguṣṭhāsana it could be.

This is for all you unemployed New York City yoga teachers. Seen at YogaDork’s place via Yogoer:

“The audition will be held Tuesday 3/31 2pm at the Equinox @19th St and Broadway. Please show up between 1:30-2:00pm and sign in at the front desk where you will be asked to show ID. The audition will be held on the 2nd floor Main Studio. Our auditions are held in a round robin format and will be moderated by Sarra Morton, one of our GFM’s. Your audition will last only 2-3 minutes depending on the turnout. We will try to get you all out by 4pm. Mats are provided unless you prefer to bring your own.

We are looking for those instructors who have at least 3 early mornings available (6:30-8am) to pick up regular classes AND BOTH Saturday and Sunday (9-6pm) available. Please do not attend this audition if you are not available for both these times. We have no daytime or evening weekday available classes.

Our auditions are a lot of fun, so no need to be nervous, just come with a smile.

No need to RSVP and please hold all questions till the audition.”

Note that the operative word is AUDITION.

I wonder if they’d like my tap-dancing.

Stripper poles, anyone?

(Seriously — I’ve heard about a “yoga” studio that has a stripper pole.)

addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

watch this space

by L. Valdez Karl

I am in the very preliminary stages of planning a yoga retreat in Africa or Zanzibar one year from now. Watch this space — Metta Yoga — for announcements about it and any future teacher trainings in India.

Metta Yoga is my official corporate name and I do have my own business website, but I’ve created a WordPress site to get the word out a bit more globally. The site, as is the retreat, is taking baby steps.

Stay tuned.

And who would not want to do an eco-yoga retreat with a safari option in Tanzania?

addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

"hey, brother, can ya spare a yoga class pass?"

by L. Valdez Karl

“Images from the Great Depression 2.0 – Yoga and Starbucks for the Unemployed”

From YogaDawg, of course. And be sure to read this.

Happy Spring, y’all. Support your local yoga teacher.

addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;

my short cut to nirvana

by L. Valdez Karl

(This image was originally posted to Flickr by Naresh Dhiman)

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that I am planning a lengthy stay in India next year. I had planned to spend two months in an ashram in south India studying yoga therapy with a swami. I have since learned that the ashram is not all it was cracked up to be which actually didn’t surprise me all that much. I am certainly not going to spend my hard-earned yoga money on an ashram or a swami who makes false recommendations on an India travel website.

I learned that there were about 10 obviously fake posts on the thread about the ashram and they all seemed to be from the same city in India (Madurai, where the swami is based) from people who claimed to be from outside of India. Any website owner knows where people are located by the IP address, i.e., your computer’s signature, the same way a blogger knows where readers come from by looking at their site meter.

I take all things with a grain of salt (sometimes with a ton of salt) so while I had received very nice and friendly emails from the ashram when I was planning my stay, I was always cautious, I did not drink all their Kool-Aid. That’s just what I know about India and the spirituality biz. There are many people in the spirituality game in India who love to part Westerners from their money because so many naive peace-love-dove feringhees are willing to give it to the first dark sadhu who says “Come, I give you enlightenment.”

After learning about this I emailed the ashram asking for an explanation. I never heard back from them.

Now I have more money for my trip, the money I won’t be giving to the ashram. I’ve changed my plans to taking private classes again at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram like I did last year (and believe me, they also like Western money) and I can spend more time in my Indian home, Chennai.

Now I can get to the Kumbh Mela in February instead of in March because I won’t be spending January and February at the ashram. This will be extremely auspicious because Shivaratri is February 12 — “Mahashivaratri marks the night when Lord Shiva performed the ‘Tandava’. It is also believed that on this day Lord Shiva was married to Parvati Ma.”

I can already feel the shakti. OM KALI MA!

The best part is that I can spend more time with my friend (who originally was going to meet me in Delhi after my ashram stay), so we’re going to travel for two weeks in the south then head north for the Mela. This will be my fourth trip to India and her ninth trip, one of which included a Mela. Thirteen trips between the two of us — can you tell that we both have the same passion for India? Well, with India it’s always a love/hate relationship…;)

If things work out I will fly to Africa after the Mela to conduct a yoga retreat either in Tanzania (maybe with a safari option) or on the island of Zanzibar. My friend who lives in Tanzania flew to Chicago last week to see me — we had not seen each other since India, 2005 when we were together for a month at KYM. We’ve always stayed in touch and she had invited me to teach in Arusha, Tanzania but the timing was never right. Next year it will be. She knows people who own eco-resorts, perfect spots for a yoga retreat. If it happens, it happens, I am not attached. But it would be DAMN COOL to conduct a yoga retreat on Zanzibar! But I will detach from the outcome. To my global readers who have told me that would they would love to take classes with me….watch this space!

The Kumbh Mela in Haridwar in 2010 is the MAHA Kumbh Mela, the GREAT Mela, not the Ardh or half Mela. The Mother of all Melas. And I’ll be there, me and about 50 million of my closest friends. The largest spiritual gathering in the world.

My astrologer has always told me that the years 2008 to 2010 will contain great learning experiences for me and not just in yoga. That I will soak it all in “like a sponge.” Even before India was a thought in my mind a vedic astrologer told me that during the years 2008-2010 I will experience “divine grace.”

I take everything with a grain of salt. Whatever happens, happens. But all things happen for a reason.


addthis_pub = ‘yogagal60510’;