“News reporters rattle off deplorable facts with very little feeling. We hear about the destruction of the environment in terms of square miles of rainforest, inches of topsoil, numbers of disappearing species, but these statistics do not tell us what it is like to stand in a rainforest and hear the trees fall, or to watch the death of a life-form that will never exist again. We read about calamities in foreign countries in terms of so many dead, so many injured, and so many dollars worth of damage. We coldly take in data without having the time or the context in which to really feel its impact.”

These words stood out to me when I read them. They come from the Eastern Body, Western Mind book. And they’re so true. We can hear about death and destruction without even flinching – unless it is something that hurts or affects us. It seems that we’ve lost our empathy. Sure, we get upset when something happens that affects us. We got upset when we lost Americans in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But how many terrorist attacks occur against others throughout our world…every single day? Why do we not feel so strongly for them? Why is it that our compassion and our sympathies extend to certain people and not others? Shouldn’t we hurt or feel sympathy for anyone who is suffering? But we hear of terrible things occurring in our world every single day – yet we let the news pass in one ear and out the other.

“It is the contemplation of God in order to become attuned to God and God’s will. – Set aside time each day to recognize the presence of the omnipresent.” This is what our readings instruct us to do. It is also something that I fail to do well. Usually when I think about God, guilt accompanies my thoughts – perhaps because I hadn’t been to church enough lately, or because I hadn’t been doing the things for humanity that God asks us to do. It is very easy for people to let the daily activities, work, errands, and general fatigue that results from our busy days get to us – and the result is that the last thing on our minds is to set aside time for God, or to recognize the presence of the omnipresent. This is something that yoga has given to me. I used to think that setting aside time for God meant going to church or reading the Bible – but I don’t think that this is the only way God wants us to make time for recognizing the divine. If we offer up our yoga practice, I think this can be a way to recognize that presence as well. Bart said in class just last night- make your practice as beautiful as you can and perhaps don’t do this practice for yourself, but offer it up to something higher. When he said that, it made me want to strive that much harder to have a beautiful practice for the thought of offering it up to something other than myself.

This past month – I will unfortunately admit – I did not find myself having a strong yoga practice. Between my travels I either did not have the exercise equipment (eg. clothes/yoga mat) or I did not have the space to practice. It made me realize how appreciative I am of having this space while living in Raleigh. Back in Wisconsin there are no yoga studios within 45 minutes of home and I have no room to practice at my house. Literally. But thankfully, I have space here. And having that time away from yoga has really helped me to realize how important it is in my life. I found myself struggling both emotionally and physically throughout the past month. I had not struggled emotionally to that extent since before my time as a regular yogi. People always say that sometimes you need to lose something to realize what it meant to you. Now, I am not saying that I ‘lost yoga’ or anything like that. But not having it as part of my weekly routine had a pretty decent impact on my well-being in a number of different ways. I am actually kind of happy I had this experience because I came to realize how necessary yoga is for me and how appreciative I am of what it does for me as a human being. Yoga really does help the mind, body, and spirit, and now I am all the more excited to share its benefits with others.

Winter Squash Soup, From Weight Watchers November 2010 magazine

2 16oz packages of peeled and cut up butternut squash

1 32 oz carton of vegetable broth

1 stalk celery, chopped.

Spices as desired- rosemary, garlic ?

Cook time 40 mins, Serves 8

If I were to develop my own Yama it would deal with the concept of committing oneself to engaging in what I would call ‘Complete Communication.’ Often, we do not fully communicate with others and it results in confusion, things being misunderstood, and people’s feelings getting hurt or disregarded. Openly explaining oneself to others is essential in fully conveying the meaning of a message you send to others. For example, if I gave a student a ‘bad grade’ or chastised them for doing something wrong, they would expect me to explain why. I cannot give a student a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ on a paper and then offer no comments or constructive criticism as to what they did wrong. Yet we do this so often with the people we communicate with. We give them our opinions on things but then fail to explain why we feel the way we do. Researchers estimate that 80 percent of our arguments with the individuals close to us are over a lack of communication. Take our yoga classes for example, if we failed to do something correctly, it would be most beneficial for us to know what we did wrong so we could correct it in the future. We would need that communication from others to know what it is we needed to work on. So for my own Yama, I would want everyone to engage in ‘complete communication’ with others. I believe it would result in less confusion and it would help others understand the full meaning behind the words we speak.

Focus would be the theme I would choose to develop or work on if I were to create my own Niyama. Too often our focus is on things that do not matter, things that cause us anxiety, or things that make us forget how good life really is. I also feel that people are more productive when they are focused. They do not waste the time they are given but instead put it to good use.

Correlating with the idea of focus, an extremely high percentage of children and adults today have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. I feel that rather than prescribing them medication there are other ways to work on improving focus – such as getting rid of so much television. The television use of young children has been correlated to attention deficit disorder in a number of research studies.  If we stop watching so much television our brains will not have to process the millions of images and signals it receives. We can better focus if we do not have so many distractions present in our lives.

For me, to improve my focus, I would commit to meditating every single day – even if for only 10 minutes. It would be a start. I would also commit to limiting my time around televisions and/or the internet as there are so many distracting elements to both of these.

The first Niyama is Sauca, Purity.  As we begin our lives developing our Root Chakra, so we must begin our path to enlightenment with Purity.  Many people think of purity within the constrains of the Western definition.

Purity is not simply simply a lack of contamination.  It is a knowledge of the contents, the origin and the karma of the item, or being you are dealing with.  A simple Tomato can be said to be “pure”, however, in today’s word we can not know that for sure.  Perhaps it was sprayed with pesticide?  Carried to market in a dirty truck?   Thich Nhat Hanh asks us to consider our food in full before each meal, not just the how, but also the where, and the when and by whom it was raised.  Perhaps that tomato was picked in a field by a child unable to go to school because of abject poverty.  In order to know if that tomato is pure we must know where it comes from, how it was grown, who raised it, and how it was transported.

Purity is difficult in our world today.  Food is more complicated.  Work is more complicated.  Our family structure is more complicated.  We must continue to work to simplify and moderate what we take in, so that we may detoxify our bodies and our minds.