Lizzie for Free : a yogi's blog
The Free State of LizArchive for philosophy
Leading and being led
In life, we’re constantly invited to play in spaces existing at opposing ends of the spectrum. We are caregivers, decision makers and leaders of teams in some capacity, yet at the same time, we have all been looked after by others, have had to surrender to someone else’s choices and ‘go with the flow’. At one time or another, willing or not, we’ve all been led out of darkness.
Who has led you, and when what are the traits that has enabled you to let go of the reigns?
For me, the most inspiring leaders are those that celebrate the opportunities to be led themselves. It marks the sign of great self-confidence to let go and entrust another being with your time, whether it be for a staff meeting, a yoga class, or taking the hand of a young child wanting to lead you to the next activity.
I remember a time years ago when I fell into a position managing a large group, many of whom were older than I and fearful of losing their jobs. It was difficult for me to lead that group, and I’m sure it showed. Every day I woke up pretending; pretending to know where I was ‘leading’ the team, pretending to know how to engage the group and build enthusiasm about learning to work differently, pretending to have answers for my superiors about who and how to downsize. I wasn’t a very good leader, in part because I wasn’t prepared to be led by the group, and because I didn’t take the first step, there was no mutual trust.
As a yoga teacher, sometimes I’m in the role of a leader. During this time I observe people in the class, some of whom have a difficult time letting go and being led. I give vocal instruction to come into an asana, and inevitably certain students decide not to follow my lead, preferring to do the posture a different way, or doing something else altogether. As a yoga student myself, I understand that sometimes injury and life circumstance take us on a detour from the led class. Sometimes, however, we deter from the teacher or the group because the mind overtakes us, reminding us about things like: how our other, favorite yoga teacher teaches the pose, deciding to do it that way; or reminding us that we are professionals at urdhva dhanurasana (wheel pose) so there is no need to go through the process to better align the arms and feet to stabilise the shoulders and hips; or reminding us that we did a perfect headstand last week so there is no problem in tuning the teacher’s instruction out and just jumping up into it. The point is, there are an infinite number of ways to practice and teach yoga. David Life once said, “when you go to a yoga class, throw away anything another teacher may have taught you in the past. For those 90 minutes, give the teacher leading the class your attention and trust, and allow yourself to be led.” This has stuck with me, not just in yoga class, but in life.
We are all dynamically moving between states of leading aspects of our lives and being led in others. When we are able to acknowledge this and let go of the need to dominate or control certain elements, the flow of life is steady and vibrant. People will be more inspiring to follow, and as a result, we are be more aspirational in our own lives.
“Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.”
― Oswald Chambers
From Whistler with Love.
Live your truth. Live Epic. Get Real. Inspire others to Greatness. This is a small taste of the language used and the air breathed by the gathering of athletes and yogis, lululemon employees and special friends (aka ambassadors) alike over the past three days at the Ambassador Summit in Whistler, BC.
What’s impressive about this is that neither the language nor the mentality started or stopped with the summit. The bedrock of lululemon athletica, founded by a small group of like-minded individuals and led by Chip Wilson (it turns out they were all neighbours!), is based on harnessing passion through bravery, truth-telling, honesty, and much more.
Prior to showing up for the summit, I was asked by colleagues and friends about my involvement with the brand, often with a critical eye. I didn’t have many answers; my relationship as a new ambassador in London, England as part of opening up the showroom in Chelsea was vague, and my knowledge about the driving force behind the company and its corporate governance report card limited.
One thing was clear. From the start of my relationship there was certainly a positive vibe from everyone I came into contact with at lululemon, and with every interaction I had more and more confidence it was genuine. When I arrived at the Vancouver headquarters, it was no different. I was overwhelmed with the authentic kindness stemming from each person within the organization (in honesty, Vancouver is an exceptionally friendly place). Then, there were the many different ways the ‘corporation’ expressed its gratitude towards the employees, including through transparent communication, exceptional leadership, resources and support for personal and professional development, and the offering of a beautiful yoga and fitness practice space and free classes throughout the week. My breakthrough moment though, was in seeing and hearing the dedication from the executive members — to the ambassadors, staff, community, product producers and larger community, the world we live in — to create change and greatness. This included experiencing the full participation at the summit of the CEO, CFO, VP of branding and head of the design team. The familial interactions between everyone on an individual level was truly endearing.
After a couple of days, I don’t have all the answers as to what makes this company great, but I know truth from fiction. lululemon is not like *any* other company. The people are genuine, inspiring, down to earth, and at the same time, aspirational. They don’t perceive themselves as a company, but a group of people fit to change the world, and this includes paving the way in corporate governance from design to final product in an international production line. At the end of the day, people and relationships are what matter, and lululemon certainly takes this to heart.
Jivamukti focus of the month, May 2012:Renaissance
Vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya navani grhnati naro parani
tatha sharirani vihaya jirnany anyani samyati navani dehi
Just as a man, having cast off old garments, puts on other, new ones,
even so does the embodied one, having cast off old bodies, take on other, new ones.
-The Bhagavad Gita, Chap. 2, verse 22
We are born again in each breath that we take and every step we make. The idea of being reborn, or born-again, signifies a rebirth or revival. For the yogi, the breath indicates that life exists, and each new breath is a new living moment. The choice we have is to consciously partake of the construction of our reality or to remain the victim of fate (really unconsciousness). The one who strives to be reborn consciously into life is the jivanmukta. When our life is consciously re-vivified, it has been reconnected to its source and nourishment. When we trade in a love-less life for a love-created life, we are reborn. Our sense of purpose and our core values are re-ignited. Re-incarnation is another word that refers to this continuous process-lifetime after lifetime.
In the Yoga Sutra, Master Patanjali tells us that the substrate of existence contains all possible characteristics whether latent, active or future. Through yoga practices, we can gain access to this substrate of existence and bring forth our greatest vision. When we create variation in causes, they become changes in the results. Yoga practices get to the root causes for unhappiness. When we create change on a causal level-for example, the purification of intention or the removal of fear or ignorance-the results of those changes will be felt automatically in our lives. Knowledge of past, present and future is the result of samyama-perfect balance, perfect equilibrium of mind-on the three kinds of transformation that lead to enlightenment (nirodha, samadhi and ekagrata-parinama; see PYS Chap. III, sutras 9, 11, 12, 16). By observing past impressions (samskaras), knowledge of previous incarnations is obtained (PYS III.18). Samskaras are evident in the difficulties we encounter in yoga practices from unconscious breathing and movement to a fragmented mind. Knowledge of your own death may be obtained through samyama on the two types of karma-active and latent-in shavasana. The goal for the yogi is to be freed from the cycle of rebirth and samsara, the coming and going. It is only through understanding how the cycle of rebirth continues that we can overcome it. This goal is achieved through the disassociation from the movements of chittam (the mind stuff).
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
And all the King’s horses,
And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Religare, the Latin root of the English word “religion,” like the Sanskrit wordhatha, means “to bind up,” and the traditional task of religion and yoga has been to bind up the pieces that have broken away from the ecstatic Oneness of Being-to heal the separation and be reborn whole and complete.
-David Life
Focus of the Month Teaching Tips
Renaissance (May, 2012)
…started writing a book on Renaissance individuals, but discovered in the end
that there are no individuals.
-Renaissance Self-fashioning, Stephan Greenblatt
Some of the writing of the Italian Renaissance may be interesting especially in relationship to the city state as a reflection of the individual-collecting the parts together to make a whole.
Of course the sutras that address the transcendence of time (all the siddhis) allow us to incorporate our particular birth into the context of a larger coming and going. Emphasis of vinyasa would provide the platform for the witness consciousness in asana practice, and in life itself.
The key to this skill is to witness yoga practice and your life as process- notobject. We can tend to view ourselves as a fixed and vulnerable object that all the monsters of the universe try to destroy rather than as a flowing confluence of cosmic energies that flow around and through time and space. As well, the asanas and other practices can become “things we do” rather than tools for enlightenment. As we flow through all the forms of an asana practice with an unchanging breath we can witness the shifting of shapes at the same time with the continuity of spirit.
As a person’s desire is, so is their destiny. For as their desire is, so is their will; and as their will is, so is their deed; and as their deed is, so is their reward, whether good or bad. A person acts according to the desires to which they cling. After death they go to the next world bearing in their mind the subtle impressions of their deeds; and, after reaping there the harvest of his deeds, they return again to this world of action. Those who have desires continue subject to rebirth.
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
Ye must be born again.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
-Bible, John, 3:5-6,14
It is said that the thought we have on our mind at the moment of death will propel us into the next birth. The key to an evolutionary transition is consciousness in the moment of transition and fixing of the mind and being on the single-pointed goal of perfection. Using mantra during meditation can help to train the mind to the ekagraha- single pointed focus.
For most of us, death is the trouble, not rebirth. In breath-work the emphasis on exhale (Kapalabhati) and exhale retention (Bahya Kumhhaka) prepare us for the last breath we take. Purifying thoughts when we experience the absence of breath prepares us to make a conscious transition to a new body. But also, attention should be called to the first in-breath after retention, experiencing it as new, original, unlike anything you have experienced before. In fact, our attention upon each new breath as a rebirth, is both a revelation and a tool for realizing the passage of the life force from moment to moment. When we can welcome the newness of each breath with wonder rather than guardedness and fear, we can overcome the fear of death of the body. When we accept change as the rule, rather than the exception, we welcome change and exercise our ability to manifest change. The ability to manifest change is called siddhi.
Savasana has obvious benefits. It is a small death and rebirth, and preparation for the actual death of the body and rebirth to the next life. The worst thing that a person can experience is death as confusion and panic. This leads to unconscious transition and unfortunate rebirth. (See Prof. R. Thurman’s translation of Tibetan Book of the Dead.) Practicing our physical death and rebirth each day of our lives helps us to place an authentic value on a life lived, and fearlessness in the face of new possibilities of a new day.
When Joining Separates
At one point or another, we have all joined a bank, a company, a political party or a book club. Lets face it, subscribing to an organisation is almost a necessity in today’s world in order to function. While I’ve never been an much of a ‘joiner’, I have affiliated myself with groups and schools in the past and still do to some extent today. I love connecting to people who share passions, and savour opportunities to bring people together to make new connections, but in truth, there is something about an organization that leaves me feeling a little funny inside. Perhaps it’s the wearing of a label (though we all do wear various ‘tags’), the superficial fencing in of certain people versus other, the exclusivity, or the various forms of side agenda that may be more or less present depending on the organization. And then there are the politics. One of my dear friends and graduate professors once told me, “only hang out with, only work with people that celebrate you, that bring out your best and make you want to be even better.” If there was an organization that bottled that without all the additives, I’m pretty sure we’d all want to sign up.
Yoga, the state of ‘yoking’ or ‘union’, is the confluence of two things; when two things merge into one. This can happen when the small, individual self merges with the understanding of the universal, collective consciousness; when day becomes night, when the in breath becomes the outbreath, when the state of living transitions into the state of dying. Sometimes, when people seek a connection to others, they ‘join’. There are many things to join: gyms, book clubs, a yoga method or studio, a religion, you name it. But in the most traditional, purest sense of yoga, it’s not something you can ‘join’, rather, it’s something magical you can experience. Present day yoga, however, involving methods, expensive teacher trainings, dogma and heavily marketed yoga studios (not to mention yoga teachers ‘branding’ themselves) creates the potential for division when the original intention implicit in the word was union.
At a pinnacle time in my life, I remember being a philosophy student searching for meaning in the world. I enthusiastically studied the eastern religions, eager to discuss the similarities and differences, the things that resonated for me and the things that didn’t. Without knowing any better, I was “shopping” around for purpose. One day, my professor looked at me and said, “Lizzie, a religion doesn’t have to be something you adhere to or join. You can apply the principles of any religion to your own life and create something meaningful in your life that is all your own- your set of beliefs.” An idea so simple, yet so profound, as been what has shaped my ideas of the world, organised religions, and my yoga practice.
Yoga methods, school, teachers and studios are important and useful in providing insights about one’s individual path to experience yoga. However, if the student doesn’t know to ask questions, or isn’t aware not to take everything at face value, we may be in jeopardy in becoming isolated and separate in a world of others seeking comfort in their insecurity and ignorance by sticking together under a label. This unstable state of being forms cliques and supports ideas that one style, teacher, place, clothing is better than another. It is avidya at is finest hour. The aspirant in this state is a wonderful disciple, but separated from a much richer, more authentic path of union. Inquisition, the right to hold beliefs that are different from the group even while being a member, having a mind and a voice to speak out and up about ones own beliefs are such an important part of self expansion, creativity, and ultimate joy and freedom. Find the place where all these aspects of yourself can be celebrated and augmented, and never be afraid to go against the grain to question what is being taught and to try something new.
Caveat: I am a certified Jivamukti yoga teacher, a method that melds several types of yoga together on a backdrop of asana practice. I am proud of this lineage, I believe my teachers from this method to be two of the world’s talented, creative and generous teachers who have devised one the most thorough, well-balanced yoga teacher training programs available in the world today. However, I don’t subscribe to the idea of a ‘tribe’ within any one yoga school of yoga, nor do I consider myself a member of a specific yoga group. In fact, much of the desire to write a post such as this has been propelled by what I’ve witnessed within the constructs of organised yoga. As in any school of yoga, not all Jivamukti teachers are good, honest or compassionate teachers, and I don’t stand behind everything my teachers have ever said or done in the interest of yoga. They are human beings, and don’t profess themselves to be ‘gurus’. While I have been so blessed to find a handful of gracious, honest and down to earth teachers, the most valuable aspect of my yoga path has been enriched outside the doors of any one studio by the teachings of many, yoga teachers and non-teachers alike.
Customise your ride: practice safe, practice smart
how to strengthen your practice in any yoga class
In the midst of the yoga backlash of articles that mention the many ways yoga can harm your body, one of the key elements of the practice seems to be overlooked. Yoga is ultimately about empowerment and self-responsibility. Being with yourself on your mat, not concerned with the person next to you or what the teacher may be pushing you to ‘do’ with your body, is a big challenge for the ego, but an endeavor with large rewards. The truth is, only you know what is safe and available for your body on any given day, so developing skillful listening, listening to your breath, to your inner teacher, is essential to a safe practice.
This workshop will be challenging for any practitioner, perhaps physically, perhaps mentally, as we look at the role of habit patterns and the ego . We will deconstruct postures into their building block components to ensure that any class you go to is a chance to feel energized, positive and well balanced.
Investigation of standing postures, twists, balances, backbends and inversions will ensure that whatever practice space or class level you may find yourself in, you not only survive, but thrive.
3 hrs, 30£, early bird special price until 1 week before workshop.
April 1, 1-4pm
www.indabayoga.com
20 Instructions for Life by The Dalai Lama
1.Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
- Respect for self,
- Respect for others and
- Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and
think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
20. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
Published January 3, 2012 at 2:20 PM
Present and Embodied
Daily life in a big city can sometimes feel somewhere between a race, a juggling act and balancing on a high wire. The cacophony of sounds, smells, and visual stimulation can mean that the moment the mind kicks into gear, the body does its best to keep up, and this doesn’t allow for time to connect with the sensations in the body as we move through our daily life. As a result it can feel like the ground has been pulled out from under us – unstable, disconnected or just plain unaware of the relationship we have with our bodes throughout the day. As a result, the breath can become shallow, our posture held by tension, our physical actions on auto-pilot. Its no wonder that we live without a presence in the body, the mind holds so much tension there that it makes it an unpleasant place to be. But what does it mean, to not be present in the body?
When we find ourselves disassociated from the sensations in the body, unaware of the earth beneath us and the sounds, smells (and moving vehicles headers straight for us), we are not embodying the human experience.
What does it mean to be present and living in the body; to embody the human experience?
To Embody:(v)
To be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality, or feeling).
Provide (a spirit) with a physical form.
Synonyms: incarnate – personify – incorporate
We are organic, sentient beings with a great capacity to express joy and a matrix of other emotions. These emotions are then organised and critiqued by our minds that, when not controlled, can trump the senses, spiralling us out of our bodies and into another dimension; one where we miss all the clues that the universe offers us in connecting into ourselves. Whether we feel our heart racing due to fear, or peaceful and grounded in body and mind, if we don’t know how we feel in our body, we are more likely to injure ourselves in mindless ways. What is more detrimental is the potential for build up of emotional blockages in the body that manifest as physical stress patterns, in some cases even leading to disease.
Asana is a wonderful time to check in with oneself, in mind and in body. Rather than letting the mind wander during surya namaskar or picking at old nail polish in paschimottanasana, instead focusing on the sensations in the body, it becomes possible to explore how the body and mind interact. How does standing on one leg feel, and what happens to your thoughts when you fall, or master the posture? Sitting with bent knees, with feet open and hugging the hips do you feel open and joyous, or frustrated and stiff? Does standing on your hands make your heart race, or do your legs feel like lead? Asana practice holds so many important clues about what is happening emotionally if we are open to listening in.
Asana practice is not intended to injure the body, yet so many people end up pushing themselves beyond their boundaries because they aren’t living in the body. Instead, their minds govern how far they will push themselves for achievement, and often this ends in physical injury. These injuries can take months, sometimes years to heal.
Shtira Sukham Asanam, from book ii number 46 of the yoga sutras suggests that we should be stable and grounded, at ease in our seat. Our seat is ultimately our body, our mind, our relationships with ourselves and all of animate life. In a city, we can learn to stay present by checking in with our selves in the midst of the sensory experiences all around. How we feel in our bodies and our minds enables us to live more consciously with all other animate life forms, to connect with our emotions while settling the mind. We can embody a seat of stability and ease- all we have to do is slow the mind and be present, to take the time to bring ourselves back into our body.
Contentment…but not in our practice?
Today I got am email from my friend Norman in response to my post about my learnings from the 30 Day Yoga Challenge.
I wrote:
The word in sanskrit for contentment, or satisfaction is santosha. One of the niyamas, santosha is about being satisfied with things exactly as they are; not requiring any more or any less, instead, maintaining that everything is exactly as it should be… It’s so easy to find fault in ourselves and others, and often much more challenging to accept wholeheartedly what is. This is true whether contemplating the asana practice, assessing how well one has done one’s job, accepting the opportunities available at any given time, or one’s limitations. We are all doing the best we can given our current life situations, and, try as we may, it is impossible and debilitating to compare ourselves to anyone else. We are all unique.
To which he responded:
I’ve recently read ‘Sivananda Buried Yoga’ where the author – Yogi Mammoyanand – says this: “Contentment is a virtue when it is applied to material greed. The niyama of contentment does not actually apply to the spiritual desires of the aspirant. To ascend in the realms of spirituality, contentment is only a hindrance. A yogi should always remind himself “neti-neti” (this is not yet it, this is not yet it)’”.
While I haven’t yet read Sivananda Buried Yoga (though did just purchase it on Amazon, so expect a review soon), I can’t help but imagine that contentment on the mat and from a spiritual perspective would be a effective tool to stay in an uplifted, present state of mind – a state of needing nothing.
In my own practice I have certainly benefitted from the reminder that going deeper into an asana won’t necessarily make me a happier, more blissful being. The concept of santosha has also aided me tremendously in unconditional self-acceptance. That is not to say that I’ve become complacent, it’s just to say that in a culture so rife with expectation, self-critique and judgement, the idea that we can embrace fully who we are, and how we practice on and off the mat is refreshing and beneficial to many.
Perhaps being content with things as they are slows down or even grinds to a halt svadyaya the fourth of the niyamas, meaning self-reflection or self study. It may even present an obstacle to the practice of faith and devotion, the fifth niyama, ishwara pranidhanad. My interpretation, however, is that
because santosha supersedes svadyaya and ishwara pranidhanad in the list of niyamas, it is given that santosha is present when practicing both self-study and devotional faith, much the same way that ahimsa (non-harming) is present when practicing satya (truthfulness). Is it
Just a case of semantics, or is the spiritual practice of yoga meant to keep one in a state of non-attainment (Neti, Neti). Or perhaps non-attainment is the true state of santosha- ruling out all conscious observation and still being content. What is your interpretation?
Jivamukti Yoga Focus of the Month: February: Comfort in the City
Sthira sukham asanam PYS II.46
The connection to the Earth should be steady and joyful
Connection implies a relationship; Earth includes all of manifestation-all other beings and things; steady means consistent; and where there is joy there is a feeling of ease and comfort. Most people aren’t comfortable in their bodies, with their feelings, in their jobs, in their relationships or with the other people and situations they encounter daily. The cause of this discomfort lies in how uncomfortable we make the lives of others. Since we all would like to be more comfortable, more at ease with ourselves and others, it might be helpful to look into practical ways that we could bring more comfort into the lives of others and in turn benefit our own lives.
To the yogi comfort does not mean seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Whatever we want for ourselves we can have if we are willing to provide it for others first. No lasting happiness can be had for ourselves by depriving others of happiness. So if we want to be comfortable then we should do our best to provide comfort for others. As we reach out to comfort others we discover the universal shared sources of lasting comfort, and we dispel the illusion that shortsighted self-centered pleasure will result in lasting comfort for ourselves or others.
Often when we experience pleasure it is fleeting, because instead of enjoying the moment we become worried about when it will end. When we find ourselves in a painful situation we try to get out of it. But comfort is available to anyone at anytime-it can be found in the midst of pleasure or pain-if one is willing to look deeply into things. The yogic concept of comfort is that ease comes from an inner condition, untainted by outer circumstances. We could call it portable comfort-because you can take it wherever you go! The familiar example is the yogi lying on a bed of nails-in utmost comfort. How does he do it? What’s the trick? No trick, unless you call magic a trick. But magic is just a shift in perception. Yogic practices are magical practices designed to help you to be able to shift your perception of yourself and others in any given moment under any circumstance and in any situation.
The enlightened yogi doesn’t view the world as coming “at them” and they never see themselves as a victim of circumstance or being victimized by others. An enlightened yogi is comfortable with all beings, in all situations and under all circumstances. In order to begin to acquire these types of skills a necessary first step is to develop compassion, for truly the best way to uplift our own lives is to do all we can to uplift the lives of others. Yoga practices provide us with practical ways to expand our perception and try to see the world through the eyes of others, touch the Earth with their claws, or hooves or roots, and understand how we could, through simple acts of kindness create a more comfortable city for ourselves and others.
I have lived in New York City’s lower East side near Tompkins Square Park since 1983. I remember when I moved from Seattle, Washington to New York City-New York City was not what I had imagined it to be. I think my ideas had been influenced by movies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s-so it was a big surprise to me when walking home one day to see police on horseback galloping down Avenue B, which was a dirt road at the time, in hot pursuit of someone, who would then detour into the park and be lost in the tent and cardboard village which had colonized it-covering most of the green lawn space. I forget exactly when it happened, but sometime during the 1980s riots broke out in the park, which resulted in the city removing all of the makeshift housing and closing it.
One day as I was leaving my building a film crew from some network news show stopped me on the street to interview me. “How do you feel about what the Mayor has done-closing the park? Are you outraged that as a citizen your only access to nature as been denied?” My reply was not what they had expected. I said, “I am glad the park is closed. Look at it: anyone can see that the park is happier-the trees are fuller and look more at ease and the birds and squirrels you can bet are relieved that they don’t have to deal with all of us people day in and day out. I think that there should be places in densely populated urban areas like New York City which are off-limits to human beings and are kept as wild places for our fellow inhabitants of the city-the many birds and small mammals and of course the trees, bushes and flowering plants.” We tie up our dogs, keep birds in cages, poison foxes and shoot bears in New Jersey-why is it that we human beings think that only we have the right to roam free? We make life very uncomfortable and miserable for monkeys, rats and cats in laboratories, and cows, goats, chickens and pigs on farms. We rationalize our exploitation and cruelty toward animals as a necessary evil, the terrible price that must be paid to ensure human health, happiness and comfort. And yet we are still self-centeredly complaining about not being rich, happy or comfortable enough.
Perhaps we could start taking responsibility for the suffering around us and see that we actually do have the power to bring more happiness, joy and comfort into the world for ourselves and others. In whatever circumstance, wherever we live, the secret to our own comfort is to be kind to others and do what we can to make them more comfortable; then our own comfort will be ensured.
-Sharon Gannon
Take your yoga practice off the mat and into the world by providing more comfort for others. Here are a few ideas:
. Veganism. Eating a vegan diet is undoubtedly the most powerful way that we as human beings can contribute to creating a kinder and more comfortable world for ourselves, other animals and the planet.
. Animal Rights. Respect non-human animals as fellow Earthlings, not as a lower life form existing to be enslaved and exploited by us. Don’t perceive animals as exploitable. Extend rights to all animals by not participating or supporting any type of animal exploitation, be it for food, clothing, research or entertainment.
. Provide fresh water for feral cats and other wild animals-put a pan of clean water on your balcony or fire escape or on the sidewalk next to the stairs of your building or in a park or vacant lot nearby your house.
. Feed a colony of feral cats and alert a local TNR (trap neuter release) organization that will help these cats. You may even want to take a training from them to learn how to provide a more comfortable life for a feral city cat. Trap Neuter Release programs are humane, effective solutions to outdoor cat overpopulation. TNR involves spaying and neutering feral cats, returning them to their territory and providing for their long-term care with shelter and food. Urban Cats (www.urbancatleague.org) and Neighborhood Cats (www.neighborhoodcats.com) are two such organizations based in New York City that can provide information and education to anyone (world-wide) who is interested.
. Walking dogs-your own, or take one lucky dog out of a shelter for a 20 minute walk-this is certainly a way to uplift someone’s life.
. Fresh air for cats. If you have a cat, take him or her to the park for an afternoon to enjoy the sights and sounds and to soak up some vitamin D. Put her in a carrying case. The first time you try this, be prepared: she will probably be scared-keep her in the case. Eventually she will become accustomed to this outing-then taking baby steps you can put a halter on her and allow her to come out of the case and walk around. Most cats in NYC never are able to touch their feet upon the ground and never are able to experience being in fresh air and sunlight.
. Provide nutritious food for pets. Don’t feed your cat or dog commercial pet food-prepare their meals yourself using a variety of nutritious and organic fresh foods.
. No more zoos! Living in a cage is no life! Boycott zoos and all places where animals are kept captive to provide entertainment for human beings.
. Free the fish. No more fish bowls/aquariums. Envision a free world, see a world where there is no SeaWorld!
. Plant trees, bushes and flowers. Devote space in community gardens to grow food for wild animals-like plant fruit trees or berry bushes or flowers for insects and birds.
. Feed the birds. Perform random acts of kindness, like: always carrying some bird seed or a few walnuts in your pocket-so when you leave your apartment on your way to where you are going you can surprise the hungry birds and squirrels you pass, who are for the most part ignored by most human beings, by giving them a surprise meal.
. Save the birds. Glass windows can be dangerous for birds. Make them safer with decals, dot patterns, nets or opaque covers and put pressure on architects to design safer building for birds. An estimated 90,000 migrating birds crash into glass windows in NYC every year. Crashing into glass windows is the second leading cause of death to birds next to habitant loss-with US casualties, alone up to one billion deaths a year.
. Leave some places off limits to human beings: encourage your city planners to make natural areas or section of existing parks inaccessible to human beings.
. Limit the human population. Stop having so many children! There are 7 billion human beings on the planet now and this number is increasing by the minute. At this rate of growth the planet will not be able to provide enough basic resources and a comfortable life for anyone. As the human population increases the Earth’s diversity of species decreases at an alarming rate.
