Keep Mysore Safe For Women!

Please please support this...  Petition by Anuradha Ganesh Mysore, India     I just signed the petition "Mysore Police Commissioner: Gokulam Women Say Hands OFF! Help us end molestation/harassment of women." on Change.org. It's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link: http://www.change.org/petitions/mysore-police-commissioner-gokulam-women-say-hands-off-help-us-end-molestation-harassment-of-women Gokulam is a popular destination for yoga students from abroad who study at the various yoga shalas in the area. If the harassment and molestation of the women in the area during all hours of the day continues, the environment will become even more unsafe for women, fewer people will to come to Gokulam and India, and the reputation of the country and its culture will be damaged. "Ladies are attacked by men on scooters, groped, slapped in the face, and pushed about, and exhibitionists jerk off in front of them. A yoga student was nearly raped on her way to the 4:30 yoga class one morning. The neighbors rescued her at the last minute." These despicable event are most frequent during the busy seasons of October to March, every single year. Visiting a foreign country to practice yoga in a beautiful neighborhood such as Gokulam, only to come face-to-face such violence is shocking, frightening, and traumatic for both foreigner yoga students and local female residents. It is just wrong. We are continuing to do what we can on our end to make the environment safer, including: (1) raising awareness within the community about the risks to walking around alone or even with someone, (2) holding discussions with the yoga community on culture-sensitive behavior and attire, (3) promoting self-defense tactics, and (4) communicating with the yoga schools to change class timings and to provide other safety-promoting services to students. Please help us by increasing police patrol of the area to end this unacceptable criminal behavior and abuse, and to make Gokulam safe for ALL women.

Anatomy of the Spirit

It is fitting that I read this book by Carolyn Myss as I recover from this flu-like illness, one of the worse bouts I've had in a while. It is uncanny sometimes, that we know exactly what ails us or causes us sickness, and yet we find the road to healing so difficult to begin, or even to continue.

I now know, halfway or so in this life journey, that there are no shortcuts to solving our Rubik's cube selves. Our organs, chakras, mental and emotional issues, spiritual and personal beliefs, physical strengths and dysfunctions are interrelated, part of our whole. This is one of many books that illustrate the connections, written in a way that is accessible from many view points.

At the end of each chapter (chakra), there are questions for self-examination that require a few moments of silent introspection (It took me a long time to finish this book!).

The book is helpful whether the reference point is the Chakra system, Sacraments or Sefirot.

I will end with the "seven sacred truths of the body and spirit:

1. All is One
2. Honor One Another
3. Honor Oneself
4. Love is Divine Power
5. Surrender Personal Will to Divine Will
6. Seek Only The Truth
7. Live in the Present Moment"

As One We Can

Today marks the 52nd anniversary of our Foundation. Today, we released a campaign I truly love - our new tagline, my aspiration from Day 1 at the Foundation and years prior, outside of it.

As I reflect on the past four months in this role, on where my work and prayers have taken me, on the practice that has merged my many versions, on my core beliefs, I am brought to this very day.

I love this tagline, this mantra, because I believe this on every level - we are all One.

Each moment brings us only two options - to remember to be one with each other or to choose to be apart. All results and consequences arise from this. If one believes in a Supreme Being, one can then say we either remember we are one with God or apart from God.

I believe we hope always to be yoked, to be in union. Our quest to be united, to practice Yoga, to commune with nature, to receive communion, to belong, to do good work together, to create communities. This speaks of our innate Oneness. If only it were that easy. Everyday is a practice.

With all the changes we go through at the littlest vibration, at a cellular level, to the functions and dysfunctions of our journey together, it is easy to forget the Truth that we know. I think, ultimately, we will all arrive at the Truth.

We also know there is work to be done. Our many roles reverberate in our being. We move along with devotion and discipline. There is so much to be done that requires relentless love, tireless outpouring. Alone, we cannot be sustained. But As One... one with our Source, our God; one within, with one another regardless of our imagined differences, we are sustained and we sustain each other.

As One We Can.

Yzzy's heart

In rainbow colors, chakra colors.

My daughter's beautiful heart reminds me, humbles me.

Created in Moleskine Journal

Fascinated. Fascination.

What was it they said? Dance like no one is watching... To those who watch, there is that Fascination.

I've always thought beauty...

I've always thought beauty to be a precarious thing. One misplaced stroke, even the lightest of lines can alter. It is not of youth. I believe there is a glow that comes only with age. Nor is it of beastliness. Sometimes, there is none in form more beauty-blessed. But beauty is a precarious thing based on absolute sight.

Oh but now I speak of Absolute. That is another thing altogether.

(Taken one fine afternoon at Brittany Bay very near the home of my childhood)