If you have something to say...
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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Yoga wasn't always hot. There was a time when it was weird. "What the hell are you doing in here?" asked the librarian who had found me in the depths of the archives of the university library, where I had been alone practicing yoga.
Westerners have one day, Valentine's Day, dedicated to love. For the Bhaktas -- every day is Valentine's Day. Bhakti is the practice -- and it does take practice -- of unconditional love.
While it's important to realize that any exercise routine can create strain on joints and muscles, is the alternative -- sitting on a couch, eating chips and drinking beer -- a better solution?
Commercialization presents a mixed bag of opportunities and challenges to yoga as a discipline and cultural movement in the West. Although the benefits are substantial, the challenges present the risk of yoga becoming formulaic and commodified like so many other mature industries today.
When we have known great teachers and heeded their instructions, we are able to impart that wisdom to others.
My advice is that we consider yoga part of a healthy lifestyle. We need to breathe, stretch, be mindful of our bodies, reflect, meditate and perhaps pray.
We all expect that yoga will stretch your muscles, increase your flexibility and help you to relax and de-stress. But there have been a lot of Bikram yoga advocates who claim that it burns up to 1,000 calories per session. Can that be true?
Of course it's wonderful that anyone comes for exercise and leaves with a little spiritual stuff. The problem is that 90 percent of what's being called yoga in America has nothing to do with the original purpose of yoga.
When we embark on a spiritual practice there can be a tendency to make ourselves feel special for choosing a new path.
Yoga challenges us to see what's right about our bodies rather than what is wrong. It asks us to be happy with what is rather than what needs to be changed.
About a year plus a few months out from having back surgery, something shifted. And it shifted, primarily, in my head. I decided to fight my way back.
If you prefer a natural alternative to enhance your sexuality and spice things up, try yoga. Research reports that yoga can boost sexual satisfaction while benefiting overall health and well-being.
Pain is a natural process in the body. Suffering is self created. Once you stop suffering, you are suddenly free from what is happening to your body, and you are free from what is happening to the world.
Understanding the elusive Cinderella tissues offers an important glimpse into important, yet not widely known, aspects of bodily health and function. Here are four fascinating facts about fascia.
In the west, we think of yoga primarily as a form of exercise. Although physical postures make up one branch of this philosophy, yoga in general is so much more. The Sanskrit word "yoga" means to yoke, or to unite. The purpose of yoga is to experience the connection we have with the divine.
The whole point of yoga is to get us to release our egos. And yet, it appears that some of the young teachers have such inflated egos that I'm uncertain even yoga will remedy their afflictions in just one lifetime.
