by Ram Davies, Sivananda Yoga Centre I was lying in bed in an apartment in South Beach, Florida, reading Meditations and Mantras by Swami Vishnudevananda, when it dawned on me: I don’t enjoy where I am and what I’m doing. Straight away I put the book down and emailed a yoga teacher that I had trained with the previous year. I asked him if I could stay at the ashram for a four month period as part of the karma yoga program. I heard back from him the following day, quit my job, and booked a … [Read more...]
Search Results for: "karma yoga"
How to Maximize Your Potential as a Yoga Teacher
by Neal Ghoshal When I started teaching Yoga thirteen years ago I thought I'd be showing anybody who turned up to class a few Yoga postures and hopefully they'd enjoy themselves. Yet Yoga seems to have its own plans and it's own drive. Teaching Yoga has lead me on unexpected journeys and to unforeseen places. And it appears to be the same with many who come to Yoga - at first, we do not realise the power and the beauty of the practice to transform our lives. A few years down the line we … [Read more...]
How Yoga Kirtan Helped Me Find My True Voice and Share it With The World
By Premratna, Premratna Music If I try to imagine what the course of my life would have taken without yoga, I get an image of the movie Life of Pi: a small boat, huge swells, a tiger on board and a lot of fear. Yoga found me while I was doing my ‘big O.E.’; that phase of life where we are typically searching for adventure. I was no exception. In between hiking, skiing, singing and songwriting, I went to a yoga class at the gym in the Canadian Rockies where I was living and working. The … [Read more...]
Whereupon the Giant Flashes Back to Early Childhood and Wakes Up
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm on a 500hr Yoga Teacher Training with the Power Living Crew called Allow the Giant to Emerge. I'm triggered, massively, and have spent four days of mired deep in my shit. This Thursday evening I'm exhausted and I'm sitting in a Core Belief session with Keenan Crisp and Kristi Clark leading. (Which is really all about working with vasanas.) I'm sick of hearing about core beliefs, I'm sick of hearing about people's childhood memories, I'm even … [Read more...]
How Compassion Makes Yoga Relevant
by John Guthrie Sitting quietly, the dawn chorus yet to begin, I think of that one word, compassion. The image of a hermit in a cave somewhere comes to mind, and I reflect on this as the embodiment of compassion. Away from the world, yet radiating out the peace that arises from compassion, which has been birthed in the depth of their silence. A place that could just as well have its roots in suffering. There are those whose compassion has arisen from personal suffering. In the last … [Read more...]
Are We Drowning Under a Deluge of Perfect Yoga Images?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat As many of you know, Wanderlust is coming to New Zealand and Australia next year - first with one-day city-based events, and then in 2015 with the whole four day festival she-bang. I'm one yoga teacher who's been selected as a Wanderlust Wayfarer. Wayfarers are a network of teachers who spread the word about Wanderlust to their local communities. As part of my role, I had to send in my bio and a photo of me. Should be easy right? I'm all over the … [Read more...]
What if Non-Attachment is Merely a By-Product of Liberation?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm sitting at my computer listening to a great DJ mix on Soundcloud, doing my daily work for The Yoga Lunchbox. Formatting and editing articles, dealing with advertisers, answering emails, posting on social media. Underneath the surface, as I work, I'm aware of a shift in my energy. This shift happened a few weeks ago. Maybe a month. I'm not quite sure. Whatever it was that had been driving me incessantly to publish on the internet - ever since … [Read more...]
The Five Koshas Explained: How They Impact our Yoga Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant, Do enough research, and it seems we can find evidence that regular practice of yoga can positively impact everything from anxiety, depression, and panic attacks to thyroid conditions, sciatica and asthma. In fact, it could be said that yoga can positively impact anything that has to do with the functioning of our physical bodies, minds or emotions. How can this be possible? Surely yoga’s not a silver bullet? Well no, it’s not. However, yoga works to harmonise the body, mind … [Read more...]
Five Strategies for Starting & Maintaining Your Home Yoga Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant, author of Forty Days of Yoga If you'd rather watch a video than read an article, skip to the end of this article and you'll find a short video of me going over these same five points. These are simple and effective strategies for creating and maintaining your home yoga practice and it's the type of thing we explore in more depth in Forty Days of Yoga. None of these strategies are rocket science - it's all plain common sense, but these strategies can challenge underlying … [Read more...]
Exploring the Niyamas: How does Saucha affect our lives?
by Kara-Leah Grant Over two years ago I made a commitment to live out each yama in my life and write about the experience. That series Applying the Yamas to Daily Life has been cornerstone content for The Yoga Lunchbox and has also been published in Asana Journal. Now, at the prompting of my editor at Asana, I've embarked on the same mission for the Niyamas. Every few weeks, I'm picking one niyama and studying it plus observing how it shows up in my life. For those new to yoga, the … [Read more...]