By guest author Mike Kuplevatsky The fundamental nature of happiness and our relationship between our inner world and the external world most often intertwine. Without realizing it, our happiness is often governed by the external world. For example, if someone frowns at us, honks a horn at us, calls us crazy, disagrees with with some of our viewpoints or thinks badly of us, our happiness most often instantly becomes interrupted. That can play out into violence towards ourselves or to … [Read more...]
Hope for the world – Swami Muktidharma speaks
by Kara-Leah Grant The last time we had Swami Muktidharma on YLB, he shared the story of dreaming about his guru before meeting him. To our western minds, it sounds magical and mystical. But in the world of yoga, and yogis, it's commonplace. Yoga deals with many different layers of reality, and indeed, is a way of seeing clearly what reality actually is, beyond our limited sense of the material world. It's that ability to see deeper, and wider, that makes sitting in the presence of Swamis … [Read more...]
Reflections on hope, inspired by a poetry competition
by guest author Alys Titchener I didn’t win. I kind of knew that already when they didn’t phone that day. I waited till the next day, thinking maybe; just maybe they were being disorganized, over worked, or one of those students is filling in and doesn’t really care to follow up. See, there was a little bit of hope left over. It was still possible that I could have won that poetry competition. The day before, I spoke with conviction to my flatmates; it doesn’t matter if I win or not. … [Read more...]