By Cara Butler. Carlos does not shy away from challenging topics and in fact considers it a part of his yoga practice to stay engaged, educated and involved in societal and global issues. Even when it would be easier to turn inward and ignore the external chaos. This is one of the reasons I hold Carlos in such high regard. I have observed all too often in the yoga world that the teachings and practices are used by some to border on what I would call self-obsession. I … [Read more...]
The Gifts of Applying Ahimsa to Daily Life
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...]
The meanings we give to work
By guest author Brook McCarthy, 30 Steps I was your typical baby hippie. I grew my armpit hair, ate lentils, chanted Hari Krisna, and choose my university subjects by how I perceive they’d help with the old “meaning of life” conundrum. My late teens and early 20s were spent meditating, chanting, teaching yoga and travelling. I became a tour leader because I didn’t like having to return home in between travels to make more money to travel again. For two years, I took small groups … [Read more...]
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe – Which is better, Yoga or Pilates?
by guest author Jude Mahood, Suburban Yoga, Dunedin I recently heard someone describe Yoga/Pilates fusion (or Yogalates as it is often called) as the coming together of natural soul mates. I couldn’t agree more. But there are still many people out there who think that bringing Pilates principles into their Yoga is somehow tainting or contaminating. There is nothing wrong with being purist in our thinking, but it’s also important to maintain an open mind. When we close our minds, we … [Read more...]
I’m actually quite a spiritual guy. Oh really?
By Kara-Leah Grant Can we, like, ban the word spirituality already? And spiritual. Like, if someone says, I'm actually quite a spiritual guy, I just want to gag. What the hell does that mean anyway? What does spiritual and spirituality mean? I turned to that font of all modern knowledge to find out. Wikipedia. The term spirituality lacks a definitive definition, although social scientists have defined spirituality as the search for "the sacred," where "the sacred" is … [Read more...]
DVD Review: Bhakti – The Path of Love
Win your own copy of Swami Ji's Bhakti - The Path of Love. See the end of this article for details. I’ve always considered myself a bhakti yogini – 4 of my 5 tattoos are overt reminders to myself of my relationships with the Divine. Yet it wasn’t a topic covered by any of my trainings or workshops. Bhakti Yoga is one of the major paths of yoga, alongside Hatha Yoga, yet very little of this particular approach is shared in the West. So I was rightly chuffed to be assigned Swami … [Read more...]