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Making Your Practice an Offering to Yourself

This morning, when I was walking to work, a young mother stood on the sidewalk talking with a friend. Her daughter, who was perhaps a little over a year and new to walking, lit up with a huge smile when I came within range. She dropped her mother’s hand and ran over to me, holding out a flower petal. That her hand was slightly grubby and the petal crumpled only made it more adorable.

Nearly eleven hours later, as I get ready to leave the office and head up to Takoma to teach a restorative yoga class, I find myself recalling the offering, with such innocence and joy, of the flower petal.

What we want to do with our practice and teaching is to have it be, at least on one level, such a spontaneous, delighted, and innocent offering that any perceived obstructions or interference with a sense of grace (such as a long hard work-day and attendant fatigue) dissolve. We can melt into the knowledge that practicing and making offering is just the right thing to bring us back to our own fullness (purna).

What we choose as the particulars of the practice, of course, will be tempered by our physical and mental condition.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    By now, the news of scandal has become widespread on the internet.  The Huffington Post has put in its two cents in the way that modern journalism does–highlight the bad, forecast turmoil, and invite continued readership.  Put John Friend or Anusara scandal into your favorite search engine and you will get a couple of dozen blog entries about broken-hearted yoga teachers feeling they need to resign from the organization (though many say they will be teaching the method, just not articulating it as the brand, which confuses me somewhat).

    Last week, I chose to post only a guest blog on the District Kula website (since that posting, District Kula is no longer affiliated with Anusara).  Though I have much more information now than I did last week, I am still waiting to see.  I will be gradually revealing more of my thoughts here as things develop now that I believe that those far beyond the immediate (though large) community of practitioners are discussing the allegations and potential repercussions with intelligence and kindness or gleeful malice or somewhere in between.

    One thing I can say, is that I have always consistently separated the man from the message, and  I continue to believe in the soundness of the Anusara principles.  I also believe that the situation is emblematic of the uneasy, but inseparable relationship between spiritual practice and commercial enterprise in our current market-driven world.  While it is unfortunate and sad that it is in my chosen community, I am no stranger to upheaval and controversy in either workplaces or communities and there may have been no better time to have this discussion both within the community and as a broader societal matter.

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