Found Quotations
Similar Posts
A Moment of Gratitude and Compassion
A friend once said that when he heard sirens while he was meditating, he used it as a reminder to share the light of meditation. It is easy to think of roads blocked by emergency vehicles and blaring sirens as disruptions, inconveniences, and annoyances when they are coming for someone other than ourselves. I had a moment of thankfulness this morning that the minor problems are the kind of problems that I have. I was thankful, too, to live where if something bad happens, strangers come to the rescue. I offered healing light to the emergency workers and the person or persons to whom these workers were rushing.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Devotion (Bhakti)
Much is said about devotion in yoga, and there is a great privileging by many of the path of devotion — bhakti. With no clear answers, I contemplate often what it means to practice bhakti, to be devoted in a religious or spiritual sense. Witnessing those on pilgrimage when I was in India (it was “pilgrimage season”), I was flooded with memories and ideas for contemplation about what it means to be devoted and how people express devotion.
Among the thoughts and memories were having observed the operaphiles in their expensive clothes swoon and gasp and applaud at the Vienna Opera House on the opera level where I had paid a dollar for standing room; having been literally swept off of my feet in the press of the crowds heading to the tube at Wembley Stadium after seeing the Rolling Stones in concert; watching the people do the standing wave thing at ball games while hollering for their team as if their whole view of the world was dependent on who wins; having taken, standing room only, the third class train from Florence to Rome during Easter week (a different pilgrimage season), on asking who is that woman on the billboards, discovering that India, too, has a habit of electing movie stars to political office.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Asana?
Sometimes we need a respite in order to engage more fully. I explore the line between the desire to withdraw and the imperative for healthy respite.
