Greetings!

Easter always seems to show up at the most appropriate time to remind us that renewal is a constant in this world of ours. Life self-perpetuates through endless perfection. In The Luminous Gospel, Mary Magdalene noted that, when Jesus was asked if matter would survive or not, the Savior answered: “All of nature with its forms and creatures exist together and are interwoven with each other. They will be resolved back, however, to their own proper origin, for the compositions of matter return to the original roots of their nature.” It is through this eternal truth that we may find solace and courage to move forward in our lives, knowing that who we are and what we are contributing to the world counts on some very deep level, for there is no end to us.

We are the epitome of infinite possibilities inspired and buoyed by the essential essence of Love. Love is the fuel that perpetuates life. It is your heart. You are your heart. Open your heart. Lead your life from the heart. All else will take care of itself through the foundation of Love.

All Love,

For you must realize that earth unfolds its properties and powers in union with Heaven aloft above us, and there is one Heart, one Being, one Will, one God, all in all.  — Jacob Boehme

Greetings and Salutations!

It is always refreshing to enter into February knowing that focus is drawn toward the subject of Love. Perhaps the time has come for us to become more adept at anchoring our hearts and minds on love perpetually, never needing a reminder from the outside world. It is my heartfelt belief that we—all of us—have been created through the essence of pure love, that we shall return to love and that love is, in so many words, all there is. Why not celebrate it every day, in every living thing, in every moment? If we all agreed to do this, everything on the planet would instantly change, for there cannot be negativity where love resides.

Being a child of the sixties, I grew up believing that “all you need is love, love, love is all you need.” (The Beatles) That ideal was not easy to personally realize until I finally came to understand that love is not something that comes to you from the outside. Rather, love is something that, when you discover its ever-Presence within your own heart, everything changes, permanently. You become free, empowered, clear, courageous, joyous and filled with deep peace and calm. You begin to open your heart and allow everything to flow through you with non-attachment, respect and wonder. You begin to live more and more honestly in the present moment without dragging the past along with you, nor do you spend precious energy on false pretense of the unknown future. You let go of false expectations of what others should or should not do to secure your happiness in the world and discover that your happiness depends only upon you, no one else. You truly become one with all that is and anchor your life in your center. Life is sweet and gets sweeter every day.

Just go into love. Not wishing it would come to you from someone else, but discovering the ever-Presence that is your birthright through the Divine essence that resides in the center of your exquisite, magnificent heart.

Happy February to you and yours,

To see the universal and all pervading Spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of all creation as oneself. —Mahatma Gandhi

Greetings and Salutations!

Let us welcome 2015 with open hearts as it presents itself to us with infinite possibilities anchored in Love, Service, Meditation and Realization. As a community, we have been inspired to focus this New Year on upeksha, meaning, in some translations, indifference, but for our practical understanding and ongoing practice we shall embrace the translation of upeksha as equanimity.

Equanimity, according to Wikipedia, is “a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of, or exposure to, emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause one to lose the balance of their mind.” Patanjali wrote in the Yoga Sutras (1:33): By cultivating attitudes of friendliness (maitri) toward the happy, compassion (karuna) for the unhappy, delight (mudita) in the virtuous, and disregard (upekshanam) for the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness. This “undisturbed” calmness is equanimity, upeksha, the idea of being in pure awareness. It is a state of even-mindedness, an openness that allows us to respond to any given situation with balance, equipoise, thoughtfulness and detachment. Upeksha is not cold-hearted indifference. Rather, it is a spaciousness within our own hearts and minds toned with respect and honor for all.

Yoga teaches us that there are four basic types of individuals (locks) in the world: the happy (sukha), the unhappy (duhka), the virtuous (punya), and the wicked (apunya). As we move through our everyday lives, we are constantly coming in contact with a broad range of people who are expressing from one of these perspectives. If we are unprepared for their drama, it is likely that we will mindlessly be drawn into their perspective and lose our sense of calm. Note that, in this sutra, Patanjali offers us four practical tools (keys) to assist us immediately as we relate to each of these people. They are:

1. Friendliness – toward the happy
2. Compassion – for the unhappy
3. Delight – in the virtuous
4. Disregard – toward the wicked

As an important tenet of your yoga practice, upeksha–equanimity–can be one of the results attained through regular dhyana (meditation) practice combined with pranayama (breathing) and asana (postures). As practiced yogis, it is up to us to take heed of the wisdom we know to be true and use the keys we have been given to diffuse chaos while maintaining a state of perpetual inner peace and clam. Join me in this beautiful practice, won’t you? For I know through it you shall be blessed. May 2015 bring great blessings and joy to you and yours!

In Service,

“You may delay, but time will not.” — Benjamin Franklin

Marydale was fascinated by a program she watched on television last year that described how most of the western world adopted Greenwich Mean Time as its time standard in the mid-1800s (later becoming a global standard). This grew out of a need to coordinate train travel, but evolved into the way we tell time across the planet. Having a standard allows society to function smoothly, for without some type of benchmark by which to measure time we’d have trouble making plans with each other or sticking to schedules of any kind.

For certain individuals, however, time continues to be a relative concept. This has confounded me for years, since it has come up in my life again and again in the form of friends, family members, and people I’ve encountered in a variety of ways who stubbornly refuse to adhere to the clock.

I am a person who can always be counted on to be on time or even slightly early for work, appointments, meetings, or other engagements. It is very logical to me. I calculate the time it is likely to take me to arrive at my destination, pad it a little to account for traffic or unexpected delays, then work backward to determine when I’ll need to leave in order to arrive on time. If experience is any indication, though, I am clearly in the minority with regard to this practice.

I used to get very angry when people kept me waiting by arriving late for appointments. I even broke up with a friend in large part due to his habit of being as much as an hour late to meetings we’d planned. I felt that it was not just illogical (if we agreed to meet at 1:00, how can you not realize that you’re already late if you haven’t even left the house by 1:00?), but rude and disrespectful. Since most of these people were loved ones, I had to find a way to understand this behavior.

I did some research on people who are chronically late and discovered that, for most of them, it is a time management issue. They do not intend to be rude or disrespectful, but they just can’t seem to get it together to leave on time. They may have miscalculated, lost track of time, or had something suddenly waylay them on their way out the door (I’m sure that Law of Attraction adherents would have something to say about this). The fact that they are late may make them agitated and nervous, and they are often profusely apologetic when they arrive. They don’t want to be this way, but don’t seem able to change their behavior.

Others in the chronically late camp are just more lax about the concept of time and assume that everyone else feels the same way too. For them, time is relative and they figure they’ll get there when they get there. “When you said 1:00, I didn’t think you meant on the dot.” They assume that any consequences of their behavior affect them alone (i.e., if they are late for a movie, you can go in ahead of time and they will be the ones to miss the beginning of the show). They also are not trying to be rude or disrespectful, but that is because they don’t seem to have an awareness that their behavior is perceived that way.

This brings me to the purpose of this post (yes, I do have one). Since Marydale opened the studio, we’ve had a number of students—and even teachers, on occasion—who are chronically late to class. This has been a source of frustration for both of us, since Marydale is also a person who makes an effort to always be on time. She has tried to gently remind students of the importance of arriving for class on time, and we created a Yoga Etiquette handout where the first item on the list is: “Arrive in plenty of time to set up your space prior to the beginning of class.” We’ve mentioned the issue in our monthly newsletter. And yet the problem persists.

Marydale and I have discussed why this issue bothers us and have wondered if the old saying that “what you resist persists” is at work here. Perhaps, as yogis, we should just let it go and allow people to be as they are. And yet there is something larger at work here that involves all of the members of our Param Yoga community.

When you arrive late for class, you are usually in a rush and flustered, which is not the best state in which to begin your practice. Entering the class once it is already underway can also be disruptive to the other students. It can be distracting for them to hear and see you setting up your mat while they are trying to meditate or do asana, and someone may have to stop what they are doing to move over and make room for you. You are also cheating yourself out of the full benefit of the class, since it is designed to give you a complete experience from beginning to end.

One of the things yoga teaches us is mindfulness: with regard to your thoughts, your body, your life, and the others with whom you interact. This includes mindfulness of time and commitments. Yoga is a commitment you make to yourself to take care of your body and live your best life. It is also a commitment you make to the teacher and the other students to arrive on time and participate fully in the class.

Conversely, we must all as yogis be respectful of the differences in others and be aware that life and people are not perfect. Things may come up that are unavoidable, which will cause people to be late for class from time to time. When this happens, we are encouraged to go deeper into our practice, to be loving and allowing and to release distractions as we turn our focus within.

Hopefully—with time—we will all find a balance between structure and flow, responsibility and acceptance, and living within the constraints of time while staying present in the eternal now. I look forward to learning from all of you as we continue on this journey together.

See you on the mat!

posted by Kirsten K.

At the studio, students often ask Marydale how to meditate. Over the years, this question has come up again and again in our gatherings, classes, and workshops, so there’s obviously a lot of confusion surrounding the topic. We begin and end each yoga class with a brief meditation, which usually involves sitting quietly, but what happens internally during that time is unique to each individual.

Marydale is dedicated to her morning meditation and never misses a day, no matter how busy she is, tired she may be, or sick she feels. She has learned that the renewal she receives from her practice is the equivalent of a full night’s sleep, a powerful boost to her immune system, and a Universal manager who makes the many tasks ahead flow efficiently throughout her day.

In an effort to receive these kinds of benefits for myself, I have spent years trying to commit to a meditation practice, but I’ve met with frustration, disappointment, and even anger along the way. After numerous hours spent trying to quiet my mind by concentrating on my breathing, a candle flame, a mandala, or a sound in the room, I developed a paradoxical condition whereby I became agitated and restless before I even sat down. Attempting to relax my body and focus my wandering mind became a more difficult task with each session and I began to resent my practice more and more until I finally gave up on it.

Since beginning work at the studio, I have participated in the Yoga & Meditation class each Monday and Thursday night. However, my dirty little secret was that, when the class would sit in meditation, I would just let my mind wander to pleasant thoughts without making any attempt to focus. If I found my mind dwelling on problems of the day or something unpleasant, I would just refocus on something positive. This practice became very fun for me and I looked forward to the moments in class when we’d sit in silence and I could “play”.

I began to engage in this mental exercise at the beginning and end of every yoga class, while the other students, I assumed, were engaging in “real” meditation. I found it so pleasurable that I started doing it at home and during stolen moments throughout the day. I would just sit, take a couple of deep breaths, and think happy thoughts. These thoughts covered everything from things I was looking forward to buying, a delicious meal I’d just had or was about to have, something funny I’d seen on TV, a happy memory, a vacation I was planning or dreamed of taking, a book I’d read, or just pure fantasy. The positive feelings these thoughts summoned stayed with me long after I opened my eyes. Over time, I noticed that I was feeling better physically and things in many areas of my life were falling into place almost effortlessly.

In a recent Yoga & Meditation class, Marydale asked each of us if we were taking time every day to meditate. When she got to me, I decided to come clean. I sheepishly confessed that I was a fraud and told the class what I’d been doing during the time we were supposed to be meditating. Marydale surprised me by saying that there is no one way to meditate and people need to find what works for them. She essentially said that what I’d been doing was a form of meditation and that the important thing was that I’d committed to it every day and was receiving benefits from my practice.

I felt completely liberated! While I’d thought I was an imposter and a cheat, I was actually meditating—my way. The primary thing to remember is that taking time each day to withdraw from the hustle and bustle of life, get quiet, slow your breathing, and release resistant thoughts will give you benefits that far exceed the time it takes to engage in your practice, whatever that practice may be for you. So don’t be intimidated or confused by meditation, and don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be. Whether you sit in lotus and focus on your breathing or sit quietly in a chair and think happy thoughts, commit to a daily practice…and do it your way.

posted by Kirsten K.

Well, technically yoga IS a competition if you’re entering the National Yoga Asana Championship or you are one of the people campaigning to make yoga an Olympic event. However, competitiveness is the antithesis of traditional yoga.

Yoga is all about being in the moment and doing just what you can do right now. Marydale is always telling her students: “Go to your edge, but never to pain.” She encourages us to close our eyes, focusing only on the body and breath, and to go at our own pace.

There is a full wall of mirrors in our yoga studio, but we usually face away from it during class. Mirrors encourage comparison with others and criticism of ourselves, when we should really be focusing within on how the position feels, making adjustments accordingly. Some students are aware that they should not compare themselves to others in class, since everyone has a different body and is at a different place on their yoga journey, but we are often competitive with ourselves.

I am not very flexible and had hoped that I would become more flexible with yoga. I know that yoga is not goal-oriented or a competition, but after more than a year of going to class three times per week, I find myself constantly taking stock. When I began, I couldn’t touch my toes. I would bend at the waist and reach down as far as I could before the pain in my tight-as-a-drum hamstrings stopped me with my fingers about a foot from the ground. Now, by the end of a vigorous yoga class, I can get those fingers almost an inch from my toes. This should thrill me, but I feel like it’s not good enough.

Recently, we were doing a position in class that is very difficult for me. My body simply won’t move that way. Whenever we do it, I struggle to get into the position as best I can, remembering intermittently to breathe, then remain in my awkward version of the pose for as long as I can, hoping that nobody is looking at me. I brought this up to Marydale at the end of class, wondering about the purpose of struggling to get into this pose when I am clearly not achieving the intended benefit.

This led to the familiar discussion of how yoga meets you where you are and how even the most advanced yogis have days when they are less flexible than others. But Marydale expanded on this to say that true yoga was originally intended to be taught one-on-one, directly from teacher to student. This way, yoga can be perfectly tailored to your body, your needs, and your limitations. Since, for most people, individual yoga classes are expensive and impractical, we usually find ourselves in a group class. The takeaway: do what feels right to you.

I have a long torso and short legs. As a result, I can’t even do child pose—a pose so simple, yes, even a child can do it. If I were to assume this pose “correctly”, I would topple forward onto my face. So, I modify it. While the majority of students rest in the pose with their arms at their sides, I support my forehead on my stacked, closed fists. There are endless modifications that can be made, but if a pose is simply beyond your capability, choose another pose. Better yet, ask the teacher for a modification or a comparable pose. Speak up for yourself. Marydale likes to say, “This is YOUR yoga.” Make it yours and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks, least of all that little voice of self-criticism that says you’re not doing it right.

Instead, I hear Marydale’s voice like a mantra: “Stay in the moment. Close your eyes. Breathe. Feel the position. Move at your own pace. Go to your edge, but never to pain.” And, more importantly, “Why are we smiling? Because we LOVE OUR YOGA!”

posted by Kirsten K.

There has been a flurry of responses online to William J. Broad’s article in the New York Times titled Yoga and Sex Scandals: No Surprise Here. Articles by yoga teachers, students, and bloggers have ranged from angry accusations of reductionism to calls for understanding and compassion for the individuals involved. But is one of the main assertions in the article actually correct? Did yoga really start as a sex cult? Yoga educator Leslie Kaminoff addresses the issue nicely in this brief video:

When he first arrived on the West Coast in 1925, Paramahansa Yogananda called Los Angeles “the Benares of America.” L.A. reminded him of India’s holiest city because a certain spiritual energy permeated the hot, dry air. He may have sensed that the growing town was destined to become the prime relay station for the processing and distribution of Yogic teachings.

Yogananda himself, of course, played a principal role in that history. After making a 12-acre site atop Mount Washington the international headquarters of his Self-Realization Fellowship, he became “the 20th century’s first superstar guru,” to quote the LA Times. Over the years, Yogananda’s visible footprint was placed on other choice properties in the region, notably the magnificent Lake Shrine on Sunset in Pacific Palisades and the cliff top retreat in Encinitas, where he wrote his iconic memoir, Autobiography of a Yogi.

More than two decades before Yogananda made L.A. his home, Swami Vivekananda ushered in the 20th century in this part of the world. During his three-month visit commencing in December of 1899, lecture halls were filled with crowds eager to hear the triumphant star of the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions speak on subjects like “The Science of Yoga.” In 1923, one of his devotees, Swami Paramananda, founded Ananda Ashrama, a still-functioning sanctuary in the hills of La Crescenta. A few years later, the triple-domed temple of the Vedanta Society rose up in Hollywood. There, in the 40s and 50s, a trio of celebrated authors, Gerald Heard, Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley, were schooled in Vedanta philosophy and Yogic practices by the erudite Swami Prabhavananda, who presided over the temple from 1929 until his death in 1976 at the age of 82. The essays, novels and nonfiction books (e.g., Huxley’s seminal The Perennial Philosophy) produced by those literary lions educated millions about India’s spiritual treasures. Prabhavananda and Isherwood teamed up on elegant translations of the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras (titled How to Know God) that were the best-read versions of those classics for years. The Hollywood center remains a custodian of Vivekananda’s vision of adapting the ancient dharma to the modern West.

The other Hollywood—the star-making industry, as opposed to the geographical entity—has also played a major role in beaming Yoga and Indian philosophy to the masses. As early as the 1930s, celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo would motor up to Ojai in their roadsters to listen to the pathless pathfinder, Jiddu Krishnamurti. It was in Ojai that the iconoclastic Krishnamurti had the spiritual breakthrough that led him to reject the messiah-like role for which he’d been groomed by the Theosophists who brought him to the West as a teenager. For nearly six decades, his spring lecture series drew thousands of Angelenos to Ojai annually.

Hollywood star power also taught folks in the hinterlands about Hatha Yoga. Celebs like Mae West and Greta Garbo were linked to the practice early on, and in the 1950s gossip columnists reported that icons such as Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, and Marilyn Monroe were into it. Marilyn was said to do asanas “to improve her legs,” proving that Yoga as physical fitness did not begin in the Madonna era. One of the teachers of celebrities and thousands of others was Indra Devi, the so-called First Lady of Yoga, whose landmark book, Forever Young, Forever Healthy, coupled with numerous public appearances, helped bring the teachings to the masses. Born in Eastern Europe, she was a student of the legendary Hatha revivalist Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. Only an exceptional woman could have broken through India’s male-only Yoga club back then, and Indra Devi remained exceptional until her death in 2002 at the age of 102.

Among the region’s other mid-century Hatha teachers was Bishnu Charan Ghosh, Yogananda’s younger brother. One of his students was Bikram Choudhury, who went on to build a worldwide empire with his trademark high-temperature Yoga. Another innovator in L.A. at the time was Richard Hittleman. A devotee of the non-dualist saint Ramana Maharshi, Hittleman penned enormously popular books and pioneered the use of video. His daily TV show, “Yoga for Health,” debuted in L.A. in 1961 and was syndicated nationally for years.

In 1953, Judith Tyberg, a direct disciple of Sri Aurobindo, one of the spiritual giants of modern India, founded the East-West Cultural Center near the intersection of Beverly and Vermont. The center moved several times before settling into its present location in Culver City in 1985. A native San Diegan who studied Sanskrit in Benares, Dr. Tyberg introduced Angelenos to Sri Aurobindo’s work and hosted visiting teachers who went on to have a huge impact on modern Yoga. Among them was Swami Vishnudevananda, who was sent to America in 1957 by his guru, Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh. Ganga White, one of many seekers who found their way to East-West in the sixties, trained with Vishnudevananda and later opened the Sivananda Center for Yoga on Sunset and Western during the apex of flower power. The Hare Krishna devotees added to the colorful atmosphere of the era, giving locals their first glimpse of traditional Hindu Bhakti and their first earful of Sanskrit chanting, a precursor to today’s kirtan scene. They would soon establish an L.A. temple (now in Culver City) and, in 1977, start their annual Festival of Chariots in Venice.

In the seventies, White disconnected from the Sivananda lineage and turned The Center for Yoga into a prototype of today’s independent studio. It offered an eclectic menu of classes and hosted a parade of luminaries, from Swami Satchidananda to Allen Ginsberg to the first teachers trained by the influential Hatha masters B.K.S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois (Iyengar himself lectured there in 1976, as did Pattabhi Jois in 1985). The center caught on quickly, forcing a move to a larger location on Larchmont Boulevard, which is now owned by YogaWorks. White went on to found the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara, and Swami Vishnudevananda’s lineage was reestablished as the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center, which is now located in Marina Del Rey.

The watershed moment in the West’s embrace of India’s spiritual heritage came when the Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, studied his Transcendental Meditation (TM) and, in early 1968, famously retreated to the banks of the Ganges River. Overnight, words like mantra, guru, and ashram entered the collective vocabulary, and it became acceptable, even fashionable, to start the day in silent meditation. The locus of that phenomenon was London, but the sparks were lit years earlier in L.A. when clean-cut citizens of Ozzie and Harriet’s America were drawn to the Maharishi. When college students looking for ways to expand their awareness without dangerous drugs turned to TM, the Students International Meditation Society (SIMS) was created at UCLA. By 1966, SIMS had branches at several major campuses, and after the Beatles’ media explosion its office on Gayley Avenue became the administrative engine of a massive movement. One of the UCLA meditators, Keith Wallace, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the physiology of TM, and his findings, published in 1970, would jumpstart a research juggernaut that moved meditation into the mainstream.

The chain reaction that led directly to the Beatles began with an L.A. record producer named Richard Bock. The head of World Pacific Records, Bock started promoting the music of Ravi Shankar soon after the great sitarist’s first visit to the West in 1956. He produced some of Shankar’s early albums and connected him to L.A. based jazz artists like flutist Paul Horn, who became one of the first American TM teachers and later recorded the seminal “Inside the Taj Mahal” album. Bock also introduced Shankar to John Coltrane, who infused his music with Indian sounds and themes, and to Alice Coltrane, who went on to become a Swami with an ashram of her own in the Malibu hills. It was also through Bock that David Crosby, then a member of the Byrds, first heard Shankar’s music. Crosby shared his discovery with George Harrison in 1965, at a Benedict Canyon party. The rest is musical and spiritual history. While studying sitar with Shankar in India, the quiet Beatle’s spiritual longing found direction, and his path led to the historic Beatles-in-India moment.

Once the floodgates were opened, L.A. continued to be the principal conduit for the East-to-West transmission. Yogi Bhajan, who first appeared at the East-West Cultural Center in 1969, started teaching his distinctive Kundalini Yoga on Melrose Ave, down the road from the Bodhi Tree, which in 1970 established itself as the prototype for spiritual bookstores everywhere. Also starting up in a Melrose storefront (circa 1972) was the American guru who was born Franklin Jones, became Bubba Free John and, after more name changes, passed away as Adi Da Samraj.

Virtually every teacher whose impact reverberated nationally made important inroads in Los Angeles. Swami Muktananda, for instance, introduced his Siddha Yoga to Angelenos during his three world tours, beginning in 1970. On his first visit, he was accompanied by Ram Dass, who was then in the early stages of his indispensible life as the spiritual teacher formerly known as Harvard psychologist Richard Alpert. Mutkananda spent six months in L.A. on his third tour, holding public events in a huge tent in Santa Monica, where the Loews Hotel now stands. His successor, Swami Chidvilasananda (Gurumayi), also came to Los Angeles a number of times in the eighties and nineties. And, as local Yogis know, B.K.S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois, the progenitors of the asana-based practice now virtually synonymous with the word Yoga, established a powerful L.A. presence. The transmission continued through the turn of the century, as new teachers—Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Mata Amritanandamayi, Sri Karunamayi, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, and others—have found some of their most welcoming audiences in L.A.

Somehow, a city known for glitz and glamour also acquired a strong ethos of inner development. In what other city could Bhakti Fest, Yoga Month or Yoga therapy have been incubated? Where else could professor Christopher Chapple create a Yoga Studies program at the Jesuit-run Loyola Marymount University? Los Angeles has probably produced more Yoga teachers per capita than anywhere else in the country, and must surely lead the nation in the number of asanas performed and mantras intoned per day. By all indications, the Benares of America will continue to beam Yoga in all its forms as skillfully as it beams movies and TV shows.

Philip Goldberg, the author of American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West, is leading a workshop at Loyola Marymount’s Yoga Studies program on October 15th (www.AmericanVeda.com).

Courtesy of LA Yoga Online.

We’ve only been offering our De-Stress with Yoga & Meditation class for about two months, but it’s already become our most popular class. The class combines asanas with a different meditation technique each week. Thus far, we’ve explored sitting in lotus, walking meditation, using the crystal bowl to open the third eye, and staring at a candle flame. Afterwards, we share our experiences over tea.

Marydale always stresses that the true purpose of yoga is to prepare the body to sit in meditation. Exploring the various meditation techniques following our asana practice has shown us how much easier it is to enter a meditative state after doing yoga. Students have reported deeper and more profound meditations in the class than they’ve ever had before.

Due to the popularity of this class, we’ve decided to add another De-Stress with Yoga & Meditation class to our schedule on Monday nights from 7:00-8:30 pm. This class will replace the former Daily Practice class from 7:00-8:15 pm (Yoga & Meditation is a slightly longer class). We hope you’ll join us in one or both of these classes to strengthen your body, de-stress, and connect with your inner guidance. Namaste.

Our first Yoga & Meditation class last night was magical. As we sat on our mats in a circle with candlelight flickering and soft music playing, our attention was brought fully into the now, focusing our awareness on the fullness and beauty of the present moment. This quiet and calm atmosphere was the perfect complement to our gentle and flowing yoga practice, preparing our bodies to sit in meditation at various times throughout class. In the weeks ahead, we will practice more techniques for stress relief through Yoga and Meditation, so please join us for this unique and calming class.

For more information, click here.