Wake Up Call
On Happiness and Goals
We find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.
Wake Up Call
Choose Your Actions!
The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. ~ John Dewey
Wake Up Call
Peer Pressure and Handstands
“The best preservative to keep the mind on health is the faithful admonition of a friend.” ~ Francis Bacon
Wake Up Call
A Different Way to Stand
"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a different way to stand." ~ Oprah Winfrey
Wake Up Call
On Habits
An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
Product Development
On Prayer Groups and Challenges
It hit me this morning that Social Workout could be, or should be, more like a born again christian prayer group, and/or a business school study group. Lemme explain....
In college, my roommate and dear friend TM was christian, and deeply into his faith. Every day he went to prayer groups, and one day he took me. There were about a dozen of us in a random common room of some dorm, and the whole meeting only took about 15 minutes between classes. Everyone just sort of knelt down, bowed their heads, and then people took turns speaking for a minute or two. The prayers were very simple: "Thank you for this, and help me with that dear lord." It was totally informal and so touching. In minutes, everyone was back out being a normal college kid, but for that moment they were vulnerable and asking for help and reminding themselves of their commitments. It seemed like a very good thing to do, even if you weren't religious.
More...Finding Beauty
The Beauty of Alignment II
Once, in the town where Krishna lived, a venomous multi-headed serpent named Kaliya took up residence in the local river. Kaliya’s poison had polluted the water so thoroughly that any of the townspeople who went to take a drink, bathe, or even wash their clothing became sickened by its toxicity and died.
More...Finding Beauty
The Beauty of Desire
Desire is not a problem – it is our very nature. This is one of the first things that my teacher Dr. Douglas Brooks said when I met him nine years ago in the big kick-off weekend for my Anusara® Yoga Teacher Training.
More...Finding Beauty
The Beauty of the Dance
His body is half-naked and ash-smeared with a tiger skin draped across his hips. In his two upper hands he holds the drum of creation and the fire of dissolution. His tangle of matted hair is gathered and loosely held in a knot. Perched on the knot is the pale crescent moon behind which descends the waters of the Ganges, which separate and divert into many tributaries, reflecting his infinite forms. He is multiplicity itself. But here he is Nataraja, the dancing form of Shiva.
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On Cheering
Often we can help each other most by leaving each other alone; at other times we need the hand-grasp and the word of cheer.
Wake Up Call
On Farming
I inherited that calm from my father, who was a farmer. You sow, you wait for good or bad weather, you harvest, but working is something you always need to do.
Wake Up Call
Go for It!
Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it.
~ Mohandas Gandhi
Finding Beauty
Spring Cleaning with Shiva
I’ve decided to do my spring-cleaning in the company of Shiva this year. Or rather, I plan to tap into those aspects of Shiva within me that shift, clarify, and empower. So as I transition through the gray drizzle of early New York City March into the softer season, when rubbery stems of flowers optimistically emerge around the two trees planted in the cement of my block, I’ll be negotiating the same mysterious process of transformation within myself.
More...Wake Up Call
Great Expectations
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Wake Up Call
The Greatest of Follies
The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.
Wake Up Call
On Awareness
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.