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Spirituality, Yoga

Love is Already There

Jivani Lisa

This is Yoga! From Chaplain Charles Lattimore Howard:

Being still has been a necessary part of my walk. Stillness, I should add, is not for me the same as emptiness. While the waters of the pond might be still on the surface, there is much life moving within. Life is within. Love is within! 

When I am still I do not empty myself. I would rather be filled with love than have nothing within. And being still allows for this to happen, or rather being still allows for you and I to notice that this has happened already. The love is there within us, even now. Yet sometimes the waves of life rage so incessantly that it is difficult to see or feel that love.  

Pausing and being still enough to notice love within and around is a deeply powerful and countercultural act…. In the case of most of contemporary society, stillness is a prophetic act, defying that which demands that we move quickly and move upward. It challenges the notion that it is better to be busy and occupied. It refuses the call to be constantly distracted and perpetually plugged in.

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Spirituality

What’s Your Choice?

Jivani Lisa

“Will you engage this moment with kindness or with cruelty, with love or with fear; with generosity or scarcity, with a joyous heart or an embittered one? This is your choice and no one can make it for you.  If you choose kindness, love, generosity, and joy, then you will discover in that choice the Kingdom of God, heaven, nirvana, this worldly salvation. If you choose cruelty, fear, scarcity, and bitterness, then you will discover in that choice the hellish states of which so many religions speak. These are not ontological realities tucked away somewhere in space – these are existential realities playing out in your own mind.  Heaven and hell are both inside you. It is your choice that determines where you will reside.”
– Rabbi Rami Shapiro

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Spirituality

Comfort and Awe

Jivani Lisa

“Shock and awe is a military tactic. Comfort and awe is a spiritual alternative. The military option supports the will to dominate. The spiritual option supports the commitment to liberate. We share with all people an awesome grace: the path to peace, on the walk of truth and reconciliation, with justice lived for the sake of all creation. We do not seek control, but something much more transformational and enduring. We seek kinship.”

— Steven Charleston

(Photo by Kinø on Unsplash)

Yoga

Consider the Iceberg

Jivani Lisa

The following graphic (source unknown) is a good reminder that there is far more to Yoga than just asana practice (yoga poses). While the poses keep our physical bodies strong, flexible, and balanced, other aspects of Yoga train the mind, help us work with our inner strengths and weaknesses, control energy levels, and connect us to our own inner peace – which then carries into the rest of our lives and decisions. This is why Yoga can have such a powerful effect over every aspect of our lives, including the way we approach our work and our relationships.