All of Life

All of life .. everything in the great web of life .. is interconnected.

Our individual health and happiness is not separate from the health and happiness that others seek.

Our individual inner strength and spiritual wisdom affect the world outside us, just as the innter strengths and spiritual wisdom of others affect us.

Earth, air, fire, water .. all .. we are totally dependent on these forces of nature. For it is these forces which constantly supply the nourishment we need. If these forces, within us, are weak, we will not achieve health or happiness.

In the same way, there is a collective intelligence, and if this collective pool of intelligence is undernourished, then our individual intelligence becomes confused and disoriented.

The best way to help yourself is to keep nature healthy and strong, for we are an integral part of it.

Om Peace!
Yogini Valarie Devi

Why Centering Prayer?

"For this reason, whenever you feel

yourself drawn to devote yourself

to this work, and whenever you feel by

grace that you have been called

to do it, lift up your heart toward God

with a meek stirring of love.

And understand by God the God

who made you and formed you

and who has graciously called you

to your present degree; and do

not accept in your mind any other

conception of God. And not even

all of this is necessary, but only

if you are so inclined, for a naked

intent direct to God is sufficient

without anything else."

-The Cloud of Unknowing

14th century contemplative text

Yoga Winter Soup

This is a perfect winter soup for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Celery Root and Cashew Soup
serves 6-8

1 Tbls butter or margarine
3 cups chopped celery roote
4 stick of celery
2/3 cup cashews
4.5 cups water
1 potato, chopped
2 and 1/4 cups milk (soy or cow)
salt and pepper to taste
toasted cashews and parsley sprigs to garnish

1. Saute the celery root, celery and cashews in melted butter until lightly browned.

2. Add water and potato. Cover and cook over medium heat for 25 minutes, or until the veggies are tender.

3. Add the milk to the cook veggies, then pour all into a blender or food processor. Puree. Return the soup to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and return to a warm temperature. Its ready to eat! Garnish with cashews and parsley and enjoy!

Om Peace!
Yogini Valarie Devi

Troubled Times

In our troubled times, with stress and anxiety over the financial downturn at an all time high, with political uncertainty, and plummeting investments, more people are turning to Yoga.

Watching the morning news, either at home or on the ride to work, is stressing enough. Then when you or a friends company starts downsizing, its only natural to try to seek solace from the turmoil in a practice that offers balance and peace of mind.

Hamsa Yogashala is such a calming place .. an oasis in a sea of uncertainty. Here, you can come, sit, be still, relax, and learn time proven techniques to soothe and heal the body and mind.

So many people have been hit hard by our current financial crisis,

and are honestly struggling to make the best of what

they have while coping with fear and uncertainty, anger,

frustration and loss. Which is why every class at Hamsa Yogashala teaches relaxation and deep breathing, so that students have an

opportunity to return to healing and calm centeredness.

Healing Yoga on Thursday is a weekly class for optimum health and well-being. Designed by Yogini Valarie, Healing Yoga is a weekly wellness program that detoxifies and cleanses the body, helping it return to a state of health and vitality.

Its always darkest before the dawn, and right now, its very dark. The demands of the world are becoming so intense that it is only natural - and self-preserving - to seek an island of inner peace and learning practices that help us with our fear and worry.

Yoga and Meditation are the best body and mind healing practices in the world. Combined, they help us restore balance, release stress and awaken the body's innate healing responce.

Om Peace!
Yogini Valarie Devi

Yoga and Meditation

Many students new to Yoga get stuck on all the Hindu gods.

Yoga is not about them .. its about you.

Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, is an example of a Yogi.

Look to that example.

-Yogini Valarie Devi

I always tell my students that, "Yoga is more than the poses." The new students often ask, "What does that mean?"

Being a Yogi is more than taking a Yoga class. To be a Yogi you need to be in samadhi, which means "standing within one's Self". Samadhi is a way of thinking that becomes a state-of-being.

For example, when you are doing a Yoga pose you are not doing Yoga, but concentrating on doing a Yoga pose. Which is why I explain to my students that they need to "Stop doing Yoga! Become Yoga!" This means being in the moment, being in the 'now', this means that every Yoga pose is a meditation, a singular expression of beingness.

When the mind is perfectly still within a Yoga pose, not striving to do it any better, not thinking about how it should be done; and when the mind is simply there, breathing, relaxed, with no expectation or attachment to what that pose is or means, then that is Yoga.

A Yogini is someone who is wholly absorbed in Creation - in enstasy (samadhi).

Om Peace!
Yogini Valarie Devi

Introduction to Ayurveda, part one

Ayurveda is rooted in ancient India; thought by many historians and scholars to be the oldest healing system on our planet.

'Ayuh' means life, and 'veda' means 'knowledge'.

Ayurveda focuses on the nature, scope and purpose of life, to include the metaphysical reality.

Ayurveda defines life as the conjunction/union of body, mind and spirit found in the Cosmic Consciousness and embracing all of Creation.

Ayurveda tells us that the purpose of life is to realize the creation - both internally and externally - and to express this creation in our daily life.

The purpose of Ayurveda is to heal and to maintain the quality and longevity of life. It is an art - the art of daily living - and has evolved from practical, philosophical and spiritual illumination, rooted in Creation. To those interested, it offers a profound understanding of each individual's unique body, mind and consciousness. This is the true foundation of health and happiness.

Traditional Western medicine, herbal therapies, surgery, energy-work, and many others, all have their roots in Ayurveda. Because of its broad scope, combined with length of development - over the course of many hundreds of years - Ayurveda embraces all health care disciplines and weaves them into an integrated treatment plan for each individual. This ancient approach includes surgery procedures, psychological or spiritual counseling, rejuvenation of the body, mind and soul, and much more, fully encompassing all these treatments and coordinating them appropriately.

This is why Ayurveda is called a 'living science', because it incorporates modern developments and techniques along with ancient wisdom. Many modern medical regimens are too specialized to design a plan that includes elimination of the cause(s), treatment of the condition, rebuilding of the body and the continueing support of a rejuvenation program; whereas Ayurveda is uniquely capable of suggesting a treatment regimen appropriate to each individual.

During Britian's occupation of India it introduced Western medicine, considering it superior to any other form of medical treatment; even suppressing and banning/out-lawing the practice of Ayurveda in some cases. Many Indians followed these new laws and adopted Western medicine, succumbing to the lure of quick fixes, pill popping, and a shot for everything - like their Western counterparts - avoiding personal responsibility for their own health.

Today, Indians are returning to their traditional and historical means of health and well-being - just as many Westerners are also embracing these ancient and highly effective approaches.

Western medicine tends to suppress symptoms and does not help to prevent problems from recurring. Western medicine is extremely helpful for acute conditions and trauma, it tends to overlook the importance of individual response to the streses and conditions of DAILY life and living. Western medicine focuses on specialization - a concept that does not exist in Ayurveda; for Ayurveda focuses on more than just an organ or system, but on the entire and whole (holistic) person.

Ayurveda - like all healing systems - has a basic foundation. For Ayurveda this is the Shad Darshan ("six seeings", or 'Six Philosophies'). This 'seeing' is both internal and external - which explains Ayurveda's dual approach of science and energy-work, or external and internal healing techniques.

The knowledge of Ayurveda, developed by ancient rishes/sages, come to us through the sutras (meaning, "suture", or 'threads, strings, verses'), and the Atharva Veda (one of the four principal Vedas). Recognized today as a primary text on Ayurveda is the Charaka Samhita ('Charaka' was a noted Ayurvedic practitioner, 'samhita' is a methological collection of texts or verses.)

Written on or around 400 CE, the Charaka Samhita is the oldest Sanskrit Ayurvedic text known to exist; being so concise as to contain even the five subdoshas of Vata.

Second to this valuable work is the Sushruta Samhita, written by Rishi Nagarjuna. It contains detailed information on surgery, blood conditions, and the five Pitta subdoshas. Other notable works are the Ashtanga Hridayam and the Ashtanga Sangraha, both written by Rishi Vagbhata in the 6th c CE. ('Ashtanga' means eight-limbed, and 'hridayam' means "nourishing, heart-healing"; 'sangraha' is "solidarity, upliftment, well-being". Respectively, these texts are "Eight-Limbed Heart-Healing", and "Eight-Limbed Well-Being".)

From mythology we learn that Brahma, the primal creator, taught Ayurveda to Prajapati, who then passed it on to the Ashvin Twins. In turn, they taught Indra, who passed the knowledge to Atreya (6th c BCE). He is said to have taught Agnivesa (15th c BCe), who wrote a major and often cited Ayurvedic text which no longer exists in its entirety.

The six roots of Ayurveda - the Shad Darshan - are also the six systems of Indian Philosophy. Listed below is the philosophy and its lineage founder:
-Sankhya / Kapila,
-Nyaya / Gautama,
-Vaisheshika / Kanada,
-Mimamsa / Jaimini,
-Yoga / Gorakhnath, and
-Vedanta / Badarayana.

Three of these systems - Sankhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika - predominantly focus on the material world. The other three - Yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta - observe the inner reality. Again, the darshan/sight of both inner and outer bodymind are taken into account in Ayurvedic healing techniques.
Combined, the six create a 'whole' and so total approach to health and well-being - on every level of being.

Om Peace!
Yogini Valarie

Yoga News : Cancer

Designer backs yoga project at US hospital cancer ward
October 30th, 2008 - 10:27 pm

New York, Oct 30 (IANS) Famed fashion designer Donna Karan has sponsored a major project at a premier hospital here to clinically prove that yoga, meditation and aromatherapy can enhance regimens of chemotherapy and radiation in treating cancer.

Karan, founder of the DKNY line of clothing and a yoga enthusiast, has donated $850,000, through her Urban Zen Foundation, for a year-long experiment combining Eastern and Western healing methods at the Beth Israel Medical Centre in Manhattan.

Overseen by Karan’s yoga masters, Rodney and Colleen Saidman Yee, 15 yoga teachers will be sent to the hospital’s cancer ward starting January next to work with non-terminal patients, and nurses will be trained in relaxation techniques, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Karan hopes to prove that the yoga and meditation regime can reduce classic symptoms of cancer and its treatment, like pain, nausea and anxiety and serve as a model for replication elsewhere.

Noting that a third of Americans seek alternative treatments, Beth Israel chief executive David Shulkin said: “To make care accessible to these third of Americans, we’re trying to embrace care that makes them more comfortable.”

Karan traces her commitment to integrative medicine to what she saw as the limited treatment of her sculptor husband and business partner, Stephan Weiss, who died of lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 62, and of Lynn Kohlman, a photographer, model and DKNY fashion director who died of brain and lung cancer in September.

Karan, who practises yoga daily, believes yoga works. “Now we have to prove it in the clinical setting,” she was quoted as saying by the Times.
She chose Beth Israel because it is among the handful of hospitals nationwide with full-fledged integrative medicine departments.
It has also experimented with integrating mainstream and alternative therapies for eight years.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/designer-backs-yoga-project-at-us-hospital-cancer-ward_100113265.html

Yoga's Journey

Yoga is NOT about a goal. It is not about getting-into any particular pose. It is very much about how to enjoy the journey. A journey which never ends!

Om Peace!
Valarie Devi