Monthly Archives: September 2012
How Yoga Changed My Life
Hmmmm…that sounds rather dramatic. After all, how can some single activity change one’s life?
In honor of this being National Yoga Month (didn’t know that, did ya?), I thought it would be nice to pay a special homage to yoga – and to do that I have had to get up close and personal to really ponder the how, what and why.
Before I get there, I must admit I only just found out that September is officially National Yoga Month. In the United States, this is now a national observance – designated by the Department of Health & Human Services, no less. I’m not sure how it came about but its goal is all about educating people about the health benefits of yoga and thus inspiring a healthy lifestyle. That’s awesome!
According to the scant but useful information on wikipedia:
“In 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services designated September as National Yoga Month, one of a select number of national health observances. That same year, thousands of yoga and health enthusiasts participated in a 10 City Yoga Health Festival Tour featuring yoga classes, lectures, music, entertainment, exhibits. Since then, the initiative has taken root as a global awareness campaign, educating, inspiring and motivating people to achieve a healthy lifestyle.”
After some of my usual digging, I found out that the organization behind the scenes, the one that got this to happen by the Department of HHS appears to be a non-profit organization called Yoga Health Foundation. Based in Fairhope, Alabama, of all places. Good for you, Alabama…I would have guessed California for sure!
CAMP BUNDELA, India- (Oct. 11, 2009) – Soldiers assigned to Troop B, 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, “Strykehorse,” 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division listen to a yoga instructor during their yoga session at Camp Bundela in Babina, India, Oct. 11. The instruction was part of a cultural exchange between the Indian Army and the U.S. Army.
During this special yoga month this year, some 2200 yoga institutes in the U.S. are participating in offering a free week of yoga to interested patrons. That’s a super way to spread the word and spread the love of yoga. Another fantastic initiative is Yoga-Recess in Schools, a national campaign coordinated by the Yoga Health Foundation to bring yoga-based health education into classrooms. I think this will be even more instrumental – getting them started and hooked when they are young.
Does India have a National Yoga Month, Week or Day? I couldn’t find any. I guess you really don’t need one when you were the cradle of yoga, so to speak?
But I do think it’s totally neat that the United States government thinks it’s important enough for people to understand and adopt yoga that an awareness month has been specially designated for it. To top it off, I have found that there are programs backing it up so that there is meat to this notion.
Now, getting back to me.
Why am I so fascinated by yoga? I never imagined I would reach such a stage, but I am well on the way to becoming a borderline fanatic on the topic.
Trust me, there really is only one fundamental reason for that to happen and it’s really very simple and logical. Obviously, I must have reaped something rich and sizable from the practice of yoga.
To reach this stage of becoming fanatical about it, it is also clear to me that those benefits had to be more than just of the physical variety.
So, what are they?
I can list a whole slew of benefits that I have received – physical, mental and spiritual. And I would be right. Wait, but I already have! Here and here.
In addition to these (and so you don’t just have to go by my word for it), the Yoga Health Foundation has these great resources:
- 10 Reasons to Practice Yoga (an easy to absorb one pager that you should read. And spread.)
But giving you another laundry list of benefits derived from yoga is not what this is about. It’s more special and specific then that.
Above all of those benefits, there is one that stands out for me, one that is not mentioned anywhere – it is that magical thing that I learned from yoga, up close and personal. I’m not even sure I can express it well but try I will.
In a nutshell, here it is –
You think that something is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve.
But – you focus, you practice and you persist.
Then, one fine day you realize that your mind (first always, your mind!) and later your body have conspired to prove you wrong. You CAN achieve it after all!
What a grand feeling that is…
You think this is about yoga? Or your physical self? Think again.
I find I can apply this principle to any number of things in life and therein lies the magic. Yoga simply showed me the way.
And really, that’s all there is to it – the story of how yoga opened my mind and changed my life.
How about you?
:
:
Photo Credits:
Yoga in California By Tia Tran [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Yoga in the US Army: By Master Sgt. Christina Bhatti (United States Army) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Yoga Just Do It: By lululemon athletica (SSC Yoga with Eoin Finn) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Disparity and its Disturbing Depths
The Yin and Yang of Life in India…an apt title, even if I do say so myself.
In this country, disparity is everywhere you look! But there are some areas where the disparity is not only acute, it’s an incongruity that becomes distressing to observe.
Over the past few decades this country has gone from being considered a third-world developing country to an emerging economic power in the new world. Thanks to progressive economic reforms a couple of decades ago, a transformation has occurred. This has meant significant, visible progress and wealth generation. In some quarters.
While wealth is being generated at an incredible pace, the poor seem to be left behind at just as amazing a rate. The dichotomy and gap between the poor and the wealthy is ever-expanding.
Just talk with any visitors to this country. They are startled and completely taken aback by this extreme disparity, as they go back and forth between the chilled luxury of their sumptuous five-star hotel to the somber city scenes right outside that fort.
Not that I am wealthy by any means, but I am certainly better off than so many not as fortunate in India. With the incredible numbers and statistics here, how can I not be! In most other country, perhaps I would be considered moderately better off, but here? It’s off the scales!
Where else would I feel that the evening outing that I just paid for (for argument’s sake, let’s say that was $100) was equal to or more than the monthly income of about fifty percent or more of the population of the country where I am a temporary resident? Wow!
Is that why I feel an unusually high level of discomfort when stopped at a traffic light in Mumbai in my comfortable air-conditioned car and poor kids flock to the windows looking for handouts? All the while, willing myself not to make eye contact. Oh no, but that would never do! 😦
I think what it is new for me in this new India is the absolutely new shocking contrast between the poor and the rich. Don’t get me wrong. The contrasts were always there. Yet, today, ironically with the increase in prosperity in many sectors, the differences are more obvious and the extremes more extreme.
Wise Confucius has a saying that goes like this:
“In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”
I read it recently and it got me thinking long enough to prompt this post.
Now, whether a country is well-governed or not is never an absolute. In fact, it’s highly relative. Let’s just agree that India is on the low end of the spectrum. I can’t imagine anyone saying that this is a “well-governed” nation!
Yet, here’s the dilemma. People who have become wealthy by working hard or working smartly as the country progressed economically – should they or anyone really be ashamed of that wealth? Absolutely not. [Unless, of course, you are one of the many politicians who steals from the country to create your own wealth bubble].
The real question is whether the government of this complex democracy is doing enough, fast enough to help make the poor better off, at the same time that they are helping to make the wealthy even better off? The answer to this is obvious. Absolutely not.
And, until that begins to happen, yes, in this badly governed country, wealth in all its forms but especially the loud and ostentatious Indian kind, will always be something painful for me to watch.
It’s the more piercing side of the yin and yang of living in India – one that I am yet to get completely sensitized to (and am completely sure that I don’t want to).
:
:
Photo Credits:
Touchdown in Mumbai: By Sankarshansen (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Beggars: By Jorge Royan (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 