As I sat down to reflect on these two very important areas of life, I thought it would be good idea to think about some of the basic ideas about both yoga and health.

First, I would like to examine the area of health.

What does it mean to be healthy?

Obviously, the answer to this question can be many things, depending on whom you are talking to.

For many people, the definition of being healthy simply means not getting sick too often or not having physical discomfort. Most people would consider themselves healthy if their bodies did not significantly interfere with their capacity to live and work in their day-to-day lives.

This particular definition of being healthy, while not bad, does nothing to focus on the potential higher capabilities of the human body and of human life.

Additionally, by defining being healthy as the simple absence of discomfort, disease and illness, there is the strong possibility that deeper and longer term imbalances in one's health could be overlooked or go undetected.

Examples of this phenomena are everywhere around us. Many people, seemingly "healthy" for much of their lives (that is, free from any noticeable disease or illness on the surface), suddenly contract some kind of terminal illness and are completely debilitated. The two most common kinds of disease that appear in this way are heart disease and cancer.

Can a person, who appears relatively "healthy" on the outside and then becomes gravely ill due to a heart condition or cancer really be called someone who is healthy?

Yoga practice is really the art of creating ultimate balance and harmony. Yoga practice is about maximizing our potential as human beings. Yoga practice is basically about becoming the very best we can possibly be on every level (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual).

So, as yoga practitioners, it is important for us to constantly re-define what it means to be a human being. It is important for us to look higher and higher. It is important for us to take the old and typical definitions of things such as health and create a new and higher definition.

So much of the process of living a life with yoga is that we are constantly making ourselves better. Through yoga practice, we become stronger, more flexible and more pure, not just in our bodies but in our minds and hearts as well.

Through yoga practice, we are all becoming much more sensitive and aware of our bodies, minds and hearts on a increasingly deeper and deeper way.

In this way, it is no longer sufficient for us to define being healthy as simply not getting sick or being physically uncomfortable. It is important for us to look for and create a level of health that not only does not get in the way of our lives, but actually supports us becoming the best that we can be.

Let us look to create a kind of healthiness that gives us tremendous amounts of physical, mental and spiritual energy. Let us create the kind of healthiness that keeps us super young in our energy and our state of mind. Let us create the kind of healthiness that significantly increased the functioning power of our minds (clarity, memory and insight) and our bodies (living an extra long life free from disease of all kinds with boundless, youthful energy).

To create this kind of healthy life will require us to take a greater amount of care and apply more awareness to ourselves and to the environments in which we live. We will need to be more sensitive to the consequences of both our inner states of mind and heart and our outer expressions and actions.

This is the real value of daily practice. When we commit to spending time each day to deep practice, we create an atmosphere and an energy of paying attention and being extra sensitive to ourselves and all that surrounds us. Gradually and steadily over time, this extra amount of care and awareness begins to spread more and more to all areas of moments of our lives.

Many people in this world suffer many ills and imbalances simply due to the fact that they do not pay attention to themselves and how their thoughts and actions affect them and those around them. Modern lifestyles with lots of stress and unhealthy habits only serve to make people even more insensitive to themselves and the world around them.

The beauty of yoga practice is that we begin to naturally reverse that trend. Slowly, over time, we become more sensitive and attuned to what we actually feel and experience, not only superficially, but also on a deeper and deeper level. As we become more sensitive and aware over time, we can and do act and think in ways that are more harmonious with the laws of nature and with the world around us.

Very naturally, we can begin to create a whole new definition of what it means to be healthy. We can begin to experience new levels of health and vitality that many people never even knew was possible. And, as we do so, we make it that much easier for those around us to do the same.

In this way, the new definition of health not only means greater health and well-being for us as individuals, but also as a larger community, a larger whole.

This means that we not only can heal and enhance our own bodies and lives, but we can also heal and enhance the overall health of the whole planet as well.

This, to me, is the essence of the interplay between yoga and health.

Hari OM!

Govinda Kai

One of the best examples of this can be demonstrated by a day that I spent with some students in Okayama, Japan recently.

It was a cool and beautiful fall day. My good friends and students, Jaro and Ake there in Okayama are good friends with some organic farmers, who farm some land and call it Wacca Farms. We decided to spend the day at the farm and go and pick some organic vegetables directly.

First of all, just to drive into the countryside outside the city felt amazing. The air was much fresher and the feeling of the earth and the sea and the sky lifted my energy and spirits immediately. Sometimes we forget how important it is to get into more intimate contact with pure nature. If we spend too much time around cities, buildings and concrete, this can drain our energy and cause us to feel disconnected from the pure and more natural part of ourselves.

When we arrived at the farm, it was like an experience of heaven. The colors of the red-brown of the earth and the bright greens of all the plants immediately made us feel more alive. The air had a fresh, sweet smell to it. Many times, we simply forget how much our environment affects our state of mind and our moods.

We then proceeded out into the fields of amazingly healthy and vibrant looking plants and began to collect them in boxes. There is truly something miraculous to directly collect your food from the earth, as opposed to only getting your food from stores and supermarkets. There is a far greater feeling of closeness and intimacy with the food and with the earth itself.

It is really hard to describe the feeling unless you have experienced it yourself. The vegetables come in relatively the same form, but the feeling is completely different. It is almost as if you could feel the love of the plants and the earth. Everything looked brighter and more colorful and there was a sense of harmony between yourself and the whole environment.

The entire experience that day was so satisfying and so deeply moving. Those of us who made the trip not only felt a closeness and harmony with the earth, but also with each other and deep within our own selves. I did not realize just how spiritual an experience a trip to a farm could be.

I really thought about why it was such a powerful experience and I came to the conclusion that there was a purity to many parts of the day that are important to a deeply powerful and meaningful life. When we get closer to the source of the different parts of our lives, we can experience a greater purity within ourselves. Getting closer to the source means that we become closer to the most basic elements of life and of our selves.

Going directly to the place where the food was grown created a sense of closeness with the food and with the earth from which the food came from. That kind of closeness, both physically and energetically created a closeness with the most basic parts of our own bodies and the deeper parts of the self. This, in essence, is what our yoga practice is all about. Getting closer to ourselves in as many ways as possible.

When we got home that night and prepared the vegetables that we had picked that day, there was such a warm and joyful feeling to the whole process that is normally not present when just getting your food from the supermarket. The food looked better, tasted better and was more satisfying physically and emotionally then food that comes from unknown places.

After the whole experience of that day, I thought how amazing it was that something so simple and easy could have such a powerful effect on my body and spirit. It taught me once again that the energy of Yoga is all around us if we will only look closely and deeply enough.

Hari OM!

Govinda

Most people walking around today do not even take the time or make the kind of effort necessary to be able to even notice that who they think they are and who they actually are actually are not the same.

Spiritual ignorance can be described as the phenomenon in which you confuse who you think you are with who you actually are. It is easier than most people think to confuse your thoughts about yourself with the reality of your self.

If you take the time to examine your own thoughts about your self, you will see that there is a whole collection of descriptions about who you are and what you are capable of and not capable of doing. These particular descriptions often have little to do with what you are actually capable of doing or not doing. Many of the descriptions about who you think you are have very little actual basis in reality.

It is remarkable in many ways just how powerfully we can be seduced and fooled by the stories and thoughts in our own minds. A big part of the secret is that our thoughts operate so much in the background of our perception of life and reality. Before we can even notice it, our thoughts shape how we interact with life and others.

As our yoga practice deepens, we begin to direct our attention inwardly to gain a greater conscious awareness of these particular thoughts. Conscious awareness of your own thoughts gives you the capacity to see the difference between these thoughts and the reality that they are normally attached to. Conscious awareness of your own thoughts also gives you the capacity to be present to your surroundings in a way that is simply not possible when you are overly occupied by your own thoughts.

When you are truly present and awake to your current surroundings, you can begin to see that you are, in fact, not your thoughts. When you see that you are not your thoughts, a whole new kind of reality arises. You begin to see and experience yourself as you really are, not as you thought you were.

Each of us is basically pure energy, which is constantly expressing itself in different ways. Sometimes that energy is expressed as action. Sometimes that energy expresses itself as emotion and passion. Sometimes that energy expresses itself as thoughts. The only real limit to how this energy expresses itself is if we become overly identified with our own thoughts and beliefs. The moment you are able to free yourself from the attachment to your own thoughts and beliefs then what is possible for you in your life changes in dramatic ways.

Suddenly, what you thought you could not do becomes possible. All the limits that you thought you had become a lot less solid and you begin to feel to express yourself in ways that you had never imagined before.

This pure kind of energy that is in each of us, that flows through us is actually connected to the energy of the entire universe. When you are more in touch with this energy when it is no overly bound up by your own thoughts, you then begin to experience yourself as much larger than you ever did before. There is a creative power and a magical spontaneity to life that you cannot help but feel because this is the essential nature of this energy.

The more you free yourself from your own thoughts and beliefs about yourself and about life; you will naturally feel more wild and free. Before, where you saw only limitations and fear, you will see openings and possibilities. Life will literally begin to look like one continuous and exciting dance.

Naturally, this process is not an easy one. Very few people on this earth today have had much success in freeing themselves from their own thoughts. Like I said before, most people never even take the time to notice that there is actually a difference between their thoughts and the reality that they have created for themselves.

At the same time, the process of freeing yourself from your thoughts is not as impossible or difficult as it may seem. If you will start slowly and steadily to direct your attention inwardly, you will be surprised at what you can see and learn about yourself in a very short time. If you will simply pay close attention to your own breathing and direct your awareness into the present moment, you will awaken to a part of yourself that you perhaps never really knew you had.

This process of self-discovery is a wonderful journey. Every step of the way can be filled with a sense of magic and awe. This essential energy that we each are and that is connected to the whole of creation is powerful, free and wild.

As you become more and more in touch with that part of yourself, you too will become more and more powerful, free and wild.

Hari OM!

Govinda

Deep Within..., originally uploaded by govindakai.

The indescribable and awesome power of each moment is available to us all simply by looking intently within...

When you put all of your attention and focus into a singular task or moment, there is something very special that happens. What happens is that the greater truth of life begins to reveal itself more completely to you.

Most of us are so used to walking around projecting our limited beliefs and thoughts onto the world around us. Everything, including our own selves is colored by our ideas and assumptions that we have about them. This habit and tendency is so pervasive and deep-seated that we are not even aware of the fact that we are doing it.

As a result, we only see the world as we believe it to be and not as it actually is. We are constantly acting and reacting to a world that is mostly a product of our mental projections. So much of the suffering that we endure and the suffering that we cause others is a result of this fundamental flaw in our relationship to both the world and with our own selves.

What any significant spiritual practice and discipline seeks to do is to reveal this blindness in perception to us in such a way that we can begin to undo this fundamental flaw in the way that we interact with reality. The only real way that we can begin to correct this basic mistake is to learn how to "see" the world around our selves and us in an entirely new way.

In order to "see" more accurately, it is crucial to begin to have a greater understanding of how the mind and perception work. Most people mistakenly believe that there is an unchanging external reality that is perceived entirely through the physical senses. Most people believe that this one reality is perceived the same by everyone everywhere in basically the same way.

What most people either cannot understand or accept is that the very fabric of what you "see" is very powerfully shaped by your mind, your beliefs and assumptions about the world. The difficulty of understanding this basic phenomenon is also part of the dynamic of the mind itself. The mind, by its very nature, works to simplify your experience, so that you can focus on basic tasks and not be overwhelmed by too much stimuli.

However, if there is no examination of how the mind shapes one's experience of the world and the self, then one naturally will become blind to certain very important aspects of the creative and spiritual potential of life.

When a person relies entirely on one's physical senses without any deep self-reflection, then life will quickly feel quite shallow and limited in creativity and emotional depth.

Deep self-reflection in any capacity is powerful because it naturally frees one's perception from the overactive influence of the mind and its habitual beliefs. When you are able to create any amount of distance between your beliefs and that part of reality that you are applying your beliefs to then the potential power of each moment is often released in varying degrees.

Again, this is not so easy for most people, as there is not a sufficient amount of self-reflection to even notice the difference between one's beliefs and that part of reality that those beliefs are being projected onto. Thus, most people actually believe unconsciously that there is no difference between what they believe and what is actually real. Thus, what happens is that what many people call life is not actual life at all, but a representation of life that is made up of a collection of thoughts in their minds.

This is why many people on this earth today feel so lonely even when they are surrounded by thousands of other people. This is why so many people feel destitute on so many levels when there is such an abundance of resources all around them, both materially and spiritually.

The great gift of my recent experiences with Issa is that his presence has drawn my attention and focus so completely into certain moments that my mind has inadvertently quieted down. When the mind has become still in this way, the actual reality of each moment has become much more full and real.

The truth and reality of each moment is that it is rich and full with potential and power that are beyond normal imagination. It quite literally is beyond the mind's normal capacity of comprehension. When any of us is able to step outside of the mind's limited and habitual patterns, then we can begin to stand in the presence of each moment's true luminescence and power.

Every single moment is full with great creative potential and deeply transformational and healing spiritual power. It is funny how, in our spiritual ignorance, we constantly are chasing after the superficial allure of certain concepts and ideas. Who among us has not thought, "Oh, if I only had more money or possessions or fame or knowledge?"

Anything of any true power or value lives only in the moment that is right in front of us. This truth is so simple and so powerful that it eludes most people on the earth today.

So, the next time you feel wanting or lacking in any way, stop right there and take a few, deep conscious breaths. Allow the mind to quiet just a little and look deeply into the precise moment that you are standing in. Even if your awareness is able to penetrate that present moment only a little bit, you will nonetheless taste a hint of the great power and potential of your own soul.

In these moments lies the true promise of your own spiritual destiny. All you are looking for and more is hidden in each present moment. Nothing else in the entire world is needed than just your own self and the bright, shining moment right in front of you.

Those moments that pass us by countless times each day only appear ordinary and empty. Know that this is the farthest thing from the truth. Do not take these simple, everyday moments for granted. Just slowing down and looking a little more deeply into these moments and into your own self can and will change your life forever.

Great and simple spiritual truths that even a child (and sometimes only a child) can understand.

Hari OM!

Govinda Kai

When I was younger, the war that I waged against my own weaknesses fueled much suffering and strife. I was constantly searching for new solutions that would allow me to divorce myself from these tendencies once and for all. My own feeling of self-esteem was almost wholly dependent on just how successfully I was able to forcefully control my own negative habits and tendencies.

Interestingly enough, the more that I fought with my own self, the stronger and more deeply embedded these tendencies became.

More recently, I have taken on a more reflective approach to these particular and perceived qualities in myself.

First, I have begun to realize more and more that all the suffering that I have endured in my life has had a primary role in my own spiritual evolution. It does not matter if that suffering is physical, mental, emotional or deeply psychic. Each time I have suffered in any significant way, the result has almost always been a greater level of awareness of my self. Each time I have suffered, the hunger for my own spiritual awakening has always deepened.

In that way, I no longer have a solely negative view of suffering in general. I now have quite a profound appreciation for suffering. Suffering is not just a problem to get rid of. Suffering actually serves a powerful function in this human life of ours. In more situations than not, suffering actually triggers the deeper opening of one's own consciousness.

After so many years of fighting forcefully with these perceived negative parts of myself and having little to no actual success of making any lasting changes, I began to seek to understand more deeply exactly what was going on with me.

I began to ask certain questions such as, "What exactly is it that I am fighting against?" and "What gives these perceived parts of myself their power and reality?"

Through this particular reflective process, I began to understand more about the nature of mind and ego. I began to understand more about the nature of identity and personality.

So much about who we think we are is shaped by our own ideas and opinions about the world and ourselves. This experience of our selves is not as a result of direct experience, but more often is a function of certain thoughts and tendencies that we have inherited from our parents or cultural surroundings. In other words, there is a difference between who we think we are and who we actually are.

Most of us when we try to find out who we are look first to our own thoughts and beliefs about what we think we are. Since many of us do not have the capacity for deep self-reflection, which is caused by over activity of the mind, we confuse our thoughts about life for life itself. We confuse our ideas about ourselves for the true nature of our own selves.

Who I actually am is more more expansive and complex than just my own thoughts about myself. And yet, I have spent most of life really believing that I am what I think about myself. I have spent most of my life judging myself based on what I thought about myself and about life itself. When I intensely identified with what I thought about myself, I simply became more entangled in those very thoughts. The more I waged war on my own perceived bad qualities, the more persistent and tenacious those particular perceived qualities became.

What I realized is that the more I obsessed about my own thoughts and judgments about myself, the more limited and helpless I felt. By identifying so strongly I with my own beliefs and opinions about myself, I actually was constructing the structure through which my own limited experience of myself gathered strength.

This limited experience of myself; I began to realize was what I now know as the phenomenon known as the ego. When we try to find ourselves by looking towards our own thoughts and judgments, we create a very short sighted and limited experience of own entire selves. When you are not able to see beliefs as beliefs or thoughts as thoughts, but as reality itself, you quite literally blind yourself to the spiritual dimension of life.

When we are blinded spiritually, we no longer have the capacity to access all those qualities that lead to genuine awareness, healing and freedom.

Real change does not occur through force or through judgment. The only real change that happens in this human life of ours happens through the agency of deep and radical acceptance and presence. Only when we can see ourselves clearly and with deep awareness can we move beyond all those elements of this life that limits us. When we obsess about own thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, we cannot see clearly and with any kind of deep awareness, as we are always looking through the filter of our own thoughts.

So now, I no longer try to change myself in any forceful manner. I am much more cognizant of the difference between the thoughts and judgments about myself and the actual present and direct experience of myself as I actually am.

The main thrust of my attention is much more directed at understanding myself at a deeper level and of gaining direct experience of myself as I am and not just of what I think I am. I am aware now, more than ever, that real change is never effected by force or criticism. I now know that if I can accept myself as I am and see myself with a kind of lucid clarity then real change will happen naturally and spontaneously.

Do I still have negative thoughts about myself? Yes, I do. The difference now is, is that I no longer automatically believe that those thoughts about myself is an accurate depiction of the way things really are. I no longer feel that I have to fight against myself to try to change what I perceive of as negative in myself.

Instead, there is a kind of deep curiosity that arises. I take the time to begin to look behind the thoughts that I have about myself. I seek to feel more deeply about the exact nature of my own experience of myself. I no longer believe that who I am is the entire result of what I think about myself. Who I am is much more about the deeper intelligence and awareness that experiences all that I am.

As a result, I live day-to-day with a deepened sense of peace and order. The artificial sense of self that I carried with me for so many years that was almost a complete fabrication of my own mind and ego, no longer has any great power or place in my life. When I looked primarily to my own mind and ego for my sense of self, that form of self seemed always to be tense and tortured with very specific limits and a very strong sense of form. Now that I have more awareness and clarity that who I am is not inextricably linked to my thoughts and beliefs and that who I am in much deeper than the mind and ego, there is less an experience of being solid and limited. There naturally is a kind of spaciousness and lightness to each moment of the day. The anxiety and worry that seemed to fill so much of my time is rarely a preoccupation of mine.

It is funny how the suffering that I fought against so vociferously in the past has now gained such an honored place in my life and heart. Of course, I don't want to suffer in my life and do not want any other person to suffer in their life. At the same time, I am acutely aware of the great value of suffering to human spiritual life.

So, the next time you find yourself obsessing over your own perceived faults and darker elements, do not just blindly judge yourself and try to force yourself to change. This particular approach will, as you all will discover over time, does not lead to anything that is truly positive and good. Only through the agency of deep self-acceptance and love can you come to a place of real understanding and awareness.

If you are a serious spiritual seeker, there is no other way.

Hari OM!

Govinda

All the preconceived notions that I had before he was born have been all thrown by the wayside and it their place stands the dazzling luminescence of the present moment and the glories that are contained in the eternal now.

Whenever I speak about yoga, I often mention how important it is to continuously reflect deep within on the nature of the essential Self by inquiring, "Who am I, really?"

For most of us, the endless layers of beliefs, opinions and preferences embedded strongly in our minds act as a kind of impenetrable veil through which we interact with the world. These mental and emotional conditioned patterns either mildly or strongly interrupt our capacity to experience life purely and without prejudice.

Now, what happens when you are only able to perceive reality through thick mental filters is that you lose the ability to see clearly and to be present with much of the wonder, magic and massive amounts of kinetic energy (also called Shakti) that is intrinsic to all of life.

Spiritual ignorance is when you think you are experiencing life directly, when in fact; your experience is dominated by mental constructs that are mere fabrications of the mind and ego. And although these fabrications of the mind are mostly imaginary in nature, they also have tremendous power, as they are imbued with our very own consciousness.

The supreme blessing that being close to a child brings is that your attention is drawn so strongly into the present moment that the mental patterns that had previously clouded your perception of life are temporarily suspended. When these mental patterns are pierced in any significant way, there is a whole new capacity to experience the world much more directly.

Most of us, when we grow older, develop more and more preconceived notions about who we are, what we are capable of doing or not doing and just what constitutes good and bad, right and wrong. These preconceived ideas are constantly shaping our emotions, moods, behavior and in fact, the very way that our personal and spiritual power is expressed in the world. Depending on the tenacity of these conditioned mental and emotional patterns, many of us quite literally, "shut down" our heart and soul. Thus, we begin to live our lives with decreasing amounts of passion, joy and engagement.

Our yoga and spiritual practice is designed to break through these conditioned patterns so that we can once again have an experience of our selves and our lives that is more pure and direct.

Issa's presence in my day-to-day life has had a profound effect in this way. The purity and strength of his life force has deeply penetrated and interrupted many of my ideas that had about my life and myself. Since my attention is less entangled in my own mind and much more centered in the present moment, I have so many more moments of pure wonder and am seeing myself and the world around me with a whole new perspective. I am inquiring much more deeply and spontaneously about what it means to be human and the inherent power and possibilities of each moment of the day.

Somehow my reactions are less programmed. I am much more reflective with my choices, even the simple ones like what to do with my time moment to moment throughout the day. As a result, there is a greater access to the spiritual power that is inherent in each moment. I can see things and feel things that previously had been too subtle for me to pick up on.

This does not mean that there are still many moments when I notice the addictive and reactive elements of my own mind and ego. It is just that there is an opening and a clarity that I do not remember having.

As Issa grows older, it will be interesting to see just how this newfound perspective evolves and changes. We will just have to wait and see. For now, however, it is remarkable for me to see just how powerful the experiences are that in front of me right now. I truly never imagined just how the presence of this child would have had such a profound effect on my spiritual life.

Next time, you are close to a child, no matter if that child is your own or someone else's, see if you can allow the purity of the child's experience can bleed into your own. Bring your own attention as fully into the present moment as possible and allow your awareness to uncover the layers of preconceived ideas that you have about yourself and the world. What would the experience in front of you be like without any prejudices and preferences? What would the experience in front of you be like if you were to experience it as a child who has seen something for the very first time?

If you are like me, a whole new world will open up to you. You will begin to see life more in the fullness of its own essence. Life in its more original state, free from ideas and beliefs, is one that shines with a divine light that is ripe with the most amazing possibilities. You will begin to realize that the light that you see in front of you is none other than your very own Self.

Hari OM!

Govinda

One particular aspect of sharing so much time with Issa has been a dramatic shift in my experience and understanding of time.

Obviously, for a newborn there is no experience of what we would call the past or the future. Their experience is centered entirely in the present moment. The intensity that these little ones bring into each moment is extraordinary. The energy of their pure presence defies their small physical size.

When you spend a lot of time with them, you also are pulled into this kind of experience. Just to gaze into the fullness of their small faces and the primal energy of their expressions is to be brought wholly into the eternal now. So much of the time that I spend with Issa is timeless in nature. I have no idea how much linear time as passed when I am with him. What seems like a few minutes can, in fact, turn out to be an hour or more.

Now, when you bring that much attention and focus into the present moment, a very peculiar thing happens. Not only to do you lose all sense of time in the normal way that most people perceive time, but you gain a whole new experience of yourself and your surroundings.

Our deeper experiences of our selves all occur in the present moment. The most divine qualities of the self all are expressed when we are most centered in the present moment. The deepest kinds of wisdom, care, compassion, patience and love are all really only possible when we are deeply rooted in the present moment.

Conversely, we suffer most when we are distracted away from the present moment. When we dwell mostly in our thoughts of the past and the future is when we are most likely to take our selves and those we love for granted and miss the beautiful parts of living in this life.

Spending so much time with Issa has given me a whole new perspective and appreciation for the true nature of time. Focusing so much of my attention in the present moment has made me realize more than ever just how much of our true beauty and power lives in the now. I have never felt so many regular moments of deep peace and luminescent beauty throughout my days.

I also have never appreciated just how short this life really is. I have never felt such an appreciation for how important it is to cherish each and every moment, no matter what is going on. I have realized that when I am distracted by thoughts and feelings of the past or the future, I tend to live more in a dream-like state and can easily take many everyday moments for granted. Also, in the times when I am dwelling in thoughts of the past or the future, I tend to fall into the mistaken assumption that I have lots of time to waste or to spare.

When my attention is centered in the present moment, it is very clear that there really is no time to waste and that this life passes by with an alarming kind of alacrity. Each moment that we live on this earth is divinely precious and passes by very quickly. Our true wisdom and power becomes manifest when we realize the true nature of time.

As yoga practitioners, our entire purpose is to know our selves as completely as possible, to experience our inner self as fully as possible. The only way that we can do that is when our attention and mind is fully focused in the present moment, free from the distracting thoughts of past and future.

All of the techniques and practices that come from the yoga tradition are designed to draw our attention into the present moment, to still and purify the mind of the common distractions that we are all familiar with.

For many of us, these kinds of practices begin inside the studio and on our yoga mats. As soon as possible though, begin to practice drawing your attention and mind into the present moment during as many times during the day as possible. You can use the practice of simply watching your breath moving in and out to facilitate moving the attention into the now.

The more times you are able to pull your attention fully into the present moment, the more you will be able to see and experience yourself with increasing clarity. The light of your heart will begin to shine more and more brightly. There is a subtle, but powerful joyfulness that will begin to permeate the most ordinary and mundane moments of your life. It is an extraordinary shift that will often take you by surprise.

I thank God everyday for sending me this amazing child. There is no question in my mind that Issa is a direct gift from the heavens. He has only been on this earth for a little less than 2 months and already he has taught me so many lifelong lessons. What a great miracle it is that one of my greatest teachers has shown up here right in my own house!

Hari OM!

Govinda Kai

Window Into Joy, originally uploaded by govindakai.

One of the great blessings of being around newborn children is that they offer a direct reflection back at your own Self. How can you look into the face of a young child and not reflect back on your own Self?

Naturally, once you become a parent, you only want the very best for the child that you have been given custodianship over. The innocence and the purity of that newly born being in your midst stir deep desires and passions to provide the very best conditions and environment for them to grow up in.

As a result, you begin to look a lot more closely at your own self. You begin to reflect back on yourself a lot more critically. You begin to ask questions of yourself that maybe you have not asked of yourself in a very long time (maybe never?).

This is why raising a young child has some parallels with yoga practice. The essence of yoga practice is self-reflection. Yoga practice is all about looking deep within your self, getting to know your self, examining parts of yourself that might otherwise go overlooked.

Newborn children, because of their relative purity, are wide-open fields of possibility, especially when compared to the way that most of us normally see ourselves. We can see and imagine that the way that we treat them now, the energy that we surround them when they are young, will influence and affect them for years to come. A harsh word or action here or there can have negative consequences on them in some very deep ways. There is even the possibility that our thoughts and unseen habits may affect them positively or negatively.

So, naturally, we begin to examine ourselves in a much more careful and detailed manner. We can ask ourselves, "what habits or thoughts do I have that I am unaware of that might have an unexpected affect on this child?" Or, I can ask, "what can I do differently in my life that will ultimately benefit the quality of life for this child?"

Now, I have started out here putting these questions in the context of being a parent. However, whether you are a parent or not, it is important as yoga practitioners to reflect back on ourselves precisely in this way. Without this kind of self-reflection. Without these kinds of questions directed back at our selves, our yoga practice can become relatively empty and flat.

The real power, the real "juice" of any yoga practice lies in our capacity to reflect back on our selves in a way that begins to awaken a deeper awareness of our own self. What creates real energy in our lives is our ability to uncover the habits and blockages that have gone unexamined in our selves.

The true Self is pure energy, creativity, joy and love. We lack access to that deeper Self when we go through our lives with unexamined habits and conditioned mental and emotional patterns. These habits and patterns act as blinds to our true nature and to the awesome power of the true Self. The only way that these habits and patterns remain in place and keep us from our true potential is if we get lazy and overlook them.

We all need to turn the light of our own awareness on ourselves. We all need to awaken our passion for knowing the Self. We all need to wake up and stop taking ourselves for granted.

So, whether you are a parent or not, begin asking yourself some seriously honest and penetrating questions. What areas of yourself or your life are you taking for granted? Where in your life have you become lethargic or even lazy? What positive change can you begin to implement right away that you have been making excuses about? What positive habits can you begin to build today?

As parents, the well-being and future of our children spur us on. But again, whether you are a parent or not, why not be spurred on by the well-being and the future of your self, for your loved ones, or even for the future and well-being of the entire world?

Nearly every single one of us underestimates our own power and what is really possible when we put our minds to something. We all take ourselves for granted in some way or another. We allow a kind of mental and emotional fog to roll over us and to take away our power. And yet, to pierce this seemingly impenetrable fog, we need only to awaken our passion to know ourselves, to ask ourselves some very honest and very deep questions.

I encourage you all to grab a hold of your own self today and reflect back on yourself in this way, with passion and with great vigor. You will be surprised at just how much you will see and with how much can actually change in your life in a very short time.

Hari OM!

Govinda

Many of us love to possess luxurious and beautiful fabrics manufactured in Italy. There is a special attraction to clothes and other objects designed and made by incredibly talented artisans and craftspeople.

Who has not stood transfixed by the glory of a particularly spectacular sunset or some other stunning natural vista?

Why does time seem to stop when we stare into the face of newborn child?

Why do the faces of certain people and particular works of art cause the deepest kind of stirrings in our hearts?

All of these questions are related to our attraction to and longing for beauty in our lives.

We spend so much of our lives desiring after and seeking to include more and more beauty in our lives. For many, it is their primary preoccupation.

Yet, how many of us take the time and the energy necessary to truly investigate and discover what real beauty is?

How many of really understand on the deepest level what real beauty is?

If you asked many people for their own definition of beauty, more times than not, you would get an answer that included mostly a combination of physical or external elements (elements such as symmetry, composition, size, color, texture, consistency and the like).

Now, while the physical characteristics of any person or object or situation are certainly an aspect of its beauty or appeal, are these elements what give anything its real beauty?

In other words, are the physical characteristics of anything the reason why we are moved to tears and touched in the deepest parts of our hearts. Are the physical characteristics of anything the reason why we remember an experience for our whole lives?

I would suggest to you that it is time that we all took a much deeper look at our assumptions and beliefs about the nature of real beauty.

I would suggest to you that it is our misbegotten beliefs about the nature of beauty that has gotten us so much in trouble with ourselves and with others. A false assumption about beauty in this life can cause countless amounts of suffering and grief.

If we really believe that beauty is composed mostly of its physical or external elements, our ideas about beauty become extremely fixed. We expect to find beauty only in certain places and in certain people and not in others. As we become more set in our ways and opinions, it means that we generally become more and more rigid.

As we become more rigid in our ideas, it means that we stop being fully present in all situations and with all people. It means that we will stop looking deep beneath the surface of things in many, if not most situations.

Let me suggest to you that real beauty has very little to do with its physical or external constituents. In fact, it has little to do with anything outside of our own selves.

Real beauty flows from the the heart of life itself. And where does the heart of life dwell? It dwells in none other than our own inner heart, in the essence of our own being. It is deeply and intimately connected with our own presence.

The more we are able to dwell deep within our own inner hearts and presence, fully, intensely and with no judgment, the more we will be able to gaze out into the world and witness real beauty in more and more places and people.

The more one focuses on the physical or external aspects of their world, the more infrequently that person will witness moments of real and breathtaking beauty. The more one focuses on the essence of their own being and dives deep within the deepest reaches of their own heart, the more frequently, he or she will be brought to their knees in the presence of staggeringly beautiful moments.

There is actually no limit to how many experiences of real beauty you can have in one day. Because, you see, real beauty does not exist as part of the limited, external world. Real beauty is an essential part of life itself and as such, it permeates all things and all situations.

Even situations that conventionally would be considered the farthest from an experience of beauty would be, for a person of deep heart and spirit, a moment of staggering beauty. It may not be a comfortable or a pleasurable experience, but it would be one that would stir the heart at its deepest levels.

For example, I have a friend who is currently going through an extremely painful separation from her husband. It is perhaps the most difficult time in her life that she has ever known. The experience is literally ripping her whole life apart. And yet, as she begins to breath deeply and embraces everything that is happening to her and everything that she is feeling, she is beginning to see a subtle kind of beauty shining forth. She is feeling an intensity to her feelings and a sense of possibility, a rawness and freshness that she has never felt before. This, to me, is real beauty. No amount of money can buy that kind of experience.

Each and every one of us has that power and beauty inside of us. At any moment in our lives we can begin to reflect and to shift our understanding such that we can awaken the capacity to experience and to share this kind of beauty.

I believe it is our spiritual birthright.

Hari Bol...!

Govinda Kai

Each day has been filled with such joy and wonder.

On the surface of things, everything looks very mundane and quite messy. There is an endless amount of diapers to change, wash and dry. Every time I turn around, the diaper bucket is filled with new dirty diapers. Issa gets hungry every 2-3 hours. We have made a special point of holding him close and never leaving him alone, so one of us always is holding him in our arms. The routine has us in a constant state of activity.

Still, it does not seem like we are busy at all. Time seems to have slowed way down and there is a calmness and a stillness about the house that I have rarely experienced before. I often have asked myself, "if we are always in constant motion, much more than before the baby arrived, then why does it seem like everything is so still?"

Taking care of Issa provides a constant stream of distractions and I have barely time to get my practice in, but still I have never felt more focused in my life.

The answer to all these questions and more becomes very clear as soon as I look into Issa's eyes. The pure life force that radiates from within him is awe-inspiring. I have never in my life spent this much time around an infant before. Now, I know why having a child is such a remarkable experience for those who become parents.

Though a newborn's body is so small and fragile, because there is no mind or ego to interfere with the flow of prana or life force from within him, there is a power and a radiance that shines forth from them that has been lost by most of us as we have grown into adults.

As I sit and watch him, everything that he does, he does with his whole being. Every yawn, every burp, every stretch and every movement of his face is done with his entire being. There is no thought, no hesitation, no premeditation and no withholding.

When one acts or moves in this way, there is a deep power of one's being that comes out that is undeniable and very special. This power of pure being extends and spreads far beyond the boundaries of one's physical space and affects the energy of the atmosphere very strongly.

It is truly remarkable to be in this space, as it adds a mystical and magical power to everything. To be in the presence of this kind of energy is a great lesson in yoga and in life at its essence.

One of the primary lessons of yoga is to learn about the power of being. When we grow in our yoga practice and in our spiritual life, we learn that real power does not come from our behavior or from our material possessions. Real power comes from the essence of our own Self. Real power comes from the core of our being, from the depths of who we are, and not from what we do.

Most of us focus only on the superficial parts of our selves. We are seduced by physical performance and the quantity of a person's possessions. But if we look more closely, if we look beneath the surface of things, we will clearly see that there is something intangible, something unseen that adds real power to a person or situation.

Next time you are near a newborn child, gaze into their eyes and closely observe their energy and being. Even though there is only a small and fragile physical body in front of you, if you look beneath the surface of physical appearances, you will see an immense amount of power and presence.

We can all learn these profound lessons of life from these tiny beings, as well as, in many other situations.

So, as you move through your day-to-day life, look for the situations that life will inevitably present to you that can show you how life is so much bigger, more mystical and more powerful than what you can see with your eyes.

Seek to look beneath the surface of life and you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams.

Hari OM!

Govinda Kai