My Life After Yoga

As life would have it, shortly after deciding to explore this topic I found myself vacationing in a new city and anxious to pamper myself, booked a mani/pedi. Upon arriving and seating myself in one of the battalion of chairs I had the uneasy feeling that this was not the kind of place where the body is considered to be a hallowed vessel for spirit but more an object to be subjugated, or at the very least, commanded. Survival instincts heightened, I quickly gleaned that when the pedicurist “tapped” my leg it was her signal to either lift my foot up within her reach or to place it back in the foot bath. I would immediately comply with the tap signalling that I return my foot to the bath as this meant that I would no longer be subject to her poking and stabbing with her various instruments the extremely sensitive corner of my big toenail and the subsequent grating of the nail file back AND forth. I allowed myself to relax somewhat gratefully as she proceeded to massage not only my fe...

How many times have you prayed for love and then not been able to receive the answer to your prayers? You might not even be aware of how many times because you probably didn’t even recognize it as an opportunity for love. Because we have VERY limited notions of what love looks like. And incredibly high expectations. And just to clarify right away, I am talking about love the FEELING and NOT the act. Love that makes your heart feel like it is going to burst out of your chest. Love that makes you feel like you are walking on air. Love that gives you so much energy that you feel like you could bench press a thousand pounds. Love that instantly reforms your state of mind from one that makes you feel bad to one that makes you feel good. Love that fills you up so much that it spills out around you causing people to look. Love that is so gripping that you have to remind yourself to breathe. I have been on a lot of vacations lately because during the months leading up to this perio...

This Sunday March 4th at midnight will mark the beginning of my first self-imposed “vow of silence”. My goal is to go without speaking for 24 consecutive hours - every week - for as long as possible. In preparation, I advised my family who was not terribly disappointed to hear that I would be holding my tongue. They did seem to think that it will be difficult for me though. I for one, CANNOT WAIT! The idea came to me after two specific events. First, a friend asserted that I should be spending more time in prayer and meditation. Second, after spending several hours in silence “by accident”, I was struck by how disruptive it was to “speak” again. This made me realize the extent of the peacefulness that being silent had created. It isn’t all that surprising when you think about it. For most of us, speaking involves a lot more than just opening one’s mouth and pushing air past one’s vocal chords. Ideally (although sadly, not always) there is some thought that precedes it, the expr...

I recently went to see “Aura” at Notre-Dame Basilica in Old Montreal and it provided the last piece of the puzzle of some of life’s biggest mysteries. What follows is simply my way of explaining what many people (prophets, scientists, philosophers, poets…) have already discovered and also shared in their own ways. For example, how is it possible for the same person to be in two places at one time? It is not possible you might reply and that is perfectly fine. But what if this phenomenon, well documented in stories of spiritual gurus in different parts of the world, had a perfectly simple explanation? Also, how is it possible for all of creation to be connected, with no separation between any of its different expressions, when it is clear that we are not all the same? It is not possible you might reply and that is still perfectly fine. The fact of the matter is that these two seemingly impossible phenomenon are ENTIRELY possible when you perceive that people, and every other objec...

February 14th is fraught for many of us. What follows is intended to illustrate how it is possible to feel love, whenever, wherever and REGARDLESS of your relationship status. Let’s begin by identifying some of the different kinds of love: Romantic Parental Filial Fraternal Altruistic Self The kind of love about which I am writing today is ROMANTIC. How is it possible to feel romantic love whenever or wherever and regardless of relationship status? Because as described by Sally Kempton in her book “Meditation for the Love of It”, your feelings of love, although perhaps inspired by someone else, come from you and therefore DEPEND ON YOUand nobody else. This also means that your love DOES NOT have to be reciprocated in order to exist!! HOW AMAZING IS THAT?! In my opinion, the majority of the suffering we experience at the end of a love affair, or when we see other people celebrating Valentine’s Day while we are going home to eat Mr. Noodles and watch Netflix, is actually...

I am sure that most of you will agree with me that in life there is much uncertainty. For starters there is the uncertainty that exists between ourselves and the outside world. We are usually bursting with questions to which we don’t naturally possess the answers. For example, we wonder whether the bus we are waiting for will be on time or whether there will be a table at our favorite restaurant when we arrive without a reservation on Friday night. Of course, there are bigger uncertainties than these. Ever plucked the petals off of a daisy while chanting “he(she) loves me, he(she) loves me not”? I thought so. You, me and the rest of the planet friend! There is also the uncertainty that exists between you and yourself. In this case, the answers to your questions are already within you but they can be hidden from view. A good example of this level of uncertainty is the difficulty many of us have answering the seemingly simple question “What Makes Me Happy?”. This is the kind of unc...

How have the past few days living in a world transformed by a coating of ice affected those of you living here in southern Quebec? The most striking complication is how difficult it has become to physically move about. Walking is much slower and each step is more cautious, more tentative. Maybe you have even completely lost your footing and ended up on your ass. Walking is a great example of a simple task that becomes significantly more demanding - of both attention and energy - when you have no traction. And good luck opening (or closing) the car door when you have no solid ground to stand on. The frictionless world in which we have found ourselves over the past few days illustrates the importance of "getting traction" in order to execute even the simplest of tasks. As usual, what is happening in our outside environment can teach us a valuable lesson about our inner environment. When we talk about "being grounded" or "centred", I believe that we a...