Lightwaves

Stability in Community Living

Steven Ganga — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:48:45 +0000

Yasodhara Ashram has a goal of being carbon neutral by 2013 and this has made me reflect on sustainability. I’m starting to feel that daily stability and long-term sustainability are deeply intertwined. I see the ashram as an excellent example of a socially sustainable community.

Over the years it has developed a core community of residents and long term karma yoginis and yogis, and has a wide circle of extended community and folks who have passed through and been affected by their experience here.

I believe the primary reason that the ashram is such a model for sustainable communities is that the residents and longer term karma yogis all have the common direction of growing in awareness and engaging in spiritual practice as a way to a brighter future.

On a day to day level, this sustainability is supported through the stability of a consistent schedule of hatha yoga, karma yoga, silent meals, reflections and satsang six to seven days each week. And interestingly enough, mental and emotional stability is further developed in each person here through the practice of accepting that change in this generally consistent schedule can happen at any time with no advance notice.

Yasodhara Ashram, a sustainable community with spiritual practices

Another facet which contributes to the stability of the ashram are the lifestyle factors which are part of living here. Being in a celibate community offers an enormous reduction in interpersonal drama and the opportunity to develop deeply solid work and friendship-based relationships.

The fact that the ashram has a strict policy against intoxicants provides an atmosphere where people have less external influence towards what the Buddha referred to as “heedlessness”. These are two of the major factors which help those who come here develop mindfulness and increase their awareness in everyday life.

I’ve been delving into the many aspects of sustainability for years, and only now am I beginning to see the importance of daily stability in moving toward many different types of sustainability. Environmental sustainability appears to be a branch which really flourishes with a stable lifestyle and a daily life-affirming routine supporting it. On a personal level, when I have a consistent daily routine I can pay more attention to how much garbage I produce, opportunities to reuse small things throughout the days, and ways in which I can further reduce my consumption.

Steven & Arrowynd

On a symbolic level, I relate reducing my trash to reducing how much physical and mental energy I waste, reusing small objects to remembering and reusing insights I’ve had, and looking for ways to further reduce my consumption as the continuous practice of finding and reducing concepts and notions which no longer serve me.

For an organization of its size, I am inclined to think that Yasodhara Ashram is on the forefront of the current trend toward sustainability and environmental awareness. The dedication and focus shown here toward lessening our environmental impact is inspiring.

I hope that people who come here can leave with both a better understanding of Swami Radha’s teachings and a better understanding of how easy and joyful changing our lives toward less waste and more awareness can be.

Steven Ganga was a long-term karma yogi at Yasodhara Ashram, and has been a practitioner and teacher of yoga for many years.

This article has been featured as part of our July 2010 sustainability week.

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Meeting Dr. Vandana Shiva

saradagrace — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:58:54 +0000

This summer, Lightwaves is posting a monthly theme week on sustainability, featuring the reflections of inspired yogis who are integrating spiritual practice and critical thought into their work at a global and or local sphere.

We begin this second thematic week with Sarada Eastham, a Canadian intern in India, devoted to international development and drawing awareness to social, environmental, and agricultural injustice.

Taking a moment in the sweltering heat of the midday afternoon to reflect. I have completely lost track of time and reality feels sometimes to be a distant haze beyond the heat, new language and shifts in body, place and food.

I remember before I traveled the first time I thought that culture shock was something that would feel ‘different’ – perhaps like an illness, or something tangible and understandable. I recognize today that culture shock can be a slow moving haze, covering me in overwhelm and confusion. When I am not tired, newness is exciting, adventurous, a learning opportunity.

Today I am hot, tired and overwhelmed, and I desperately wish I could have something cold to drink. At lunch time one of the men on the farm asked me to ring the lunch bell to beckon the other workers to their meal. It took us five minutes of hand gestures, laughing, sighing and finally him rolling his eyes for me to understand what he wanted. Thank the universe for his patience!

Watering Navdanya Farm herbs

This afternoon I hide on the quiet side of the building, out of the sun and away from eyes. I revel in the moment to myself – fully expecting the space to be shattered by any manner of the unexpected magic that permeates India.

I am covered in cuts, bites and bruises, and I think the day spent weeding in the sweltering heat yesterday has finally taken its toll. I am almost out of rehydration salts – and although I am aware of the complaints that I am submitting you to – I am tired of rice and dahl three meals a day! How conditioned I am to choice – to getting what I want, to being able to communicate when and how I would like to. One part of my mind fights with the mosquito bites, the cuts, the bruises and another part of my mind looks down at my body and celebrates its labor in the hot sun and its yield of food to nourish myself and others. How grateful I am for the choice that I have had in my life, and the preciousness of each and every warm, wonderful clean-water shower!

I am reading An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth by M. K Gandhi. It is fitting to read his original words in this place which has been based on his life and work. He writes of simple things, asking, ‘what is truth’ and ‘what is humanity’?

Farmer behind the plow

I love his words. Today I wrote in large letters in bold ink down my arm, “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as ancient as the hills”. These words offer me the reality of life and body, and remind me of gratitude and appreciation for the depth of those who have gone before.

Yesterday I met with Dr. Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya, and imminent Indian scholar and activist. I remember the first time I saw her, a tiny head above thousands of people at the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in November of 1999. It was a moment of birth for me, perhaps even one in which I discovered another way of being and the spark of true critical thought. It was a moment when worlds came together, and I began to understand how the global could be connected to the local and the local to the global.

Volunteers and locals cleaning rice

Vandana is a robust woman, who speaks in a lilt of rolling ‘rrrr’s’ in clear English. Her eyes dart around the room as she speaks to me, and I think that she may be carrying on 4 or 5 different conversations, only one of them with me. Another has to do with her blackberry, into which she is loudly declaring that she “must be in Frankfurt, no matter what!”

For a moment she fixes me with her stare, and nods her head. “Yes?” I tell her that I want to take the work that Navdanya is doing back to Canada, by preparing writing and presentations that I can offer back to Canadian communities. When I pause for breath, she returns to a conversation she is having with a man who stands behind her; “just sign the papers, Jeeka, just sign them!” she shouts.

My interview over, I emerge into the sunlight dazed. A brilliant mind, a busy woman. I am confronted with the reality that what I can offer Navdanya is really very small in relation to the work that is needed, and Dr. Shiva recognizes this. This time requires humility and patience.

Work and the Seed Bank

Perhaps Navdanya’s true gift to me will be the cultivation of my own seed of practice, the seed of the work that I can take from this place. In many ways, I am lost in India. It is not my place, my culture or my language. When in India I must hold firmly to my suitcase packed with laughter, patience, humility, digestive enzymes and a healthy dose of expecting the unexpected.

In Canada, I know my way around. I can express, reach audiences, speak and act in a way that opens up (at least somewhat) expected avenues of change. In the distance I begin to understand the value of home, and of the change that I can affect in my own community.

International Development has become not about working in another place, or being in another culture. It has become about linking the local to the global, and bringing the global to the local. We live in an interconnected world of self and other, and it is a wild, wonderful magical place, with knowledge as old as the hills.

Sarada

Dr. Vandana Shiva, a former nuclear physicist turned agriculture activist and founder of Navdanya, speaks of her vision for Earth Democracy.

Yogini, activist, and humanitarian, Sarada Eastham, is a former YDC graduate and Youth Coordinator at RYYO, living an inspired life as a student of International and Community Development. Her internship with Navdanya; a biodiversity conservation and organic farm in Northern India, and her cultural immersion have been unfolding before us on Lightwaves. This article has been featured as part of our July 2010 sustainability week.

Guest photographer Edwin Toone provided all photographs for this article: http://etoone.photoshelter.com/

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Nurturing Insights

Swami Durgananda — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:44:36 +0000

Our elders hold the key to a kaleidoscope of wisdom, inspiration and guidance. In this reflection, Swami Durgananda invites us to explore the latent creativity that awaits our awareness if we are curious enough to know.

Journal Reflection: January 9th, 1982

Today was my day off and I worked on dreams and the Divine Mother dance and then some chanting. After lunch I had a two and half hour session with Mataji (Swami Radha) going over my papers. She gave me some deeper ideas to work on in the asana papers. I guess what really stunned me was her response to the Hari Om paper.

The Golden Flower of Consciousness

She said what I wrote about was an idea that had never occurred to her – that it was an insight that was totally my own. I was very surprised. She was amazed herself. Imagine her chanting all that time for so many years; I would think that she would have gotten every insight there was to get. It shows that even an ordinary person can get fresh insights. I left feeling quite high and ended up sledding down the hill with Garth and Clea, letting out whoops as we tore along from the Guest Lodge down the parking lot.

Tonight Swami Radha had us all come over for what we thought was a talk on the connection between the asanas and Kundalini Yoga. She fooled us and asked each one of us to comment on how we saw the connection in our own practice. It was interesting to see those who were unable to make the connection, the ones who couldn’t bring any depth to it, and those who had a grasp of the symbolism. There were some who didn’t work with the asanas enough to know.

'Inner Vision' lithograph 1969

Lightwaves: How did you as a spiritual aspirant and eventual swami nurture your insights?

Swami Durgananda: I drew them – made collages, looked up subjects to expand my knowledge. One of the insights had to do with working with the Hari Om mantra. I made drawings of the rhythms and the syllables of the words – putting it all together in a visual form. Swami Radha also assigned a project in the early part of my arrival at the ashram and it was to keep track of our dreams for 9 months and write about what we learned. For me, it was a project I took to my heart as it was the kind of challenge I loved to do. I made a binder of my dreams and the work I had done and included a poster of cut-out images, drawings, and paintings to illustrate the dreams.

Swami Radha was very pleased that I had put in the time to do this and said no one else had ever done that. For me, it was a joy and project that I wanted to pursue. I continued to carry on with working on my dreams and illustrating them to nurture my insights. I now follow my insights more by looking up the subjects and reading about them. I am looking forward to making some pen and ink sketches of Swami Radha’s poetry which I have already illustrated but call me to follow through in a fresh way.

Lightwaves: What was it about Swami Radha’s approach with you that encouraged you to ‘dig deeper’, to investigate symbolism and draw connections?

Hatha Yoga: The Hidden Language, Original Cover Art 1987

SD: She challenged me to go further and I did. I love exploring symbols. Swami Radha encouraged me by giving me some dreams of other people and asking me to comment on them – how would I handle them? This stretched my so-called limits and I learned more. I loved the challenge – I always loved symbolism. I liked the way Swami Radha gave me projects that stretched me.

She asked me to illustrate her books and this called on my drawing ability and required me to explore how to portray certain parts of her books. At first I held back but her encouragement brought me forward. An example of this was the cover for the original Hatha Yoga Hidden Language book. I didn’t think I could do it but she kept encouraging me and I finally just did it.

In 1967, Swami Durgananda, then Margaret White, met Swami Sivananda Radha for the first time. Four decades later, after a multitude of journals, art projects, and reflections, Swami Durgananda compiled her book In Durga’s Embrace – A Disciple’s Diary by timeless publishing.

The end of a long road for Swami Durgananda.

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Living In the Light

Andrew Baerthel — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:37:56 +0000

“Living at the ashram is for living and learning. It’s learning how to live, and it’s living so that you can keep on learning. We all have that opportunity.”

In this satsang talk from the archives, Swami Radhananda speaks about the unique opportunities that living in spiritual community offers each of us. Living in an environment where we are challenged to reflect on our choices and actions, we are given the chance to grow.

To download this video to your computer or mobile device, click here.
To purchase an audio album of satsang talks by Swami Radhananda on iTunes, click here.

This video is being broadcast using Vimeo, which creates simpler ways for us to share video content. Watch and download our videos from our channel at www.vimeo.com/yasodharaashram. If you would like to learn more about our publishing initiatives, click here. To offer your support, you may donate to Yasodhara Ashram by clicking here.

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Being Swami Sivananda

Swami Sivananda — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:16:46 +0000

Swami Sivananda continues with part two of his recently published story by Alternatives Journal. In this conclusive segment he speaks of Swami Radha’s encouragement and constant reminder that the power of choice was his greatest asset in taking his next steps.

For a full overview of the making of this article, listen to Swami Sivananda’s podcast at the end of this piece.

Fully committing to a new direction was difficult. Over the years, I had invested myself wholeheartedly in a marriage, community and career, doing worthwhile things in the company of good people. But I’d been planting seeds for this transition for a long time. By then, my yoga studies spanned 20 years, and I had a profound appreciation of the discipline as the science of life.

In the 1980s, I’d found a Western teacher, Swami Radha. Relentlessly, she encouraged me to pull back the veil to find the purpose of my life, free from preconceived ideas, independent of what anyone else thought or said. She constantly reminded me that the greatest power is the power of choice.

I approached yoga with the same intensity that I applied to my work. When serving on Tom’s staff during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in the mid-1970s, I was up before dawn to join a Sikh community in their practices. Later, when working for the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee (CARC), I was immersed in a Vedanta correspondence course. When I found myself on the Arctic Islands, I had the pilot tuck my assignments into his jacket to be mailed from Resolute Bay. When I finally returned home to Ottawa after that unsettling Bank meeting, I began to explore the idea of moving to the Ashram permanently. Patricia and I had lived there in the mid-1980s as she recovered from cancer. What the Ashram stood for resonated with me deeply, but it was not an option for her now. We were at cross-purposes, pulled in opposite directions. Then I had a dream.

Swami Sivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh, India

There is yogic way of working with dreams, similar to the Jungian approach, which is helpful in releasing a subconscious kind of knowing. My dream startled me awake. In it, Swami Sivananda, Swami Radha’s Indian Guru, turned to me as shimmering light, and said, “You did the report. Now move on.” It electrified me for days and was my first confirmation. Others followed.

By the fall of 1992, Patricia and I had agreed to separate. In preparation for my move to the Ashram, I tidied up my affairs in Ottawa. Retaining the minimum amount of cash I’d need to tide me over temporarily, I turned over our home and assets to Patricia. I was sure this was the right course despite the advice of lawyers and friends who wondered what I would do with no income. Moving to the Ashram was a huge experiment with an uncertain outcome. I knew what I was leaving behind, but not what lay ahead. I was aware that something had to change. I would start with myself. This wasn’t a casual idea – something to think about or study further. I had to act. I knew from the bottom of my being that I had to try or I’d never forgive myself.

Even with the support of the Ashram community and the steadying influence of daily practices during those first months, I found that the pull of the past, the emotionally familiar, to be too much. I cut off correspondence with Patricia and others. I had to find something in myself, alone. A rational explanation of this came much later, from Carl Jung, who once wrote, “It takes a lot of courage to take the unconscious seriously and to tackle the problems it raises.”

By spring, I felt the start of a new knowing. Coincidentally, Tom sent a note telling me that the Bank and India had parted ways on the Sardar Sarovar Projects due to the problems we’d identified. It was tragically inevitable, and costly in human and environmental terms. To me, it was another sign of an institutionalized culture that couldn’t listen, even to itself. I had doubts in those first years. But my environmental advocacy days had taught me to persist even when things seemed hopeless. Somehow support always appeared – often in unexpected ways.

Swami Radha: "You can't jump over your own shadow."

Well into my second year, I was in yet another low, facing strong resistance and doubt. No matter how many times I’d been told that getting into and out of these places of bewilderment is a necessary part of penetrating deeper into the mind, I just couldn’t hold this perspective. That changed when I received a letter from my father, one of his last before he died. Until then, he’d been unable to understand my move; my father saw only the abandonment of success.

He wrote: “I’m in the midst of reading Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth. I get a glimmer of his meaning even if his challenges are scary. I thought the attached excerpt spelled out the basis of your own momentous decision with great insight.” I unfolded the photocopy that he had attached.

It read: “To enter into a new covenant and belong to a new people, a community with new values, we have to leave another people – those with whom we have lived – with other values and other norms: wealth, possessions, social prestige, revolution, drugs, delinquency, whatever. This passage from one people to another can be a very painful uprooting, and usually takes time. Many do not achieve it, because they do not want to choose or cut themselves off from their old life. They keep a foot in each camp and live a compromise, without finding their real identity.”

The chanting from the temple softens and fades, leaving only the intermittent wash of water on the stony beach below. Swami Radhananda’s clear voice rises between waves as she leads the Divine Light meditation. She carries on the teachings of Swami Radha who founded the Ashram and died in 1995. With my eyes closed, I follow along, “… tense … relax … concentrate … see … feel … ever growing into Divine Light.”

Swami Sivananda at Yasodhara Ashram

Reflecting back on those events from almost two decades ago, I asked myself: Am I different? What have I learned? Am I at peace? Good questions that never seem to have a final answer. But who am I answering to in the meantime? Could anyone really understand and does it matter?

Patricia and I are friends in a way that we had never imagined possible. And yes, the Ashram has received prestigious environmental awards that make me proud. I know that an enriched life starts from and ends on the inside, whatever the outward signs of acceptance or accomplishment. It is so simple and so easily forgotten. I remain a beginner, but I can see that by continuing in this way, I will be able to look back over my life from my deathbed and say, “That was just great, I did it!” Is this not part of being at peace with oneself?

Holding the evening’s stillness, I open my eyes and watch the sun set. The rock at my back retains the day’s warmth. Next week, I will lead a 10-day retreat. Many young adults will be looking for something more. They will be passionate about life, relationships and this planet. They will leave enriched, each in their own way. They may learn what Swami Radha taught me: You can’t jump over your own shadow. Mostly, they’ll relearn what it is to simply listen – inside. There is a place that knows. And we can choose.

Interview with Alternatives Journal host Peter Stock on the creation of this article:
Alternatives Journal Podcast – Swami Sivananda

Now the secretary treasurer at the Yasodhara Ashram Yoga Retreat and Study Centre near Nelson, BC, Swami Sivananda (formerly Don Gamble) was a well-known and highly respected environmental professional. He was a member of the Berger Inquiry into the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and director of policy studies at CARC. He joined Berger in Alaska as co-ordinator of the Alaska Native Review Commission before returning to Ottawa to establish the Rawson Academy of Aquatic Science and its spinoff consulting arm, Resource Futures International.

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Integrating the Light

Lightwaves — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:14:37 +0000

After nearly one full year since her transforming experience during the 10-day Yoga Retreat, Jyoti Heine shares her story of coming to a place of inner knowing made possible by Swami Radha’s teachings and Divine Mother’s guidance.

My life changed in ten days. In the summer of 2009, the teachings of Swami Radha and the support of many wonderful souls at Yasodhara Ashram changed my life.

I hadn’t planned to go to the ashram. My daughter, Cierra Dahlquist, who was dedicating her time to karma yoga after completing the Yoga Development Course, called to tell me about the 10-day Yoga Retreat: “Don’t think about it – just get on a plane and come.” So I went. I had no idea what to expect, but I committed myself to the experience.

Karma Yoga Cherry Harvest

I found myself peeling an onion and unwrapping a gift: the onion being layers of ME. The gift of reflection being a new relationship with life and with the Divine through the practices of Hatha, the Divine Mother Prayer, the Divine Light Invocation, Mantra, Karma yoga, and the Life Seals workshop.

Through the 10-day Yoga Retreat, I learned that I am not alone, and I’m not lost; loneliness being a feeling I had been experiencing a great deal after the death of my mother three years previous. I learned that the power of the universe aligns with the strength in each of us if we invite it in. While chanting mantra during Satsang, my voice was part of a chorus made strong and clear by the energy of all of us chanting together paying homage to the Light and surrendering to its gifts.

I experienced a sense of oneness in the Temple, and a spiritual presence inside and around me that brought me feelings of joy and love. This feeling of connection soothed some the loneliness of my spiritual yearning – I was in a whole community of people seeking the Divine.

After staying on for a week of Karma Yoga, I was determined to integrate as much as I could from Swami Radha’s teachings into my regular life back home. Through my practices I planned to stay committed to the clarity and peace I had cultivated within. At home, I continued to work with mantra and with the Divine Light Invocation, and I brought my practices into my workplace as well. I set up a small altar in my office and hung a printout of the Divine Mother Prayer, as reminders.

Mother & Daughther Spiritual Bond

The practices have eased the often chaotic pace of my work environment, and my colleagues appreciate when I offer the Divine Light Mantra at the close of meetings. Some of my colleagues join me in the Divine Light Invocation. We all benefit from the peace it brings. My boss told me I no longer have “that anxious aura” and that I seem more grounded.

My trip to the Ashram was a Divine gift through the blessings of karma. My daughter asked me to come, but it was my own inner spiritual child I was listening to when I said yes, and my own inner child I learned to love. Despite our Mohawk heritage, my family had lost its connection to that culture’s innate spirituality. Spirituality had never been a part of my life growing up, and it wasn’t something I’d raised Cierra with, either. However, even as a little girl, I had always had a yearning for something higher. I felt I was just a short distance from it, but couldn’t quite grasp it. I knew that something higher was at work.

Everyone who gets involved with the ashram and the teachings is experiencing healing on some level, and now my daughter and I are both experiencing spiritual healing. It is a wonderful deepening of our mother-daughter bond to be able to share the teachings together, and a wonderful healing for both of us to be able to share spirituality in our family life. My time at the ashram enabled me to rediscover the spirituality I felt as a child, and to begin creating a structure to help this part of myself grow.

Life Seals Mapped out on Paper

A turning point in my spiritual growth came about during the 10-day Yoga Retreat from the Life Seals workshop. My Life Seals created the opportunity to see, with a spiritual awareness, myself and my past mapped out on paper and allowed me to accept and acknowledge the strength and inner knowing that already existed within and to draw from that. It allowed me to appreciate my journey. This learning was happening when it was most needed to guide me through the grief of a critical event in my life.

Being able to see through the many layers of my grief and to recognize the Divine within, to know I could love myself and stand strong on my own, coupled with a reconnection of that childhood inner knowing were the gifts of the 10-day Yoga Retreat. From that point onward it was celebration. I felt encouraged to make friends with Divine Mother, to learn of Her and to pray to Her. Divine Mother has been walking with me ever since. The guidance through the teachings of Swami Radha enabled me to reflect and rediscover my childhood inner knowing, giving me the strength to nurture that understanding, and dance with my inner child setting her free.

Namaste

Our next 10-day Yoga Retreat is July 22 – August 1st, 2010 – visit our website to register now or call us directly, toll-free: 1-800-661-8711

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Being Swami Sivananda

Swami Sivananda — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:04:43 +0000

Swami Sivananda was recently published by Alternatives Journal, for his story of transition from being one of Canada’s foremost environmental engineering consultants, to seemingly sudden retirement from his profession, moving to Yasodhara Ashram, and dedicating his life to selfless service as a sanyasin.

In the stuffy closeness of the elevator, we count off the floors one by one until the ping signals that we’re at the top. The doors slide open and I follow Tom Berger and Hugh Brody into the hushed busyness of the World Bank’s executive offices in Washington, DC. We are heading into a meeting to discuss the final draft of our investigation of their handling of the Sardar Sarovar Projects on India’s Narmada River. It’s 1992, an intense year since the Bank’s president asked for this independent review, the first of its kind for this powerful international financial organization.

Brad Morse, the fourth member and chair of our review team, has taken ill and is recuperating in New York. Tom, our deputy chair, is relaxed, obviously confident in the thoroughness and integrity of our 350-page report. Hugh seems calm, characteristically curious about what will happen next.

Woman bathing in the waters of the Narmada River

I’m tight, apprehensive. We’ve found widespread violations of the Bank’s own Operational Directives and uncovered problems they ought to have easily resolved themselves. We’ve heard rumblings that the Bank management found the draft report disturbing, perhaps threatening, given that Tom insisted from the start that our findings be made public.

Joe Wood, the Bank’s vice president for South Asia, is waiting to usher us into the boardroom. His senior managers on the Sardar Sarovar Projects file join us. After curt hellos, we take our “positions” on opposite sides of the long table. Tom gives it a try, but there’s a paucity of the friendly banter I’d expect among colleagues at the end of a project.

After a moment’s silence, the senior economist on the file says he’d like “clarification,” beginning with our chapter on hydrology. I’d heard that these findings had hit a nerve. The discrepancies we found indicate that the projects will not perform as planned. This calls into question the cost-benefit calculations for both the hydroelectric and irrigation components. I led the team of experts that untangled this issue and am eager to elaborate.

I begin, but the more I respond to his questions, the more I feel as if I’m talking to myself. Is anything being absorbed here? We dispute the trivial, re-arguing points already established in the Bank’s own files. Then it lands. He doesn’t want to understand; this is clever toying, a dismissive tactic. Injured passion is a well-known flash point for anger and I’m there before I can catch it. As I go ballistic, I ask, “Well, can we at least agree that the sun came up this morning?”

The Narmada River, India, below the Sardar Sarovar Dam

Next, I’m sucking air in the boardroom’s stunned silence. Tom shifts in his chair. Joe clears his throat. Then, in his measured way, Tom points out the facts in the hydrology chapter, and moves on to the environmental and social consequences. In due course, Hugh walks the Bank officials through the errors that have resulted in a substantial underestimation of the number of people who will be displaced by the projects. Responses from across the table are stiff and argumentative. Finally, the meeting comes to an end. As we ride down in the elevator, my emotions sink too.

Later that evening, the three of us go for a walk and stop for dinner. I’m gloomy, embarrassed that my outburst has undermined the integrity of our work. Tom orders a round of sake. Keeping the cup warm between his hands, he leans forward, his arms on the table, and says, “Well, Don, in law you learn one thing early. Never open high. You had nowhere to go.” With a soft chuckle, he nudges my arm and takes a sip from the tiny porcelain cup. We’ve worked together many times over the past 15 years and I appreciate his simple acknowledgment that I needn’t take this so hard. Later, Brad calls from New York. In good spirits, even strangely upbeat, he says, “One thing is for sure. That’s a meeting they’ll never forget.”

I have a restless night and wake up tired, my stomach and every joint aching. I call home to tell my wife Patricia that I’ll have to delay my flight until I feel better. Take care and get some rest, she says. Later that afternoon, I call Swami Radha in British Columbia. She listens. After a long pause, I fill the silence by telling her what bothers me the most: I fear that I am becoming more and more like the very thing I am trying to change in doing this work. I’m losing myself, undermining my own values. “Sometimes anger is necessary,” she says quietly. “Think about that.” “And perhaps,” she adds, “you should consider coming back to the Ashram.”

Swami Sivananda perched on the cliff before the Temple of Divine Light

The afternoon sun warms me as I nestle into my sheltered perch on the cliff below the temple and reflect on the past week. The crunch of shoes on the pebble beach far below catches my attention. It’s Marlene, quiet in thought. The glacier-cooled breeze pulls at her jacket and whips up small whitecaps on the lake. Clouds are building above the Kootenay Rockies to the south. From her corporate world in Calgary, Marlene is here for two days to renew herself and to offer legal advice as we plan construction of three new retreat cabins. She has been coming to the Ashram, near Nelson, BC, for a long time, one of many who give their time and expertise, and who have found a spiritual home here.

Patience is on my mind, a carry-over from my reflections all week. I understand how it can be developed through listening, and that it builds from acceptance. But in practice, what is patience really? In our managers’ meeting yesterday, we reviewed the course changes needed to best serve the people who will be coming this summer. We discussed how we’ll get the community to carbon neutrality by 2013, our 50th anniversary. We went through teaching schedules and more. The seven of us have been working and living together for well over a decade. We all knew Swami Radha. We all stepped away from “normal” family life and careers to be here, to offer what we have as selfless service.

I listened as we went around the table, each person speaking, questioning and being questioned, in an easy back and forth. What I heard inside the words was: “I want to help.” Even so, when the conversation drifts, when we have to go back over what I’m sure we’ve already dealt with many times, I felt my impatience. I know it shows. And I know I’m expected to work with it, to use this opportunity of being together to buff my sharp edges. This play of ideals at work – bringing out the best in each other, personally putting the practices into practice – is part of what our guests pick up. I know that this is why Marlene comes back, and why so many of the students from the three-month winter course want to stay on.

Swami Sivananda on East Kootenay Lake shores

A hawk soars past on an updraft and disappears over the forest. I hear a murmur of voices from the temple behind me as 17 women bring their five-day retreat to a close. These mountains seem to hold us all, making it easier to reconnect with an inner knowing. “Bring out the best in each other. Bring quality and awareness into everything you do.” It is as succinct a statement of Ashram life as any. It’s why people keep coming. It’s why I first came. Even so, as my week makes plain, this is a step-by-step process, a personal evolution – requiring patience.

During those long days at the World Bank’s offices in Washington and over the ensuing weeks back home, I realized that I was seeking heightened meaning in what I was doing, and had been for some time. The ideals that had motivated my life since the 1970s had evolved. My heart was telling me that much more was possible. My environmental work – reviewing projects, traveling up and down a valley halfway around the globe – and what I wanted most deeply were on divergent paths. Regardless of what anyone else thought, I expected more, and it wasn’t breakthrough science, new policies, additional funds, sophisticated arguments or tactics. I had to accept the inadequacy of my approach – one that I’d scarcely questioned in the past. Nothing that I was currently
doing was going to change minds or open hearts to more considerate relationships with others or with this planet. What I experienced at the Bank meeting returned. I felt trapped, at risk of dying inside.
It was time to take a next step.

For your own personal copy of this story, find Alternatives Journal on newstands today! Next week, Swami Sivananda’s journey from environmental engineer to sanyas will continue. Supplementary articles pertaining to the Sardar Sarovar Dam project, the Honorable Tom Berger, and Swami Sivananda’s first “real yoga” teacher, Swami Chinmayananda, are found on the links below:

The Narmada River, Sardar Sarovar Project – the valley of the tigers, arundhati roy

Tom Berger – yogi incognito, the life and work of tom berger

Swami Chinmayananda – yogi bhajan, chinmayananda and me

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The Four Rungs of Yogic Sustainable Publishing

gef — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:34:58 +0000

I have been working for timeless publishing for many years now, at first through my position at ascent magazine, and now through my involvement with the marketing and digital publishing of books and audio recordings. Throughout all these years, the concept of ’sustainable publishing’ has been talked about, dissected, analyzed, experimented with, and only now am I starting to have a better grasp of this multifaceted idea that is ’sustainable publishing’.

Sustainability is a broad concept – and sustainable publishing is also quite complex. So far in my exploration I can see how it could be divided into four different layers; financial, ecological, alimental, and spiritual.

As a micro-publisher of yoga-related materials, it is also essential that we observe a sustainable practice. But what does it mean to be a sustainable publisher?

The first layer of sustainability is financial. This can be explored in many ways, but as an employer you are always bound by the fact that your staff have to earn their bread and butter,

On-line distribution

and creating enough revenue for this is fundamental. Once this is covered, we can explore different ways of cutting on operational expenses – as well as creating new revenue streams; such as smaller print-runs, a smaller distribution structure, and lately with print-on-demand and pay what you can on digital downloads.

Print-on-demand and digital downloads not only reduce the investment needed to publish or republish a book, but also supports the second layer of sustainability: ecological. For many years now, timeless publishing has endeavored to be a green publisher, and our latest print-run was completely carbon-neutral. We need to care for the environment if we want it to continue thriving and evolving on this planet. Hence, ecological sustainability is of tremendous importance to us.

The third layer of sustainability can be easily pictured by comparing publishing to ‘healthy food’ and ‘fast food’. Always eating ‘fast food’ is extremely taxing to the body and is not sustainable health-wise. If publications are only used as ‘fast food’ then the brain and the mind’s health are potentially at risk. It’s important as a publisher to know if the material distributed is for the good of the consumer or if it’s only profitable disposable goods. We believe that the quality of the content that is distributed through our publications contributes to the sustainability of health and human evolution.

Radha's Diary

The fourth layer mainly concerns the spiritual aspect of sustainability which was really interesting to observe through my growing relation to Swami Radha’s body of teachings and my work with timeless publishing. When Swami Radha was initiated into sanyas under Gurudev Sivananda, she was asked to come back to Canada to update the eastern yogic teachings for the western mind. She not only updated an ancient line of yogic practices and philosophies, but also created a system where the spiritual seeker doesn’t become dependent on a teacher or a Guru.

By offering the tool of self-discovery, Swami Radha’s approach empowers and inspires students by letting them reach their own understanding of reality, uncover their innate wisdom, and access their intuitive knowledge. Spiritual sustainability is created when the practices are pointing to the real knowledge, when the need for external sources are minimized and when the system is setup in a way that the introspection can continue as deep as the aspirant wants to go. The spiritual practices are no more dogma, but tools that can adapt to the level of understanding of the practitioner.

Sustainable publishing for a micro-publisher of a yogic tradition is indeed a multifaceted concept, but all the components of the whole is what defines timeless publishing. For me, coming to that understanding not only influences my work and intentions, but also nurtures an inquisitive mind in me that looks at sustainable systems in all aspects of my life. From that broadened perspective, lessons learned in my spiritual practice can be applied to my work with timeless.

Pay What You Can for the PDF

“Pay What You Can” for a PDF version (digital download) of Time to be Holy.

There’s only 5 days left for you to make your contribution, choosing your own price to download the PDF version of Time to be Holy. Feeling grateful? You can offer as much as you want! Feeling a bit tight in your budget? You can offer a minimum of $1! Any amount you can make will support new publications of Swami Radha’s teachings.

Time to be Holy is an opportunity to discover Swami Radha’s wisdom through 64 of her satsang talks. This portable PDF resource is one you can take anywhere. For teachers, these talks can be a source of inspiration for your classes and satsangs. Did you know that PDF’s are ’searchable’, you can type in a key word and it will access your topic of interest for you?

We are extending this invitation to everyone ~ so please let others know. Join us in reducing our ecological footprint as we build a sustainable financial model in today’s print industry.

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Practicing the Light

Andrew Baerthel — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:36:41 +0000

“The most beneficial thing we can bring into ourselves is the Light, and it will heal us at all levels.” In this satsang video, Swami Radhananda leads us through a guided meditation on relaxation and the Light. She stresses the power of choice that we have to use spiritual practices like this to create space in our daily lives and in challenging situations.

We would like to invite you to take part in the guided meditation and share your reflections here with our online community.

To download this video to your computer or mobile device, click here.
Purchase an album of satsang talks by Swami Radhananda on iTunes, click here.

This video is being broadcast using Vimeo, which creates simpler ways for us to share video content. Watch and download our videos from our channel at vimeo.com/yasodharaashram. If you would like to learn more about our publishing initiatives, click here. To offer your support, you may donate to Yasodhara Ashram by clicking here.

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Revolution of the Seed

saradagrace — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:58:31 +0000

The last few days have been a whirlwind of sights and colors. Settling into Navdanya has been like a dream: misty mornings followed by scorching afternoons, followed by star filled evenings, one after the other. The sounds of Hindi are becoming more familiar to my ears and I have learned the names of most of the community members here.

There is Ganga in the kitchen, who sings while he cooks, and Jeet, the man who has come from deep in the Himalayas to work with Navdanya. Leaving behind his family as so many men from this area must do to send money home, he tells me that he is so grateful to have this work that pays him well enough that he does not have to go into the military where he may be killed in the ongoing conflict that holds Kashmir in chaos.

Clackity-clack of the Buses

As I feel the shifting of the early morning breezes on my face, I can hear the calling of the cow herders, chasing wayward cattle, intent on greenery rather than road side garbage.There is the ever rumbling clackity-clack of the buses (shocks long flattened by years on the road) shaking their way down the main road, the swaying of white butterflies and the still sweat of the promise of heat.

Last week I journeyed with a group of interns into nearby Dehradun, the capital of Uttaranchal, and a dusty sprawling metropolis that seems to hold 10 degrees in its concrete. Perched in the back of the clackity-clacking bus on a swaying tank filled with gas I am passed a small child to hold, and I clutch her to me, although I know that she will not keep me from bouncing out of the open bus door at the next bump in the road.

Dehradun Daze

After a dusty day of shopping (and the most incredible air conditioned supermarket stocked floor to ceiling with Belgian chocolates) we visit the nearby community of Tibetans in exile. A golden Buddha stands serenely in the centre of the monastery, which seems to be the hub in the spokes of windy Tibetan streets. The colors are brighter here, and the sky is filled with rope upon rope of prayer flags, whipping mantra across the entire valley.

My work at Navdanya is settling into a routine. I have been helping the office with their monthly reporting (three months behind) and I am working my way through creating a form that can be used to report to funders. In between power outages (when everyone yells at me simultaneously in a variety of languages, “SAVE, SAAAAVVVE!” before the computer screen goes black for an unknown length of time) I walk to the fields and practice what is known in Hindi as the ‘essence of humility’ or labor in the sun. There are always ways to help: the spearmint patch needs weeding or the cows have eaten the cabbage and it needs to be replanted. Over it all is the endless shifting of rice and lentil grains, and the discovery of hundreds of tiny rocks, insects and pieces of dung in between the precious bits of food.

Whipping Mantra Across the Valley

Navdanya exists in response to the corporate control of food systems. It links farmers around India and across the world in the fight for that which sustains each human being on this planet. Corporations such as Monsanto are urging India (and other countries around the world including Canada) under the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s TRIPS (Treaty of Intellectual Property Acts) to patent all of India’s traditional seed sources. Once patented, the seed becomes the private property of the corporation that has patented it, and farmers can be sued for property violation if they grow the patented seed without purchasing a license. Patented seeds can be genetically modified until they become ‘terminator seeds’, seeds that do not regenerate on their own but instead must be ‘initiated’ by a chemical process. These seeds can not be saved, and must be bought each planting season.

Women Farmers sorting seed

In response to the far reaching consequences of this inhuman practice, over 17,000 farmers (an underestimate) have committed suicide in India over the last 10 years. No longer able to meet farm debt payments, or support their families, death seems to be the only option. Navdanya is in the centre of the fight against this tragedy in India. Linking farmers around the world, Navdanya supports farmer education and works for policy change in India and beyond. They have already successfully overturned the patents on Indian basmati rice, neem products and on a traditional variety of eggplant – however, the fight is ongoing, and corporate capitalism weighs heavily on the side of genetic modifications.

The beauty of this place is saturated in this context, and with the deafening roar of the earth – each plant seems precious, the earth a vessel of the sacredness of life. It brings me to tears to think of the cruelty that humans have toward others on this earth.

How can it be that we live in a world where some can take away the right of so many to have access to water and food? How can it be that profit is more important than feeding a child? How can it be that the lies of genetic altercations of food (that it produces more food or that it helps crops to be resistant to disease) can be told again and again and believed?

Each Plant Seems Precious

It is a struggle for my mind to find balance in this reality. In the world as it is today, it becomes a radical act of resistance and creativity to sit on a burlap sack, somewhere far in the Indian countryside sorting each tiny grain of rice into small piles. It becomes revolutionary to hoe in the garden, and to transplant one tiny calendula plant, which will later be harvested and made into a balm for cuts and bruises.

A part of me wants to be in the streets, or at the doors of the government – telling someone, anyone, who will listen what an atrocity this mess is. Another part of me is content in being patient, and remembering the revolution of the seed as I sit in the shade and run the dusty grains of rice through my fingers. “I am a farmer”, my new friend Biju told me. “I am simple, and I am honest. This is enough to make the world change.”

Sarada

Yogini, activist, and humanitarian, Sarada Eastham, is a former YDC graduate and Youth Coordinator at RYYO, living an inspired life as a student of International and Community Development. Her internship with Navdanya; a biodiversity conservation and organic farm in Northern India, and her cultural immersion have been unfolding before us on Lightwaves. This article has been featured as part of our June 2010 sustainability week.

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Living Service

Andrew Baerthel — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:56:03 +0000

Integration. It’s been a consistent theme for both myself and our blog, Lightwaves. Almost 3 months after taking the Yoga Development Course and Hatha Teacher Certification I have begun to ask myself questions like, “how do I bring my practice into the world?” and “what does it mean to live spiritually?” In August, I will be leaving Yasodhara Ashram after close to two years of residence here. As the reality of moving to Ottawa and working with youth at risk comes closer to fruition, I am feeling inspired.

Over the past few weeks I have spent time working with students at the Crawford Bay School on some video and multimedia projects. Days after I sent my application to begin working with youth in Ottawa, we had a meeting with some of the local school teachers, and the opportunity opened up: “Can you start tomorrow?” “Sure.” Things have a habit of unfolding.

Starting next year, Crawford Bay School, with help from the local Eastern Kootenay Lake community, will be offering a mentorship program to students as part of the curriculum. Students will spend time with mentors who are willing to offer their knowledge and skills in a specific area where there is student interest. It is inspiring to see how the community is coming together to support a more student-driven learning model.

During the few days I spent at the school, it gave me an opportunity to learn about my expectations around teaching. What I think can be worked through in an ideal situation isn’t always realistic. It’s helped me to ground myself more in what teaching is about and come back to the intention that I started with: giving back, getting myself out of the picture. Through returning to that place, I become more responsive and open.

Andrew Baerthel - Lightwaves Multimedia Manager

Lightwaves. Through the past year we have focused on reaching out and engaging with what is happening in the world. In 2009, we took part in global events like Blog Action Day and the Charter for Compassion launch. During the summer, we joined millions in support of meaningful climate talks in Copenhagen led by 350.org and Avaaz.

Most recently, the Ashram participated in the Global Oneness Project’s ‘Screening Program.’ The Global Oneness Project is an online ‘living library’ of films offered free for download, streaming and on DVD. Their mission has been to explore the theme of interconnectedness through the lens of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture and social justice. Their library of films includes 25 shorts and over 200 interviews spanning a broad range of subjects. If you agree to host a screening with 10 or more people, you can have a set of DVDs mailed to your location at no cost. The only requirement is that you pass them along. If you want to learn more, or think you might want to host a screening, click here.

In this inspiring documentary short, Jayesh Patel, co-founder of Indian NGO Manav Sadhna, walks us through the vast slums of Ahmedabad, India. He agrees to take part in the filming only as long as the cameras focus on the people he meets. “Harmony between head, heart and hand is very important” he says. “If you work, then you understand.”

To me this is the synthesis of spiritual practice, karma yoga and of living a spiritual life: the challenge to bring intention and purpose into whatever I am doing. It is through challenging myself to step back from my current situation, observe a wider perspective, and take action, that I begin moving towards my ideal. Having the opportunity to work with youth is a more concrete result of a fundamental change that has happened in my life, bringing together work and the desire to give back into a balanced relationship, one step at a time.

This article has been featured as part of our June 2010 sustainability week.

On the GOP website, they invite viewers to take part in discussions, to engage with questions posed relating to each video. I would like to encourage you to explore the following reflection and participate in the discussion by clicking here.

“If you see the problem then your mind works; if you see the opportunity then your heart works.” What role might the heart have in problem solving? In being of service?

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Balancing Peace in Chaos

Paris — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:33:56 +0000

This week at Lightwaves, we are investigating the meaning of local and global sustainability. We will post three reflections of two yoginis and a yogi who are integrating spiritual practice into their lives and work, and offering back their inner Light through selfless service.

We begin this thematic week with Paris Marshall Smith, Yasodhara Ashram’s garden manager, as she explores her own re-acquaintance with the land she nurtured last year.

I have returned again to the Yasodhara Ashram garden, stumbling back from the rush and frenzy of school and urban life; and like anything seen again, it is not the same. The deep intimacy that I nurtured for four months last year seems distant. I feel like I am meeting my lover after a long separation, and must take the time to walk gently inward, and tenderly open up to the potential of what could be.

In my mind, the potential includes how the Ashram garden can best serve our guests and our community. How we, as stewards of this place, can best serve the garden, this land entrusted into our care. Through my work at school, I have been investigating food systems for a post-carbon world and am seeking to integrate what I have learned with my work in the garden. I am rethinking my understanding of agriculture and how food production manifests in relationship to land.

From the immediacy of the garden, my mind roams to the global connections and implications of trade, access, seeds, technology, and sovereignty. In an attempt to help navigate through the enormity of this topic, I am working on principles that can guide the planning and re-integration of food within our communities.

Mediating between the wild and the cultivated

Bringing my mind back to the garden, my inquiry focuses first on questions like: how can food be produced with minimal impact and intrusion? How can I build a relationship that works in tandem with natural systems — seeing myself less as a manager and more as a facilitator — mediating between the wild and the cultivated?

It is tricky, because we (plants, animals, insects) are all interested in our own survival; too much lenience and suddenly the couch/crab grass and dandelions have taken over. Too much order and the robust bounty of soil’s unseen life is thwarted.

Can I let go of some of my need for control — order and familiarity — and allow plants to find their own resilience in the conditions of this place? By taking my investigation to a deeper place, can I nurture systems that tread lightly, shifting to new concepts of time and work? Order and chaos? Beauty and balance?

I am willing to stretch my own perceptions of what is right and wrong, allowing greater flexibility to recognize benefit where there may not have been at first glance (those tall weeds bring shade and moisture to the soil) and finding light and freedom in the necessity of discipline and diligence (those weeds can also become host to pesky pests like flea beetle and pea weevil).

More often than not, my responses while drawing from experience and knowledge are intuitive and do not necessarily follow a logical path. As I go back to structure over and over — 2 rows of beets, 6 inches apart — I often see myself deviating from the lines and changing the system. A row of cucumbers for instance, finds its home in between the beets, because intuitively I felt like they needed to go somewhere else. So my practice is balance: finding a place of peace amongst the chaos.

Paris' Garden Perspective

This balance between order and chaos is very much present in all aspects of my life. I enter into a new situation (place, job, relationship) and seek to know the rules, the structure, the system, while at the very same time, I am learning to push boundaries, and create new openings to transcend stale patterns.

There is an edge on which I am learning to navigate. I slip and stumble, and then kneeling down, my senses sing as my body leans in to offer my hands and heart in service. I am alive and grateful for the space to dig deep into this soil, this body. I walk slowly, finding a path forward.

Paris Marshall Smith has returned for her second year as the Ashram’s garden manager. Devoted to maintaining sustainable agricultural practices, and integrating her education in Community Planning, Paris has committed to taking an innovative approach to see the garden flourish over the next few years. This article has been featured as part of our June 2010 sustainability week.

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Starting From the Beginning

Andrew Baerthel — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:28:08 +0000

“Everybody starts at the beginning.” In this satsang talk, Swami Radhananda reads from the manuscript of her upcoming book. The book is based on reflections from her diary, spanning the time she has spent at the Ashram, including her first arrival in the 1970’s and the years of learning with her guru, Swami Radha. The excerpt that she reads traces the beginnings of her spiritual life, of her first steps on Ashram grounds, being introduced to yogic practices and reflection. She revisits many of the questions that she had begun asking at the time: “What does it mean to be a woman? Who am I?”

We would like to invite you to reflect on the following questions:
Who am I? How am I changing?

To download this video to your computer or mobile device, click here.
To view more videos from Yasodhara Ashram on Youtube, click here.
To purchase an album of satsang talks by Swami Radhananda on iTunes, click here.

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Eileen Reviews: Time to be Holy

Eileen — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:34:04 +0000

“Take time to be holy”, Swami Radha says on the first page of her book of the same title. “Make this one of your key sentences for conducting your future life.”

I look up after I read this, to think about what she has said. She would be very happy to know that I have stopped to reflect. Taking time to be holy is not what you might assume. It is not prayer, or mantra, or attending church, nor is it singing a hymn or meditating. Swami Radha defines it further. “Take time off to think, to reflect….don’t be so busy that you don’t have time to think.”

For several years, I was intimidated by the title of this classic volume from timeless publishing. I steered away from pulling it off the shelf in the Ashram bookstore and cracking the spine. ‘Holy’ is a daunting word for the modern, secular culture in which I live, much like the words ’soul’ or ‘worship’. But it turns out that in my avoidance, I have been missing something priceless, both in the contents of the book itself — these sixty-four satsang talks given by Swami Radha over the course of many years — and in being able to achieve a more refined understanding of what ‘holy’ might mean.

Taking time to be holy is not a matter of asking what I will cook for supper this evening, whether or not it will rain today, or even when I will retrieve the precise word I am searching for. Taking time to be holy is a different quality of mind-work. According to Swami Radha, this time is for reflection on one’s conduct, on the impact of one’s actions, words or thoughts. The process of reflection is, for her, inherent in the self-development work she modeled and taught while she was alive. Reflection continues to be the backbone of Ashram courses and programs, fostering awareness and clarifying the mind so that we can, as Swami Radha herself says, “remember our true natures”.

I never knew Swami Radha. My first visit to the Ashram took place a few years after her death in 1995. I know people who did know her, and I treasure those moments when they share with me a particular memory of her, or a cluster of words she spoke that had a large impact on them. These words gleam and sparkle. She was, by all accounts, an entirely remarkable human being who inspired a great many people to achieve their potential.

Because I did not know her during her lifetime, I must come to know her through her writing, through the audio recordings and the video files that she left behind. Nowhere have I found a richer trove of her voice and her wisdom than in Time to be Holy. Her voice in these satsang talks is immediate. It brims with truthful certainty. She is at times firm, at times fierce, at times deeply human, fallible and loving.

“Don’t concentrate on what you have to complain about…..Look at what you already have.” I stop reading, feeling sheepish about a particular situation I have been complaining about to myself for the last two days. I underline the words and flip the pages again until they stop, it would seem arbitrarily, at another talk. “It’s often that we are trapped by our senses not because we are so weak but because we are so forgetful.” I reflect on how often my mind lays the same trap for me, how I seem to fall into it yet again. Remember to remember, I scribble in the margin. Easier said than done.

As I read, hopping back and forth from one talk to another, I encounter many topics that are obviously spiritual, such as Christian Myth and Symbolism or Using the Divine Light Invocation. These I would have expected. Yet there are other talks that surprise me, topics ripe with meaning and guidance for everyday life: Human Mothers, Self-Development, New Year’s Resolutions. On page after page, I find the trademark practicality of Swami Radha’s teaching, a co-mingling of Eastern and Western perspectives that forms the foundation of her gift to this world.

I close the book, happy to have overcome my intimidation about reading it. I will reflect more on that tomorrow.

Eileen

EILEEN DELEHANTY PEARKES was a regular contributor to ascent magazine for many years and is the author of The Glass Seed, a lyrical memoir offering insight into the nature of memory and the power of the human heart to heal.

“Pay What You Can” for a PDF version (digital download) of Time to be Holy.

For the next 21 days, you are free to choose your own price to download the PDF version of Time to be Holy. Feeling grateful? You can offer as much as you want! Feeling a bit tight in your budget? You can offer a minimum of $1! Any contribution you can make will support new publications of Swami Radha’s teachings.

We are extending this “Pay What You Can” invitation to everyone ~ so please let others know.

This special offer is a sustainable publishing initiative from timeless publishing. Never before have our personal choices and business practices had such an enormous impact on our environmental and global connections.

‘Sustainable publishing’ for us means that on one hand we are reducing our ecological footprint by becoming a carbon neutral publisher; and on the other hand, we’re creating a sustainable financial model in today’s print industry. Time to be Holy is now offered as a print-on-demand book and downloadable PDF – the choice is yours.

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The Treasure Chest

Andrew Baerthel — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:05:54 +0000

“It’s the depth of your understanding that counts and then it’s up to you. Don’t just skim the top, the surface. Go deeper with your understanding.”

In this satsang talk, Swami Radhananda speaks about the process of creating her upcoming book and the practice of reflection. The book is based on her reflections since first arriving at the Ashram in the 1970’s. She emphasizes the importance of keeping a spiritual diary for recording our growth and evolution. As we practice over time, we begin opening a treasure chest of wisdom, victories, and golden insights. Next week, you’ll have the opportunity to hear her read an excerpt from her draft.

In this video, Swami Radhananda invites us to explore the following reflection:

You can begin to see that there is always something happening that can be a learning. Then how do you put it into action so that it doesn’t just stay in the book?

This video is being broadcast using Vimeo, which creates simpler ways for us to share video content. Watch and download our videos from our channel at www.vimeo.com/yasodharaashram. If you would like to learn more about our publishing initiatives, click here. To offer your support, you may donate to Yasodhara Ashram, by clicking here.

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Music from the Heavens

Andrew Baerthel — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:27:21 +0000

Gandharvas: (Sanskrit, गंधर्व) Known for their superb musical skill, and for being messengers between humans and the Gods.

On Saturday, May 22nd, Pandit Deobrat Mishra and Prashant Mishra offered a concert of classical Indian music in the Temple of Divine Light at Yasodhara Ashram.

‘The Mishras‘ have been sharing their musical heritage at the Ashram for several years, playing concerts and offering workshops in the traditional music of Varanasi. In 2009, they created a school in Nelson, BC, through Selkirk College–teaching classes in vocal, sitar and tabla. Proceeds from the concert were raised in support of the school. To find out more about their school and classes, click here.

Pandit Deobrat concluded the night with a prayer song to Divine Mother, and afterward shared his feelings on offering sacred music in temples and ashrams around the world. In this video, he speaks of the suffusing and healing effect music has had on his life.

To download this video to your computer or mobile device, click here.
To view more videos from Yasodhara Ashram on Youtube, click here.

This video is being broadcast using Vimeo, which creates simpler ways for us to share video content. Visit our video channel and download our videos at: www.vimeo.com/yasodharaashram. If you would like to learn more about our publishing initiatives, click here. To offer your support, you maydonate to Yasodhara Ashram, by clicking here.

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Leap of Faith III

Faith — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:12:11 +0000

In Part III of her series, Faith Stuart offers a courageous reflection. Here she shares her “leap of faith” into the arms of Divine Mother during the darkest hours of grieving.

Journal entry: April 26, 1997 – “I woke this morning crying, my face and pillow wet. I have dreamt that I’d buried my daughter. As I reached for my journal to write the dream down the thought came to me: ‘what a bizarre thing to dream – she is young’. Now fully awake I remember I did bury Patti – yesterday. What is dream, what is real?”

It can seem so cruel, unreal, and yes bizarre. I wanted to deny Patti’s death. The First Alliance Church in Calgary offered to do Patti’s funeral service. She had been a member for about a year. I gratefully accepted, as I was not feeling up to arranging a conventional service and knew it would be important to honour Patti in that way. However, equally important, I needed to take a stand with myself and be clear that I was, in my way, going to honour the richness of our relationship and what a gift Patti had been to me.

During the time Patti was with the church she had befriended what had become a surrogate, caretaking mother, also by the name of Faith. It took persistence and my determination to convince the other Faith that I, her mom, could and would say my goodbye to Patti. Only after I gave her a typed “eulogy”, in the event that I was unable, would she agree to include me in the service. I had no doubt I would be able.

I review my experience of the day of the funeral.

Journal entry: April 25, 1997, 4:00 a.m. – “Not much sleep, just numbing and painful hurt. Everything has large halos of light, more and bigger than usual, pulsating all over the room. Is she going to the Light? Or is it at times like these when I feel so connected, so in need of that connection, there is simply more Light – everywhere? I choose to believe Patti is going to the Light, I visualize it and I keep her in the Light. I miss my son, Arni; he is still alive. I want to be close to him, but he is busy in medical school and not living with us. I need to hold him, be with him, in his presence. Thank goodness for my practices, what would I do without them? Today is the day all the people come to the church and we ‘celebrate the life’ of my daughter.”

I remember the church had planned the service in the small sanctuary but people kept coming–many I knew, many I didn’t. Eventually the ushers had to move everyone to the large sanctuary. At the time it seemed to take an eternity and I don’t know how many times I focused on and repeated the Divine Mother prayer.

Finally we were walking down a long aisle, Arni and my brother behind me, Chuck, my husband, in tears holding my arm, and I with a stoic half-smile glued to my face, still repeating the prayer, asking Her to hang onto me.

For me the service seemed long and hard to endure. When my turn came I stood strong and tall, and spoke from my heart what I could offer to Patti, in that moment, for and from me.

Faith Stuart at Yasodhara Shores

“My Dearest Patti,
Because of the special person you were
I learned how to love in a special way
And, I learned how to practice compassion

Thank you, Patti
Those are big gifts

I am grateful that you chose me to be your mom, Patti

You brought so much light and joy
When you were strong within yourself
It radiated from your eyes
your entire being

And in your dark times
I was challenged to grow yet a little more
To look within me and find my truths
Just as you often challenged yourself to do the same

I remember when you were 10 months old,
Watching your persistent effort to stack, in perfect order, of course,
Several colored rings, on a stick

I remember in your teens how you ran to win
They called you ‘miss jackrabbit’
And the awards you did win

Well, my darling,
May you now find peace in Light

No more struggle
In a world that often seemed to be too big for you

I will miss you so very much
And yet you will be with me each day

I will remember you in your Light
And that will remind me

How grateful I am
That I was your mom
You gave me so much

I thank you, Patti – your mom”

Honouring Patti and my Inner Light

I would not have had the courage to express my tribute to Patti prior to the “Who Am I?” workshop at the Yoga Development Course where we explored our identity, brainstorming “Who Am I”. In this workshop I learned the importance of honouring my inner Light and taking action from that place of strength and knowing.

My way before this was “be nice and easy to get along with at whatever cost and let them do whatever they want”. This would have, at a deep level, kept my denial of Patti’s death alive and prevented my healing. With the support of the Light and with the support of my family, spiritual community and my friends, I got through those days.

I had been home from the Ashram for less than a week when Patti died, however it seemed to me I was still in the YDC asking:

“What is love? What is Compassion? Who am I?”

Hari Om

Faith

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Adaptation Upon Arrival

saradagrace — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:05:11 +0000

Navdanya is a network of seed keepers and organic producers spread across 16 states in India. They have helped 54 community seed banks across the country, training over 500,000 farmers in seed sovereignty, food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture over the past two decades. They are actively involved in the rejuvenation of indigenous knowledge, for the protection of biological and cultural diversity.

‘Navdanya’ means “nine crops” that represent India’s collective source of food security.

For the first time, I can see the mountains. In Rishikesh, although the city is built into the sides of the hills, the mountains seem distant in the fog, heat and pollution.

Only in the early morning and evening can the mountain tops be seen at all, and while there is a sense of them all around, they are like ghosts looming somewhere far overhead, felt rather than seen.

Swaying Mango Trees and a Symphony of Birds

Nestled at the base of the Himalayas, outside of the city of Dehradun, the mountains bookmark the sky, greeting the great sprawling Indian plains–I have arrived. Dusty, exhausted and overwhelmed by days of travel, sickness and the heat which is so new to my body, I notice for the first time the sounds of birds. Birds of more kinds than I can count, mango trees swaying in the breeze and trees reaching their leaves toward the sky. In Rishikesh the trees have all dropped their leaves in the dry season, and the green is like a breath of clean air for my vision.

I am taken to my room – in a long hallway of rooms facing out toward the farm. The buildings are made of mud, rich in hand mixed painted color. The man who shows me to the room offers me great kindness when he takes me by the shoulders and tells me that I am welcome here. He tells me that ‘I am home’, and that I can know that this is true. Cultural appropriateness aside, I hug him, and then immediately leap back, embarrassed. He laughs, and tells me to sleep.

I lay on the porch and rest in the breeze. Lazily opening my eyes at an unknown ‘whoosh’ sound, I am surprised to see that the mango forest is suddenly covered in beautiful white birds. Strutting slowly, they watch the ground for bugs before snaking their heads out to reach for their food.

Self-directed Navdanya Interns at Sunset

If there is one thing I have learned during my time in India it is this: things are not as expected – and Navdanya is no exception. It turns out that I had not been expected by the farm staff. Somehow there was no communication between the offices in New Delhi and the Farm, so there is no set project ready for me here (although I hear this is often the case with the Delhi interns also).

Speaking to the other interns who are here, they share stories of the moment they discovered that their internships were truly ‘up to them’, and the projects that have emerged from this freedom. The person that I have been communicating with by email from Canada (my ‘supervisor’) left the organization last week without a word, so I was able to meet with another person here this morning who will be able to serve as my official ‘supervisor’. His first words of supervision? “Find something you like, and do it!” Ok! Here I go!

Farmer Training Circle - True Revolutionaries

The farm is at work all of the time, and yet the work itself is more a part of life than something separate. It is the work of creating food, sharing food, sorting out community life, cleaning seed, meeting with the farmers, sweeping the floors. It is a life of imminence and magnificent presence. This morning I sat for hours with a group of women sorting tiny rocks from lentil seeds, listening to the lilt of Hindi and watching the rain pour down.

My busy mind struggles with the variability of life here. I have been hurrying for years it feels, rushing to complete one known for another unknown. Time has sped up, leaving me feeling oftentimes lost in the confusion of fast-paced hustle. Could it be that Navdanya will offer the chance to learn in a pace that is so different from that which I usually push myself toward? That it could offer me the freedom to explore to the depth that I want to go?

A Matter of Sorting

As I write this I can hear the sunset call to prayers coming from the nearby community. There is an owl hooting in a nearby tree, and the sky is filled with the flush of pigeons. I have crushed spearmint leaves on my hands from where I spent a blissful hour weeding this afternoon, and the sky is shifting to a beautiful shade of purple.

Could all of the last week have happened in the same India? The crowded, garbage filled streets, the poverty, the devotion along the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh? This space of mangos, earth and place? I have been blessed with the appearance of so many unexpected angels on this journey. In arriving at Navdanya I feel I have met another.

There is a man here named Edwin Toone, who is doing a photography project for a book on Navdanya. He will be traveling to some of the farms across India that are a part of the network of Organic farm workers, and documenting their stories. Perhaps I will have the chance to join him. Only tomorrow will tell. I will spend this week defining the work that I will do – and working each day with a different part of the farm.

I met a woman in the library tonight who tells me, “It is all connected. Here, there, everywhere. Somehow everything is connected at Navdanya too. I just have to understand how.” I feel the same way.

Sarada

Yogini, activist, and humanitarian, Sarada Eastham, is a former YDC graduate and Youth Coordinator at RYYO, living an inspired life as a student of International and Community Development. Her internship with Navdanya, a biodiversity conservation and organic farm in Doon Valley, Uttranchal, will unfold before us as she spends the next two months immersed in the richness of this heated political and environmental climate.

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An Unforeseen Rishikesh Aarti

saradagrace — Thu, 20 May 2010 19:27:23 +0000

I wait: Blue lightning arcing over the banks of the Ganges.

There is unexpected magic permeating each of the movements that I make here on the red Indian earth. I have prepared for this trip for months, writing funding grants, learning all that I can about India and the work that I will be doing with Navdanya, a grassroots organization working on preserving cultural and biological diversity across the country.

The work is a final graduation requirement for me in completion of the Masters of Social Work degree that I have been navigating my way through at the University of Calgary. Specializing in International and Community Development, this degree has offered me the chance to link issues in Canada with issues around the world, and to seek insights of change and potential.

I believe in life, in hope, and in the inevitability of a better world. It is this passion that has driven me this far, awakening unexpected turns in my life, allowing all else to temporarily drop away and begin a journey along the dusty roads of India with the horizon directly before me.

Rishikesh and the Sacred Ganges River

Waylaid en route to the community of Dehradun (the closest town to Navdanya) by an unexpected festival–a once every 12 year event that brings together millions of spiritual seekers (Sadhus) from across India–I find myself remaining on the train, drawn by some irresistible urge to pay my respects to my spiritual home.

A bus ride, traffic jam, adventure with a cow and a haphazard trip on the back of a bicycle later, I stand in awe at the banks of the Ganges River, deep in the soul of Rishikesh. There is a heat here like nothing else I have experienced, and the river seems to breathe with it, waving in the heat as though it is alive and the lungs of this place.

By sunset, the heat sends arcs of electricity shooting across the sky, as though the temperature is something physical, alive and powerful. Making my way to the banks of the river for the fire purification ritual of Aarti, the rain begins to fall and each splatter offers a tiny oasis of cool against my parched skin. I let myself become a part of the colorful crowds, swaying this way and that as people remove their shoes and find a corner to sit.

Festival of Color, Dust, and Jasmine

An old woman in a sari the color of sunrise grasps my hand and pulls me down beside her, gesturing for me to share the burlap sack that she is sitting on. Looking out over the river and feeling the push and pull of people arriving for prayer, I wonder what force it is that has brought me here, and how it is that I have come to this place. There is a large statue of Shiva at the banks of the river and water shoots from his head, just as it does (so they say) at the sacred root of the Ganges deep, deep in the cool Himalayas.

A song begins to build and the pulse of it is taken by the crowd. People all around me are sighing, singing in the rain, blue lightning arcing over the banks of the Ganges.

There is a woman dancing on the marble at the foot of Shiva, her eyes closed, face tilted to the rain which has began to pour down in earnest now. I can see the water washing her face, and taking the red stain of earth from her feet. She stands in a pool of red, as though her blood is being washed away, leaving her face intent, bliss filled and heart open. Her sari is plastered to her chest, and she moves to a rhythm that is her own, describing her own secret, sacred dance to the universe.

With a whoosh (and the crack of deafening thunder) the Aarti lamp is lit, and I am pressed back by the crowd which swoons toward the purity. I stand and let my body be carried toward the light, offering my hands toward the heat before turning to wash myself in the sacred Ganges.

Sunset at Shiva's Feet - Rishikesh

It is said in India that when one is cleansed in the Ganges, it is possible to begin life again, to open purity in spirit and body. As I kneel and touch the water I feel like the earth, water, fire and air have opened at once in a marvelous display of magnificence. The sky cracks open and for an instant, all is light, before it is dark again and I am deafened by a roar of thunder that feels like the Gods of the clouds have jumped directly above my head.

I sit on the cold earth, bodies black in the darkness pressing all around me and marvel at this moment. In the midst of the challenge of New Delhi, the intensity of unbelievable poverty, the crush of mind numbing oppression, the complications of global politics and phrases like the “Global North” and the “Global South”, there remains this place and this instant, standing still for thousands of years to greet each sunset with fire by the banks of the Ganges.

I press my hands to my ears, wondering how it is possible that the world can hold so much, and I, such a tiny speck, guided this way and that. I hold the promise of this moment, the gift from the feet of Shiva close to my heart, and wait for mother India to unfold.

Sarada

Yogini, activist, and humanitarian, Sarada Eastham, is a former YDC graduate and Youth Coordinator at RYYO, living an inspired life as a student of International and Community Development. Her internship with Navdanya; a biodiversity conservation and organic farm in Doon Valley, Uttranchal will unfold before us as she spends the next two months immersed in the richness of this heated political and environmental climate.

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Work and Healing

Andrew Baerthel — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:24:42 +0000

“That’s the ideal that we want: that our nature and our spiritual part will come to some cultivated, harmonious way inside and outside. We want to be masters of ourselves and be the master of our work — whatever is given to us — and not a slave to it.” In this satsang talk, Swami Radhananda reflects on the healing potential of work and the opportunities it provides for us to expand our awareness, and to make better choices.

In this video, Swami Radhananda invites us to reflect upon the following questions:

What am I really supposed to be doing with my life? What is my work and where does it come from? What is it bringing to us that we have to learn?

This video is being broadcast using Vimeo, which creates simpler ways for us to share video content. Visit our video channel at: www.vimeo.com/yasodharaashram. If you wish to download this video file to your computer or mobile device, click here. If you would like to learn more about our publishing initiatives, click here. To offer your support, you may donate to Yasodhara Ashram, by clicking here.

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