My Christmas Wish for You

According to Wikipedia Christianity is the largest (has the most adherents) in the world followed by Islam and the Hinduism.

Until the recent advent of terrorist attacks it was probably also the most hated, the history of the Christian church is filled with greed, murder, lust, domination. It is also filled with unparalleled acts of compassion, love and personal sacrifice for others.

So in the darkness there is light and in the light there is darkness. The Chinese recognizes this with their yin/yang symbol, as on the dark side this is a touch of light and vice versa.

My husband and I always talk about "fallen" heroes those men and women who seemed on this path of greatness and then were sidelined by their humanness, perhaps they had an affair or embezzled some money. Now we no longer revere them and question their integrity from the beginning. I personally find this childish, I like to call it the Clark Kent syndrome, only those who live a squeaky clean life can be our heroes it is part of the brain washing of our culture.

The Christian church gets this really bad rap, yes it has a shady history, yes maybe the bible was destroyed and rewritten...yes I know, you have read this book that proves Jesus married Mary Magdalene. Yes I know you read this other book that proved the Catholic Church amended the original bible in order to control the people.

But in the end we just don't know, nothing can be proven 100%, most of the books we read are just well researched and yet unproven theories.

You could call this my rant, I love Christmas. Christian or not it is a great holiday. We can celebrate the birth of Jesus if we are religious, or we can celebrate what his birth represented. It represented Hope for a people who were suppressed by the High Priests, high taxes and more. People who were dominated and controlled. The birth of Jesus brought Hope to these people. Hope is one of the most important things we need. People without hope do desperate things including committing suicide..

Recently I read a quote which said " you can live about 3 days without water, 2 or 3 weeks without food and not a second without hope". I loved this quote, because I remember in my life the times I had almost given up on Hope, and those dark thoughts that came up.

Christmas ends the year and begins the new year, and each new year brings fresh hope. We set resolutions, hoping to quit smoking, lose weight, be happier. We hope that our kids lives will get straightened out, our husbands will find a job, our financial difficulties will be over. We hope to marry and have children, we hope for our children to find partners and be happy. We hope our husband will quit drinking, we hope our wife will be finally happy with us.

Hope is a beautiful thing, it makes new starts in life and can bring about huge changes. Yoga gives many people hope that they can live a life not quite so stressed and tired, that maybe there is a way out of this chaos we live in.

I would not particularity call myself Christian, I am more of a spiritual person, I do however love Christianity and all it represents. I love Christmas and enjoy spending time with my family, buying gifts within my means and just celebrating the season of Hope with all those around me.

I hope that you do not attach yourself to what you believe the perfect Christmas should be like and that you live in the moment. It is only in the present moment that we can truly feel blessed.

So with this, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, enjoy the season and I hope for you all that you continue to find more peace of mind, wisdom and compassion for yourself and others.

Merry Christmas,

Love and Namaste,

Sheree

My Yoga Practice

The study of yoga is a life long study (or perhaps a many life long study), understanding consciousness and terms like illusion (maya) can be read in a book. But are better to be experienced.

Some would say Samadhi is the ultimate merging with the universe or god, some would claim that Samadhi are those times when we feel bliss and perfect contentment with our lives.

Currently there is a debate on what came first, yoga or Hinduism, and if it was Hinduism, should we not honor that fact in our teaching of yoga.

Debate, debate, debate, just like in religion scholars argue over this or that, did the egg or the chicken come first. Books, blogs and articles are written, honestly, most of them make me want to scream, thank God I practice yoga. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be a scholar to have to research and try to prove theories, from book learning, I wonder if the mind of a scholar every settles.

One of my favorite expressions is "would you rather be right or be happy", and I believe that sometimes happiness comes from not over analyzing and just living in the day. while I appreciate the work of scholars and love to read books on yoga, at the end of the day, I learn from my personal practice. I believe that yoga has to be experienced to fully understand it's benefits.

Yoga is a science, yes it can be proven that it works. Ancient yogi's tested postures, breathing exercises and meditation techniques for hours/weeks/days and years and then passed on what they had learned. For example if you hold pada hastasana for 3 hours and 48 minutes each day at some point you will reach glimpses of Samadhi. I could go on and on listing the benefits of asanas (postures) each has been proven to have a specific result (s). I have not yet done this pose for this length of time and probably never will, but have heard from people that did have this discipline, that yes, Samadhi can be reached in this manner.

Almost every week someone mentions to me about how happy I am, this always makes me smile because I have as much happening in my mind and my life as the next person. I have the stresses of marriage, running a business, and more. I am happy because I practice yoga and in those times of stress, I reach for my yoga mat or a spiritual book or a phone to call my spiritual director.

I have never practiced yoga to exercise many do, and that's great, but for me it has always been a spiritual practice, my mat is my prayer rug and I go to it with reverence, each time I practice yoga I set my intention, and it is always the same, I want to let go of Sheree (the ego) and let the universe make me a better person, I try focus on the prana and not my surroundings. Year after year, class after class I set the same intention, make me kinder, more patient and more loving to the people in my life, help me create union in my life. Slowly, slowly over the years I have become a little more patient and a little more loving.

From this practice comes my experience, yes yoga can settle the mind, yes yoga can heal the central nervous system, yes yoga can bring peace and love to your life, when you practice.

For me my journey to a more loving person has been valleys and hills, sometimes I am in bliss other times I am the old Sheree, full of fear that leads to envy, guilt, anger and more. I usually realize the old Sheree has resurfaced when I feel separation from family and friends.

One of my shortcomings in my inability to forgive myself, I have made huge errors in judgement in my life and have been able to let them go yet one of the recent ones plays on my mind. Falling short of the high ideals I had set for myself has caused me great guilt, I know in time I will reach a better place but in the meantime I hope that this inability to forgive does not translate into my relationships with people. We sometimes find it hard to forgive others when we cannot forgive ourselves.

On the other hand this lapse shall we say in judgement has made me more compassionate towards others, it was my spirutal director who pointed this out. So with darkness there is light, and our experiences can make us a better person, if we learn from them.

I am very much a tantric yogini by the way, my thoughts and experiences have shown me that this place we call earth can be the source of love and bliss, I choose to make the experience called "my life" a journey into love. One day I will pass on hopefully to greater planes and more bliss, but for now I love the life I have.