...ife wasnt all about me anymore, and for the first time, I didnt feel alone. To put it bluntly, loneliness is nasty. A study by the National Institute of Aging says that, People who feel lonely have more health problems and a shorter life expectancy than those who do not feel lonely. Loneliness plagues Americans; it causes stress, shortens our lives, and, in general, makes us a despondent and sorrowful lot.

Well, Ive found the cure for this common American disease called loneliness, and its a guru. Yes, finding someone who will ru (remove) your gu (darkness or muck) is a surefire way to find peace and a release from the ills that plague you. You see, we are all like tiny drops of the ocean wandering around, and until we get back, we dont have the great vast sea of knowledge or bliss from which to draw. One of the quickest ways to get back to the ocean is to find yourself a guru, a person or group of people, who can teach you lifes greatest lessons without your protest and without your ego saying, Im going to do it my way. Some people think that surrender to a guru makes you bland and uninteresting, but by adding your drop of the ocean back into the voluminous sea, you actually have more to draw from and can become a much more rich and vibrant individual.

You dont have to travel to India; you dont even have to be Indian. You dont even have to practice yoga very much to find a guru. The great thing is about this tradition is that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, so, sit back, relax, be receptive to all the lessons life brings to you, and get ready to discover yogas untapped resourcethe tremendous power of surrender to a guru.

Copyright 2006 Alanna Kaivalya

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What Chair Yoga Teachers Need to Know About Teaching Seniors

...bones after all, you do not touch that part of your body in public!

Do not say much about the spiritual aspects of yoga

There are some fundamentalist Christians that put forth the idea that yoga is the work of the devil. Liz had one class sabotaged by a woman who insisted that chanting OM was calling the devil. There is not much you can do to change peoples minds about this, but you should be aware of this problem.

You also need to think about everything you say in class and decide if that could be misinterpreted as a call to change ones spiritual attitude. Most of your students will have established their religious outlook on life long before they start a chair yoga class. You probably shouldn't talk much about chakras, the Sanskrit names for asanas, awakening Kundlini energy, or any of the more spiritual aspects of yoga when teaching Yoga In Chairs.

Expect students to interrupt class with questions

Most of your chair yoga students will be new to yoga to start out with, and will have lots of questions. They may have health issues to ask about, and they sometimes just dont get it the first time around.

Be patient with your students when they interrupt class with a question. Your chair yoga classes ...more

Yoga for Back Pain and fibromyalgia Syndrome

... various exercises associated with Hatha Yoga were performed to prepare the body for long periods of meditation. The word yoga means to join or unite together, and the practice joins together the body, mind, and spirit. The practice is often associated with Hinduism, but pre-dates the religion. As have other religions, Hinduism has incorporated elements of this art into its practices.

Yoga is now practiced around the world and is helpful as a natural cure for fibromyalgia becuase of its psychological, physical, and spiritual benefits. According to results of a study sponsored by the Yoga Journal, released in June 2003, 15 million Americans, or over seven percent of US adults, practiced some form of this exercise form.

Yoga for fibromyalgia Sufferers The gentle exercise form can be practiced by almost anyone. The beauty of this exercise form is that it is ...more

Easing Stress Naturally - Practice Yoga

...ability to rise above worldly desires. Practicing yoga is known to result in the gradual awareness of the true meaning of reality.

In the ancient world, yoga evolved as a way of cultivating spiritual awareness, compassion and insight. It has been taken to represent the union of the soul and the body.

One of the many branches of yoga that penetrated the modern world is Hatha Yoga. This consists of concentration techniques, breathing exercises, specific dietary restrictions and the "asanas", or the stationary or moving poses used to create a balance in the different systems of the body. Among the systems benefited by the asanas are the digestive, the endocrine and the nervous systems.

This series of poses or postures exert their beneficial effects by slowing down mental activities and gently stretching the bodi...more

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