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ready
for healthy results?
People
taking Kripalu’s Healthy Living programs are experiencing
results. My blood pressure is down, I’m not snoring
anymore, and I’ve only used antacids twice since January! But
most importantly, I feel marvelous. Healthier. I have much
more energy, and I’m dealing with stress better.
—Marsha L., attorney, Arundel, Maine Kripalu
Healthy Living Programs give you the skills and resources to
make sustainable changes for a healthier lifestyle. You can
choose from six specialized programs: Health and Vitality in
Midlife, Integrative Weight Loss, Fitness Challenge, Yoga for
Health, Food as Medicine, and Health for Life. Find
out more about  Kripalu’s Healthy Living
Programs.
love,
sex, and life
Sex is
probably the least talked about—and most thought about—aspect
of our lives. Renowned author, teacher, and sex therapist Gina
Ogden wants women to start talking, break down barriers, and
figure out what sexual energy really is—and isn’t. Gina’s work
teaches us how to listen—to other women, to our own bodies—so
we can begin to think differently about sex, establish healthy
self-esteem, and rediscover passion and desire. Read
an excerpt from The Return of Desire, Gina’s brand-new
book: "I seem to spend much of my professional life reassuring
people that it’s OK to feel good. Too many of us have been led
to believe it’s self-indulgent, immoral, the cause of all
suffering. Don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t even think about it
… " Read more. Gina will be
leading a weekend program at Kripalu. Find out more/register:
The Return of Desire, August
15–17, 2008.
new
to meditation?
Spend a
weekend with popular meditation teacher Bhavani Lorraine
Nelson learning how meditation can help you cope with stress,
improve your health, unlock your creativity, and even slow
down the aging process. Whether your goal is enlightenment,
revelation, relaxation, or simple clarity, Introduction to
Meditation, and Bhavani’s wisdom, humor, and clarity, will
guide you in customizing a practice that is perfect for you
and your lifestyle. (And you can earn CE credits while you’re
at it!) Find out more about Bhavani’s
Introduction to Meditation, July
18–20, 2008. Explore other meditation programs at Kripalu.
Listen to a sample and read a review of Bhavani’s CD
Meditation Made Possible.
time
for summer reading!
Clear
your desk and stock up on great reading for the months ahead.
The Kripalu staff summer reading list is back! Kripalu’s
Director of Information Technologies recommends a book that
has profoundly changed the way he thinks about food, a Front
Desk staff member writes about one of his favorite books on
the power of yoga, and Kripalu’s Assistant Editor recommends a
book on women’s relationship with ambition. Increase your
appetite for reading and enjoy the diversity of titles chosen
by the Kripalu staff. Check out staff reading recommendations!
calling
all yoga teachers
Kripalu’s
annual Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association (KYTA) conference
invites yoga teachers from all traditions to come together
with other amazing and dedicated professionals for a chance to
deepen and invigorate personal practice and teaching skills in
a place that fully supports a yogic lifestyle. Yoga
for the 21st Century: Personal Practice, Global Impact, August
22–25, is an opportunity to celebrate and explore the ways in
which our passion for yoga can create peace both within and
without, transforming ourselves, our students, and the world.
Find out everything you need to
know, register, and view workshop offerings.
poetry
as spiritual practice
Poetry,
says Robert McDowell, is the most common language of devotion
and the richest expression of spiritual practice. And it can
help us fall more fully in love with our lives. Used in
prayer, chant, and song, poetry expresses the sound and shape
of the spirit. In Robert’s 5-day workshop, you will read,
write, and use poetry as part of daily rituals, aspirations,
and intentions, and engage in a reflective writing process for
deeper awareness and enjoyment. Find out more in Writing and Praying Poetry, July
13–18, 2008, with Robert McDowell. Read an interview with Robert McDowell
that appeared in Ode magazine.
healthy
living recipes
It’s
summer! Time to fire up the grill (or the oven) and cook up
some burgers—take your pick between a vegan black bean burger
or a sun-dried tomato turkey burger. These two recipes from
Executive Chef Deb Howard are sure to be the hit of your next
backyard barbecue or picnic. Not sure which one to choose?
Nutritionist John Bagnulo gives you the scoop on benefits of
each. July Healthy Living Recipes
Sun-Dried Tomato Turkey Burgers Black Bean Burgers
Desktop
Wallpaper
Enjoy the
beauty of the Berkshires every day with Kripalu’s desktop
wallpaper. Available with and without a calendar. Easy-to-download. we
love to hear from you
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welcome
The
warmest month of the year and the heart of summer, July is a
perfect time to seize the moment, think big, and expand your
horizons. In this issue, we offer suggestions for great summer
reading; programs aimed toward personal, spiritual, and sexual
fulfillment; workshops that can help you make significant
improvements with your health once and for all; a new way to
think about the path of happiness; and so much more!
the
path of unconditional happiness
by
Michael A. Singer As Americans, the pursuit of
happiness is one of our primary cultural tenets. But we are
given paltry guidance on how to embark on this elusive quest,
much less attain it. In this inspiring excerpt from his new
book, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself ,
spiritual guide and teacher Michael A. Singer tells us
precisely how—and the answer is simpler than we might
think. The highest spiritual path is life itself.
If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a
liberating experience. But first you have to approach life
properly, or it can be very confusing. To begin with, you have
to realize that you really only have one choice in this life,
and it’s not about your career, whom you want to marry, or
whether you want to seek God. People tend to burden themselves
with so many choices. But, in the end, you can throw it all
away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want
to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It’s really that
simple. Once you make that choice, your path through life
becomes totally clear. Most people don’t dare give
themselves that choice because they think it’s not under their
control. Someone might say, "Well, of course I want to be
happy, but my wife left me." In other words, they want to be
happy, but not if their wife leaves them. But that wasn’t the
question. The question was, very simply, "Do you want to be
happy or not?" If you keep it that simple, you will see that
it really is under your control. It’s just that you have a
deep-seated set of preferences that gets in the way.
Let’s say you’ve been lost and without food for days,
and you finally find your way to a house. You can hardly make
it to the doorstep, but you manage to pull yourself up and
knock on the door. Somebody opens the door, looks at you and
says, "Oh my God! You poor thing! Do you want something to
eat? What would you like?" Now the truth is, you really don’t
care what they give you. You don’t even want to think about
it. You just utter the word "food." And because you really
mean it when you say you need food, it no longer has anything
to do with your mental preferences. The same goes for the
question about happiness. The question is simply "Do you want
to be happy?" If the answer is really yes, then say it without
qualifying it. After all, what the question really means is
"Do you want to be happy from this point forward for the rest
of your life, regardless of what happens?" Now, if you
say yes, it might happen that your wife leaves you, or your
husband dies, or the stock market crashes, or your car breaks
down on an open highway at night. Those things might happen
between now and the end of your life. But if you want to walk
the highest spiritual path, then when you answer yes to that
simple question, you must really mean it. There are no ifs,
ands, or buts about it. It’s not a question of whether your
happiness is under your control. Of course it’s under your
control. It’s just that you don’t really mean it when you say
you’re willing to stay happy. You want to qualify it. You want
to say that as long as this doesn’t happen, or as long as that
does happen, then you’re willing to be happy. That’s why it
seems like it is out of your control. Any condition you create
will limit your happiness. You simply aren’t going to be able
to control things and keep them the way you want them.
You have to give an unconditional answer. If you
decide that you’re going to be happy from now on for the rest
of your life, you will not only be happy, you will become
enlightened. Unconditional happiness is the highest technique
there is. You don’t have to learn Sanskrit or read any
scriptures. You don’t have to renounce the world. You just
have to really mean it when you say that you choose to be
happy. And you have to mean it regardless of what happens.
This is truly a spiritual path, and it is as direct and sure a
path to Awakening as could possibly exist. Once you decide you
want to be unconditionally happy, something inevitably will
happen that challenges you. This test of your commitment is
exactly what stimulates spiritual growth. In fact, it is the
unconditional aspect of your commitment that makes this the
highest path. It’s so simple. You just have to decide whether
or not you will break your vow. When everything is going well,
it’s easy to be happy. But the moment something difficult
happens, it’s not so easy. You tend to find yourself saying,
"But I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t think
I’d miss my flight. I didn’t think Sally would show up at the
party wearing the same dress that I had on. I didn’t think
that somebody would dent my brand-new car one hour after I got
it." Are you really willing to break your vow of happiness
because these events took place? Billions of things
could happen that you haven’t even thought of yet. The
question is not whether they will happen. Things are going to
happen. The real question is whether you want to be happy
regardless of what happens. The purpose of your life is to
enjoy and learn from your experiences. You were not put on
Earth to suffer. You’re not helping anybody by being
miserable. Regardless of your philosophical beliefs, the fact
remains that you were born and you are going to die. During
the time in between, you get to choose whether or not you want
to enjoy the experience. Events don’t determine whether or not
you’re going to be happy. They’re just events. You determine
whether or not you’re going to be happy. You can be happy just
to be alive. You can be happy having all these things happen
to you, and then be happy to die. If you can live this way,
your heart will be so open and your Spirit will be so free,
that you will soar up to the heavens. This path leads you to
absolute transcendence because any part of your being that
would add a condition to your commitment to happiness has got
to go. If you want to be happy, you have to let go of the part
of you that wants to create melodrama. This is the part that
thinks there’s a reason not to be happy. You have to transcend
the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the
higher aspects of your being. In the end, enjoying life’s
experiences is the only rational thing to do. You’re sitting
on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely
nowhere. Go ahead, take a look at reality. You’re floating in
empty space in a universe that goes on forever. If you have to
be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience. You’re
going to die anyway. Things are going to happen anyway. Why
shouldn’t you be happy? You gain nothing by being bothered by
life’s events. It doesn’t change the world; you just suffer.
There’s always going to be something that can bother you, if
you let it. This choice to enjoy life will lead you
through your spiritual journey. In truth, it is itself a
spiritual teacher. Committing yourself to unconditional
happiness will teach you every single thing there is to learn
about yourself, about others, and about the nature of life.
You will learn all about your mind, your heart, and your will.
But you have to mean it when you say that you’ll be happy for
the rest of your life. Every time a part of you begins to get
unhappy, let it go. Work with it. Use affirmations, or do
whatever you need to do to stay open. If you are committed,
nothing can stop you. No matter what happens, you can choose
to enjoy the experience. If they starve you and put you in
solitary confinement, just have fun being like Gandhi. No
matter what happens, just enjoy the life that comes to you.
As difficult as that sounds, what’s the benefit of not
doing it? If you’re totally innocent and they lock you up, you
might as well have fun. What good does it do to not have fun?
It doesn’t change anything. In the end, if you stay happy, you
win. Make that your game, and just stay happy no matter what.
©2007 Michael A. Singer. From the book The Untethered Soul: The Journey
Beyond Yourself. Reprinted with permission by New
Harbinger Publications, Inc. www.newharbinger.com
Michael (Mickey) Singer is the founding
director of the Temple of the Universe, a long-established
yoga and meditation center where people of any religion or set
of beliefs can come together to experience inner peace.
Through the years, he has made major contributions in the
areas of yoga, the arts, education, health care, and
environmental protection. Don’t Miss View calendar of Spiritual Practice
and Inquiry programs at Kripalu. spreading the
word …
Accessing
the Creative Life "Creativity asks us … to believe
there are new possibilities out there," writes Reverend Thomas
Ryan in the introduction to his new book Soul Fire:
Accessing Your Creativity. Directed toward readers in the
second half of their lives, Soul Fire emphasizes the
power of developing, tapping into, and reveling in your
creativity. Interspersed with poetry and excerpts from
inspiring articles, each chapter offers questions for
reflection, creativity exercises, stories from various
spiritual traditions, and Rev. Ryan’s personal experiences
with accessing his own "soul fire"—a heartfelt, practical book
for a joyful creative life and available this month at the
Kripalu Shop! Don’t Miss Soul Fire: Accessing Your
Creativity with Rev. Thomas Ryan, July 18–20, 2008.
Cultural Survival Bazaar at Kripalu, July 5 and
6 The Cultural Survival Bazaar returns to Kripalu
this month for a weekend of music, cuisine, and fairly traded
art and crafts from indigenous cultures throughout the world.
Cultural Survival is a nonprofit organization dedicated to
protecting and promoting the rights and voices of the world’s
370 million indigenous people, and their multicultural fairs
serve as an opportunity for education and fundraising for
their work. Find out more at www.cs.org.
quote of the
month
If you
want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to
be happy, practice compassion.
—Dalai Lama (Tenzin
Gyatso), Tibetan religious and political leader |
