by Diana Meltsner

There is this inner quiver. Can you feel it?

It’s like a knocking from the inside.

Don’t be scared. Take a peek.

You alone can receive this messenger.

It carries a blessing.

It unlocks the doors.

Let the loudmouths of fear and thrill be.

They only hold you tight in endless spin.

Sweep them out of the house.

Get quiet and listen.

Feel it.

This moment is a gateway.

Enter and love.

Enter and dance.

Enter and be.

Diana Meltsner, C-IAYT and e-RYT500, has been teaching yoga in the Bay Area since 2001. The classes she teaches include prenatal, gentle, various levels of Hatha yoga, and yoga workshops. Diana is a lead teacher trainer for 200-hour Basic Yoga Teacher Trainings at Integral Yoga Institute San Francisco. She is certified yoga therapist and offers individual therapeutic sessions with focus ranging from stress reduction to injury recovery. Her classes include physical postures, breathing, guided relaxation, meditation and other yoga teachings which help people to find deeper sense of well-being and ability to move through life with increased ease, intuition, and stress resilience.

by Jenny Saraswati Bichsel

Birthdays can be triggers for so many negative thought patterns: sadness, regret, failure, fear, and of course the ‘shoulds.’ I should have done … in my life by now. He/she should have done … for my birthday. I should be celebrating with a party/dinner/event with a fabulous group of friends… and on and on.
On paper, today I have woken up one year older, one more year ‘past it.’ I have woken up alone (my partner is away on business), away from family in a foreign country, with a sore knee following knee surgery two weeks ago. I’m ‘stuck’ at home, unable to walk far, with no special party plans. I should be celebrating this special day somehow.
But that’s how conventional society would have me see it. Contrary to convention, I find that today I’ve woken up with an enormous sense of santosha. Santosha is a Sanskrit word meaning contentment, or as an old friend of mine describes it, “gentle happiness.” I’ve woken up with a pervading feeling of gratitude, fullness, contentment, and gentle joy.
If I take away all the “shoulds,” all the comparisons and conventions that today traditionally brings, what is left?
I practised yoga this morning. Not the physical Hatha Yoga, but the inner meditative yoga. I practised connecting to the steady field of being that lies beneath (or above, depending on how you experience it) all the thoughts, all the shoulds. There I discovered the real celebration. Therein lies the freedom, the spaciousness, the joy, and that bright, bright light. We spend our lives searching and organizing everything around us in order to achieve a sense of harmony, balance and happiness, when it is precisely all the external things, including thoughts and beliefs, that obscure and cover up the reality of what we are.
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Yoga is defined as the stilling of the mind, or rather, what we experience when the mind becomes still. When we can brush aside all the ‘shoulds’ and allow the spinning thought patterns to settle, we can begin to see what lies beneath, what treasure lies within us. “Then the Seer (Self) abides in his own (True) nature.”
On this ‘special’ day, just as special as all the other days of our lives, my sincere wish is for all beings to experience, to know, to touch, or to taste the gift of Yoga.

Jenny Saraswati Bichsel was born in Switzerland, grew up in London, England, and began practising yoga 15 years ago after sustaining a repetitive strain injury from extended hours of computer work in the VFX industry. In 2005 a work transfer opportunity brought her to New York City, where she balanced freelancing in film & TV with teaching yoga and meditation.
Yoga brought her balance, strength, adaptability and ease when dealing with stress. Wishing to pass on these powerful tools, she completed her basic teacher training at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York in 2011, and was invited to teach the weekly Introduction to Yoga class there. She completed Intermediate level training in 2013. In 2015 she became an Integral certified meditation teacher. She is also qualified to teach Kidding Around Yoga for children, Prenatal Yoga, and Raja Yoga philosophy and is registered RYT500 with the Yoga Alliance.
In June 2016 she moved to Rome, Italy, where she teaches both yoga and English full-time. Her yoga lessons are in Italian and English, integrating asana, pranayama, meditation and Yoga Nidra in every lesson. She hopes to give each student a broader and deeper understanding of the possibilities of yoga and of themselves.

by Swami Ramananda

Autumn in the northern hemisphere is a season known for harvesting all that one has grown and giving thanks for the abundance of the earth. Celebrating the fruits of our labors with gratitude is a beautiful practice. But as spiritual aspirants, we want to take a further step and explore how we can make good use of all the blessings we receive to make a difference in the world.
The most fundamental use of the abundance we have received is to focus our energies on our own spiritual growth. Some of us have our basic needs fulfilled, and both the time for spiritual practice and access to a tremendous wealth of spiritual teachings. It is our responsibility to apply these gifts to free our hearts and minds from selfishness and learn to see the spiritual oneness behind all names and forms.
This requires committing ourselves to some regular, sustained spiritual practice. That practice may take many forms, all of which enable us to shift from a me-centered to a we-centered way of living. As we make peace in our own hearts, they will naturally open with compassion for others, and we can become a presence of peace and compassion wherever we go.
We need not wait until we have achieved some level of spiritual growth before we more outwardly share the benefits we have received by serving in the world. Service is itself a form of Yoga practice called Karma Yoga, in which we act with the welfare of others in our hearts and without attachment to the outcome of our efforts. There are endless opportunities to do things with such mindfulness and care.
We can share the abundance we have received in numerous ways, such as serving in a soup kitchen, donating to an environmental organization, praying for those who suffer, or tutoring disadvantaged children. We have many opportunities every day to be loving, to listen and understand others, and to give without expecting something.
Sharing the abundance we dwell in can also take the form of caretaking our planet and all the beings that inhabit it. I believe it is our duty to stand up for our spiritual values by supporting the healing of our natural world, and by defending the rights of the oppressed, marginalized and underserved.
Sharing the gifts and blessings we have received with others is a natural impulse when we acknowledge our abundance and free ourselves from the self-centered messages of our culture. Actions performed with genuine care for others are healing for our hearts, and we find joy in giving rather than looking for a reward or outcome. This is how we really bring our Yoga practice to life.

By Mia Velez

Last Sunday October 27th marked the first day of Diwali, the festival of lights celebrating the light overcoming darkness. When a Hindu friend was explaining the holiday, I noticed a joyful warmth come over her as she recalled her stories of the celebration. As the days become shorter, we weather the darkness with celebrations. This Thursday is Halloween, dressing up in costume knocking from door to door collecting candies – it’s a childhood dream! In a month, we will be gathering family around a well-stocked dinner table giving thanks for the many blessings. Before we know it, we will be preparing for the end of year holidays. While these gatherings are meant to bring joy and connection in the winter months, why do they bring on such stress and anxiety instead?

Our lives are highlighted by celebratory events such as holidays, parties, festivals, concerts, and such. I have learned, living in San Francisco, of the concept “fear of missing out” (FOMO for short). The idea that there is something more fun happening somewhere and one hopes not to miss it. I have witnessed friends scramble from one party to the next making sure to keep up with all the events in the city. But for every significant moment, there are millions of mundane ones in between. The thousands of times we put on our socks and shoes and then take them off. The billions of steps it takes to get to our destination. While not exciting, these events are important to the balance of life. The insignificant times that fill the backdrop of our lives are what make life possible and hold the memorable ones in place. However, it seems much of our awareness is pulled towards the more remarkable events. Perhaps the anxiety that arises during the holiday season is the lack of attention towards the mundane aspects of life. One of the ways a Yoga practice becomes useful is by bringing light into darkness. Darkness defined as those in-between times where we check out so either boredom or anxiety sets in.

I find Yoga practice simply as a rehearsal to my life. It is sharpening the tools to notice ourselves living our lives. To clear away the distractions so we can know ourselves at all times and give meaning to the mundane. In a Sun Salutation for example, instead of attending to the poses themselves, we can shift our attention to the in-between process. From standing to forward bend, there are hundreds of micro adjustments in our legs to accommodate the movement. Stepping the leg back to lunge, we notice how much the back and abdominals accommodate the leg floating as it searches the ground behind. With this type of attentiveness, Surya Namaskar becomes a full body meditation. When we link the breath to the movements, we cultivate complete awareness. The poses are no longer isolated points that gather all of our attention, rather it becomes part of a continuum.

With awareness sharpened from Yoga practice, I can then use it in daily living. I can notice the many ways my body shifts while waiting in line, the thoughts that come and go sitting in rush hour traffic, I can even notice how the air touches my feet once I remove my socks. With the holiday season approaching, the preparations become part of the celebration. The effort to host others is not a burden but an offering and a way to nurture my relationships. And when the event is at hand, it doesn’t become an explosion of chaos, rather it becomes a cultivation of the effort to make my loved ones feel loved. That’s what I saw in my friend’s eyes. It wasn’t the sweets or the fireworks that filled her eyes. It was the warmth of the family she had close in her heart way after the celebration was over. It was the effort her elders had put forth that she carried with her in her story. So this Diwali, and in preparation for the upcoming year end holidays, we celebrated light in the form of attention. With attentiveness, we gain clarity and we become liberated from the entanglements of anxiety and stress. We are left with the gathering of our community that brings warmth not only in the winter months, but in the years to come. This warmth will bring the light in their eyes as they recall the holidays they’ve shared with you.