It is official: watching TV can kill you!

You can blame the Australians for a change this time. On a recent study by Australian researches who traced more than 8000 people for an average of six years found that "those who said they watched TV for more than four hours a day were 46% more likely to die of any cause and 80% more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than people who reported spending less than two hours a day in front of the tube" as reported on the Wall street Journal last Tuesday.

What is shocking is that these results not only affect people that don't exercise, it affects those who exercise too. How come.? Well, the problem is the inactivity that brings to watch TV for long periods of time.
Think about those long football games that many men watch for more than three hours or the long hours you spend in front of the computer (ouch!) and you can have something else to be worry about.

And those results are only in relation to the TV, what about the amount of violence that you can watch in less than two hours. This information goes directly to your subconscious mind without even notice it. No none really knows the effects but I wonder if all those stimuli have anything to do with our moods and ways that we respond to our environment.

Is there a solution? Yes! do a little bit of exercise if you are in front of the TV for a long period of time, fold clothes, put the elliptical in front of it and actually use it!, move around, take the dishes out of the dishwasher, and stretch every so often.
Not only watching TV can affect you, long commutes, long flights, and any activity that requires you to be seated for hours should be a concern.
Dr. Dunstan, a researcher at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, in Melbourne mentions that the "research shows the important role of muscle movement in how the body processes blood sugar and blood fats. the absence of movement can slow down or metabolic processes"

Here are simple yoga exercises that can help you move your muscles after a long time in front of the TV or computer. Take breaks every hour or so and stretch!

a) Shoulder rolls. Sit on the edge of your chair. Keep your back straight, breath. On your next inhale start rolling your shoulders towards the back. After 3-5 times, stop check that your back is straight and change the direction of the movement.

b) Twists. Sit again on the edge of your chair, put your left hand on the table in front of your right shoulder, right hand towards the back of the chair or in a place that is comfortable for you. Turn your whole back towards the right, be gentle with your neck. Take 3-4 breaths, release and go to the other side.

c) Neck turns. Same position as before, keep your chin level with the floor and slowly turn your head towards the right, then center it and turn towards the left and center again. Alternate the sides. Inhaling turn to the right, exhaling turn to the center and do the same to the other side.

d) Arm stretch. Bring your arms up to the sides of your head, release your shoulders and if you can interlace your fingers and bring palms up to the ceiling. Stretch your arms up and to the sides, breath.

e) Stretch your legs. From siting , bring your hands under your right knee and lift the leg closer to your belly. With the leg on the air, extend the leg completely towards the front level to the floor, keep alternating bending and stretching for 4-5 times and then do the same with your left leg.

f) Bound angle pose. This is a great way to work out and watch TV. Sit on the floor or on top of a blanket, extend your legs forward, bring your right hand towards the back of your right knee and gently bend the knee and bring the sole of your foot towards the side of your left leg. Any part of the side or your tight is fine or close to your pubic bone. Do the same with your left leg and bring the soles of your feet together, keep your back straight and take 5-6 breaths. Relax.

Caution:
As with any workout, please ask your doctor if you have any health concerns before starting any of these exercises.

Artic cold has arrived, good time to have a home yoga practice!

Home yoga practice

In Central Texas we are expecting a cold night, probable in the low 17 F and wind at 15 to 25 mph, brrr!

Of course compare with the folks up north this is not much. If it gets too hard on you, remember that soon we will be in the 100's F.

It is what it is and we should enjoy what comes into our way.

This week has been an interesting one for Yoga in the news. CNN started with the question " Is Yoga a Cult?" after having an interview with a lady suing one of the member of Dahn Yoga for harassment. Yesterday Dr. OZ talked about alternative healing therapies and included Yoga with a more positive outlook than the CNN's piece.

Today Martha Stewart is doing Yoga. The episode was shot this week in front of an audience of 51 yogis, who practiced yoga for the entire hour-long taping. There was a "warrior" workout with Trudie Styler, and an overview of three different styles of yoga: Ashtanga, Iyengar, and Vinyasa.

All that is great as we need to use the energy of the new year to avoid the toll that the winter can take on the body.

We as yoga practitioners/ teachers should be aware of them and encourage our students to start or keep their home practice. For instance, you could think that hip and bone fractures have nothing to do with winter. Well, a 10 year long study in New York City showed that "fractures were highest in winter, specially in the coldest and windiest days." reported USA today last December. Not only the icy conditions can be to blame, it is winter inactivity! said Dr. Zuckerman one of the orthopedic surgeon who helped conduct the study and president of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. "Winter inactivity weakens muscles, making falls more likely, indoors and outdoors. Also, low vitamin D levels, lined with weak muscles and brittle bones, might also play an important role in fractures" Dr. Zuckerman concluded.

As you can imagine, a good home yoga practice (if going out is not an option) can be very beneficial for bones and muscles. You don't need a long hard practice, 20 minutes a day really make a difference in your practice.

A sustained practice will improve your range of motion, flexibility, strength and most importantly it will develop body and mind awareness. This is also an opportunity to take a break and refresh your energies during the day.
You can choose from a variety of poses. Our next blog we will recommend a sequence.
For now flexing of the spine in different directions, opening the hips, arm's strengthening poses, and of course the relaxation pose (savasana) will give you a round sequence.
Find a place at home free from distractions on a wooden or low carpeted floor. Make the room comfortable and play some classical music or Nature's sounds, otherwise silence works just fine.

As for props having a mat, chair maybe blocks and a strap will help you deepen your practice.
Videos are OK as long as they are right for you. I have seen videos labeled as beginners that are not suitable for someone that is starting a yoga practice. Go to your public library and try some of them.
There are also websites and books that are very helpful. To mentioned some visit yoga journal (www.yogajournal.com) Yoga + Joyful Living Magazine (www.himalayaninstitute.org/yogaplus)

As for books it all depends on the style of yoga that you are practicing. Ask your regular teacher about some books that can support your home practice.

A question some students have asked me is "If I do all that, I don't need to go to a studio again!" Going to a class will always be on your benefit as it is hard to see our bodies when we are practicing. A good teacher should help you to go deeper into the poses and understand where the imbalances are in your body. It is always a good idea to have a good guide.

In following blogs we will feature some sequences for you to practice.

Warm yourself up and enjoy!

Photos courtesy of Dick D./ The Martha Stewart Show

Happy 2010, visit our January issue!

We are starting a new year, hurray!

At the same time we are pleased to offer to the Yoga Community our January issue in this starting 2010. We are starting the year with great content and new writers contributing to Yoga Sanga. They are passionate about yoga and the spiritual path and eager to share their views and experiences with our readers.

Some of the articles that you will find are: In the Karma Yoga recognition section we praise Roslyn Earle from Houston for her amazing job in Yoga for peace, you will find information about Eco-friendly mats. Don't miss the fascinating article about Esther Vexler, a 92 year old practitioner and yoga teacher in San Antonio. Already forgetting your new year's resolutions? check Leila's article to understand why do we fail to follow them through. Have you ever been in a Sweat Lodge? learn more about this ancient practice with Whitney Whiteman. To visit us follow www.yogasanga.net

Don't miss our multimedia section with an interview with Dr. Miller on iRest and a great book on the intermediate series of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga by Gregor Maehle. And much more!

Keep sending us your special activities to post them in our calendar. Also review our new prices to make advertising with us more affordable.

May all your dreams and goals come true during this 2010 and years to come,

May your spirit be filled with the light that is in and around you,

May laughter, and the simple things in life lift your spirit,

And, may you find the joy of living even under challenging times.

With deep respect and appreciation,

Rocio Morales

Not so naughty fudge

By Camella Nair

Ingredients:

3 cups shredded dried coconut

1/3 cup raw agave1

tsp vanilla

1/2 cup raw carob powder

1cup alfalfa seeds.

In a food processor bring together the coconut, raw agave, vanilla, and carob powder. Add the alfalfa seeds and pulse again to form a paste. Roll into balls and nuts and chill.

The winter solstice

The winter solstice.

By Swami Enoch Dasa Giri

As spiritual entities we are travelers in time, spirit in form (kala purusha). We exist in a universe that is a matrix of consciousness. This universe is composed of an infinite number of patterns or cycles such as: birth/death, day/night, inhalation/exhalation, and the rotation of the seasons – each with its traditional kriya or ritual. I thought you might find some reflections on the symbolism of the winter solstice and this important holiday season to be meaningful.

The winter solstice and the celebrations of the sun’s return (Hanukkah, Christmas) are festivals of light that remind us of this vital spiritual principal. We are not permanent residents down here, though some of us act as if we may be. We come and we go. We descend and we ascend. We inhale and we exhale. We give and we receive. But as mystics we are always seeking the point of equilibrium, of stillness, of balance and self-awareness.

There are great lessons to be learned from observing nature. There are great lessons to be learned from observing your nature. In yoga this practice is called svadhyaya or self-study. Yet to learn from nature necessitates removing your subjective emotional filters and seeing yourself, seeing Life as it is, not as you desire it to be or fear it to be, but as it is – wondrous and beautiful. Beholding Life as it is (and you are part of Life) is not easy because you have to renounce your expectations and projections. In Japanese philosophy there is a concept referred to as shabuhi. It means that nature is not man’s concept of nature. Nature is not a perfect square or a perfect circle. It is certainly not formed out of straight lines. The pattern of the solar year is not 360 days; it is 365 and a quarter days. Shabuhi expresses the organic nature of life. It reveals that we, like the universe, are not moving in a circle but in a spiral – an ever expansive movement toward greater balance.

Kriya is an esoteric school of yogic thought. It is concerned with inner experiences and dynamics. The root of the word kriya means an action, rite, or ritual – an inner, conscious one. Holidays or Holy Days are like inns upon the path that offer you as a traveler in time an opportunity to stop and reflect at particularly auspicious points upon your journey. Where have you been, where are you now, and toward what are you traveling? Are you moving in a circle or a spiral? Is your path a conscious movement (kriya) or an unconscious karmic pattern?

The winter solstice (December 21st) is the point where the sun enters the zodiacal sign of Capricorn, its extreme southern declination. The sun has descended lower in the sky than it will all year. For three days it stops moving north or south (ascending or descending) and is “still.” It then begins to ascend again on the 25th, the high holy day of Christmas – the festival of the Sun’s return. To the mystic, Christmas and other festivals of this season (Hanukkah, Dawali and Kwanzaa) are celebrations of Light, reminding us that as spirit we too ascend and descend. We have descended into form and shall ascend once again at the appointed time.

The Mystical Significance of the Winter Solstice
The solstice also holds a deeper symbolic meaning. There is an old mystical hermetic axiom: “As above, so below. As within, so without.” Within your astral body (which is a solar system in miniature), there is an astral sun. This sun rotates each year “ascending and descending” around the twelve mansions of your astral spine, the idic and pingalic hemispheres of your six chakras. At the winter solstice, the astral sun moves (transits) into the Capricorn section of your Saturn chakra, the lowest point of your chakric universe. During the Sun’s movement through your Saturn chakra tremendous spiritual energies take “form”, which are then released in the next solar cycle of your existence.

Though it may seem as though there is little or no creative activity at work place right now – either within you or in the nature that surrounds you – there most definitely is. Do not make the mistake of thinking that just because you do not see something (or more accurately are not aware of something) that nothing is happening. The formed arises from the unformed. The very structure of the next cycle of Life, of your life, is being generated at this time. My teaching for you at this time is simple. Make it a kriya, a conscious ritual of creation.

How can you do this? How can you make your life a kriya, a conscious movement through time? One way is to create a map, something that gives you a reference point for where you are, where you have been, and where you wish to go. This could be the cycle of the seasons, the cycles of astrology, or the cycle of the breath. For most people it is the cycle of the holy days (holidays) to which Christmas and Hanukkah belong. Here we are taught to celebrate and reflect on our life through a rich tradition of rituals and observances (kriyas). We begin to see the cycles of our life as part of a whole, part of a larger pattern – the Bharva Chakra (the wheel of existence). We stop to get our bearings, to make sure we are moving forward and not just going in a circle. We slow down our busy lives for a moment and become quiet enough to see afresh the pattern of our lives and the path we are on, just like we do in meditation.

By making our lives a kriya we come to the realization that independent of the cycle or universe in which we find ourselves – physical embodiment, the dream world, marriage, parenthood – it is the hub of our self-awareness that brings clarity of purpose, direction, and the strength to walk the path before us, which we and we alone have created. This insight allows us to refrain from fragmenting or distorting our experience of Life because we no longer fear it, judge it, or blame others for our karma. When we make our lives a conscious ritual each act, each thought, each word becomes a means to become more conscious (a sacrament in Christian thought), to remember from whence we have come, who we are, and why we have come here.

May you find peace, harmony and joy throughout this season and the year to come!

Swami Enoch Dasa Giri is an inspirational teacher, born in Chicago; who shares the living tradition of yoga with warmth, humor, and sincerity. He is a direct disciple of Sri Goswami Kriyananda who carries the flame of the Kriya lineage brought to this country by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Swami Dasa will visit Texas in February. He will offer a lecture on Karma: beyond the myths and misunderstandings. For information please go to http://www.yogasanga.net/?p=2729



The results of family surveys reflect that lately people living in the US practice what is known as serial monogamy, a movement from marriage to divorce to marriage again and again. 
As for religious practices there has been some information on the subject from the beginning of the year and the latest is from last week.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that in general the US population changes their religious affiliation more than once in their life.

Not only a third of those who attend services usually go to a different church but nearly a quarter attend services held by another religion. Besides practicing an organized religion they also affirm beliefs that could have lifted eyebrows 100 years ago: 23% of those who consider themselves Christians believe in astrology, 22% in reincarnation, 26% find spiritual energy in physical things, and 21% believe yoga is a spiritual practice. 



Mr. Prothero wrote for The Wall Street Journal on Friday that "religious promiscuity is nothing new; many early Christians were also practicing Jews. And in China the "Three Teachings" of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism have co-existed for centuries, with many believers turning to Confucianism for etiquette, Taoism for freedom and Buddhism for enlightenment"
For Mr. Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University this might be a sign that people are loosing the sense of the sacred. 



There is not doubt that many times people change religion just because their favorite movie star is doing so, others get bored without even studying the basics of the religion they practice. 
Nevertheless, I don't see this trend as a problem; I like to think that there is something deeper happening, a search for meaning.

People might change their affiliation because they are looking for something more meaningful and less threatening; they want to have a personal experience that can bring them closer to the divine regardless of name or affiliation. 

Let me ad another interesting piece of data reported by the American Religious Identification Survey last March, "the percentage of people who call themselves Christians has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the "nones", now 15% of the USA, are the third largest "religious group" after Catholics and Baptist” 

According to the Pew's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape survey 92% or the population believe in a God 70% said many religions can lead to eternal life, and 68% said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion. 



Could all these changes affect society or how our kids develop a sense of goodness and even morality? Is this tendency making them confused and have a cynic relation to God? Maybe.
The other side of the coin is that questioning the belief system we grew up with can become a search for truth and understanding, a way to trust our own experience and relation with the Divine without dogma. 



It seems to me that all this data represent a new take on religion. People are being more open and willing to understand the others point of view, recognizing that Truth does not belong to anyone though there are ways to approach it. 

This is the foundation of a mystical or spiritual way of understanding, and yoga has been one of those paths for more than 5000 years old. Sages of all times have said it: Yoga gives a series of techniques. If you want to have an experience, you should try them and see where they can take you. 



As for me as a yoga practitioner, I am glad the perception of Yoga has gone beyond the stretches and pretzel-like poses, little by little Yoga is taking its right place as a spiritual practice though not the only one. I truly believe that any search, devoting time and a desire to learn, will transform your life forever.

What is generosity?

Want to feel generous this holiday season?

I met John Kissick recently and his story moved my heart.He might be on his late 40s and has recently started a new company. In this economy, starting a business means a lot. He didn't stop there, he told me that three years ago he was living on the streets with all that is involved around this circumstance.
One day, an stranger offered him a hand, not only in terms of shelter or food, this person offered him an opportunity to learn a way of standing up and walking in his own two feet.
Today, John has a dream. He is starting The Homeless Angels Foundation in Austin (homelessangelsnetwork.org website is under construction now) to give people on the streets an opportunity to learn, work and come back to the social structure.

After talking with him, I couldn't stop thinking, what does it means to be truly generous? The Merrian-Webster's dictionary says that a generous person is "characterized by a noble or forbearing spirit, liberal in giving, marked by abundance or ample proportions"
For Jonh Kissick, having been homeless will help him to understand those he wants to help and to develop successful strategies do to so.

As for the rest of us, there are many ways we can help.Maybe before buying gifts that we really don't care on giving but feel pressure to do; there is an alternative that would make us feel better.The alternative is GoodShop.JJ Ramberg, one of the founders of GoodShop told us that when you buy from brands or retailers that have made a commitment with GoodShop, you can determine a school or charity you would like to donate to. After your sale is done, they will donate up to 30% or your purchase to your cause.

They promise that you won't pay extra and what you spend will be reflected on your charity. You might even save money if you use their coupons and free shipping deals!
Some of the Yoga retailers that you will find are: Gaiam, Yoga Accessories.com, Paragon Sports, Sports Authority, Amazon (and more than 1,400 other retailers)
As for the non profits that are Texas based. Mr. Rangerg game some examples: Ananda Dallas Meditation and Yoga Center, The American Red Cross, The Nature Conservancy, The NRDC, American Heart Association, Kids Making A Difference (Texas), United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) - Greater Houston, Tiger Creek Wildlife Rescue (Texas), ASPCA. Mr. Ramberg mentioned that GoodShopwork work with more than 84,000 nonprofits

Next time you need to buy a present, check www.goodshop.com and feel good about buying here!And if you can't find what you are looking for, use GoodSearch. In this website, after you designate your favorite charity, just for looking around, they will donate a penny to their cause.To use GoodSearch1. go to www.goodsearch.com2. designate your favorite charity or school in the “Who do you GoodSearch for” box3. search as you normally would in the Yahoo powered search box. Each time you do a search, about a penny is donated to your cause

Enjoy the Holiday and feel good about it!
Rocio Morales