Is Freedom An Endangered Concept?
At the beginning of many yoga classes I’ve taken, the mantra seen above has been chanted, and occasionally even focused on as the theme for the class. This chant calling for the happiness and freedom of all beings is not simply a channeling and projection of good intentions, it’s a call to personal responsibility. It galvanizes and empowers us to take accountability for other beings by ensuring that everything we think, do and say is done with the aim of creating our own personal happiness and freedom. Sounds simple enough, one would think. However, throughout the past weeks and months, with the American election campaigns in full swing (pun fully intended), as well as the election here in Quebec and the reports coming out of Syria and Russia, I have been seriously mulling over what freedom really is, and how it’s meaning might differ from one person to the next.
When Everything Aligns
Do you ever have those moments when everything seems to fall into place? When you suddenly look around and see everything that was there all along, but the lighting is somehow different…there’s a certain clarity or focus that brings everything down a notch, into a realm of peace and silence….I seem to be having moments like these more and more this year…moments where I feel perfectly connected to the sky above me, the ground below me, and the people around me.