For as far back as I can remember I have had this profound interest in all things spiritual; the science, the sacred, the mystical…. I have been a full time yogic teacher and practitioner for over 20 years and have been integrating these many teachings into the way I choose to live my life. 

My closest friends call it “life according to Manny” or “Manny’s world”. Many have been encouraging me to share this perspective to a larger audience. To take it beyond the walls of the Yoga Center and this tight community of like minded friends. 

So much has been written on love, with so many potential facets of expression. From the passion of lovers, to a mother’s protection of her child, or a martyr’s love for a cause that places his life below that glorified cause. All of these are expressions of the energy of love through the distortions of “maya”, the illusion of life. These are expressions of love wrapped up in need, lack, fear, attachments, and ignorance.

Love must be experienced from one’s own connection to our divine self. Love is a state of being beyond the cravings of the mind. Only out of the fullness and completeness of our own being can we truly be in a state of love.

Silence is achieved once we align and eliminate friction in all aspects of ourselves. 

As we lower the quantity and volume of our distractions we move toward deeper levels of silence, levels of stillness, levels of awareness. This silence is one of the greatest gifts of Yoga.

Yoga is about creating freedom in our being! … Becoming unbound in our physical body, mental body, emotional body and energetic body.

Systematically releasing the physical and mental, conscious and subconscious patterns and beliefs that keep us trapped in unhealthy bodies, unhealthy relationships, unhappy lives.

There is an optimal way to being in alignment with the Universal energy and misalignments can be seen in our physical bodies, mental attitudes, levels of happiness, satisfaction with our lives. By consistently and methodically choosing to be in optimal alignment we can profoundly change the quality of our lives.

All wisdom traditions and religions emphasize community in some way. The Catholic Parish, Yoga Kula, Buddhist Shanga, are all meant to cultivate a sense of unity, shared values, way of being in the world. 

Our cultural sayings also point to a similar truth; “birds of the same feather fly together”, “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are”.

We tend to be worried about all the things we can not control. And therefore, we don't need to either worry nor control these things….  We also tend to pay very little attention to the things we actually can and should control, mainly, the colors, the vibration we carry!

The original teachings of Yoga, handed down by Saints and Masters, were for the total liberation of our ego’s cycle of life, death, and reincarnation.

Over the last couple of hundred years we have separated Yoga from its primary intention and looked at only its positive side benefits. Some do Yoga for its physical benefits, others for stress release… the typical comment is, “I like how I feel after class.” This is all well and good, except that we are leaving behind 95% of its potential.

It is by this inner work of human evolution that we can correct the misguided ways in which we as humans have been engaging and destroying our world. 

We need to see ourselves as we truly are, if we are to use all the tools that are available to us. We tend to see things as either black or white (polarity) and we need to see life as shades of gray. We are always swinging like a pendulum, but somehow focusing on the extreme ends of the swing. 

It is in coming together and seeing all of our facets as part of the One, that we can fully become integrated, whether it is in ourselves or within the outer world. 

In deep meditation I had this clear experience of the role we play as co-creators of our shared reality. We are the doorway between the pure potential of our creative minds and what we decide to bring to life.

Through the thoughts we have, the words we say, and the actions we take, we bring infinite potential to a finite expression. We flavor and decorate our days by the emotions we choose to carry and express.

Means and ends are the same…

If one is to make lasting change in ourselves and our world we need to start implementing the change within us in each moment. We fool ourselves to think that we can behave in a certain way now for there to be a different outcome in the future. We will always reap what we sow.

Our lives are meant to flow like river water; always changing, responding to its path, yet remaining the same.

From the high mountains to the edge of the sea, always flowing, always changing, always the same.

We are living in unprecedented times, when our technology is expanding at an amazing pace and at the same time we are moving further away from the innate wisdom of a shared humanity. In our narrow perspectives we are not able to see the interconnectedness of our political systems, economic systems, ecological challenges, human migration and economic disparity. All of these unhealthy and destructive systems are a reflection of the shared human consciousness.