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Greetings!
May this prayer from The Mother of Pondicherry, India inspire our New Year:
"Let Beauty be your constant ideal.
The beauty of the soul
The beauty of sentiments
The beauty of thoughts
The beauty of actions
The beauty in the work
So that nothing comes out of our hands which is not an expression of pure and harmonious beauty.
And the Divine Help shall always be with you."
With our love and gratitude,
Aadil and Mirra |
| The Divine's Dream for 2010 |
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| A Year of JOY and BEAUTY!
 Happy New Year! The Divine's dream for 2010 is for a year of JOY! The work that we did in December, practicing pure giving and receiving from the Heart Center, was wonderful preparation for the New Year. We are now ready to open to a greater experience of joy, which is what the Creator wishes to express through Its creation!
A good question to ask yourself is "Does my vision of joy match The Divine's vision of joy?" Since the ego may not always agree with The Divine's perception of joy, I offer all of us this prayer: "I am willing to allow Divine Joy to flow and be felt through my human form." While you say this to yourself, hold the intention to exhale what you perceive to be joy and to inhale Divine Joy instead.
True joy comes from an experience of BEAUTY. Beauty is The Divine's joy. In order to experience The Divine's flow of joy, we must become friendly in all ways with our experience of beauty. The Divine's dream is to move into the physical world, and this happens through the expression of beauty, because where beauty is, so is joy.
What is beauty, exactly? Beauty is the ideal expression of The Divine. Beauty requires that we take care and give a little more of ourselves, inside and outside. (You may begin to notice that a "pretty" person is not always beautiful, so start exploring why this is the case.) Beauty is all about refinement, precision, and detail, through care and clarity and cleanliness and color - lots of color!
 Shaggy clothes and a messy home tell our nervous system that it's okay to get away with being less than who we truly are. Beauty - and therefore joy - are felt in the body when we wear beautiful colors, fabrics, and designs. Take a look at the clothes you wear. Do they make you smile? (A smile is a clue there is beauty and joy around you!) Look around your home. Does it also smile? Does it express your refinement, care, and detail? Surround yourself with beauty in your home, your body, and your thoughts, with the images you see and the things you taste, touch and smell. When you do this, your nervous system can relax, which allows more of the Divine's energy to flow through you.
Please join us in this prayer for 2010:
"I am ready to feel the joy of The Divine and to express the beauty of The Divine. Let everything I do be an expression of beauty. Today I choose to let go of any perceptions of joy and beauty that come from my ego. I ask the Creator to use my physical form to express Its beauty and Its joy into and through the material world, giving birth to a Divine world now."
With love,
Mirra and Aadil
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| The Principle of Cleansing |
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 Cleansing diets and detoxification plans have become increasingly popular lately. Let's remember some basics of cleansing. If the body is properly hydrated, it will cleanse itself everyday, quite normally. Through elimination, urine, tears, and sweat, your body rids itself of toxins that would otherwise build up and could lead to sickness and disease. Fevers, colds, and skin eruptions are actually a natural part of the cleaning process and shouldn't be suppressed.
Rather than a dramatic cleanse once a year that can be harsh on the body, seek to nourish your body's natural cleansing abilities on a daily basis. When you begin a daily program to nourish, balance, and cleanse the body (like the one provided by Sunrider foods, which Mirra and I eat every day), you may experience the symptoms of cleansing and may end up feeling worse than you do now. Hang in there! This is your body's way of getting rid of the bad and making room for the good. After all, you cannot heal your current condition without cleansing the old condition from the body. I recommend drinking several  packets of Fortune Delight with a squirt of Sunectar daily. This hydrating beverage will greatly help with the cleansing process and reduce the effects of detoxification.
Happy New You!
-Aadil
P.S. Please email Sara, our assistant, if you would like more information on Fortune Delight and the other Sunrider foods we eat daily: sara@aadil.com |
| The Teaching of Heart |
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| From the acclaimed book, Fire of Love,
by Aadil Palkhivala
 As yoga teachers, our central practice is to observe everything we teach - every method, every action, every word - and ask ourselves, "Is this approach merely a means to achieving a straighter line, a better look, a deeper pose - or is it more? Is it helping my students to live and love their life more? Am I merely teaching sweaty flowing sequences and perfectly aligned postures, or am I a teacher whose students are learning to love more abundantly?"
Perhaps the greatest service we can perform for our students is to remind them to find their true calling in life, the call of love. We must teach asana in a manner that assists our students on this essential quest. Backbends open the groins, abdominals, intercostals, and armpits, yet their higher purpose is to open the Heart Center. Teach backbends with this higher intention, thereby helping your students develop receptivity to the quiet voice of the heart. Inversions reverse blood flow, enhance circulation, and flush toxins, yet their loftier aim in the yogic design is to cultivate sensitivity. Remind your students to attune themselves to this heightened sensitivity after doing inversions, and then use their newly acquired powers of discernment to separate what is essential from what is merely urgent. Only when we lovingly take care of what is essential can we live with love and die without regret.
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