​The Katha Upanishad uses the metaphor of a city with eleven gates to describe the physical body. Seven of those eleven gates are our eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth—in a word, our senses. We could not function easily in this world without our senses, and so they are useful and necessary gifts. We run into trouble, however, when we allow the senses to control our lives.
 
As Eknath Easwaran notes in The Essence of the Upanishads, when we live through the senses our vital energy—our prana—is constantly directed outward until it is depleted. We are then vulnerable to depression, as we cut ourselves off from the world in an effort to replenish our prana. Thus we set up an alternating cycle of frantic grasping at the outside world and dark isolation. Moreover, a life lived exclusively through the senses leads us to identify ourselves as strictly physical beings, and to judge both our own value and the value of others in terms of such things as physical appearance and material possessions. When those things go, as they inevitably do, we have nothing to fall back on, and so we live our lives in a constant state of fear and insecurity. We exhaust ourselves in the impossible task trying to create a safe, perfect, changeless physical environment for ourselves, and react to anything or anyone disturbing that environment as a threat. Living our lives with that attitude affects both our own inner peace and the peace of our world.
 
So how do we use and enjoy the senses in a healthy, reasonable way? Another metaphor from both the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita is useful here. The body, these scriptures tell us, is like a chariot and the senses the horses. Without some kind of control, the horses will pull the chariot in any direction they choose to go. The controlling mechanism is the mind. The lower mind serves as the reins, but those alone are not enough. We also need a charioteer pulling on the reins, and that charioteer is the higher, discriminating mind. And we need to remember in whose service the chariot exists. The Lord of the chariot is the Self. Easwaran tells us that the way we cultivate the discrimination we need to keep the senses in check is through meditation. When we meditate we close off the senses for a time and watch the mind at work. We gradually develop and strengthen our powers of discrimination. And we remind ourselves that we are more than body, more than senses, more than mind. Given those tools and that awareness, the charioteer can direct the horses in whatever direction the moment requires. 

​On Thursday we will celebrate Krishna Janmashtami--Krishna's birthday-- in Hindu tradition. One of the most striking things about Krishna is the various ways in which he is depicted. He is both the mischievous, playful child and the wise charioteer who guides Arjuna in his spiritual journey, the flute-playing beloved of the gopis and the fierce demon-slayer, human avatar and Supreme Being. What are we to make of these apparent contradictions? One way we might see Krishna is as the embodiment and affirmation of the wholeness of the human condition.
 
We are often tempted to view our lives dualistically. We believe that in order to become spiritually enlightened we need to repress our human nature and renounce the pleasures of life. Our image of holiness is the solemn-faced saint with the halo on her head. Krishna shows us that, while we inhabit this human body, we can evolve spiritually and still be fully human. We can sing and dance, laugh and play while we also study, pray, give, love, and serve. Our spiritual leaders reinforce this idea. From Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama to our own gurus, all show us how to smile, to crack a joke, to—in the words of Dorothy Day—practice "the duty of delight."
 
In the book Karma Sannyasa, Swami Satsangi writes, “To adore life is the greatest sadhana.” Krishna shows us how to live our lives fully, to embrace all life has to offer, while always keeping our eye on our ultimate purpose—to remember who we truly are and to act in this world as  instruments of the Lord of Love.

God makes the rivers to flow. They tire not, nor do they cease from flowing. May the rivers of my life flow into the sea of love that is the Lord.
May I overcome all the impediments in my course. May the thread of my song be not cut before my life merges into the sea of love.
Guard me against all danger, O Lord. Accept me graciously, O King of kings. 
Release me from all my sorrows, which hold me as ropes hold a calf. I cannot even open my eyes without the power of your love. 
Guard us against the grief that haunts the life of the selfish. Lead us from darkness into light.
I will sing of your love as it was sung of old. Your laws change not, but stand like the mountains.
Forgive me all the mistakes I have committed. Many mornings will dawn upon us again. Guide us through them, O Lord of Love.
--The Rig Veda, transl. Eknath Easwaran
 
How has the river of your life flowed this past year? What, if any, changes in course do you hope to make next year?

We will not be meeting for sadhana at Ruscombe this Sunday, December 27. Please join us for our New Year's haven Saturday, January 2, at 4 p.m.

During my first trip to Rikhia I had the privilege to be assigned to a few days of rice packing as my karma yoga. I sat with a small group of people in a large room filled with 50 pound sacks of rice. The sacks were opened, poured onto a clean tarp on the floor, and we scooped the rice from the tarp into one-pound bags that would be distributed at a large festival later that year. We were in the early days of this work. We would be gone from Rikhia before it was completed and would not see or know who received our rice. Yet as I sat quietly and settled into the rhythm of our task, I felt a profound sense of peace and joy knowing that what I was doing would in a small way help to feed the people of the surrounding villages.

As most of us move from childhood to adulthood, our focus during the holiday season shifts from receiving to giving. We no longer impatiently count the days until we see what Santa brought us. Instead, much of our joy comes from seeing the pleasure our gifts bring to our children, our partners, our family and friends. All giving is good thing but this kind of giving is limited. We give expecting to receive thanks and appreciation in response. Our yoga practices encourage us to go beyond this kind of giving by giving selflessly, expecting no recognition, gratitude, or reward in return. It's this kind of giving that marks true charity--giving because we recognize that we are part of a whole, because we see the face of God in every creature we encounter, because we believe that working to insure the well-being of our fellow creatures is a large part of what we are here on earth to do. And it's this kind of giving-- not just during the holiday season but throughout the year--that leads to a joy much deeper and more lasting than the momentary happiness of a single morning or night each year.

We at Wise Heart are working on two collective karma yoga giving projects this holiday season. We invite you to join with us, or to find your own way to experience the joy of selfless giving in the coming days, and beyond.

Please join us for sadhana at 5 p.m. this Sunday, December 13, Hill House, Ruscombe Community Health Center. If you have an extra hour or two to spare, join us beforehand to help sew for Days for Girls. Email for more info by clicking here.

We are approaching this year’s celebration of Diwali, the Festival of Light in Vedic tradition. Just as she did in Navaratri, Lakshmi figures prominently in Diwali. It is said that Lakshmi rides on a blind owl and needs light to find her way to the homes she visits. But Lakshmi is also attracted to homes that have been freshly cleaned and repaired, and so—before the candles and lights are lit—everyone cleans house to prepare for Diwali.
 
What about our spiritual houses? How do we prepare them for the Festival of Light? A popular adage says, “Be the light.” In reality, we ARE the light. The question is, how easily can our inner light be seen? Does it shine brightly or is it obscured by past sorrows and grievances, present preoccupations and fears, and anxiety about the future? What do we need to sweep up and clear away in our own lives so that our light can shine brightly and help illuminate the darkness in our world? Let’s spend some time this week cleaning our spiritual houses so that the light we truly are will guide the spirit of Lakshmi to us this Diwali.
 
Come celebrate Diwali with us at this week’s sadhana, Sunday, November 8, 5 p.m. Hill House, Ruscombe Community Health Center. 

PLEASE NOTE: There is NO HAVAN today!

Yesterday was filled with strong emotion. In the morning we celebrated the landmark Supreme Court decision that made marriage equality the law of the land. In the afternoon we grieved with the family and friends of Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the eight members of his congregation who were gunned down in Charleston on June 17, as President Obama delivered a powerful eulogy at his funeral.

Some of us are touched directly by these events. We have known personally the pain of prejudice and discrimination because of the color of our skin or our gender identity. Most of us are touched only tangentially. What draws us to share in the joy and celebration, the grief and pain of family members, friends, and strangers on days like yesterday?

One of the yamas of karma yoga is atmabhava. Atmabhava is unity consciousness. It is the sense that we are all connected—that your joy is my joy and your sorrow is my sorrow. It is looking beneath surface differences and seeing that we all share the same hopes and dreams, fears and insecurities. Most of all, we all share the need to be accepted and loved. It is that sense of what we hold in common that gives rise to empathy. We share in each other’s happiness and pain because we can feel what it must be like to walk in another’s shoes.

Empathy takes us only so far, however. President Obama used his eulogy to point that out. Focusing on the theme of Amazing Grace, he noted that the deaths in Charleston provided an opening for grace—an opportunity to move past our blindness and recognize hard truths about the racism, both overt and subtle, that still permeates American society. What we do with that grace, he continued, is up to us. We can experience our moment of empathy and then move on or we can build on that empathy to help make the world a better place. This is the path of karma yoga—to work for the well-being of the world, knowing that we are intimately connected to every person and every living thing that lives upon it. We are all one. We are all manifestations of the Divine.

Come to Study Group this Sunday, June 28, 3:30 p.m. to learn more about karma yoga and explore how it relates to your own path. Stay for sadhana at 5 p.m. Ruscombe Community Health Center.

I called my Uncle Bill this week on his 82nd birthday. He is my godfather and I grew up very close to him, seeing him often. I began to lose touch with him, however, when I married and moved away from Baltimore in the early '70's, and I saw even less of him when he too moved from Baltimore to Tennessee a decade or so later. Aside from a time he and his wife came to visit us about 20 years ago, I had not had any contact with him other than exchanging a yearly Christmas card until February, when he called my mother's house just before she died. We spoke for awhile then and when I recalled this week that my mother was in the habit of calling him on his birthday, I decided to pick up the phone and make the call in her place. We spoke for more than half an hour and as we reminisced about home and family I felt a sense of connection that had never been broken throughout these many years--just forgotten and neglected as we moved through the busyness of our day to day lives. 

This is graduation season. It's a time of moving on. We are proud and happy as we see our children and grandchildren mark important milestones in their lives, while at the same time feeling a sense of loss as they leave our homes and venture across the state, across the country, and sometimes across the world to pursue further education and careers. How do we stay connected to our young people while letting them go? How do we ourselves maintain the web of family and friends that sustains us as we move through the years, changing jobs, interests, and ZIP codes? How do keep ourselves rooted in the nurturing soil of community as we reach toward new possibilities and navigate the seasons of our lives?

Come explore with us at this week's sadhana, Sunday, June 14, 4 p.m., Ruscombe Community Health Center.