Submit to a daily practice. Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door.Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see whos there. Rumi

Since it opened in 2002, the Bikram Yoga studio in Corvallis has invited hundreds of people to join together in the daily practice of Hatha Yoga, a method of physical exercise and mental discipline designed to release the joy within all of us. The room is hot, heated to over 100 degrees, but its a safe place and a healing place. The 26 poses and two breathing exercises of the sequence are rigorous and aerobic, but people practice at their own level. The perfect pose is the best you can do that day, with the body you have, in that moment. As Bikram himself puts it, The purpose of yoga is to help us to fully inhabit and to realize the awesome potential of our true selves. Classes are offeredseven days a week, morning and afternoon, taught by Bikram-certified instructors, teachers of both skill and compassion.The many people who now attend one or more of these classes each week form a genuine community. Every class, every pose, every student in the room helps to generate an energy that sustains and supports everyone else. Come and join us, as soon as you are ready to try!

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About Us

Private Yoga Instruction & Therapy

Yoga Therapy is tailored to your specific needs while group classes offer only a generic routine that does not cater to your individual needs or goals. Yoga has a broad spectrum of healing tools, including chronic low back pain, herniated discs, arthritis, generalized anxiety disorder, depression and other ailments.

We move towards your goal in intelligent, orderly steps. Since no two individuals are identical, each persons starting point will be different, even though the goals may be the same. Caroline takes into account your unique starting point, your body characteristics, current lifestyle, personality, environment, and more to accurately determine the best route for you to reach your goal through Yoga. Learn More

Find out the answers to some of the most commonly asked questions aboutprivate yoga instructionand therapeutic yoga. Learn what type of yoga is right for you, whether its yoga for lower back pain or classes on yoga and mental health. Find out how Yoga RX can help you with your needs! Learn More

Caroline is passionate about helping others with false perceptions about themselves that come with body image obsessions and disordered eating patterns. She views yoga as a vehicle for healing and has made therapeutic yogaher lifes work. Learn More

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Private Yoga Instruction Austin, TX | Yoga RX

Were not your typical yoga studio. And we dont exercise, we train. We train for life. Life is always changing, so we dont rely on one modality to prepare us for life. That would be like eating only spinach everyday, sure its good for you but variety is what we are designed to do as well as eat. Our newly expanded studio gives us a perfect opportunity (and space!) to bring you a variety of ways to train your body and your mind. Training has a purpose, is a journey, is exciting and fun! Dont worry; we are very sensitive to everyones level of fitness, injuries, even your openness to trying new things. The poses and exercises practiced in each class can be modified or intensified at the will of the student. Therefore, everyone who attends our classes can safely challenge themselves and explore the moment. Happiness is simply accepting what you find!

To achieve optimal fitness results, a variety of exercise concepts are necessary to keep the mind and body engaged and challenged. The APY Method is a revolutionary fitness program designed to create healthy happy humans by intertwining effective training methods with a lifestyle philosophy. Our combined collection of classes, offered at our Dallas yoga studio, will assist all in living healthier, and ultimately happier, lives.

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American Power Yoga

Improved Strength

This means that elderly people will be better able to continue with hobbies and daily activities independently for many more years to come. If they are unlucky enough to suffer a fall or injury, a strong body will be able to withstand this better and sustain fewer injuries.

Improved Flexibility

Chair yoga can help those with mobility issues to undertake activities that they have perhaps been unable to, such as reaching down to tie shoe laces or pick things up.

Proprioception is the skill of knowing where your body is in space, and coordinating your movements accurately. This is particularly important for elderly people and can prevent falls. For people with disabilities or conditions such as MS, it may mean having greater control over your body and its movements.

Chair yoga can lessen the impact of chronic illnesses and pain. For elderly people, it may also help them cope with feelings of isolation, if this is a problem. Being calmer and more relaxed inevitably leads to a greater feeling of happiness and well-being, which everyone can benefit from!

Joining chair yoga classes for those with mobility issues and the elderly will also give them a venue to socialize and make friends. However, its important that you choose an appropriate class so that the instructor will have specific knowledge about what is appropriate for you to dotheyll be able to suitably adapt the exercises.

Chair yoga (and yoga in general, really) includes breath work, which can help people not only with stress management but also for coping and managing pain. Through meditation and paying attention to your breath, you can help your body and mind to cope with the pain of an illness or condition you may suffer from.

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Bikram Yoga Plus - Coachella Valley Wellness Through Yoga

Yoga Tree Studio, the Iyengar Yoga Center of Fullerton, offers Introductory to Level 4 yoga classes, Restorative yoga classes and slower-Paced classes in the Iyengar method. We welcome beginners, experienced yoga students or those new to Iyengar yoga Fullerton, as well as Seniors. Private classes for individuals or groups are also available.

Iyengar yoga is a teaching method so named by the students of B.K.S. Iyengar, the foremost yogi of our times. At 95, he was still practicing and teaching at his institute in Pune, India. There are more Iyengar practitioners world-wide than any other style of yoga and many newer styles of yoga, like Anusara, found their basis in his teachings.

Iyengar yoga Fullerton is not a hot nor heated style of yoga but puts emphasis on correct alignment in a pose, sequencing and timing, sometimes using props to help a student get the most benefit from a pose. To become a Certified Iyengar teacher takes years of preparation, most complete a 3-year, 500 hour Iyengar Yoga training course, more than double that of most teacher training programs today. Then they must pass 2 assessments, that take a minimum of 2 years to complete.

We welcome you to visit the studio, meet the teachers and join us in discovering the benefits of yoga. If you are looking for yoga Fullerton, youve come to the right place. Questions? Call us at 714-388-4328.

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Yoga Tree Studio | Iyengar Yoga Center Fullerton

Hatha Yoga, (Sanskrit: Discipline of Force) school of Yoga that stresses mastery of the body as a way of attaining a state of spiritual perfection in which the mind is withdrawn from external objects. Hatha Yoga traces its origins especially to Gorakhnath, the legendary 11th-century founder of the Kanphata Yogis, but it grew out of yogic traditions dating back at least as far as Patanjali (2nd century bce or 5th century ce), author of the Hindu classics the Yoga-sutras and the Mahabhasya (Great Commentary).

Hatha Yoga places great importance on diet, purificatory processes, regulation of breathing (Pranayama), and the adoption of bodily postures called asanas, which structure a program of physical exertion. A common asana is the padmasana (lotus posture), in which the crossed feet rest on the opposite thighs. This is the position in which many Hindu and Buddhist gods are often depicted, but it is only one of dozens described in Hatha Yoga treatises. The salute to the sun is a well-known sequence of 12 asanas performed in a fluid movement.

Hatha Yoga has grown in popularity in the West as a form of exercise that develops strength, flexibility, bodily relaxation, and mental concentration. Its true object, however, is to awaken the dormant energy (shakti) of Shiva that animates the subtle body but is concealed behind the gross human frame. The subtle anatomy containing it is usually described as a series of lotiform chakras (wheels) rising from the anal or genital area to the top of the head. Through the forceful suppression of physical and mental activity, the female shakti is enabled to rise along the chakras and unite with the male Shiva in the uppermost chakra, a union indistinguishable from enlightenment and even immortality.

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This is a little lesson explaining the effects that nutrition and exercise have on each other.

I. Diet modulates weight.II. Exercise modulates body composition.

1. Nutrition quality will improve how fast you lose or gain weight.2. Exercise intensity will improve how fast your body composition changes.

Nutrition and exercise also have a big impact on health. Sleep also strongly impacts the results and health very strongly as well so quality of sleep is important.

Everything can be derived from these sets of statements. Lets look at a couple of common examples.

1. You are obese and want to slim down.

Losing weight depends on nutrition. This is also why six packs are said to be made in the kitchen.Simply put: you need to eat less calories to drop weight.

Starvation mode is a misnomer as if you eat extremely few calories your body will naturally drop weight, but the body can decrease metabolic rate by modulating thyroid hormones. This can also have some not-so-great effects on your organs.

Recommendation: It is best to stick with an energy deficit of somewhere between about 300-500 calories less than your TDEE per day, and your body will tend to drop .5-1 lbs per week or so.

Exercise is going to help modulate body composition while the pounds come off. For example, if you end up not exercising while on a caloric deficit, your body will indiscriminately drop muscle mass as well as fat mass.Eating enough protein and training will tend to prevent the loss of muscle mass during weight loss. Aim for 1g of protein per pound and 3x a week strength training while losing weight.

2. You are at a healthy weight for your height, but want to tone up and gain muscle mass while losing fat.

Toning is generally a misnomer built on the use of using light weights to tone. This is false.

Exercise here is the most important for any significant body composition change. Depending on the different types of exercise, your body may see fit to increase muscle mass and/or burn off excess fat mass (in conjunction with proper nutrition). Generally, you can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, but how well you do this is predicated mainly on your percentage of body fat. If you have a higher body fat percentage, the easier it will be to lose weight due to much extra energy being available for the body to use to build muscle.

Diet is still very important because quality foods will produce faster body composition changes. This depends some on genetics (hence why some elite athletes can generally eat crap and get away with it), but even with good body composition changes with junky food may be at the expense of overall long term health.

Recommendation: Aim to get .7-1 g/lbs of protein and aim to only eat your TDEE in calories to maintain weight. Aim for at least 10 sets of exercises per muscle group to-failure or close to failure. Use heavy weights or difficult bodyweight exercises in the 5-15 repetition range.

3. The underweight person looking to bulk up with muscle.

Diet is the most important. This is a weight issue, and the person is looking to gain weight. Thus, they need to eat more.

This time around adding body mass will be variable according to the exercise (or lack thereof) because it affects body composition.

A. Lifting weights with a hypercaloric diet will tend to put on more muscle mass than fat.B. Eating more without exercising tends to put on all fat as seen by the obesity rates in America.

Recommendation: Aim to get .7-1 g/lbs of protein for your targeted weight with an extra 500 calories a day. Aim for at least 10 sets of exercises per muscle group to-failure or close to failure. Use heavy weights or difficult bodyweight exercises in the 5-15 repetition range.

Onto more details..

I. Regarding the quality of diet

Quality of diet is highly dependent on the genetics of the individual. Some people may be allergic to foods such as gluten or dairy, and consuming such food would be detrimental to overall health.

The one thing we can say is that improvements in the quality of diet directly leads to results in weight (maintenance, gain or loss) as well as quality of health. Since we literally are what we eat, if we take in junk food all the time our health is probably going to decline (even if we cant see it on the outside), and the body will probably gain weight as junk food has a high caloric value.

Healthy bodies operate better mentally, physically, and emotionally so it is VERY important to get high quality nutrients.

Recommendations: avoid food allergens. Consume lots of fruits and vegetables. Aim for a moderate about of starchy foods like rice and potatoes. May need more starchy foods if youre training hard. A fist size hunk of protein at most meals and extra if you need more. Supplements are to only supplement a healthy lifestyle. Whey can be useful if you need more protein.

II. Regarding the quality of exercise

High intensity or high power output exercise heavy lifting, intervals, metabolic conditioning, etc. tend to produce the fastest body composition changes. The stronger the stressors,the faster the body adapts. This is the SAID principle specific adaptation to imposed demand. Of course, high intensity exercise can easily lead to overuse injuries, so listen to your body and be careful.

Damage to your muscles and their growth/adaptation require energy to repair which will be provided by through diet. If the energy need exceeds than of which the diet provides (hypocaloric diet for the obese & isocaloric diet for those who want to maintain weight), then the body tends to metabolize adipose tissue to supply the energy. In essence, our bodies adapt to stress. The higher the stress the bigger the adaptation. This is why higher intensity protocols such as weightlifting and HIIT get stronger adaptations to them than lower intensity such as cardio or very light weights.

The regulation of body composition operates according to the law of diminishing returns (aka logarithmic scale). This means that the improvements will be much greater the higher the body fat percentage & with less muscle mass, but much lower as the body fat percentage drops & with more muscle mass.

One fitness myth is that you cannot add muscle and lose fat at the same time; this is wrong and occurs frequently in obese individuals who are losing weight while doing high intensity exercise. However, as the BF% drops into the teens and single digits, itoccurs much less if at all.

III. Regarding the reliance of diet and exercise to each other

In general, we would tend to say that overall improvement of weight and body composition is 80-85% diet and 15-20% exercise. This is because we are eating almost 21 times per week (maybe more) and only working out about 3-5 times a week.

These are the times that you will be affecting your weight and body composition, so they need to be used wisely. We often taking eating and exercising for granted, but if you want to make any significant weight or body composition changes these times must be taken seriously. Both quality and quantity matter.

This article was originally published August 19, 2009 on Eat Move Improve. Updated Dec 2016.

Questions about articles may be addressed to the Overcoming Gravity reddit.

Steven Low, author of Overcoming Gravity: A Systematic Approach to Gymnastics and Bodyweight Strength (Second Edition) and Overcoming Poor Posture, is a former gymnast who has performed with and coached the exhibitional gymnastics troupe, Gymkana. Steven has a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland College Park, and his Doctorate of Physical Therapy from the University of Maryland Baltimore. Steven is a Senior trainer for Dragon Doors Progressive Calisthenics Certification (PCC). He has also spent thousands of hours independently researching the scientific foundations of health, fitness and nutrition and is able to provide many insights into practical care for injuries. His training is varied and intense with a focus on gymnastics, parkour, rock climbing, and sprinting.

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The relationship between diet and exercise Steven Low

Praise for Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement

"A comically committed exploration of current life-hacking wisdom in areas ranging from athletic and intellectual prowess to spirituality, creativity, wealth, and pleasure." The New Yorker

"An absurdist masterpiece." The Guardian

"Beautifully observed and incredibly conceived, this account of a self-imposed ordeal has the chilling quality of a true nightmare. It is the dark side of the moon of Tim Ferriss." Tom McCarthy

"Two crazy people try numerous crazy strategies, all so I don't have to. I call that a result!" Lee Child, author

"A good-natured, thoughtful, and often comic joyride." Kirkus Reviews

Praise for The Wellness Syndrome

Carl Cederstrm and Andr Spicers brilliantly sardonic anatomy of this wellness syndrome concentrates on the ways in which the pressure to be well operates as a moralising command and obliterates political engagement... These authors would no doubt agree that there is nothing wrong with being well or wanting to be well. But, as their deeply humane and persuasive book shows, being told to be well is a different matter entirely. A society where wellness is obligatory is a sick one. Steven Poole, The Guardian

"When I read their angry, hilarious book, The Wellness Syndrome, I felt like I was being shaken awake from a dream. Helen Rumbelow, The Times

My underlying scepticism about society's single-minded quest for physical perfection was validated when I came across The Wellness Syndrome. Like me, the authors don't have any gripes about wellness per se but what they are concerned about is how wellness has become an ideology. The more we focus on our own wellness, the book argues, the more we alienate others and the more isolated we become... By spending so much time looking inward, in a relentless pursuit for the ideal body and state of mind, we pay less attention to the wider world and its ills. Gabrielle Monghan, Irish Independent

Short, brilliant and bracing, The Wellness Syndrome is the Brave New World de nos jours, a mordant satire on our contemporary mores... I pray that the authors will put a lot of life coaches (and celebrity chefs and similar fraudsters) out of business. Andy Martin, Literary Review

The books great virtue is its lightness of theoretical touch, which combines Darwin-award style tales of idiocy with punchy commentary to make for the kind of readability conducive to cult status among undergraduates. Gerald Moore, Radical Philosophy

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Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement: A Year Inside the ...

Many of the nations most routine animal farming practices would be illegal if perpetrated against cats and dogs.

Jonathan Lovvorn, Chief Counsel, The Humane Society of the United States

In his groundbreaking book, Animal Liberation, philosophy professor Peter Singer popularized the word speciesism. He wrote:

Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case

If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration.

Opposing speciesism doesnt mean treating all species the same in all situationsrather, it means not using an individuals species as the basis for harming or protecting them. If its wrong to kill a dog for food, then its also wrong to kill a chicken or pig, as there are no significant differences in their desire to avoid fear and death.

Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals & Legislation

We love dogs and cats. But farmed animals such as cows, pigs, and chickens are seen as objects to be turned into food. This is one of the most pervasive forms of speciesism.

In the September 1976 issue of the trade journal Hog Farm Management, John Byrnes recommended, Forget the pig is an animal. Treat him just like a machine in a factory. The hog industry went on to do just that, illustrated 30 years later by a National Pork Producers Council spokesperson saying, So our animals cant turn around for the 2.5 years that they are in the stalls producing piglets. I dont know who asked the sow if she wanted to turn around.

Farmed animals live sad livesnormally in dark warehouses that you wouldnt even recognize as farms. They cant breathe fresh air, and they live on concrete or wire that damages their feet. When it comes time to be slaughtered, theyre packed onto trucks, exposed to the freezing cold, rain, or intense heat for hours or even days. Theyre killed at just a fraction of their normal lifespan.

Its hard to comprehend how horrible slaughterhouses areboth for animals and humanswithout visiting one.

To make the most profit, killing and disassembling animals must move quickly and many animals end up being conscious through much of the process. Cows can have their hooves cut off and hides ripped off before theyre finished dying. Pigs often enter the scalding tank while still alive.

Many chickens and turkeys are also alive as they enter the scalding tanksmeant to loosen their feathers. These birds can be identified because their flesh turns bright red as they drown in the scalding water.

This brutal system also treats slaughterhouse workers more as objects to be discarded than as human beings.

National Public Radios 2016 expos, Working The Chain, Slaughterhouse Workers Face Lifelong Injuries, describes how each worker must do thousands of repetitions per day with few breaks, causing a wide range of muscle and nerve injuries. They make low wages and are fired when their injuries prevent them from working.

Worker advocate Gloria Sarmiento says, The speed of the line is really fast. The supervisors are yelling all the timeThey are treating us like animals.

Slaughterhouse workers perform a jobkilling innocent animalsthat few meat-eaters are willing to do. A steady flow of investigations shows that terrible working conditions take a toll on the workers who will sometimes act out cruelly toward the animals. Its a vicious cycle of abuse.

Dozens of undercover investigations have exposed the abuse of farmed animals and the industry has responded by trying to punish whistleblowers. At the industrys prodding, some states have passed Ag-Gag laws that criminalize exposing abuse.

Hog and dairy farms produce enormous waste, which is stored in lagoons and then sprayed on fields. A 2017 Sierra Club article, The CAFO Industrys Devastating Impact on the Environment and Public Health, reports:

If waste is sprayed too often, it saturates the soil and leaks into the aquifer and nearby rivers and streams. The practice also aerosolizes fecal matter, creating toxic particulates that get blown onto nearby homes, accompanied by a terrible stench that drives residents indoors. A majority of those homes belong to African Americans, who have had their property drenched in hog waste for decades and their wells polluted, too.

For 30 years, their complaints about the effect on their health and quality of life have mostly fallen on deaf ears at the [North Carolina] statehousemaking this a clear case of environmental racism with quantifiable human cost.

The Sierra Club quotes residents living near hog waste lagoons:

[Hog waste] comes over here just like its raining. Thats what we inhale if were outside, and it comes inside the house because you cant keep that odor out.

We dont have cookouts or family get-togethers like we used to, because we dont know when the odor is gonna come. When its really hot, it burns your eyes.

The bodies of dairy cows and egg-laying hens are pushed to produce many times more milk and eggs than is natural. When their production decreases, at a relatively young age, theyre slaughtered.

In order to produce profitable amounts of milk, a cow must be impregnated on a yearly basis. While the bond between mother and calf is one of the strongest in nature, dairy calves are taken away within hours of birththey wont be together again. Some calves will be slaughtered within days or weeks for veal.

Undercover investigations show that cage-free eggs rarely come from happy hens.

Male chicks in the egg industry are killed at birth, often ground up alive in macerators.

Although most societies have historically eaten animal products, we dont need to. The vegan movement started in the 1940s, and since then countless children have been raised vegan and grown into healthy adults.

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (2016)

By eating vegannot consuming meat, dairy, and eggsyou can oppose speciesism and the human rights violations of animal agriculture.

While it can sound intimidating at first, if you experiment with the multitude of satisfying, high-protein vegan foods and ease into it at your own pace, it will soon be second nature.

A plant-based diet can lower cholesterol and blood pressure, greatly reduce your risk for type 2 diabetes, and provide more antioxidants, fiber, and vitamin Call improvements over the standard American diet. But there are a few nutrients you should pay attention to over the long term.

Clarence Kennedy, weightlifter

The meat industry targets men, presenting meat as manly, while middle-aged men die of heart disease at much greater rates than middle-aged women. Peer-reviewed research shows that the health of men benefits even more than the health of women when they choose vegetarianmeat and the meat industry are no friends to men!

The growing number of successful vegan bodybuilders, weightlifters, and other athletes show you dont need animal products to build muscle.

Robert Cheeke, VeganBodybuilding.com

All plant foods contain all the essential amino acidsthe building blocks of protein. To meet protein requirements and to feel satisfied, its important to make sure youre eating some high-protein plant foods each day.

The easiest choices are vegan meats, which are packed with protein. Legumespeanuts, beans, lentils, and peasand foods made from them are also high in protein.

Soyfoodslike tofu, tempeh, and soymilk are high in protein. The meat industry has sensed a threat from soy and promotes anti-soy propaganda, but dont be fooledall legitimate scientific bodies consider soy safe.

That said, its no problem to be vegan without eating soythere are many alternatives!

Choose from a wide range of delicious, high-protein vegan burgers and dogs to toss on the grill! Available from Beyond Meat, Tofurky, Gardein, Field Roast, and others at most grocery stores.

Its not necessarily best to make a sudden, abrupt change in the way you eat. Rather, incorporate new habits at your own pace.

Dont worry about avoiding hidden animal ingredientsas society moves away from using animals these byproducts will disappear. Try avoiding obvious animal products like chickens legs and cows milk without stressing about hidden ingredients.

Remember that although it might be easier to relate to mammals, theres no doubt that birds are intelligent and can suffer. Theres also scientific evidence that fish feel pain.

Because it takes more small animals to feed someone, it makes the most sense not to switch from eating one species of animal to another, but rather to cut back on all animal products at a pace you find sustainable.

Bernard E. Rollin, PhD, Farm Animal Welfare, Iowa State University Press

According to a 2016 Harris poll, there are approximately 3.7 million adult vegans in the U.S., up from half a million in the mid-1990s.

Our numbers are growing, but most people still eat meat out of convenience. While its easier to go with the flow, stronger people take a stand for what they believe inespecially taking the side of those being exploited and abused.

By joining the growing movement of people who oppose speciesism, you will reduce the demand for killing animals. As more people join in, well reach a tipping point at which millions of animals will be spared.

If you want to succeed, it helps to connect with others. There are likely vegan groups in your area who hold social events at local restaurantscheck on Facebook and Meetup.com.

Combating speciesism means not supporting the violence inflicted on farmed animalsby cutting back and eventually eliminating animal products, you can help put an end to speciesism!

Dr. Tom Regan, professor of philosophy

For help going vegan, please see the Go Vegan section of our site.

Thank you!

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Why Vegan - Vegan Outreach

The Mother, to Women

When the Mother was in Japan, she once addressed the women there, and said something that should be of tremendous interest not only to women anywhere in the world, but to mankind as a whole. She spoke on the mundane subject of maternity, but gave it a twist that makes women potentially the agents of a radical change in human nature. The process of creating a new life through maternity can be a conscious process. The mother's thoughts and feelings during pregnancy can shape the consciousness of the baby taking shape in her womb. The Mother had once seen two beautiful little girls, twins, whose beauty had the perfection of a child in a painting by Reynolds. The girls resembled neither parent, but it so transpired that the girls' mother had looked at consciously, throughout pregnancy, especially just before going to bed, and on getting up in the morning, a painting by Reynolds, and had prayed that she give birth to a child as beautiful as the child in the painting. The physical features offer much more resistance to any modifying influence than do thoughts and feelings. Therefore, if even the body of her child can be affected by a pregnant mother, it should be easier to influence the child's mind during pregnancy. Hence, the Mother urged women to use the power of their minds to "conceive and create a character capable of manifesting an ideal". This, the Mother said, is more important now than ever before in history because we are on the verge of a new step in evolution. The first among the supermen will naturally be born to women, and therefore women can contribute to the process by treating maternity as a process of conscious creation. The superman the Mother had in mind was not the same as visualized by Nietzsche. Nietzsche's superman is "a man aggrandized, magnified, in whom Force has become super-dominant, crushing under its weight all the other attributes of man". Instead, the superman that the Mother visualized is the man who lives by a principle higher than reason. The superman's guiding Light would be the Spirit within, the highest Truth of which man is capable. This faculty would change human nature itself in such a way that evil and injustice, and the consequent misery associated with human life would be wiped out. The Mother also said something extremely interesting about the superman: his mental ability might be less than that of man. But this foresight should not be so surprising, because evolution has not been accompanied by a linear and progressive increase in all abilities. Man's predecessors like the lion have far more physical ability; man cannot even jump from tree to tree like a monkey. Similarly, the superman might lose some of man's mental abilities. What the Mother said further is even more significant. By losing some of man's mental abilities, the superman will lose the "ability to deceive himself and others". It is such a superman, who will change the very character of terrestrial life, that women should concentrate on creating consciously through maternity. For this, they, and their partners, need to be on the spiritual path all along, not just during the woman's pregnancy. We must change if we want to see the change in the next generation.

(Based on: Words of Long Ago by The Mother. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, fourth edition, 1994, pp. 115-126.)

The Mother spent about four years in Japan from May 1916 - March 1920. It was from Japan that she sailed for Pondicherry, where she arrived, for the second time, on 24 April 1920. After that, She never left Pondicherry for even a single day. 24 April is, therefore, an important date in the calendar of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and is one of the four Darshan Days celebrated every year.

Not all great men are famous; this is the story of one such great man. He was born in 1903 in a village called Vahalee in the Punjab, and named Sikandar Lal. When he was 16, Mahatma Gandhi gave a call to the youth of India to interrupt for a few years whatever they were doing to join the struggle for the freedom of the nation. Seems simple, but it is not easy. Therefore, not many responded to the call, but Sikandar Lal was one of those who did. How is it that a few make choices that the majority consider rash, if not foolish. We have three basic tools for making choices: feelings, reason, and an intangible inner voice. In this case, the part of us that is guided by feelings would see in responding positively to Gandhiji's call a life in prisons, certainly not a very pleasant prospect. Reason may see the significance of freedom, and hence the nobility of responding to the call positively, but would also argue against the wisdom of a rash decision that crushes the career and neglects the family for the sake of an uncertain outcome in an unpredictably distant future. Even if the reckless idealism of youth motivates a young man to take the plunge, his parents and other well-wishers may foist on him their discouraging 'mature advice'. However, there is an inner voice, emanating from our deepest Self, which is illumined by our divine essence, the soul. This voice whispers to us what the right choice is. But this voice, although very clear, is a voice that does not insist; it is quite content to be ignored. Therefore, when pitted against the clamour of feelings and reason, this voice does often get ignored. It is only a few rare souls, who are in conscious contact with their deepest Self, who can ignore, oppose and conquer or ignore all opposition in order to act on the dictates of the soul. Sikandar Lal Jauhar was one such person. He responded to Gandhiji's call positively, in spite of opposition from his own family. He joined the freedom struggle, stayed with it till the goal of independence was realized, and during the intervening almost 30 years faced the lathis and bullets of the British police while participating in several demonstrations, and went to jail several times where he was tortured with fetters and beatings, the scars of which he carried on his ankles and the back all his life. He changed his name to Surendra Nath, which he said was a minor phonetic variation on his true nature, which was to 'surrender not'. During the 30 years that he was with the freedom struggle, starting almost penniless, he also initiated a business. God helps those who help themselves. The business flourished, and that is how he acquired in the 1930s a plot of land near Mehrauli. The land was also used for serving the cause of the freedom struggle, but to cut a long story short, when the country became free, Surendra Nath ji faced another dilemma, whether or not to continue with politics. He responded to the faint whisper of his deepest Self once again, and decided not to. This time the choice was easier, because in 1939 he had discovered his true calling. In 1939, an 'unplanned' visit to Pondicherry led to his discovery of The Mother, a discovery that he calls in his memoirs, "the Supreme Discovery of my life, the miracle of Pondicherry where I lost my heart and won the soul and the real life". His dedication to The Mother after 1939 was total, as it had been to the freedom struggle since 1919. The commitment that he made in 1939 finally culminated, with the permission and blessings of The Mother, in the establishment of an Ashram on the land that he had bought in the 1930s on 12 February 1956, the date chosen by The Mother, with its name 'Sri Aurobindo Ashram Delhi Branch' also given by The Mother. In keeping with the spiritual philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, which is a life-affirming philosophy, the Ashram started a school in the same year, the school that is now known as The Mother's International School and has on its rolls more than 2000 students. Besides education, health care is another major activity of the Ashram today. This is the story of a man who started with the resolve that he would 'surrender not, but ended with total surrender to The Mother. This is the story of a man who started with the ambition of seeing his country free, and ended with the aspiration of liberating the world from the ignorance of a dividing ego-dominated consciousness towards a consciousness dominated by love and oneness.

(Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Delhi Branch, established on 12 February 1956, is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary this year)

The Mother had once called the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry a veritable laboratory to work out the future society. Its counterpart in the capital of India, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Delhi Branch, can best be understood as an extension of the centre of sadhana at Pondicherry. What is being done in this spiritual endeavour is the overcoming of the ascetic phase of the Indian tradition, which in a lopsided way equated spirituality with outer renunciation. In the Vedic times, integral life, prosperity, equality of sexes and a life-affirming attitude were cultivated by spiritual seekers. This integral approach was lost in later epochs when Mayavada (Illusionism) prevailed.

According to Sri Aurobindo "all life is Yoga." In the Integral Yoga, the integral life down to the smallest detail has to be divinised : an inner illumination that does not change the outer life leaves the world as it is. The object of our Yoga is self-perfection and world-perfec-tion.

From an early age The Mother had dreamed of a place where seek-ers of the Divine could completely dedicate themselves to spiritual life. "Earth needs a place where men can live away from social conventions, self-contradictory moralities and contending religions, a place where human beings, freed from all slavery to the past, can devote themselves wholly to the discovery and practice of the divine consciousness that is seeking to manifest itself." By providing a congenial environment and field of activities the Ashram seeks to be such a place. With the needs of the body provided, each one takes his work in the spirit of service and unselfishness, in the spirit of Karma Yoga - as an offering to the Divine.

The Delhi Branch was officially inaugurated on 12 February, 1956, with the Blessings of the Mother. To the great joy and gratitude of spiritual seekers in Northern India, the Mother graciously granted the very first Sacred Relics of Sri Aurobindo to be enshrined here on 5 December, 1957. Since then the Ashram has been growing at a steady pace. The shrine and the Meditation Hall continue to be the centre of life and the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother the guiding light. The Love and Blessings of the Master and the Mother and their Grace are always available to their disciples living here.

All live and work here as equals. No distinctions of sex, creed, religion, race, caste or national origin are observed: all are looked upon as souls and children of the Mother. There is no hierarchy of officials and subordinates. All work in association and as a unit un-der the general supervision of one or more sadhaks.

The doors of the Ashram are open for those who aspire for a higher life, with the trust that their aspiration will not stop merely at having a pious wish for a higher and nobler aim, but will manifest increasingly in the thoughts, the life movements and the physical expressionswhich will all be progressively and integrally conse-crated to the Divine.

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Sri Aurobindo Ashram