By M. Jason Kuo By M. Jason Kuo May 22 at 8:00 AM

Last week,The Washington Postreportedthat 36 million pounds of imported nonorganic soybeans suddenly obtainedorganic labels for domestic sale after entering California. This could happen because soybeans, like other foods, are imported via complex global supply chains, involving many different specialist businesses between the farmer and the final customer.

Regulating these supply chains to ensure, for example, that organic foods deserve their labels is hard. Here are five reasons why.

1) The U.S. government doesnt enforce its standards for organic foods.

The key regulator for organic foods in the United States, under the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, is the Department of Agriculture. The USDA is in charge of regulating organic food, both when it is produced in the United States and when it is imported. Its illegal to sell imported foods as organic in the United States unless the product meets USDA standards.

[Robots arent killing the American dream. Neither is trade. This is the problem.]

However, the USDA doesnt actually administer the standards for imported foods. Instead, the certification checking that the food meets U.S. standards is done by USDA-recognized foreign regulators or USDA-authorized third-party organizations. This means the USDA outsources its authority to its equivalent agencies in other countries, as well as third-party certifiers.

2) Not all countries have U.S.-recognized regulators.

The number of USDA-recognizedinternational regulatorshasbeengrowing since 2009. However, it is still relatively small.Currently, the USDA allows imported foods to be sold as organic if they have passed muster with national regulators in Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland. But the United States does not recognize the national regulators of Ukraine and Turkey, the two countries of origin that handled the recent shipment of falsely labeled soybeans. This means that exporters from these countries had to turn to a different system.

3) Thats why third-party certifiers are necessary.

USDAs Certifier Lookuppage lists 82 authorized third-party organizations. Although most of these USDA-accredited certifying agents are domestic, 33 areforeign agents. Also, although some of them are purely private, others arepublic. For instance, theOrganic Food Development and Certification of China in Nanjingis a Chinese government entity.

[What is NAFTA, and what would happen to U.S. trade without it?]

These USDA-accredited third-party certifying agents can also issue certification documents, acting as de factogatekeepers of organic food imports to the United States from other countries. Therefore, if these imported soybeans from Ukraine and Turkey were sold as organic in the United States, presumably the shipments were certified by USDA-authorized third-party organizations.

4) But certification remains challenging in a complex global economy.

In theory, this should all work very well. In practice, ensuring that imports labeled organic are actually organic is very hard, because global supply chains are complex and nontransparent. A number of suppliersor organizations may sell the product before they reach the final customer.

This creates ample opportunity for things to go wrong. For instance, the USDA may not have any good way to know whether its accredited certifying agents have issued false certification documents to unqualified foreign suppliers. Middleman organizations can use real certification documents for products that are not actually organic.

[Okay, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead. What was it?]

Indeed, as The Postreported, the broker of the fake organic soybeans claimed that it might have been provided with false certification documents.However, its impossible to know what went wrong about this particular line of organic food importuntil the USDA completes its investigation.

5) The problem stretches beyond the USDA.

This is not the USDAs fault it is one regulatory agency with limited resources, trying to deal with a multitude of suppliers. Some of these suppliers, in all likelihood, are operating unethically.

Regardless of the hurdles, my researchsuggests that the prospect of the USDA enhancing its regulatory oversight of organic integrity in global supply chains is attainable. In response to a similar globalization challenge to food safety, for example, the Food and Drug Administration has increased transparency and accountability in global supply chains. More substantively, the FDA has conducted more inspections of food facilities in other countries, developed more innovative enforcement tools, and educated more foreign regulators and relevant stakeholders about U.S. requirements.

People may wonder whether increasing regulatory oversight is an implicit form of trade protectionism. But, in fact, more U.S. food regulation results in more food trade, not less. Asmy research shows, greater oversight of foreign food facilities boosts trade in food from foreign countries to the United States by leveraging the U.S. governments reputation to reassure customers. If these lessons extend to the USDA, too, we might expect that more regulatory oversight would make it easier for genuine organic producers abroad to sell their food to American customers.

Jason Kuo is a postdoctoral fellow at the Mortara Center for International Studies at Georgetown University. He gratefully acknowledges financial support from a Carnegie Corp. Bridging the Gap grant. Follow him on Twitter @mjasonkuo.

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Why it's so hard to know whether organic food is really organic - Washington Post

Welcome toShow Me the Evidence,where we go beyond the frenzy of daily headlines to take a deeper look at the state of science around the most pressing health questions of the day.

First period, 8:45 am, a circle of high school students sits so quietly that all you can hear is the whirl of computer fans.

Todays lesson: attention to breathing.

Just notice your breath, says the instructor, Satyani McPherson, where it manifests in the body and the abdomen. ... And whatever is appearing, just allow it to be there.

A student walks in late, and the door slams. No one moves. Eyes are closed. Fourteen chests rise and fall.

****

The juniors and seniors in this international baccalaureate class at Eastern Senior High School in Washington, DC, are stressed out. I asked Raven Wright, a senior, to list all the things she has deal with in a given day. Be on time. Homework. Applications. Scholarship essays. Two jobs: Chipotle and Macys. Mentoring a younger student. Driving lessons. Exhausting.

Once a week for a semester, as part of their IB philosophy class Theory of Knowledge, Wright and her classmates take a break from classwork to meditate. Eastern is one of hundreds of K-12 schools many of them in urban areas, attended mainly by minority students who qualify for free school lunch in the US participating in an unconventional, informal experiment in training students to become more focused and less reactive.

Anecdotally, the students at Eastern love it. Mindfulness is gonna stay with me for the rest of my life, Alayza Mitchel, a student who struggles with the autoimmune disease lupus, says. Especially with the fact of me being a lupus patient and always having to hear news about how it is going to affect me. With mindfulness, she says she can just take a moment to process feelings.

Teachers and administrators at schools like Eastern have welcomed it too. They see mindfulness as a powerful new skill to offer students, not just to manage stress but also to keep them from acting out.

The companies and foundations largely responsible for introducing mindfulness programing into schools tout its psychological benefits such as reduced stress and increased attention. And they say the evidence for mindfulness is based on decades of scientific research.

But research quality is not the same as quantity. And considering that more and more US schools are embracing it, I decided to take a look through the literature: What does the science actually say about mindfulness in kids?

I read more than a dozen studies including systematic meta-reviews, which account for thousands of other papers analyzing the best available research on mindfulness (in both students and adults) and talked to researchers and advocates involved in the work. I asked these experts what questions and concerns parents should have when they hear mindfulness is coming to their schools. (Scroll down for those questions.)

The short of it: The relatively few studies we have on mindfulness in schools suggest a generally positive effect on decreasing anxiety and increasing cognitive performance. But the hype around mindfulness also seems to be outpacing the science, especially when it comes to teaching these practices to children.

Mindfulness is about noticing. Noticing your breathing. Noticing how your emotions manifest in your body. The essence of mindfulness is just tolerating experiencing sensations that come into your body, other than trying to get [them] to stop immediately, Jeff Bostic, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Georgetown University, says. The one fundamental concept thats shared by all the branches [of mindfulness practice] is the awareness that you accept sensations ... and that you can make sense of what triggered them.

You can think of mindfulness as state of mind, an ability, and a practice. It can be traced all the way back to the early teachings of Buddhism (though its not exclusive to Buddhism). And it has an immediate intuitive appeal in a world thats more distracting and fast-moving than ever before.

Mindfulness is now taught in hospitals and Silicon Valley corporate seminars, and is popular on the TED circuit. More than 14 million people have downloaded the Headspace app for its simple 10-minute meditation exercises. Theres an entire academic journal, Mindfulness, devoted to its study.

There are spiritual, philosophical, and cultural dimensions to this movement, for sure. But researchers from fields ranging from neuroscience to psychiatry have been fascinated by it too. According to Bostic, mindfulness attenuates the more evolutionarily primitive areas of our brains the amygdala, the brain stem, etc. the areas that provoke us to fight, be frightened, or flee, and turn up activation in our frontal lobes, the reasoning center.

Mindfulness is thought to have wide-ranging effects, from lessening depressive symptoms to reducing anxiety and helping to deal with chronic pain and trauma. There are studies that find mindfulness reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Neuroimaging studies have shown increases of brain matter density in regions linked to learning and memory (though we cant always assume more brain matter equals better). And some behavioral studies find increases in working memory and decreases in mind wandering.

Whats less well understood is how effective it is as an intervention in other words, if you want to use it to change mental health or behavior.

Video from our trips to Eastern High School in Washington, DC.

In the 1970s, Jon Kabat-Zinn, a molecular biologist at University of Massachusetts and practitioner of Zen Buddhist mediation, began developing a mindfulness program for adults in clinical settings. He called it mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), and designed an eight-week course to teach participants how to deal with the pain and stress of chronic illness thats still very popular today.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, mindfulness continued to grow as a complement to traditional medicine and pain management. And it started to make its way into schools in ad hoc, idiosyncratic ways, says Oren J. Sofer, senior program manager at Mindful Schools, which provides mindfulness training instruction for educators. Theres still no formal, national accreditation for mindfulness instruction in schools. But it's become a bit more centralized.

Today mindfulness enters schools through several routes. There are regional-based nonprofits like Minds Incorporated in the DC area that offer mindfulness instruction (sometimes free of charge) to local schools. There are national organizations such as Mindful Schools, which has trained around 14,000 educators and professionals who work with youth in mindfulness instruction (the starter course costs $125). And its being written into textbooks from publishers like Scholastic.

Some schools are even trying it as an alternative approach to discipline.

At Robert Coleman Elementary in Baltimore, students are sent to a Mindful Moment room in lieu of traditional detention. When students enter the room decked out with tie-dye tablecloths and purple beanbags staff from a nonprofit called the Holistic Life Foundation ask students to explain what happened. Then they practice breathing or yoga with the students though sometimes they just play a game. School officials have told reporters the mindful moment room has helped reduce the number of suspensions.

Mindfulness clearly has attracted a lot of buzz. Were almost getting to the point now where the efficacy is taking for granted, said Timothy Caulfield, who studies health and public policy at the University of Alberta and is skeptical of the research.

So to really know if mindfulness training works for kids, for adults, for anyone we need to zoom out a bit and look at the sum of the research we have.

When researchers want to evaluate an intervention like mindfulness, here are the main questions they ask:

1) Does days or weeks of mindfulness instruction lead to any reductions in psychological stress?

2) Is mindfulness any more effective than other stress reduction therapies?

3) Does it work in the school setting?

4) If it does work, why?

5) Is the research high quality, well controlled, and free of bias?

Lets start with the first question.

In 2014, JAMA Internal Medicine published an exhaustive systematic review on mindfulness studies that looked at measures of psychological stress and well-being. In all, the studies included 3,500 adult participants. The analysis included studies that used mindfulness-based stress reduction, transcendental mediation, or mantra-based techniques, and tracked participants on a variety of outcomes like anxiety, depression, and stress scores.

One of the biggest criticism of mindfulness that I kept encountering in reporting: Its all kind of vague.

The results of the JAMA meta-review were generally positive. These programs seem to slightly move the needle on anxiety and depressive symptoms to a degree comparable with what would be expected from the use of an antidepressant in a primary care population, the study concluded.

But heres a caveat: The analysis found that mindfulness was no more effective than other wellness interventions like exercise, muscle relaxation, or cognitive behavioral therapy.

This is a glass-half-empty or half-full type of finding. On one hand, it could mean mindfulness training is as effective as these other treatments. On the other hand, it doesnt show that its magical, said Caulfield.

Overall, at this point in time, the quantity and quality of evidence on mindfulness practices is pretty weak. The JAMA study authors started out with a huge stack of 18,000-plus citations on mindfulness in the literature. But only 47 of those studies had a methodology strong enough to be included in the trial.

The modest benefit found in the study ... begs the question of why, in the absence of strong scientifically vetted evidence, meditation in particularly and complementary measures in general have become so popular, especially among the influential and well educated, Allan Goroll, a professor of medicine at Harvard, wrote in a commentary published alongside the JAMA paper.

So if you want to see the effectiveness of mediation, youd compare people who received instruction for a few weeks with those who did not. Right? The problem is that you cant have the control group do nothing. What if the benefit of being in a mindfulness program is derived from spending time in a classroom setting? Or just paying attention to an instructor?

These variables are really hard to control for, but researchers try by having the control groups engage in some other activity like educational programming, which takes the same amount of time and relative level of engagement. Other studies use active controls, where participants do exercise, undergo massage, or do some other type of therapy where theres an expectation of getting better.

But even with these controls, its still hard to control for peoples expectations. Its not like a clinical drug trial where the control and experimental groups are taking an identical-looking pill. In these studies, people know what group theyve been sorted into. It could be that people who get sorted into mindfulness groups expect greater improvements and are then likely to tell their evaluators they improved. (These studies largely rely on participant self-reports in their data collection.)

"If it is being presented as a worldview, or almost as a philosophy ... thats one thing. But the problem is that it is increasingly being framed as an intervention.

There's nothing wrong with placebo effects except that they often aren't enduring, says James Coyne, emeritus professor of psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania (and a vociferous critic of psychological research methods).

The mindfulness literature also suffers from other methodological limitations. Studies vary greatly in the populations of their subject pools the JAMA review included studies on alcoholics, asthma sufferers, and people who have a constant ringing in their ears as well as in the dosage of the treatment (how long and how often participants train), and in the type and quality of the instructions. Which makes it hard to understand if mindfulness gains in one group will generalize to another. There are a lot of variables at play.

A recent PLOS One study found evidence that the whole field of mindfulness studies suffers from publication bias that is, a tendency for only positive results to be reported, leaving contradictory evidence collecting dust in researchers file drawers.

The PLOS authors McGill University psychologists did a systematic review of the literature, finding 124 randomized controlled studies on mindfulness. Ninety percent of the studies showed positive results, which is a lot higher than youd expect given the small sample sizes used in the mindfulness studies. (The percentage of positive results should, according to their calculations, be closer to 65 percent.)

The authors also took a look at mindfulness studies whose methods were registered before the trials began. (Preregistration is now seen as a research best practice, as it limits researchers ability to skew conclusions after the data comes in.) They found 21 registered trials, but only eight of these locked-in study designs yielded publishable results. That suggests that many studies that go unregistered and do not find positive results are simply forgotten.

Im not against mindfulness, Brett Thombs, an author of the study, told Nature. I think that we need to have honestly and completely reported evidence to figure out for whom it works and how much.

(A note: Mindfulness research is hardly the only field of psychological study that suffers from publication bias. Researchers throughout social and biomedical sciences are amid a revolution to demand more rigorous data collection procedures.)

Okay. The JAMA analysis only covered research on adult subjects. What about research on kids? It seemed from my time at Eastern High School that the kids were benefiting from the instruction, at least anecdotally.

Yarnetta Leonard, 17, an Eastern student, says the mindfulness class is helping her manage sad and angry feelings. After the woman who was raising her in southern Virginia died, Leonard was forced to move to DC to live with her biological mother. Coming here, being in a space where I can just think instead of retaliate and be mad and be sad I can think of my actions and do better for myself, she says.

High schools like Eastern where the kids are mostly of color and qualify for free school lunch are commonly targeted for mindfulness interventions. And increasingly, theres high-quality research on whether mindfulness programs can help.

Over the past few years, Erica Sibinga, pediatrician who was one of the co-authors on the JAMA study, and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins, have been conducting well-controlled trials of using mindfulness in some of Baltimores poorest public schools, which would have a lot to gain from a program that reliably reduces stress.

Thats because the chronic stress of growing up poor puts kids at a disadvantage for long-term well-being. Its thought that chronic stress from poverty, from violence, from lack of good nutrition activates cellular pathways that make our bodies more prone to inflammation and less able to fight off infections. Some studies suggest people who grow up poor are even more susceptible to the common cold later in life. If were able to provide youth with tools that may reduce the negative impact of trauma that may potentially have long lasting effects, Sibinga says.

What is not answered is whether the true contribution is the mindfulness practice itself.

She and her colleagues recently conducted a randomized clinical trial with 300 fifth- to eighth-graders in two Baltimore city schools. Half the students got mindfulness instruction for 12 weeks. The other half got 12 weeks of health education, and were the studys controls. Sibinga and her colleagues tried hard to match the instructors for both the health class and the mindfulness class in terms of engagement and skill level. They tried to make the health class engaging and exciting.

Here, mindfulness seemed to move the needle. On depression, [students] moved from the borderline concerning levels to the normal level, Sibinga explains. Does that mean each kid in the intervention group has moved? No, it doesnt. But the average has moved. The study found similar improvements in anxiety levels, self-hostility, coping, and post-traumatic symptoms.

Again, thats only one study. I only found two recent systematic reviews on the use of mindfulness and meditation practices in schools. Like the JAMA study with adults, they generally find positive results, but note methodological flaws in the literature.

A 2014 review published in Frontiers in Psychology found, across 24 studies (11 which had not been published in peer-reviewed journals), that mindfulness improved measures of cognitive performance but had less of an impact on stress and coping.

What we see from the data, people who suffer, whether they are kids or whether they are adults, they profit the most, say Harald Walach, a psychologist who studies complementary medicine in Germany and who was co-author of that review. They are at a low point, and from the low point it is always going upward. If you have kids with real emotional problems, you would likely see a larger effect than if you have normal kids who are doing well at school and have a good family background.

A second 2014 meta-analysis published in Education Psychological Review looked at 15 studies of school meditation programs (which included transcendental mediation as well as mindfulness), and found school based meditation is beneficial in the majority of cases, but the majority of effects of mediation upon student outcomes are small.

Because mindfulness sessions are composed of a grab bag of activities concentrating on breathing, concentrating on sounds, group discussions of the mind-body connection its hard to know what, exactly, the mechanism for these positive changes is, and if that mechanism is unique to mindfulness.

What is not answered is whether the true contribution is the mindfulness practice itself, Walach says. The effect could be from just taking time out from the normal classroom schedule, or taking part in a group activity, or being taught by an inspired teacher. Or do you need all of that together that, we dont know, because it hasnt been studied very well, he says.

And thats one of the biggest criticism of mindfulness that I kept encountering in reporting: Its all kind of vague. Mindfulness a collection of disparate concentration activities targets broad regions in the brain and broadly helps people on a number of things.

It may look like its all over the place , Sibinga admits. But it may be whats changing is upstream of all of those things. By upstream, shes talking about overall systemic changes in the brain or in patterns of thinking. The uncertainties dont scare her away from the research. We know our whole body and brain and mind function together, she says. But we dont know exactly how. Im fascinating by that question. It makes me think we need to explore it further.

She hopes more schools that are inviting in mindfulness training will also invite in those from the research community to study it.

Nothing is for everyone. The same goes for mindfulness.

Though the researchers and studies I consulted agree that its basically harmless, I asked Sibinga, the pediatrician, if there are any cases where kids shouldnt be involved with mindfulness programs. The cases are rare, but she says schizophrenics and people suffering from other thought disorders are not advised to seek out mindfulness training, as it may not be helpful to be mindful about thoughts or delusions that dont have any basis in reality.

The other contraindication is for people who have suffered a severe recent trauma. Their ability to compartmentalize and wall that [trauma] off is closely related to their ability to cope, she says. Mindfulness can be an invitation to tear down those mental walls too soon. (And thats why its important, she says, for mindfulness instructors and students to be well trained, and to look out for these vulnerable youth.)

Do we as adults and educators in society have a responsibility to teach children to be self-aware? You dont need a research study answer that question.

Researchers have also been looking into potential negative effects of mindfulness. One 2015 study in Psychological Science found that 15 minutes of mindfulness instruction made study participants (college undergrads) more susceptible to forming false memories.

In the case of this study, the participants were shown a list of words like garbage, waste, can, refuse, and sewage. Participants who did mindfulness training were more likely to misremember reading the word trash, which is similar to those words but didnt actually appear on the list.

Why? The authors guess when you turn your thoughts inward during meditation, you may be more likely to mix up reality with imaginative assumptions. Mindfulness meditation appears to reduce reality-monitoring accuracy, the authors of the paper concluded. (Its unclear how practically significant misremembering one word on a list is for classroom instruction. Perhaps if students are daydreaming, Brent Wilson, the UC San Diego psychological researcher who led the study, says, theyll have trouble telling if a thought came from the daydream or the teacher.)

And then, finally, some people just dont enjoy introspection, especially when it comes to negative emotions. It is not uncommon for participants in mindfulness interventions to report various unpleasant reactions, such as agitation, anxiety, discomfort, or confusion, during formal mindfulness training exercises, a 2016 review of the state of the field reported. (Though dealing with tough emotions is a core feature of the therapy, not a bug.)

The state of the evidence here is frustrating. Overall, theres evidence that suggests mindfulness has a positive effect for kids on anxiety and cognitive measures. But the research isnt clear on why, whom its most beneficial for (a recent small study found mindfulness training may work better in women), or whether the effect is specific to mindfulness instruction.

There's a lot we still have to learn about what we're doing, Tish Jennings, a professor of education at the University of Virginia, says. Shes generally in favor of mindfulness, and has used it with teachers to help them cope with the stress of their demanding jobs. But she cautions that theres still a lot we dont know.

Such as: How long do the effects last? And in what populations? Whats developmentally appropriate for kids of different ages? What types of meditations are more effective than others?

Often those of us who are developing these programs, we combine a lot of these [meditation] activities, because we're not exactly sure which one is going to work for what person, she says. Because the other thing we don't know is [whether] some people might benefit more from one kind of activity than another.

Mindfulness is an interesting and experimental approach to providing kids with a way to reduce stress. But its not a home run.

Its okay to keep an open mind about this stuff; we just need to be really careful not to hype the potential benefits associate with it, Caulfield says. It would be great if something as simple and straightforward as mindfulness really did have all these incredible benefits, but were not there yet. When it comes to programs touting mental health benefits for youth, he says, we should demand a high bar of evidence.

Oren J Sofer, the senior program manager at Mindful Schools, disagrees with skeptics thinking that its too soon to bring mindfulness meditation into schools. You can overstate the research and make claims that havent been validated, but saying that its experimental I believe is understating the research, he says. I think its important to research this stuff, but at the same time, I think its important to have common sense. Do we as adults and educators in society have a responsibility to teach children to be self-aware? You dont need a research study answer that question.

Throughout my conversations, I had a lingering question: Does mindfulness need to have a scientifically approved psychological benefit for it to be useful or interesting for students? Its not just a psychological technique. Its a philosophy: a way of approaching life. At Eastern High School, teacher Rebecca Milner welcomed it into her classroom because it complemented the curricula she teaches Eastern philosophy in her course. A little stress reduction is an added benefit.

We dont demand humanities instruction have double-blind placebo strength evidence before teachers assign students to read Hamlet. Teachers assign Hamlet because its a great piece of literature that invites students to think about the characters, history, and the English language. Hamlet is taught because it is interesting to think about Hamlet. Mindfulness could be something similar: a toolset for a new, interesting way of thinking about the body, mind, and our emotions.

If it is being presented as a worldview, or almost as a philosophy or an approach to relaxing, thats one thing, Caulfield says. But the problem is that it is increasingly being framed as an intervention. If theyre making claims about specific clinical benefits, I do think we need research to support it. Or present it as experimental or possibly beneficial.

But heres the thing: Mindfulness instructors also like to avoid telling students about the religious and philosophical roots of these practices. And so they lean on the science in their pitches. We deal with [the religious issues] by being transparent and bringing in the science, says Bruce Gill, executive director of Minds Inc., the DC nonprofit that provided the mindfulness programming for Eastern High School. (To the organizations credit, the website does caution that much research is still to be done. And Gill was sure to point out the bulk of formal research has been done with adults.)

Should these open questions prevent further research efforts in schools? No. Not at all. If mindfulness is truly useful in reducing stress in children and adolescents, we should know that. There needs to be more high-quality research like Sibingas to better understand how this affects kids. (Theres a large randomized controlled study underway in 76 UK schools involving around 6,000 students, which should help.)

So parents should be mindful and ask some questions when mindfulness training comes to their school district. The experts I talked to suggested a few:

At the very least, Sibinga says, this research is a recognition is that children really need balance in their school day, and the notion of teaching for the test and trying to cram full the day with only academic work is limited.

If the benefit of mindfulness is simply taking time out of a busy school day, and just remembering to breathe, thats not such a bad thing.

Byrd Pinkerton and Liz Scheltens contributed reporting.

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Is mindfulness meditation good for kids? Here's what the science actually says. - Vox

Feeling stressed? Being hard on yourself? Overwhelmed at work? Freaked out bythe Trump administration?

Give your mind a break from theseeveryday anxietys and learn to find some inner peace with a free stoop-front meditation class this Thursday, May 25, in Clinton Hill.

Led by certified meditation teacher, Danielle Fazzolari, no experience is necessary to attendthe 30-minute session held outside of her building. Fazzolari conducted her first stoop meditation class last November, following Donald Trumps election into office.

The day after Trump was elected, Fazzolari sent an email to her neighbors asking, How did this happen? and What now?

I dont have the answers, but I strongly believe in unity and togetherness, she added. Lets regroup together, find some quiet space in our heartsand give ourselves what we need to move forward.

A small group gathered onher stoop the following morning. I think we had about 7 people. It was cold. Everyone had their hatsand gloves on, she recalls. It was great because people were meeting each other for the first time and they live on my block.

Its all guided. You dont have to have any experience. We hung out afterward. We talked about it and we got to know each other, she says of the community-focused event. After a few more sessions, the weather became too cold to continue, so Fazzolari decided to take a hiatus until the warmer weather returned. Her first spring class takes place at 7:30am this Thursday morning at 453 Washington Avenue.

Fazzolari previously worked on the business side of the fashion industry for ten years but always knew that she wanted to switch gears and do humanitarian work. For years I was just looking outward for advice and help and searching for what I [was] supposed to be doing, she says.

She quit her high-paying job in 2014 and booked a one-way ticket to India to do volunteer work.Whats the most important thing that we can do for ourselves? Whats the secret to a happy life?, Fazzolari asked manyolder people she met there.

Family and meditation, were the responses she kept hearing. I had never meditated before, she claims. [When] I came home, I sat down quietly and just started meditating [with the help of instructional apps].It was the first time I went inward and started getting to know myself and trusting myself to figure out how I could give back to the world, instead of going outward and asking everyone else for advice, she says.

I kept meditating because I slowly noticed a change in my every day. [I was] understanding emotions better, understanding the big picture of why were here and how we can show up to live presently, she recalls. Its not easy though.

Through meditation, Fazzolari says she discovered, Im being kinder to myself. Im understanding others better. Im having a different relationship with my emotions.

Fazzolari got a job working the front desk of MNDFL, a meditation studio located in Greenwich Village. She describes it as this open space for people to come and sit and learn how to meditate and do it together. Its a really strong community.

That place really started changing my life and shifting everything, and started to cultivate that inner peace that were all looking forgetting out of that inner dialogue in our heads, she explains. Fazzolari says she feelslucky to have found meditation, as she describes it, a life-changing tool, and decided that she had to share it with others.

She received her certification through MNDFLsintensive five-month teaching program and now teaches at theirstudio in Williamsburg. She is also currently studying to teach children how to meditate. I want to go to low income neighborhoods and schools where they dont have the resources and help these kids handle their emotions, she says.

Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment and not trying to change it, and not judging it, Fazzolari explains.

Our society is very like, Feel better. Keep busy. Self improve. Mindfulness is actually the opposite of that. Its really letting yourself be and accepting that and being kind however you feel, she explains.

From the minute we wake up were worrying about what we have to do for the dayworry about the past, future. [Meditation] gives you a break from that for just a moment, put[s] you into the present moment and then creates space to actually be able to feel, think, and move forward, Fazzolari says.

Youre retraining your system to live in the present moment instead of in your mind. When you sit on the cushion, just say, Okay, my mind is going crazy today. Im going to accept that. Im going to be kind. Thats retraining the heart to be gentle with ourselves.

Who couldnt use a little more kindness and mindfulness in their lives?

Stoop Meditation, Thursday, May 25, 7:30am to 8am at 453 Washington Avenue, Clinton Hill.

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Find Inner Peace With Stoop Meditation - BKLYNER

Elliott Hulse is one of the OG online strength coaches. The 2009 Strongest Man in Florida, he started building his online coaching platform and established Strength Camp in 2007 as a way to bring athletes together and help them become the strongest version of themselves not just through working out, but through meditation, psychology, and self-knowledge.

Hes built a brand worth millions through digital marketing and thousands of informative YouTube videos; he likes to think of himself as a video poet and in2015 he earned the awardYouTube Fans Favorite.But while he first became known for video guides to physical fitness, his brand has gradually evolved to provide a moreholistic approach to self-improvement thats grown fromhis experiences with active meditation, Eastern philosophy, and the Bahai faith.

Today, in addition to training strongmen and hosting Strength Camp, he also offers Grounding Camps that teach active meditation, bioenergetics, philosophy, and self-love. For a male strength coach, hes unusual to say the least, buthes an undeniably effective teacher who is wholly dedicated to helping as many people as possible become as strong and capable as possible, no matter what form that might take.

We sat down with Elliott to learn more about training tips, nervous system health, active meditation, gender politics, and everything in between.

Image via Elliott Hulse on Facebook

BarBend:Elliott, thanks for taking the time to chat.I really want to talk about the changes Ive noticedsince you first started your coaching platform, so lets startwith the physicaltraining. Compared to ten years ago, whats one of the biggest differences in how you train people to get physically stronger?

Elliott Hulse: Its interesting that you use the word change. A lot of what people see Elliot Hulse doing now looks different than what Ive always done, only because it happens to be whatIm choosing to show.

A lot of these changes are not changes at all. What has always been there is to take a holistic approach to performance, meaning when were going to improve someones squat or their vertical jump, we dont just look at the strength of their legs. Anyone who works in biomechanics will tell you youve alsogotta consider the low back, youve gotta consider the shoulder girdle, youve gotta consider the entire mechanism, the whole human kinetic chain, not just the legs.

Image via The Strength Camp on Facebook

So when in terms of supporting someone into becoming their strongest selves, be it jump higher or just to live a happier life, the first place we begin is with the nervous system and how well its functioning.

When I work with a client and I want to get the most effective movement, I have to assess andcorrect any neuromuscular imbalances. And the first place Id begin, in particular withhow the nervous system is firing or how it turns on the muscles, is with the spinal cord. I am a fan of upper cervical chiropractics, especially the atlas orthogonal. Thats the very first vertebrae at the base of the skull. The interesting thing is that it doesnt have the same kind of spiny processes as the other vertebrae so it doesnt interlock as well. It floats.

Your atlas being the first vertebrae at the base of the skull means any information that goes from the body to the brain or vice versa has to pass through it its the first gateway from the brain to the body. And if the very first gateway is obstructed or tilted improperly, then all the information coming down form the brain is going to be distorted.

So how does that change how you train or assess clients?

Ill give you two assessments you can do at home.

The first is pretty easy:stand in place, face a wall so you have perspective on where you are. Close youreyes and start marching in place for about a minute, lifting your knees up to waist height. Then open your eyes. If you find that your marching has caused you to move and youre not facing the wall any longer, its an indication that the left and right side of your nervous system arent firing the same.

Theres another great demonstration, but you need a friend for this one. Lay on your back and raise your left arm up so its perpendicular to the ground and have your friend push down on your arm from behind, just to see how strong you can be to hold it up. Then have him go to the other arm.

If there is an imbalance in strength from one side tothe other, you might think its just because youre right handed. ButI want you to go back to that left arm and turn your head allthe way to the left, so youre facing that arm. Then do the test again. One of two things isgonna happen: that arm is going toget even weaker than it was before, or all of a sudden its going toget really strong. That should give you an indication as to how the atlas is subluxed. Alternatively you can try this doing dumbbell overhead presses. Theres nothing mystical to it its allowing youto recruit more muscle by getting the atlas out of the way.

Without this kind of approach, everything else you do is kind of a waste. Im looking at everything in a holistic way. Im interested in how your body works together, how functional you are, how powerful you are, how great an athlete you can be. And for that you have to make sure the nervous system is firing properly.

I use the analogy of a racecar. If you have a wheel misalignment, I dont care how well you drive, itll never perform at its best.

So is this the kind of thing you teach at your Strength Camps?

Ifyou go to Strength Camp, we do corrective stretching and exercising, but its very generalized. People are there for a different reason, which is to become the strongest possible version of themselves.

What about the other camp you offer, Grounding Camp? Its about active meditation, right? Is that a kind of workout?

Ill tell you how the idea of Grounding Camps first came about. Twelveyears ago my wife got pregnant at about the same time I lost my job and was going through some depression. A few years earlier Id been reading the work of this Indian mystic called Osho. I thought his philosophy was great; he always referred to meditation as the practice of his philosophy. The difference is his meditation was very physical. While most meditations are sit down and breathe which is great, thats what youre aiming for his required that you got up and that you charge the body with breath through various different exercises, it was very physical. Ill leave it at that, but I was drawn to it as an athlete.

So Idid a quick Google search and found thatthe only Osho active meditation bootcamp was happening inNew York City. And I got up at 3:45 every morning in the dead of winter to take the Long Island Railroad for 21 days to go to this camp.

By the end of it, my life had done a complete 180. Id shaken out of the depression and regained a tremendous amount of clarity, and I was able to use it as a launching pad into the next phase of my life which brought me down to Florida, whenI started Strength Camp.

The woman who ran the Osho classes also did one-on-one therapy called pulsation, which was essentially a neo-Reikian therapy that comes from the work of Wilhelm Reich. It was bioenergetics, essentially. And I took this session with her and I had this tremendous experience that woke me up:while I was doing the exercises, I broke into this uncontrollable laughter, the kind of laughing most of us havent had since we were children. It was about releasing the trapped emotions in my body that had been stifled from poor breathing.

So afterI moved down to Florida,I was talking about the benefitsa lot in my videos and peoplewere asking me where they coulddo active meditation and bioenergetics. So I decided to reach out to my former teacher in New York City and encouraged her to work with me on a camp where we can introduce people to it.

In arecent interview you published on your blog, when you were asked if you were a strength coach you answered that you were nothing and everything. Can you explain that?

Its hard because I resist labels, but its hard for people to know whoyou are and what youre doing if you dont label yourself. If I were to identify who I am and what Im doing, Im (long pause) Im a coach. Im a healer. And I support people in becoming the strongest version of themselves. I dont even like the term healing, I like the term whole-ing more. I want you to become your whole self. Im a holistic strength coach.

But on Instagram I say Im a strongman and strength coach. Thats my entry point and its where I shine the brightest.

A lot of the things I say are highlighted in hippie new age cultures, Im not a part of that culture. But I resonate with those ideas.

Im in the strength space,I just have something different to bring to it. Ralph Waldo Emmerson said the greatest value is to bring something from where it is plentifulto where it is lacking. And in the strength and fitness and bodybuilding communities, what is lacking is the holistic approach. Whats lacking is the attention to the nervous system, to meditation, to breathing. But they all support your ability to be stronger and improve performance. So all Im doing is bringing what is lacking in one community what is plentiful from another.

Image via Elliott Hulse on Facebook

I imagine that compared to ten years ago, you must receive a lot more questions about philosophy and psychology and self improvement. Your brand seems to have had a pretty noticeable shift, no?

My clients have always asked me questions likethat. When I was 26 years old I had teenage athletes asking me questions like, Elliott, what do I do if my girlfriend cheats on me?or, My best friend betrayed me, what do I do?

Theyre bringing thingsup from outside of the gym, but it relates to things inside the gym. If someone comes in and his girlfriends justcheated on him, his cortisol levels are up! His testosterone is down! His ability to perform and recover is all screwed up. So I can offer him some perspective thats going to brighten him up and support him in getting through this, if I can give him some empowerment based on his circumstance. That sucks, well, guess what, you just discovered something new about yourself, you had a new experience that allows you to overcome this and gain strength character strength because of it. So reframing, giving someone a new way to look at their problems, I love doing it. I love hearing their problems and giving creative solutions to it.

So I started making YouTube videos and started getting the same sort of questions in the comment areas of videos on how to deadlift. Id love to go to the gym, but my girlfriend cheated on me. So I started answering those questions, and eventually I started another YouTube channel to deal with those sorts of issues and how to grow stronger from your challenges.

Image via Elliott Hulse on Facebook

Its cool how yourunderstanding of strength and performance has grown and change since you started out.Ive noticedin the last few years youve beentalking more about different definitions of masculinity as well, howyou that men should embrace their fragility a little more and not be afraid to show their softer side.

Yeah, well, whats happening in the world is whats happening in each and every one of us. And whats happening in the world is a tremendous amount of reintegration. Were coming out of an era where we were split, we were separated.

But with the advent on the internet and the interrelatedness of humanity now, and the spread of ideas,were living in agolden age where all separation seems to be being dissolved. And you can see it everywhere fromthe strife about the difference between the rich and the the poor, youre seeing the polarity, the duality being exposed in racism in America and many other countries.

I think whats really fascinating with this new generation as it relates to sexuality is this rise in non-dual sexuality. My daughters 12 years old and there are lots of children in her school who are non-binary in their sexuality. Theyre gender fluid; they dont identify with one gender or the other.

Thats a sign. It is an indication of whats happening on a cosmic and global level which is the integration of seeming opposites. What was once duality, like heaven and hell, is now being integrated. And there is no evil and good, everything just is. In the same way that a full day integratesday and night. You cant have day without night. You cant have winter without summer. You cant have yin without yang. You are not fully masculine without the integration of the feminine. Carl Jung would describe it this way: within every man is a woman called the anima. And in every woman theres a man called the animus.

A teacher of mine once told me when I was having some personal challenges, Elliot, you will not become a full man until you become a woman first. And what he was referring to was the integration of the yin qualities that are inherent within every man, except they have been stifled. They have been disregarded, they have been chastised out of us.

I like to use the term tender aggression. The tenderness thats associated with being a a fully alpha male requires the integration of female nurturing andyielding qualities. If youre justaggressive, if youre just one sided, youre not embodying full masculinity. Youre just a premature ejaculator. Youre an example of the immaturity that pervades the patriarchy. Youre looking to dominate with power rather than integrate softness, integrate nurturing, integrate tenderness into your aggression so that youre whole. Thats what makes you full.

Awesome. Well, its been great chatting with you, Elliott! Best of luck with the Strength Camps and Grounding Camps, I hope you help a lot of people findtheir own wholeness.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Featured image via Elliott Hulse on Facebook.

Original post:

Elliott Hulse Talks Strongman, Active Meditation, and Bioenergetics - BarBend (blog)

Your grandmother is probably into stand-up paddleboarding these days. The trendy water workout is no longer reserved for boho surfer types and fitness fanatics. SUP (as its called) has become the hottest exercise since aerobicsand I can see why. An intense paddleboarding sesh can can be just as intense as a bike ride and engage everything from your arms to your bum.

But fitness junkies always want more. Regular old SUPing is not enough, and you can now take classes that offer resistance training on the board, paddleboard yoga, andof course meditation .

I had to try it. I love paddleboarding , dig Downward Dog, and am trying to give this whole meditation thing a go , so I signed up for a class with Sera at Serenity Eco Guides in the Florida Keys. Sera is a lovely long-haired woman with a six-pack and Heidi braids that goes by one only namea la Cher or Beyonc. She refers to herself as a healer and holds a BS in psychology with a minor in environmental chemistry. She is a manager at Ocean Edge Hotel & Marina where she uses her skills as a paddleboard healer to bring restorative exercise to her guests.

Sera says that ecotherapy is a broad term for a variety of nature-based healing practices that facilitate the experiential connection of the client with the environment. The essential function is to reconnect to the senses and increase self-awareness. This style of therapy is an application of the relatively new field of ecopsychology and usually incorporates some counseling and coaching components.

I have found that it is easier for me to guide my students into a subconscious state when the only ambient noise is natural and there is no one else around, Sera tells me.

Honestly, it all sounded a little hokey. Could I really get my Zen on and relax my body while trying to balance on a board? Also, the whole subconscious state thing seems like a load of BS. I was skeptical, but figured if an exercise can simultaneously work my abs and bliss me out, then it's worth a shot.

I hopped on my board and confidently paddled along the bay, realizing as I went that the nature of SUP is meditative in itself. Once upright, I gently pulled the paddle through the clear waters, moving my arms from one side to the other. I had no text messages to attend to and zero emails staring me in the face. It was awesome.

Our group anchored in a lush mangrove and we began the practice with a few yoga poses . We Pigeoned, Downward Dogged, and planked, all of which are incredibly challenging on a paddleboard. Finally, we moved into meditation.

Sera says that SUP yoga is the practice of stretching and applying yoga on board, which requires a lot of balance and is physically demanding. SUP meditation doesnt look as cool, she says, but the benefits are enormous.

To successfully meditate on a paddleboard, one must be completely still with her eyes closed.She says you can practice in any yogic posture, but the simplicity of Corpse pose seems to be most effective. Lying still on my back? Twist my arm, why don't you?

Sera had us lie down and gently graze our hands along the water, which not only felt cooling on a warm afternoon, but helped me to relax. She also assured me that a gator would not bite off my pinky toe so I could comfortably chill the F out.

Sera says that people are often unaware of the constant stream of thoughts that flow though their heads . Sometimes it is very difficult for people to quiet their mind, and nature makes this easier," she told us. "Meditating on a paddleboard is a powerful way to increase your awareness of how, what, and where you feel about life.

At that point I was feeling pretty good about life, considering that I was floating in a beautiful bay that was not full of alligators.

From a lying down position, Sera led us in a guided meditation and the last thing I remember is her chanting, I am serenity. Serenity is me. TBH, I had no idea what that meant, but I feel asleep under the hot Florida sun. Or so I thought

Sera tells me that I didnt actually doze, but under her guidance of yoga nidrathe yoga of sleep she facilitated the state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. She tells me, You were not asleepyou were in your subconscious mind where the answers to all of our questions truly are.

OK, I do question that, but Ill never complain about napping on the ocean.

Anne Roderique-Jones is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in Vogue, Marie Claire, Southern Living, Town & Country, and Cond Nast Traveler. Twitter: @AnnieMarie_ Instagram: @AnnieMarie_

You might also like: This 82-Year-Old Fitness Instructor Will Inspire You to Get in Shape

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I Tried Stand-Up Paddleboard Meditation and Didn't Think It Was BS - SELF

White River Junction Sometimes its curiosity that drives people. Other times its pop culture references or a longing to be more reflective.

Whatever it is that brings them, visitors to the Upper Valley Zen Centers weekly Introduction to Zen Practice classes have helped keep the program going for nearly a decade.

I think the idea of entering into a new space and a new practice and a new discipline can be intimidating, said Allyn Field, a lay ordained monk and teacher in the Rin Zai Zen Tradition who runs the center. The Wednesday night group, which meets from 6-7 p.m., is a more informal way to ask questions, to learn about some of the basic ideas behind the practice that we do.

Topics include the best posture to sit in that doesnt cause back or ankle pain.

Often people will come repeatedly, Field said. The space can hold about 12 people and, while the courses have had eight to 10 people, four or five is more typical. Admission is by donation.

People come for many different reasons, Field said. Some may come to a sense that they havent really slowed down in their lives to understand why theyre doing the things that theyre doing.

Others may be coping with the breakup of a marriage, a death,or, simply, life.

People sort of reach a midlife crisis where they start to ask questions, Field said. How do I face the fact that its not all about youth and liveliness, its also about getting old and decrepit?

The religious beliefs of those who attend do not matter.

Our practice is not dogmatic. It doesnt subscribe to a particular dogma in that way, Field said.

Everyone is always welcome.

I think people often come to the Zen Center with some idea of what it is and what theyre going to get out of it, Field said. The first thing I do is to encourage them to let go of those ideas and start with a fresh mind.

Editors note: The Upper Valley Zen Center is located at 58 Bridge Street in White River Junction (on the ground floor of the Main Street Museum building). For more information, call 603-448-4877 or visit http://www.uvzc.org.

The Upper Valley Zen Center isnt the only nonprofit organization that offers meditation. Here are some of the Upper Valleys regularly occurring meditation groups. (If we missed one let us know at calendar@vnews.com.)

Meditation Group in Newbury, Vt.: Mondays, 7-8:30 a.m. Tenney Memorial Library, 4886 Main St. Weekly sitting and walking meditation. Bring a cushion if desired; chairs also provided. Free. 802-866-5366.

Mindfulness Meditation in Norwich: Tuesdays, 9-11:30 a.m., The Heart of the Valley Mindfulness Practice Center, 70 Beaver Meadow Road, Norwich. Meditation in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh followed by discussion. Admission by donation. 802-436-1136.

Meditation and Discussion in Norwich: Tuesdays, 5:30-7 p.m., St. Barnabas Episcopal Church Hall, 262 Main St., Norwich. Practitioners of all levels are invited to join the sitting and walking meditation in the Theravadan tradition. After the meditation, the group explores their experience, with the teacher's guidance. Sponsored by Valley Insight Meditation Society. Free. prenderp@gmail.com or 802-649-7085.

Meditation in White River Junction: Tuesdays, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Shambhala Meditation Center, 158 S. Main St., White River Junction. Sitting and walking meditation. Individual instruction, cushions and chairs available. Free. shambhala.whiteriver@gmail.com or 802-484-7235.

Midweek Meditation in Sharon: Wednesdays, 8-9 a.m., Seven Stars Arts Center, 5126 Route 14, Sharon. A meditation sitting group derived from the vipassana tradition. Open to all regardless of experience. The format is a few minutes of instruction, a quiet sitting period, then a discussion with Q&A. Bring a favorite cushion or pillow, if available. Chairs provided if not. Free. 802-763-2334.

Evening Mindfulness Meditation in Norwich: Wednesdays, 5-7 p.m., St Barnabas Episcopal Church, Parish Hall, 262 Main St., Norwich. Meditation in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, followed by a reading and sharing. Free. joyceandpat@gmail.com or 603-277-9318.

Meditation and Discussion in Lebanon: Thursdays, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., The Barn, 14 Green St., Lebanon. For experienced meditators on a drop-in or continuing basis. The current format is guided meditations, followed by discussion. Please contact Valley Insight Meditation Society at valleyinsight.org/contact-us/ before attending for the first time. As always, it is not necessary to be reading any suggested essays or books to follow the teachings and to take part in the discussion. Admission is by donation. prenderp@gmail.com or 802-649-7085.

Meditation in White River Junction: Thursdays, noon-1 p.m., Shambhala Meditation Center, 158 S. Main St., White River Junction. Sitting and walking meditation. Beginners welcome. Instruction available. Free. shambhala.whiteriver@gmail.com or 802-484-7235.

Zen Practice Study Group in White River Junction: Thursdays, 7-8:30 p.m., Upper Valley Zen Center, 58 Bridge St., White River Junction. Meditation and study of texts in Buddhist tradition. All welcome, no preparation required. Admission is by donation. Allyn.Field@gmail.com or 603-448-4877.

Help us keep this list up-to-date. Send additions or corrections to calendar@vnews.com.

Excerpt from:

Out & About: A Place to Learn Why You're Doing What You're Doing - Valley News

Summary: Fitness, however, should be for all, says avid runner and fitness enthusiast Babita Xavier. Fitness clubs around the city are leaving no stone unturned in encouraging people to get into shape. She runs a fitness centre in the city and loves to indulge in the excercise regime even on weekends, by way of giving back to the society, especially to women. We jog or walk almost three kilometres, do the stretches, and sitting exercises, using proper techniques.The best part about this group, she says, is they may wear saris or salwars, but they understand the importance of fitness. I was so pleasantly surprised with the concept and even more surprised to know that it was all free of cost!

Fitness clubs around the city are leaving no stone unturned in encouraging people to get into shape. Fitness, however, should be for all, says avid runner and fitness enthusiast Babita Xavier. She runs a fitness centre in the city and loves to indulge in the excercise regime even on weekends, by way of giving back to the society, especially to women. Quoting the bible, Babita says, A man may be the head of the house, but it is a woman who is the neck and if the neck is not strong enough, it affects the head as well as the family. Which is why she has started a fitness group solely for ladies, who meet at the Sanjeeviah park, every Saturday morning. The group now comprises about 80 people, and every weekend, a minimum of 20 ladies are in attendance, with almost 90 per cent being housewives. Elaborating on how it all started, she says, The seed for the idea was sown two years ago when I won a few medals in the Athletics South Asian Championship.

Women would say to me, I wish I was like you! And, I would say, why not? You can be! I began the group last year in June, with just two others. We would go to the park and would run and exercise. Gradually, I started sharing our pictures and spreading the message on social media and, through word of mouth, several people joined.

Source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/health-and-wellbeing/230517/fitness-for-all.html

Read more from the original source:

Fitness for all | Hyderabad NYOOOZ - NYOOOZ

16 hours ago.

Sreehari, the 54-year-old self-proclaimed godman, whose genitals were almost severed by a 23-year-old woman whom he had allegedly been sexually exploiting for years, has political ambitions and has flaunted his association with Keralas respected Panmana Ashram, as well as the leader of the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Both have now disowned him. While the ashram said that it never had anything to do with Sreehari, the BJP leader said that the man had no connection with the party or the National Democratic Alliance.

Sreehari, alias Hareesh, is popularly known as Bullet Swamy in his home town of Kolenchery, 25 km west of Kochi, as he was often seen riding an Enfield Bullet while dressed in his saffron robes.

Sreehari associated himself with the Panmana Ashram, which was built in memory of the Hindu sage and social reformer Sree Chattampi Swamy. At some point, he changed his name to Gangesananda Theerthapadar, which indicated that he held an important position at the ashram. According to custom at the Panmana Ashram, holy men take on the Theerthapadar title only after being ordained by the head of the Vazhoor Theertha Pada Ashram, which was established by a disciple of Chattampi Swamy.

A Panmana Ashram official, however, clarified that Sreehari had not been conferred with the title of Theerthapadar. He has been deceiving the people with the title which he never got, said AR Gireesh Kumar, president of the ashram.

In 2009, Sreeharis attempts to become a public figure got a shot in the arm when he led an agitation to build a memorial for Chattampi Swamy on a piece of land bought by the Additional Director General of Police (South Zone) B Sandhya. The agitators claimed that it was the birthplace of Chattampi Swamy. However, the Panmana Ashram had denounced the agitation at that time.

During the protest, Sreehari had assaulted a police officer, but he evaded the law thanks to his influence in the administration. He is said to have escaped action after a top official personally intervened to stop him from being produced in court.

The agitation brought Sreehari into the limelight and helped him make good contacts with the Hindu Aikya Vedi, a Sangh Parivar outfit, whose former president Kummanam Rajashekharan now heads the state unit of the Bhartiya Janata Party.

In 2013, Sreehari participated in a BJP-led agitation against the Aranmula Airport Project. He was later appointed the convenor of a meeting of a group of sanyasis that was organised as part of the protest. Rajashekharan included Sreehari in a delegation of sanyasis to request VS Achuthanandan, then the chief minister, to drop the states proposed plan to take charge of 104 temples in North Kerala.

After news of Sreeharis attempted castration emerged on Saturday, Rajashekharan disowned the man. I know Hareesh [Sreehari], but he has no connection with the BJP or NDA, he said. Rajashekharan also demanded that strong action should be taken against Sreehari if he was found guilty of sexually abusing the young woman.

The Hindu Aikya Vedi too said that Sreehari was never a member of the outfit. He might have participated in the agitation against the Aranmula Airport Project, but he never took a membership in our organisation, said KN Raveendranadh, patron and former working president of the saffron outfit.

The Panmana Ashram president, AR Gireesh Kumar, said that the ashram did not ordain people and make them ascetics. We conduct classes on the Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, and Ayurveda, said Kumar. Anyone can attend these sessions, but no one can become an ascetic by just attending the learning programme.

Kumar said that he remembered Sreehari from 2002, when he used to visit the ashram regularly for a period of about two years. He said that Sreehari spent most of his time in the kitchen. He was a good cook, said Kumar. He left the place as he wanted to set up a restaurant business in Kochi. I have not heard from him after that.

Sreehari had studied in different educational institutions in Kolenchery until his graduation. One of his classmates remembered him as a quiet person.

I was shocked when heard about his sexual exploits,said Congress leader NN Rajan, who is the block panchayat member from Vaduvankode in Ernakulam district. We studied at a private college in Kolenchery for a pre-degree [equivalent to Class 12] course, he said.

Rajan said that Sreehari joined the Central Industrial Security Force after completing his graduation from St Peters College in Kolenchery We hardly met after he got a job, he said.

On Saturday, after his genitals were almost severed, Sreehari tried to evade the law when he told the police that he had done so himself, as penance. However, the woman he has allegedly been exploiting for the past eight years called out his lies.

A report in the Indian Express quoted a social activist who visited the girl as saying: She said she did not want to be another rape victim. She wanted the rapist to suffer throughout his life.

See the article here:

Meet 'Bullet Swamy', the self-styled godman whose genitals were severed by a woman in Kerala - Scroll.in

Youve heard it before and youll probably hear it again: Avocados are an incredibly nutrient-rich source of vitamins, minerals and healthy fats. Vegans, whose diets are often lower in fats than their meat-eating friends, would do well to eat avocados frequently and with gusto, as theyll provide healthy monounsaturated fat and nutrient-filled calories.

But if youre getting sick of avocados (or you never really liked them in the first place), dont worrythere are plenty of ideas for fat-rich vegan alternatives. Heres what to sub in for avocado in some of todays most popular dishes.

Cashew Queso for Guacamole

Not interested in chips and guac? Dip your tortilla chips in a homemade cashew-based queso instead! All youll need are some raw cashews, a little salsa, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, garlic and nutritional yeast. Combine these healthy, hearty items in a blender or food processor and soon youll have a cheesy, healthy alternative to guacamole.

Related: Had Enough Hummus? 5 Vegan Dip Recipes

Mermaid Toast for Avocado Toast

It seems like everyone is munching on avocado toast these days, and for good reason. Its healthy, super delicious and quite filling. But you know what else people are loving these days? Mermaid toast! This aptly named, somewhat trendy meal idea features vegan cream cheese, blue-green algae and any other toppings you like (strawberry jam perhaps)?

Apples Coated In Almond Butter for Avocados In Salad

Finally, it can be really delicious to add avocados to salads, especially if your salad is otherwise vegan. The avocado will give your meal an element of healthy fats and also make it significantly more filling. Another fruit that can do the trick: Apples coated in almond butter to give them some healthy fats.

This is incredibly easy to do. Just chop your apple into small squares, place the squares in a bowl, add a couple tablespoons of almond butter and mix to coat. A couple sprinkles of cinnamon can add a ton of flavor as well.

Related: 5 Delicious Vegan Sandwich Recipes25 Vegan Sources for ProteinVegan Fat Bombs Recipe

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Sick of Avocados? Try These 3 Similarly Healthy Vegan Swaps - Care2.com

By David KelleyGuest column

Making a recent surprise birthday visit to my dad involved spending eight hours of driving in one day. Eight hours driving to South Arkansas and back. Not bad really, as the trip involves driving through some quite beautiful country forests, some pasture land, more forests, and a lot of pine trees. A lot of pine trees. Not too bad of a trip, though, when there is Sirius Radio and the 70s on 7 Channel to bring back all those wonderful (?) memories of high school and the beginning of college.

Listening to one hit wonders and bands that have continued into this century got me doing some thinking about music in general. Hearing Neil Sedaka do Laughter in the Rain, followed by Billy Preston, followed by someone who I thought was dead (pretty much all the female disco singers), followed by ABBA (laugh if you will but their vocal harmony is superb), impressed upon me the importance, the value, the significance of music in our lives.

I associate so much of my lifes actions with songs or bands. One of my chief recollections of my senior year in high school is the fact that I had more Deep Purple tapes than anyone else. Eight track tapes to those interested in ancient history. Ah, the joy of having a song interrupted halfway through while the track changed!

As the years went by and I entered this realm called Professional Life, my musical tastes went through an evolution, just as I did. Teaching in various schools, working in a psychiatric facility and several substance abuse facilities all made an impact on my musical interests. One thing I noticed early on was the influence music had on the environment, the classroom. I began playing Classical, specifically the Baroque, for my students and I was impressed by the effect. They would listen, attend to the music, ask questions about the composer, the instruments. This lead to discussions about the history of era, the culture, other aspects. We would talk about Bach, about Handel, about Mozart, about the different styles within Classical. Amazing what playing one of Bachs Orchestral Suites can provoke.

One of my obsessions in life is Tailgating. And one of the critical aspects of Tailgating is the music. Yes, the music. At our gatherings at Arrowhead Stadium we have been serenaded with Classic Rock, with Heavy Metal, with some stuff I really cant label as I have no idea what it really is, although I have a secret hope that it is never played again. One of the best and most enjoyable discussions at a game was which was Led Zeppelins best album. Forget the politics and alleged important issues of the day, Led Zeppelins best album was debated for about an hour. Personally, I voted for their third. But we all did agree that each album had its own merits.

Music. Incredible the memories it can recall. The experiences in our lives associated with a song, a band, a particular melody.

I have this fervent desire that the entire world be presented with the playing of Air on the G String, the second part to Bachs Orchestral Suite Number 3. Just think of what it would be like, all over the world, the entire population hearing what I consider the most soothing, the most relaxing, the most comforting piece of music ever composed. For those few glorious minutes everyone stop, listen, and enjoy. Such is the power of music.

David Kelley lives in Fort Smith. He is founder, and sole member, of The Grill Party, is a Kansas City Chiefs season ticket holder and is the Official Grill Master for his regular tailgating crew at Arrowhead Stadium. He is currently working on a degree in Rhetoric/Creative Writing from UAFS. To participate as a columnist in the Times Records Community Matters series, email Executive Editor Mardi Taylor, mtaylor@swtimes.com.

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Community Matters: Music provides us with so much - Times Record