Need a place to stretch out your body and mind? Om Finder and Yoga Trail can track down nearby yoga classes and instructors.

Om Finder

Looking for your daily fix of yoga? A couple of free smartphone apps can lead the way.

As a student of yoga and meditation, I like to stay in practice as frequently as possible. However, finding the right classes when I'm traveling can be a challenge. That's when I turn to a couple of yoga-locating smartphone apps to help me find a nearby instructor.

Om Finder Available for the iPhone and iPad, Om Finder picks up your current location to suggest nearby yoga classes, studios, and teachers. You'll find the times, location, and other details on each item. You can filter the search by distance, time, length of class, and other factors. Find the right class, and you can then tap on a link for directions and add it to your calendar.

Want to line up a class for a future trip? You can plug a specific zip code into the search and discover what awaits you. And if you know of a nearby studio or class not on the list, you can even ask the app's makers to include it.

Om Finder has helped me track down classes and studios in my neighboorhood that I never even knew existed. For that reason alone, the app has earned a valued spot on my iPhone.

YogaTrail

YogaTrail Designed for both iOS and Android, YogaTrail is similar to Om Finder at helping you locate nearby yoga studios and teachers. The app goes a step further by also seeking out yoga retreats and training programs anywhere in the world.

By default, YogaTrail looks for classes and other events in your area, but you can type in a specific zip code to search other locations. You can view the results either in list view or map view and sort them based on distance, rating, and relevance.

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Find the path to yoga with these free smartphone apps

There's yoga that makes you sweat, and even yoga that makes you fly, but now there's a new yoga phenom with a funky, funky beat. The studio in Sydney's Bondi Yoga213 might not be the first of its kind with it's sister studio being based in Melbourne, but it has definitely been making waves this side of town.

The cute studio tucked away from Sydney's bustling streets is a space where its decor, light and warmth makes you instantly inspired to get downward dog to some pretty cool tunes. But first thing's first. Leave your shoes at the door and head on in.

1 / 5

The mat-based workout pretty much defies categorisation. It's your typical fluid Vinyasa flow fused together with hip hop music where you hold certain postures to the beat. It's definitely not any easier by any means, and while it's actually recommended for advanced yogis all levels are welcome and will be supported accordingly.

2 / 5

Studio manager, Sammy Veall's philosophy aligns exactly with our first impression of the studio. "A refreshing 'home' like hip hop yoga studio that gives you the freedom to be your self, while getting down to amazing happy tunes set to a free flowing Vinyasa practice."

3 / 5

The 60 minute classes focus on the entire body head-to-toe and even includes a separate ab workout at the end which we loved! And trust us when we say everything hurt, but good pain of course.

There's something about this class that makes it so unique, and we think it comes down to what's expected from you. It's not as serious as other types of yoga. Just a great space with great music that allows you to really focus on your body and being in the moment, while having fun.

4 / 5

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Class Review: Hip Hop Yoga at Yoga213

Three men received the Kyoto Prize in November, 2013. From left are Robert Dennard, Masatoshi Nei and Cecil Taylor.

From laptops to GPS trackers, Robert Dennards invention is everywhere these days.

While working at IBM in 1968 the electrical engineer invented dynamic random access memory, a better, simpler, way for computers to store the ever-growing flow of 1s and 0s that have gradually led to a global digital revolution. Dennard is one of three accomplished awardees who came to San Diego this week to participate in the 13th annual Kyoto Prize Symposium. The event brings last years Kyoto winners to local universities where each gives a talk about their career and major contributions to their field.

This year Dennard, who won in the advanced technology category, delivered his speech at San Diego State Universitys Montezuma Hall. He was followed by evolutionary biologist Masatoshi Nei who won in the basic sciences category and took the stage Tuesday afternoon at UC San Diego. A third winner in the arts and philosophy category, jazz musician and poet Cecil Taylor, is scheduled to deliver a presentation in the University of San Diegos Shiley Theatre Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Created in 1984 by philanthropist and entrepreneur Kazuo Inamori, founder of Kyocera Corporation, the prize recognizes the creativity of dedicated but unsung researchers and pioneers who have made extraordinary contributions to science, civilization and spirituality.

Nei is recognized for his theory of genetic distance, a way of comparing genes to determine when different species split off from a common genetic ancestor. Nei used this distance technique to discover evidence that humanity as we know it today originated on the African continent about 115,000 years ago.

Taylor is known for his pioneering work in free jazz an improvisational style that uses percussive piano keystrokes and less rigid chord structures and rhythms to take popular music in new directions.

Dennard is credited with bringing simplicity to computer memory. His elegant design allows to computers to store a single bit of information, an individual one or zero, with only a single transistor, compared to a total of six used

to store the that same bit by the state-of-the-art machines in use when he entered the field in the early 1960s.

This technique allowed much more information to be stored in a given physical space and at a much lower cost. Dennard also proposed computer design guidelines known as scaling theory that showed that transistors could be made ever smaller by shrinking their individual components, and the amount of voltage they use, by consistent amounts. That observation has been key in the massive increases in computer memory density that have delivered todays modern systems, some of which are small enough to fit inside a smartphone.

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Kyoto laureates visit San Diego

Pope Francis was named Person of the Year 2013 by theTime magazine for changing the perception of the Catholic Church in an extraordinary way within just nine months in office.

On the 77-year-old Pope, Time said his focus on compassion, along with a general aura of merriment not always associated with princes of the church, has made him "something of a rock star".

In a lifetime of teaching and leading priests in Latin America, which has the largest share of the world's Catholics, Bergoglio has shown a keen political sensibility as well as the kind of self-effacing humility that fellow cardinals value highly, says his official biographer, Sergio Rubin.

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Pope Francis speaks before the end of his pastoral visit at the parish church 'Santa Maria dell'Orazione' at Setteville di Guidonia neighborhood of Rome.

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The world's 10 MOST influential spiritual leaders

London, England (PRWEB) March 19, 2014

Everybody makes mistakes in life. The question is where one goes from these mistakes in order to make a positive change in life.

In Michael Angelo Le Houxs new book, Far More Than We Think: Making Sense of Spirituality, the reader is given a fusion of contemporary and ancient wisdom, scientific fact and personal experience to help prove that all of us are capable of far more than we think.

Le Houx delicately yet honestly talks about the challenges of his former life, through seven compelling sections that build to a conclusion that there is more to our existence than we may have previously thought possible.

Far More Than We Think is an intimate and informative book that helps readers from a variety of backgrounds to better understand the spiritual science behind the troubles that many face in life. Le Houx has given his audience a guide to quiet the mind so that the spirit, love and true understanding can begin to shine through.

If anybody ever thought that there must be more to life than their current experience so far, then this book could mark an important turning point, Le Houx said.

Far More Than We Think explains why spirituality makes sense and how it impacts all aspects of ones life.

Far More Than We Think: Making Sense of Spirituality By: Michael Angelo Le Houx ISBN: 978-1452584881

Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and BalboaPress online bookstores

About the author

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Former Addict Turned Author, Michael Angelo Le Houx, Fuses Spiritual Principles, Ancient Wisdom and Contemporary ...

The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth, by Thomas Berry (Orbis Books. 2009).

I read this book as the UK faced severe weather events. Media coverage of flooded homes, storm-lashed coasts, and crippled transport infrastructure were a vivid illustration of the growing challenge of climate change, and the urgent need for us to work with nature, rather than fight a losing battle against it. So it seems increasingly important that the message contained in Thomas Berrys book is understood and embraced.

Thomas Berry died in 2009 and this book was published posthumously. A collection of ten essays, written between 1987 and 2000, it is a good introduction to the work of a great thinker and a great spirit.

As a Catholic priest of the Passionist, order Berry had a deep Christian faith, but this supremely gifted man was much more than a priest, and his faith was much bigger than an adherence to one narrowly defined creed. As a scholar and a teacher, to describe his approach as holistic would be true, but also an enormous understatement. He rejoices in diversity, and his inclusive philosophy and spirituality embraces not only other religions, scriptures, and cultures, but science and the entirety of Creation.

Berry, who studied both Chinese and Sanskrit languages, took inspiration from an enormous range of sources, but had a particular affinity for St Thomas Aquinas, from whom he took his clerical name, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest who trained as a palaeontologist and geologist.

A quote from Aquinas illustrates how startlingly relevant ancient writings can be in our modern age. The "perfection of the universe" lies in its diversity, says Aquinas,

"For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided; and hence the whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly and represents it better than any single creature whatsoever."

Taking this as his starting point, Berry infers that consequently there is no area of human knowledge or experience which should remain outside the remit of a Christian. He is saddened when his own Church claims to have a monopoly on truth, and asserts, "When the religious traditions are seen in their relations to each other, the full tapestry of the revelatory experience can be observed."

With the advancement of scientific understanding of how the earth and humanity came into being he says, "For the first time the entire human community has, in this story, a single creation or origin myth. Although it is known by scientific observation, this story also functions as myth." So he believes that for the first time in human history humanity can unite in a truth which is relevant to all and includes all.

For Thomas Berry, the natural world and the human community are seen as "a unified single community with an overarching purpose: the exaltation and joy of existence, praise of the divine, and participation in the great liturgy of the universe." So the degradation of the earth and mans alienation from nature is seen as a tragedy, and spells certain death for the planet if we do not change our ways. For the Church, which Berry feels has in the past been part of the problem, it is an urgent necessity to become part of the solution. In fact he says it is "the fundamental task of the Church in the twenty-first Century."

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