Within three days of my last post, former President Bill Clinton announced to the press that he’d walked away from animal protein, largely for health reasons. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or it could be that the former leader of our great country is yet another faithful My Yoga Online reader. If that’s the case, Bill, buddy, I’m a little troubled that when sharing .....

Question: In what ways do you practice ahimsa , or compassion, off the mat? Companies that bring this yogic yama, or lifestyle practice, into their business model inspire us to take our personal practice even further. Founded in 2000 as the heal .....

In the dance of yoga , we can feel inspired and we can feel grounded. Inspiration and connection are manifestations of spirit and soul. For most of us in the West, soul and spirit seem like synonyms: when someone we love dies, we may say his soul has departed, or we may say his spirit has left. What's the difference? In the Eastern Daoist philosophy, there are five distinct kinds of soul, not just one. In Western psychologies, such as the model proposed by Carl Jung, we also recognize that our inner landscape is not just one flat terrain: within each of us are many personalities an .....

Wellness has become a buzzword these days, ranging in application from medical diagnoses to spa services. Anyone you ask will have a list of things that make them ‘feel’ well. Mostly we base our happiness and contentment on circumstances and relationships going in our favor. But an overall, sense of wellbeing, regardless of what we have or what is happening in life is elusive to most. What does wellness really mean and how do we get there?  To BE well is to be balanced in emotions, body, and mind, in such a way that whateve .....

Yoga is everywhere these days, and with good reason. The modern-day benefits of this ancient practice are boundless—and being proven time and again by study after scientific study. If you’re reading this you’re probably aware of all this. But you might be uncertain of how or where to start. That’s why we created My Yoga Online’s Yoga for the Beginner Whole Health Program . This program will guide you through eight stages of all the basics you need to start your yoga practic .....

Truth is liberating. It can also be complicated. And it is always powerful, so powerful that the Yoga Sutras tell us that when we are “dedicated to truth and integrity, our thoughts, words and actions gain the power to manifest.” Truth is full of consequences - positive and negative. That is why so many people avoid it, preferring the convenience of white lies, because as this sutra teaches, truth moves situations and people around in relation to it, and sometimes that much power is scary. So why is practicing truth an important element to the cultivation o .....

One of the most difficult tasks to overcome as someone conscious of my role in the relationships I’ve fostered throughout my life is working with my ego. We are all born into a world of things we inherently are attracted to and those we shun as we identify them as sources of pleasure or suffering, and it is through that discrimination that we end up with the frame of reference we carry around with us. It is through that frame of reference that we end up processing everything that occurs around us to determine whether we find it pleasing or not, wheth .....

Humans have a love affair with drama. The action,  suspense, fall from grace, and the phoenix rising again from the ashes. Even in the surprisingly few times  life is not delivering us the drama of one fire to tend and another to put out, we go looking for a spark. And then we blow. Why?  Because the adrenaline fire of drama is exciting and oh so familiar. No fire feels boring, so the subconscious returns to what is known, even if it is agonizing, in order  to feel alive.  The Yoga Sutras encourage the practice of Santosha or ‘contentment with on .....

It seems that Yoga has become a household term and people of all ages, religions and demographics are enjoying the benefits of this ancient science. However, you mention Ayurveda and the response is still scrunched up faces and scratching of heads. How did these two sister sciences get separated? Like Siamese twins torn apart at birth Ayurveda is not the pretty child-it involves obscure treatments, sometimes disg .....

The inner light of yoga is like a scared fire. It is the true heart and spirit of the practice. While potent and powerful the magic of the practice is also vulnerable and tenuous. The sacredness of the practice can die so easily if we do not tend to it every day. Amidst the cynic's voice and the inevitable burn-out that comes with steady devotion the true yoga practitioner must find the indefatigable courage to re-kindle the spiritual fire every day. The sacred fire that illuminates the path of yoga is at once the fire of purification, the karmic fire and spiritual bliss. .....