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nilambu notes Volume 5 Issue 1 As we start, yet again, another year, in Washington DC it's hard not to feel inspired for change. But how do make that change happen in our own realm. I hope this issue will offer you some helpful tools. Celeste West urged us to "Unstiffen your supple body. Unclutter your quiet mind. Unfreeze your fiery heart." I love that. And hope that for all of you in 2008. Namaste - Cassandra Yogis Set Intentions for Lasting Change Samskara the yoga term for those ruts. Samskara is an ingrained pattern or “grooves” of thought OR behavior. These ruts are changed by creating new ones. How can yoga help in this quest? And three of the niyamas are particularly related to this time of year as they help us set intentions.
(For an overview of all the limbs of yoga and the yamas and niyamas, click here.) So how do does all that relate to making lasting change in your life this year? Note that there is a distinction between what you intend to do and what you want to happen as a result. Therefore, statements like these are desired outcomes:
These are not intentions (even though they use words like "want" or "intend" ). They are desires for the future. And they become attachments. They are what you hope will happen in the future, and yoga suggests you can’t control that. Yoga says you can’t control outcomes. So yoga suggests we avoid attachments to desires for the future. We can’t control falling in love. We can’t always control the course of a disease. We can only control what we do. And what we do may affect the future, may increase odds of recovery, may put us in the right place at the right time, may open our hips, may improve the quality of our life. But you’ve got to act – for that possibility to be fulfilled. So intentions would sound like this:
Part two will appear in the next nilambu notes including what to do and how to implement and integrate this yogic approach into your life. In the meantime, start delineating your intentions with care. Really look at whether you're attached to a particular or specific result and if so try to recalibrate your thinking toward steps or actions that you can control instead. Clear Your Mailboxes of 41 Pounds!
Step one: Register for the "Do Not Call List" This literally takes less than a minute. You enter your phone number and provide an email address. The government sends you an email. You open the email. Click on the link. And confirm. Now the telemarketers can't call you. Note that non-profits are exempt. And originally we would have to re-register every 5 years, but the program has proved so popular that Congress is considering eliminating that requirement. Go to this link: DoNotCall.gov. (Government can do good). Step two: Reduce those catalogues. A great new web site called Catalogue Choice can help you do that. First you register - name, email address, real address. They send you an email and you confirm. Then whenever you get a catalogue in the mail that you don't ever look at - you simple go to the web site, type in the number from the mailing code. And Catalogue Choice will do the rest and get you off the mailing list. They have many common catalogues listed. But if the one you've gotten in the mail is not listed, there's a mechanism for Catalogue Choice to help with that as well. And if you don't have the mailing label, and only have your address, they can still help. Check it out: catalogchoice.org. Step three: New American Dream is a web site with the mission to help us "live consciously," "buy wisely" and "make a difference." They offer many mechanisms to help us achieve these goals. (Last month, nilambu notes featured their Simplify the Holidays brochure). You do need to register, but then you get access to all of their services; much is still accessible regardless. And don't worry, they won't use your email to clutter up your mailbox. I have gotten some emails from them, but it's not a deluge. And they have a special section to help you contact all the folks necessary to rid you of useless mail. You simply type your address in, and the site does the rest. Click here to get started and generate the letters. You just print them out, sign them, and mail them away. Begin now! One other option - which I've not tried - is a service offered by 41pounds.org. So called because, on average, each American gets 41 pounds of junk mail a year. 41 pounds! So, for $41.00 they will remove you from mailing lists and catalogues. If anyone tries it out, please report your experience back to me. One final resource - Martha Stewart lists 100 ways and reasons to "Get Rid of It." So if you want to get rid of that mattress or old lap top or suitcases or eyeglasses or pretty much anything else, check out this list of resources to help you figure out what to do with all your needless stuff. So What About this Eat, Pray, Love?
And I had mixed feelings and views about the book. (Okay, besides jealousy). The story obviously engaged me. But I felt it did so because it was a fairy tale. My yoga teacher's response to that was: "You know, fairy tales do come true." And yes, I do believe that - but I felt that too much went too right for her. She wrote a note of intent - a message asking for her husband to sign the divorce papers. And lo and behold, minutes later her lawyer called with the news. She prayed for her nephew who was having trouble sleeping and she called home after and her sister was astounded to report the nephew was better. Liz meditated and felt the kundalini rising. (Kundalini means "coiled energy," and rarely during meditation that energy is released in a feeling that, apparently, moves up the spine. The result is a sense of deep connection with all living beings. For more information, click here.) And in Italy she ate pasta every day and gelato every day, sometimes twice a day, gained 20 pounds and wasn't overweight! See, a fairy tale! Okay, so what's wrong with that? I agree that books should entertain. Ideally, they do so while they educate. And she did the best description I've ever read of the process of developing a meditation practice - the frustrations, the goal, the process and how to set your intention. And I felt her self-deprecation and voice offered an accessible tone. These types of stories can be so preachy and condescending. She avoids those pitfalls. Reading about her, you cared about her and wanted to find out what happened. But, I worried that she set up expectations that could create yearning, a sense of deprivation by comparison and/or inspire people to follow her path exactly. Now, in interviews since the popularity of this book took off, Gilbert made clear that her path was her path and that one doesn't need to go to Italy, India and Bali to turn around their lives and find happiness. (She addresses this question specifically on her web site.) For one thing, most people can't. They don't have a book advance to make it possible. They have children who can't be abandoned for a year. I've heard her concede this in subsequent interviews. Also, I was relieved when a friend, Richard, whom she met in India, appeared with her on Oprah - he described his own experience with meditation which was very different. And to me more typical and more real. And he noted that not all people have or need to have, as Liz did, the kundalini rise. Secondly and more importantly, I felt that the doubts of veracity would undermine the helpful messages embedded. Perhaps readers would say, no way because the story was too good to be true and likewise dismiss many of the very helpful lessons. And her lessons are worthwhile. Well, in the week before Christmas, NPR finally got the memo that people were interested in this book. I love NPR but sometimes they just miss the ball and seem to be of the view that if something is popular (on Oprah!) that their listeners would not be interested. Talk of the Nation's Neal Conan interviewed Ms. Gilbert. The discussion was a good one - mostly because of the callers' questions. One caller, who said maybe she was a skeptic by nature, observed it was such neat package. Too tidy. "You go from divorce to marriage. You go from looking for God, to finding God. How much is genuine and how much is wanting to sell a good book?" (It's about 23 minutes into the interview). I thought, yeah - I wanted to know that too and could add to the aspects that made me suspicious. Gilbert admited that she felt an obligation to her reader not to make them go through every moment of "my 4 years of despair with me". (Because readers need to be entertained, engaged?...) She took a 5 year period of her life that was a "disaster zone," and condensed it. The book was the way I wrote myself out of it. "I didn't know how it was going to turn out." She admitred a lot of what happened isn't even in the book. The book is very good and worth the read. But I think it would have been even better if she had included a few more of the times that her prayers weren't answered quickly so tidily. I acknowledge that she was balancing interests - engaging her reader and being honest with them. I just wish she'd tipped the scale a little bit more toward reality once her journey started. That would have made her example all the more potent and stimulating. To buy the book, click here. To check out Elizabeth Gilbert's web site, including her thoughts on writing and photos of some of the real people she met on her journey, click here. And the Oprah site has an Eat, Love, Pray section. |
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So, where are you headed? Do you feel frozen? In a rut? Well, yogis and yoginis don’t make resolutions. We set intentions. Using three of the yogic principles (from the niyamas), we work to change our ingrained habits to get ourselves out of our muddy ruts. 
I've found some great tools online to help you reduce the onslaught of paper and phone calls coming into your house. It could not be
simpler. 
A year ago, within the span of about 2 weeks, five friends told me about this book. I was even going to go to a book talk, without having read the book, but a snow stormed ended that plan! Just as well. I wasn't quite ready last January. I read it in August in 24 hours. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is her true account of a spiritual pilgrimage over a year. She spent 4 months regaining her health and vitality by living in Italy - surrounded by beauty, learning a beautiful language and eating sensual food. Over the next four months, she explored her spirituality at an ashram in India. Finally, she headed to Bali because she deemed it a place of beauty and spirituality combined. And while in Bali she found love with a Brazilian.