Silver Lining

Although this is clearly a time of deep anxiety and stress for many people, I have personally experienced some wonderful and unexpected benefits to being confined to my home.

I have enjoyed two factors in particular - spending time with my family and re-connecting with old students via our virtual classroom.

Family Retreat

Now that I do not go out to teach, I am able to spend the early mornings with my newborn son. He is at his most relaxed, playful and talkative after a good night's sleep.

I find myself enthralled by the openness, purity, vulnerability, gentleness, curiosity and love that he communicates through his expressions. And I am also fascinated to see the cognitive and movement development that progresses every day. It is truly a wonder.

Wonder is something in small supply these days, as we feel constantly jaded and disappointed by what we experience. Being connected to pure being, openness and positivity is a blessing and an evolutionary opportunity for all of us who can experience it.

Online Teaching - Connecting with our Diaspora

Another wonderful side-affect of this epidemic is the reconnection with students who have moved away from New York and who have now reconnected via our online classes.

Social distancing has provided yoga practitioners with an excellent opportunity to go on retreat and cultivate depth in practice. It is not only an opportunity but evidently a need at this time.

Online classes have given me the opportunity to share teachings I have been wanting to offer for quite some time. I anticipate taking this further during April by offering more in the way of yoga philosophy in addition to the practical instruction.

Practicing together strengthens intention, it is a powerful aid to discipline. Even via the internet, it supports our common goal and reinforces our resolve. The virtual classroom is also a way to feel connected with like minded people and has drawn in new students to our sangha from across the globe.

The Value of Positivity

I wonder if this is the first truly global event? Something that has touched everybody in one way or another. Even if the physical sickness will not infect everyone, everyone is being affected by the epidemic in some way. One of the most universal symptoms is fear, but there are also many positive consequences.

Due to industrial and traffic reductions, clear skies are seen over Beijing, the waters are clean in Venice, workers are spending time with their families, people are thinking about taking care of their health...

We have shelter, food, power, spring weather, family, walks by the river, good health, time for yoga practice, less traffic, less pollution... I like to see the glass half full, rather than half empty. Although we cannot go out to eat, to a bar or a party, we may have some concerns over financial security and the safety of elderly family and friends, we can cook, practice yoga, take walks, read etc..

A positive attitude makes one feel good. It has also been shown to have a positive effect on health and healing, whereas a negative attitude brings one down, makes one feel depressed, sad and sick.

Worry consumes the mind and as a consequence it also ravages the body. Stress makes us eat badly, disturbs our sleep, makes us spend endless hours thinking about things that might never happen and as a result, prevents us from doing what is valuable and important. As a result, we get more worry - we worry about our health, insomnia becomes a vicious cycle and having neglected our duties, we stress about what we have left undone.

"Q. What burns like fire? A. Worry." - Subhashita

What if the thing we worry about never happens?

We would have needlessly wasted endless hours, we would have ravaged our bodies for no reason, we would have left undone many important duties.

People often say they have no control over their feelings. This may seem true, but on closer examination it is found not to be accurate. The way you feel is determined by the belief system you have, it is determined by the way you think. It is possible to change the way you think by educating yourself about the facts and by deciding to focus on the positive.

If we consider something to be a threat, it engenders fear and anxiety, however if we educate ourselves about the facts, we will recognize that most of us are not under a significant threat. Furthermore if you consider something to be an opportunity (to spend time with loved ones, practice yoga and get motivated to follow good health regimens), it can engender enthusiasm, positivity and optimism.

I am not suggesting we should be imprudent in our actions - epidemiology has taught us that social distancing and hand washing are effective strategies for diminishing infection rates of contagious viruses.

I am suggesting that if we properly assess the threat and dangers of infection, it will help us to reduce anxiety. Not to diminish its seriousness or danger to vulnerable members of our society, but coronavirus is a flu epidemic. It is certainly more dangerous, but not that much more dangerous than the regular flu for most people.

Every year 40-50,000 people die from flu in the USA but there have been under 4000 deaths in China (a country with 4 times the population of the USA) from the coronavirus. Let us keep this epidemic in perspective! Of course, infection and death is possible! But there are many other threats more likely to cause death.

The Fear of Death

We all know that death is the ONLY certainty in life. Why do we avoid thinking about what it entails? Are we afraid of the unknown? Do we assume it would be a bad experience? Is it because we have sinned so badly? Do we have an intuition that finally we will be confronted by all our imperfections and failings?

If you think you are the body, then you will have a great deal of fear about letting it go. However, if you practice yoga, you are working with the idea that your true identity is independent of the body.

Yoga practice is designed to bring us to awareness of consciousness that is body-free. Could death be a kind of liberation? In India, when someone dies, they say: "She attained her Samadhi!" I think of death as the next great adventure, an out of body trip.

If you have a lot of unfinished business, if you attach yourself to objects, pleasures etc - then after you die and you no longer have a body to enjoy these pleasures, you may experience a kind of torture. You may have cravings that cannot be fulfilled - if you are a glutton, your appetite for food will go unrewarded and you will suffer.

For this reason, the advent of death should prompt us to put our house in order. To conclude unfinished business, to diminish corporeal pleasures and to cultivate spiritual (non-material) happiness that can be attained through yoga and meditation.

If this is the last moment, let us savor it. Let us get the most out of it. Obsessing about some imagined future is not living! Living (or dying) in some imagined future abstracts us from this moment, the only moment when we are actually living, being, experiencing - the only moment that is ever actually real. Everything else is just fantasy, unreality, projection, false, phony, not true, NOT REAL!

The only reality is now. Right now we are alive.

According to yoga, pleasure does not come from outside. Pleasure is our inner essence. Stress covers it over. That is why meditation leads to bliss. It uncovers the innate inner experience of Self, that is blissful, that is consciousness and truth. There is no inner fake news, alternative fact, post truth reality.

TRUTH, CONSCIOUSNESS and BLISS - that is the inner essence.

Objects, accolades, sensual pleasures do not bring true happiness. We can see quite clearly now, that those pleasures are short lasting and hollow. If we are attached to them, their absence leads to misery. Now is the perfect opportunity to search inside and enjoy the innate inner happiness that is the nature of being.