Broaden Your Practice

Broaden your Practice   I was serving as Director of the Teachers Training and the Programs Departments at the Connecticut Ashram. I also had a wife, a new baby, a small house to maintain and grass to mow. I couldn’t seem to find the hours to do morning asanas (Yoga poses) and scheduled meditations through the day, like I had done for several years before. I complained to Gurudev: “I don’t have any time left to do my Yoga.”

“It’s all Yoga,” he said.

What could I say?  Yoga is yoking the finite to the infinite. Everything in life is a Yoga practice  that can assist us in uniting our limited consciousness to infinite consciousness.

Zen Master Zen Students  1980 I accompanied Sri Gurudev on a visit to the Providence, R.I. Zen Center of the late, ever ebullient Korean Zen master, Rev. Seung Sahn. In traditional robes of a Zen monks, his American disciples, heads and chins clean-shaven, listened attentively to Sri Gurudev’s talk. Afterwards they approached him and, curious about his long hair and beard, said: “You’re a monk, are you not?” Why don’t you cut your hair?

     He sliced the fingers of his right hand across the fingers of his left. “I could cut my fingers all the same length too,” he replied.

  There were no more questions.

There are many ways and styles of carriage one may take on as a stand for what one believes and does.

The Dali Lama came to the United States on a short visit and was scheduled to speak in Boston one evening. He and Sri Gurudev in their common interfaith services over the years had crossed paths often and become friends. Gurudev took a few of us along to Boston to meet him that evening.

     At that time, the Communist Chinese government was not pleased with the respect and admiration showered on the Dalai Lama around the globe, and there was always concern for his safety, even in America. I noticed that when the Dali Lama stepped back for a moment to change his top cloth or robe, seemingly out of nowhere a dozen tall, very strong Tibetan monks materialized and encircled him protectively. At the end of the evening Gurudev introduced us, and the Dali Lama gave us each a white scarf.

  Dalai Lama means “wish-fulfilling gem” and refers to the heart of compassion.

Later that night I dreamed of Tibetan Yogis rising up out of the ocean under a moonlit sky