Rarely is the path ahead one that we can completely predict. We may certainly have visions of what it will look and feel like, but the nature of life is that there will always be twists and turns that have us redefine what and how we live and follow our dreams. Maybe those surprising redirects are even useful and helpful, but unseen for a time. Maybe we are so attached to what we’ve been taught to see as reality, that we suffer until we are willing to change.
5 years ago, the soft opening of Mukunda Studio (aka Mukunda Yoga in 2020) on February 14, 2020 felt like an exciting moment to be launching a new Yoga space. The anticipated grand opening of March 21, 2020 turned into a creative moment to announce a global launch of a new Yoga offering of livestream Yoga – a pandemic pivot! Having been moved and changed by national and global crises, the studio was transformed to be more than a typical Yoga studio by providing an emphasis on well-being and serving community with more than physical practices. It remains a space for in-person and livestream classes, conversations, workshops, events and studio rentals. Not what I first envisioned, but in many ways, far better! The world crises inspired a retake on what it means to have a platform and offer community support. It provided a space for raising awareness on individual and collective well-being. We all have a part in life’s unfolding and the goal of the studio is to remind us that from privilege, we have a voice to speak out for those without.
We are in another phase of very troubling times. I don’t wish to add to the startling news that compounds each day, attempting to confuse, overwhelm and misinform us. I do wish to offer a way for us to expand the aperture of perspective and let in more light. The path ahead feels very grim when we focus on what we are hearing today. But the future is not yet here and it is imperative to consider that we have a hand in what the future will become. The dominant governing forces in our material world work hard to manifest their addictive aims of more power, more control and greater supremacy. It has a direct side-effect of destabilizing and unsettling our nervous systems because our gut knows this is out of balance with humanity. This forceful attack on our natural state of inner harmony has been twisted into signaling unconscious consumerism as the antidote. Billions of dollars are spent to market a recurring feeling that we’re missing something and buying anything will fill the void. It’s a distraction that works far too well.
What we may come to consider is that there is also a dominant force within humanity that strives for loving kindness. I know, hard to believe some days. But if we can recall moments where we see kindness and generosity in a stranger, then we may welcome this idea. Or when we’ve offered a random act of kindness – why do we do that and where does that come from? If we don’t have those moments, it may be that we never developed or lost a sense of kinship with fellow beings in the same way we may doubt we’ll ever love or love again. I’ve been working through those exact feelings and have given deeper dedication to a love that is indestructible, immutable and changeless. It is a relationship to what I refer to in my daily prayers collectively as G-d, Great Healing Powers, Universal Intelligence, Divine Source, The Great Unknown, Divine Mystery, Supreme Silence, and the Golden Present. I practice being in the vibration of love for healing and transformation of my small self in order to welcome what life has in store for my Higher Self!
We are limited to what we limit ourselves to. We are unlimited when we welcome the connection with an unbounded reality. It takes work to move against the flow of our commercialized, material-bound existence. But once the door opens and we cultivate a path to higher vision, we move ahead with greater motivation and a joyful responsibility for personal and collective liberation. Much of what I’m sharing has come from my Yoga practice and studies, particularly study of the Mahabharata. It has also come from witnessing the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza against the corrupt Israeli leaders who are turning their trauma into oppression, racism and indoctrination for their citizens of Israel and many Jews in the diaspora. As an American Jew who didn’t understand the full message of Zionism until 2023, I’ve shared that it feels like tearing off a limb or breaking ties with ancestral lineage in order to see differently than what was taught. But instead, it’s actually a release from Jewish fears and a deepening into Jewish values, one of which is known in Hebrew as, Tikkun Olam – repairing the world. Attempting to confuse clarity of Judaism and Zionism as antisemitism is yet another transparent effort to focus on separation over unity, manipulation over collaboration. We need to educate ourselves so we aren’t susceptible to this confusion.
When history is manipulated like this, deep sadness and disappointment arise in me. We work hard to be so “advanced” and “civilized” with technology but have lost sight of our natural well-being and humanity that could heal our past wounds. At times, I even feel rage that the Israel/Palestine conflict has been designed with convincing propaganda to be one of the most misunderstood and divisively engineered stories of our time. As I study and gain greater understanding of our U.S. colonialist history and recognize that it never ended but ripples around the world, I’m able to observe and identify the repeating mechanisms of safety through supremacy. I’m more aware than ever that our world has been working hard at this for centuries and just as we understand a dog barks and a cat meows, colonialism disregards anyone living on land that they desire. Let’s consider, as human beings with capacity to transform, we don’t have to keep following this. We can create safety through solidarity. Let’s imagine we can shift, evolve and love more, one day at a time.
Stay tuned for more on this topic as we are at a critical time where unity and solidarity will be our best tools for collective well-being. Divide and conquer is the threat that undermines us. Unite and (re)build is the hope that will keep us going.
Let’s stay connected,
Marc
