Chants and Invocations

Resources for learning the invocations & their meanings

Invocation to Patanjali

Geeta Iyengar explanation

BKS Iyengar chanting the invocation (audio)

Invocation to the Guru

Audio

Words and translation of both invocations

Video file with space for you to practice repeating the chant

Comments

Monday Sadness and Gratitude

I haven't posted in a few days because of the whirlwind of being back at work. But also because I've had the blues. I didn't notice the blues at first because of the whirlwind. There's flying to DC. Missing out on sleep because of how my commute works. Being in this building one block from the white house. Arriving on Tuesday with nothing on my calendar and then by Friday seeing every minute filled with meetings and projects. And every day, every single day, engaging with the reality of what is happening. I've been in meetings where people talked about the federal legislative plan for January and how we will participate. I've been in meetings where we talked about what is happening at the state level. It is all so much to take in. Aside - people who are know how bad for working people is the Trump victory may not realize how much ground we also lost in many of the states. Which means that alongside every federal action, we will see a raft of state actions tha...

Be In Your Body!

As one of my contributions to our collective effort to survive this time, I am periodically offering a free 10 minute guided meditation on my blog. 10 minutes because everyone can find 10 minutes in their day to do something that sustains you and increases your positive impact on the people around you. And because research shows that even 10 minutes of meditation can improve your brain functioning - and make you feel better. There are dozens of meditation apps and sources out there. I don't claim mine is anything better than what you find could elsewhere. But two things might make your experience of these guided meditations unique. First, if you have attended any of the leadership retreats where I offer a mindfulness practice, you may find that listening to these guided meditations connects you to the retreat experience and allows you to renew the feelings of connectedness and power you had there. Second, many of my guided meditations will have a social justice element that connec...

Happiness Is Always In Us

There’s something about life teaching you the same lesson over and over again until you finally internalize it. That’s actually a core teaching of yoga – we are not just learning the same lesson over and over in this life, we actually keep at it lifetime after lifetime until all the lessons are internalized, and then we ascend to a higher plane. But it’s funny to see the written record and realize that I’m cycling through the same lesson every couple of months. I’m learning something about trying to find happiness inside, trying not to let the overarching political situation determine my state of mind. As I started to write this blog, I had an eerie feeling of déjà vu and then I saw that I wrote something about joy as an act of resistance back in January. So here we are again. I haven’t been writing as much this last month or so. I have felt a little busy and a little blocked. It’s only been a couple of months in this brave new world, but like many people ...

Practicing Yoga and Social Justice

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