Darren Main

Do numbers hold spiritual significance? Perhaps they do. For me, the most powerful numbers are two and six because when you multiply those numbers, you get the exact amount of square feet required to roll out a yoga mat. Even after years of practice, I__ continually astounded that all I really need to heal my body, open my heart, and still my chaotic mind is twelve square feet.

True spiritual virtues can have no opposite, but they can wear masks and costumes.Joy often masquerades as anger; innocence often dresses up as guilt; lovepretends to be fear. At the end of the day, we discover that we don__ need tobe fearful of these internal monsters__e simply need to unmask them.

While religions and mystical traditions attempt to address the same spiritual questions with which all human beings wrestle, a religious person demands answers to questions that have no answers and attempts to demand harmony from the paradox of life. The result is less wisdom and varying degrees of bothinternal and external chaos. A mystic, on the other hand, contemplates and makes peace with unanswered questions. The great paradox is that sitting quietly with unanswered questions is the doorway to wisdom, balance, and peace.

The great spiritual tension between the contemplative life of the monk andspiritual activism in the world dissolves entirely with one word__amaste: thelight in me bows to the light in you.When meditation reveals the light in ourselves, we naturally want to bow tothe light in all beings__o act on their behalf in reverence and devotion.When we truly see the light in another being, our own light shines forth, dissolving the seemingly eternal ache in our hearts and the near constant struggle of the ego mind. To see the light in one being__our own light or thatof another__s to win the cosmic game of hide and seek and ease the suffering of the world.

A Kula or spiritual community is like a nudist camp for the soul. Not only are we given the permission to remove our robes of guilt, our suits of shame, and our masks of false identity__e are encouraged to do so. To become naked and hold nothing back is to become truly beautiful.

It has been said that the body is the temple of the spirit and the mind is the altar within that temple. When we practice hatha yoga we allow ourselves to come fully into the temple of the body__ot simply as a tourist wishing to admire the fine architecture, but as a seeker on a pilgrimage of deep devotion and reverence.Meditation is the devotional practice of placing on the altar of the mind that which is sacred, holy, and revered. Just as you would not place garbage on the altar of a great temple, meditation allows a yogi to place on the altar of her mind that which is noble, pure, and free from attachment.