Yoga Re-aligns Us with Natural Health a note and welcome from Light on Light Host Editor, Karuna
Welcome to this, our second, special issue in cooperation with the International Day of Yoga Committee at the UN. Sometimes we forget that, as human cultures have diversified into countless languages and myriad ways of life worldwide, our choices about food and lifestyle have often drastically affected the state of our overall human health! In a global community now, with all of the wisdom resources from the world’s many cultural traditions available to us, we now have an opportunity for a major “reset” with regard to food and health. Our understanding of yogic heritages is central here! Recently CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta did a global TV special on lifestyle-- and including much about food!-- where he spotlighted places in the world that have turned out to be far healthier than others (https://www.cnn.com/shows/chasing-life). These widely viewed episodes also included insights into the roles of food and stress, and are also attentive to the healthy role of spirituality—especially yoga and meditation. They even acknowledged more subtle dilemma’s-- about self image, measures of success and happiness etc., which end up drastically affecting everyone’s lives today. These TV specials resounded myriads of the advices I commonly give in teaching yoga and promoting the very theme of this magazine-- “spiritual practice and inspired lifestyle”. What we put into our bodies, how we look at our bodies, how we look at ourselves, are so critical to our general well-being. One of the consequences of our not having, or taking, the time to size up how our lifestyles handle food, stress, and self-image have left many-- young and old-- struggling with challenged health, weight issues, and problems of self-image, success and fulfillment. It’s good that dominating the media recently (with 231 Million entries at Google!) has been news about “SAD”—that “The Standard America Diet (SAD) is Even Sadder Than We Thought”. What’s good about it, however, is that if you Google “Diet and Yoga” you now also get 307 Million entries on what to do about it! Yes, time for a reset!
Karuna’s Healthy Tip for pure celery juice.
Those of us who have practiced yoga, and yogic health, even long before it was as popular as it has been thankfully becoming, have long been aware of this Truth that “what goes into us” both materially and spirituality has major consequence! Thus, it is so fulfilling to see a global magazine issue like this one on Yoga and yogic health worldwide, and I’m happy to be a part of it! The global world community today does give us a chance for a major and important “reset”— a chance for all of us to look ourselves in the mirror—and to be serious about asking the question “How am I?”. And if the answer is not the one we’d like to see, we should also feel empowered to ask “OK, what can I do about it? What is a healthy lifestyle? What is a healthy routine? and, How can I do my reset wisely-not in drastic steps but in incrementally, increasingly healthy steps? As Host Editor for Light on Light, involved from the very beginning in the vision of this magazine, this amazing issue of yoga worldwide for the 2019 International Day of Yoga offers us all a chance for this important “reset”. It’s been wonderful to see the wisdom that pours from these pages from awakened practitioners and global citizens around the world. Let’s enjoy, and act upon, this feast of wisdom about conscious living. Sat Nam Karuna
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