Dear Friends,

In the mid-1800s Danish philosopher and the father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard, penned a work with the depressing title, "Sickness Unto Death" which depicted the decline of humanity into despair as it pursued a sensory-stimulated path. When I stumbled on the book in my early college days in the late 1950s it seemed alarmingly relevant for that time as well.

Over the decades since, I have occasionally mused about some appropriate reframe for that point of view. Sadly, I watched my own life decline with poor health in my thirties. Then, at age 39, I had such good fortune when God sent me a wake-up call, a great teacher and the tools of kundalini yoga and meditation that helped bring me back from the pits of physical and emotional despair.

As a teacher, counselor and healer for so many years now I see the rise of despair among so many. Despair and grief over love lost, dreams lost. Despair and anger over relationships dying and children drifting rudderless in a troubled sea. Countless people suffering from lack of kindness for themselves, feeling unloved, living with partners with whom they have nothing in common, not even a meal together. The rage between so many partners has created a war-torn landscape of their lives where one word can touch off huge reactions, just like another bombshell erupting - leaving them victims of post-traumatic stress syndrome ("PTSS") in their own homes!

Rage kills. Fear dismembers. The mind lives with old ghosts and twisted memories. And the soul lives in the empty temple of the body.

Where is the answer? How do we stop this decline from sickness into death? Rehab doesn't work anymore. Patchwork-quilt remedies even with the best-meaning of counselors can't do it for you. Drugs will only stupefy you and take you further down.

You have to leave the war zone of your lives. You must cleanse, purify and re-sanctify yourselves. That can only be done now through meditation and prayer.

One PTSS marriage partner recently told me she was doing better since she was going back to workouts at the gym. Three days later another bomb struck and the marriage fell back into rage. My response? Meditate. Do some yoga first to start making the body systems clean out and revitalize in a way no gym workout can do for you, and then sit down and meditate to clean out the mind. You have to cut the built-in reactions stored over decades of patterned hurts.

Do the great old sound-current meditation that burns up all that karma, chanting the primal sounds of "Sa Ta Na Ma.". This meditation is so powerful that it can reawaken the soul and let it see it has a destiny, even when the soul has long forgotten itself. It can take you to bliss.

Anyone can build a new life now. Going back to some gym doesn't work. You need the "gym for the soul."

Every Tuesday night in February we will be doing this meditation in our evening yoga classes. Come and grow with us. If you can't reach us because you're out of town, or if you'd like us to create a personal program for you, call us and we'll help you start your own practice.

It will take some work, some discipline over time. Going to a gym usually does. But what is the price of a better life worth to you? Things have gone down far enough. The only way left is up. Come join us on the up side!

Bless you in all ways always,

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