
Reawaken Your Spiritual Practices
Coffee is the lifeblood for many, but do you know its pros and cons beyond a quick caffeine fix? Learn about its risks and benefits, and how to drink it the Ayurvedic way.
Born in Liverpool, England, Roger Gabriel spent his formative years in the United Kingdom and first learned meditation there in the early 1970s. It instantly became his passion and he soon trained to be a meditation teacher under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
After moving to the U.S., Roger began studying Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of health care. In 1985, while helping to establish centers for Ayurveda and meditation, he met and became friends with Deepak Chopra. Since then, Roger has assisted Deepak with numerous training programs, seminars, and workshops; taught thousands of people on all continents to meditate; and helped to train hundreds of people to become teachers of meditation, Ayurveda, and yoga.
Roger has been blessed to meet and study with great teachers in India and the West, and he has traveled extensively in India. He incorporates much of what he has learned in his practices and teaching. In 2006, Roger received his spiritual name Raghavanand from Shree Satuwa Baba Maharaji of Varanasi, India.
As time permits, he involves himself with charity programs in India and takes like-minded seekers on tours to some of his favorite pilgrimage sites there. Roger currently serves as a member of the Chopra Certifications’ Advisory Board and is a Chopra–certified educator who teaches regularly at the Center’s workshops, seminars, and teacher training programs. He lives in Encinitas, California. You can learn more about Roger on his website:
www.rogergabriel.com
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Coffee is the lifeblood for many, but do you know its pros and cons beyond a quick caffeine fix? Learn about its risks and benefits, and how to drink it the Ayurvedic way.
Life is all about relationships. We are in relationships with our friends and family, the people we work with, even those we met casually in the grocery store or sit next to on a flight. We are in a relationship with our environment and the world around us and, on a subtle level, every cell in your body is in a relationship with every other cell. Considering ourselves as separate from other people, creates conflicts ranging from personal disputes to global conflicts. Seeing ourselves as separate from the environment, results in the current climate change issues. A breakdown in the body’s internal relationships creates the potential for disharmony and dis-ease.
There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul,
“If you have no relationship with nature, you have no relationship with man” - J. Krishnamurti
Purnamadah Purnamidam. Purnat Purnamudachyate. Purnasya Purnamadaya. Purnameva Vashishyate
On the surface, the world may appear to have many challenges and it’s easy to get distracted or even overwhelmed by them. However, whenever we allow ourselves to play, we slip beyond everyday limitations and into a realm of infinite possibilities, joy and love. Play should be an essential part of everyone’s life, because the real reason that we’re here is to play. Let’s go back in time. Actually, let’s go back to before time, before space, before everything.
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. - Khalil Gibran
We are all different, at least from a physical and mental perspective. We each have our own likes and dislikes, our ways of reacting to situations, the health challenges we might face, and a myriad of other unique qualities. It would be a very boring world if we were all the same, these differences are what make life interesting. The science of Ayurveda recognizes these differences and categorizes them as combinations of three energies known as the Doshas - Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Knowing your doshic combination, or Ayurvedic body-type, opens a whole treasury of guidelines to balance and support all areas of life.
The word meditation covers a wide list of activities and conjures up images ranging from yogis sitting in lonely mountain caves, to churchgoers in quiet contemplation or a kirtan group chanting sacred verses. What these all have in common is a focused awareness, which means being fully present in the moment.
We all get stuck following the same old routines and patterns and there’s often a certain sense of security and comfort in doing things the same way as we’ve always done them. The question therefore arises, “Why do I need to change?” Well, if your habits are healthy ones, such as brushing your teeth, exercising daily, getting a good night’s sleep and meditating regularly, there may be no need to change them.