Namaste Friends.

I hope this finds you well. Did you make it through the eclipse portal? There were definitely strong currents of energy at play the last two weeks, and really they still are quite strong. The Year of the Horse is chalked full of astrological dynamite for sure. Soon we will be getting back to sharing our Shaman and the Mermaid astrology reports, but we have had to use all of our focus on moving the studio and getting all the new systems in place for our grand opening on March 14th. Please join us for all the festivities that day.

I want to thank everyone who helped us make the transition. My heart is full with emotion and I have shed many tears of appreciation and gratitude for the overwhelming amount of support we received from this special community. I am in awe and you literally have taken my breath away with all that you have done.

So many of you helped with the physical move, painting and packing, unpacking, planting and potting, and also donating the funds to create the space. We raised nearly 50k…and it was from individuals like yourself giving $50-$100 dollar donations. So that means MANY of you helped us. And at the risk of sounding boastful, I must say that it turned out so incredibly beautiful and the energy of the building is very special. Together we have created a sacred community center-a yoga home for many people to gather and commune, share their ideas, talents, and resources. And of course, breath together in harmony on our yoga mats.

The parade from the old studio to the new studio (affectionately called Karma 3.0) was a lot of fun. Its hard to say how many people for certain, but my guess is about 75 people showed up to make the march, singing mantra, and banging drums, carrying banners and celebrating new beginnings for the block walk from Pearl St. to Broadway. It was quite a sight to see, and a honoring of a rites of passage into the next iteration of Karma Yoga Center.

I am grateful for our time at Karma 2.0; we had 11 years of love and well-being,

but the Universe provided an opportunity for change and growth, and although I didn’t see it as such in the beginning dialogues of the proposed rent increase with our former landlord, I now see this was a gift from the cosmos-as a beautiful and transformative opportunity to expand our community and offerings for more people to experience.

In the Yoga Sutras, authored by the great sage Patanjali,

he speaks of the importance of “stilling the mind” so that we may truly know our Self, the Truth of things, and to transcend the sense of separation that our mind-stuff conjures due to our fluctuating thoughts.

Patanjali identifies five causes for our fluctuating thoughts, called vrittis in Sanskrit:

1. Correct Understanding- our thoughts are created through direct perception,    inference, and scriptural testimony.
2. Misconception- our thoughts are created when knowledge of something is not based on truth.
3. Verbal Delusion-our thoughts come from images that arise when we hear something that doesn’t have its basis in reality.
4. Sleep-either dreamless or dream state-influences our thoughts
5. Memory- when an object previously experienced comes back into consciousness.

Patanjali denotes that some of our thoughts are harmless and some are harmful. In modern psychology, we might say positive thinking and negative thinking. Either way, all of our thoughts create an impression in our psyche, they literally imprint on our mind, creating a scar…these impressions are called samskaras in Sanskrit, or “same scar”. We fall into patterns or habits of thinking due to these impressions and it becomes very challenging to break out of them. This is no problem if the samskaras are positive thought patterns, but if the samskaras are negative thought patterns we tend to fall into negative behaviors as well.

When I was first told the rent was going up and I had three months to figure it out, my thoughts went crazy. I imagined the worst.  I first went to #3-verbal delusion and #5-memory.

I heard rent increase and my mind said we can’t do it. This is stemming from an old samskara of scarcity and lack, I immediately associated paying more money with failure and strife. But that is not based on reality. That is an old story, an old narrative coming from my youth. My family grew up very poor and there was a lot of fear in the household around paying the bills and making ends meet.

I broke out of that poverty cycle when I became an adult and took my earnings into my own hands. I went to college on my own dime, and I found work immediately after college as an English teacher and began to feel comfortable again. But that memory in childhood of money worries took a deep impression on my psyche, and it will still occasionally rear its ugly head.

But as Patanjali also shares in his teachings, some of our thought impressions can create positive thinking. My parents struggled financially, but they also had a strong believe that if there is a will, there is a way. And so when I was able to step back from the situation of the rent increase and look at it from the 30,000 foot view, I was able to tap into some more positive thinking. I would say my thoughts were activated by #1-inference and again also #5-memory.

Inference is a tricky one-because it can get muddled with making false assumptions-which can cause major problems, but inference in its purest form allows you to make an educated guess and accurate assumptions.  For example, if you see smoke, you can infer that there is some sort of fire. So when I took a breath, quieted my mind with meditation, and looked at my situation, I was able to infer that if we moved to a bigger place, we could expand our business.

And my memory reminded me that I have summited tall mountains before, so I can do it again.

The key is stilling the many thoughts that swarm through our mind, so that we can sort through them and discern which are the harmful ones and which are the harmless. The harmful ones are often disguised as seemingly Truth…they seem to be anchored in reality, but in fact they are far from the truth of reality. These kind of thoughts are riddled with fear and they cause great harm.

So one can deduct that if our mind is riddled with fear and overwhelmed anxiety, we are not near the Truth of the thing.

I bring my personal story into view here because we are at a time in our humanity when fear is running amuck and the amount of anxiety that people carry is becoming toxic to our very existence. And the more we stay locked in the vrittis of misconception, delusion, and a false sense of reality, the more the fear will take hold of our collective consciousness.

We are daily bombarded with sensory input, sound bites, images of war and strife and hatred. Its becoming so very challenging to tell the difference between AI generated material and actual images of real life. We are told places are dangerous and people are evil. We are bombarded with FEAR- which I was once told is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. That one stuck in my craw.

So I turn off my TV.

I stay away from Social Media.

I avoid toxic people who spread fear and worry.

I don’t need those impressions on my mind. It only creates distraction from the Truth.

I don’t have my head in the sand. I know the story you are hearing. Its everywhere. Sadly.

But one of the main ways Patanjali said we can have harmless thoughts is through #1-Direct perception-I need to know/see/sense it for myself. From the stillness of my own mind-my own Heart, my own sense of Truth. We have handed our inner authority over to others and now is the time to reclaim it.

Each of us has a built in strong moral compass and inner knowing-we call it Intuition, I call it the voice of my spiritual heart. Now is the time to return to following its guidance, and lessen our mindlessly following the fear trail that feeds the collective anxiety.

In other words, Trust yourself. You know the Truth. Follow your inner guidance. Don’t fall prey to fear tactics. Still the fluctuations of the mind.

When I realized that moving to a new space was an opportunity to grow our community and connect more people to each other, I went from a place of fear, to a place of creativity, excitement, and LOVE.

I went from a mindset of Oh No! -to Hell Yes! And not only hell yes, but thank you for the shove out the door! I may never have ventured into bigger territory if it weren’t for the winds of change.

We want to honor all of you who have stayed with us with your memberships during our transition. All current members get to stay at the rate of $108 for at least one year. Thank you for your solidarity and loyalty and patronage!

Starting at the Grand Opening on March 14th our membership rates will go up to $126 a month for all new members. And our drop in rate of $20 will go to $27. This increase will actually bring us up to industry standard in the metropolitan areas-we have been underpriced for a long time, and we only raised it to what we need to make the new rent mark we set at with our new landlord.

I want to give our new landlords another big shout out. They priced us into the building so that we could gradually build to the price they are looking for so we can make it work over time. Not too many folks would have done that.

Yes- we have a higher rent and it costs way more money than we ever paid before, but we also have a way better space to serve everyones needs- a bigger yoga home for everyone. We can come together and heal the collective fear and anxiety, through learning and loving and laughing together. The best way to fight off fear is through LOVE.

Fear is intimidated by love- it shrinks away from it.

Remember these famous words?

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that”-MLK Jr.

Come get on your mat, find your breath, clear your mind, and find your inner stillness. From that still point you will remember who you are, know the Truth, and feel a surge of Love in your heart. Hope for healing our world will return to you.

After all, spring is around the corner…its the season of new beginnings and a reminder that all is not bleak, things begin anew over and over, again-and again-always and forever.

Much love, Katrina