I have been at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat for three weeks, with glorious warm weather, blue skies and sunshine.  The beach is enjoyed for the healing nature of the water and also for the magnificent colors of the water bounded by the bright blue sky.

There is also a special sunshine in the spirit of the place, more of a light shining in the darkness within us.  I am taking a Meditation Course currently, and Swami Swaroopananda's response to the question below fits nicely with what I am learning and explains Why Meditate? 
 
The Reason For Meditation
Question: I completely understand the philosophy and aim of yoga. I wonder why is it that in order to get the most out of our life we need to set aside time for meditation, when instead we could practice embracing life as a gift of being human and not try so hard to be God?
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Answer: This is like asking the question “If we have a garden, why do we need to take care of it? Why do we need to water it? Why do we need to nourish it? Why do we need to take care of the weeds so they do not overpower the plants that we try to cultivate? Why do we do all these things when we try to develop a beautiful garden?” A gardener who tries to develop a beautiful garden needs to do all these things regularly. Ultimately, the different practices of yoga are meant to help us achieve the goal of human life.

Human life has different aspects. Some of the aspects are simple. For example, taking care of the physical body. There are different ways to take care of the physical body. I can watch the physical body going through health and disease. But as a human being, I can attempt to cultivate a healthy body. In order to cultivate a healthy body, there are certain things that I need to do on a regular basis. I need to develop a quality type of sleep. Sleep is very important. Everybody sleeps, but human beings are leading a very strenuous life, and they may need to learn once again how to sleep properly. We need to eat good food. We need to breathe fresh air and to breathe deeply. We need to learn how to exercise and we need to exercise regularly. This only has to do with caring for the physical body. Even if we do all these things, occasionally, we may be sick. Nevertheless, as human beings, this is the best we can do in order to cultivate a healthy body. Why do we need a healthy body? The body is an instrument through which we can achieve many of the human aspirations. If the body is sick, it is more difficult to attain or achieve many of the human goals and aspirations.

Similarly, and not less importantly than the body, is the mind. What is the method to keep the mind healthy? The main yogic method of keeping the mind healthy is by developing what we call ‘the skill of positive thinking’ and ‘the art of meditation’. Meditation is the practice through which we can cultivate our mind, like a wonderful gardener who cultivates a wonderful garden. The mind can be like a wonderful garden, or the mind can be like a neglected garden, which is taken over by weeds. And when we go around and look at plants, we can see some plants are well taken care of, and some plants are neglected. So it is with the mind. It needs to be healthy. And the mind is the key to attain the highest goals of a human being. Therefore, in order to develop a well cultivated mind, and a mind that is capable of taking us to the higher goals of human life and at the same time to allow us to lead a joyful and happy human life—such a mind needs to be cultivated. And the method of cultivation in yoga is meditation.

Meditation is the science that teaches us how to cultivate a healthy mind, a beautiful mind, a mind that can appreciate the beauty of life. The beauty of life cannot be appreciated so well when the mind is not healthy, because an unhealthy mind is a mind full of pain. It is a blurry mind. It is a dull mind. It is a cloudy mind. It is a mind full of anguish, depression and restlessness. Such a mind does not have the capacity to see the Divine beauty of creation. In order to see the Divine beauty of creation, the mind needs to be purified. The mind must become like a polished diamond. Then, such a mind can behold Divinity within creation— and beauty; utmost beauty. Of course, to a certain degree, we can see these things. But as we correctly analyze human life, and as we do it objectively, we see that a large portion of human life consists of suffering—and this is a great truth. And suffering is of the physical body. But much of the suffering is of the mind. In order to remove the suffering from the mind, and by doing so, also to remove the suffering from the physical body and from our life, we need to cultivate the mind in such a way that it becomes a healthy and shining mind; and this can be done through the practice of meditation.
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For example, think of a house. If you do not clean the house every day, if you just leave the garbage all over the place, if you just let the cockroaches and rats all over the place, that house becomes an unbearable place of habitation for a human being. A human being that would live in such a house will become sick, will become depressed, and will not be able to attain those goals which are the birthright of a human being. Our real house consists of the physical body and of the mind. We need to cultivate that house. We need to clean it. We need to decorate it. We need to turn it into a beautiful house. And then the real person, the Divine soul, who dwells in that house, can attain the goals for which that soul came to this Earthly plane. In order to attain all of these things, says Swami Sivananda, meditation is the most important key. Therefore, it is important to learn how to meditate, and not just to let things happen as they come. Because if we just let them happen as they come, and if we observe, then we will see the consequences. The consequences are a constant decline into deeper and deeper and vaster and vaster suffering. As a result, in order to exit that state of suffering, we learn how to meditate.
                                                                                                                       
​(Swami Swaroopananda)
Namaste
Thank you for taking this journey with me! 
Loving Life and Living Love,
Mary
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I hope you enjoy this article, which first appeared in the 'Savvy Selfcare' column in Massage & Bodywork.  I am delighted to share this writing by Jennie Hastings (licensed massage therapist LMT and business owner), as she explains some of her revelations about eating and digestion. 

When I was growing up the message “you are what you eat” was a big one. I remember a public service announcement called Time for Timer that would come on during Saturday morning cartoons. In it a skinny-legged cartoon cowboy reported from inside the digestive system, talked about protein, fats, and carbohydrates, and sang, “You are what you eat from your head down to your feet.”

This seemed like good information. It always made sense to me that what we eat turns into the building material for our physical bodies. However, as time has gone by, and the experiences of life have begun to accumulate, I would have to adjust the saying from “you are what you eat” to “you are what you can digest”. Unfortunately, it is possible to eat food that should be helpful and healthy and completely miss the benefit because the digestive system cannot assimilate it.

After a traumatic experience in my early 20s I began to recognize how important a healthy diet was for my overall well-being. Up until then I had relied on my youth to get me through everything. At that time it became obvious that what I took into my body had everything to do with how I felt physically, mentally, and emotionally, and I started to pay attention.

I began to learn more about nutrition and carefully craft my meals. I started drinking smoothies in the morning, learned to eat kale, began using healthy fats, and added super foods like goji berries and hemp protein to my diet. I was spending a lot of time and energy on my food, not to mention money. Between shopping, preparation, eating, and cleaning up, let's face it, food is a really big deal in our lives.

However, I wasn't exactly getting any benefit from the food. I noticed how at the end of a long day of careful dietary measures I would inevitably find myself raiding my housemate's ice cream stash, or gorging on other sugar. My skin began to break out in itchy eczema spots on my hands. It was very embarrassing, as a massage therapist, to have a rash on my hands. Fortunately, my clients understood that it was not contagious and allowed me to touch them, but it was a difficult time in my life to understand what was going on and what I could do about it.

This went on for a couple of years. I was at a yoga retreat at one point and there was a woman there who had suffered from terrible eczema at points in her life. My teacher asked her to tell me anything she could about what eczema is about. I remember she said, “eczema is about not being able to fully digest what life has given you.” Over time I began to realize that she meant this not only in the literal sense of physical digestion, but also the digestion of thoughts, emotions, images, sounds, basically all of life experience.

Eventually I met a woman, a nutritional therapist, who worked with me on my digestion. With supplements to stimulate bile production in my gallbladder (basically beet extract) and a few other key supplements my body began to be able to break down the fat I was eating and feed it to my skin. As quickly as I'd lost my skin to the itchy rash, my skin repaired itself. It felt like a miracle.

Since then I have learned that digestion is the most important part of eating. When I was 20 and still blissfully unblemished by some of life's more brutal realities, I could eat a Snickers bar and processed cheese food and turn it into vital life energy because my digestive fire was high and could burn through anything. After the trauma I could eat organic steamed kale drenched in olive oil with pumpkin seeds and not derive what I needed from it.

Good digestion is vital to good health. Signs that your digestive system could use support include bloating after eating, erratic bowel movements, and lack of energy. If you are eating healthy food and still feel undernourished or have cravings, it might be time to care more directly for your digestive system. I know people who have eliminated practically every kind of food from their diet and still experience dietary woes. If this sounds like you, please understand that it might not be the food itself that is not working, but the process of breaking it down.

Beyond just what we eat, how we eat, and the way we feel about ourselves and our lives, affects our ability to digest. Modern life requires us to digest way more than food. All of the information that we come into contact with everyday through technology needs to be processed and metabolized. Learning to care for and support our digestive systems is a valuable investment in life energy. Seek help from a nutritional therapist or Ayurvedic counselor. Educate yourself. The return will be a lifetime of good energy, and what could be better than that?

Sidebar:

6 Thing to Improve Digestion from the Chopra Center

    1    Meditate
    2    Do some form of daily movement
    3    Do not Overeat
    4    Sip on Ginger Tea
    5    Eat your largest meal at lunchtime
    6    Release negative emotions

Thank you SriDevi Jennie for the insightful post and thank YOU for taking this journey with me!
For more from Jennie Hastings, check out http://inspiredmassagetherapist.com/

Loving Life and Living Love,
Mary

​If you haven't signed up for the blog posts, please do.  If you are interested in submitting a "guest blog", please send me an email.  Mary@BestYOULife.com

I welcome you to leave a comment below or post one on my BestYOU Facebook page.
Sharing your thoughts is a gift to all of us!