Jiva Offerings: March 2011

Each month, I donate all my proceeds from teaching to a different charity, and throughout the classes I'll be talking a bit about the good works that organization is doing. This month's charity is:

Women for Women International

Our Mission: Women for Women International provides women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies. We're changing the world one woman at a time.

From Victim to Survivor... to Active Citizen

Our Theory of Change: Women for Women International believes that when women are well, sustain an income, are decision-makers, and have strong social networks and safety-nets, they are in a much stronger position to advocate for their rights. This philosophy and our commitment to local leadership builds change and capacity at the grassroots level.

Why Women for Women International?

Participation in our one-year program launches women on a journey from victim to survivor to active citizen. We identify services to support graduates of the program as they continue to strive for greater social, economic and political participation in their communities.

As each woman engages in a multi-phase process of recovery and rehabilitation, she opens a window of opportunity presented by the end of conflict to help improve the rights, freedoms and status of women in her country. As women who go through our program assume leadership positions in their villages, actively participate in the reconstruction of their communities, build civil society, start businesses, train other women and serve as role models, they become active citizens who can help to establish lasting peace and stability.

Jiva Offerings: February 2011

Each month, I donate all my proceeds from teaching to a different charity, and throughout the classes I'll be talking a bit about the good works that organization is doing. This month's charity is:

Friends of Ramana’s Garden, Inc.

Friends of Ramana’s Garden, Inc. is a nonprofit charity established in 2005 in the United States. It supports Ramana’s Garden India, a wonderful and loving children’s home and school near the renowned spiritual center of Rishikesh in northern India. Our mission as Friends is to support abandoned, destitute, and abused children who are given food, shelter, necessities, and education so they may thrive in a world that once seemed almost hopeless. One doesn’t have to be an “orphan” to come and live at Ramana’s Garden. One has to be at risk of, hunger, death, abuse, torture, or being sold into prostitution or child labor. Most of all, the children are given lots of love and nurturing in a welcoming and tolerant spiritual environment.

Ramana’s Garden India was founded by a dedicated and forceful American woman, Prabhavati Dwabha, 18 years ago as a result of her spiritual practice on the banks of the River Ganga. Prabhavati’s heart overflowed with compassion for the numerous homeless, destitute, and abused children she met there, and she decided to make those children her life’s work.

To learn more, watch this video that was shot onsite at Ramana’s Garden India, which includes an interview with Prabhavati. The story of Ramana’s Garden India and how these wonderful kids are creating joyous opportunities for themselves will truly open your heart and inspire you to realize your own greatness.

Jiva Offerings: January 2011

Starting in the new year, I will be transitioning from teaching my regular Sunday Jivamukti class, to teaching the Saturday class. As part of this change, I decided to super charge the Saturday classes by donating all my teaching proceeds to a charity. Each month will be dedicated to a different charity, and throughout the classes I'll be talking a bit about the good works that organization is doing.

This will accomplish a couple of things....Firstly, all the students coming to class will, by default, be donating towards that charity, so coming to class will be an act of generosity to oneself and to others! This is exactly in line with the Jivamukti ethos of serving all living beings - lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu.

Secondly, this will be a great way to learn about the important work being done by nonprofits and volunteer organizations worldwide. Perhaps this might even inspire some to look into certain causes and issues more deeply.

Thirdly, this gesture is my response to the inspiration I felt by Peter Singer's  The Life You Can Save. The book's message is that our current response to world poverty is not only insufficient but ethically indefensible. He argues that we need to change our views of what is involved in living an ethical life. To help us play our part in bringing about that change, we need to dedicate ourselves to personal philanthropy (figuring how much to give and how best to give it), local activism (spreading the word in your community), and political awareness (contacting your representatives to ensure that your nation’s foreign aid is really directed to the world’s poorest people). He writes:

For the first time in history, it is now within our reach to eradicate world poverty and the suffering it brings. Yet around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for bottled water that we don't even need. And though the number of deaths attributable to poverty worldwide has fallen dramatically in the past half-century, nearly nine million children still die unnecessarily each year. The people of the developed world face a profound choice: If we are not to turn our backs on a fifth of the world’s population, we must become part of the solution.

So join me in becoming part of the solution in 2011!

*************** January's Charity *****************

Yoga Prison Project

The goal of the Prison Yoga Project is to expand the practice of Hatha Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation to prisons and rehabilitation facilities, and to provide training for Yoga instructors interested in teaching to at-risk populations in prisons, residential rehabilitation facilities, and community programs.

Their programs aim to help people shift unconscious behavioral patterns of reacting into conscious ways of responding by teaching individuals the skill of clearly witnessing their moment-to-moment experience. Learning this fundamental behavioral shift can make the difference between a person committing a crime or not.

Hundreds of prisoners, those serving life sentences as well as men who have been released from prison, have been introduced to the self-transformative benefits of yoga and meditation through the Prison Yoga Project's program at San Quentin.



DONATIONS:
Just $20 provides 4 yoga practice manuals for prisoners.