How To Live Courageously

This past weekend was blessed and charged with 3 yoga and meditation classes at the Silent Mind Meditation Center.  The new Saturday Kundalini Yoga class, the Sunday Gentle Yoga and Meditation Class and the original Sunday Kundalini Yoga Class.  The new class was well received and served its purpose perfectly.  It has been launched as the Sunday Kundalini Yoga is full and can no longer accommodate any new students.  So new students wanting to learn the powerful science of Kundalini Yoga, now have the opportunity via the Saturday Class.  In addition, the new class gives current students another option if any given Sunday is busy for them and it also gives those students who wish to expand their practice a second class to attend if they so desire.  This was exactly the composition of the new class.  There were new students, students who could not make it on Sunday and students who wished for more yoga.  I would like to thank all those who attended and made this class a success.

None of this would be taking shape, though, if I was afraid of failure.  As some of you know, I used to teach a popular Kundalini Yoga class in Jersey City and run the Zenmind Yoga & Meditation studio in Hoboken, before my wife became pregnant and we moved to Old Bridge to be as close as possible to my dear parents who live here.  This move has been a huge blessing for my family, all three generations are benefiting from the proximity, but, it also meant taking a break from my teaching days.  The last three years have brought us the joy of 2 magnificent sons and although I have continued my personal practice, it wasn’t till this spring that I felt I had the time to commit to teaching Kundalini Yoga classes publicly again.

Setting up a Yoga Studio and teaching Yoga & Meditation is, in my opinion, one of the most honorable professions one can embrace.  That being said, it is not necessarily easy to do.  Specially if you want to do it well and really make an impact in people’s lives.  In this article I don’t want to go into all the details on what goes on behind the scene to run a successful Yoga Center, but, what I do want to discuss is the risk factor involved in actually offering the classes.

So many doubts and fears can paralyze this process.  “Will anyone sign-up?”,  “Do I have enough time and energy?”,  “Will students like Kundalini Yoga?”,  “Should I do the class on a weekday instead?”,  “Will Yoga generate interest in Central New Jersey?”, “Will it be perfect?”  etc, etc.  Who knows!  We will find out and the only way to find out is by trying it.  You must act on your passions despite any doubts or insecurities that you have and that is what courage is.  To not try because of the fear of failing or the fear of making a mistake is the biggest mistake.  The future is unknown, there are no guarantees and the key to dealing with this truth is to embrace uncertainty.  Once you can do that you can take the plunge.  Otherwise you will never let go of the edge and never experience the current of life.  So open your heart, don’t worry about being perfect, don’t try to always play it safe, be adventurous and as Osho puts it in the title of his book, discover the “Joy of Living Dangerously”.