By David Gelfand

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Whether you’re in class, getting onto your yoga mat, or just getting home from work, it’s not uncommon to overhear someone talking about “getting grounded”.

In practice, grounding is a mechanism seen on three levels. It’s 1) a physical connection to the earth beneath you, 2) a shift in mental focus, allowing you to center your thoughts, and 3) whatever else brings your mind and body to ease in the here and now.

Grounding yourself is a mechanism by which you’re able to stabilize your energies, center your mind, and focus on the moment. As a result, you’re able to take a deep breath, step back, and focus on you for that very moment – no matter the time and place.

“Words fail to express the total value of yoga. It has to be experienced.” – B.K.S. Iyenger

A ballad with eternal music and perennial flow, yoga is an art form which requires commitment to the self, for the self & through the self. Practicing yoga regularly requires dedication, inclination and aptitude. It is an experience to be lived and felt.

But yoga is never love at first sight or in this case in the first class. Just like a relationship, it needs regularity, communication, patience and loyalty. From third or fourth class, it would grow on you and after 10th class, yoga will consume you. A committed relationship is what I would say, starts to build. However, in order to reach to the 10th class, we have to start with the first.

Here is a list of 8 asanas (body postures) for complete beginners to ignite the yogic passion –

1) Palm tree pose

Thou art I. Thou art I. Thou art I.
 
Is there anything more you, the so-called you, has to know?
 
It isn’t that everything else is a waste of time, not at all. Everything is for something. At the same time, everyone is gearing, whether near or far, to come to the realization that thou art I. This is the Big Realization.
 
Naturally, I am not talking about your saying these words and intellectualizing around them. I mean much more than the thought of the words. I mean the Reality where, suddenly, or slowly, you melt into the blessedness of Me. You stay in your body, and you do not leave it. You still carry it around, and you take care of your daily affairs, yet at the same time, instead of feeling separate from Me, you have separated from your body and all the identity that goes along with it. You are in your body and you know you are, and as you live life in your body, you express Me, Myself, and I. And that’s it.
 
In your own Reality, you have risen to My Essence. You become, as it were, I in all My neutrality and glory. You see as I see. You hear as I hear. You are out of the entrapment of ordinary life in the world. You still live in the world yet you no longer hook into that singular identity. You are merged with Oneness. Oneness has emerged from your Being. No longer can you hold out. You don’t have to wait to leave your body. You walk right into Me, as it were. The little you disappears. Bye bye, little you.
 

What would happen if the Federal Reserve was shut down permanently?  That is a question that CNBC asked recently, but unfortunately most Americans don’t really think about the Fed much. Most Americans are content with believing that the Federal Reserve is just another stuffy government agency that sets our interest rates and that is watching out for the best interests of the American people.  But that is not the case at all.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel that has been designed to systematically destroy the value of our currency, drain the wealth of the American public and enslave the federal government to perpetually expanding debt.  During this election year, the economy is the number one issue that voters are concerned about. But instead of endlessly blaming both political parties, the truth is that most of the blame should be placed at the feet of the Federal Reserve.

“The sacred rights of mankind, are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records.  They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” ~ Alexander Hamilton

Mendocino County, in the pristine northern lands of California, where the magnificent ancient coastal Redwood trees meet the inland California Oaks, has voted itself into the constitution writing (righting) business.

Yesterday, by a significant margin, they became the first county in California, and only the second county in the country to pass into law a very powerful local ordinance that declares local self-governing rights in their communities over state and federal jurisdiction. Over 67% of the votes cast were in favor of the measure.

The ordinance provides for waters free from toxic trespass; preemptively bans all fracking activities countywide with heavy fines and penalties for violation of the ordinance; and establishes a Community Bill of Rights to, for, and by the residents of Mendocino County while checking corporate powers as well.