How Do We Celebrate?

Father’s Day, International Yoga Day, and the Summer Solstice all take place on Sunday. Do we celebrate? 

The recent, senseless murders in South Carolina may have you questioning—it may feel like celebrating Sunday’s holiday lineup is irrelevant in light of such hate and violence. But being in a yoga class in examination of your deepest self, and maybe next to friends, or family, will give you opportunity to practice one of yoga’s most enduring, healing and universal principles: Ahimsa, or nonviolence, refers to not just the blatant violence that we do to one another, but to the more subtle internal tendencies to harming thoughts and actions that we live with, and struggle with. Ahimsa springs from self acceptance and love of true self, deep within the human heart. 

Yoga encourages us to meet our inner darkness with compassion and impartiality, so that it can be transformed without being acted upon. 

We practice how to meet our inner violence nonviolently and how to express our negativity without hurting anyone, including ourselves. When we can discharge negative energy with positive intention to transcend seeds of violence within ourselves, we contribute to spreading peace in the world.

Practicing ahimsa through summer solstice allows us to shine a light into our own minds and hearts and dispel pain that might transform to violence, in thoughts about ourselves or out in the world. So in celebration of Ahimsa, and recognition of the Solstice, Father’s Day, and International Day of Yoga, UVY invites you to practice Ahimsa this weekend. On the mat, intend to practice non violence in action by practicing poses with grace and without force. Intend to respect and love your body’s limitations. Have the intention to practice non violence in your mind by observing: thoughts will come and go; it is only by holding onto them and repeating them over and over that they become the source of violence. 

Let your day of celebration illuminate Ahimsa from your deepest wells of love and compassion.