Acupuncture

I love acupuncture and I have gone to Melina many, many times for wonderful, healing treatments. If you have never tried acupuncture before, I urge you to try it as it is healing and leaves you feeling very relaxed. Acupuncture is very effective for many ailments and well recognized by Western medicine. They even have acupuncturists on staff in major hospitals now. Melina is great, sensitive, gentle and is a fully licensed acupuncturist. She only uses disposable needles (NY State law !). Her office is in Manhattan. Give her a call for more information.

Melina Bilic, M.S.,LMT.,LAc.

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Healing Garden Acupuncture

Traditional Oriental Medicine

Lymphedema Management

347-448-1489

Yoga aiming for Olympic Competition?
There is an article today in the NYTimes about how the founders of Bikram Yoga are promoting international yoga competitions and their goal is to have yoga recognized as an Olympic sport. As you might guess, this is ruffling feathers in the yoga community. Yoga is reduced to the physical. Yoga is over commodified. It's all about money. It's all a competition.....
What do you think ? Read the article here : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/fashion/19fitness.html?em

There is one comment by a NYT reader that I like (I paraphrase) : " my chi can kick your karma's butt !"

Leave your comment on my blog -- I would love to read your thoughts!

The FIRST animal shelter in Iran

The Middle East does not really have a concept of pets or of treating animals with respect and compassion.

Some Middle Eastern taxi and limo drivers here in NYC refuse to take passengers with dogs because it is "against their religion". ... apparently, the Koran says something like that anyone who shows kindness to a dog will not go to heaven or that God won't come to a home which shelters a dog. And it was a source of great amusement to the Middle East when there was a newspaper photo of President Clinton giving his Labrador a kiss....

Anyway,

Fatemeh Motamedi in Iran has figured out that God made dogs too and they deserve kindness, love and respect. She opened the FIRST animal shelter in Iran with her own money. She provides shelter, food and veterinary care. Most Iranians dont understand what she is doing -- who would care about a dog ? So she gets little support from her community. I think Fatemeh's place in heaven is guaranteed.

check out Fatemeh's blog -- http://vafaanimalshelter.blogspot.com/

send a donation if you can. Adopt a dog if you can (yeah, I know -- it's far away -- but read Max's story at the bottom of the blog) . These dogs have had a rough life with little compassion shown to them at all. And there is just one woman in Iran trying to help them. So help Fatemeh continue to run her shelter... in any way you can.

Yoga changes everything....

Many of my students come to me because after they have been practicing a while, they notice that their lives are changing... the familiar becomes unfamiliar...and not always in the most comfortable way.

They notice that they don't enjoy their old hang outs as much, drinking the weekend away is not that much fun, they are looking at their friends differently... so then they decide to change everything !!! No more going out to parties, no more friends who smoke or eat meat, no more this no more that... now the only thing is to hang out with other yogis, go to India, seek out yoga teachers and wise Gurus and do "spiritual" stuff. They become official "seekers".

So they think if they do all this practice, go to satsang, go to kirtan, buy an OM bracelet, they will become more spiritual, more enlightened. And this can go on for a few months or for years before they get sick of it.

Then what? Then the student has to find the courage to stop seeking. The student hopefully reaches the realization that everything is within themselves. That yoga is all about recognizing yourself -- it's not about a guru, a $95 yoga mat, a sacred mountain. There comes a time when you have to surrender to yoga and to yourself. Then the student sees that chasing the externals is useless...then the student is no longer on the spiritual path, the student finally becomes the path.

Just do yoga.