As we forge forward into the new year, it is our sincerest wish for peace, love and bliss-- that you strive to reach your fullest potential in every moment and are content with all outcomes.  Many of us see the New Year as a time to wipe the slate clean and start anew.  Others see it as time running out on everything we wanted to, needed to, had to get to THIS YEAR.  As if the clock strikes 12 AM on January 1^st, the ball drops and along with it we’ve dropped the ball on all our unrealized goals and dreams.  It is with that in mind that we bring you this wish for samtosha (contentment).  Not to set a goal, put nothing into it and be okay with whatever happens – that’s complacency.  Rather, we wish for you to set your goals and intentions, do EVERYTHING in your power to make them happen and be okay with whatever happens, revel in the process, and if the end result isn’t what you expected, revel in that, too – that’s yoga. 

May I be filled with Loving Kindness.

May I be well.

May I be peaceful and at ease.

May I be happy.

 

Beyond its simplicity and the feeling it engenders in us, the beauty of this mantra from Jack Kornfield's A Path with Heart, is that it begins with the source, what we can most control in our lives - ourselves.  Before we set an intention for family, friends, loved ones, not loved ones and the world at large it we set a personal intention. 

If you want to see more loving kindness in the world,

Cultivate more loving kindness within yourself.

If you want to see more peace in the world,

Put an end to your internal wars.

If you want to see more freedom in the world,

Emancipate yourself.

And once you’ve got them – give them away every chance you get.  Make like that old shampoo commercial -- I had loving kindness within myself, so I shared it with two friends, and they developed loving kindness within themselves and they shared it with two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on…And just like that we’d have an epidemic of the most desired proportion on our hands.

 May I be filled with loving kindness, peace and freedom.

May you be filled with loving kindness, peace and freedom.

May the world be filled with loving kindness, peace and freedom.

 Namaste.