A Special Message from Light on Light by Karuna, Host Editor, Light on Light Magazine

by Karuna

It’s such a pleasure to be sharing with you—from Light on Light magazine—in our annual International Yoga Day commemorative issue for 2022. Along with sharing this content about yoga around the world from our colleagues at the International Day of Yoga Committee at the United Nations (the UNIDY), we have also joined them recently in a VoiceAmerica Special broadcast in association the Evolutionary Leaders Circle. On their VoiceAmerica Series “Humanity’s Moment of Choice” we’ve presented “Choosing to Serve.” The Special is co-hosted by UNIDY Chair Denise Scotto, Esq. and features our longtime beloved friend and yoga colleague Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati of the renowned Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, India. Visited by thousands annually, Parmarth is a true spiritual haven, lying on the holy banks of the Mother Ganga, in the lap of the grand Himalayas.

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati Sadhviji is Director of the world-renowned International Yoga Festival, which brings thousands together from all over the world in celebration of unity and yoga. And she is a recent recipient of President Joe Biden’s Presidential Citation for Lifetime Achievement and Service. In this inspiring broadcast we speak with Sadhviji about the implicit, and inspiring, connection between Awakened Consciousness and the call to deep and urgent service today—to all things and beings on this beautiful planet that we all share.

The amazing breadth of world service that Sadhviji’s work displays is iconic of this calling to serve and our discussion with Sadhviji, and her beloved Guru Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati, is an inspiring broadcast.

Our Collective Voyage These Last Three Years

The other wonderful opportunity within Light on Light magazine’s message for this special issue is to share about the important and inspiring collaborative work between Yoga communities worldwide and the UNIDY commitee.

With the global pandemic in 2020-2021 the work of global yoga communities has become exceedingly important. It remains so in 2022 and as we head into 2023 as the world waits to see if it actually can fully emerge from this unprecedented challenge. Last year the UNIDY’s official message Yoga Day included these words, which ring just as true today, as they did then:

“With the pandemic the core UNITY message of Yoga and its unparalleled resources for healing and well-being are more important than ever.

Spiritual uplifting that nurtures both body and soul is key, and the Wisdom Schools of Yoga provide major and truly effective rest, respite, rebuilding and rebirth.”

These are indeed challenging times and the message of Yoga—and Yoga spirituality and cosmology—one of Oneness and well-being is eminently important at this time.

So, I want to take this opportunity to share core reflections from this year’s Yoga Day and Yoga itself. Our 2020 and 2021 editions were special because of, first, the sudden and unexpected trauma of COVID, the challenges of lockdowns, and then the long healing and recovery period for so many people around the world. The period was also filled with political and social unrest and turmoil around the world—of which we are all aware.

Thus, the world’s Yoga communities not only had Yoga Day to observe but herculean challenges regarding stress and traumas to address. With myriad illnesses, and millions of deaths worldwide, attention to healing grief and offering reawakening and rebirth became paramount across the spiritual community.

Our programs with UNIDY during this challenging period have included essential practices for Healing Grief and for Rebirth and Awakening. The theme for Yoga Day’s 2021 celebrations was “Yoga Wisdom for Healing and Peace.” In addition, the program was companioned by a presentation from the UNIDY committee entitled: “Building a Culture of Inclusivity”. The two programs combined the implicit messages of Yoga and global community. I’ve included live links to these inspiring programs in my Endnotes.

The UNIDY committee program began with these words:

“All beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. We are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood.

While these words are enshrined in the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they are cornerstones of Yogic philosophy to live by each day. When we respect life, ourselves, each other and our natural world, we open our hearts to our shared humanity and the expansion of connection, unity, respect, solidarity, compassion and peace. This can lead to ending our own behaviors as well as dismantling institutions that perpetuate intolerance, inequality, discrimination and violence.

Emphasizing spiritual values in this way uplifts the UN’s crucial work and the actions of all those dedicated to creating a better world for humanity and our Earth. Recent events have made it clear that no country, no culture can exist on its own, and it is through our unified efforts, by joining together, that we are able to meet pressing needs and provide assistance that affects people in their daily lives.

With the pandemic the core UNITY message of Yoga and its unparalleled resources for healing and well-being have been more important than ever.

Spiritual uplifting that nurtures both body and soul is key, and the Wisdom Schools of Yoga provide major and truly effective rest, respite, rebuilding and rebirth.”

We Need a Global Rebirthing

Globally, Yoga in the modern era has come a long way. Almost everyone is familiar with Yoga today. With Yoga’s prodigious presence in global popular culture, and deep roots in the heritages of some of the world’s greatest Wisdom Traditions, its “tried and true” methods for bringing well-being to body and mind are now employed all around the world. This is quite a change from when, in earlier centuries, Yoga was well known in only a few of our world’s many cultures. How lucky we are today!

As recognition of the benefits of Yoga’s physical health and meditative components has swept the world, it is no surprise that, in 2014, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed, “The International Day of Yoga,” which has been celebrated annually on June 21st ever since. The declaration of The International Day of Yoga provided a unique opportunity to also expand global recognition of the activities of Yoga communities around the world that, everyday, serve critical health and well-being needs of millions of men and women, and especially of children, elders, and the disenfranchised and marginalized.

The Committee, comprised of members from multiple service organizations from around the world, plays the dual role of not only promulgating the benefits of Yoga itself but coordinating, and making the rest of the world aware of, the multiple human services that Yoga communities provide all around the world. These include services in clean water, sanitation, health care, safe and prosperous agriculture, education, and much more that would otherwise simply not be available. And why? Because these are the basic values of Yoga itself—love, caring, mutuality, compassion and well-being. Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati speaks inspiringly of all of this in the discussion hosted with her by me and Denise at VoiceAmerica which we are so happy to share with you this year.

You can read more about the UN’s Yoga Day Anniversary, and some of these efforts in our beautifully illustrated Light on Light e-magazines for the 2020 International Day of Yoga, its companion volumes for 2018-2019, and, for the 2020 International Day of Peace, the special issue entitled “Our Moment of Choice,” click here to read online 24/7 via ISSUU.

Onward Beloveds-- Together!

Brothers and sisters in the Oneness of All, let’s choose the future we know is possible from our deepest senses of love and caring. These are the heart of all our world’s revered Wisdom Traditions and certainly the central message of Yoga. As I have recently said, both on line and in my forthcoming book on Yoga and Awakening from Light on Light Press:

In every crisis there is a rebirthing. In every crisis there is an opportunity. But it often requires—in us-- a new permission, a new permission inside ourselves, a new permission that assures us “you’re healthy”, “you can do this”, “you can trust this”, “this is not something you would have designed for yourself but it was apparently designed for you.

So, there is a hidden grace in every rebuilding process. From the lessons we learn from each rebuilding, each rebirthing, we come to learn that our life experience on this planet is really about rebuilding everything.”

Let’s move forward together with the assurance of Shri Aurobindo’s companion The Mother:

There are people who love adventure. It is these I call, and I tell them this: “I invite you to the great adventure.”

It is not a question of repeating spiritually what others have done before us, for our adventure begins beyond that. It is a question of a new creation, entirely new, with all the unforeseen events, the risks, the hazards it entails—a real adventure, whose goal is certain victory, but the road to which is unknown and must be traced out step by step in the unexplored. Something that has never been in this present universe and that will never be again in the same way. If that interests you... well, let us embark.

Karuna is the Host Editor of Light on Light magazine (lightonlight.us), a host for The Convergence on VoiceAmerica and founder of Light on Kundalini.com. She has been involved with United Nations event programming for numerous years, nationally and internationally, for both the

International Day of Yoga and Sustainable Living and Trauma Recovery themes. In recent years she has joined with Denise Scotto of International Day of Yoga Committee at the UN and other leaders like Deepak Chopra and Ken Wilber in hosting annual Yoga Day events. Currently Karuna has on-line programming, much of it free, at both Humanity’s Stream (humanitysteam.org/stream) and Sacred Stories (courses.sacredstories.com)