Got Heart

God read my mind when Got Heart opened right across my village a few months back! For my weekly organic needs, I no longer drive to the Legaspi Sunday Market in Makati.

My family and I have been talking about creatively repurposing container vans for quite some time now and finally a group did it in Manila!


"The shop is made of a refurbished container van and recycled materials. The best part is that the shop serves as an outlet to showcase the products of local farmers, artists and indigenous communities. The profits are given back to them in the form of cash and projects so they reap the fruits of their hard work and get to grow their enterprise sustainably." -Got Heart website

It's so inspiring that these young entrepreneurial founders truly HAVE HEARTS! One Kabbalah concept I recently learned, "If you are busy taking care of others, the light will make sure to take care of you"!

Do you live in the area? Make sure to pop by often as they claim to have fresh produce everyday!

Got Heart
Along White Plains, Katipunan Ave. Quezon City

Website: www.gotheartfoundation.org
Email: care@gotheartfoundation.org Contact +63917-58HEART (43278)

FLOW Yoga and Detox Retreat at Cintai

Are you a mother feeling domestic stress? Or a burnt out workaholic? Take time to reconnect with your body, mind and nature. FLOW brings you a Yoga and Detox weekend at the Balinese-inspired sanctuary, Cintai Coritos Garden, Batangas on February 16-17. This is the first of the FLOW luxe retreat series focused on different paths to wellness.

Experience a refreshing getaway to jumpstart your journey to a healthier you. Practice rejuvinating and relaxing yoga asanas amidst the lush green surroundings and pranayama exercises with pure unpolluted air. Discover the benefits of un-cooking from the Intro to Raw Vegan Food class, drink age-defying green smoothies and enjoy hearty nourishing vegetarian meals. Learn personal detoxifying tips from the founders of FLOW and health advocates: Denise Bernardo, Monica Eleazar-Manzano and Noelle Hilario.

Package Rate: P6,880

Retreat Inclusions:

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2D/1N Shared Aircon Accommodation

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2 Yoga Sessions (Sunrise Vinyasa Yoga and Sunset Yin Yoga)

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Healthy vegetarian meals and snacks

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Intro to Raw Vegan Food and Green Smoothie Class

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DIY Detox Workshop: Oil Pulling, Energy Cleanse Tonic and more!

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Flow Shirt and Eco tote bag

To register for the retreat, log on to www.flowsurfyogasamba.com or email flowsurfyogasamba@gmail.com

Kabbalistic Lessons from Yehuda Berg

Last night the gates of heaven opened and shed me with light. I met Yehuda Berg up close! If you are not familiar with Kabbalah, you might be wondering, "Who is Yehuda Berg?" To me, he's a modern spiritual warrior :)

Giddy like a child beside Yehuda who signed my Pinchas Zohar.

"Yehuda Berg is the son of Rav and Karen Berg. As Co-Director of The Kabbalah Centre, he is part of a long lineage of kabbalistic masters. He is a bestselling author in the field of spirituality, has written more than 30 books on topics ranging from self-empowerment and depression, to relationships and the Bible. Two of his bestselling books, The Power of Kabbalah and The 72 Names of God, have been translated into 20 and 14 languages respectively, and he also created a transformational 23-day audio package, The Living Kabbalah System.

In 2009 the GQ Magazine Gentleman’s Fund honored him for being an Agent of Change in the field of education. Yehuda lectures internationally, delivering deep and complex kabbalistic concepts in a simplified way that is applicable to daily life. His daily emails and Facebook insights, known as “tune ups,” are read by over 250,000 fans daily. Yehuda Berg lives in Los Angeles with his wife and five children." (www.yehudaberg.com)

Yehuda met with the Philippine Kabbalah volunteers and organizing group backstage before giving the lecture. He basically gave us consciousness: placed the protective red string on students who needed them, signed our books & Zohars, he even hugged every single one of us! 

Kabbalah Philippines is a growing spiritual community!

To be in the same room as Yehuda was intense!  As a yoga practitioner & teacher, I am more attuned to the energy of people and places. I certainly felt we were in the presence of a true beacon of light. When he read from the Torah, I felt shivers in different nadis/ meridians and down my spine. 

Yehuda translated the Aramaic text, he spoke about how we all exist because our parents, grandparents, lineage paved the way and made sacrifices for us to be here. Now, it's up to us to use this opportunity in our current lives to succeed or.. fail. (At this point, many of the students started crying!)

What I felt at that moment was extreme GRATITUDE and LOVE for my parents & family. No matter what issues you have with your family, you are related in this lifetime for a reason. What lessons do they bring you?

My parents and younger sister, supportive souls who attended

These are more lessons from Yehuda's lecture which I tweeted live last night:

• Two ways to live life: everything is random, nothing makes sense OR what's in our life is for a reason. There is a lesson there. I go through phases of both. There are moments of doubt, questioning God for this and that...and of course those times where I just feel CERTAINTY and blessings in my life. The real challenge is finding PURPOSE amidst the chaos and darkness. Yehuda said it last night, God is always there...especially when you feel abandoned.
• Whatever you are going through, find the light in the situation. Here's the tough cookie to learn! It's so easy to feel victimized. A Kabbalistic tool is to be the CAUSE vs the EFFECT of any situation. Take control of your life by turning disasters upside down when you find the light/lessons each chapter of your life brings.
• Our life is a puzzle like the book- "choose your own adventure" I loved these books as a child and I thought this was a wonderful way to explain to us how God works in our lives. Too often we are blindsighted. God sees the bigger picture, and WE should too! 
• Until we learn the lessons we need to learn, we will repeat the same circumstances in our lives, over and over again across lifetimes. This is my most favorite lesson which I picked up from my previous readings on reincarnation by Dr. Brian Weiss and from "To Be Continued" written by Yehuda's mother, Karen Berg.

When I got home from the event, my husband asked if I had any alcohol because I was acting weird: either I was drunk or wired. I replied, "Yes, I'm high from Yehuda's Kabbalah water!" Yep, I'm a confessed spiritual groupie. I stole his half-full Kabbalah water bottle right when he left and drank from it. 

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I've been studying with Kabbalah Philippines since last year. Group meetings are once a week at ADB with Skype supervision from Sarah Weston, our London-based mentor. Sarah is the direct student of Yehuda Berg and his family. One of the perks of being an active student is getting to do on-on-one Skype sessions with Sarah.

Lightbearers: Sarah Weston and Yehuda Berg

A few more Kabbalistic concepts for you to chew on...

10 Principles of Kabbalah

1. Acquire spiritual wisdom.

2. Take full responsibility.

3. Know and challenge your ego.

4. Be energized by obstacles and see them as opportunities for growth.

5. Accept your imperfection and the imperfection of others.

6. Know your power and use it.

7. Never give up because it's never too late.

8. Share.

9. We are all one.

10. Leaving our comfort zone can create miracles.

Want to know more about Kabbalah? 
Log on to www.kabbalahphilippines.com for details on classes, events and books for sale. 
Level 1 classes start on January 31, 2013. 
Sign up and be prepared for real transformation in your life :)

Claire Madarang (who sat next to me!) of Rappler published a well written article today. Please read it here: http://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/19861-yehuda-berg-nothing-is-random

Sarah Powers in Manila

Beyond Yoga is thrilled to be bringing the founder of Insight Yoga to Manila this February! Sarah Powers has been an influential yoga and meditation teacher in the US since 1987. Her classes are a powerful weave of Yin Yoga poses (floor based poses to target the meridians of the body) with slow Yang poses that focus strongly on alignment from her Iyengar background.

"I think one of the main benefits (of yoga) is being more at home in our own skin. Whether we’re a large person, or very slight, and through the seasons of our lives- this body is our particular garden to take care of. And we start to have more respect and therefore more embodied dignity in the body. Rather than treating it like an object and comparing it to the ideal that we see in glamour magazines." -Sarah Powers

To know more about the upcoming weekend intensive, come join us for a free yin class by Dona Esteban on Jan 27 at Beyond Yoga Bonifacio High Street!

To register for Sarah Powers log on to http://www.igobeyondyoga.com/sarah-powers-workshop.html

Reincarnation

I've always been fascinated by reincarnation (even way before becoming immersed in yoga- which also believes in reincarnation). I remember my mom used to tell me when I was a toddler that we already knew each other in a past life, and I believed her. Somehow, I knew in the deepest core of my soul that this concept is true. 

In recent years, my interest in reincarnation/past lives is how I stumbled into my studies on Kabbalah. Two years ago, I was intrigued by the lectures of Gahl Sasson at the Asia Yoga Conference in Hong Kong. Gahl is a mystic who lectures on Kabbalah, Astrology & Psychology. The lecture that reeled me in was "The People You Were: Exploring Your Past Lifetimes Using Regression"

Read the description of this lecture below:

Ever feel like you were somebody else in a past lifetime? Have you ever visited a place for the first time, but felt at home and instinctually knew your way around? 

Ever have irrational fears or unexplained reactions to situations? Wonder where they might come from? Is death really the end? 

Discover how other cultures view death and the afterlife as we explore what happens to the soul after it leaves the body.

Gahl also led us through a past life regression and meditation, helping you:

*Gain access to former lives.

*Create a space for healing phobias, and removing blocks.

*Release physical and emotional pain.

*Experience time travel from within.

Travel through time as you access your past lives. 

So, Gahl introduced me to Dr. Brian Weiss and I remember buying all of Weiss' books on past life regression available in Hong Kong after that lecture. Pretty powerful stuff, made me cry buckets on the plane going home.

Since then, I know now that the physical body is merely the container of our immortal soul. When we die, our soul moves on to a new container (if we haven't finished what we came here to do in the first place). 

"The antimaterial particle within the material body passes from boyhood to youth to old age, leaves the old unworkable body and takes up another one." - AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

In essence, there is similarities with Rodolph Steiner's Anthroposophy. In Santi's Waldorf schools, it is taught to parents and teachers that these young souls/children, chose us parents even before coming to this world. With that knowledge, we already know that there IS a reason why they are our children and we are the parents. There are lessons to be learned specifically by us. I can't help but remember one of my yoga teachers, Mo-Ching Yip who says "My family, my karma". In yogic belief, this rings true as well. 

I'll never forget that moment my son was born and I gazed into his eyes, it's as if our souls already knew each other. I felt it. And I knew then that our relationship was special, we had this cosmic bond :)

So many things to be said about this topic but it's good that another enlightened soul is on her way to Manila to come and speak about her book on reincarnation! See details of the event below:

click to enlarge

Karen Berg talks about soul mate in her new book "To Be Continued... Reincarnation and the Purpose of our Lives."

Soul mates can take many forms. They can be parent and child, business partners, or even best of friends. Who in your life is your soul mate?

There has been changed to the talk. Yehuda Berg (the son of Karen Berg) will be speaking instead on Kabbalah, why Now?

January 15, 2013
SMX Convention Center
7PM

Limited complimentary seats available and option to upgrade to get the book for free!

Register now: http://eventregkpi.jimdo.com/purchase-seats-now/