On Friday night, we got a babysitter, to go to Caru's farewell yoga party.
I did not know what to expect, Emma told me Caru was off to India to the mountains to continue his practice in the Himalayas. He invited some of his students to a farewell unlike all others. We arrived at the hall, a church, next to govindas not knowing what to expect. The space was packed with about 30 yogis on their mats all not knowing exactly what was about to unfold.
Caru opened the class in usually style with lung-opening pranayama and nauli competition. Then a 1.5 hour moving yoga dance covering most of the greatest hits of yoga asana. Then we were asked to form a rather large circle with around a single yoga mat. Caru told us how yoga was a devotion to the Divine and we were all informed that we were to demonstrate a yoga pose as out bhakti yoga. It was humbling to see everyone do their little yoga pose with 30 people fixed on their every breadth. It was wonderful. After, Caru went in turn and gave praise to everyone in the room.
The evening concluded with the lights being turned off and a hoola hoop performance to dance music.
We will all miss Caru and hope for his rapid return to Sydney.

I was at a birthday party with my daughter today and had a conversation, with a parent about the meaning of yoga. It was a repeat of a conversation I had had with people a few days earlier. The question was basically, what do you think about the recent popularity of yoga. About the famous people getting into yoga and the spillover into the greater community.
Is Yoga an exercise or a religion or something else?
I think that people just need to practice consistently to discover what yoga is. It doesn't matter what 'style' or form of yoga, just as long as people live with awareness of what is happening around them. Focusing on the breath and the movements. I wonder what other people think? I answered a few questions from someone who was writing an article here.

I am getting word that there is lots of happenings in the yoga world to bring the community together! I just got an email from a friend telling me about The Global
Mala Project it sounds great, along with world yoga day. There seems to be a movement happening to bring yoga from something that is done in private into an activity that united the people. Kind of a like a team sport where everyone is aiming to win! Would be good to hear about any other happenings, if you know of something, let it be heard on the message board.