BY MICHELLE MORRA-CARLISLE — I am not tough. If a gang of men with sticks repeatedly pelted me with a rock-hard projectile you might find me on the ground in the fetal position, pleading with them to stop.

What I actually mean by that is that, unlike Sarah Palin, I am a real hockey mom. I live in Canada. And when I first saw my husband play goal and assume the iconic, fearless “bring it on” stance, I was in awe. As well-rounded as I consider myself to be, in that moment I saw that in my non-athletic development I had missed out on something important.

The fittest of the fit are sublimely aware that for the mind to be in optimal shape, so must the body, and vice versa. Our souls, too, are connected to flesh-and-blood bodies, which is why the Dalai Lama follows his morning yoga routine with a jog on the treadmill and why many Olympic athletes meditate.

Does a sluggish body yield a sluggish spirit? Does strength of body create strength of spirit? I suspect enlightenment does not happen when you’re going brain-dead on the couch watching any of the Real Housewives. Being both out of shape and enlightened seems possible for Buddha but, for most of us, scientists have established strong links between a sedentary lifestyle, obesity and depression.

Higher heart rate, higher plane

In yoga we learn to slow everything down and, eventually, reach a more peaceful and finely attuned state. If paying attention to our breathing is grounding, what about the physically purging experience of breathing to the max? Exercise can push a lazy heart back into some healthy exertion and pump much-needed oxygen through the blood. So it stands to reason that physical exhaustion from activities such as mountain biking, salsa dancing and rowing can transport us in spiritual ways—think breathless, sweaty sex (NOTE: Though vigorous exercise can be almost orgasmic, I’m not knocking the deeper, more yoga-like effects of the slow, patient approach).

Studies show that exercise can be as effective as certain prescription antidepressants. It improves the short-term memory of people with schizophrenia. It helps for various forms of depression, anxiety, seasonal affective disorder and, unlike medication, starts to work right away. Vigorous exercise offers an immediate mood boost and is often followed by longer-term relief in the form of an altogether brighter outlook on life.

Why aren’t we all doing it? Perhaps because it’s not always easy to convince Zerona-converts that running a marathon is more rapturous than lying on a fat-melting machine (who ever heard of a zerona high?). Or because it’s easier to watch someone claim to have an epiphany on Oprah than to work toward one’s own epiphany.

For a workout to be spiritual, the mind must be committed and willing. I’ve seen reality shows that feature recovering couch potatoes jogging on treadmills, bitching the whole time, with the sole purpose of shedding pounds. That’s like grunting and cursing at the vacuum cleaner while doing housework. Where’s the love? Workouts we love and take pride in work best.

Finding the perfect exercise match

My inexperience with team sports doesn’t mean I don’t work out. Over the years I have dabbled in aerobics, aquafit and lots of hiking and cross-country skiing. The pinnacle came during my brief, two-year stint as a runner. I went from being unable to run for five minutes to running for an hour (about 10-12k) and, yes, it was every bit as empowering, liberating, toning, and mood-boosting as people say.  Unfortunately, as a runner I was forever at the chiropractor’s for a wonky lower back, pelvis and hip. So I no longer run. And I currently live in a city where I am uninspired by the scenery, and where there are no woods or snow in sight to hike or ski. Almost daily I walk the dog and spend 30 minutes on a treadmill or stationary bike at the gym, but these workouts are rarely “spiritual” unless an enlightening song pops up on my iPod.

As you try new ways to get breathless, keep the following in mind:

10 Things that Make a Workout Spiritual

1.  Safe and healthy — Unlike bear-wrestling at a stampede, which burns calories but can get you eaten.

2.  Clears the mind — It’s hard to focus on problems of any kind when you’re consumed with catching your breath.

3.  Promotes a sense of achievement — Initial aches and pains aside, just doing it makes other things seem possible.

4.  Cheers you up — If the darkness doesn’t lift, try another form of exercise. It really should eventually lift.

5. Connection with nature — Besides the obvious connection with our own bodies, exercising near or in water, in the woods or on a mountain can be downright epiphanic.

6.  Connection with other people — If you’re inclined to exercise in a group.

7.  Connection with self — If you prefer a solitary workout.

8.  Creates emotional balance — With a regular and enjoyable fitness routine, extreme highs and lows are tempered.

9.  Makes you feel stronger physically — A strong body is an ideal host for the soul.

10. Makes you feel stronger spiritually — Like you can tackle and conquer anything.

As we evolved the ability to think in abstract ways, we also developed the ability to rationalize, to protect our sense of “self” by developing complex thought patterns that could shift the blame/responsibility to others.

Our sense of “self” and “place” are threatened by events, disappointments, failures. When our Ego can’t tolerate the threat, it calls upon the mechanisms of the lower brain — and attacks.

When confronted in the Book of Genesis, Adam said: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” More aggressively, when Cain’s sacrifice was rejected, he slew Abel rather than ask, “Why?”

Scapegoating the “other”

These mythological stories point to a very human truth: We generally do not like taking responsibility for our own situations, and so we seek a scapegoat to project our foibles on.

When James W. Von Brunn entered the Holocaust Museum and began shooting, he was, once again, trying to find a scapegoat for his own inability to make sense out of his own life. In 1981, during another time of financial crisis, he attempted to take the Federal Reserve Board hostage because interest rates were so high he couldn’t manage his finances. It wasn’t his fault.

The Federal Reserve, in his delusion, was an “international bankers’ conspiracy to rule all nations from one central seat of government.” And because they were under the control of Jews (he rationalized), they had driven up the rates to make it so difficult to be “white” in this country.

This is an extreme example of the tendency of the Ego to shift responsibility for life’s negative events to something outside of its control. “It’s not my fault!” When life becomes particularly unmanageable, the shift of responsibility becomes global, and turns into hate, either of a person who represents the problem, or of a whole group like “The Jews” or “The Illegal Immigrants.”

There is probably a consistent ratio between the amount of psychic pain we have experienced (painful childhoods, or intense adult stress), but haven’t processed beyond defending against feeling the pain (see “pain body” articles on this site), and the propensity to hate and seek scapegoats for our internal conflicts.

Rising tensions in times of crisis

Although there have been several strong examples of this shift in the news lately — the killing of Dr. George Tiller for performing late term abortions, and the Islamic convert who killed two Army officers outside a recruiting center. As despicable as these all are, they are really a direct symptom of human beings’ collective failure to evolve beyond ego-driven thought patterns. It continues to be easier to blame others than do the work of introspection or develop self-awareness.

Teaching self-awareness through meditation

The solution to these hate crimes isn’t the elimination of free speech, or even just the incarceration of radical advocates of hate. A long-term solution is to teach meditation in every school, every church, ideally, every place possible, including our prison system.  This would give everyone the tools they need to evolve human consciousness beyond the Ego.

This may sound idealistic,  but there is no other known way that is so effective in supporting the evolution of consciousness. Meditation and yoga have been proven to reduce stress and improve learning in schools. Vipassana Meditiation is taught in prisons in India.

Meditation literally allows us to shift the center of our reactive decision making from the ‘Reptilian Brain” and the ego-centered left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex to the more holistic right hemisphere. This is the evolution of consciousness, and, I believe, the solution to hate crimes.

(Burning cross image by arash_rk, via Flickr, CC 2.0)

David Rickey is an Episcopal priest, Soul’s Code co-founder and counselor in San Francisco who does a weekly ministry at a residence for the elderly in northern California. Follow David on Twitter.

GUEST COLUMN: JEFF ROBINSON — From July 2005 until approximately April 2006, I began a spiritual transformation that changed the course of my life in some amazing and often difficult ways, and which continues to this day.

After more than 20 years of seeking a spiritual path that made sense to me, a friend introduced me to one of the best selling books on spirituality ever written: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Yogananda-ji came to the U.S. in the 1920’s and stayed until the time of his death in 1952, introducing hundreds of thousands to the spiritual path of Kriya Yoga.   He is widely credited as being the driving force in bringing yoga to the west.

I couldn’t put the book down, and literally fell in love with both Yogananda and his teachings.

I asked my friend to bring me to the Assisi Institute (in honor of one of Yogananda’s heroes, St. Francis of Assisi) in Rochester, NY, where Yogananda’s followers gathered.

Almost immediately, I felt at home in a way that I never had before. Here, where the mystical teachings of the east and west are brought together, was a group of people that all experienced God the same way that I did. On December 19, 2005 I became initiated on the path of Kriya Yoga.

I spent the next nine months doing little more than meditating and spreading my love to any one who wanted it (and even some who didn’t). Eventually, I arrived at the point reached by most people with a spiritual experience, moving from the private to the social. I realized that I was supposed to take this new found peace and do some work in the world with it.

Job searching as a spiritual journey

The only problem was that I really only knew how to do one thing — helping people to find jobs. So I set about the task of taking the job search process I had created and shedding the light of spirit on it, to the extent that I was capable.

I’ve been in the career management field for over 20 years, during which time I developed a method of job seeking combining what I had learned from my years as a top-performing salesperson with the time-honored principles of networking and career development. And it worked.

I’ve helped literally thousands of people, from welfare recipient to CEO, in almost every industry, ranging from not-for-profit and education to corporate America. I aided my clients to find jobs they loved by showing them how to sell themselves as a product on the marketplace of employment.

And therein laid the problem.

I didn’t want to teach people how to sell anymore

Not that selling is a bad thing. In fact, the most successful salespeople are the ones that listen and truly put their customers first. Selling seems to connote persuasion, profit, and controlling the outcome, and if there was anything I had learned from my spiritual journey it was that we don’t control anything. In fact, the more we can get out of God’s way and surrender, the better off we are.

I no longer wanted to characterize people as a product or commodity to be bartered for the sole purpose of getting something in return. My spiritual awakening had shown me that each person is an unique expression within the kaleidoscope of divinity, where God herself could have a particular experience on the physical plane.

Indeed, my mystical study and daily meditation had taught me that we are not put here to learn or experience anything for only ourselves; we are here to serve the Divine through service to others.

That was then. Now, I would no longer talk about selling products and controlling outcomes and personal glory. My new job-finding methodology would be about surrender, service, and honoring the divinity that is within each of us. This was the genesis of the six core principles I call the Service Quest job search philosophy. My sincerest wish is that they inspire you to discover and be true to the unique expression of divinity within you.  Namaste.

Philosophies for a spirit-based job search

1. You were endowed by our creator with a certain set of innate abilities and beliefs that are yours alone. Nobody can take them away from you, but they are not yours to keep to yourself. They are given to you to share with others.

2. As you both embrace and remain true to those abilities and beliefs, the more fulfilled you will be and the more effectively you will perform your chosen personal, communal, and work duties.

3. There is an employer out there who values the abilities and beliefs that you embody and needs them to accomplish the goals of the organization. In a work setting, your abilities translate to what you can do, and your beliefs translate to how you do it.

4. The organization that values what you offer isn’t just going to show up in your life, you have to go out and find it. This is the quest — the responsibility that we each have to co-create our lives with our creator.

5. While on your quest to find the employer that values what you can do and how you do it, you are going to meet many people you won’t be able to help. This is not a rejection of you; it just means that this is not where the world needs you most at this time. Keep being yourself and keep looking.

6. The rewards we receive in this world, monetary or otherwise, are usually in direct proportion to the service we render to others. These rewards may not come at the time or place that we expect, but they will come nevertheless. This is one of God’s greatest laws.

Jeff Robinson is the founder of Career Quest and creator of the Service Quest approach to job seeking. For more information, visit Service Path.

Looking for work or helping someone who is?  Visit the Soul’s Code slideshow: Five Spiritual Ways to $urvive Lob Loss, for healing tips.

SOUL’S CODE — The currency of America’s highest-end celeb zine is, in a word, power. Vanity Fair’s entire franchise is to portray power as A) good looks, B) political status and C) financial bling. Now they’ve discovered D: power can show up, even in their dimension, as prowess of the spiritual kind.

Among Vanity Fair’s top 20 masters, BKS Iyengar we get. Approaching 90 years of age, dude completely invented the style of yoga practiced in America —  and learned at the feet of a yogi in Pune, India in 1937.

And we’ll give the magazine a free pass for spotlighting super-model Christy Turlington, in the image above, in their pantheon of adepts. She owns the yoga-wear brand, Nuala, studied religions and philosophy at NYU —  and is married to Ed Burns.

But Donna Karan? We’re (sincerely) sorry. The bright young things at VF are playing the age-old game of making an editorial stretch —  ’what famous person can we remotely attach to a fad for our shoot?

If you want to dive into the who’s who of spiritual teachers, here’s a highly idiosyncratic — but exhaustive —  online directory. A former disciple of the Baby Boomer guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, has been building this Zagat-like rating service for years.

But don’t let that put you off. The webmaster is an American ex-pat in Vancouver, B.C., and he lards the site with enough self-deprecating disclaimers to make it worth the price of admission. There’s about 1,500 entries, compared to Vanity Fair’s 20. An excerpt:

Gangaji F b1942
aka Toni Roberson,
Toni Varner
Gangaji
Media Gossip Sangha Gossip

“Be absolutely still. Recognize what is already present, what is already here. This recognition is the end of desire, the end of need of the ‘other.’ It is fulfillment itself.” After 18 years of search and meditation, met her master Papaji in 1990. Not so unusual any more in a field of mostly older men. Most prominent of Papaji franchise. Seems to have inspired many, but now dragged down by Eli’s problems.

GUEST COLUMN: HEATHER GREAVES — Yoga teaches us to journey inside and become an observer, showing us how to be relaxed yet alert.   Through yoga we practice the art of letting go.

The word YOGA can conjure images of twisted poses and unattainable contortions while standing on one’s head. Yet, whether the pose is simple or complex, the key to unlocking the secret of yoga lies in breathing.

How we breathe affects us on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. With practice, it is truly amazing that even when there is a challenge on one or more of these levels, the body itself continues to breathe quietly.

Recently, a friend shared that her adult daughter, while in intensive care, desperately tried to attract the nurse’s attention. The nurse arrived and inquired how she could help. The daughter replied, ‘I just want you to breathe with me.’

To be in touch with this vital physiological process is to increase one’s awareness of life and living. We can increase awareness not only for ourselves, but also for others. And at a crucial time, we can be there for another, breathing with them, calming their mind and body, with or without words.

The process of dying naturally involves letting go gradually and involuntarily. During full-body relaxation in yoga, called corpse pose, letting go is voluntary. Awareness of the environment and the body is withdrawn as consciousness is moved from the senses, to the sensations of the body, to the breath, and to the mind. There, in the mind, we may find fears, hopes, desires and regrets, and in time we learn to let these come and go. We remain undisturbed as we observe the mind.

And what is there to witness beyond the mind? Beyond the mind we experience resting in our own nature.

Yoga poses take out the tension in the body, massage internal organs, increase flexibility, develop strength and balance, as well as enhance the function of the systems in the body. When we bring an attitude of exploration to the poses — a “let’s see what’s there” attitude — we leave no room for tension caused by expectation and fear. Then we can enjoy yoga, as we learn the art of letting go.

Heather Greaves promotes healthy living, sharing yoga and meditation with groups and individuals. She is a certified yoga therapist and polarity therapist. Heather can be reached at info@yogatogo.com. Visit her site at Body Therapies: Yoga Training Inc.