What’s in a name?

Traditionally in Yoga when one meets their Guru and decides to dedicate their life to the spiritual path, they receive a new name as a part of this rebirth into the spiritual path. This new name serves as a calling to embody one's higher potentials and identify with divinity. Every time you're called by that name, it is a reminder of these higher potentials you're striving for.

My name, Ravi Chandra, means sun and moon. The sun and moon can symbolize a few different things in Yoga; most importantly they correspond to 1) the warm and cool energy currents that correlate with the outgoing and incoming breath, and 2) the life force energy residing in the heart and the consciousness or mind. Through consistent and dedicated practice, the energy currents are balanced, the mind becomes calm, and the consciousness drops to the heart where it unites with the soul, or Jiva, which is our source of energy and connection to everything.

For many years before meeting my Guru had a bit of an obsession with the theme of balance of opposites. It was a theme for my artwork and even inspired one of my own tattoos. So it seemed very fitting that my spiritual name embodies this principle. And it's all the more amazing and powerful now that I know the full significance of that theme!