Whatever affects us affects others and whatever affects others affects us too.  David Sye has taken up a pressing cause for concern, that of peace and reconciliation between the people of Israel and Palestine.  Suffering can only cease when we change the way we think and feel about each other.  Violence is born out of a mind that is full of hatred.  The practice of ahimsa (non-violence) establishes in us an attitude of universal love.  We all want peace and the way to peace is peace itself.  In times of fundamental insecurity, we all need to learn to cultivate the spirit of the peaceful warrior and embody the quality of compassion.  Feelings of brotherhood and sisterhood become possible when love, balance, harmony, cooperation and inter-connectedness enter into our daily living. 

David Sye is strongly committed to developing the involvement of women in peace building initiatives.  He is hoping that yoga will enable these women to resolve their differences on fundamental issues, no longer seeing them as a source of contention and violence, but as a catalyst for transformation.  Yoga is empowering them to discover that they can make a difference in the peace process and that peace begins with each and every one of them.

When we can step beyond the illusion of aloneness, helplessness and separateness superimposed from the outside we become aware of our alikeness for “we are the same, we separate ourselves with the concept of culture” stressed David Sye.  He also told us how he never fails to be deeply moved at the sight of these women, who spontaneously find themselves hugging each other, weeping tears on each other’s shoulders after each session.  This makes all the hard work and danger he exposes himself to in a country at war entirely worthwhile.

Everything that David Sye does in the Middle East is entirely funded by him personally.  All his classes are entirely FREE and represent an entirely benevolent initiative with a passion to serve and share.  The suffering endured by the Palestinian and Israeli people is real and has being going on for much too long.  As we grow more compassionate towards all sentient beings, we cannot but wish for them to be free from whatever plight they are in but this wish is meaningless unless it is followed by individual and collective action for universal welfare.  “We must become the change we want to see” – Gandhi. The considerable benefits that Palestinian and Israeli women are experiencing through practicing yoga together have brought to the fore the absolute urgency of developing a yoga teacher training program in a part of the world that so desperately needs it.  Yogabeats’ first teacher training for Palestinians will be held at Reidman College in Israel in October 2007 and David Sye is now concentrating all his efforts at getting this very special project off the ground.  However, he cannot single-handedly fund this project and is appealing for monetary donations.  If you would like to make a positive difference in the world, please listen to his plea and donate whatever you can towards “Yogabeats conflict”.  For more information about this project or to make a contribution, please contact carol@yogabeats.com or david@yogabeats.com. 

Out beyond ideas of rightdoing
and wrongdoing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language,
even the phrase 'each other'
doesn't make any sense."
-Rumi

Pictures of David Sye with kind permission of Yogabeats website www.yogabeats.com