On April 12^th, 1861 our country engaged in Civil War. There was nothing civil about it. North vs. South spurred on by Lincoln’s election and made worse with the issue of slavery clearly divided us as a union - the separation in ideas on how to govern a land. There is nothing to make up for lives lost. Sometimes agreeing to disagree is the best way to find union and get along. Idealistic? Perhaps.

Someone asked me, how can you find yoga in war? It’s easy. When you are in it, you can’t see that in the end, there is always what we wanted in the beginning, kindness, mercy, compassion, surrender and finally, contemplation on how to do better next time.

Whether it’s a war between sides, countries or within ourselves, our collective intention is to practice with the presence of what already is – before, after and what lies within each battle: Mercy, Compassion, surrender, kindness and contemplation.

But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart. - Antoine de saint-exupéry All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. -Winston Churchill

As freely as the firmament embraces the world, or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, so mercy must encircle both friend and foe. - Friedrich Schiller

The brave love mercy and delight to save. - John Gay

Love, compassion and forgiveness…are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. - Dalai Lama

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. - Eric Hoffer

Compassion brings us to a stop and for a moment we rise above ourselves. - Mason Cooley

Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food. - Joseph Butler

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. - Dalai Lama

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion. - Simone de Beauvoir

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. - Albert Einstein

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling. - Blaise Pascal

Surrender does not diminish our power, it enhances it. -Sara Paddison

We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can / namely, surrender our will and fulfill (the divine) God's will in us. - St. Teresa of Avila

Surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace. - Bhagavad Gita

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up. ~Jesse Jackson

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. ~Author Unknown

“If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.” - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. ~Mark Twain

A kind word is like a spring day. – Russian proverb

Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how. ~Author Unknown

The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway. ~Henry Boye

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses. ~Chinese Proverb

Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns. ~Author Unknown

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ~Leo Buscaglia

Make it a practice to judge persons and things in the most favorable light at all times and under all circumstances. ~Saint Vincent de Paul

Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Open your heart - open it wide; someone is standing outside. ~Mary Engelbreit

Sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart. ~From the television show My So-Called Life

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

~William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, much later adapted to "So shines a good deed in a weary world" by David Seltzer for the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

It's down a rugged road you've come

Though you had every reason

You didn't come undone

Somehow you made it to the other side

You didn't suffer in vain

And you know tenderness comes from pain

It's amazing how you love

And love is kind and love can give

And love needs no gain

Only love, it's only love

It's only love that gets you through - Sade