The effect of Yoga (asana) on our Mind and Body

I keep getting e-mails / feedback regularly from my visitors / readers seeking clarification on several issues which do come up as one progresses to the highest level of Yoga, the ‘Kundalini awakening’. I realized that most of them were somewhat confused as to the nexus between basic Yoga (Hatha Yoga) and Kundalini Yoga; they were treating both as the same which is not completely true. Hence, I thought of putting a hub together for addressing their concerns and mitigating their doubts.
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Conscious Breathing….Regulate Your Breath (Part-3)

Depending on the time (sunrise / sunset) you are practicing Pranayama, one of the two nostrils usually becomes dominant and it is not advisable to change the flow of breath at any time. Under no circumstances, breath should be forced. Never breathe through mouth and always proceed with the help of expert guidance. At the slightest sign of discomfort, reduce the duration of inhalation, exhalation or ‘breath retention’

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Breathing....The Right Way (Part-2)

The whole process of Pranayama focuses on ‘purification of channels’ and as such, it takes a long time to see the desired results. Each technique (explained below) should be practiced for a minimum period of six months except technique # 1 which may be practiced only for 2-4 weeks. Initial two (1 & 2) techniques prepare the body, especially the lungs and the nervous system, for techniques 3 and 4.The body might, in some cases, take more time to adjust to the advanced techniques as they involve breath retention for extended time period. The full benefits can only be seen by perfecting one level before going on to the next. Never even try to jump to the advanced techniques without attaining mastery over the basic ones.

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Breathing....The Right Way.

Breathing is the most vital process of the body as it affects the activities of each and every cell in our body, most importantly the brain cells. It is generally seen that most people breathe incorrectly, using only a small portion of their lung capacity. The breathing is not deep enough to pump in enough oxygen to the body cells as a result of which people, often, feel tired, disoriented and drained out. Irregular breathing disrupts the rhythms of brain and leads to mental block which results in disordered lifestyle, imbalanced personality, disease and negative thought process.

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My First Encounter with OSHO (philosophy)

I spent almost an hour with him but he did not have answers to even the simplest of my questions. Possibly he was sitting in front of me with ‘no mind’ of his own. Trust me, I had to leave his place, totally disappointed and dissatisfied. What kind of spiritual path was this when the travelers / followers / seekers did not even know where they were going to or where they had come from? They seemed to live in an absolute vacuum. Perhaps that was the concept of enlightenment perceived by OSHO. Whatever said and done, I could not relate to such an ideology. Creating emptiness, in and around oneself could, in no way, be construed as enlightenment. In my terms, ‘enlightenment’ means ‘knowing’ rather than ‘not knowing’. It means ‘awareness’ rather than ‘ignorance’. Perhaps it’s an escapist attitude to find bliss in ignorance.

Read full article about OSHO.

Spiritual Sex and Chakras! Want to know the nexus? (Part-9)

Speaking about the ancient times in Greece and the eastern world, there had been (probably still is) an age old tradition of a temple priestess helping the spiritual seekers with ceremonial sex. This method of transmitting and transforming sexual energy from one person to the other, was kept hidden from the eyes of common masses for a very long time as, the people would not have been able to perceive any spirituality aspect attached to the process and would have termed it as a basic ‘animal instinct’ or ‘lust’.

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How to cleanse Aura (Part-8)

Aura is a composite of electromagnetic impulses and as such has a natural tendency to attract and trap positive and negative vibrations, thereby affecting the body significantly. The negative vibrations act like a garbage to the body and may either cause physical ailments or even worse, the mental stress. The Aura, in such a case, looks dull, discolored and murky (explained inPart-7). Just like we don’t let the stinking garbage stay in the house for a long time, the Aura too needs to be cleansed of all the harmful negativity which gets accumulated in it, over a period of time. We already know that an Aura is a spiritual signature of a person, divulging the true picture of the inner self including any ailments or chronic problems on the physical and mental level.

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Heal yourself by consciously controlling your Aura (Part-7)

Two types of exercises, namely, meditation and concentration were performed and their results compared. It was found that both exercises had a very positive influence on human mind and body. They both increased the size of the aura and created a harmonious photonic field around the body. It was, however, found, that the concentration exercise was more effective, more consistent and lead to more coherent improvement of the electro-photonic glow than the meditation exercise.

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Energy from Chakras flows into your Aura (Part-6)

Aura signifies the energy field projecting out from the surface of a human body or an object. This projection can be seen as a colored outline surrounding the body and is also said to be a symbolic of soul vibrations, chakric emergence, or simply, a reflection of surrounding energy fields.

As we know, that it’s not just the interior but the exterior of the body as well which contains electromagnetic energies, these energy waves travel in and out of the body through Chakras into the Aura. Studies have proved that every part of the physical being to the smallest molecule or atom and in fact all that which we can perceive in third dimension, is a composite of electromagnetic energies. These energy waves emanating from the deeper levels of the body, in fact, carry signals / messages from inside the body to the outer world, in the shape of a shadowy outline termed as Aura; one just has to learn how to interpret and decode these messages.

READ HERE for more.

Prepare your body before awakening the Primal Energy (Part-5)

Make your body a healthy conduit for the ‘energy’ to rise
As mentioned in my preceding hub, it is important to have the Chakras opened (Part-3) before awakening the ‘Primal energy’ (Kundalini) as otherwise all the effort involved in kindling the fire (energy) would go waste. In case all the Chakras are not open, the serpentine energy would rise from the Root Chakra and on confronting any blocked Chakra on the way, would slither down back to its source without reaching the desired destination. There are many ways to awaken Kundalini ranging from, meditation, yoga, rigorous physical exercise, (supervised) breathing exercise, devotional practices, to Karma yoga (paying attention to one’s actions/ deeds). Apart from ensuring a free passage for the Energy to rise, it is imperative to prepare the body and mind for the electrifying effect which might be created in the process. Many beginners, in an attempt to fulfill their natural desire to have the Kundalini awakened, commit a serious error of initiating the spiritual process without creating enough buffers in their bodies to sustain the gyrating effect of the energy generated. If one is not ready, it may seem like putting too much of load on an electric circuit which does not have the capacity to hold that much power; the circuit would surely fuse in such cases. Hence, it is important to make the body a healthy, balanced and resilient vehicle in order to make it a stable conduit for channelizing energy. To ensure proper physical and mental health, it is necessary to maintain a healthy diet, regular exercise, frequent cleansing practices and proper breathing exercises

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Opening the Chakras (Part-3)

Awaken the Chakras

Remember not to force the Chakras to open, especially if they have been lying inactive for ages. It would create a lot of pressure on the soul and the mind which might even suffer a ‘psychic shock’. It would be like waking up someone from deep sleep and expecting him to dance in a full swing without giving him some time to attune his body to the sudden change from sub conscious to the conscious state. The body might pick up all kinds of energy around it and the consequent overload could cause total chaos and confusion for the doer of such meditative practice. So, the thumb rule is…..Work your way upward from the base and go slow.

READ HERE for opening procedure.

Why is it important to have Chakras open all the time? (part-2)

Chakras govern our instinct and intellect

As I mentioned in Part-1 that Chakras are energy centers which control the flow of energy in and out of the body. The Chakras located in the lower region of the body are mostly connected with instincts or basic human desires and those towards the top govern the higher mental faculties better known as ‘intellect’. It is essential to have all the seven Chakras open at all times in order to maintain a healthy physical and mental being. A blockage in any Chakra may result in (unexplained) weaknesses, deficiencies or chronic ailments in that part of the body in which the blocked Chakra exists. Hence, it’s extremely important to ensure that all Chakras remain open and if they appear to be blocked, the blockage should be removed without any delays.

Role of each Chakra

It's generally considered best to open the Chakras starting from the lower to upper region of the body. This means that the Root chakra should be the first step to start with and should be followed by the Sacral chakra, then Navel, Heart, Throat, Third Eye and finally Crown chakra.

1. The Root chakra is the foundation. When the Root chakra is open, you're able to feel mentally secure and stable. Having opened this chakra, you'll feel like having deep roots (firmly grounded) and no one can destabilize you. After all, most of the times, the insecurity is all in the mind and that needs to be cured.

2. Only when you feel secure, welcome and acceptable in your group or community, you are able to express feelings and sexuality appropriately, which happens to be the domain of Sacral Chakra. How comfortable you are with your sexuality and how expressive you are with your partner falls within the purview of Sacral Chakra.

READ HERE for more.

Chakras…their significance, the Indian way. (Part-1)

Chakras

The word ‘Chakra’ has its origin in Sanskrit language and means ‘wheel’. Although a human body is said to have over 80,000 chakras (minor and major), only seven are considered to be primary Chakras or ‘energy centers’. These chakras are located along the central vertical axis of our spine and open towards the front of the body like a blossom. These circular energy centers are constantly rotating, receiving and radiating energy; each one of them is connected with the spine by a narrow stem. Normally these chakras extend about four inches in all directions but as the spiritual awakening advances, these chakras extend further from the body, frequency vibrations increase and their corresponding colors become clearer and brighter.

I feel the best way to understand the functioning of these seven Chakras would be with the help of a video rather than a boring tutorial. I have uploaded a video which, beautifully and mesmerizingly, reveals the mystical world existing inside our own physical self.

Seven primary Chakras

1. Crown Chakra

2. Third eye chakra

3. Throat Chakra

4. Heart Chakra

5. Solar Plexus

6. Sacral and Spleen chakra

7. Root Chakra

ARE YOU AWAKE?

How do you know you are awake?

Are you awake? You don’t know that, until you come out of your dream; the dream looks as real as your waking life till the time you are in it. What is real and what is not? Welcome to the bizarre world of human mind!

Our brain is said to be the seat of intellect, learning, reasoning, thought process (subjective and objective), logic, will power and many other attributes which are mostly manifested on the conscious level; let’s not forget the unexplained mystical power which lies in the deeper layers of the sub-conscious mind and makes its presence felt in the form of intuition, visions, telepathy and paranormal behavior. Studies say that our brain retains images not only from our present lives but from our past lives as well, the snapshots of which sometimes get revealed to us in our dreams. Most of the times, we discard such dreams as meaningless, for the reason that the people and the locations we come across in our dreams, have (somehow) no nexus with our existing lives. A psychiatrist would probably relate it to our stressed and claustrophobic mind and would prescribe some stress buster exercises. How many of us do really know that our mind has the power to transcend the permissible limits of our consciousness and tread into the forbidden zone… our past life (or lives).

Are we born with a clean slate?

I always felt that the worst sarcasm of Nature was to strip off a human mind from the power of seeing the future and at the same time shutting the doors to all memories from the past lives; an ingenious way to hold a human mind in captivity of the present moment. Perhaps, that’s the way it was meant to be. Imagine how much chaos it would have led to, if we had retained all the memories from our past lives; we would have possibly lived as disconnected and confused souls if we had not been blessed with starting over with a ‘clean slate’. However, I am compelled to think sometimes, whether we are really given an opportunity to start with a clean slate, with no burden of past actions on our weary shoulders and no shadows of our misdeeds chasing us from our past. If that had been the case, then there would not have existed a word like ‘retribution’ or precisely, ‘Nature’s retribution’. Why do we say that we carry the burden of sins, committed by us in our past lives, until we compensate for them in our present lives? If that’s the way it is, then we are definitely not born with a clean slate. If our misdeeds are not wiped off from our ‘slate’ then, so are not our memories from the past. Seems logical!

Know your past, make your future better.

If nothing is lost in this universe, scientifically proven which is, then why do we shy away from the fact, that memories from the past exist and if we don’t discard them as meaningless, they could remind us of some unfinished task or some barbaric act of ours which might have been the cause of misery to others? Who knows getting acquainted with our buried past may open new doors for us which may eventually help us to get reunited with our Higher Self. Isn’t it worth? It might help us to learn from our past mistakes so that we could make our future better. So, friends if you ever had any such inkling in the past or if it’s still continuing, don’t discard it; use the power of your mind through meditation and open new vistas for your yearning and longing soul. Your search might just end. May be it’s time!