Yoga Life Book

Yandara Yoga Institute

AN INTRODUCTION TO YOGA LIFE

Yoga Sutra 1.1: Now, after having done prior preparation through life and other practices, the study and practice of Yoga begins.

Yoga is a system of integral education, educa­tion not only of the body and the mind or the intel­lect, but also of the inner spirit. Yoga is a science perfected by ancient seers of India, not of India-merely, but of humanity as a whole. It is an exact science. It is a perfect, practical system of self-culture.

Yoga brings in perfection, peace, and lasting happiness.  You can have calmness of mind by the practice of Yoga.  You can have increased energy, vitality, longevity, and a high standard of health.  Yoga will infuse in you new strength, confidence, and self-reliance.  Yoga brings your emotions under control.  Yoga discipline gives poise, tranquility and rebuilds one’s life. 

Yoga is an aid to the practice of the basic spiritual truths in all religions.  To be a Yogi means to abide continuously in Divine Love and to live at peace with all.  Yoga is union with Divine Love.  Yoga is union with all.  Divine Love dwells in all.

Bliss Divine, Swami Sivananda

For the past few decades, we have been trying in all kinds of ways to liberate ourselves simultaneously from our frenetic materialism and our tired religious traditions.

We are still looking for the same thing: how to integrate the experience of life in western society with a deeper consciousness that would bring us bliss and reconcile us with our emotional and sensory natures.

We want a path that would not be opposed to our life; a life that would not be opposed to our path.  In short, we want a harmonious integration of the spiritual with the material along an accessible path, one not too estranged from the common culture. We want to attain plentitude without denying life’s marvelous effervescence; we want a light and moving joy that would bring us to a larger, more all-encompassing experience of reality.

If we look around, we can see those people who throw themselves into a hedonistic search for pleasure.  They try to live out their passions, and sometimes they succeed. They frantically attach themselves to the material world and end up in a state of chronic dissatisfaction, which pushes them to undertake a more and more neurotic quest.  These people are often egoistic; they leave a trail of destruction in their wake.

In opposition to them we find the people who are fascinated by the spiritual search and whose aim is to purify themselves of desires and passions by trying to reduce the impact these have on their daily lives. They are said to be wise of on the path of wisdom.  They proudly claim to be of a spiritual school.  In observing them we sometimes notice, along with their austerity, signs of coldness and hardness of heart and body; signs of a certain lack of spontaneity. A halo of fear encircles their whole being.  They seem to have submitted themselves to overly strong tensions; their virtuousness seems a little artificial.  Their tolerance has limits, they are often slightly fanatical – indeed, everything about them leads us to believe that their balance is precarious.  It would take just one lovely temptation, it seems, to tip them into the neurotic quest for pleasure that they condemn in others.

Our cultural and religious heritage seems to tell us that we must choose: the spiritual against the body or the body against the spiritual. 

It is rare that either the hedonistic quest or the spiritual quest, with its rejection of the body, brings us happiness, harmony, or joy.

So are we condemned to oscillate unceasingly between these two paths?  In just about every person I meet there is a deep intuitive knowledge that a third path does indeed exist.  We have suffered too much from fanaticism, violence, and exclusion; we have progressively opened ourselves to the world and its diversity.  What men and women seek today is a path that reintegrates these opposites with genuine love and acceptance of all the richness that each human being carries within, a way of total love, which leads to the freedom to be.

Daniel Odier

SUMMARY

Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga from the Yoga Sutras

1. Yama- Guidelines

          1. Ahimsa- non-harming, kindness to all

          2. Satya- truthfulness - the truth of who we are.

          3. Asteya- Living for others not taking from others. Seva – Service.

        4.  Brahmacharya- By remembering the highest energy or force of reality, that energy is then not dissipated. As it is not dissipated, thus we gain strength, vigor, vitality, and courage.

          5. Aparigraha- not clutching - trusting that all your needs will be met.

2.  Niyama- Observance

          1. Saucha- purity

          2. Santosha- contentment

          3. Tapah- practice

          4. Svadhyaya- self-study

          5. Ishvara pranidhana- devotion, love.

3.  Asana- posture

4.  Pranayama- breath control

5.  Pratyahara- withdrawal from thoughts

6.  Dharana- attention to the present moment

7.  Dhyana- meditative absorption

8.  Samadhi- pure consciousness

1. Meditation

2. Yoga (Asana) Practice, Pranayama, practices related to the Body.

3. Satsang 

            A. Group study of inspiring writings: yoga sutras of Patanjalis and other yoga     texts.

            B. Music - Chanting, Bhajans, and Kirtan:  Listening to and singing bhajans allows us to access our feelings and places of inspiration within ourselves.

            C. Group meditation.

4. Satya – Truthfulness - Our true selves

5. Seva - Selfless Service - Karma yoga - Ahimsa

6. Bhakti Yoga – Love - Devotion

7. Nature

1. MEDITATION

Sutra 1.2  Yoga happens when there is stilling (in the sense of continual and vigilant watchfulness) of the movement of thought - without which there is no movement.

Sutra 1.3. Then the Seer abides in Itself, resting in its own True Nature, which is called Self-realization.

Sutra 1.4. At other times, when one is not in Self-realization, the Seer appears to take on the form of the modifications of the mind field, taking on the identity of those thought patterns.

Sutra 1.12. These thought patterns are mastered regulated, coordinated, controlled, stilled, quieted) through practice and non-attachment.

Sutra 1.14. This practice becomes well-grounded when continued with reverent devotion and without interruption over a long period of time.

Sutra 1.41 When the modifications of mind have become weakened, the mind becomes like a transparent crystal, and thus can easily take on the qualities of whatever object observed, whether that object be the observer, the means of observing, or an object observed, in a process of engrossment called samapatti.

THE POWER OF NOW: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

"You are not just a meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between life and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and ultimate annihilation. Underneath your outer form, you are connected with something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be spoken of - yet I am speaking of it now. I am speaking of it now not to give you something to believe in but to show you how you can know it for yourself." 

AN INTERVIEW WITH ECKHART TOLLE

The essence, the very foundation, of the teaching is that a different state of consciousness is possible for humans. The state of consciousness that is considered normal and that has been running human history for thousands of years is not the only possible state of consciousness. It’s also not the most advanced state possible for humans.
It’s nothing new. All the great teachings and teachers have pointed to the fact, since the normal state of consciousness is a state that is extremely deficient, a state that in the ancient teachings has been called suffering. The Buddha called it suffering, Jesus called it a state of sin and illusion, and the Hindus call it a state of illusion.

The second part of the teaching is that it’s possible to enter that state now. Not only is it possible to enter it now, but the only time when you can enter that state of consciousness is in the Now; not needing the future in order to arrive at a projected state of consciousness, but realizing that new state of consciousness one that is free of time.
The main characteristic of the old state of consciousness is that it is dominated by past and future, in other words by time. If you observe the workings of your mind you will see that you’re almost never in the present moment. The mind is always engaged in projecting a future, thinking about the future, trying to get to the future or reviving the past.

The old state of consciousness is also a state of identification with thought processes. Now what does that mean? To be identified means to derive your sense of self, of who you are from thought movements, to be completely trapped in the mental noise, to have your identity in the mental noise.
Then your whole sense of self is derived from thought, which means an image forms in the head of "who I am," of "that’s me," and that image is always ill at ease, even in the people who look very confident.

In order to feel the present moment, I have to find a way to feel what I haven’t been feeling. I have to get beyond the pretense or the shield that’s over my heart, to somehow get through that to even get to the place of thinking about it.  The moment you say yes to what is you’re no longer resisting life, because life is always now.

So, how can one drop into the Now?
Whenever you are observing what your mind emotions are doing, witnessing what is going on inside you, the state of presence is already arising. You can watch all of this, how noisy your mind is. When you’re suddenly aware of it, that ability to watch means you’ve dropped out of the time-bound state. Something has arisen that is very different. I call it the state of presence.
So, again, one could almost say there is no how. That state of consciousness, which I call the state of presence, being fully present in the Now, is the state of high alertness. Some people have experienced it in certain situations of great danger accidentally. That can be good if one remembers being in a state of intense aliveness where there was also absence of thinking and of mental noise, just a state of intense alert presence.
People who climb mountains or engage in other dangerous activities love that state. It’s the only time when they can be in that state. If they were in past or future climbing a steep wall they wouldn’t survive for very long. So, in some situations you’re forced into a state of presence and it’s so alive and fulfilling that the old state becomes very unsatisfying.

People keep wanting to go back and have more experiences so they can be in that state.
Yes, but it’s very limiting if the only place where you can be in that state is where you engage in dangerous activities. Ultimately the risk is very high that something will happen and you will drop off the mountain.
That state of consciousness that I call presence, the good news is that state is actually arising now almost by itself in many humans. So it’s not so much that we need to bring it about, "How can I make it happen?" We can’t. Rather it’s being open for it so it can happen with greater ease.

So hardly any of us are going to have some flashing moment of realization.
Some do, but that’s not necessary. Gradually a state arising that is inner stillness rather than noise, a state when mind activity becomes secondary. All the mental noise no longer has the power to grab you and to draw your attention in so completely that you’re totally identified with it. You begin to be able to see thinking as just thinking, not such a big deal, and you realize that all the problems that you and most humans are burdened with are mental noise.
There’s no reality to any problem. I’m not saying that challenges don’t exist in life. Challenges come, but the only way they can exist is in the Now and that’s the only place where you can face the challenge by taking action in the Now or surrendering to what is. In either case it’s not a problem.
You can verify this for yourself by asking, "What problem do I have at this moment?" When you ask that question the mind becomes still and you realize this moment is actually fine, because most moments are fine. Even when they don’t look fine on the surface, if you become still enough the present moment always has a deep goodness to it underneath the external appearance of what’s happening in it because the very power of your being is inseparable from what I call the Now.
Ultimately the Now is the power of your consciousness prior to thought, prior to forms arising out of it.

What you’re saying would sound quite familiar to someone studying Buddhist Vipassana meditation techniques, using the practice of watching the breath and just noticing what arises. Are you bringing a message that’s akin to that or is it different from what one would experience in practicing that technique?

The essence of the Buddha’s message was that, also. Meditation methods are aimed also at bringing about the state of presence, although he never used those words.

The whole of nature, the beauty of the flower, unfolds in complete silence.
Then your whole life can be an expression of no longer being Little Me trying to make it, trying to survive or succeed, always trying, trying, trying. Instead you become an expression of that consciousness, the very intelligence that runs the universe, realizing that you’re far greater than you could ever have imagined coming from the Little Me trying to become a Big Me.
That’s the state of just inhabiting the body. That becomes an anchor for staying present. It’s also the entry point into that state of beautiful inner stillness where the mental noise subsides and you’re then highly conscious with out noise. The amazing thing then is that intelligence operates noiselessly.
Humans think that intelligence is associated with thinking. Thinking is just a tiny aspect of intelligence, but most intelligence, the whole of nature, the trees, grow in complete silence. The embryo in the womb grows silently. It doesn’t make a noise. The whole of nature, the beauty of the flower, unfolds in complete silence.
The galaxies exist in total silence and stillness and yet there’s incredible activity there, so they’re all expressions of intelligence that is at work silently. It’s only in humans that intelligence, in its limited expression as the human mind, is very noisy. The far greater intelligence that is at work within yourself operates in silence. That is the state of presence which is inseparable from inner stillness.
That becomes your dwelling place, your home. You can still think when it’s needed. Thought will arise, but it will be in the service of that deeper field of stillness, of being, no longer self-serving thought. There’s no effort, no trying to make it happen. That would be the opposite of it. It’s simply being open for it to happen because it wants to happen.
From and interview with Eckhart Tolle by Michael Bertrand

Adapted from: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

THE WISE GUIDE

Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the mind, busy, demanding, calculating; the other is the heart, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to. As you listen more and more, and integrate your heart into your life, your inner voice, your innate wisdom of discernment, what we call in Buddhism "discriminating awareness guided by the heart," is awakened and strengthened, and you start to begin to distinguish between its guidance and the various clamorous and enthralling voices of mind. The memory of your real nature, with all its splendor and confidence, begins to return to you.

   You will find, in fact, that you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide. Because he or she knows you through and through, since he or she is you, your guide can help you, with increasing clarity and humor, negotiate all the difficulties of your thoughts and emotions. Your guide can also be a con­tinual, joyful, tender, sometimes teasing presence, who knows always what is best for you and will help you find more and more ways out of your obsession with your habitual responses and confused emotions. As the voice of your heart awareness grows stronger and clearer, you will start to distin­guish between its truth and the various deceptions of the mind, and you will be able to listen to it with discernment and confidence.

The more often you listen to this wise guide, the more eas­ily you will be able to change your negative moods yourself, see through them, and even laugh at them for the absurd dramas and illusions that they are. Gradually you will find yourself able to free yourself more and more quickly from the dark emotions that may sometimes ruled your life, and this ability to do so is the greatest miracle of all. Terton Sogyal, the Tibetan mystic, said that he was not really impressed by someone who could turn the floor into the ceiling or fire into water. A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion.

It has never been more difficult to hear the unflattering voice of the truth, and never more difficult, once having heard it, to follow it: because there is nothing in the world around us that supports our choice, and the entire society in which we live seems to negate every idea of sacredness or eternal meaning. So at the time of our most acute danger, when our very future is in doubt, we as human beings find ourselves at our most bewil­dered, and trapped in a trauma of our own creation. Yet there is one significant source of hope in this tragic situation, and that is that the spiritual teachings of all the great mystical traditions are still available.

So long as we haven't unmasked the mind it continues to hoodwink us, keep­ing up a stream of suave and emptily convincing chatter, which actually says nothing at all.

Lifetimes of ignorance have brought us to identify the whole of our being with mind. Its greatest triumph is to convince us into believing its best interests are our best interests, and even into identifying our very survival with its own. This is a savage irony, considering that mind and its thought activities are at the root of suffering. Yet mind is so convincing, and we have been its dupe for so long, that the thought that we might ever become mindless terrifies us. To be mindless, mind whispers to us, is to lose all the rich romance of being human, to be reduced to a colorless robot or a brain-dead vegetable.

Mind plays brilliantly on our fundamental fear of losing control, and of the unknown. We might say to ourselves: "I should really let go of mind, I'm in such pain; but if I do, what's going to happen to me?"

Mind will chime in, sweetly. "I know I'm sometimes a nui­sance, and believe me, I quite understand if you want me to leave. But is that really what you want? Think: If I do go, what's going to happen to you? Who will look after you? Who will protect and care for you like I've done all these years?"

And even if we were to see through mind's lies, we are just too scared to abandon it; for without any true knowledge of the nature of our heart, or true identity, we simply have no other alternative. Again and again we cave in to its demands with the same sad self-hatred as the alcoholic feels reaching for the drink that he knows is destroying him, or the drug addict groping for the drug that she knows after a brief high will only leave her flat and desperate.

You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of the mind has been over you, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasp­ing, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature. You realize that for years, your mind, like a crazy con artist, has been swindling you with schemes and plans and promises that have never been real and have only brought you to un-fulfillment. When, in the equanimity of this present moment, you see this, without any consolation or desire to cover up what you've discovered, all the plans and schemes reveal themselves as hollow and start to crumble.

Because you have learned through discipline to simplify -your life, and so reduced the opportunities for mind to seduce you; and because you have practiced the mindfulness of heart, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own heart and the nature of reality.

by Sogyal Rimpoche

THE INTELLIGENT HEART

Over the past twenty years, scientists have discovered new information about the heart that makes us realize it is far more than we'd ever imag­ined. We now have scientific evidence that the heart sends us emotional and in­tuitive signals to help govern our lives. Instead of simply pumping blood, the heart links us to a higher intelligence through an intuitive domain where spirit and humanness merge. This intuitive domain is something much larger than the perceptual capability of the human race has yet been able to grasp. But we can develop that capacity as we learn to do what sages and philosophers have asked us to do for ages: listen to and follow the wisdom of the heart.

Yogic traditions recognize the heart as the seat of individual consciousness, the center of life. In Yogic practice, the physical heart is considered both literally and figuratively the guide or internal "Guru," and to this end, many Yogic practices cultivate an awareness of one's own heart.

In recent years, neuroscientists have made an exciting discovery. They've found that the heart has its own independent nervous system—a complex system referred to as "the brain in the heart." There are at least forty thousand neurons in the heart—as many as are found in various centers in the brain. The heart's intrinsic brain and nervous system relay it's intuitions to the brain. The heart also transmits information via an electromag­netic field. The heart's electromagnetic field is by far the most powerful pro­duced by the body; it's approximately five thousand times greater in strength than the field produced by the brain, for example. The heart's field not only permeates every cell in the body but also radiates outside of us; it can be measured up to eight to ten feet away with sensitive detectors called magnetometers.

The heart awareness involves discerning the difference between the head and the heart and observing how differently we perceive the world around us when we're in contact with heart intelligence. The mind operates in a linear, logical manner that serves us well in many situations but is primarily using past information to influence present situations. For example when you meet someone they may have a characteristic that reminds us of someone from our past. The mind immediately prejudices us about that person unreasonably. When heart intelligence is engaged, we experience of the feelings and qualities of love, compassion, non-judgment, tolerance, patience, and forgiveness. These qualities are often accompanied by a peaceful, clear state of awareness. When we are engaged with our hearts, the mind slows down and our thoughts become more rational and focused. We feel more in control, and we perceive life from a more hopeful, optimistic perspective. As people practice the tools and techniques that harness heart intelligence, they begin to notice that they feel less caught up in their problems and in the hectic pace of daily activity. Results of the heart awareness training showed significant decreases in anger (20 percent), depression (26%), sadness (22%), and fatigue (24%)—and significant increases in peacefulness (23%) and vitality (10%).

Wait a minute," you might say. "I've followed my heart before and gotten hurt, stepped on." That's certainly a common experience.You trust someone, believing that they care for you, only to discover that they are out for themselves at your expense. People often look back on early painful events with a bitterness that's toxic and self-destructive. Believing that their vulnerability and care got them hurt, they cut themselves off from spontaneous expression of the heart. They become guarded and slow to love again. "My heart got me into this," they  think.

The ability to protect ourselves from pain is an important survival mecha­nism. But cutting off the heart is a misguided defensiveness grounded in the belief that following the heart means following our emotions—a belief that's just not true. The fact that when we react to  something strongly—anger or fear or attraction— doesn't mean that it is driven by the heart.  When we're first learning to make the distinction between the head and the heart, it's easy to be fooled. But it is easier than you might think to listen to the signals and messages of the heart. We're naturally wired for this communication. Right down to the biological level, the components for the ultimate partnership already exist.

The Five Steps of Heart Awareness Exercises.

1.Recognize the reaction and feel it in the heart before it becomes a story in the brain. Take a time-out.

2. Make a sincere effort to shift your focus away from the racing mind or disturbed emotions that are stimulated by the reaction to the area around your heart. Pretend you're
breathing through your heart to help focus your energy in this area. Keep your focus there for ten seconds or more.

3. Relax.

4 Now, using your intuition, common sense, and sincerity, ask your heart, what would be a more efficient response to the situation, one that would minimize future stress and bring the most positive outcome?

5. Listen to what your heart says in answer to your question. It is an effec­tive way to put your reactive mind and emotions  in check and an in-house source of common sense solutions!

An interesting thing we've noticed is that when people practice heart awareness exercises, they often tend to want to let the expansive feeling go into the head. So many techniques—creative visualization and some forms of meditation, for example—teach people to create a feeling of expanded consciousness in the head. This can be stimulating, but it can also leave you feeling ungrounded. The purpose of a heart awareness exercises is to stay focused in the heart, not the head, So you stay balanced and grounded.

Going to the head can be a habit that's hard to break. After all, when you close your eyes and start to tune out day-to-day thoughts, you may feel a sense of detachment and an enjoyable widening of the mind. This expanded sense can produce grand thoughts and creative ideas. One idea just leads to another.

Kuing has been a devoted meditator for years. He developed his own routine around meditation and by now can experience deep relaxation after a few minutes. The trouble is that if the phone rings or somebody knocks on his door, he has a hard time getting back from what he's been experiencing in his inner-world. He finds it very jarring to try to reorient himself to the real world and deal with the interruption, because he's not grounded.

The goal of heart awareness practice is to try to go deep into the heart first   From there, you can experience an expanded awareness while staying poised andbalanced. If something interrupts you, you may require a little adjustment certainly; but since you're not spaced out, you can be flexible and adjust fast to take care of whatever needs to be done and coming back to your heart awareness practice afterwards. The idea is to be present, grounded, and expanded all at the same time.

If you're like most people when you're doing a heart awareness practice, you'll have wide, inspiring thoughts and ideas. This can be enjoyable, entertaining, and at times illuminating. There's nothing wrong with that, but try not to get lost in such thoughts. The trick is to acknowledge the thoughts or images when they arise, enjoy them for a moment, then gently return your attention to the core feelings of the heart.  You don't want to get caught up in conceptsabout the heart; you want to stay in the feeling qualities of the heart (the physical sensations around your heart and chest center). This helps to keep the mind and heart in balance.

By staying deep and expansive, you energize your mental, emotional, and physical systems more than if you float off into the mind. In surrendering the mind to the heart, you won't be giving up anything. Going deep won't take the fun out of heart awareness practice. All of your plans, creative ideas, and insights will still be there when you get through. After your heart awareness practice is over, you'll find that you have a connection to the heart that you can carry forward into the rest of your day. You'll be "present" with more of your faculties and be able to in­creasingly sustain a state of flow in your activities.

Don't underestimate the depth of what goes on when you do a heart awareness practice. It develops the most important relationship of all—the rela­tionship between you and your Self.

We know that music can shift our feelings and attitudes. Have you ever been at a party with fast-paced dance music playing in the background when somebody suddenly decided to put on an old blues album? The exciting nervous rhythm in the room is abruptly replaced by a slow, moody rhythm. What happens in the room? The dance steps change to accommodate the new music, but the feeling all around you changes too.

Music can excite you, relax you, make you happy or nostalgic. It can even evoke a dramatic story. Think about a movie soundtrack, for example. We can use music as an "atmospheric conditioner," creating an environment that makes it easier to feel the heart.

Doing heart awareness exercises with music is one of the best ways to increase the effectiveness of your experience. Find music that feels right for you. We suggest using instrumental music that falls some­where between stimulating and peaceful. Use music that you feel helps open your heart and promote internal balance but doesn't space you out or make you drowsy. Remember, heart awareness exercises are designed to give you a relaxed but highly aware experience.

Heart awareness exercises are like vitamins for your immune system. One of the Institute's research studies focused on changes in an immune antibody known as secretory IgA, as subjects did heart awareness exercises with and without music. Secretory IgA is found throughout the mucous linings of the body, and is the body's first line of defense against invading pathogens. It is an important measurement of immune system health.

In the first phase of this experiment, study participants' IgA levels were mea­sured before and after doing a fifteen-minute heart awareness exercise while attempt to feel sincere appreciation. After the heart awareness exercise, average IgA levels in the group increased by 50 percent, a significant increase in this important immune system marker. A second phase of the experiment was conducted several days later. This time, participants were instructed to do a fifteen-minute heart awareness exercise attempting to feel appreciation while listening to the music, which was scientifically designed to facilitate internal coherence.Amazingly, the group showed a 141 percent increase in IgA levels.

During both phases of the experiment, researchers monitored the auto-immune nervous system of each participant. An increase in total autonomic activity was observed in all of the subjects. The study demonstrated that the heart awareness exercise technique produced an immune-enhancing effect, and this immune-enhancing effect was increased when subjects practiced the technique while listening to music.

Whether you do heart awareness exercisewith or without music, taking that five to fifteen minutes as often as you can to lock into deeper heart feelings, is a sincere act of self-care. With the right music, heart awareness exercise may become your favorite practice, but don't feel that you need music to make it work for you, The heart stands on its own.

Adapted from "HeartMath" by Doc Childre and Howard Martin

SILENCE   
The Infinite, the Eternal, cannot be ex­plained but by deep silence. God consciousness or Brahman is Supreme Silence. Soul is Silence. Peace is Silence. Atma is Silence. Silence is the language of the heart. Silence is the language of the sage. Silence is immense strength. Silence is great elo­quence. Silence is God. Silence is the substratum for this body, mind, Prana, and senses. Silence is the background for this sense-universe. Silence is power. Silence is a living force. Silence is the only reality. The peace that passeth all understanding is Silence. The goal of your life is Silence. The aim of life is Silence. The purpose of your existence is Silence. Behind all noises and sounds is Silence—thy inner­most Soul. Silence is thy real name. Silence is in­tuitive experience. Silence helps the intuitional Self to express Itself. To go into Silence is to become God, The message of the desert Sahara is silence. The message of the Himalayas is silence.

When the heart is full there is silence. Who can describe the glory of this silence?

There is no healing balm better than silence for those persons who have a wounded heart from fai­lures, disappointments, and losses. There is no sooth­ing panacea better than silence for those who have wounded nerves from the turmoil of life.

What is really wanted is silence of the bubbling mind. You can observe the vow of silence, but the mind will be building images.  Sankalpa will be crop­ ping up. Chitta will be developing memories. Imagi­nation, reasoning, reflection, and various other functioning’s of the mind will be going on continuously. How can you have real peace or silence now? Intel­lect should cease functioning.   All the waves of the mind should completely subside. The mind should rest in the Ocean of Silence or Brahman. Then only you can enjoy real, everlasting silence purify the mind and meditate. Be still, and know that you are God. Calm the mind. Silence the bubbling thoughts and surging emotions. Plunge deep into the innermost recess of your heart and enjoy the magnanimous Silence. Mysterious is this Silence. Enter into Silence. Know that Silence. Be­come Silence Itself.
Bliss Divine, Swami Sivananda

With longing in thine eyes enter thou within from without. I would request you to gaze with longing in your heart, with silence in your soul and with no thought of this world or the next. The grace of God consciousness will descend on you and the gaze will grow into a glimpse and the experience of God consciousness will be realized you will find, nay see God consciousness within your self.  Enter into the “Super-conscious” through intoxication of Love. In such intoxication of love, one wishes to kiss the very ground, love all creation and all humankind and breathe peace into all the world over.

SPIRITUAL ELIXILIR By Kirpal Singh

Meditation and Nature

Meditation and time meditating in nature.  Meditation in Nature is powerful and exquisitely beautiful, a perfect reflection.  Being alone with nature is a time to discover what our expression of life is.

“In order to embrace the simple essence, it is necessary to return to nature because it is the cast shadow of reality.  Nature is a product of the simple essence in its different forms, its most basic manifestation.”

“For thousands of years nature has offered the space and time to plunge deep into new insights, face doubts and fears, and find healing and serenity.”

“The great teachers through history traverse a varied landscape of culture and tradition - but nearly all have passed through and been strengthened by alone time in nature...”

Anonymous quotes

"Nature can never be completely described, for such a description of nature would have to duplicate nature. No name can fully express what it represents. It is nature itself, and not any part abstracted from nature, which is the ultimate source of all that happens, all that comes and goes, begins and ends, is and is not. But to describe nature as the 'ultimate source of all' is still only a description, and such a description is not nature
itself. Yet since, in order to speak of it, we must use words, we shall have to describe it as 'the ultimate source of all.’“

By Lao Tze

In a world such as this, wilderness has tremendous importance.  Every year, millions of people flock to mountains, woods, and beaches to find renewal in nature.  Others flock to backyards and city parks.  For many of us, such retreats fulfill a yearning almost as basic as hunger. But the shackles of modern society are not easily thrown off.  Even when removed from fast-paced environments, very few of us are able to slow down enough to appreciate the full splendor of nature.  We often go to the woods burdened with so much anxiety and with senses so battered and dull that we can absorb only a fraction of the message awaiting us beyond the asphalt and concrete.  Galaxies around us go unnoticed and unexplored because we have lost our feeling of connection with the earth.

Yet that connection can be reestablished—in large part simply by awakening and nourishing our innate awareness.  With a few simple skills and some dedicated practice, any person can open his or her senses to the full richness of nature, regardless of what he or she seeks there. I have seen it happen many times.

The souls of most average lay people are just not in tune with the fundamental spirit emanating from Nature herself.

By Tom Brown Jr.

TIME ALONE WITH NATURE:

          The Vision Quest is a physical and spiritual journey.  You travel with a group to a place away from home, family, friends and job to a safe place in the nature.  The base camp is a home base.  For the next few days the group lives together in a small, family-like community and feels the bonds of humanness, love and trust that connect us all. During this time the guide will give instruction in nature and awareness skills. 

          Then, for one to three days and nights, you will live alone.  Your only responsibility will be to walk each day to a pre-arranged place to leave a sign of your well-being for your buddy, a fellow vision-quester.

          The Vision Quest gives you the time and a natural, quiet place to look within and see again who you are, what you think and feel, where you are going.  No one is there to tell you what to do, think or be.  You can discover a personal connection and relationship with all things, and see clearly what you have to contribute to your world.  The vision quest is as much a celebration of who we are as of what we seek to become.  Just by slowing down, sitting, and absorbing nature in a quiet place, you can make room in your soul for the healing qualities of the nature to provide a sense of connectedness to a greater whole.

          “Slow down, look deeply, you are in for a journey of wonders.”      Ralph Steiner, VISIONS OF WILDERNESS

Quotes from individual questers:

          “...everything seems more miraculous now...”

          “...a power was at work within me...”

          “...a simple, yet extraordinary experience.”

WALKING IN HARMONY WITH NATURE

Many of the great composers, poets, and writers drew their inspiration from nature.  Ludwig van Beethoven epitomized this in music and Ernest Hemingway did it in great literature.  When Beethoven wandered off into the woods to meditate, he would very often come back with a masterpiece in mind.  Many of his greatest symphonies were, quite simply, born under a tree, beside a flowing stream, or on a flowered country lane.

During the Romantic era of music, Nature was not merely a subject to be depicted.  A very closely knit kinship was formed between the inner life of the artist himself and the life of Nature, so that the latter became not only a refuge but also a source of great strength, wonderful inspiration, and exhilarating revelation as well.  This mystic sense of kinship with Nature, counterbalancing the artificiality of city existence, is as prevalent in the music of the last century as it is in the contemporary literature and art.  Thus, listening to classical music of the 19th century  will put a person more in touch with Nature than any other music that I know of, save for the simple, bhajans or chants  of India and Native American healing songs.

By John Heinerman

2. YOGA (ASANA) PRACTICE:

Sutra 2.46 The posture (asana) for Yoga meditation should be steady, stable, and motionless, as well as comfortable, and this is the third of the eight rungs of Yoga.

Sutra 2.47 The means of perfecting the posture is that of relaxing or loosening of effort, and allowing attention to merge with endlessness, or the infinite.

Sutra 2.48 From the attainment of that perfected posture, there arises an unassailable, unimpeded freedom from suffering due to the pairs of opposites (such as heat and cold, good and bad, or pain and pleasure).

Sutra 1.34 The mind is also calmed by regulating the breath, particularly attending to exhalation and the natural stilling of breath that comes from such practice.

Asana

When there is perfect harmony between body and mind, we achieve self-realization. Yoga teaches us that the obstacles in the path of our self-realization show themselves in a physical or mental indisposition. When our physical state is not perfect it causes an imbalance in our mental state, the practice of yoga helps us overcome that imbalance. Yogic asanas redress unsteadiness in the body.  Uneven respiration an indication of stress is alleviated by the practice of yoga. Asanas tone the whole body. They strengthen bones and muscles, correct posture, improve breathing, and increase energy. This physical well-being strengthens and calms the mind.

Practicing asanas cleanses the body. Asanas, by increasing the circulation of fresh blood through the body, purge it of the diseases and toxins which are the consequences of an irregular lifestyle, unhealthyhabits, and poor posture. Regular practice of the stretches, twists, bends, and inversions, which are the basic movements of asanas, restores strength and stamina to the body. Asanas, together with pranayama, or the control of breath, rectify physical, physiological, and psychological disorders. They have a positive impact on the effects of stress and disease.

The impact of yoga is never purely physical. Asanas correctly practiced, bridge the divide between the physical and the mental spheres. Yoga stems the feelings of pain, fatigue, doubt, confusion, indifference, laziness, self-delusion, and despair that assail us from time to time.

The body and the mind are in a state of constant interaction. Yogic science does not demarcate where the body ends and the mind begins, but approaches both as a single, integrated entity. The turmoil of daily life brings stress to the body and the mind. This creates anxiety, depression, restlessness, and rage. Yoga asanas, while appearing to deal with the physical body alone, actually influence the chemical balance of the brain, which in turn improves one's mental state of being. By B.K.S. Iyengar

Yoga - Yoga Flow

There is a natural self full of power and gracefulness within you which is the key to your well-being.

Ancient cultures developed techniques to bring their people to the heights of their individual awareness, power and creativity.  Sources of power our science does not yet admit exist were tapped in those times, enhancing the health and strength of the population.  This is not merely legend, for some of those techniques exist today.  Yoga Flow is a series of techniques designed to tap into and channel the powers of nature, both within and around us.

We love to watch clouds drifting in the sky or a puff of smoke gently swirling in the still air. The gentle soaring of a seagull fills us with a calm feeling.  If only we could feel so calm within ourselves all the time.  Yoga Flow is a slow relaxing series of movements designed to develop calmness, peace and gentleness within us.

Slow, flowing movements of the body create an internal environment conducive to good health. Your mind relaxes as your muscles relax, and the emotions soon follow suit.  And yet the senses are still crisp and clear.

As you develop the smoothness of motion, your body begins to feel more liquid than solid.  Feelings of rigidity fade away and you experience yourself in a new way.  No longer does tension trap and harass you.

Yoga Flow develops gracefulness and a feeling of peace. It frees your attention from the jerky movements of the thinking process and allows it to operate in a smooth, graceful manner. By slowly and carefully releasing the body from its cage of repression and integrating it with the mind, Yoga Flow ends one of the basic conflicts of our lives. By allowing creativity to flourish, it develops the energy of enthusiasm and makes life worth living. 

When practicing Yoga Flow our attention is focused on the present moment.  Often in life, we are so caught up in concentrating on the past and future that we miss the present.  And truly, the present is all that exists for us.  In the present, we have power.

Adapted from Movements of Magic, by Bob Klien

YOGA AS SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY:

THE PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE OF HATHA-YOGA

Utilizing the body as a vehicle for expressing Divine Love

THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE BODY—THE ORIGINS OF HATHA-YOGA

The human body-mind is not what it appears to be: a limited, mobile digestive tube. We only need to relate or meditate to discover that this popular materialistic stereotype is untrue, for it is then that we begin to discover the energy dimension of the body and the "deep space" of consciousness. As the hard boundaries that we normally draw around ourselves dissolve, we feel more alive and enter a world of greater experiential intensity. Relaxation and meditation replace our ordinary body image with an experience of ourselves as a fluid process that is connected with the larger, vibrant whole. In this experience, the boundaries of the ego lose their rigidity. Quantum physics tells us that everything is interconnected and that the idea that "I" am a separate physical entity is an illusion. It tells us, moreover, that the so-called objective world is a "halluc­ination," a projection of that imaginary point of subjectivity within us. We are slow in acknowledging the profound practical implications of the quan­tum-physical view, obviously because it requires us to make far-reaching and demanding changes in the way we think of ourselves and our universe. The quantum-physical perspective is not as new as we would like to believe. It underlies the entire yogic tradition, notably the schools of Hatha-Yoga.

The first to draw attention to it was Fritjof Capra in his widely read book The Tao of Physics:

The ideas of rhythm and dance naturally come to mind when one tries to imagine the flow of energy going through the patterns that make up the particle world. Modern physics has shown us that movement and rhythm are essential properties of matter; that all matter, whether here on earth or in outer space, is involved in a continual cosmic dance. The Eastern mystics have a dynamic view of the universe similar to that of mod­ern physics, and consequently it is not sur­prising that they, too, have used the image of the dance to convey their intuition of nature.

It was the adepts of Yoga who pioneered this dynamic view of the universe, and it was also they who inaugurated a new attitude toward the human body and bodily existence in general. In pre-hatha yogic times, the body was often looked upon, in Gnostic fashion, as a source of defilement, as the enemy of the spirit. We may find the pessimistic tone of this passage strange and exaggerated, and yet it expresses our own (religious) culture’s materialistic point of view very well. As long as we consider the body to be a walking alimentary canal, there is little solace in the pursuit (of body culture).   .    . The yogic revolution led away from the model of the body as an "inflated blad­der of skin." "In yoga," observed historian of reli­gion Marcia Eliade, "the human body acquires an importance it had never before attained in the spiritual history of India." This new attitude is pithily expressed in the Kula-Arnava, an important Hindu Yogic work, thus:
“Without the body, how can the [highest] human goal be realized? Therefore, having acquired a bodily abode, one should perform meritorious (punya) actions.
.  .  .   the knowledge of Reality cannot be acquired except through a human [body].”

What the Yogic masters aspired to was to create a transubstantiated body, which they called "adamantine" (ajar) or "divine" (David) — a body not made of flesh but of immortal substance, of Light. Instead of regard­ing the body as a meat tube doomed to fall prey to sick­ness and death, they viewed it as a dwelling place of the Divine, and as the cauldron for accomplishing spiritual perfection.
By Georg Feuertein P.H.D.

The Heart of Ideality

We often succeed—and I have done this with a certain art­istry—in following a spiritual path without this path trans­forming our daily reality. We become interested, we listen to the teachings, we adhere, become Buddhist, Sufi, whatever. This simple change soothes us into a pleasant state but does not always lead us back to the everyday.

Instead, we follow our chosen spiritual path, discover its mysteries, have moments of beautiful depth when we are in the company of our peers or when we spend time with our master. We read passionately, we take in a new philosophy, we devote some time each day to meditation and other prac­tices. A little altar with a little image of Shiva or the Buddha along with a photo of our master reminds us of this new life. Every day we offer flowers and incense—all without under­going any radical transformation of our ordinary life.

This duality comes from the fact that we are pursuing a spiritual fantasy—however refined it may be—without en­gaging ourselves totally in the quest. We are surprised, then, that our reactions are the same, that our actions reveal not a trace of our meditation that our vows, the precepts that we observe, are simple safety nets incapable of transforming us. In fact we do not want to communicate deeply  with the reality of what we are; we prefer to develop a little island of devotion to which we can take escape from time to time.

Devi would say that a single instant of total presence was worth the reading of all the texts, all the poets, all the philosophers. Devi was a very spontaneous, awakened being.

At first this insistence was unpleasant for me because it was an affront to my spiritual dream.

I would have preferred to have to practice a ritual, recite mantras, concentrate on mandalas, do prostrations, meditate for hours on end like I had done while practicing Vipassana in Thailand. However, Devi was not there to give me what I ex­pected; she was there to help me liberate myself within the ordinariness of the everyday, and this was the revolution of my life.

With Devi, nothing happened. We would draw water, prepare our frugal meals, remain seated in silence; she would give me the teachings; we would walk, enjoy the sun, have fun in a relaxed way—but with presence.

Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism all teach us that we must abandon or sublimate de­sires and passions in order to carry out a spiritual quest. This puritan position has historically been accompanied by the par­tial or total exclusion of women from the highest level, that of transmission and teaching.

Far from paving a way that extols the egoistic search for pleasure, the masters of these schools encourage us, through a refined yet playful discipline, not to cut off anything that makes us human, so that we may find a profound way to live our desires and passions by taking them to their ultimate point of incandescence. Attachment and suffering disappear.

Reintegrating desire, the senses, and passion with spiritu­ality is the only serious antidote to religious mad­ness or to generalized materialism, because nothing terrifies their adherents as much as these words and the incandescence they point to. These people have a holy horror of anythingthat cannot be controlled, taken over, or subjugated. In addition, to­day our desire, our passion, is to find absolute freedom, love, and plenitude without being bound hand and foot. We- want to leave behind our ancestral guilt and accept the body wholly: It is our only door into infinite reality. Without the body, we would be nothing. With it, we can be everything.

It is also said that Yoga's attachment to reality rather than to the concept of illusion shared by the Vedantins is due, in part, to women's vision. For yoginis, there is absolutely no philosophy that cannot be understood and presented clearly to all people. No rituals, dogmas, be­liefs, or biases isolate their followers from the rest of the world.

If presence to sensations, emotions, and thoughts is to reach plenitude, everything must start with awareness of the heart. Nothing is done in yoga to obtain some future gratification; on the contrary, it offers "practices" whose fruits are im­mediately present in "the practice" itself. In this way, we live solely to experience the profound harmony—nothing else.

It is much more important to become conscious of the heart many times a day for five, ten, or thirty seconds followed by a conscious return to the habitual manner of living or doing things. This pulling back or withdrawing of attention is crucial, because it allows us not to get lost in automatic activity while believing we are doing our practice.

At first, I try to be present to my heart ten to twenty times a day. Little by little, to the degree that this awareness brings me pleasure, I let the number of times I become aware of the heart increase to a hundred times a day and more. Pleasure is an essential element of Yogic practice, because once we find pleasure in presence, we have a natural ten­dency to return to it. It is thus no longer a practice but a way in which to savor life and our sensorality more fully, and this is the basis of all the subsequent practices. Once consciousness of the heart replaces automatic mental activity, you will feel a complete change in your way of perceiving the world. Fears and anxieties about relationships with others will disappear; you will have a profound feeling of being connected.

One of the great discoveries of presence is that we can have total trust in the heart/ body. It knows. It is marvelously ca­pable of providing us with an immediate response to most situations in which a choice is required. Unfortunately, we do not recognize this ability of the body; very often our re­flections trouble us and push us to make decisions that go against the body. When this happens, we often say, "I knew"— which means, "My body knew." The more we learn to trust our body totally, the more we will discover that it naturally guides us to a joyous spontaneity.

A day lived in consciousness of the heart and of the sensation of the body is a day which tends more and more toward plenitude and toward the deep satisfaction of our longings, in proportion to the development of this consciousness.

Desire is one of our life forces. To deny desire or to want to cut it off is to deprive ourselves of an incomparable dynamic; it is to head toward becoming dried up and drained of life, the mark of so many of the "religious." Religiousmeans "bound." What better bond than desire? The Kashmiri mas­ters recognized this power, and their questioning was not concerned with desire in and of itself, indispensable, but with the bonds between desire and its object.

If everything proceeds from consciousness, then no one action is more worthy than any other. The desire for God is a desire; the desire to renounce desire is itself a desire. It is therefore impossible to follow a spiritual or mystical path while eradicating desire. For yogis, desire is the mark of the endless creativity of consciousness. In cutting it off, we cut off an important part of our consciousness.

Stanza 105 of the Vijnanabhairava   one of the most ancient texts and the source of all non-postural yoga, describes this choice position: "Desire exists in you as in ev­erything. Realize that it also resides in objects and in all that the mind can grasp. Then, in discovering the universality of desire, enter its radiant space."

For yogis, desire is the very movement, the very na­ture, of the universe itself. In order not to have to cut it off, they considered it in its absolute form and asked themselves the question: "What do we really desire?" We can readily believe—and this co