Yoga is Love

Compose

2009-12-04T20:48:00.000-08:00

What life asks of us is simple. It is to compose ourselves.

But what exactly does that mean? It means that we must use our creativity to garner our resources in such a manner that the outcome is a whole. And that whole must be us. Many of us gather our resources about us in a haphazard manner and then what we have is a half-baked us. The end result does not reflect us, the inner us.

So let us learn to compose ourselves better. The gift we receive in doing so is this: we attain our self.

karma and ahimsa

2009-01-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

Ahimsa is the absence of violence. Gandhiji's practice of Satyagraha, or truth-force, was built on this idea of ahimsa. What confuses the student of yoga is how the idea of karma is to be reconciled with the idea of ahimsa.

Karma is seen by many as a law that teaches an eye for an eye. It has been compared to Newton's laws. The idea seems to be a quaint one: a violator will be violated, a thief stolen from. That is a common, though violent and misinformed idea of karma.

Karma is seen in our practice of yoga as a repayment of rna, or debts. If someone does something to you, let us say steal from you. In doing so they are simply repaying past rna. With that act, the olds debts have been paid and you are now free as long as you do not respond to the act by creating a fresh act. Governments get entangled in ever increasing violence by being reactive and recreating new karmas that are then acted out and reacted out infinitely.

The key to understanding karma is this. The act has no power whatsoever on your essence, the real you or your higher self. As Vimalananda has taught us, it is only with your ego-identification with the act that you create rnanubandhana, or debt-bondage.

Ahimsa, the absence of violence, is the only reliable way to end karmic ties with what is undesirable. For once we have paid our debts we are free!

Mind

2009-01-20T22:38:00.000-08:00

The mind is not separate from us. The mind is a concept, a construct. It is an axiom that we start our analysis of our selves with.

The mind is that constructed part of our selves that thoughts come from. It is this identification of the thoughts, which after all can be observed, with that construct that we call the mind which causes us suffering.

Freeing thoughts of the concept of the mind is a lightening, subtracting experience. Then we are free to observe our thoughts and also to see that they are separate from us. Thoughts have a life of their own and observing them in their nakedness, unclothed by the mind is a revealing experience.

In parts of India it is customary to greet others with the question, "what are your thoughts?" instead of hullo or how are you.

Why not bid goodnight to your mind and say hullo to your thoughts?

Prana

2009-01-15T14:34:00.001-08:00

The purpose of physical activity, including exercise, is not to condition the heart or strengthen the sinews. Those are merely pleasant side-effects of exercise.

From a yogic point of view, all physical activity, including cleaning the house, walking to the farmers market, caring for our pets, and doing the yoga postures, are intended to increase the absorption of prana, or life-force. When you keep that in mind you will be a lot less worried about getting your heartbeat up or exercising your muscles optimally, and can instead focus on prana.

Next time you exercise try letting go of the notions of exercise you have learned and focus whole-heartedly on absorbing prana. You don't have to do much. Just observe. With each in-breath prana is moving into your body. Can you feel it expand throughout your body? Or are there body parts long forgotten, ignored. Allow the breath into those parts. This can be life-changing!

The Sanskrit word prana means not only life-force, but also breath. After all breath and life-force are one.

Microdiscipline

2009-01-14T19:15:00.001-08:00

If you are like me, you love the freedom of doing what you want, when you want, and not caring about what people think. In fact people may call you lazy, or even a bit wild.

That's all very well but even we freedom-loving individuals need to get things done, like maintaining a meditation practice and a yoga practice. The way I approach this is through what I call microdiscipline. It consists of 10 minute intervals that you agree to do something for. Meditate for 10 minutes. Go through your mail for 10 minutes. Yoga for 10 minutes.

The beauty of doing things for 10 minutes is twofold. Firstly, the psyche offers almost no resistance at all to such a short interval of time. Secondly, the ego stays out if it, 10 minutes being beneath contempt for the ego to comment upon!

10 is a number that the Ancients thought of as lucky and they ascribed near-magical properties to the number. I like 10. Try it and see, for no more than 10 minutes.

Sitting on the floor

2009-01-13T18:20:00.001-08:00

I like to sit on the floor as far as possible. I had got out of the habit until I watched a Japanese movie and saw everyone sitting on tatami mats, even guys in business suits.

Sitting with our legs crossed without a wall to support our backs is one of the easiest ways to get fit while doing nothing at all! This asana, or posture, is called sukhasana, the happy pose.

Asana in Sansrit means both the pose AND what you sit on. There is no difference between the act of sitting and what is sat upon! Ponder this, preferably cross-legged on the floor.

Waiting

2009-01-12T16:02:00.001-08:00

Much of life is about waiting! We may have started to make a cup of tea. We waited for the water to boil. Then we warmed the teapot. Then we boiled some more fresh water as we prepared the tea leaves for the shock of being submerged in boiling water. Then even after pouring the water from the kettle into the teapot, we wait.

So most of our lives are spent waiting. We must learn to enjoy waiting. This is one way to do it: Instead of thinking of the discrete moments of our life that are exciting and tangible as our life with the waiting sullying the otherwise eventful life, we start thinking of our life itself as waiting!

Your life IS waiting. It consists of waiting. Isn't it time you learned to enjoy waiting?

2009-01-08T15:20:00.001-08:00

26 short discourses on yoga, life, and joyful healing.
--Abhay Ghiara
(The lecture will form a Gestalt, a meditation that will set the stage for insight)

Lecture delivered at the Yoga Therapy for Cancer Recovery workshop, Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, Jan 10,2009. Later published in the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Summer 2010, volume 7, issue 1.

Akasha
Akasha is Sanskrit for the boundless sky. The Ancients believed that every thought and action leaves an imprint, a memory. This is known as the Akashik record.

In accordance with this notion, a trace of the trajectory of movement, breath, and energy generated during our yoga practice is vibrationally imprinted onto the great sky above.

Breath
The nature of the in-breath is very different from that of the out-breath. The in-breath should never be forced. The deepening of the breath in yoga is achieved solely by focusing on gaining conscious control of the out-breath.

The Ancients knew that we can not force the breath in. It is as futile as trying to get a cat to do something she does not want to do. What we can do, however, is create the conditions for the in-breath to deepen on its own. Allowing the air to completely empty out of the torso creates an inviting space for a powerful in-breath to flow into.

The Sanskrit word for breath, prana, also means life-force. In our yoga practice we create a space for life-force to enter into us. That is what breath is all about.

Connection
Our sense of connection to the land has been eroding. With it has emerged the difficulty of connecting with others.

What is important to remember about connecting is this: You must first of all develop a deep and lasting connection with your self. If you can not love your self, pamper your self, nourish your self, how can you connect with another?

Connection is all about the flow of energy. Allow your yoga practice to reinvigorate the flow of energy in your body. However, the practice of yoga is not just the performing of some postures. Yoga can be and should be sitting in the sun, caressing a flower, playing with your pet or children, laughing!

Duality
Our everyday lives involve choices. That is so obvious! Or is it? Seen under the light of yoga, these seemingly real, valid, and important choices fall away, like leaves off a tree in fall.

The set up of life as a series of choices, good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, violence vs. nonviolence, is what the Ancients called maya, or illusion. As the great mystic philosopher Krishnamurti said in his last Bombay talk, Much violence has been done by the idea of nonviolence.

Dualities are unreal. By paying attention to anything we increase it. By focusing on disease we create more disease. By attempting to fight illness we create more illness.

Yoga provides an alternative to duality. It is not for or against. Yoga means to join. When duals merge they become one.

Embrace
Years ago when I was a student at Bombay University I would stay up late at night reading George Leonard's articles on mastery published in Esquire magazine. I was fascinated by George's ideas! Even though George was a 5th degree black-belt in Aikido rather than a yogi, his thoughts on the process of learning leading to mastery resonated with my own. His central idea is that learning proceeds in small spurts followed by long plateaus. Learning is taking place as much in the plateaus as in the spurts! Most of us expect a linear, upward sloping learning curve and when we reach our first plateau, we give up. Instead we should be celebrating the plateau!

A common friend arranged a meeting with George last week. It was lovely to see him in person after admiring his work from afar for over 20 years. T played the cello and then E played the piano and George and I talked about yoga and mastery. He is 85 years old, has written 12 books, is the President of Esalen but is humble about his accomplishments.

As we leave he scribbles something in a copy of his masterpiece and pushes the book in my hand as he hugs me tightly.

Later I look inside the book. George has written in his elegant scrawl, "Abhay, love the plateau- George"

Friend
A student once asked a yogi how she could improve her balance poses particularly the Tree pose. I keep falling over, she said. The yogi asked, when you are in Vrksasana, what kind of tree are you? What are your branches like, your leaves? Do you provide shade for a weary pilgrim or a cow? How exactly do you sway when the monsoon winds pregnant with water droplets appear from the south? Get to know your tree like a good friend and over time its roots will take hold.

Get to know your yoga postures with acceptance, understanding, and humor. Your breath and your imagination are your allies in this endeavor. There is no way to fail in yoga. Remember this!

Gandhiji
Gandhiji did not follow the written word. He preferred personal experience to dogma. His autobiography is entitled, My Experiments With Truth, and he was constantly experimenting to discover new truths.

As Gandhiji started experimenting with natural medicines at Tolstoy Farm, he asked everyone he met for information on the use of natural approaches to healing. He was not interested in what someone had learned from a book but the smallest personal experience with healing was of great interest to him.

Over the rest of his life, bit by bit, through personal experiences and experiments, Gandhiji developed a system of natural healing.

Today his system teaches us not so much what but how.

How
How we do things is more important than what we do. Our approach to anything we do is a reflection of our inner selves, our inner structure. It is helpful to notice how we walk, how we talk, how we do the many everyday things that makes up our lives.

Don’t try to change anything. Just notice, how.

Imagination
The new student of yoga is pleasantly surprised to find that the yoga postures are named after animals, plants, and objects: Cat, pigeon, tree, plough. But sometimes it is hard for a student to see how the name of the posture relates to the posture itself.

What we must remember is that the names are not supposed to be taken literally. Instead they are metaphors, rich in multi-dimensional meaning.

Deep in her practice, if a yogini will hold the name of the posture in her mind's eye, the fullness of the posture will reveal itself quietly.

Move away from the literal. Embrace the metaphor. The Ancients thought that was a good guide to a life of wonderment.

Joy
Yoga is a complete system of physical and mental attunement that was developed in Ancient India. The word yoga in Sanskrit means to join. Yoga joins the mind and body, breath and movement, resulting in an enhanced physical ability to experience the world while remaining spiritually centered. In other words, it helps us experience more joy in our lives.

Kripa
Our practice of yoga aims at developing kripa, or grace, in body and mind. The idea of grace was very important to the Ancients and is the foundation of spiritual yoga even today.

The Ancients preferred the natural undulating curves of the belly, gently rounded shoulders, lengthened muscle fibers. Modern day preoccupations with body fat content and the development of unnaturally shortened muscles (such as the six-pack) go against the vision of the great yogis.

What is it about yoga that makes it so different from western exercise? The yoga asanas, or postures, are designed to lengthen the muscle fibers while at the same time working on the glandular level to create harmony and balance. The major joints, glands, and organs are stimulated and recover their innate abilities to function flawlessly. Western exercise, on the other hand, simply tightens and shortens muscle fibers in an attempt to reduce bulk in some places and add bulk in others. This purely mechanical view of the body can only lead to a machine-like body.

Yoga sees the body as an organic whole and the practice of yoga is the practice of kripa or grace.

Love
What exactly is love? Is it a feeling or state of being? Some mystical thinkers have described the development of the human being in terms of the development of love. When you can love everything, right and wrong, good and evil, you have reached nirvana, the state of oneness with All-That-Is.

Yoga teaches us a different kind of love. A love of every aspect of our bodies. Consider the wonder that is your body that allows you to experience the beauty of each passing breath, the gentle breeze, the magic of a moonlit night. Why not take the time to appreciate each part of your body, to call each part beautiful: toes, ankles, calves, shins, knees, thighs, buttocks, anus, vagina, penis, belly, internal organs, chest, breasts, back, shoulders, upper arms, fore arms, elbows, wrists, palms, fingers, neck, face, scalp.

Our yoga practice is a love-fest of sorts. The point, according to the Ancients, is not to exercise each part, but rather to pay homage to each and every part of your body.

Mumbai
Mumbai means mother Mumba, the great goddess of the fisherfolk of the region. The land is seen as the mother, source of nourishment. She has seen attacks before. As a child I remember looking up at a sky glowing red and being fascinated by the 'lolli-pops' hanging in the sky. We survived that war.

Back then we called our city Bombay, beautiful bay in Portuguese. We would stuff hankies in our mouths and duck under our desks in school when the air raid sirens would go off.

We are all survivors. And we have mother Mumba watching over us.

No
I love to talk about yoga. The yoga with no rules. The yoga with no copyrights. The yoga with no trademarks. Will it take a revolution to recognize the radical nature of yoga?

Friends, yoga is free. All you have to do is breathe and you can feel that. Yoga is free, you are free, and in that freedom and only in that freedom is discovery possible.

O
The letter O is a circle. In western culture we are taught to "think straight," and guard against "circular reasoning." The western approach works well when your goal is to build something inorganic and inanimate, a modern skyscraper for instance. However, it does not work very well when you are dealing with something organic and animate like your body.

The Ancients believed that yoga practice moves energy along the 7 energy centers in the body that we call chakras. Chakra, in Sanskrit, also means circle.

Padma
The padma, or lotus, is a tropical water plant that grows in ponds all over India. The lotus motif runs through much of yoga reminding us that our bodies, contrary to appearances, are composed almost entirely of water. Yoga literally means to join. Our practice of yoga joins us with our water nature and the lotus motif symbolizes this reunion.

We sit in lotus. We invert in lotus. That is not all though. We keep the lotus motif as a guiding principle that informs our form throughout our practice. In yoga, our mind-bodies develop the tenacity of the lotus stem. It is a form of undiluted amusement for rural folk in India to watch a city boy or girl filled with an inexplicable longing for a lotus flower plunge hands into a pond and pull, and pull, and pull to no effect whatsoever. The lotus stem is almost impossible to break!

The lotus motif connects us to that ephemeral tenacity that Gandhiji called Satyagraha or Soul Force.

Quiet
The mind is naturally frolicsome. Think of your mind as many little kittens. They want to jump and bite and run around in circles even late into the night. Especially late into the night.

Meditation, which is an essential part of yoga, is simply quieting the mind. Seeing the mind as a handful of kittens tells us just how easy that is going to be! Nevertheless, it is important to try. Let us try it right now for a minute.

Root
At the base of the spine resides the power, known as kundalini, the coiled-up cobra. This is our root, where we draw sustenance from. The Ancients described this as the first of seven major energy points along the spine which they called chakras, or circles.

The root chakra is the first and most important energy point. We can visualize it as a rotating disc in the perinium, between the anal sphincter and the reproductive organs.

The magnificence of the beautiful redwood tree depends upon strong and stable roots. Keeping our attention upon our root allows our yoga practice to bear leaves, flowers, and fruit.

Soul
There is a central energy point in your body. It is not a static point, located in one place, as many seem to think. Instead, it is fluid and can move to every part of your body. That takes practice. And time.

In the meantime, there's yoga. During yoga energy diffuses from the central point to the rest of the body. I remember my seventh grade science teacher (who was also a famous sitar player) in Bombay demonstrate paper diffusion. A drop of ink is added to a blotting paper. Then as drops of water are added, the ink moves all the way to the edges.

That is precisely what yoga does. Call it soul diffusion.

Thread
The word yoga means a joining, a connection. The Energy System of the body is connected as though by a thread. Imagine a web of energy strings joining the various energy hubs together. That in a nutshell is your energy body.

Now if you think about the connections in your energy body as thread you will realize this simple idea: You can pull on thread but you can not push on it! Furthermore, if you pull too hard or too quickly, the thread will break.

The practice of yoga is enhanced by this simple understanding. We may say that the only rule to keep in mind in yoga is to pull, never push, and to pull gently.

Untangle
A block is a temporary energy knot. It is good to see it as energy. Then you know it is simply a matter of untangling some wires and the current can flow again.

I was visiting my mother in Mumbai recently. She had renovated her home and while I was there a fancy Italian light fixture simply blew up, the bulb shattering. Having grown up in old Bombay, this was not particularly alarming to either of us. A calm investigation showed a blockage, a set of tightly mangled wires. In a few minutes the wires were untangled. Energy flowed into the fresh naked light bulb.

Untangle. Let the energy flow. You don't need fixtures, a naked body will do.

Very little effort
I would like to emphasize a yogic principle that I like to call the principle of very little effort! I know that for many, it seems like a contradiction to talk about a yoga practice and effortlessness in the same sentence.

If this idea is new to you, all I ask is that you try it. Undertake all actions, movements, and holds with the very minimum effort required.

Waken the serpent
One of the primary goals of Yoga is to waken the sleeping serpent that the Ancients called Kundalini and imagined as a tightly coiled queen cobra. This slumbering queen was said to reside at the very base of the spine. The rhythmic contraction and relaxation of the area known as the mooladhara or root chakra results in the gradual awakening of this mighty power. A warmth moves up the spine, a tingling perhaps, indicating the release of this energy. Our yoga practice then harnesses this energy, moving it upwards.

Through our yoga practice we then learn to stimulate, harness, and finally modulate this fine feminine energy that can move worlds. Some choose to experience this energy through intimate bonding with a lover. Others like Mahatma Gandhi direct this energy towards the creation of a just world and moving people to own their lives and destinies. Whether experienced as intimacy or emancipation the power of the release is real, powerful, and earth-shattering.

X
X is the symbol of the cross.

For me the cross brings back memories of being four. My mother would have us play a game. It involved crossing the legs and then crossing the arms behind the back to reach for the toes. Starting with the big toe on each side all the way down to the little toes. We would wiggle our little toes as soon as we were done.

I did not know then that the games we played were yoga. Perhaps that is why I still think of yoga as play!

You
You are the most important person in the world. Focus on your self, on your needs. Love your self. You have only as much to offer to others as you offer to your self. Put your self first. This is very important!

Zindagi
Life is good! This simple idea is at the heart of a yoga practice. The Ancients captured this idea perfectly by calling life Zindagi, an Urdu word that captures not only the literal meaning of life as a physical experience but also the more powerful sense of the word: Life is a game of births and rebirths. We have all been here on earth many, many lifetimes. In some lifetimes we were good and in others bad. Successful in some and utter failures in others.

So why are we here? The first reason is simply that we want to be here. Face it, we like our earthly existence. So we come back to experience more.

Secondly, we all want to learn and integrate the lessons of our learning in each fresh lifetime. This is not a linear process however. It is messy and complex but we do grow as a result of these experiences.

Lastly, we come back to planet earth to try and achieve a connection with All-That-Is, the divine. Anyone can do it, at any age, with any background. Yoga was created to facilitate that connection and eventually to release us from Zindagi, the game of life!

X

2009-01-06T15:35:00.001-08:00

X is the symbol of the cross. It is an ancient symbol that reminds us of the vertical, qualitative dimension in a world seemingly preoccupied with the quantitative in all spheres.

For me the cross brings back memories of being four. My mother would have us play a game. It involved crossing the legs and then crossing the arms behind the back to reach for the toes. Starting with the big toe on each side all the way down to the little toes. We would wiggle our little toes as soon as we were done.

I did not know then that the games we played were yoga. Perhaps that is why I still think of yoga as play!

Aduality

2009-01-05T14:25:00.001-08:00

Our everyday lives involve choices. That is so obvious! Or is it? Seen under the light of yoga, these seemingly real, valid, and important choices fall away, like leaves off a tree in fall.

The set up of life as a series of choices, good vs evil, right vs wrong, violence vs nonviolence, is what the Ancients called maya, or illusion. As Krishnamurti said in his last Bombay talk, Much violence has been done by the idea of nonviolence.

Dualities are unreal. By paying attention to anything we increase it. By focusing on disease we create more disease. By attempting to fight illness we create more illness.

Yoga provides an alternative to duality. It is not for or against. Yoga means to join. When duals merge they become one with the One.

George

2009-01-05T00:30:00.001-08:00

Years ago when I was a student at Bombay University I would stay up late at night reading George Leonard's articles on mastery published in Esquire magazine. I was fascinated by George's ideas! Even though George was a 5th degree blackbelt in Aikido rather than a yogi, his thoughts on the process of learning leading to mastery were right on. Like his idea that learning proceeds in small spurts followed by long plateaus. Learning is taking place as much in the plateaus as in the spurts! Most of as expect a linear, upward sloping learning curve and so when we reach our first plateau, we give up. Instead we should be celebrating!

A common friend arranged a meeting with George today. It was lovely to see him in person after admiring his work from afar for over 20 years. T played the cello and ten E played the piano and George and I talked about yoga and mastery. He is 85 years old, has written 12 books, is the President of Esalen but is humble about his accomplishments.

As we leave he scribbles something in a copy of his masterpiece and pushes the book in my hand as he hugs me tightly.

Later I look inside the book. George has written in his elegant scrawl, "Abhay, love the plateau- George Leonard"

String

2008-12-30T12:10:00.001-08:00

The word yoga means a joining, a connection. The Energy System of the body is connected as though by a string. Imagine a web of energy strings joining the various energy hubs together. That in a nutshell is your energy body.

Now if you think about the connections in your energy body as string you will realize this simple idea: You can pull on string but you can not push on it! Furthermore, if you pull too hard or too quickly, the string will break.

The practice of yoga is enhanced by this simple understanding. We may say that the only rule to keep in mind in yoga is to pull, never push, and to pull gently.

Rest

2008-12-29T23:21:00.001-08:00

The body needs rest. More than that the body's energy system needs rest. It is not enough to sleep! The quality of the sleep has a profound effect on whether or not we really achieve a state of rest.

Dreams are wonderful aren't they? I sometimes see our cats napping and twitching and wonder what they are dreaming about. But some dreams can be stressful. Nightmares can shake the body's energy system up. And then no amount of sleep is really rest.

We can use our imagination to go to bed in a positive state that will induce rest. As a child I used to suffer from nightmares which I cured by the time I was 11 by imagining a white dog very vividly. I would go to bed and imagine him walking down our street in Bombay and after about 20 minutes he would come to me. The white dog was my imaginary friend and I have slept restfully ever since I conjured him in my mind.

When I am not fully happy, content, and cheerful at bedtime, as happened recently with the terror attacks on my beloved Mumbai, I invite the white dog back. He walks down the streets of Berkeley taking his time, examining life around him with wisdom and compassion and by the time he gets to me I am fast asleep.

Gandhiji

2008-12-20T12:24:00.001-08:00

Gandhiji did not follow the written word. He preferred personal experience to authoritative dogma. His autobiography is entitled, My Experiments With Truth, and he was constantly experimenting to discover truths.

As Gandhiji started experimenting with natural medicines at Tolstoy Farm, he asked everyone he met for information on the use of natural approaches to healing. He was not interested in what someone had learned from a book but the smallest personal experience with healing was of great interest to him.

Over the rest of his life, bit by bit, through personal experiences and experiments, Gandhiji developed a system of natural healing.

Today his system teaches us not so much what but how.

Gravity

2008-12-15T12:37:00.001-08:00

The principle of Minimum Effort becomes easy to practice with the use of gravity as a friend. Let us use the universal language of film to visualize this.

When panning left or right, let gravity move you, allowing the moving body parts, such as the limbs, to move slightly downward in a large arc. When tilting down, move towards the gravitational pull along your line of least resistance. Most often that would not be a linear movement down but a small circling, like an aircraft landing.

Tilting up then is the only movement that seems to defy gravity. But meditating on this movement helps us see that defying gravity is impossible and sets up an unnecessary duality, for and against. Once in meditation my arms shot up and were suspended in the air.

That's when I learned that letting go of human resistance allows our bodies to move with gravity in all directions.

There are no straight lines in nature. No up and down. Yoga is about letting go.

Block

2008-12-14T00:59:00.001-08:00

A block is a temporary energy knot. It is good to see it as energy. Then you know it is simply a matter of untangling some wires and the current can flow again.

I remember visiting my mother in Mumbai recently. She had renovated her home and while I was there a fancy Italian light fixture simply blew up, the bulb shattering. Having grown up in old Bombay, this was not particularly alarming to either of us. A calm investigation showed a blockage, a set of tightly mangled wires. In a few minutes the wires were untangled. Energy flowed into the fresh naked light bulb.

Untangle. Let the energy flow. You don't need fixtures, a naked body will do.

Cancer and Yoga Therapy Lecture by Abhay Ghiara

2008-12-07T19:59:00.000-08:00

I will be lecturing on yoga at an all day workshop on Cancer and Yoga Therapy: a cross-disciplinary workshop bringing together yoga instructors and health professionals to exchange information about cancer treatment and learn new ways to help support survivors through alternative treatments such as yoga.

The other two speakers are pioneers in the field of alternative treatments to traditional cancer treatments. Anand Dhruva, M.D is a cancer specialist at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion. He provides integrative medicine consultations for cancer patients with specialized knowledge in both standard and non-traditional approaches to treatments and supportive care. Kelly McGonigal, PhD is a leading expert on the mind-body relationship and the psychology of yoga. She teaches yoga, meditation, and psychology at Stanford University, and is a passionate editor and freelance writer in the areas of mind-body psychology and integrative health care.

January 10th, 2009 10 AM - 4 PM at the California Pacific Medical Center
It is a free BUT space is very limited! Please register soon to avoid disappointment! For more information, maps, etc. please click here.

I hope many of you can make it to this paradigm-shifting workshop. Regardless of your background you will surely have a deeply transforming experience!

photo: John W. Sisson Jr

No on Prop 8

2008-12-03T20:22:00.000-08:00

William came out in my class today. He was sharing his journal with the class. His eyes were in blood red tears as he shared his entry from the day of the elections. I am gay, he said. I admit it. I am gay, and I am still devastated. Those of you who are minorities should have voted no. Not so long ago you were in the same position that I am in. Denied your rights. You should have voted no.

I gave him a big hug, enveloping him in my arms. There is work to be done. As radical yogis we can not follow the ancient books, the ancient ways. Those contain so many injustices, so many misguided attempts at controlling people. The ancient yogic texts are full of stupid proclamations about women for instance. The sex-manuals ban homosexual intercourse. We must leave the books and the traditions behind. Leave to gurus behind. And embark on the path to self-discovery. That is the only way. That is my promise to William.

A Radical Yoga

2008-12-03T19:02:00.001-08:00

I love to talk about yoga. The yoga with no rules. The yoga with no copyrights. The yoga with no trademarks. Will it take a revolution to recognize the radical nature of yoga? To move yoga away from the 'namaste-mongering' folks who blindly and unthinkingly spread a form of conservative, follow-the-guru or so-called school of yoga?

Friends, yoga is free. All you have to do is breathe and you can feel that. Yoga is free, you are free, and in that freedom and only in that freedom is discovery possible.

photo: John W. Sisson, Jr.

Mumbai

2008-11-30T13:22:00.001-08:00

#Mumbai means mother Mumba, the great goddess of the fisherfolk of the region. The land is seen as the mother, source of nourishment. She has seen attacks before. As a child I remember looking up at a sky glowing red and being fascinated by the 'lolli-pops' hanging in the sky. We survived that war.

Back then we called our city Bombay, beautiful bay in Portuguese. We would stuff hankies in our mouths and duck under our desks in school when the air raid sirens would go off.

We are survivors. And we have mother Mumba watching over us.

Photo: I took this photograph just outside Leopolds, where the carnage began these last few days. When I took this photo, however, it was another late night in Bombay, as we thought of our city then, the cool air blowing in from the beautiful bay.

Diffusion

2008-11-29T19:26:00.000-08:00

There is a central energy point in your body. It is not a static point, located in one place, as many seem to think. Instead, it is fluid and can move to every part of your body. That takes practice. And time.

In the meantime, there's yoga. During yoga energy diffuses from the central point to the rest of the body. I remember my seventh grade science teacher (who was also a famous sitar player) in Bombay demonstrate paper diffusion. A drop of ink is added to a blotting paper. Then as drops of water are added, the ink moves all the way to the edges.

That is precisely what yoga does. Call it soul diffusion.

Connection

2008-08-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Our sense of connection to the land has been eroding. With it has emerged the difficulty of connecting with others, especially that special person in our life.

What is important to remember about connecting with your partner is this: You must first of all develop a deep and lasting connection with your self. If you can not love your self, pamper your self, nourish your self, how can you connect with another?

Connection is all about the flow of energy. Allow your yoga practice to reinvigorate the flow of energy in your body. Hopefully your partner can join you in this. However the practice of yoga is not just the performing of some postures. Yoga can be and should be sitting in the sun, caressing a flower, playing with your pet or children, laughing!

A new food blog!

2008-08-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

I have teamed up with Krista, my partner in yoga, food, and all things fun and life-affirming to create a new food blog entitled, LOVE TWO EAT. We have been enthusiastic cooks all our lives and are excited about our first blog project together!

We plan to share recipes and tips for quick, tasty, home-cooked meals!

Check our blog out at lovetwoeat.com

Upma -- the divine Indian hot cereal

2008-08-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

The secret to the good life is a good breakfast. Here is, in my opinion, the best comfort food and hot breakfast ever invented: The Indian Upma (pronounce oop-ma).

I just made it paying careful attention to all measurements which I do not usually do, being by nature an improviser. But this turned out fantastic so here goes:

Warm 2 tbs of olive oil with 1/4 tsp. brown (they look black) mustard seeds.

When the mustard seeds start popping like popcorn, add 1/4 inch ring of jalapeno (chopped) and 1/4 onion (cubed). Sautee for a minute or two.

Add 1/4 tsp turmeric and 1/4 tsp cumin powder. Stir. Add a handful of cilantro (chopped).

Add 1/4 cup green peas.Stir and cook 2 minutes.

Add 3/4 cup cream of rice. You can find cream of rice amongst the hot cereals.

Mix and add 2 cups of boiling water very carefully! Now the whole thing will look like a watery soup. Don't worry, keep stirring for about 2 minutes until it thickens to the consistency of steamed rice.

It is done! Top with a 1/4 tsp of ghee and enjoy! Let me know how it goes, OK?

A sandwich

2008-07-31T12:27:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning with about 10 minutes available to make a lunch to carry with me on my 7 mile bike ride to work. No time to cook so I made a sandwich.

I don't like eating wheat. And I don't like yeast. So in my family we eat Kamut bread that is yeast-free, made by hand, and tasty. Made by Pacific Bakery in Oceanside. I set four slices on the cutting board. Lemon mayonnaise on two slices and spicy hummus on the other two. Then I cut up an entire avocado and put it on the two hummus slices.

I added an heirloom tomato all chopped up to the avocado and then closed the two mayonnaise covered slices onto the juicy contents. A small piece of wax paper (instead of plastic wrap) to wrap the two sandwiches and I was ready to go in about 9 minutes leaving me a minute to smile broadly at my creations.

Eating Well when time is short

2008-07-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

I had 30 minutes this morning to fix myself some lunch and carry it in 2 Nissan soup thermoses to work. I do not like to buy food at work, preferring to cook myself a quick lunch. I hope this will inspire some of my readers to cook more and eat out less.

Back to the 30 minutes I had this morning.

00: I warmed a tablespoon of olive oil with a teaspoon of black mustard seeds in it. As this warms on low heat I chop 2 garlic cloves finely. Put on water to boil.

01: Put on rice to cook.

03: The mustard starts to pop very gently like popcorn. I add the garlic and stir.

03-07: I chop 1/4 of a globe eggplant from Full Belly Farm into cubes and saute it in the oil. In the meantime I break off the florets of 1/2 a cauliflower by hand.

07-10: I chop a farm potato into cubes and add potatoes followed by cauliflower to the sauteed eggplants. Stir.

10-12: Pour boiling water into the pot with the vegetables so that the water stands 2-3 inches high.

13: I add a teaspoon on ladoo besan (gram flour) from the Indian store and a tablespoon of Pataks Mild Curry Paste. Stir and cover.

20: Rice is done.

25: Curry is done. Scoop rice and curry into two insulated Soup Jars (Nissan as pointed out above).

25-30: Tidy up in the kitchen and pack up my lovely vegetarian meal. This will keep me going until 9:30 tonight!

Awakening the serpent

2008-02-06T18:16:00.000-08:00

One of the primary goals of Yoga is to awaken the sleeping serpent that the Ancients called Kundalini and imagined as a tightly coiled queen cobra. This slumbering queen was said to reside at the very base of the spine in the region of the anus. The rhythmic contraction and relaxation of the area known as the mooladhara or root chakra results in the gradual awakening of this mighty power. A warmth moves up the spine, a tingling perhaps, indicating the release of this energy. Our yoga practice then harnesses this energy, moving it upwards.

Through our yoga practice we then learn to stimulate, harness, and finally modulate this fine feminine energy that can move worlds. Some choose to experience this energy through intimate bonding with a lover. Others like Mahatma Gandhi direct this energy towards the creation of a just world and moving people to own their lives and destinies. Whether experienced as orgasm or emancipation the power of the release is real, powerful, and earth-shattering.

Hope you are enjoying a great yoga practice,

Peace and Love

Abhay

new web site!

2007-06-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Check out my new web site at

rawyoga.com

What is wrong with Yoga classes?

2007-02-24T13:35:00.000-08:00

Soon after I started my sabbatical from teaching yoga, I received the following letter from Alena, one of my long-time students:

I have been supplementing my yoga practice by going to 7th Heaven yoga where I have been to classes with many teachers and done many different types of yoga. I have to say that the Hatha Yoga you teach is what I like the best out of them all so far. Please let me know if you resume teaching!

I decided to explore and evaluate the yoga that is being taught at private Yoga Studios in the United States. This is necessarily a personal and subjective evaluation:

On the plus side I find a number of young, enthusiastic teachers who are very committed to spreading yoga and making it accessible to all. There are also some extensions of yoga that have been developed by teachers that are new and interesting.

Having said that I must say that I am most profoundly disappointed not only with American teachers of yoga but also Indian teachers who have taught yoga to American teachers. The yoga that is being taught in the US today is only a shell without an inner body. Yoga is taught as a series of postures without reference to energetic movements of the prana or life force. That's a little like someone dressing up as Superman and because he is dressed the part, believing that he is the part.

The heart of yoga is the understanding that the person is composed of three interconnected layers. First, there is the physical you. Second, there is your body image. Yoga must expand our body image to accurately reflect an awareness of all parts of the body. Most people only have their face and one other body part as part of their body image and hence suffer from poor posture, poor alignment, and low self-worth. Third, is the energetic system of the body. Yoga promotes the circulation of prana, or life force energy throughout the body, equalizing emotions, desires, and the unfoldment of the spiritual life.

Yoga literally mean to join. I call on yoga teachers in America to end the disconnect, the teaching of the form without the function, and to teach yoga as a true gestalt.

Peace and Love,

Abhay

10 More Questions about Yoga answered!

2006-10-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

Here are the most recent 10 questions I have picked to answer:

Q1. How long do you practice yoga each day?
Answer: About 10 minutes.

Q2. WHAT! Why not an hour?
Answer: The benefits of yoga are cumulative. Ten minutes daily is an hour every six days. It is far better to do ten minutes a day than an hour every six days.

Q3. But how do you stay fit with a ten minute yoga practice?
Answer: In the West, we think of yoga as a substitute for exercise. It is not. I ride my bicycle for 15 miles each day. It is so lovely! The caterpillars are everywhere right now. I also walk a lot. Yoga is not a substitute for an active lifestyle.

Q4. How is your approach is very different from all the other schools of yoga in America.
Answer: The yoga I teach invokes the 4 yogic cycles. We work with breath, movement, energetic movement of prana or life-force, and relaxing deeply into the asanas or postures.

Q5. If 10 minutes of yoga practice is sufficient, why teach a one-hour class?
Answer: In class you are under careful supervision and plenty of personal attention. When you practice on your own, your attention may wander after a while. You reach what the economists call diminishing returns very quickly.

Q6. How many postures should one perform and how often?
Answer: I would suggest 3-4 postures performed on a daily basis and yoga class at regular intervals to deepen the practice.

Q7. Other yoga classes are getting longer and longer. Two hour classes are now common. Answer: Students are told to make yoga their life, practicing for hours each day. By what authority do you contradict their advice?
Answer: I have absolutely no authority to contradict any other approaches. I am merely stating what I know of yoga through years of personal learning and practice. It is an inner knowing.

Q8. Why do you not follow any known school of yoga or why do you not create your own school of yoga and name it?
Answer: The so called schools are all made-up by teachers looking to organize. To institutionalize. The great Philosopher Krishnamurti used to joke about people finding the Truth and then the Devil helping them organize it. Forget about schools. Forget about trademarks. Yoga is free and can not be contained. My teacher is unknown in the West. He is very difficult to find even in India. That is how it should be. Everything else is what the ancient yogis called maya, or illusion.

Q9. What is your favorite posture?
Answer: Sitting comfortably cross legged on the floor.

Q10. Why practice yoga?
Answer: Only because it is so much fun! As Vanda Scaravelli (a great teacher who refused to create a school of yoga) said, yoga is like taking a refreshing shower!

A refreshing shower that keeps you young and beautiful and gives you the best sleep possible at the end of the day.

Relaxing into the postures

2006-10-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

I recently received an email from an old student of mine that made me think about the difference between yoga and Western modes of exercise. Here is an excerpt from the email:

Hey Abhay! How's it going? I have been thinking about you a lot lately. Since I'm working in SF now I joined a gym nearby and have been taking yoga there every Monday and Wednesday morning - at 6:30am no doubt! It's a moderate hatha-based power yoga class and is quite challenging, but I'm doing well with it and feel fantastic. I also work out there twice a week and am really happy with the improvements I'm seeing.

You're on my mind at every class because of the core things you taught me about yoga - breath and alignment. This class doesn't go into as much detail on those topics as yours did, and if I had not studied with you I would not be doing nearly as well...I'm afraid I'd be fighting the asanas instead of relaxing into them solidly.......

I was happy to know that this student really understood what yoga was all about. Because it is different from what we in the West call exercise. For yoga to have its almost magical effects you have to let go, relax into the postures, and flow with the rhythm of the 4 yogic cycles.

Peace and love

Abhay

Imaginary Yoga and the 4 yoga cycles

2006-08-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

The new student of yoga is pleasantly surprised to find that the yoga postures are named after animals, plants, and objects: Cat, pigeon, tree, plough. While these names are to be seen as metaphors rather than be taken literally, there is no hidden mystic meaning behind these names. The Ancients were simply experimenting with things they saw around them. And so can you! You can make up yoga postures by studying the world around you and creating postures that emulate or express the inner essence of things you observe. Call it Imaginary Yoga.

When you practice your Imaginary Yoga just make sure you use the 4 yogic cycles. My students are closely familiar with them: they are the basis of the yoga I teach.

1. Breath cycle.
One of my teachers used to say that yoga was an excuse to breathe. What he meant was that the deep, even breathing in yoga is at the heart of the practice. Fill your entire torso with breath and then gently let it all out.

2. Expansion and contraction cycle.
In moving postures, breathe in when you expand, as in looking up or bending backwards. Breathe out when you contract, as in looking down or bending forward. When you get to a posture that is held in stillness you don't need this principle.

3. Internal rhythm cycle.
On the outbreath you contract the anal sphincter. On the inbreath you relax it.

4. Effort and relaxation cycle.
Effort is used on the outbreath both in still postures and moving ones. The inbreath is never accompanied by an active movement or effort in stillness: it is accompanied by relaxation.

The four cycles work together to create a Gestalt, or whole, so it is important to combine them.

After all the word yoga in Sanskrit means, to join.

Peace and Love,

Abhay

The Sex chakra and yoga

2006-04-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

The second chakra, or energy vortex, is most closely associated with sex. Located in the region of the sexual organs, it is a powerful engine for self-expression and self-worth.

The Ancients saw sex as much more than the physical union of bodies leading to a crescendo of release. The yogic view of sex is a joining, a coming together in physical, spiritual, and psychic resonance. Modern lifestyles and the media have done much to distort and muddy the crystal-clear experience of this sacred union.

Our practice of yoga is aimed at rejuventating our sexual organs to enhance their natural abilities to experience oneness with the divine. Deep-breathing combined with the rhythmic contraction of the internal organs during the outbreath followed by release on the inbreath harmonizes this chakra.

The yogic approach to sex was named tantra by the ancient yogis, a word that means to weave together beautifully. What a refreshing idea!

Peace and Love,

Abhay

Love

2006-04-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

What exactly is love? Is it a feeling or state of being? Some mystical thinkers have described the development of the human being in terms of the development of love. When you can love everything, right and wrong, good and evil, you have reached nirvana, the state of oneness with all-that-is.

Yoga teaches us a different kind of love. A love of every aspect of our bodies. Consider the wonder that is your body that allows you to experience the beauty of each passing breath, the gentle breeze, the magic of a moonlit night. Why not take the time to appreciate each part of your body, to call each part beautiful: toes, ankles, calves, shins, knees, thighs, buttocks, anus, vagina, penis, belly, internal organs, chest, breasts, back, shoulders, upper arms, fore arms, elbows, wrists, palms, fingers, neck, face, scalp.

Our yoga practice is a love-fest of sorts. The point, according to the ancients, is not to exercise each part, but rather to pay homage to each and every part of your body.

Peace and Love,

Abhay

Breath: in and out

2006-03-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

The nature of the in-breath is very different from that of the out-breath. The in-breath should never be forced. The deepening of the ujjayi breath in yoga is achieved solely by focusing on gaining conscious control of the out-breath.

The Ancients knew that we can not force the breath in. It is as futile as trying to get a cat to do something she does not want to do. What we can do, however, is create the conditions for the in-breath to deepen on its own. Allowing the air to completely empty out of the torso creates an inviting space for a powerful in-breath to flow into.

The Sanskrit word for breath, prana, also means life-force. In our yoga practice we create a space for life-force to enter into us. That is what breath is all about.

Cliff, my long-time student who is an accomplished musician, recently put it like this:

In drumming we have a parallel. Rather than using a stick or the hand to strike a drum through a forceful downward intent, we prepare the stroke by lifting the stick or hand and then letting it drop in an aligned manner. The up should also happen on a subdivision of the tempo so that the down meets the drum at the proper time. If the up is off, the down will be too. It's truly all about the up.

Now those are words of insight!

Peace and Love

Abhay

Root

2006-03-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

At the base of the spine resides the power, known as kundalini, the coiled-up cobra. This is our root, where we draw sustenance from. The Ancients described this as the first of seven major energy points along the spine which they called chakras, or circles.

The root chakra is the first and most important energy point. We can visualize it as a rotating disc in the perinium, between the anal sphincter and the reproductive organs.

The magnificence of the beautiful redwood tree depends upon strong and stable roots. Keeping our attention upon our root allows our yoga practice to bear leaves, flowers, and fruit.

Peace and Love,

Abhay

Metaphor

2006-02-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

Yogasanas, or yoga postures, often have vivid, colorful names. Cat, Dog, Pigeon, Plough. Sometimes it is hard for a student to see how the name of the posture relates to the posture itself.

What we must remember is that the names are not supposed to be taken literally. Instead they are metaphors, rich in multi-dimensional meaning.

Deep in her practice, if a yogini will hold the name of the posture in her mind's eye, the fullness of the posture will reveal itself quietly.

Move away from the literal. Embrace the metaphor. The Ancients thought that was a good guide to a life of wonderment.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Grace

2006-02-27T10:03:00.000-08:00

Our practice of yoga aims at developing kripa, or grace, in body and mind. The idea of grace was very important to the Ancients and is the foundation of spiritual yoga even today.

The Ancients preferred the natural undulating curves of the belly, gently rounded shoulders, lenghtened muscle fibers. Modern day preoccupations with body fat content and the development of unnaturally shortened muscles (such as the six-pack) go against the vision of the great yogis.

What is it about yoga that makes it so different from western exercise? The yoga asanas, or postures, are designed to lengthen the muscle fibers while at the same time working on the glandular level to create harmony and balance. The major joints,glands, and organs are stimulated and recover their innate abilities to function flawlessly. Western exercise, on the other hand, simply tightens and shortens muscle fibers in an attempt to reduce bulk in some places and add bulk in others. This purely mechnical view of the body can only lead to a machine-like body.

Yoga sees the body as an organic whole and the practice of yoga is the practice of kripa or grace.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Ten Yoga Questions Answered

2005-12-31T17:03:00.000-08:00

Over the years I have been asked a lot of questions about yoga. Here are ten of them that I have picked with my answers:

Question 1. What is yoga?
Yoga is a complete system of physical and mental attunement that was developed in Ancient India. The word yoga in Sanskrit means to join. Yoga joins the mind and body, breath and movement, an enhanced physical ability for joyous experience and spiritual centeredness.

Question 2. Was yoga developed for men and by men? Has it only recently adapted to the specific needs of women?
Yoga has an ancient and long tradition of yogis and yoginis who fine-tuned and developed this art and practice that we now know as yoga. One of the important yoga texts was in fact written specifically for women. Yoga is alive and well in the traditionally matriarchal communities in the state of Kerala in India. Yoga was always intended to be practiced by both men and women (and children!).

Question 3. Can I learn yoga by studying ancient yoga books? How about DVDs?
Yoga is an oral-kinesthetic tradition. It is meant to be passed down from teacher to student. It is one of the earliest forms of learning-by-doing and is meant to be learned from a teacher. When you learn yoga from a DVD you don't have the benefit of a skilled yoga teacher monitoring your movements and making adjustments. That can lead to slight misalignments accumulating over time and causing problems down the road.

Question 4. Can you explain the prevalence of multiple schools of yoga? Which school do you belong to?
The prevalence of many schools of yoga is a recent phenomenon. In India, where I grew up and studied yoga, there traditionally aren't really schools of yoga but different great teachers. I learned yoga from a teacher who in turn learned it from his teacher going back in an unbroken line many thousand years.

Question 5. What is the ideal yoga practice?
A short daily practice, lasting no more than 30 minutes, coupled with a good yoga class about once a week.

Question 6. How is yoga related to meditation?
Yoga practice can be thought of as moving meditation. Meditation involves stilling the mind and allowing the conscious mind to focus on one's breathing. Yoga allows for exactly that with the added benefit of physical toning and perfect health.

Question 7. What is unique about your approach to yoga?
To my knowledge no teacher in America teaches the kind of yoga I do. The yoga I teach works with moving the prana energy through the body in combination with deep breathing and physical asanas or postures. In this way we work on three dimensions at once. It is a powerful and amazingly fast way to creating health, beauty, and longevity.

Question 8. How is the yoga you teach different from Pilates and other forms of physical exercise?
The yoga I teach works far more deeply than most other forms of exercise. Working with the body's energy system, breathing, and postures works not only on the sinews but also much deeper on the body's glandular systems. This provides the conscientious student with the possiblility of deep transformations unavailable in most other forms of exercise.

Question 9. I have heard of yogis who can lie on beds of nails, walk on coals, eat glass, bend steel poles with their eye-balls. Are these stories true? Can I get to this point?
Yes. These are all true. I have seen all of this with my own eyes. If you practice yoga enough you may be able to do all these things if you choose to.

Question 10. Why do you practice yoga?
Because it is fun, healthy, and endlessly fascinating.

Minimum Effort

2005-10-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

I wish you all a deep and healthy yoga practice. Yoga, the ancient art of India has been practiced for thousands of years giving its practitioners a long life, a beautiful body, and a serene mind.

One of the principles of yoga that I would like to emphasize in this issue is the principle of Minimum Effort. I know that it seems like a contradiction to talk about a yoga practice and effortlessness in the same sentence. However that is precisely how the Ancients who conceived of the art and science of yoga describe the ideal yoga session. All actions, movements, and holds must be undertaken with the very minimum effort required.

But how is such an effortlessness to be achieved? Through a continuous focus upon the breath! Breathe deeply using Ujjayi breaths. Concentrate all your attention on rhythmically breathing in and out and soon you will be doing yoga using the principle of Minimum Effort.

My recommended yoga book is Vanda Scaravelli's Awakening The Spine. This is a beautiful book that could easily have been titled Zen in the art of yoga. Read it or simply enjoy the beautiful images of waves, trees, and yogis suspended in the air with a minimum of effort.

Peace and Love
Abhay

How to breathe

2005-10-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you who responded so positively to my newsletter last week. This week I want to talk more about breathing.

Essentially there are 2 kinds of breathing practices in the yoga that I teach. The first is used when an asana (posture) is HELD in stillness. The second is used when you flow from one asana to the next.

When you hold an asana, you should softly go deeper into the asana on the OUTBREATH. You should always relax on the INBREATH. For example, in down dog, you should push back with your palms, roll the hips open, and sink your heels into the floor softly on the OUTBREATH. You should relax on the INBREATH.

When you flow from one asana to another, breathe in when looking up
and breathe out when looking down. More specifically, when your torso
is extending away from your body is when you will be breathing in. When your torso in folding in towards your body you breathe out.

Hope this clarifies one or two questions you may have about breathing. And don't forget to bring a bottle of WATER to class and take at least 2 water breaks. The yoga we do is deep and intense. But it is NOT boot camp!

Peace and Love
Abhay

Lotus Motif

2005-09-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

The lotus is a tropical water plant that grows in ponds all over India. The lotus motif runs through much of yoga reminding us that our bodies, contrary to appearances, are composed almost entirely of water. Yoga literally means to join. Our practice of yoga joins us with our water nature and the lotus motif symbolizes this reunion.

We sit in lotus. We invert in lotus. That is not all though. We keep the lotus motif as a guiding principle that informs our form throughout our practice. Let us consider two examples. First, in Salamba Sarvangasana (shoulderstand) we point our feet but then we flex our toes to create a lotus blossom. Second, in all our standing and balance postures, including Veerabhadrasana and Vrksasana (warrior variations and tree), we stretch our palms but allow the fingers to curl naturally, emulating the action of the delicate petals of the muddy water lotus.

In yoga, our mind-bodies (can't really separate the two - the Ancients called that separation maya or illusion) develop the tenacity of the lotus stem. It is a form of undiluted amusement for rural folk in India to watch a city boy or girl filled with an inexplicable longing for a lotus flower plunge hands into a pond and pull, and pull, and pull to no effect whatsoever. The lotus stem is almost impossible to break!

The lotus motif connects us to that ephemeral tenacity that Gandhiji called Satyagraha or Soul Force.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Moon Cycle

2005-08-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

There have been some questions from the women in class about what to do when you have your period. Many traditional classes emphasize that women should NOT perform inversions such as Sarvangasana (shoulderstand) during their period.

I never ask my female students to refrain from inversions during their menstrual periods because I am not convinced that there is any scientific evidence of it being a problem.

My personal view is this: Throughout history men have tried to tell women what was good for them and what was bad. It has turned out that almost all this 'advice' was nothing more than blind faith or even worse, manipulative dogmas designed to control women and prevent them from expressing themselves fully.

A modern eclectic yoga practice is to be undertaken with common sense. Do not refrain from any asanas because some 'authority' tells you to. Instead, skip ANY asana when your body just doesn't feel like doing it regardless of whether you have your period or not. When you want to skip a posture simply go into Balakasana or Child's Pose and rest!

Peace and Love
Abhay

Meditation

2005-08-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

An old yogi was once asked for guidance by a young student who wanted to progress rapidly in his yoga practice. Meditate, was the answer. The student was baffled. He expected to be told that the way to progress would be an even more lengthy and strenuous yoga practice. Meditation was about not doing very much, in fact doing nothing at all! How could this help?

The old yogi replied, you are already doing too much. You are doing, doing, doing all the time. There is no chance for your body to absorb anything of value. So still your mind, meditate, and yoga will come to you like a lovely dream as you sleep. The student followed the old yogi's guidance. He sat in a comfortable cross-legged position with his spine erect each day for 20 minutes focusing on his breath, letting go of what the zen masters call monkey mind.

And yoga did come to the young student as in a dream. The old yogi was right, there was very little effort involved. I know this story to be true because the old yogi was my teacher. And the young student? Ah, him I have known all my life.

Peace and Love,

Abhay

A Guided Meditation

2005-08-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

I learned the following ancient guided meditation from one of my great teachers, Charles Lightwalker. I have modified it to be suitable to beginning as well as continuing students of yoga.

Sit in a comfortable cross-legged position such as the half-lotus. Keep your spine reasonably straight without forcing it. You may even use a wall or the edge of a sofa to support your back.

Take some deep breaths and visualize each in-breath as a silken cord moving downward through your body connecting you to the center of mother earth. And visualize each outbreath as bringing energy up the silken cord, up from the center of the earth all the way up to your solar plexus or third chakra. After a while you should feel very grounded.

Now, visualize a warm, healing beam of light coming down from the heavens, entering your body at the crown of your head, moving down past what the ancients called the third eye (between your eyebrows), down to your heart.

Once this has been established in your imagination, the rest of the meditation involves connecting the earth energy that is being drawn up the silken cord to your solar plexus and the light energy being drawn down to your heart.

Sit as long as you like, rooted to mother earth and basking in the light of the heavens. Do it every day! It is like taking a shower. A shower of light!

Peace and Love
Abhay

Journey of Soul

2005-07-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

Yoga initiates a number of changes in the body and psyche that are deep, fundamental, and long-lasting. My first American student asked me whether she should quit smoking in order to practice yoga. I said no and let the matter rest. She continued to perform the asanas regularly. Three months later she came to me pretty agitated and said, I can't smoke anymore! I mean it just makes me nauseous.

The serious student of yoga may find her body loosening up in a geometric progression. At the same time such a deep transformation in patterns of holding our bodies that may have been unchanged for generations (think about something physical you do with your body such as slouching and think about your parents, grandparents, tracing it back in time) are bound to result in a profound release of some sort. The release may come in the form of sudden bouts of crying or laughter, inexplicable anger, or a general sense of distress. These should not be cause for alarm. They will pass.

On the bright side the student of yoga progressively experiences a deeper connection with her body, a greater acceptance of her natural beauty, and embarks on a journey like no other. The Ancients called this the journey of Breath, a word in Sanskrit that also means the journey of Soul.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Get to know your tree

2005-06-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

A student once asked a yogini (female yoga teacher) how she could improve her balance poses particularly Vrksasana or Tree Pose. I keep falling over, she said. The yogini asked, when you are in Vrksasana, what kind of tree are you? What are your branches like, your leaves? Do you provide shade for a weary pilgrim or a cow? How exactly do you sway when the monsoon winds pregnant with water droplets appear from the south? Get to know your tree and over time its roots will take hold.

Get to know your yogasanas (yoga postures) with acceptance, understanding, and humor. Your breath and your imagination are your allies in this endeavor. There is no way to fail in yoga. Remember this!

Peace and Love
Abhay

Circles vs Straight Lines

2005-05-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

As yogis (anyone who does yoga is a yogi) we often find ourselves reaching for our toes in Uttanasana or reaching our heels towards the floor in Down Dog. Whenever you find yourself reaching for something in an asana (posture), try moving in a circle rather than a straight line. Now that may be counter-intuitive at first. In western culture we are taught to "think straight," and guard against "circular reasoning." I call this the engineering approach. Applying the engineering approach works well when your goal is to build something inorganic and inanimate, a modern skyscraper for instance. It does not work very well when you are dealing with something organic and animate like your body.

When you want to reach body part A towards point B on your body or on the floor or the ceiling, start making little circles with A. Now this does not have look like you are performing an elaborate tribal ritual with body part A (though come to think of it, why not!). Simply make circles describing a spiral that moves you towards point B.

The Ancients believed that yoga practice moves energy along the 7 energy centers in the body that we call chakras. Chakra, in Sanskrit, also means circle.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Embrace Life!

2005-04-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Hi there you beautiful yogis (anyone who practices yoga is called a yogi)! I hope you are enjoying the yoga class and trying out some of the postures at home as well. Play with the postures, experiment, and make sure you are having fun with them.

Yoga literally means to join, to embrace. Yoga, particularly hatha or physical yoga, was created to help people embrace life more fully. There is a story told of a teacher who ran a school wherein students copied the old classics. A new student who later went on to be one of the great yogis pointed out to the teacher that the students were using copies to copy the text from. Shouldn't they be using the originals? The teacher gave some thought to this and decided that the young man was right. The teacher then proceeded into the basement of the temple where the originals were stored. An hour went by, two hours, three hours and so on. The students started getting restless. Had something happened to the teacher? He was a very old man after all. The young student was sent to look for the teacher. In the basement the student saw the teacher sitting on the floor weeping. The student was surprised by this. He had never seen a teacher weep. He proceeded cautiously towards the teacher. The teacher, who could instinctively feel the young man's presence said, There is a word we've been copying for decades which I now realize is wrong, an error. We've been writing CELIBATE when it says right here in the original CELEBRATE.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Temple in which your soul resides

2005-02-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

In India there is a belief that the body is the temple in which your soul resides. The healthier and more cared for the outer temple, the more serene and wise the soul. Yogic nutrition can be summed up in the Rule of 3. I am going to tell you what this rule is not first and then I’ll tell you what this rule is.

The Rule of 3 is not about carbs, fats, or sugars. Stop worrying about those at once. I mean right now.

The Rule of 3 asks us to focus on only three items in our diet. All we have to do is to keep our intake of these 3 items to the optimal. The first item in the Rule of 3 is water. Drink very large amounts of high quality water. Carry water with you at all times. And remember to drink water when doing yoga!

The second item in the Rule of 3 is fresh fruits and vegetables. Find and eat only the freshest organic fruits and vegetables. Participate in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project like Full Belly Farm and get a weekly box of organic fruits and veggies for about $15 a week. It may be the best political statement you could make while becoming healthy! Eat these every day, several times a day.

The third item in the Rule of 3 is Ghee. Ghee is familiar to Indian and French cooks (who refer to it as clarified butter) as well as yogis who swear by its almost magical properties. You can buy ghee at the Berkeley Bowl. Ghee is butter transformed through an alchemical process rendering it very powerful in its abilities to do two things: First, to carry nutrients deep into your tissues and organs, and second, to detoxify. Ghee is unique in its ability to detoxify fat soluble toxins in the body. Most importantly, it tastes great! Try it on top of lightly steamed vegetables or cook with it instead of oil or butter.

The Rule of 3 provides a simple, yet comprehensive nutritional system for the development of a beautiful body. And the more beautiful your body looks and feels, the more you honor the soul that resides within your temple.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Discomfort vs pain

2005-02-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

There is a way in which you can monitor your yoga practice to ensure an optimal workout. Most asanas (postures) ask you to leave the zone of comfort and move into the zone of discomfort. Experiencing discomfort is a good thing. It is tempting to stay within one's comfort zone. But for yoga to effectively open up and change your body it is important that you feel your self moving from the comfort zone to the discomfort zone in a conscious, willing way.

However, when you leave the discomfort zone and enter the pain zone you have gone too far and are actually slowing down your body's yogic development.

You must learn to distinguish between discomfort and pain. Bodies are creatures of habit, and at first resist anything out of the ordinary including mild discomfort. Be kind to your self, engage your body in an inner dialogue and allow the discomfort while disallowing the pain.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Developing a home yoga practice

2004-12-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

The Ancients describe the ideal yoga practice as one revolving around the four-fold classification of asanas or postures. In the beginning do two asanas from each of the four groups and you have a practice!

The four fold classification is based on the position of the body at the beginning of the asana. It is as follows:

a. Belly up
b. Belly down
c. Standing
d. Sitting

a. Belly up
Starting on your back you may move into the Bridge Pose. Remember to have your feet on the mat a few inches below your buttocks, hip distance apart. Your prana or life force is directed downwards through your heels pulling your buttocks and hips up towards the ceiling. Your hands are by your sides, palms active, facing down. Next you may come down and bring your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs just below the knees and play with rocking yourself side to side and forward and back in Little Boat.

b. Belly down
Starting with your hands and knees on the floor, arms and thighs perpendicular to your torso, you may move into a Cat Curve on the outbreath, curving your spine upwards, dropping your head. You would follow this with a Dog Tilt on the inbreath, your spine now sinking down towards the mat, your head is raised, looking up. Rhythmically move back and forth between these two asanas, allowing your prana or life force to move up the entire length of the spine. When you feel nice and warmed up you may want to move into the famous anana, Downward Facing Dog. To move into Down Dog you would start from the Dog Tilt position and keep the hips in the open position, sitting bones pointing towards the ceiling. Next your arms move forward 45 degrees. Finally you come up on your hands and feet allowing your head to relax. The line of prana energy is moving down your heels into the ground, whether or not your heels touch the mat.

c. Standing
Standing with your feet together, you may want to bend the right knee and bring the right foot to rest on your left thigh, a namaste mudra or Prayer Posture at your heart. Next your namaste moves to the ceiling, and hands come apart, palms facing each other at shoulder distance while your fingers curl like lotus petals. Look forward with a soft gaze and allow a smile to play upon your lips. This is the tree asana. When you are ready, switch legs. Also read my newsletter, "Get to know your tree" on this blog. You may want to then move into Warrior I and II asanas on both sides.

d. Sitting
Lastly, sit in meditation in Lotus, Half Lotus, Open Lotus, or Vajrasana. For the Lotus variations you sit directly on your sitting bones with each foot on top of the other thigh. For Half Lotus, only one foot is atop the other thigh, with the other foot tucked under the opposing thigh. Or open up your Lotus and allow both feet and calves to rest comfortably on your mat. And meditate focusing on your breathing. Now you are one with your prana or life force. You are breath and nothing else matters.

Peace and Love
Abhay

Dedicating your practice

2004-11-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

I learned a wonderful way of staying on track with my yoga practice from Tracey Green, one of my great yoga teachers. Tracey recommends dedicating your practice on three planes. On the first, most immediate plane, you dedicate your practice to your self. Next, you dedicate your practice to someone you know who is in need of healing. Lastly, you dedicate your practice to healing mother earth.

You do this each and every time you practice yoga, whether in class or during your home practice. If you start doing this consistently, you will find that in lazy moments when you'd rather be dozing on the couch instead of doing yoga, your dedications will "pull you by the hair" as the other great teacher, Vanda Scaravelli, would say, and take you to your practice. Try it!

Peace and Love,
Abhay

1990-03-09T10:34:00.000-08:00

Namaste!

Thank you!

Peace and Love

Abhay