Recently, the University of Southern California released the results of a multi-year study on the common cold. The researchers said their findings showed that the most effective means of preventing the common clod was a five thousand year old yoga technique — irrigating the nose. As well as cleaning the sinuses and nasal passages, the technique was credited by the study with boosting the immune system. This simple daily procedure is demonstrated in detail with illustrations on pages 116 and 117 of the yoga manual: Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus. 
Author Archives: DonBothell
WISDOM
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN VIII
VIJNANAMAYA KOSHA (Wisdom Body)
The sheath of knowing, the Vijanamaya Kosha is often called the ‘Wisdom Body’. This is the knowledge inherent to the universe’s multitude of functional relationships that balance and order existence from the structure of subatomic particles to the spin of the cosmos.This is knowing beyond the information of the senses.
This is the paradox of seeing what is in the illusion. The ego (intellect) forms structure from experience, but at some point perceives the structure as only that, a construct. Here is understanding on the highest level, unfiltered intuition. Here we have the deepest insights, as we experience the moment. The Vijnanamaya Kosha is insight, integration and wholeness.
LAMENTATION OF A PSYCHIC WARRIOR
a poem by Don Bothell
How many times has dread filled me; from early battles did I shy?
Shame, soon realized, the most painful death.
When did I square my stance — run over me —
I won’t leave the field.
Soul cast a warrior… warrior my caste.
Over again. Broken body.
Having stood once more in the light of the vision.
Souls thrown from heaven:
Some roll priest, some roll servant, some roll sage, some roll
king.
From the many lots — my way the warrior.
Confrontation my teacher… teach again.
You’ve stood beside me and faced obliteration.
Together we sing the song of sacrifice.
Taken the high ground and not been able to hold it.
May the blade be swift, drawing this dream to an end.
To awaken again, carrying the standard forward .
Knowing no fear — our cause advancing
Caste, warrior… love to defend!
PYRRHIC WARRIOR
BLISS
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN IX
ANANDAMAYA KOSHA (Bliss Body)
The Self in the Sheath of Bliss (in Sanskrit, the Anandamaya Kosha), surrounds the absolute self. Absolute truth, a point, is never changing. It and the bliss are forever and always protected on all sides. The Self is the truth, and truth is never changing. Everything else is always in a state of flux, always changing.
The self realizes all else is illusion. The Self can be compared to a movie screen. While the film is playing, all sorts of action is going on, but when the movie is finished, the screen is exactly like it was before, untouched by what appeared to be taking place.
Bliss just is. It is not of the mind, but the peace, love and joy that is this level of reality.
courtesy The Flower of Sacred Geometry
Even this can be released to be pure self, in Sanskrit, ‘Atman’. The Anandamaya Kosha is still a sheath covering the Atman. It’s as if the true self is a light and the kosha a lampshade covering it. Even though the Anandamaya Kosha is the subtlest of koshas, it still suppresses the full magnitude of the light. One is reminded of the Biblical admonishment to take your light from beneath the bushel basket.
CAUSAL BEING
We cannot perceive those beings spiritually advanced beyond us; Causal Being? But knowing nature’s tendency to repeat herself, can we draw broad assumptions? This human ‘father face’ we assign to the Higher Powers is but spiritual shorthand. Mere children spiritually, we use comfortable symbols to express what we intuit. What we consider God, these entities advanced compared to us, are they evolving too? What higher forms constitute their gods? Given what we can see in our small universe, wouldn’t that seem to be the case? One octave flows into another and that into yet another, energy evolving in perpetuity. Creation — ever changing, ever growing, in a joyful dance to the Absolute.
Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus page158
YOGA = EXUBERANCE
EXUBERANT YOGI after practicing Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus
I’ve been waiting so long
to be where I’m going to
In the SUNSHINE
OF YOUR LOVE!
I feel so fine… I feel so good
Get Some — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus
YOGA
Where did it come from, this yoga that is going to answer all my questions, tune me to the universe, transform me, body mind, and soul? The historical answer is still a mystery. However, one explanation based on archaeological discoveries is widely accepted. In the 1920’s, ruins of a civilization were discovered along a no longer existent river system in the region that is now Northern India and Pakistan. Three thousand years before the birth of Christ, this civilization had complex urban centers with running water and underground sewage systems. Their language, Sanskrit, is the root of all the Indo-European languages.
Among the ruins were found many statues depicting what we now associate as being yoga postures. Postures are a part of the yoga tradition that asks the practitioner to look within. This yoga tradition believes the universe is mirrored in each of us. Nature has a working set of solutions that is used on ever greater or lesser scales for everything, as our recent appreciation of fractals demonstrates. To understand something on a scale within our perceptual range allows us to imagine solutions to questions above or below that range. The yoga postures, asanas in Sanskrit, are only a part of yoga. Yoga as practiced in the West has placed most of its emphasis on the practice of asanas. Most Westerners think of yoga as a system of physical exercise, but it is much more.
Yoga asks us to look within, to relax into ourselves, to know ourselves. With complete understanding of the self comes complete understanding. This ‘looking within’ is as old as the human ability to wonder. In that sense, our origin is the beginning of our embrace of yoga.
One broad definition of yoga is the art and science of living. Yoga practice allows understanding to unfold. Other people may help by suggesting techniques for self-exploration, or how and where to look, but all the insights come from your observations. All the answers are your answers. You diligently explore your own direct experience. No faith required.
Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus Pages 8 —9.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE FROM BLOG
October 1, I am going to trek the Annapurna Circuit, a circumlocution of one of the major Himalayan peaks. This what is called a ‘teahouse trek’ as I’ll be staying in village huts along the route and eating with the villagers. The trek will take 2 1/2 weeks and will go from semi-tropical lowlands to one pass that is slightly under 18000 ft. and possible zero degree temperatures. Wish me well.
I WILL RESUME BLOGGING ON MY RETURN — November 1
SEVENTH CHAKRA — CROWN CHAKRA
ESSENCE OF BEING
Awareness floats up to the crown chakra. A yarmulke of ultra-violet is over the skull. Here the illusion of the individual self is dissolved. One is their own real true self, at one with the cosmic principles within the body that govern the entire universe. This is the essence of being, a reflection of the cosmic absolute where it is possible to realize the divine.
With grace, awareness floats above the head into the super conscious, the domain of existence beyond our physical plane. Being is now released from familiar foregone dimensions. Being, the quintessence of infinity, shimmers, a thousand-petal lotus with a radiance of such a pure white that all the colors of the spectrum glisten within its brilliance.
ULTRA – VIOLET
WEIGHT LOSS THROUGH YOGA, JEWEL IN THE LOTUS page 63
SIXTH CHAKRA — THIRD EYE CHAKRA
THE MINDS EYE
The color of the third eye chakra is a deep dark blue, like the sky on a moonless night. The sixth chakra is not associated with an element because self-realization places us beyond the material universe. The third eye is the seat of awareness. Another name for the third eye is the mind’s eye. It is utilized to form all visualizations. Its location places it with the pituitary gland. Medical science can measure increased production of beneficial brain chemicals such as endorphins, melatonin, and serotonin when attention is focused on the third eye during meditation.
In Sanskrit, the yogis lumped all the pleasurable brain chemicals together calling them ‘Amrita’. A mudra is performed, curling the tongue to the back of the roof of the mouth as if to taste the Amrita. This helps to stimulate its production and is called the Shiva Mudra.
Awareness of eternal knowledge comes when all desires move up to the sixth chakra. All the body elements are balanced and being is centered in blissful non-duality and realization of oneness. The elements are present in their pure essence, fostering self-realization.
NON-DUALITY = PURE ESSENCE
