Tag Archives: Yoga

BLISS

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STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN    IX563315_443500359054215_156211962_n

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

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.

YOGA

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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.308173_10150393745341425_1953625538_n

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.601778_10200954416279567_1767731119_n

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.73991_236167679859728_1140496273_n

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.

KUNDALINI — YOGA

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In the Hindu yoga tradition, Kundalini is a beautiful metaphor for unimpeded flow of energy from the lowest depths of the base of the spine to beyond the crown of the skull into the realm of the divine. The Kundalini experience relies on universal body structures and has been encountered by mystics throughout the ages. The imagery reflects the occult principle of the body as the microcosm echoing the large configuration of the macrocosm. Shakti, the cosmic feminine principle, combines in perfect union (yoga) with Shiva, the masculine cosmic principle to create perfect balance.

courtesy Sacred Art

Yoga (Union) = Shakti/Shiva = Perfect Balance

YOGA REVERES BALANCE

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Yoga sees the human body is a finely tuned, finely balanced vessel for awareness. Multitudes of balanced chemical and functional relationships are requisite for our being. Just as the earth revolves in its perfect orbit without the coaching of our minds, so our infinitely complicated bodies draw upon a higher order.

Yoga sees the body as a finely balanced vessel for awareness — weight loss through yoga

“Yoga sees the body as a finely balanced vessel for awareness” —  Weight Loss Through Yoga

 

YOGA REVEALS THE SECRET OF ENLIGHTENMENT

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You are being let in on a big secret. This shouldn’t be a secret, but it is: ‘enlightened’ and ‘relaxed’ mean the same thing. They are synonymous. We are easing into liberation of the full expression of ‘Self’. If you had the capacity to fully let go, you would literally fall into the perfect expression of your being. Since enlightenment is so infrequent, the ability to completely relax appears to be very rare.

yoga teaches relaxation so we can let go, realizing full expression of 'Self'

yoga teaches relaxation so we can let go, realizing full expression of ‘Self’

RISHIKESH, INDIA — the home of yoga. Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

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Me and my good friend and teacher, Fran Gallo, just below the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, where the river Mother Ganga, splits the city of Rishikesh — connected by two narrow suspension  bridges. Here the Ganga is a rushing torrent of fresh clean mountain runoff.

River Ganga — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus


River Ganga — Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

This is considered the home of yoga and has the greatest concentration of sadhu, who have renounced worldly life to spend their time in contemplation, meditation, and the practice of yoga. More wealthy devotees, who have families, occupations, and haven’t divorced  themselves from worldly concerns, donate money to support the temples that feed and shelter the renouncers. (males — sadaka, females — sadhika).

It can be a tempting thought, to renounce all worldly concerns, practice yoga and quietly sit in peaceful meditation — listening to the melodious eternal flow of this most spiritual river.

THE LOTUS AND YOGA

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LOTUS

From the conclusion of the meditation with the Morning Ritual presented as a way to start each day to receive the benefits offered in the introductory chapters of Weight loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus:

After eight exhales, inhales and pauses, consciousness floats above the head and the attention is focused on a beautiful THOUSAND PETAL LOTUS (water lilly) that is so strikingly pure white, it radiates all the colors of the spectrum.

Do a final eight cycles of pranayama. Realize the lotus starts in the mud at the bottom of the pond, grows up through the muddy water to the surface and opens, a beautiful unblemished white, basking in the sun.

A Thousand White Petal Lotus so pure and brilliant-it shines with all the colors of the spectrum-Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

A Thousand White Petal Lotus so pure and brilliant-it shines with all the colors of the spectrum-Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus

Breathe normally and swing the arms overhead in a wide arc.

Bring the palms together capturing the purity. [Photo 22] Capture the radiant white in your palms.

Then slowly pull your hands down to rest on the crown of the head. [Photo 23] The radiant white mixes with the ultra violet. The elbows extend wide.

To have instruction on completing the entire Morning Ritual, see Weight Loss Through Yoga, Jewel in the Lotus. Chapter 3, pages 37 through 42.

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YOGA UNDERSTANDS: the Chemistry of Love

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Yoga doesn’t disagree with modern Western Science, but has deeper understanding of the natural world.

Yoga teaches the color of the fourth chakra, the Heart Center, is green.

Life on the physical plane, making higher levels of individual consciousness ( LOVE ) possible on earth, draws its energy from the sun. Chlorophyll is the molecule that absorbs sunlight and uses that energy to synthesize carbohydrates from CO2 and water — photosynthesis. The energy of sunlight is transformed into the energy of food. [ In Sanskrit of yoga: ‘anna’ means food, the physical body is the Annamaya Kosha.]

Chlorophyll, a photoreceptor found in the chloroplasts of green plants , obtains energy from red and blue parts of the spectrum and reflects the unused green wave lengths — making green plants green.

The chemistry is a reaction between carbon dioxide and water with sunlight as the catalyst. This produces glucose and a waste product — oxygen. The green plant can use the glucose sugar as energy or polymer it to store as starch.

6CO2 + 6H2O     > chlorophyll & sunlight >     C6 H12 O6     +     6O2      (glucose + oxygen)

The waste oxygen is used by plants and animals for respiration. All animals are dependent on plants, through the food chain, for sustenance.

weight loss through yoga, jewel in the lotus

weight loss through yoga, jewel in the lotus

 

 

YOGA AND REINCARNATION

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Yoga and early Gnostic Christians share the understanding that each individual comes to knowledge of God through direct experience. This is the very essence of the teachings. In Greek ‘Gnosis’ means knowledge. Both teachings also consider reincarnation an obvious truth. For 200 years after Jesus, it is estimated half of the followers of his teachings, Gnostic Christians, believed in reincarnation. The Roman Church, to consolidate power, systematically destroyed chapters of the Bible discussing reincarnation. The modern teaching of Christianity descended from this tradition. Many Christian’s practicing yoga are relearning a direct relationship with God and to only accept as truth what they learn through personal direct experience.

Mary Magdalene/Jesus Christ = Yin/ Yang

Mary Magdalene/Jesus Christ = Yin/ Yang