Aligning and Clearing the Chakras

While at the yoga conference in Colorado I had the pleasure of attending a class taught by Gary Kraftsow, founder of the American Viniyoga Institute in Oakland, California. One of the things he taught us, which made an impression on me,  was how to breathe in the sound of a mantra for aligning and clearing the chakras.

As you probably know there are seven chakras in the body that correspond closely to the seven major nerve plexus along the spine. To do this exercise there needs to be a chanter and someone doing the breathing. The teacher does the chanting (mantra) and the breather receives it. The mantra should be short and done six times for each chakra. An example of a mantra is below:

Om namahi
Om namahi om
Om namahi om om
Om namahi om
Om namahi
Om

The student or the one receiving the mantra should sit with the spine straight, shoulders relaxed and the eyes closed. The idea is to listen to the mantra as you inhale and imagine the energy of the mantra coming into the head, down the spine and to the designated chakra. The chakra becomes energized and aligned by the sound of the mantra.

When the chanter chants, the student slowly inhales. The inhalation should take about four seconds; the time it takes to sing the mantra. At the end of the inhalation the breath is held for 3-4 seconds to allow the energy of the mantra to swirl around and become integrated the chakra. And then the breath is slowly released. Exhalation is done in silence and should take about five seconds. As the breath is relaeased the energy goes up the astral tube of the body (sushumna) and out the top of the head.

The six sounds of the mantra are done for each chakra, beginning with the base chakra. For example, to begin the series of chants, the chanter would sing "Om namahi" as the student inhales slowly down to the first (base) chakra - hold the breath for 3-4 seconds - slowly breath out and up sushumna. The chanter would then sing "Om namahi om" as the student inhales again down to the first chakra. So, the breathing is down six times for each chakra, inhaling with the mantra and exhaling in silence.

I have added a video for those of you who would like to try this exercise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXL1dPmw9VA&feature=related

Back home

We are finally back home from the Colorado Yoga Conference. We hiked many trails high in the Rocky Mountains over three days before the conference to become adjusted to the altitude. We were above the clouds as you can see in the picture below:

 

We ( my wife and I) reached a maximum of 11, 5796 feet and stayed there for the rest of the day to allow our bodies to acclimate to the altitude necessary for doing yoga in Estes Park the next day.

 

The conference consisted of three two hour classes each day for two days. The third day there was only one two hour class and then it was off for more hiking. I had some great yoga classes with some of the best yoga teachers in the world. I learned much and hope to convey at least 10% of it to my students as time goes on.

 

I may have over done it because my body is beginning to feel the effects of the trip. I felt great at the high altitudes but now that I'm in the low altitude various aches and pains are creeping in plus I have a head cold. On the next post I'll talk about some of the most interesting things I learned at the conference.

 

Namaste'

 



 

 

 

 

Enjoy

I'm heading off to this year's yoga conference in Colorado and will be back in a week. Going to be doing some chanting with Jai Uttal, so thought I would post this video. Watch, sit back and enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw8NiEV6qmA&feature=related  I'll be thinking of you.

Go to Sleep

Lying in bed after a hard day at work, tossing and turning and worrying about this and that is a nightmare in itself. The more you worry about not sleeping the less likely you will go to sleep. Maybe you get two or three hours of sleep, maybe not and the next night it's the same old thing.

Prescription drugs will help in the short run but in the long run they become habit forming and before long it takes more to get the same results. Alcohol numbs the brain and after awhile it too becomes habit forming. The effect that not sleeping, as well as drugs and alcohol have on the mind/body system is devastating. They bring about premature aging and all kinds of mental and physical problems.

Few doctors and even psychologists and psychiatrists really know what to do about insomnia. They have been trained to prescribe drugs and that's about it. On the other hand the solution has been known for thousands of years by Buddhist monks and yogis. It is called concentrative meditation or just plain concentration.

In order to get a good night's sleep it's imperative to have a calm mind. Too much thinking about anything is not conducive to a calm mind. You must know how to turn off your thoughts and turn on calmness.

The first thing you should do when you are getting ready to go to sleep is relax. Two posts ago I talked about the vagus response and how it induces relaxation. In short, what you do is take a deep breath, hold it for five seconds and breathe out slowly while either humming or saying om. This practice will turn on the parasympathetic nervous system and automatically begein the process of allowing the body and the mind to relax. After that you can begin the practice of concentration to turn of thoughts.

To turn off your thinking process all you have to do is concentrate on your breath and count. Breathe slowly and softly while counting each breath. When a thought appears simply recognize it for what it is - just a thought and nothing more and start over with the counting. If you have a stubborn mind you will undoubtedly have thoughts that seem very important. Your mind will make you believe that you can't ignore the thoughts. It will make you believe that you must solve whatever the problem is right now, this very moment, while lying in bed.

The mind will say something like, "This is a very important idea and I must attend to it right now or I'll forget it." You must have the ability and the tenacity to ignore the thought and go back to counting your breaths. If you are ever going to go to sleep the most important thing is to turn off the thinking mind. Be calm, relax, breathe, and count. Breathe and count - breathe and count - breathe and count - breathe and count - breathe and count - breathe and count - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Aging cont'd

In the last post I talked about how pranayama can reduce stress and that in turn can lead to a longer and happier life. Stress is one of the major contributors in cell death but there are other factors that can cause cell death. One such factor is the lack of sleep.

We all know sleep rejuvenates the body and the mind.  Lack of sleep can lead to all kinds of problems that affect almost all of the physiological systems in our body such as: brain and nervous system, cardiovascular, immune system as well as many metabolic factors. Over a long period of time lack of sleep will bring about premature aging and premature death. But why is this and how can you learn to sleep better?

When you are awake and running around the cells in your body are in high gear. They are burning fuel (glucose) and exhausting water and carbon dioxide as by products. If this goes on for too long the cells will eventually play out. They can't keep going indefinitely. This is true for brain cells as well as all the other cells in your body. They need rest and the best way is to become inactive. The whole body needs to go into a sort of hibernation mode so that growth and repair can occur.

When cells divide (one cell becomes two) the tissues that they comprise (muscles, neurons, connective) grow and get stronger.  Cell division requires energy so the process can't go on very well the same time the cell is having to carry on daily activities.You would be burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. It would take too much energy and cells aren't that big. Think of a cell as a microscopic power plant. Fuel coming in and getting burned up for movement (work) and waste products going out. The demand for work cannot exceed the capacity to produce it without something breaking down. If the demand is too great the cell will die.

When more cells are dying than are being made senescence occurs - the process of aging and dying.  So, keeping your cells strong, healthy, alive, and continuely dividing and growing requires the whole body to shut down for awhile. If you have a hard time falling asleep what can you do short of taking drugs? I will answer that question in the next post.  It's not that difficult.

You can slow down the aging process

From birth to about 30 years of age more cells are being produced in the body than are dying. After that the reverse is true. Although the process is minuscule in the beginning, cell death begins to outnumber cell production as life goes on. The process of more cells dying than being produced will eventually bring about death. The process is usually called the "aging process" or senescence.

          

                                         

Senescence continues to slowly increase with advancing years. This is a normal and natural process that all living organisms go through. Despite all of the hoopla out there, there is really no way to reverse the aging process or even stop it but there are things you can do to slow it down.

One of the most important things you can do is learn to relax. Learning to relax is an art as well as a science. It is an art because it takes skill and talent that can only be mastered through practice. It is a science because it takes understanding how your body functions and applying that understanding to the proper actions that suit your body.

Mental stress turns on the sympathetic nervous system and causes your body to produce hormones and enzymes that can be very damaging to cells. For example, adrenaline revs up metabolism in some places and slows it down in others. Adrenaline basically readies the body for action when you are threatened. Another hormone caused by stress is cortisol. This hormone causes your liver to release gobs amount of sugar to help cells make energy. If these hormones are produced too often and for too long, (chronic stress) abnormal cell damage occurs and senescence is enhanced.

Being able to relax slows down the aging process by turning off the sympathetic nervious system and turning on the parasympathetic nervous system. When the parasympathetic nervous system is on adverse conditions that increase the death of cells are quelled.  Adrenaline, cortisol and other damaging chemicals are held at a minimum.

One of the best ways to almost instantly turn on the parasympathetic nervous system is pranayama. By taking a deep breath in, holding it for five seconds and then slowly exhaling, stimulates the vagus nerve.  The vagus nerve originates from the lower brain and runs down along the trachea and branches out to all the vital organs. 

                                   
You can increase the vagus reaction even more by humming or saying Om while exhaling. The vibration of the sound while breathing out brings about a relaxing and calming effect throughout the whole body.

In the next post I will discuss more ways you can bring about relaxation. In the meantime stay calm.

Some of my favorite quotes

"Please enjoy your only life."
                    Jakusho Kwong

"Accept all ideolgies and systems. One country, one nation, one ideology, one system is not sufficient."
                    The Dalai Lama

"To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees."
                    Paul Valery

"The best way to find out if you can trust someone is to trust someone."
                    Ernest Hemingway

"Rule your mind or it will rule you."
                    Horace

"The future of the human condition is to be inevitably stuck in a quagmire of random thoughts."
                    me