Learning to move prana

Prana is the "life force" that exists everywhere. Prana is energy. It is outside your body as well as inside. Prana may be moving or stationary. When prana is moving through your body it carries energy into your body and moves wastes and toxins out. The primary force which moves prana is "pranayama" - the breath.

However, breath alone cannot move prana in a directed manner. Breath must be combined with the focus of the mind in order to move prana from one place to another. You can move prana from the outside to the indside of your body and from one area of the body to another. Being able to focus is a very important component of prana movemet.

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali says, "Pranayama involves the regulation of exhalation, inhalation and suspension of the breath. It also involves focusing the mind on the process." Sutra 2.50.  This is one of the primary objectives of yoga;  moving prana into and through the body.

The third, and last, component of prana movement is asana. Asana may be stationary or a series of asanas  (vinyasa). The asana puts your body in a position so that you can feel the sensation of stretch. Various asanas emphasize specific stretches. A series of asanas performed in a sequence (vinyasa) allows stretches to occur as a flow of stretch sensations throughout the body.

With resolute practice using breath, focus, and asanas you will begin to feel prana moving through various parts of your body like water flowing in a river. The restrictions in your body will begin to erode away like the rough edges of river rocks.

Yoga is a discipline

The discipline of yoga involves the four B's: brain, body, breath, and balance.  Integrating all four components into your practice will allow you to go beyond the self.

When you walk into the area where you do your yoga, leave your thinking mind behind. The "brain effect" is a random and intrusive thought process you don't want going on while doing yoga. For example, you don't want to be thinking about eating chicken soup while stretching in chandrasana. You want to focus your mind on the other three components - body, breath, and balance. This is why yoga is a discipline.

Your body is something you carry around with you all the time so its important to keep it limber, strong, and healthy. This is where breath and balance come in. When you put your body in an asana and feel the deep stretch it gives you, focus the breath into the stretch. See if you can feel the prana flow with the breath into the area of the body where the stretch is "screaming". As you breathe out let the resistance and the toxins flow out every cell of the muscle. Prana in, resistance out. This will increase flexibility and strength in that area.

Balance is not only the ability to stand on one leg or do a hand stand, it is also maintaining balance throughout the mind and the body by practicing moderation in all things throughout the day. Moderation in diet, drink, meditation, sleep, work, play, and exercise will increase well being in all the systems of the body.

Yoga is much more than just moving from asana to asana. It is a discipline that requires complete involvement of mind, body, breath, and balance. Keep up the good work.

Who is The One?

Who is the one reading these words? "Oh," you might say , "it is me.  Who else can it be?"  But then I ask; Who is the 'me' you speak of? Is the 'me' the same as the 'I' when you say, "I don't like myself?" Who is the 'I' that doesn't like the 'self'? Are you one person, two people, or more?  Or is it semantics and we are just playing around with words?

To go into the true essence of your self, close your eyes right now and take ten slow breaths and  come back to reading this blog when you are finished.

 

 

As you were resting your eyes and counting your breaths did you notice images and subtle thoughts passing through your mind?  If you did, then you cannot be those images and thoughts because you were doing the noticing.  Also, did you notice your breathing? You cannot be your breath either. Did you notice your body? You cannot be your body. You cannot be the things you notice.

If you are not the thoughts, the breath or the body - who are you? You are the one noticing. In other words, you are the witness. The father of yoga, Patanjali, probably said it best, some 5,000 years ago when he said: "Thoughts are always changing but may be witnessed by the True Self, which is never changing."

Even though you are the witness (the True Self) you can still become distracted by the senses and thoughts. "Reflect on the profound nature of your individual self, including the source of perception, without being distracted by the senses, and with freedom from misapprehensions accumulated from the past." 2.41.

So, in essense, you are not your senses and you are not your thinking mind. You are much more and purer than any of those physical and mental conditions. Be quiet and go deep within your self, and beyond the self. 

Click here for more info on the True Self.
http://www.trueself.org/index.html

In Pursuit of Happiness

If you are pursuing knowledge for the purpose of gaining wealth, stability, and security, then you are seeking knowledge in a world of objects and will suffer. If you are striving to get physically stronger through exercise in order to look better, you will suffer. If you are working very hard at two jobs to try and make ends meet, you will suffer.

Let go. Let go of pursuing, striving, and trying and relax in the deep pool of simply enjoying all that you do. Instead of desiring something that is in the future, be in the moment with all the activities that surround you. You are it and it is you. Don't work. Play.

When you try to get some where the trying is the suffering. Don't try. Enjoy the process that takes you to your goal. It is not the goal that is important, it's the journey that takes you there.

Don't Ever Forget

Don' forget who you are. Before the body you were the sunshine, the eternal space and the peace.

Now there is thinking, rumination, desiring and a bunch of other stuff that makes you forget who you are. As long as you retain the identity of being the thinker of thought and the doer of action you will continue to forget who you are.

Don't mistake your thinking mind as knowing what the truth is. Learn to listen to silence. In the universe there are things that are known and unknown and in between is the truth. In that space where there is silence, truth lies. It is not dormant, it is just being ignored by your thinking mind.

Sit still and listen very quietly to the universe. It will speak to you oh so softly. You must learn to listen, not with your ears but with the peace and the space within you. Can't you hear it?

It's all up to you.

Every day presents a new opening to the world. What you do with the day depends entirely on you. You can dread the coming of the day or you can bask in its newness and welcome the opportunity to make it glorious.  It's all up to you, no one else.

No one else but you can make your day a good one. A negative day is only negative because you see it as a negative one. The same goes for it being a good day. If you have a flat tire on your way to work you can see it as either good or bad.  It's all up to you. You can see the flat tire as a delay in your getting to work and wasting a lot of time getting it fixed or you can see the flat tire as an opportunity to reflect on your life and all the good things that have been bestowed upon you. The flat tire might have even saved your life from a wreck down the road.  It all depends on how you look at it.

It is your choice as to whether a situation is good or bad. It's all in the mind. Take each and every situation that happens to you as an opportunity to make the choice - good or bad.  If you want it to be good, it will be good. If you want it to be bad, it will be bad.

Have a good day.

Multiple Choice

Who said the following?

1.  "The best way to find out if you can trust someone is to trust them."
       A)  Ernest Hemingway
       B)  Walt Whitman
       C)  Will Rogers
       D)  Claude Levi-Strauss

2.  "The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions."
       A)  Ernest Hemingway
       B)  Walt Whitman
       C)  Will Rogers
       D)  Claude Levi-Strauss

3.  "Believe in something for another world, but don't be too set on what it is."
       A)  Ernest Hemingway
       B)  Walt Whitman
       C)  Will Rogers
       D)  Claude Levi-Strauss

4.  "Do I contradict myself, there I contadicted myself.  I am large, I contain multitudes."
       A)  Ernest Hemingway
       B)  Walt Whitman
       C)  Will Rogers
       D)  Claude Levi-Strauss




Scroll down for the answers.






Go slow!  Answers appear below.






















Go slow!!






Answers:
 1)  A
 2)  D
 3)  C
 4)  B

Emptiness and Pure Awareness

I'm suggesting that readers of this blog take a look at  http://buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebdha044.htm.  It's a talk given by Bikkhu Amaro.  He talks about how we lose our way by living in a world filled with objects.  I think you will find it interesting.

Coming Back Home

Sensing the universe simply as a place filled with objects and space does not allow consciousness to expand to its full capacity. The senses are the biggest barrier to living as one with nature and all of its splendor.  To go beyond the five senses and live in timelessness where there are no objects and no space is living in total freedom.

According to quantum physics the universe is a unified whole where everything is made of the same stuff, where information and energy flow freely.  Living life without burdens of the sensory mind is going beyond the rational mind.  Going beyond the rational mind allows you to experience the many wonders of the universe.

So, how do you go beyond the sensory mind?  It is very, very simple.  Just be quiet.  Be quiet and notice.  Notice without using your senses.  Notice your breathing.  Notice feelings.  Notice thoughts.  Notice what is around you.  Be quiet and notice how energy moves in you, around you and through you. 

You now know that coming back home from a world of discriminating thoughts and random objects is a delicious breath of fresh air.  Intellect no longer separates the self from space and objects.  Life is in harmony with the rest of the universe.  Be quiet and notice.

How long do I need to be quiet?  Good question.  See the next post.

Answer to Last Post

Where did we lose our way?  In answering this question we can study the various stages of Homo sapiens over the many millennia. According to science, humans started out on earth some 200,000 years ago in Africa and then migrated north into Europe. From there some went west into North America and some went east into Asia.  Some of those who went to Asia migrated to North America like the west migrating group did.  So North America became inhabited from both the east and the west.  And then some of the North American people went south into South American. 

All this moving around took about 180,000 years.  As all of that migrating was taking place, humans were changing socially, intellectually, agriculturally, spiritually and physically.  Humans were adapting to all kinds of climates and in the process some got shorter and some got taller, some got lighter and some got darker, and so on.  Diversity spread rapidly and the population grew exponentially.  After 200,000 years (0.1% of the time the dinosaurs were on earth) the human population was over 7 billion.
                                             
                                                Exponential Growth Curve

                                                                        
Before migrating to the New World humans were one with nature. They knew nature, depended on nature and respected nature. They could communicate with the plants and animals of the forests and they knew the way of Gaia. They were in synchronization and complete homeostasis with the biosphere.

And then they split. Some went west and some went east, their populations growing and evolving.  They became so diversified they didn't recognize their kinfolk when they came face to face. Their minds became filled with discriminating thoughts and nature became a world filled with objects.  They became out of touch with nature. Nature became an enemy rather than a foe. This is where humans lost their way.

Is it possbile for us to come back home to nature or is it too late?  We'll take a look at this question in the next post.

Are You A Modern Person?

Have you gone the way of the "modern person," thinking you are an individual of independent means?  Do you feel as though you exist separate from other objects and people of the world?  If you do, you are not alone.

 So called "civilization" has evolved from a society of people who viewed themselves as an amalgamation of souls and spirits existing synergistically into a world of individuals who see themselves as separate entities.

Amelioration has not solved problems, it has only created new ones.  For example, coming into this world is looked upon as something pathological.  It is recommended by the Public Health Service     that a child, before he/she reaches two years of age, have over 30 vaccinations.  Even childhood is treated as a condition.

Children are entering preschool at one year of age up to the obligatory age of five.  Childhood is no longer a time for play and finding one's lot in life.  Forcing a child to learn and play games designed by adults doesn't allow him to venture into the web of life and discover the unknown on his own.  Exploring and creating on one's own has been squelched to the point of almost non-existence.

Also, we look at old age as something to be avoided.  We treat old age as if it is a disease.  Geriatrics, nursing homes, retirement communities, anti aging pills, wrinkle creams, cosmetic surgery, botox injections and the list goes on, all for the purpose of keeping old age at bay and out of sight.

Life has been turned over to the health care and education systems so much so that we have lost our way in the natural world.  Life is a blending of the good with the bad, the ups and the downs, the ins and the outs.  It is knowing that you are one with the stars and the planets, the animals and the plants, the minerals and the void. It is about being born and being allowed to grow up and die knowing there is actually no differences between them. 

Life is not the absence of being sick or the absence of pain, it is the ability to experience everything life, as well as death, have to offer.  We have lost our way through the wilderness, so to speak.  We no longer live in awe of the night sky with its billions of twinkling stars.  We no longer speak to the trees and the animals that inhabit the forests.

We have become bogged down getting from here to there, worrying about how not to make waves, and whether or not we will have enough money to do the things we want to do in the future. Where did we lose our way?  Where did we take the wrong turn?  How do we get back?  Answers on the next posting.