What ever decision you make make it because you want it not because you are afraid

Asana : the approach.

There are basic 3 parts to an asana , the entry , the hold ,and the exit. The first and the last are as important and mostly determine how well you will be holding. Again syncing the movement with the breath , inhaling while extending and exhaling while relaxing , is the correct way to approach to any asana( am not aware if there are any exceptions to this breath rule).

Am saying take your time with the asana, savour  it. Let the pain ,the anxiety , the ‘I am dying’ feeling, settle. Go beyond it and see what happens. Focusing  and breathing into the pain makes it disappear. Of course you have to be smart enough to understand whether you should be going beyond a particular pain or just exit the posture as your body needs time to get used to this stretch.

The attitude with which you approach an asana also matters, ego ,fear, stubbornness, jealousy, competition  will make you stiff and since we are clearly working with flexibility here ,it becomes difficult. Well there is no one correct formula of approach, attitude wise ,for asanas as what may work for me may not work for you and the best way to determine whats working for you is to observe your body on the mat. Be with your body . our mind wandering while we hold a posture is a very regular phenomenon for all of us . what I do to tackle this issue is keep rotating my attention from one part of the body to another ,the ones involved in holding and /or stretched  and then to my breath and back to the body. For example ,for bhujangasana , prepare by lying in the base position, take couple of deep breaths then inhaling extend your body forward opening your chest and trying to reach the back of your head towards the feet. Now while holding see how your breath is , then take the attention to corrections …elbows close to the body, shoulders relaxed, feet together ,back to your breath, heals touching if possible, lower abdomen on the mat, then back to your breath …well before you know its time to exit the pose.  Now slowly lowering your body as you went up with exhalation . this is a good way to approach a pose at an entry level so that the mind remains with the body . with practice of course one can mediate in a pose and hold longer.

once you are comfortable in the holding part and confident that the mind wandering can be managed, closing your eyes , concentrating on a focal point like your eyebrow center or any other part of the body that needs to be worked in that particular asana can take your experience of that asana to the next level. whats there to lose, next time on the mat JUST try!

Gratitude

Well this is one word or sentiment which has lost its meaning in todays world. Where no one ever stops and enjoys what they have achieved or acquired , cos we are all racing to reach some place, some place bigger someplace better . there is a constant feeling of inadequacy as some one has more than us and we cant be happy till we reach there but the moment we do we find someone else having something better, that we now want.

Well we cant be blamed as we have been put into a world and society which has pre defied rules for happiness. Women have to look a certain way ,act a certain way to deserve happiness, men  have to be ‘somebody’ to deserve respect and be called a ‘man’. How can one feel that you have enough ? well hence no gratitude!!

I suggest ,one day when you are calm ,peaceful and alone take a piece of pen and paper and write down the things you are grateful for. Trust me you will be surprised. They say that if you open the tap at your home and have running water you are one of the 10% people in the world who have this facility. Have you ever given a thought to this fact? Have you ever thought that access to good food, clean water, a house, medical facilities, education and a family is what majority of this world struggles for . anyways coming back to that piece of paper in your hand, write down all the things that this universe has provided you with since the time you were born and I promise you by the end of the list you will be overwhelmed at how much you have been given, loved and how special you are. Not today ,do it some day when you are happy and want to say a thank you and feel GRATITUDE for what you have received. Not today, do it some day when you are sad and miserable about something you lost that you think you deserved and see the GRATITUDE flow……

Self-Acceptance , denial of which is the root cause of most of the diseases

following are some thoughts shared in a beautiful book called ' Yoga and Kriya'. I personally feel one should ponder and meditate over this fact ,how much do we accept ourselves as they way we are....

"Accept your nature as it is now, whatever its obvious faults. Try not to continually feel that you are somehow inferior to others or that you are riddled with shortcomings and defects.It is only in this way that the grosser aspects and neuroses of the mind will drop away.If elephants spent their time wishing they were goldfish, or peacocks spent their time wishing they were cows, then they would live totally useless and disharmonized lives. But animals live in accordance with the way that they have been designed. They have a unique role (dharma) to perform in the kaleidoscopeof life and they do it. Because of this, they live harmoniously.

Man should also live a harmonized, tuned in life, but unfortunately this is rarely the case.Man can never accept himself and his faults,and in away this is a good thing for it motivates him to overcome his apparent limitations and elevate himself to the higher realms of understanding and bliss. But generally the lack of self-acceptance is too overwhelming; it totally grinds a person into an overburdened state of worry and dissatisfaction, which leads to a life that is lived at a very low level compared to the possible potential. There should be more self-acceptance combined with the need to improve oneself. There should be aspiration for self improvement,but not neurosis because of the

faults that a man sees in himself. Try to accept your present personality, no matter what its obvious weaknesses and faults, but still have the aspiration to overcome them.

Non self-acceptance as a cause of disease

The inability to accept oneself is a fundamental cause of disease. Lack of self-acceptance results not only in mental disturbances, but also physical ailments. Mental dissatisfaction leads to a reflection and manifestation in the physical body.

Anger is widely regarded as a fault, but anger is actually a safety valve for all pent-up feelings. But many moralistic systems and codes say: 'do not be angry' or 'anger is a sin'.Because of this, many people suppress their anger but the driving force behind the anger has to express itself somehow. It is rechanneled.If the suppression of anger is great enough and for prolonged periods of time it results in high blood pressure, or heart attack and so many other prevalent diseases. So we urge you to express your anger, if it is possible (sometimes circumstances make it difficult).
Don't feel any pangs of guilt about your anger. Be angry, for it is better to express it openly than to transform it into disease at a later date.But when you feel angry be aware and in time the anger will disappear.
 
Accept your nature, whether it is 'bad' or 'good'. Don't feel guilt. Accept your character for what it is: a product of circumstances.Acceptance will lead to acceptance of others.Don't suppress thoughts, whatever their nature. Accept that there are unruly traits and desires within you and eventually these disturbing traits will drop away. Let the hidden aspects of your subconscious mind rise to the surface. Don't fight them and don't be ashamed of them. Let them arise and face them. If you suppress them they will still influence your whole life, but from the murky depths of the subconscious mind. So you might as well let them bubble to the surface where you can become familiar with them. Eventually  you will lose interest in them. They will fade away and no longer disturb your life, in the same way that water evaporates from a damp cloth placed in the hot sun. The evaporation occurs without the slightest effort "

The story of 2 BURPS

 The ashram director Natraj,at the Sivananda Dhanwantri ashram shared an amazing fact of how are body 'informs' and 'signals' us about everything, we just dont hear! Stating the example of the fact that we are often told while eating our stomach should be half filled with solid food one fourth with liquid and one fourth should be kept empty which allows the food to digest perfectly.

Now the question here is how do you know this is happening. So heres the interesting fact, when you eat slowly silently and peacefully you will get your first burp which is an indication of the air leaving the stomach and the empty space being filled. Keep eating and you get your second burp which is an call to stop eating cos this is your optimal capacity for that meal. Cool na. I have personally tried this many times and it works. Well there would be exceptions to days ,mind frame ,the food you eat etc etc but the more you do the more it works.
Amazing na your body is telling you when to stop eating just that we are exposed to so much noise (even the ones in our heads) we are just not listening. 

a superb share by a close friend ,from a book called  'the Genie in your Genes' which I happen to also read currently. this book seeks to prove that altering thought directly alters gene functioning in the body. sharing a piece here......

Robert Beck, D.Sc., was the first to realize, in the 1960s, that charts of the oscillations of the Earth’s magnetic frequencies looked a lot like EEG readouts from humans. He performed experiments with healers from various regions and religions, including Amazonian shamans, Hawaiian hunas, Christian faith healers, Indian yogis, and Buddhist lamas, and showed that—at the moment of healing—their brain wave frequencies were virtually identical.

The Earth resonates at an average frequency of 7.8 Hz, while, “the dominant brainwave frequency of sensitives, such as shamans and healers, comes close to 7.83 Hz and may, at times, beat in phase with the Earth's signal, thereby causing harmonic resonance.” Before and after the healing moment, the EEG scans differed from each other in typical ways. But during the healing state, they all shifted to reveal similar dominant frequencies. It doesn’t seem to matter what the particular belief system is that puts the healer in that state; they call on a range of healing entities from Kwan Yin to Jesus Christ to White Buffalo Calf Woman. Whatever belief system shifts the healer into the healing state, once there, their brain frequencies show similar characteristics. They appear to be tapping into a universal frequency that is implicated in healing, and is effective regardless of the belief structure of the healer. Long before we had medicines, human societies must have discovered ways to catalyze healing that were dependent on electromagnetic alignment with the Earth itself.

an underrated asana

salamba sarvangasana - supported shoulderstand

This picture is of a young Swami Vishnudevananda displaying a perfect shoulderstand, an asana very similar to the very sought after ,headstand. In headstand the circulation and concentration are directed to the brain, but in shoulderstand the same is directed to the thyroid and the parathyroid. Thyroid is the most important gland of the endocrine system and this exercise gives it a rich supply of blood, the chin lock on the chest exerts an extra pressure on the thyroid through which its secretions are kept at par making it a good treatment for modern day thyroid treatment.

Nirlamba sarvangasan- unsupported houlderstand.

Removing the hands , the whole weight falls on the cervical region and the shoulder muscles. Helps in strengthening the neck and improves its flexibility.

also known as the candle pose, it requires immense concentration if has to be held for a longer period of time as it involves a good balancing act. breathing with concentration at the abdomen helps.

sethu bandhasan – bridge pose
Dropping the legs from shoulderstand to the bridge pose , exerting lot of pressure on the wrists.