Muy interesante artículo…http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2014/jul/22/serpentine-swimming-club-in-pictures
Fundación Dharma
He tenido el gran placer de conocer a Luis, el director de la ONG Fundación Dharma y Dharma Travel, ayer en el Festival de Yoga 21J. Me parece que hacen unos trabajos muy dignos y importantes en la India, en Vrindavan, el pueblo nativo del Señor Krishna. Organizan viajes a la India, y dan de comer a más de 4000 personas al día. Tienen un temple en Monóvar, cerca de Elda, en la provincia de Alicante, España, donde enseñan el Bhakti Yoga, hacen ceremonias de fuego y honran los días festivos indúes.
El vínculo entre la religión indú y el yoga existe, claramente. Sin embargo, no es necesario tener ningún creencia religiosa para poder prácticar el hatha yoga. Pienso que cuando entramos en el Astanga Yoga – con todos los ocho miembros presentes en nuestra práctica, es ligeramente más difícil separar el yoga del induismo.
Quienes me conocen saben que el mantra es lo mío. He hecho todo una sanación a través del mantra, sobre todo el Gayatri. Pero, claro, cantar mantras sanscritos casi siempre significa nombrar dioses del pantheón Indico. Los mantras bija son menos “religiosos” y se considera que actuan directamante sobre los nadis y los granthis del cuerpo físico (piensate en los meridianos y puntos de acupuntura de la madicina china). Pero, el rítmo de los mantras sanscritos me llama más la atención. O mejor dicho, me ayuda más a orientar la mente en una sola dirección durante un tiempo determinado.
Pero no soy indú.
Hay todo un discurso hoy en día sobre lo que se denomina “cultural appropriation”, en inglés. Es el neo-colonialismo cultural. No sé que pienso de eso. Creo que el futuro de la humanidad reside en mezclar todas nuestras culturas para creer algo pan-humanista. No quiero ofender a nadie cantando unos mantras a Krishna, lo veo inofensivo.
Why heal?
It can seem to be a bit navel-gazing, all this personal healing that we do. Your journey within is completely unique, mysterious and exciting. One can easily get distracted by the phenomena and surprises along the way.
We had the opportunity to examine this question in great depth, this past week. Some 27 students and 7 instructors gathered in Dénia to study the yoga sutras. I am privileged to be amongst that group. We turned over and around sutras 3:1-38, delving into the siddhis that appear when one practises samyama upon different points in the body. This is pretty esoteric stuff, and it is also information that is privy to the study group. But, it suffices to say that
, with the regular yet detached practice of yoga principles (yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara), one develops the capacity to perform dharana, one-pointed concentration on an object. Dharana leads to dhyana, and dhyana to samadhi. The practice of one-pointedness is called samyama. Our relationship with linear time is altered and we become able to understand the past and the future. (3:1-15)
Along the way, as the nervous system becomes purified and the sensibility heightened, whilst preserving detachment from the information sent to the brain by the sense organs, hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling and seeing, we become more sensitive to other information being subtly transmitted by the person or thing in front of us. This subtle information is unspoken, but it manifests in thought, action, deed and reaction. We find ourselves with the ability to see things that are hidden, or in the past or future. We find our intuition honed and receptive. We may perceive luminosity, sweet tastes and fragrances, murmurs of sound reverberate and are heard. These delights are real and reproducible – as is everything that Patanjali has thus far described. Practice makes perfect balance and union.
But! Beware. Do not identify with these powers. If the ego grabs hold of them, it only becomes stronger. Even the most purified mind, if there are still vrittis of rajas in there, is prone to fall into the trap of identification, exultation and emptiness. If you feel these powers manifesting in you, by all means use them. but use them for the good of man and womankind.
Which brings me to the topic of my post. Why heal? What is the point of all this consciousness-raising? What changes if we are healthier, suppler and more emotionally and mentally balanced? Well, everything.
There is only one way that humankind is going to get itself out of this eco-econo-fear-based decadence and back onto the path of the soul: join together, working for peace and understanding and harmony and an end to war, forever. How do we do this? By understanding, accepting and healing ourselves, we create space in our energetic field for the joys and sorrows of the other. By loving our neighbour as ourselves, by shining our divine light out and letting it meld with the divine light of the other, humankind unites in fraternity and sorority. We heal so that we can love. We love so that we can grow and throw off our shackles. We grow because there is no other way. If you don’t grow, you shrivel.
Heal yourself, heal the world.
The guru is in you.
Why me? Why not?
When cancer strikes – or strikes again – a most frequent question is “why me?”. Almost universally, we believe that we live our lives well enough to stave off the tumours and lesions and lumps. Perhaps a death-wish 60-a-day smoker might be secretly pleased when the CAT scans show a mass, but most of us just say “why me?”.
My mother had a book lying around the house called “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” I never read it. But, I understood it to be an analysis of tragedy from a Jewish perspective. I saw it mostly when she was dying of brain cancer, but I am sure that she bought it after her bitter divorce. You know, why me?
A client of mine who has been fighting cancer in one form or another for thirteen years gave me a very good answer to this question. I asked her if she asks why me and she said
“No, I usually say: why not?”
Indeed.
Being face to face with the precarity of life, I ponder our relationship to the physical body. When we ask why me?, we are not only asking whether our past actions have brought this suffering to bear upon us. We are also asking why our life is to be snuffed out.
Did anyone give you a guarantee when you were born? Did anyone promise you that you would live 80 healthy years then die peacefully in your sleep? No? I thought not.
But, there is a pervasive belief in our Christian societies that suffering and death are a punishment, yet another, for our sins. I am not a Christian scholar, but was raised Christian and was quite insistent in my beliefs for some years. Like many, I got angry at God. Cruel and callous, presiding over all this suffering, how could this entity be the bringer of peace and the ultimate judge of humanity? I stopped believing in the doctrine I had been taught. I began to search.
My search eventually led me to yoga. Via yoga, I have been able to re-evaluate the core values I was taught in childhood. I do believe that the Kingdom of God is Within You. I believe that yoga gives us the tools to find the Kingdom of God Within Us. I believe that Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are like a spiritual how-to, laid out by a spiritual scientist, telling us to try it ourselves and live the results.
There is a strong thread of anarchy running through all this thought. I have been an anarchist since I first learnt the word. But, anarchy as a political system has to per forza de prefaced by the Human Revolution, in which each member of the collective (society) prepares mind and body for the honourable social responsibility that anarchy supposes. We forgo policing and state-based control when we become fully functional and responsible. Until then, we outsource our moral compass, putting it in the hands of politicians who, by their very nature, are both corrupt and power-hungry.
So, why me? Well, why not? The greatest obstacle to joy and peace is ignorance. Ignorance of our true nature. Patanjali posits that there is an eternal soul within the human being. The soul, Purusha, uses the physical apparatus of the human body in order to observe the world and continue learning. Suffering arises when the Ego identifies with the physical body, imagining it to BE the soul. But the body is not the soul. It is the vehicle. We must care for it because a long life allows us more time for learning. But, we must not identify with it. When we are ignorant of our true nature, we are in a state called avidya. Avidya leads to suffering, dukha. Suffering leads to wrong action, trying to alleviate or escape suffering. This wrong action is called karma. The Law of Karma is avidya->dukha->karma. Ignorance leads to suffering leads to wrong action which then reinforces our ignorance. So repeats the cycle, the much quoted but little understood karma….
Why me? Why not? This body is only a temporary home. It is not your last stop. You will inhabit many more. if it is riddled with cancer and pain, don’t ask why me. Ask, why not. Perhaps your mission in this incarnation is complete? Perhaps your suffering is the teacher you need at this time. Perhaps you will never know why and you must learn to be content in not knowing.
Why me? Why not.
Let us yog!
I found this lovely quote whilst surfing the yoga blogosphere:
Within me is my true self, and my true self is both good and beautiful, and therefore, I am both good and beautiful.
My life can touch others in a positive way and this gives me the power to change the world. I can change the world.
I have the power to love myself and to love others. I can be a positive force in the universe.
It would make a nice dedication when opening the class. AUM.
Musings: who's your intermediary?
I have reason to contemplate the why’s and wherefore’s of my profession. Why did I choose to teach yoga? What do I hope to achieve?
I began my healing journey long. long ago with a single thought: I am not happy where I am. How can I change? At the time I was 18, just going back to high school after a two year hiatus of parties and low-wage jobs and high ideals. Embracing vegetarianism four years earlier with nary an idea of what this might mean for my body (I was much more concerned with ethical eating then), I had gained an enormous amount of weight. Yes, dear readers, a high carb, low protein, low fat diet will make you fat. Or rather, podgy. I was a podgy 175lbs and unhappy about it.
I decided to change and joined the gym – the YMCA to be exact. And I don’t mean once in a while I went to the gym. I went about five days per week, every week, in addition to being a full time student, working in the evenings and moving only on foot and bicycle. I was active and I instigated the change I desired. It took a long time, but I have great faith and even greater willpower. More than anything, I believed myself to be deserving of this attention. I was also scared – my obese father gasping in pain from angina, wired up in the hospital bed after coronary number one, shuffling ever more slowly after heart attack number two, gave me all the motivation I ever needed to try to live a healthy life.
When I “became” a “healer” (masseur), I saw that most of my most faithful clients are the ones most unlike me. Many people who put themselves in the care of alternative health professionals are using this as a substitute for self-care. That’s ok, we’re all on our own journey. But, a part of me could not stop there.
I chose yoga because it is a discipline that demands the student participate fully in her own healing journey. The student is the one who awakens on dark winter mornings to practise. The student is the one who holds the exhale even though fear screams loudly from the depths. The student is the one unafraid to critique himself and his motives, steadily digging out the ego and its tricks. Yoga asks a lot of the student and I chose to teach yoga because I admire those who are willing to take their own lives into their own hands and make the changes necessary. Or, be brave enough to fail doing it.
Yoga as liberation
I see some professionals adopting messianic attitudes. Stick with me and you will be well! This in both allopathic and complimentary medicine. Yoga is the path of liberation. The ultimate goal of the yoga teacher is to make herself redundant. We want to foster a steady home practice, making the student ever freer and more independent. This is why yoga, unlike other disciplines, appeals so much to me, a confirmed libertarian. (I used to be an anarchist, but I like libertarian humanism much more…no violent undertones).
Yoga as liberation makes it dangerous. How so? Well, just as the Vatican objects to the yogic notion that a person can commune with The Divine without the intervention of a priest, some professionals (like physios or doctors or even dare I say it chiropractors) might object to the notion that a person can heal themselves. I don’t actually think that no help is needed. In fact, accepting our common need for interaction and the melding of human energy fields is part of the path of self development. But, the fact that we need human touch doesn’t mean giving up our own healing power.
So, dear souls. Believe in change, be strong enough to pursue it and set yourselves free. Kaivalya.
Cool yoga photos – yogafotos chulas
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gosiajanik/sets/72157607323430449/
The Healing Crisis.
A fundamental tenet of Naturopathic Cure is the healing crisis.
The philosophy of naturopathy asserts that all symptoms of dis-ease are the body’s sincere efforts to rid itself of substances that offend it. These substances may be foreign (dust, chemicals residues, micro-organisms) or come from the body itself, thus endogenous (organic acids, hormone residue). When the body is strong enough to rid itself of the noxious substance, it mounts a defence and sends it out via the nearest elimination route. The routes of elimination are urine, feces, sweat, skin shedding, hair shedding, and pus/mucus.
What provokes a healing crisis?
Naturopathy aims to avoid healing crises. But, sometimes they are unavoidable. Some people have a high tendency to mount strong healing crises. With these people, we have to be careful that their therapy is gentle, keeping them as comfortable as possible. Other bodies need a good, hard shove, and can tolerate stronger therapeutic regimes. Magnesium is a strongly detoxing mineral whose administration can cause strong but bearable reactions such as muscle and joint pain, low grade fever, sweating and fatigue. Don’t worry, this is just your body doing its work! Vitamin B3 (Niacin) is also strongly detoxing, causing flushing through the skin, redness and heat.
Of course, healing crises can be provoked by other modalities. A good, strong chiropractic adjustment can certainly throw things off for a few days as the body adjust to its new position and the eyes and ears rebalance. A deep massage can also release acids left behind in tired muscles, leaving us achey and stiff for a day or two afterwards. Again, this is only healing and should not be taken as alarming.
Yoga is a long term ally in the restoration of good health. But, we do have to set goals and keep our practice current in order to really shift from one state to another. Lately, I have been working the post Eka Pada Rajakapotâsana . It is a powerful pose because not only do the hips and pelvis have to be fully opened and rotated, the spine is in full extension with the arms held above the head and grasping one foot behind.
I was able to enter the pose twice last weekend and it felt great. But, it left my hips rather raw. Not in a scary way, just in a “I know this is good for me, but…” kind of way. Well, today my little pelvis could take no more and sent me to bed for rest. I have had a day of classic healing crisis: fatigue, aching joints and sore muscles.
What to do about a healing crisis?
I cannot stress enough that you should avoid anti-inflammatory and analgesic medicines if at all possible. Let your body do its thing and your won’t prolong your suffering, nor send it deeper. All will be well within about 48 hours. And, of course, don’t ignore symptoms if they become more acute. Doctors are there for a reason.
Rest, take liquid, don’t worry. If you have plans, break all but the most essential. Be honest, people who don’t respect your need to rest and recovery are probably most in need of it themselves and will thank you for being brave enough to set the example. I am not saying “shirk off” by any means. I am a very reliable person who is not afraid to admit it when I need some downtime.
I wish you the very best health.
Yoga and the Fire
One of books I constantly refer to is “Yoga and the Sacred Fire” by Pandit Dr. David Frawley. Frawley is an American Vedic scholar and a very worthy writer. I bought the book in India – Pondicherry or Mysore, perhaps? – and posted it home. It is a crappy Indian binding, but the information contained within is the only thing of importance.
Frawley discusses in depth the role of Agni (fire) in the practice of yoga. Fire is central to many parts of yogic/ayurvedic thought. First of all, it is one of the main five Elements (Bhutas) of which the entire universe is formed. Secondly, it is one the three main doshas, or characteristics, in the classification of body types. Fire is the transformative element, that which allows creativity to manifest, food to digest, minds to change and the old to give way the the new. Too much fire burns us up, too little leaves us sluggish. As ever, the yogic path is the middle path, the joyful and harmonious seeking of balance.
At my seminar this weekend, my teacher commented on my ability to eat and digest salad in early Springtime. I have a good digestive fire, and my creative fires also burn brightly. This wasn’t always so. Like many women, I tend to retain water in the thighs and often used to find myself dragging from one thing to another, making it through the day, yet exhausted.
I have spent the past few years learning about then cultivating my own inner fire. Part of this process has been the tending of the home fires. In October last year (2012), as winter began to make itself felt, I began trying to light the fire. I found it so incredibly difficult to get it going! I often found myself spending 45 minutes in front of the grate, blowing uselessly on burning twigs. I even bitched about it on Facebook, and got the expected comments about making a tee-pee and using small stuff at the bottom. Thanks, I knew that part already.
Nowadays, I’ll have you know, I am a one-match girl. I can get that fire lit in about five minutes and the house warm in an hour. I also find myself with much more spirit, a crackling, happy sort of energy, not brittle at all. Here, I leave you with a short clip of last night’s merry fire. I hope it brings you warmth and joy. https://vimeo.com/62053010
A good quality for a yoga teacher
We can make our mind so like still water that beings gather about us to see their own images, and so far a moment live a clearer, perhaps even fiercer, life because of our quiet – W.B. Yeats.