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Yoga - The Holistic Practice!

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As we approach the world Yoga day on 21^st June 2015, here is an excerpt from my Co-Authored book on Yoga, which I am sure will dispel quite a few misconceptions about the practice!

Yoga is one of the most ancient cultural heritages of India. The word yoga in Sanskrit means "to unite” and so yoga can be said to mean a unitive discipline. In this sense it is an exercise in moral and mental cultivation that generates good health (arogya), contributes to longevity (chirayu), and the total intrinsic discipline culminates into positive and perennial happiness and peace. In its spiritual sense, it is the process by which the uniqueness of the individual soul and the Supreme Soul is realized by the Yogi. It is the union of all aspects of an individual: body, mind and soul. 

Yoga is an all-encompassing way of life, a science of self-culture and mental discipline that ensures the purgation of the ignoble in man and brings forth what is most noble in him. It is relevant to all people irrespective of their caste, creed, sex, and religion. Yoga is for all. Yoga is universal. It is not a sectarian affair. The practice of Yoga is not conflicting to any religion. It is purely spiritual and universal. It does not contradict anyone's sincere faith. It can be beneficial to all - the good and the bad, the sick and the healthy, the believer and the non-believer, the literate and the ignorant, the young and the old. 

There are too many misconceptions confusing the science of Yoga. People perceive it to be some kind of black or white magic, sorcery, physical or mental wickedness through which miraculous feats can be performed. For some it is an extremely dangerous practice, which should be limited to only those who have renounced the world. 

The real meaning of Yoga: Yogash chita vritti nirodha
Yoga is the termination of mental fragmentation.

Yoga: Oneness, yoga. Chitta: mind. Vritti: wave, the action of rolling, modification, way of being. Nirodha: cessation.

All about Yoga is said in the four words Yogah,Chitta, Vritti, nirodha. The four words of the second sutra define the “discipline” in a practical way. But then one should know their meaning and mostly what they signal to us. Chitta is the mind field, which is the ocean of perception and reflection. Even deep sleep is included in that world of perception, or cognitive activity. 

The meaning of vritti exceeds what we normally mean by thought. The idea of something rolling, of a wave in motion, is the first meaning. It is a more basic procedure than the solitary conscious thinking. We can say mental activity of form of consciousness, and that’s how we will translate it most of the time.

The word nirodha carries in itself the complete core of spiritual understanding, the full grace dawning on the open soul. It is the cessation, the silence. But what is silence? Silence imposed by thought —“what we often designate by the word “control”— is not silence”, It is an effort, a struggle, and uneasiness: in other words, it is still a troublesome thought: there is still someone looking after a goal. On the contrary, the discipline of yoga is the cessation of something that has hardly ceased until now and which we evoke by the expression chitta vritti.

Elementary Living!

‘Simplicity is no longer a convention, it is an invention’

As soon as I read this, it sat deeply within me. So true I thought. We now live in a world that is getting more and more complicated and in the midst of information overload on how we can make it even more so!

In every dire situation, there is the proverbial silver lining and that became the case with the family and me. We discovered the components of elementary living!

Though the awareness drifted in the fringes of my own consciousness, it never was mainstream. So what’s this elementary living? I call it living in balance with the elements of nature, that is Air, Fire, Water, Earth and Ether or space! Do we have a balance of these in our day-to-day living? Do we use the tremendous healing properties that these elements have to bring a sense of sanity in the mad rush that we are all in?

Do we use the element of air, our very own life force in accordance to the need for ourselves? Remember, life force is the only thing that we carry with ourselves everywhere we go! Are we even aware of our breath or have we taken it for granted? To balance Air, we need to cleanse and energize ourselves. Cleansing can be through the various Pranayama techniques and the Breath Energy Technique to energize.

Fire is that element which defies gravity! Think about it! It is so light! Fire meditation helps burn and lighten burdens of every day life, it has the power to cleanse deep. Just observing this element burn instills warmth and power, so very essential in today’s world!

Water is the universal cleanser! Do we cleanse ourselves with this divine element as a healing component or do we use it automatic, without giving it a deeper thought? Having a bath twice everyday is mandatory in this polluted environment, both emotional pollution as well as the physical pollution. It can wash away the negative energy that we build around and within us during the course of the day!

Mother Earth is the provider of our energy through food, and how we have abused her is beyond imagination! Research now shows that the topsoil in our country is way beyond repair because of the rampant and un-regulated use of pesticides. We are also victims of the junk food, fast food culture that has percolated so deep down that it is no longer occasional food but daily diet! How balanced is our diet? Do we ‘eat to live, or live to eat?’ Are we the victims of the corporations that are making their millions at our cost?  Rampant spread of deadly diseases is proof enough of the poisoning that has happened in our environment by the elites.

Space is that element that is necessary to balance all others! Renewal practices like Yoga, Meditation, and Prayer are necessary to survive in this rat race! We binge renew on weekends, which does more harm than good! What is your daily renewal practice?

Our living being the planet earth or giai is the universal possessor and provider of all five without discrimination! Should we not be grateful?

Think about it! As Sherlock Holmes famously said, ‘elementary my dear Watson’!

Ask yourself, ‘How elementary is my living’?

A friend once asked me, what is the use? Do you want to live longer by doing all this? My internal reply was, ‘Add life to years, not years to life’!

You BET!

Internal Hardware and Software!

From Dis-Stress to De-Stress!

Heart Leadership!

Head and Heart!

ENABLING DIVINE EMOTIONS AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO DRIVE THE HAPPINESS QUOTIENT

Looking around us everyday, we get a sense of the emotional energy pervading all around of Fear, Anger, hostility, guilt, shame and depression, which Deepak Chopra calls as Diabolical Emotions.

Spin it around and we can look at the divine emotions of Love, Joy, Compassion, and Equanimity according to him.

Connecting the dots of the divine emotions to emotional intelligence, I have put forth my views how to arrive at the Happiness quotient that we all are seekers off.

Recent research in the field of EI calls happiness as an indicator of emotional health and well-being and the four factors of Happiness as per EQ-I 2.0, are Self Regard, Optimism, Interpersonal Relationships and Self actualization.

As an individual with high Self Regard, I respect myself as well as accept the strengths and limitations while remaining satisfied and self-secure. When we can do this to ourselves and can apply a similar structure to all around us, we become unconditional, which is the primary ingredient of the divine emotion called Love for me.

The second aspect of optimism where I see hope, the glass as half-full, can get energized by setbacks and obstacles and fuelled to overcome challenges in life, I express the second divine emotion of Joy showcasing itself in all its glory.

Wikipedia defines Compassion as that emotion that one feels in response to the sufferings of the others that motivates a desire to help, which sits exceedingly well for me with the Emotional Intelligence element of Inter-Personal Relationships where we look out not only for new relationships but also take care of the ones we already have, we have the courage to ask and give help and have mutually enriching exchanges in professional as well as personal lives.

Self-Actualization in the business world means finding the purpose and enjoying what you do while performing at the optimal level. When I operate from that space I can help others to self-actualize too because there is this inner stillness of peace and confidence, that the universe is conspiring for our greater purpose, which the divine emotion of Equanimity is all about.

When I am at peace, the other three divine emotions of Love, Joy and Compassion flow effortlessly and express themselves in their true glory.

To the emotional intelligence angle of measuring happiness, if divine emotions are added, I propose that I am an individual with a high happiness quotient.

Conversely, apply the divine emotions first in day-to-day life and automatically increase your emotional intelligence as well as your happiness quotient.  

Psychology takes time to express what spirituality already possesses!

Enjoy and In-Joy

Healing and Pain

Emotionally Intelligent Living.

Our Physical personality consists of the Perceiver and the actor. Our forms of perception, driven by the sense organs of Taste, Touch, Smell, Hear and See, help us understand the physical world. The actor executes the actions based on our perception. The Emotional personality has the Feeler in us, which involves handling our emotions, and the discriminatory personality has the Thinker in us that defines intellect, which further branches into the gross and the subtle. The gross is involved in worldly boundaries and worldly thoughts and the subtle is the contemplator in which lies the spiritual personality. We now live in the age of speed and instant gratification; we have everything instant starting from noodles, to messaging. The media today constantly exposes our minds on the need or speed. We have 15-second advertisements showing achievements, which might take a lifetime, and giving us a false sense of instant possibility. This has driven focus from what is fundamentally important to what is urgently important thereby causing anxiety when one discovers things do not work the way they want it to and it surely doesn’t work in 15 seconds. We begin to live on expectations from our actions, which causes internal stress, rather than on accepting the results of our actions. When the mind is racing with thoughts of expectations and encounters roadblocks anxiety increases and when anxiety increases it leads to stress. Stress is therefore the speed of the mind. To reduce stress we need to decrease the speed of the mind. This is the yogic definition of stress. So, the percolation of stress starts in the mind which affects our breathing (observe your breath in moments of anger or fear), which affects the way, we look (body language in times of anger and fear) and finally affects the individual organs leading to various ailments. When our intellect is inattentive due to external stressors the mind goes wandering, making the senses run helter skelter which causes the body to be under constant pressure and finally break. Therefore to control the speed of the mind we need to first control our intellect which means focusing on our contemplative intellect and seek to understand the greater purpose of our journey on this planet which is fundamentally important rather than get carried away by our gross intellect making us seek temporary accomplishments which are short lived and thereby carry the message of being urgently important to do. Being Emotionally Intelligent, for a start, helps focus on the contemplative you and start the journey of discovery within.

The Mind and the Ego!

There was a request to post the Learnings from the book 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle in one of the forums that I am a member.

This is what I felt! Read on....

Dear Mayannk,

Wonderful!

The Power of Now has the ingredients needed to experience the state of Being rather than the state of doing, which by the way is how we operate most of the time. This is because of the fear of the mind in this case the brain of its mortality and how it influnces the being or tries to overpower the being by not letting it operate in the 'NOW' which in any case is all that we have and it manipulates us into the past and the future thereby giving us a false sense of reality!

In trying to train the brain to remain in the present, we need to observe our thoughts and the constant flirtations that it has with the past and the present which feeds the ego. These thoughts can be based on the accomplishments (past) and/or projections (future). The 'Win' for the brain can be as trivial as 'having the last word' in even the most simple communication exchange between two individuals while 'losing' is perceived as its demise!

Thoughts of the past and the future also puts us into the understanding of time as something that adds pressure to the self rather than look at time as resource that can be had to accomplish what is at hand in the 'Now'. The crib/boasting about the past and the expectations for something to happen in the future is a way of the mind in not wanting to accept that which is and that is the 'Now'. When we are in the present the mind has no role to play thereby rendering it practically useless and this it will not let happen!

All this brings me to the learning that the mind and the ego are the same and understanding of either helps us 'the individual.'

This is the essence that the book placed in me.

In Being,

Acceptance

Accepting Oneself

This is the time of the year of anticipation, the time when we reflect on the year gone by and the anticipation of what the New Year has in store. This is the time when we look forward with hope and cheer.

While looking forward to what might come in itself is exciting not being able to accomplish what we make as resolutions can be disappointing. This is because we look at the external to make things happen whereas we need to look internal to accept what we receive. There is a great saying that we get what we deserve not what we desire, in anticipating much through our resolutions, the inability to keep pace with fulfilling the resolutions soon leads to disappointment which in turn leads to breaking the resolutions that we have made very quickly.

The present day culture is driven by the need to accomplish and accomplish at the speed of thought, this has been created by technology, while it is possible for technology to deliver quickly, it may not be the case with every individual, because each one of us has different capabilities and given the time and space, each one of us is capable of completing what we have set out to accomplish with our resolutions. Time in its present sense does not allow for such luxuries and this creates anxiety within.

When anxiety increases the speed of the mind increases and when the speed of the mind increases it leads to disturbances in our breathing patterns which percolate to the physical body and then the individual organs. Just observe your breadth, the life force energy the next time you get angry, scared or anxious and you will know.

Therefore the speed of the mind is the cause for physical imbalances and to overcome this we need to observe our thoughts, we need to understand whether they are enabling us in accomplishing what we set out for or are they disabling us and making us anxious. Developing the awareness is key, when we are aware, we are in meditation.

The initial path to this awareness is acceptance, accepting ourselves first, accepting our capabilities next and accepting our accomplishments much later. Often we are expecting, expecting more from ourselves, expecting more of our capabilities and expecting to be able to accomplish more that what is actually required. Expectations when not fulfilled leads to disappointments and a feeling of unworthiness of self. This can be dangerous as it sets the ball of comparison rolling and when we compare ourselves with the supposedly higher accomplishments of the others, self-guilt sets in which can become disabling at the speed of thought.

As we arrive at the New Year, the action resolution to take would be one of acceptance resolution rather than expectations, thereby enabling us in taking the first step to accomplishing a journey of inner knowledge and healing.

Follow your Intuition

Article in the Deccan Herald dated 11th August, 2006.
Panorama; Oasis.

Follow your intuition


To develop intuition, we need to dig inside us rather than look outside for rationalisation. If the driving force of intelligence in the 20th century has been the head, in the dawning of the 21st century it will be the heart. The emphasis on the intellect for defining success of an individual by the modern world is out of touch with the heart-level engine or intuition today.

Following your intuition would mean following your heart, listening to your gut feeling. There might have been several times in our lives when we have felt a certain way about a certain event, but have not expressed it, and later found out that what we felt actually happened. We simply did not have the courage to express what we felt when we felt it.

Following the heart also means following the divinity within, it is listening to the divine voice within; it is listening to your feelings. When we listen to the voice within we recognise the same voice in others.


The rational thinking in us, the intellect has taken us far away from the magical world of our gut ‘feel’ and dismissed it as coincidental thoughts. The most common example being when we think of a person whom we have not met in a while and at that very moment that person either calls or arrives at our doorstep, we say “what a coincidence"! There is a thin line which separates our thoughts from intuition.

Intuition has, other than thoughts a bodily response, we experience a tingling sensation when such thoughts arise. We need to observe our bodily response when a thought arises to distinguish it as thought from intuition. Thus, to develop the intuitive faculty in us we need to go within rather than look for rationalisation from the outside. Once we develop our intuitive abilities, we also are able to recognise the inner feelings in most others – this way we understand their feelings and emotions. We often say “I understand” without actually doing so. All this requires a process of un-learning and learning again. A student asked the master, “Lead me to change master, I want to become like you”. The master looked at the pupil, and took a jar containing water lying next to him and started to pour the water into a glass which was three fourths full. The glass filled up and water started flowing out, but the master continued pouring.

The pupil said, "What are you up to master? The water is spilling out! To which the master replied, "Son, for you to accept something new, you first need to pour out all that is old!