Yoga Brings Clarity, Not Confusion - Sadhguru at IIT Madras (Part IV)

Can a Women walk on the path of Kriya Yoga ­- "Women in Spirituality" Series (Part 1)

madhurashtkam - Spiritual Music

The Intensity with which Yogananda did his Sadhana

"More than anything else, what characterized Mukunda (Paramhansa Yogananda) as a boy was his constant yearning for God, his practical determination to find Him. While other, much older devotees contented themselves with a little meditation and a great deal of talk, Mukunda went silently to sunscorched places to meditate. On the hot sands of Puri, where most people won’t even walk at midday, Mukunda would sit for hours at a time in lotus posture, wrapped in divine peace. Or, to overcome the sensation of cold, he would stand in cold water up to his neck, chanting, oblivious of the passing time. At night he often visited a crematory ground. (What better reminder of life’s impermanence?) Sitting there until morning, he would lose himself in unfathomable bliss.

In Benares he used to go to a certain temple, where he had found an opening in the floor just wide enough for him to squeeze through sideways. It must have been a small opening indeed, considering that he was only a boy, and thin for his age. The opening led to a series of steps: Three flights down he would go. The daylight was soon lost in all-absorbing darkness, but lack of fresh air permitting him to take not even a candle. Groping his way, he had discovered a little niche, just big enough for sit in. Beyond the earthly silence, the supernal sound of Aum boomed loudly in his inner ear. He would practice the Kriya Yoga technique once or trice, and pass quickly into a state of divine ecstasy.

Another favorite place of meditation was a little attic room in his family home at 4 Gurpar Road, in Calcutta. Many a sacred hour he spent in that room, mantled in shining peace.

Wherever he meditated, he fervently reminded the Divine Mother of his love for Her, and called to Her with longing to reveal Herself. Many times She appeared to him, too, and touched him with Her wand of love.

One evening he came home weary. He had worked very hard that day, cooking for and serving many hundreds of poor people. His body couldn’t have felt less inclined to sit even for a few minutes in meditation. Exhausted, he fell into bed.

“This is one night,” he told himself, “when I won’t meditate before sleeping. I’ve worked hard for God all day. Surely there’s merit enough in that.”

But the habit of meditation was strong in him. It now scolded him: “You’ve never slipped like this before!”

“Leave me alone – don’t bother me!” exclaimed the boy. Really, this conscience of his could be a problem! Wasn’t sleep his just due this night? What more fitting reward for a day in service to Divine Mother? “Ask Her,” he instructed his domineering conscience. “She’ll tell you I’m right.”

But his conscience proved stubborn. “Your aches and pains are a fitting gift for Divine Mother! What about Her? Doesn’t your heart ache after Her any more?”

Here was strong argument! Satan evidently thought so too, and was worried, for suddenly a voice, sweet with sympathy, spoke in the room:

“Poor boy! He will catch his death of cold! Poor boy! He has worked so hard and is so tired. Let him sleep!”

To Mukunda it became all at once quite clear that he hadn’t been entirely on the side of the angels. Disdainfully he flung the blankets to the floor, sat upright, and locked his body in the lotus posture. Fixing his mind firmly on God, he began to meditate.

Five, fifteen, thirty minutes passed. His weary body cried that surely by now he had done his duty.

“I will not sleep,” Mukunda vowed with adamant determination, “until I have felt the presence of the Divine Mother.”

Suddenly Her ineffable joy overwhelmed him. Bathed in a sea of light, he spent the remainder of the night awake in God. At dawn he felt far more refreshed than he would have from a night’s long sleep. Divine Mother had renewed his strength. Gone were his aches and pains.

Filled with gratitude, he went forth to serve her yet another day."

--from "Stories of Mukunda", by Swami Kriyananda

OSHO: If You Love This Planet, Absolute Birth Control Is Needed

Twilight's Treasures - Sadhguru (Very Interesting)

The Journey, on the pathway to The Dhyanalinga

The Parikrama

The parikrama, leading to the Dhyanalinga, communicates a sense of both artistry and spirituality. It comprises a central pathway, which is open to the sky, establishing a visual connection between the entrance and the dome, reinforcing the integrity of the relationship of spaces. The

central pathway is flanked on either side by covered aisles.

  

Patanjali

As one enters the parikrama, on the left is the statue of Pathanjali, the celebrated author of Yoga Sutras, regarded as the father of yogic sciences. The eleven-foot tall statue is deliberately placed in a sunken shrine, thus establishing an immediate relationship between the colossal identity of Pathanjali and the dwarfed viewer at the same level. The statue sculpted in black granite depicts a fusion of snake and man, symbolizing the dual nature of life. It also symbolizes the divine nature of man evolving from his earthbound nature. Hence, the sunken shrine depicts the snake below the earth and the man above it. The snake covering the head of the statue with its hood represents the raising of energies through the seven chakras, thus reflecting the objective of yoga.

Vanashree

  On the right is the Vanashree shrine, the feminine deity of the Dhyanalinga temple and a counterpoint to the Pathanjali shrine. In contrast to Pathanjali's sunken base, the Vanashree shrine is placed at a higher level than the pathway. The Vanashree, made of green granite, is a sculptural relief of a peepal tree. A gold leaf at the center symbolizes warmth and prosperity. The energies of the deity are such that it is especially beneficial for women and children to meditate in the vicinity of the shrine. The traditional Keerthi Mukha, the glorious face, finds place above the shrine of Vanashree.

Six artistically sculptured granite panels cover the aisles, illustrating the stories of six South Indian sages who attained enlightenment. Each panel captures a moment in these extraordinary lives. On the threshold are six images of meditative postures each carved into a triangular form, which indicate the Siddhi State of six spiritual chakras.

Sadhguru Shri Brahma

 1 :: SADHGURU-In my previous life as Sadhguru Shri Bhramha, I was known as Chakreshwara. For those of you from the state of Tamil Nadu, maybe you have heard of this. It means somebody who has complete mastery over all the hundred and fourteen chakras. It is because of that mastery that now we can have people blowing up everywhere like explosions. He was known as Chakreshwara because he exhibited certain qualities of his total mastery over the chakras. A phenomenally rare thing he did was, when he left his body, he left through all the seven chakras. Generally, when yogis leave their body, they leave through one particular chakra - whichever they have particular mastery over, through that they leave. Otherwise, depending upon their tendencies, they leave accordingly, but Sadhguru left his body through all the seven chakras. As a preparation for the consecration of the Dhyanalinga, he left his body through all the seven chakras.(Now the Birth of Isha foundation)

Sadashiva Brahmendra

2 :: Sadhashiva Brahmendra , the bodiless yogi, Sadashiva Brahmendra, cast a spell on the onlooker.
Sadashiva was a nirkaya, he had no sense of the body. And because he had no sense of the body, he did not think about wearing clothes, he just walked naked. He happened to walk into the king's garden while the king was relaxing with his queens. The king became angry, "Who is this fool walking naked in front of my wives?" He sent his soldiers to find out who he was. The soldiers called Sadashiva Brahmendra from behind, but he didn't turn back, he just kept on walking. The soldiers became angry and took out a sword and chopped off his right arm, but he still kept walking. He did not even break a stride. Now the soldiers were terrified, "This is not an ordinary man. We chopped off his arm and he keeps walking." So the king, soldiers and everyone else went and fell at his feet, and brought him back to the garden. Sadashiva Brahmendra lived there for the rest of his life. Even today, this place is preserved in a certain way.

Meiporul Nayanar

3 :: Meiporul Nayanar, a famous king who showed mercy on the murderer is also portrayed. carved as a staunch Saivite.

Akka Mahadevi

4 :: Akka Mahadevi,A moving scene of Akka Mahadevi in her love and dispassion, shedding everything, including her clothes as demanded by the king and moving into a sense of bodilessness.

Sadhguru:

Akka Mahadevi was a devotee of Shiva. Right from childhood she had completely given herself to Shiva and she looked upon him as her husband. A king saw her one day and she was so beautiful that he wanted to marry her. Akka refused but then the king threatened her, “If you don’t marry me, I will kill your parents.” So, she married the man but she kept him at a physical distance. He tried to woo her but she kept saying, “I am not married to you. I married Shiva long ago. He visits me and I am with him. I cannot be with you.”

This was too much for the king to take and one day he decided, “What is the point of having a wife like this? How does one live with a wife who is married to some unseen man, somewhere?” There was no formal divorce in those days and he was just distraught. He did not know what to do. So he brought her to his court and asked the court to decide. When the court asked her, she kept talking about her husband elsewhere. This was not hallucinatory, it was 100% real for her. Your imagination, if it is empowered by life energies, it becomes reality, 100%.

The king got angry because in front of all these people, his wife was claiming that her husband was elsewhere. 800 years ago, socially it was not a simple thing to take for a king. So in great anger, he said, “If you are already married to somebody, what are you doing with me? Everything that you wear, the jewels, the clothes – everything is mine. Leave them here and go.” Those days in India, there was no way a woman even thought of leaving her husband’s house at all. But in the full assembly of the court, Akka Mahadevi – a young woman of 18 years – just dropped all her clothes and left. She refused to wear clothes from that day onwards.

Akka Mahadevi wrote hundreds of beautiful poems about Shiva and her devotion. Her devotion was such that every day she begged him, “Shiva let no food come my way. Let my body also express the longing and anguish that I am going through to become part of you. If I eat, my body will be satisfied. My body will not know what I am feeling. So let no food come towards me. If food does come into my hands, let it fall down in the mud before I put it into my mouth. If it falls in the mud, the fool that I am, before I pick it up, let a dog come and take it away.” This was her daily prayer.

Devotees are a completely different kind of people. They just have one foot in this world. Their ways of living and the power with which they exist is completely other-worldly.

Source Link :  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/history-of-yoga/im-married-to-shiva/

 

Poosalar

5 :: Poosalar, a great Siva devotee who built a temple for him in his heart, A miraculous event where his inner temple found recognition

Kannappa Nayanar

6 :: Kannappa Nayanar, considered to be the first eye donor. He offers his own eyes to Shiva.

  The form of a yogi prostrating before the Dhyanalinga suggests the sense of surrender that is required to enter the Dhyanalinga space.

The parikrama ends at a vaulted tunnel that leads to the dome of the Dhyanalinga. Carved on the threshold of the entrance are two snakes with a single raised hood, indicating the non-dual nature of the Dhyanalinga. Over the vault is a seven-hooded monolithic snake, symbolizing the seven dimensions of life reaching the peak of consciousness.

Thanks for giving your precious time to read and explore about this wonderfull place and its aspects.PRANAM

Define Inner Beauty - Sadhguru

YANNI - Niki Nana

Yanni - The keeper featuring Leslie Mills

Reason for Rainbows - Yanni

Top Tracks for Yanni (playlist)

Yanni The Flame Within

Butterfly Dance | YANNI (Acrapolis konser görüntüleri ile)

Are Snakes Dangerous ? Sadhguru

Sadhguru on Yoga and Weight Loss

If you are doing yoga, excess weight will definitely go. Yoga not only functions as an exercise, it rejuvenates the system and brings so much sense into you that you will not overeat. Once a certain level of awareness arises in your body, your body becomes such, it will just eat what is needed for it. It will not eat anything more. This is not because you are controlling or regulating your life in anyway or because somebody is telling you to go on a diet. With yogic practices, you do not have to control yourself. You just do the practices. This takes care of the system in such a way that it will not allow you to eat more than needed. If you do some other exercises or dieting processes, you are always trying to control yourself. This is the big difference with yoga.

When you start kriyas, certain people start losing weight, certain people start gaining weight. If your digestion was bad and your ability to convert the food into flesh was not good, when you start practicing kriyas, the digestive fires get activated and because of the improvement in digestion, the conversion of food to flesh will be more efficient and you start gaining weight.

If your digestive fires were already okay and you start doing kriyas, once again the conversion rate will improve. But instead of turning the food into flesh, it will turn food into a subtler dimension of energy. Now, however much you eat, you will find you are losing weight.  If you are practicing the kriyas, you may even find that if you eat a larger quantum of food, you still do not put on weight, you even lose weight. Or, it may be the other way around: your food quantum comes down dramatically, but still you do not lose weight. This is simply because the conversion ratio is being altered.

We do not teach yoga to reduce weight. It is not something that you do to slim down or for your backache or your headache. Yes, those things will anyway happen – becoming healthy, becoming peaceful, loving, gentle – these are the side effects of yoga, not the focus of yoga. The focus of yoga is to set another dimension alive within you, which is beyond the physical. Only when that is alive, slowly the existence opens up to you in a million different ways. Things that you never thought existed become a living reality for you, simply because a dimension beyond the physical has become alive.


Source Link :  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/yoga-and-weight-loss/

Delphi, Greece, A Temple Built by Yogis - Sadhguru

Pink October, 2012: Sadhguru Talks About Breast Cancer

October is celebrated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the world over. All through this month, campaigns are held to spread awareness and also raise funds towards the research, diagnosis and cure of this disease.

 

As described by Wikipedia, “Breast cancer is a type of cancer originating from the breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk.”
22.9% of all cancers in women worldwide are related to the breast. In 2012 alone, the American Cancer Society reported 226,870 new cases of breast cancer in women and 39,510 deaths from the disease. Some of the most prominent risk factors for breast cancer are related to lifestyle – lack of physical activity, smoking, poor diet, obesity, high hormone levels, and lack of childbearing or breast feeding.

Today, as a part of our contribution to the ongoing breast cancer awareness initiatives, we would like to present to you Sadhguru’s own words on the subject. He tells us about the way the yogic system views cancer and what can be done to avoid the disease.

Sadhguru:

Cancerous cells are present in all our bodies. In the yogic system, we describe cancerous cells as being similar to, let’s say, criminals in a society. If there are a few individuals here and there who commit petty crimes, it doesn’t really affect the society. But when they gang up together in one place, something begins to happen. Similarly, having a few cancerous cells in your body is not going to affect your life or health in any way. Generally in yoga, we look at it this way: when certain kinds of blanks happen in the energy body, either because of a person’s attitude, food, lifestyle, or any other factor due to which the energy body gets affected, an atmosphere conducive to the growth of cancerous cells is created. So if the flow of energy is not good in a certain part of the body, cancerous cells choose that place to hide and fester.

Breast cancer is very rampant today, especially in societies where a lot of women never conceive. It is a good thing they are doing for the world, anyway. But even if they have children, generally in today’s world, for most women child-bearing happens only once or twice and is over before a certain age. So the next 15 to 20 years of their life that they still have the capability to bear children and the necessary hormones are still being produced – this is not being made use of. This is one of the main reasons for both breast and uterine cancer occurring among women.

The mechanism of the breast, which was mainly made to feed the offspring, is not made use of. Or, it is made use of at a very early age and not after that. If a woman went through the normal process of conception, from the age of 16 to 18 until about 45, she would be conceiving periodically which would have kept her whole system active and kept the energy flowing. Because it is not made use of the way it should have been physiologically, that part of the body becomes low energy. Such an atmosphere always attracts cancerous cells, and it becomes a place for them to accumulate and do the necessary work that they do.
So does it mean to say we must produce more children? Please don’t. There are ways to find solution for this.

One of the simplest solutions that we have for curtailing cancerous cells in the system is periodic fasting. One aspect of these cells is that they need a lot more food than a normal cell, up to 30 times more. Just by denying yourself food on certain days, you could put down the level of cancerous cells.

There are also certain types of sadhana one can do where one’s hormonal secretions can be controlled. The Shakthi Chalana Kriya^[1] and asanas we teach help in correcting and balancing the system. We have seen many women with uterus-related problems, such as polycystic ovaries getting completely cured by simply practicing certain asanas and kriyas. The hormonal conditions inside the body become controlled, rather than simply reacting to the kind of food you eat and atmosphere you live in.

To what extent the practices have helped patients suffering from cancer, we cannot document or confirm this. But we have definitely seen that they recovered quite well. The doctors who were treating these cancer patients were quite surprised at their response to chemotherapy. We have seen a few people who recovered from chemotherapy very quickly after doing yogic practices. Whether their cancer went away because of the practices, there is no way to say that. I would say supplementing yoga with medical treatment could definitely benefit the patient.

 

[1] Shakti Chalana Kriya is taught as a part of the yoga program Shoonya Intensive at the Isha Yoga Center. To know more, please visit: http://www.ishayoga.org/advanced-programs/shoonya-intensive

Yanni - Highland

A real Master does not speak the language of your desire and your demand. - Osho

A real Master does not speak the language of your desire and your demand. A real Master only promises one thing -- death. A real Master says, 'I am going to be your cross. I can help you to die and disappear.' A real Master can only promise you crucifixion because only through crucifixion is resurrection. Only when you disappear as man is God born in you. Only when you are not, God is.

So whenever you find a dangerous Master who is ready to throw you into flames, who is ready to destroy you utterly and who is not in any need of your being a follower, who does not care a bit whether you follow him or not -- only that Master can be of some help.

- OSHO

Book - Sufis: The People Of The Path (Volume 1)
Chapter # 12
Chapter Name - The Instant Pathology

Suryakriya - Sadhguru on the new dimension of Hatha Yoga

On Guru Pournami, we inaugurated the Hata Yoga Teacher Training School in the Adiyogi Alayam. Forty-five people, largely from the U.S., but also a few from Eastern Europe, Africa and India have come to take part in this 21-week program.

The word “ha” means sun; “ta” means moon. Without the sun and the moon, there is no Hata Yoga. With the Hata Yoga school, we will start teaching a certain form of sun-related practice which is very much like Suryanamaskar, but is called “Suryakriya” because it involves a certain level of breath and powerful activation of energy . The postures in Suryanamaskar are preparatory in nature if you do it one way, or balancing in nature between the Ida and Pingala^[1]. Largely, it is called Suryanamaskar because it is mainly to activate the solar plexus, to raise the “samat prana” or the solar heat in the system. When we say “solar” it is not just symbolic. All heat that you experience on this planet is essentially from the sun — stored and released in many ways. Or, hydrocarbons have formed the way they have formed essentially because they are sun-baked. If you take a piece of wood and burn it, it is only releasing solar energy. If the solar energy is taken away, the whole planet will freeze into solid ice.

Everything is run by solar power. You may think we are generating power by thermal or by gas, but everything is happening because of solar power. The only exception could be the breaking of the atom. That is not solar and that is why it is considered the most effective and dangerous because you are not using the normal powerhouse of this system, which is the sun. When we activate the sun in the system, the body begins to glow and shine. If you have certain types of problems which manifest, usually in the form of excess mucus in the system — not just in your nasal passages, but all over — this can become balanced.

For one who is doing Suryanamaskar, glandular secretions and mucus levels will be very easily balanced and in good shape, and this determines a lot of things about you — not just your physical health. Your physical health, psychological health and spiritual possibility are determined by this, depending upon how much solar energy is within you. Or in other words, how balanced your secretions are. If your glandular secretions are slightly imbalanced, it is very hard to even sit and listen, forget about meditating or doing something else. It will make you feel crazy because the chemistry will go wonky. Suryanamaskar is one of the simplest and most effective sadhanas to bring that balance.

Suryakriya was reduced to Suryanamaskar when people decided to teach it to a larger public. When you decide to teach it to a larger public, where it is very difficult to follow up and correct, you take away some powerful elements from it because powerful elements also come with the possibility that if people do it improperly, it could cause harm. So you make it a little watered down, but the application is wide. You can apply it to larger societies with no follow up which makes it more practical. But wherever people are doing it in close circles, where we can easily follow up, we will do it in a completely different way.

Hata Yoga is a way of aligning your system to the cosmic geometry, getting your own geometry right so that you are just a replica of the cosmic geometry. It needs to be done with enormous care. If you are far away from this geometry, no problem. But as you get closer, you have to be more careful about how you do it. If your practice becomes very powerful, then we have to exercise extreme care to ensure that it is spot-on, otherwise other things will happen. And Suryakriya is a tremendous possibility if you know how to use it.
Different dimensions of kriyas and asanas to activate the solar power within have always been done from the time of Adiyogi. Adiyogi himself taught methods, different postures to activate the sun. Somewhere in Mahabharat, there is a mention of Krishna paying his salutations to the sun. Somebody described it as a strange practice, something physical he would do every day in the morning — paying gratitude to the sun and seeking his guidance on a daily basis when the sun comes up. He himself was doing some kind of Suryakriya. What form he did we do not know. But I can easily put forth at least 20 different forms, and he must have been doing one of them, or slight modifications of them. There is no other way you could do it.

Until now, we have never really taught serious Hata Yoga at the Isha Yoga Center, though I grew up in the stables of Hata Yoga. We only used it as a preparatory step for Samyama meditations; we just put together 18 asanas as a preparatory step for Samyama. I thought I would avoid it, but about three years ago, after one of my visits to California, I decided we must teach Hata Yoga because it is taking on such absolutely weird forms. It is important that we bring back classical yoga as it was. So that is one more thing to do for us, and in the next few years, it will become a major activity, an important element of the Isha Yoga Center. In fact, we will be teaching it as Suryakriya.

I am thinking we will run 21-day Hata Yoga programs in the ashram, maybe once in two or three months, and we will start somewhere in March 2013, maybe after Mahashivaratri. This is just for learning to practice, not to teach. We have been teaching it in two-and-a-half days right now, but we want to teach Hata Yoga over a period of 21 days.

For those of you, whether you speak English or Tamil, who wish to be in a 21-day Hata Yoga program, you must plan 2013 so that you have 21 days of sadhana and preparation to perfect your Hata Yoga in a certain way, a powerful system to practice. But only those who are going to continue to practice should come; otherwise don’t come and take our lives because it takes enormous effort to teach somebody. Hata Yoga can be a complete spiritual process by itself. If you do one thing properly, it is enough.

Source Link :-  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/sadhguru/spot/bringing-back-suryakriya/

Millions of people have to strive full-time to make this happen - Sadhguru

"The world has reached a point where consciousness can no more be something that you entertain yourself with part-time. Millions of people have to strive full-time to make this happen as raising human consciousness is the missing link that has made us – that is, this generation of people – the most privileged in terms of comfort and convenience. At the same time, humanity seems to be at a crossroads like never before. Unconsciously, we as a generation have bitten into the planet like no other generation ever, to a point where future generations may have only leftovers of the planetary pie. We refer to her as Mother Earth but we have treated her as a commodity or a goody shop.

Here I am upon a perch looking down at Central Park in New York City, a rectangular patch of life surrounded by our fascination for concrete. Our ability to create comfort has not translated into wellbeing. This level of comfort has not worked to enable humanity to new possibilities but has crippled us to a generation with the weakest bodies ever. Body is not just flesh and bone but brain too, and an abode to a larger possibility. This body will not regain its natural strength on a treadmill or in the air conditioned gym. This body is an elemental soup, a piece of this planet, and only when in contact and communion with the elements and the earth will it know the full glory and the ecstasy of life.

We have everything in place for the first time. There is resource, there is technology and there is capability to address all issues upon the planet, only missing ingredient is an enhanced consciousness. One must know that boundaries are meaningful for physical entities or bodies. Unfortunately it has extended into human mindspace and crippled that miracle. It is only when touched by consciousness that humans will break boundaries and become truly inclusive. In this inclusiveness lies solution for all problems that torment the human creature. If you want to see a blissful humanity we need to invest.
Let’s make it happen."

-Sadhguru

Source Link :- 
 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=471116122933755&set=a.451801028198598.107494.190456870999683&type=1&ref=nf

Navaratri - Symbolism of 3 Dimensions of Feminine

Navaratri Celebrations at Linga Bhairavi Temple

Yanni - To The One Who Knows

So Long My Friend - Yanni

On earth we are but travelers—guests on a brief visit. - Paramhansa Yogananda

"“Those who are immersed in body-consciousness are like strangers in a foreign land. Our native country is Omnipresence. On earth we are but travelers—guests on
a brief visit.

“Unfortunately, most people make undesirable guests of themselves! They insist on monopolizing a small portion of this earth as their very own. Their constant thought is, ‘my home, my wife, my husband, my children.’ Material entanglements, sweet and mysterious, keep them dreaming through the sleep of delusion. They forget who and what they really are.

“Wake up! before your dream of life vanishes into the infinite. When this body drops in death, where will your family be? your home? your money? You are not this body. The body is only a plate, given to you that you might eat from it the feast of Spirit.

“Why not learn this essential lesson before death? Why wait? Don’t tie yourself to the limitations of human consciousness, but remember the vastness of the Spirit within.”

--Paramhansa Yogananda

Coping with Nasal Allergies – The Yogic Way

Sadhguru:

 I know people who have just messed up their whole system trying to do all kinds of things to their sinuses. All you need to do is kapalabathi^[1] for a month or two, and your sinusitis should completely disappear. If you do the kapalabathi properly, it will provide relief to any type of cold-related disease.
Especially those of you who have allergic conditions must do sufficient amount of kapalabathi, increasing it to whatever extent possible. Three to four months of practice should generally free you from allergies. There are a few exceptions, but it has worked for a majority of people. For those who have not had any relief, they probably need to take a break from whatever they are allergic to for a while, and do the kriya for some time to establish it well. Their kriya may not be very effective because of their allergic conditions. If the nasal passages are not fully opened and there is excessive mucus, the kriya may not be completely effective. If it is practiced correctly, you can definitely work yourself out of allergic situations. Cold weather just won’t bother you anymore. Not just the cold, even heat will not disturb you. When you have an internal air-conditioning, both the heat and cold do not disturb you too much.

Keeping the nasal passages clear and breathing properly is an extremely important process. Modern societies have forgotten about this. They think that somehow if the air goes inside, it is okay. This is not so. Clear nostrils and a healthy breathing process are extremely important. If kapalabathi is sufficiently practiced all the extra mucus will be burned up. Initially, we ask you to do around 50 counts. You could gradually try to increase this by 10 or 15 counts every day. You could even go up to 1000 if you like. There are people who do 500, 1000 and 1500 kapalabathis. With time, there will be no extra mucus and your nasal passages will always be clear. 

Sadhguru also gives us a few tips for home remedies that could help ease the condition:

Sadhguru:

 Those who suffer from cold related diseases and find their nostrils blocked every morning, will benefit a lot from the consumption of neem, pepper, honey and turmeric.
Grind neem leaves to a paste, make a small-sized ball, dip it in honey and swallow it every morning on an empty stomach. Avoid eating anything for the next hour or so to let the neem pass through the system. This actually works on any kind of allergy – skin, food, anything. This practice can be continued for life, there is no harm in this. Neem has an extremely high medicinal value. Using tender neem leaves could reduce the bitterness, but otherwise any fresh and green leaf will do.
Crush about 10 to 12 pepper corns roughly and soak them in a couple of spoons of honey overnight (about 8 to 12 hours). In the morning you consume this and just chew upon the pepper. Mixing some turmeric with the honey should also work. If you avoid all dairy products, your phlegm will go down naturally. 

 

[1] Kapalabathi is taught as a part of the yoga program Shoonya Intensive at the Isha Yoga center. To know more about the program, please visit: http://www.ishayoga.org/advanced-programs/shoonya-intensive

 

Source Link :  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/lifestyle/health/coping-with-nasal-allergies-the-yoga-way/

Jal Pari, Atif Aslam, Coke Studio Pakistan, Season 2 (Music I Love)

Ik Aarzu HD, Jal, Coke Studio Pakistan, Season 4

Fox 2 News - High Prana, High-Energy Nut Porridge - Isha Healthy Food

Being in Touch with Mother Earth - Prithvi Prema Seva

Every two weeks on Ekadashi, the residents of Isha Yoga Center gather to take part in a process known as Prithvi Prema Seva -- expressing our love for the planet through conscious activity. A process of being in touch with Mother Earth by working and being with it, Sadhguru introduced this as a process to assist in one's spiritual sadhana and can be attended by anyone visiting the center.

Ekadashi

Ekadashi means the 11^th day after the full moon and the 11^th day after the new moon. The human physiology goes through a cycle called a mandala, approximately every 40 to 48 days. In this cycle, three specific days, which may be different from person to person and need not come with equal spacing, will arise when the body does not demand food. If you identify those days in your life and not give the body food – because it is not asking – a lot of your health issues will be handled by that simple pattern.

 

This cycle in the system is something that most people can identify if they take away the nonsense of “so many calories, so much protein and so much mineral should be eaten.” If they listen to the body, these three days can be easily identified by most human beings. So it was told that three times in those 48 days, you should not eat. This was said because somebody observed his own system and from that he expressed this. But then people did not have the awareness so they fixed the Ekadashi for not eating. If you look, there are three Ekadashis in 48 days. It goes well.

The possibility of opening the door within is more on this day.

 

The reason is because the planet itself is in a certain state on that day, so if we keep our body light and available, our awareness will turn inward. The possibility of opening the door within is more on that day. If you have a full stomach, and you are unaware and dull, you will not notice it. So to stay alert and also to purify the body, you go without food on that day – you ate dinner the previous day and the next thing you eat is dinner on Ekadashi.

If you are unable to go without food – because your activity levels are such and you do not have the sadhana to support you – you can go on phalahara or fruit diet, which is light on the stomach so that your inner doors will open. Forceful denial of food is not the point. The point is to make everything into a conscious process. We do not want to compulsively eat like this, we choose.

Source Link :  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/ekadashi/

When the disciple disappears into master - Osho

AND THAT IS THE MOMENT OF GREAT BLESSINGS... when the disciple disappears, when the disciple is only a vehicle of the Master.

And the Master is nobody except the whole. The Master is one who is not. The Master is one who has already disappeared into God. THE MASTER IS ALREADY A HOLLOW BAMBOO AND GOD IS USING HIM AS A FLUTE.

When the disappearance also has happened to the disciple... The first experience is that of meeting and merger with the Master... Because the disciple does not know what God is, he knows only the Master. THE MASTER IS HIS OR HER GOD.

ONCE THE DISCIPLE DISAPPEARS INTO THE MASTER and allows the Master to enter into the innermost core of his being, the second experience is that the Master has never been there. Hidden behind the Master's hands were God's hands, hidden behind the Master's words were God's messages. The Master was only a singer, singing the songs of the infinite and the eternal.

OSHO
The Book of Wisdom
Ch #23: Behind the Master's hands
am in Buddha Hall

What is Surrender? - Sadhguru

Success with Sadhana - Sadhguru

Vibhuti, the Sacred Ash - Sadhguru

Is it for prize or is it for fun? Osho narrates

The need to win

When an archer is shooting for fun
He has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind
Or sees two targets –
He is out of his mind.

His skill has not changed,
But the prize divides him.
He cares
He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting –
And the need to win
Drains him of power.

CHUANG TZU

Alive or Dead ? Osho narrates

Duke Hwan and the Wheelwright

Duke Hwan of Khi, first in his dynasty,
sat under his canopy reading his philosophy.
And Phien the wheelwright was out in the yard
making a wheel.

Phien laid aside hammer and chisel,
climbed the steps
and said to duke Hwan,
“May I ask you, Lord,
what is this you are reading?”

Said the duke: “The experts, the authorities.”
Phien asked: “Alive or dead?”
The duke said: “Dead, a long time.”
“Then,” said the wheelwright,
“you are only reading the dirt they left behind.”

The duke replied, “What do you know about it?
You are only a wheelwright.
You had better give me a good explanation
or else you must die.”

The wheelwright said,
“Let us look at the affair from my point of view.
When I make wheels, if i go easy they fall apart,
and if I am too rough they don’t fit.
But if I am neither too easy nor too violent
they come out right,
and the work is what I want it to be.

“You cannot put this in words,
you just have to know how it is.
I cannot even tell my own son exactly how it is done,
and my own son cannot learn it from me.
Se here I am, seventy years old, still making wheels!

The men of old took all they really knew
with them to the grave.
And so, Lord, what you are reading there
is only the dirt they left behind them.”

CHUANG TZU

Truth is not in the words you speak. Its in, how you hold your life, within yourself - Sadhguru

Question: What's the difference between Normal sex & Tantric sex ? Osho

Osho: Your sex act and the tantric sex act are basically different. Your sex act is to relieve; it is just like sneezing out a good sneeze. The energy is thrown out and you are unburdened. It is destructive, it is not creative. It is good -- therapeutic. It helps you to be relaxed, but nothing more. The tantric sex act is basically, diametrically opposite and different. It is not to relieve, it is not to throw energy out. It is to remain in the act without ejaculation, without throwing energy out; to remain in the act merged -- just at the beginning part of the act, not the end part.

This changes the quality; the complete quality is different then. Try to understand two things. There are two types of climaxes, two types of orgasm. One type of orgasm is known. You reach to a peak of excitement, then you cannot go further: the end has come. The excitement reaches to a point where it becomes non-voluntary. The
energy jumps into you and goes out. You are relieved of it, unburdened. The load is thrown; you can relax and sleep. You are using it like a tranquilizer.

It is a natural tranquilizer: a good sleep will follow -- if your mind is not burdened by religion. Otherwise even the tranquilizer is destroyed. If your mind is not burdened by religion, only then can sex be a tranquilizing thing. If you feel guilt, even your sleep will be disturbed. You will feel depression, you will start condemning yourself and you will begin to take oaths that now you won't indulge anymore. Then your sleep will become a nightmare afterwards.

If you are a natural being not too much burdened by religion and morality, only then can sex be used as a tranquilizer. This is one type of orgasm -- coming to the peak of excitement. Tantra is centered on another type of orgasm. If we call the first kind a peak orgasm, you can call the tantric orgasm a valley orgasm. In it you are not coming to the peak of excitement, but to the very deepest valley of relaxation. Excitement has to be used for both in the beginning. That is why I say that in the beginning both are the same, but the ends are totally different.

Excitement has to be used for both: either you are going toward the peak of excitement or to the valley of relaxation. For the first, excitement has to be intense -- more and more intense. You have to grow in it; you have to help it to grow towards the peak. In the second, excitement is just a beginning. And once the man has entered, both lover and beloved can relax. No movement is needed. They can relax in a loving embrace.

When the man feels or the woman feels that the erection is going to be lost, only then is a little movement and excitement required. But then again relax. You can prolong this deep embrace for hours with no ejaculation, and then both can fall into deep sleep together. This -- THIS -- is a valley orgasm. Both are relaxed, and they meet as two relaxed beings. In the ordinary sexual orgasm you meet as two excited beings -- tense, full of excitement, trying to unburden yourselves. The ordinary sexual orgasm looks like madness; the tantric orgasm is a deep, relaxing meditation.

You may not be aware of it, but this is a fact of biology, of bio-energy, that man and woman are opposite forces. Negative-positive, yin-yang, or whatsoever you call them, they are challenging to each other. And when they both meet in a deep relaxation, they revitalize each other. They both revitalize each other, they both become generators, they both feel livelier, they both become radiant with new energy, and nothing is lost. Just by meeting with the opposite pole energy is renewed.

The tantric love act can be done as much as you like. The ordinary sex act cannot be done as much as you like because you are losing energy in it, and your body will have to wait to regain it. And when you regain it, you will only lose it again. This looks absurd. The whole life is spent in gaining and losing, regaining and losing: it is just like an obsession. The second thing to be remembered: you may or may not have observed that when you look at animals you can never see them enjoying sex. In intercourse, they are not enjoying themselves.

Look at baboons, monkeys, dogs or any kind of animals. In their sex act you cannot see that they are feeling blissful or enjoying it -- you cannot! It seems to be just a mechanical act, a natural force pushing them towards it. If you have seen monkeys in intercourse, after the intercourse they will separate. Look at their faces: there is no ecstasy in them; it is as if nothing has happened. When the energy forces itself, when the energy is too much, they throw it. The ordinary sex act is just like this, but moralists have been saying quite the contrary.

They say, "Do not indulge, do not `enjoy'." They say, "This is as animals do." This is wrong! Animals never enjoy; only man can enjoy. And the deeper you can enjoy, the higher is the kind of humanity that is born. And if your sex act can become meditative, ecstatic, the highest is touched. But remember tantra: it is a valley orgasm; it is not a peak experience. It is a valley experience!

In the West, Abraham Maslow has made this term "peak experience" very famous. You go into excitement towards the peak, and then you fall. That is why, after every sex act, you feel a fall. And it is natural: you are falling from a peak. You will never feel that after a tantric sex experience. Then you are not falling. You cannot fall any further because you have been in the valley. Rather, you are rising.

When you come back after a tantric sex act, you have risen, not fallen. You feel filled with energy, more vital, more alive, radiant. And that ecstasy will last for hours, even for days. It depends on how deeply you were in it. If you move into it, sooner or later you will realize that ejaculation is wastage of energy. No need of it -- unless you need children. And with a tantric sex experience, you will feel a deep relaxation the whole day.

One tantric sex experience, and even for days you will feel relaxed -- at ease, at home, non-violent, nonangry, non-depressed. And this type of person is never a danger to others. If he can, he will help others to be happy. If he cannot, at least he will not make anyone unhappy. Only tantra can create a new man, and this man who can know timelessness, egolessness and deep non-duality with existence will grow. —osho

Getting Stoned, Without Drugs - Sadhguru

Getting stoned, without drugs

Sadhguru 

The marijuana enthusiasts out there often ask me if they can use weed or other drugs as a way to enlightenment. After all, Shiva has this image of a stoner. It has happened to me many times in the Himalayas and other place that some sadhus invited me to smoke weed with them, because they thought I smoke. If you look into my eyes, you will see I am always stoned, without taking any substance. Everything that you want to experience is already in your system.

Most chemicals that we put into the system to have some kind of experience only stimulate something within us. Now the question is, are you on self-start or push-start? If you know how, you can sit here in bliss without having to put any substance into your system. Shiva was always high – no question about that. But he was not such a cripple that he needed chemicals from outside.

Shiva was not using substances – he is the substance.

I can make that happen for you. If you can be with me in a certain way, I can have you all stoned, because the substance is not outside – the substance is within.

Those who want to emulate Shiva, can you do everything else that he did? First you must sit unmoving for three months – then maybe you can smoke. The following happened when Adi Shankara crisscrossed India, from Kerala in the south to Badrinath in the north and back, from east to west, before he left at age thirty-two. In between, he produced thousands of pages of literature. He was walking briskly. A bunch of his disciples trotted behind him.

Then he saw a drink shop outside a village. A few people were hanging around there, drinking. Shankara looked at them in their inebriated condition. They looked at him. You know, drunkards tend to think they are having the best time and everyone else is missing it. They made some comments. Without a word, Shankara walked into the shop, took a potful of arrack, drank it, and walked away.

His disciples witnessed the scene. Shankara started walking briskly again. They were trotting behind him. Among themselves, a discussion came up – “When our Guru can drink, why can’t we?” They just needed an excuse. He knew what was going on. When they came to the next village, there was a blacksmith at work. Shankara picked up a vessel with molten iron, drank it, and walked on. The disciples knew they did not want to drink that.

Shiva was always stoned for sure, but not with something as petty as weed. By smoking marijuana, all that is happening is you are feeling a little smoked out and hazy in the head. If getting hazy is spirituality, then I do not want to be spiritual.

For me, the biggest thing is living in crystal clarity. Clarity can be intoxicating.

When you do something for which you need to be super alert, there is a kind of intoxication in that. That is why people are jumping off airplanes or doing other incredibly risky things.

To some extent, you can achieve intoxication through physical activities. If you can stimulate a state of intoxication in you without any outside substance or activity, then there is an element of Shiva in you. If you can simply sit here and be so super alert that you are high, that is the way to do it, not by smoking weed. Leave the weeds for the cows. Human beings can do better things. Those who are smoking weed generally seem peaceful. When they are hazy, they are peaceful, but that peace is of no value. They will not be peaceful if you take away the substance.

Today it has become legal in many states in America, and major corporations are getting into this business. If some day, they bring Coca Smoka on the market, you should not be surprised. From selling drinks with carbon dioxide to selling products with marijuana – you may think that is an improvement. Your brains will shrink. Because you do not know how to handle your brain, which is not your making – it has evolved over so many generations to where it is now – you want to smoke it down, so that it feels peaceful. That is not the answer.

If you have not found any better use for your brain than freaking out, with marijuana, at least you will simply sit somewhere and not bother anyone. If you have found a better use for your brain, if you can do something worthwhile, creative, and useful with it, then smoking weed is not the way to go. There is nothing spiritual about any chemical.

Sadhguru








A poem by Sadhguru

Substance Abuse

To be sober is dreary
But inebriation takes you
away from all that is reality
How to dwell in the empty
room of dry lifeless logic.
Logic through the day and
inebriation at the end of the day
logic through the week and
inebriation for the weekend
logic at work and inebriation
for the vacation. Say the compromisers
Come! I have a substance
that leaves you in throes of ecstasy
And peak of alertness at once.
No need for secrecy, no one
will find us in our within.
Let us abuse the substance
without dimension but within
let us get super sober and stoned

Love & Grace,
Sadhguru



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No Such Thing as Renunciation - Sadhguru at IIT Madras - Ha Ha Ha :) Ha Ha Ha :) Ha Ha Ha :)

Architecture and Spirituality

Architecture is just a play of geometry. If you look at all the buildings at the Isha Yoga Center right now, they do not stand because of the strength of the material. They stand only because of perfectness of the geometry. That is the beauty of what we are doing here. If you use concrete, cement or steel, generally you can make the building any way you want because it’s the material that holds it together, not the geometry. At the Yoga Center, all we have used is brick, lime and mud. It is only the geometry that is makes the structures stand, similar to the way the globe is made.

 

Everything that you see around you, right from a tree to your own body is perfectly geometrical, isn’t it? If you look at it in a relaxed manner, is there any tension in this body? That means it is in perfect geometry. If the geometry is not proper, it would create tension. So if you know how to keep the body, it can exist here for a long time and very well too, because it is properly aligned and in proper geometry. If something was not fixed properly then there would naturally be some tension.

So here the buildings are relaxed. They are meditating, you can say.

Right now, modern buildings being constructed today are like this; they are held together by tension, because the material is strong and it provides support. This is not the case at the Yoga Center, it’s just the geometry at play. So here the buildings are relaxed. They are meditating, you can say. The building itself is meditating because there is no tension in it. Concrete buildings, some of which even we have built, are held together by the tension of the steel and concrete. The gravitational power of this planet is constantly trying to pull those buildings down, but not those which are in perfect harmony with the forces of the planet. This is not architecture, it’s just spirituality.

If you take a look at the Dhyanalinga Temple at the Isha Yoga Center, the uniqueness of its dome is that there is no cement steel, or concrete in it. It is only made of brick and mud. The simple technology of this is that all the bricks are trying to fall down at the same time, and hence they never can. It’s like five people trying to get into a door at once – nobody will get in unless one has a little courtesy to step back. If none of them do, they will all just keep pushing. As long as they are pushing, they remain in place for as long as the planet is on.
My estimate is such that the Temple should last a minimum of 5000 years because there is no tension in the building anywhere. It is standing because of the simple, perfect geometry of construction.

Source Link :-  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/lifestyle/isha-living/architecture-and-spirituality/

Once Upon a Time - Yanni

A journey from being ordinary towards a giant being. Sadhguru on Mahatma Gandhi's life

On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s 143rd birth anniversary, Sadhguru makes use of his example to impress upon the importance of commitment in our lives…

Incredible things are done in the world simply out of commitment. A great example is that of Mahatma Gandhi. If you look at this man, he was not talented or anything special, please see. As a child he did not show great potential. He was not extraordinarily intelligent. He was not an artist, scientist, or even a very good lawyer. He could not successfully practice as a barrister in India, which is why he went to South Africa for a better opportunity. Even there, he was not very successful. But suddenly, the man made a commitment towards something. He got so committed that he became a giant.

I remember what he wrote about his first case at a court in India – he stood up to argue his case and his heart sank into his boots. Does this sound like Mahatma Gandhi? The man went on to move millions of people. With just one incident in his life, suddenly all his identities broke.

He had gone to South Africa to make a living and he was doing okay as a lawyer. One day he bought a first class ticket in a train, got in, and traveled some distance. At the next station, a white South African got in. This man did not like a brown-skinned person sitting in first class, so he called the ticket collector. The ticket collector said, “Get Out!” Mahatma Gandhi said, “I have a first class ticket.”
 “It doesn’t matter, just get out.”
“No, I have a first class ticket. Why should I get out?”

They threw Gandhi out of the train along with his luggage and he fell on to the platform. He just sat there for hours. “Why did this happen to me? I bought a first class ticket. Why was I thrown out of the train?” he thought. It was then that he identified himself with the larger predicament of the people. Till then his survival, law, and making money were important to him. But now, he identified with a much larger problem that existed. He just broke that little identification and moved into a much larger identity.

Many humans who are historically known as great beings; this is all that happened to them. They were living with a limited identification. All of a sudden, an event occurred that broke their identities and they were able to relate to a larger process happening around them. They did things that they themselves could not imagine possible.

Gandhi moved millions of people just like that. Not only in India, anywhere in the world you take the name of the Mahatma and there is a sense of respect. All this happened at a time when there were so many leaders who were true giants in India. They were more talented, better orators and better educated. Yet, this man stood above them all, simply because of his commitment.

Whatever happens, life or death, commitment must not change. Truly committed, you express yourself totally, in every possible way. When commitment is lacking, somewhere you lose your purpose. When the purpose of why we are here is lost, there is no question of fulfilling our goals, isn’t it?

So being committed is just something we have to decide within ourselves. If we are truly committed to whatever we have taken up in our life, the results are plenty, you know? If results don’t come, for a committed person there is no such thing as failure. If I fall down 100 times a day, what to do? Stand up and walk again, that’s all.

Commitment does not mean aggressiveness; this must be understood. This is where Mahatma Gandhi’s example is so apt. He was committed to India’s freedom struggle, but at the same time he was not against the British people. That was the best part, wasn’t it? This shows the maturity of the man.