Month: June 2017

Yoga & Meditation

Yoga Day Countdown: Day #5

 

Asana #6: Shashankasana (Hare pose)

After the Tadasana (Mountain pose), Katichakrasana (Standing Spinal Twist), Trikonasana (Triangle pose), Ashvasthasana and Bhujangasana (Cobra pose), this is the sixth asana in our selected progression.

How it’s done

Kneel on the floor/ground with knees close together. Bring the toes together, separate the heels and slowly sit on your heels. Inhale and raise your arms above your head, keeping them straight and shoulder-width apart.  Now, exhale and bend the trunk of your body forward from the hips, keeping the arms and head straight and in line with the trunk. In the final position, the hands and forehead should rest on the floor/ground in front of the knees.

Caution: The asana should not be performed by people suffering from very high blood pressure, slipped disc or vertigo.

The video below provides a demonstration:


 

Interesting asana facts

  • Stretches and strengthens the back muscles
  • Separates the individual vertebrae from each other, releasing pressure on the discs and helps them in resuming their correct position
  • Regulates the functioning of the adrenal glands
  • Regular practice relieves constipation
  • Beneficial for both the male and female reproductive organs
  • Induces a deep sense of relaxation

Read also: Yoga Day Countdown Day #6: bhujangasana

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Musings

The Alchemy of Suffering and Freedom

 

The capacity to think and remember brings with it an acute feeling of separation and impending loss. We suffer both because we want more and are fearful that we will be deprived of what we have. A quiet scream rises inside when we remember that we have seen beauty but don’t know how to hold on to it.

But is suffering the human condition? Is it the basic nature of life, programmed, if you will, into the game of life? And must we, as many experts expound, simply change our attitude towards negative happenings and get on with it? “Think positive”, “Suffering is optional” are catchy phrases but is there a more existential explanation of what suffering is in the human context and is there a way of transforming this poison of life into nectar?

Samudra Manthan

The sea with its ebb and flow, high and low tides, the emptying of all rivers into the one ocean appears to describe our experience of life. The allegory of the Samudra Manthan (1) (churning of the ocean) holds many exquisite truths. It’s almost as if the more the waters of this legend are churned, the more they reveal the mystic secrets (just like the gifts emerging from the ocean in the legend itself). In an earlier article we looked at how the Samudra Manthan helps us understand the spiritual dimension of Ayurveda.

Samudra manthan, churning of the ocean with the devas on the right and asuras on the left. Vishnu’s Kurma (turtle) avatar supports Mount Mandhara at the base

The story illustrates how life is a dynamic interplay between the positive and negative, between light and dark, between good and bad. In the legend, the asuras (demons) and devas (lower gods) together churn the ocean of milk for the many gifts the ocean contains, the most coveted of which is the nectar of immortality. The churning of the ocean symbolises human life out of which emerge experiences that are either positive (gifts going to the devas) or negative (gifts going to the asuras).

The Samudra Manthan is symbolic of the truth that in the experience of life, duality is a given which means that illness, misery, failure and so on are as programmed into the game of life as are health, joy and success. Our suffering is due to these oppositions within us, which we are unable to bridge in any permanent way. At best, one can hope to dance between these oppositions and hope that one doesn’t trip in the process.

The poison of nothingness

The Samudra Manthan story describes not only the dualities of materiality and the spirit but also a deeper existential threat that arises in the form of an existential poison (halaahal). The poison threatens both the devas and the asuras and indeed all creation until Shiva (who is a witness to the churning and represents cosmic awareness) drinks it.

The poison is held by Shiva in his throat, turning it blue, hence his name ‘Nilakantha’ or blue-throated, and it generates tremendous heat in his body. The temple ritual of pouring water and milk over the shiva-linga is symbolic of cooling this heat. The ritual is sacred theatre to connect the worshiper to a deeper experience of the Self.

The poison is the existential dread of nothingness that afflicts existence. If it were to seep into one’s cells, that is the end of life. By holding it within his being, Shiva transforms the fear of nothingness into auspicious salvation. In this paradox lies the exchange of fear for Grace.

 

 

In the world but above it

The seven chakras in the human body
The seven chakras in the human body

A yogic interpretation of the symbolism may be that the poison is held in the throat at the vishuddha chakra, the chakra associated with filtering and discrimination, which lies at the intersection of the higher and lower centres of consciousness.

The poison emerging out of the play of life is thus willingly held by the experiencing Self (Shiva) in a way that both allows the lower energy centres to carry on the play of life and the higher consciousness centres to remain unaffected. In other words, the Self allows the play of duality, participating willingly for the sake of experience while at all times remaining untouched. Looked at another way, the only reason we can endure the churning of the ocean, the unceasing change that is life, is because we are the Self (Shiva), a dimension beyond, the unchanging one.

This is the central idea in Indian spiritual traditions that one can realise one’s higher Self while being a willing player in the game of life. The idea is often expressed through the metaphor of a lotus that blooms in a pond of mud while remaining spotlessly clean. It is the call to rise above maya or illusion by recognising the world as a divine play (leela) and being the witness (sakshi) of the play.

This is not the same as adopting a certain attitude or chanting positive affirmations, which though guiding us towards the light still keep us trapped in duality. This is about the realisation of the nature of our existence. It is neither about doing, nor undoing, but just simply being.

(1) For more and related information, see article here.

 

Read also: the Spiritual Foundations of ayurveda
Yoga & Meditation

Yoga Day Countdown: Day #7

 

Asana #4: Ashvasthasana

After the Tadasana (Mountain pose), Katichakrasana (Standing Spinal Twist) and Trikonasana (Triangle pose), this is the fourth asana in our selected progression.

Ashvasth means assurance in Sanskrit. This asana helps in leading our lives with confidence and assurance.

Ashvasthasana
Ashvasthasana

How it’s done

Stand straight with both feet together. Lift the left arm upward, then the right leg backward and stretch the right arm out to the right side in line with the shoulder. In this position, the palm of the right hand should be facing downward. Remain in this position as long as comfortable. Repeat on the left side.

(Note: this is only a short description – asanas should never be learned just by reading about them)

Interesting asana facts

  • Increases the capacity of lungs to inhale more oxygen and thereby helps to cure breathing problems
  • Very beneficial for asthma patients
  • Shoulders becomes strong and broad
  • Induces a sense of balance

Read also: Yoga Day Countdown Day #8: TriKONasana

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Yoga & Meditation

Yoga Day Countdown: Day #8

 

Asana #3: Trikonasana (Triange pose)

After the Tadasana (Mountain pose) and Katichakrasana (Standing Spinal Twist), this is the third asana in our selected progression.

Trikonasana

 

How it’s done

Stand straight with your feet 30 – 40 cms apart. Then place your right hand on the side of the right knee and raise the left arm upward. Slowly exhale, bending the body towards your right side and try to touch your right foot with you right hand. Your left hand should be parallel to the ground (you can bend your knee if uncomfortable). Repeat the sequence on the left side.

The video below provides a good demonstration.

Interesting asana facts

  • Very helpful for sciatica patients
  • Stimulates the nervous system and alleviates depression
  • Improves digestion
  • Purifies the blood
  • Strengthens the pelvic area and tones the reproductive organs
  • Reduces waistline fat
  • Pregnant women can do it until the sixth month of pregnancy, but slowly

Read also: Yoga Day Countdown Day #9: KatIchakrasana

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Yoga & Meditation

Yoga Day Countdown: Day #9

 

Asana #2: Katichakrasana (Standing Spinal Twist)

After the Tadasana (Mountain pose), this is the second asana in our selected progression.

How it’s done

Stand with feet about one foot apart and lift both arms up to shoulder height. Then while slowly exhaling, twist your whole body to the right, so that your right arm is straight and left arm half-folded. Repeat on the left side. The video below by the Art of Living provides a good demonstration.

Interesting asana facts

  • Tones the neck, shoulders, back, waist and hips
  • Massages the intestines which helps relieve constipation (Note: the asana can be done after drinking a glass of warm water to stimulate bowel movement)
  • Improves body posture and relieves stiffness of the back
  • Induces a feeling of lightness and can be done anytime during the day to relieve physical or mental tension
Read also: Yoga Day Countdown Day #10: Tadasana

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Yoga & Meditation

Yoga Day Countdown! Day #10

 

Asana #1: Tadasana (Mountain pose)

Tadasana

Tadasana derives its name from the ‘Tad’ or Indian palm tree. As the tree is tall, similarly this asana is about stretching to one’s full height.

This asana is the foundation for all standing asanas. It involves standing straight with one’s feet slightly apart and arms raised upwards, and then stretching and lengthening the body as far as possible.

(Note: this is only a short description – asanas should never be learned just by reading about them)

Interesting asana facts

  • If performed straight after waking up, it helps restore freshness and flexibility of the body
  • Improves the circulation of blood to all the nerves
  • Helpful for backache
  • Helps reduce labour pains *In fact this is the only asana which can be practiced by a pregnant woman for the entire duration of her pregnancy*
  • Brings restfulness after a hectic day of standing and walking
Read also: yoga day countdown day #9: katichakrasana
Read also: How to begin yoga

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Newsletters

A Song for the Neuroscientists (Avadhuta Gita)

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Weekend Thoughts: A Gita for the Neuroscientists


First it was physics, now it’s neuroscience. The scientific community has always delighted in casting its sceptical eye on the spiritual and mystic dimensions of life. And our ‘rational’, modern age, has readily granted them the position of ‘experts’ with few stopping to consider that title for the other side instead.


Modern neuroscientists have been able to make careers expounding theories that play with the mystical. There’s the science of ‘consciousness hacking’ which purports to use technology to enhance human experience. There’s also the ‘Integrated information theory’ which purports to measure the extent/depth of consciousness in each living thing. Most recently, efforts are starting to be made to achieve immortality through AI. In short, the list is long.


In his latest book, Two Saints, Indian journalist and author Arun Shourie has gone so far as to suggest (based again on the testimony of neuroscience) that the sadhana of the saints Ramakrishna Parmahansa and Sri Ramana Maharshi was marked by sleep disorder and unhealthy effects on the mind and brain. I must declare upfront that I have not read the entire book but the excerpts and book reviews that I have read have confirmed that deeper association with the book would be a colossal waste of time and money. Such comments about sleep deprivation showcase a poetic irony in that saints who are ‘awake’ are accused of not sleeping enough!


To our scrupulous neuroscientists, I propose a certain song (gita) of timeless origin in India – the Song of the Avadhuta or the Avadhuta Gita. Credited to the sage Dattatreya, the Avadhuta Gita is the song of every enlightened soul, including the avadhuts Sri Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna Parmahansa whose perception of life transcended the senses. Indeed, the basic fallacy in the scientific approach in assessing spiritual matters is its insistence on objective and measurable experience whereas spirituality belongs to the realm of the subjective.




He does not attain a “many” or a “One” that is separate from himself;

 It is not something other, like an object with length and breadth.

 It cannot be objectively proven, or compared with anything;

 It’s the Lord, the Self, the Eternal, he attains. 


(Avadhuta Gita, II: 36*)






The basic problem is that scientists keep turning up to scrutinise the mystical with their measuring sticks, trying to employ their senses and mind to figure out what is beyond the senses and mind. And we watch as they churn out theories and data about Consciousness, which attempts can be likened to someone bumping into furniture in a dark room. “No, it’s not this”, “not that”, “wrong again” sigh the enlightened sages. Neti, neti.




You are the ultimate Reality; have no doubt.

 The Self is not something known by the mind;

 The Self is the very one who knows!

 How, then, could you think to know the Self? 


(Avadhuta Gita, I: 42*)




In my view, the neuroscientists would be better off trying to understand the meaning of the following lines to better satisfy their curiosity about the physical and mental “condition” that a mystic experiences. This is the state of the avadhuta who has transcended space and time:




I’ve put an end to both wavering and unwavering; 

I don’t even imagine thought. 

I’ve put an end to both dreaming and waking; 

I neither sleep nor wake. 

I’ve put an end to animate and inanimate; 

I’m neither moving nor still. 

I’m nectarean knowledge, unchanging bliss; I’m everywhere, like space.


(Avadhuta Gita, III: 16*)




The two saints Ramana and Ramakrishna are not physically here anymore but their message is always timelessly here and quite apt for our mind-obsessed friends:




O mind, my friend, what’s the good of so much speaking?

 O mind, my friend, all of this has been made quite clear.

 I’ve told you what I know to be true;

 You’re the ultimate Reality. You’re unbounded, like space.

 (Avadhuta Gita, I: 68*)




The Avadhuta Gita has to be felt and experienced, not simply heard. Indeed it is a song without a tune. A song that each one must set to the tune of their own life.


*Dattatreya: Song of The Avadhut translated by Swami Abhayananda

Also see an earlier article I wrote on similar themes and a recently published post on LWP where the spiritual teacher Mooji (in the lineage of Sri Ramana) explains what the path of self-enquiry is about.


See also: The Face of Grace, Ramana Maharshi 


 


Important Updates


We will be counting down to Yoga Day on 21 June with an article a day on yoga – some old, some new, ranging from articles on how to begin yoga, to more philosophical aspects. We’ll also feature a selection of 10 yoga-asanas – one a day staring tomorrow to get you in the mood!




Weekly Digest




Finishing up with a weekly round-up from LWP in case you missed it (scroll down to see more details):


Monday Recipe: Red Pesto, a vitamin powerhouse

Tuesday: Researcher Kiran Varanasi’s thoughts on how the computational nature of Sanskrit is directly relevant to science and ecology and can show us the way forward

Wednesday: Nimisha Bowry’s thoughts on the ‘As You Like It Generation’ in the LivLite section

Thursday: Beloo Mehra’s walk through the beauty and divinity of an Indian temple

Friday: Ranjan Bakshi’s review of Nithin Sridhar’s book, Musings on Hinduism

Saturday: An introduction to self-inquiry with a short clip by spiritual master Mooji discussing The Most Important Question

Last Sunday’s Newsletter: “We Won’t Always Have Paris”



									


			
			











			


			

			
			
				
			
			
			

		

		

		

			

				
					Travel
			  

			
Details of the Infinite
			
			

				
		
			
			
			
		
				
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by Beloo Mehra


 


The intricately carved pillars lead you into the chamber of Beauty and Divinity. Beauty in Divinity; Divinity in Beauty.


 




 


Your eyes want to linger on the details of the pillars, take in every piece of carving and beauty. At the same time the inner quietude pulls you in.


 












 


Your footsteps slowly take you in, quietly, with a sense of awe and quiet anticipation. No rush, no hurrying through, you just walk through the space slowly, purposefully or with no purpose at all but just to experience the majesty and glory that is all around you.


 




 


Or you don’t walk at all. You just stand still. Quietly, in silence, you just stay there. For as long as you must. For as long as you hear the poetry of those stones, the music in that silent space.


The experience is not merely an aesthetic one, for that would last only as long as you are in the physical presence of the art. This is also not only your mind’s or heart’s journey back into the glorious past of India of thousands of years ago when thousands of Sun-worshippers would have gathered in this temple dedicated to Lord Surya, the Sun God.


This is more than that.


This is a journey within. A journey into the chambers of the inner you where you want the Light of the Sun God to shine, into all those corners from where you want those pesky little darknesses to be gone. A journey that gradually leads you to a bright and vast openness, that makes you, the inner you, more receptive to the new Light that must fill those spaces within.


 






 


It is in this aspiration and appeal to the Infinite that all details find their rightful place and purpose. You begin to know intuitively why and how the detailed abundance of the majestically carved pillars and the intricately elaborate gateway are steps to experiencing the sublime beauty of the divinity within, and also the divinity of beauty within.


A certain type of critical mind, which often fails to see the inner significance of what the outer eye meets, looks at the profusion of artistic detail on the ancient Indian temple walls, gateways and pillars, on the hallways of old palaces and other buildings and asks – why is everything so crowded, why is every little space filled up, where is the blank space, how can one take it all in?


But to an Indian heart and mind,






 


And long after you come back, the beauty of that experience still lingers within, quietly and often without your awareness. It is not really a memory, maybe something more, something subtler. It is a vibration, perhaps. And you know what you need to do to re-experience that vibration.


You just need to go back, no not to the physical space, but that space within where you first felt that touch of delight. You sit quietly and go to that space and recall it.


And the words begin to resonate –


As the Infinite fills every inch of space…


…with the stirring of life and energy…


…because it is the Infinite…


These words reverberate inside, quietly. You let them. You stay in gratitude for that experience, for that vibration.


 




 


Images are of the Sun Temple at Modhera, Gujarat, India.

All photographs by Suhas Mehra. Please do not reproduce or copy without permission.

The article first appeared on Beloo Mehra’s blog.