These questions address the heart of living.  By answering them, with deep contemplation and sincerity, we can get a true a glimpse of what is happening in our lives now.

Do you feel happy and at peace with life?  Are your relationships with your family and loved ones healthy and in balance?

Are you contributing and sharing in the world in a way that is meaningful to you?
Would you like to let go of certain habits or patterns that are consuming too much of your time and energy?
Are you filled with love, compassion and gratitude?

Often it is only in times of facing extreme hardship or the possibility of death, do we truly see things as they are.  Being in this human body is a very rare and precious gift.

Imagine being given just a few days to live.  How grateful do you feel, now, for being given the opportunity to experience this miracle of existence.   If we all approached life with this sense of gratitude, the whole world would be a much more peaceful place to live and every one would be a whole lot happier.  If we can remind our self again and again of the gift of the breath, the gift of life in this human body, we can get a broader perspective on life and how we are living.

 Anger, depression, resentment and laziness all come into our lives.  Sometimes these emotions and experiences play a small distracting role, while at other times, they envelope and overtake our lives.  If we can hold strong to the truth of impermanence- that all things will eventually come and go- we can bring more patience and understanding into our present situation to allow for it to take its course and eventually dissolve. This practice of allowing for thoughts, emotions, and experiences to arise and dissolve- without attaching to them or rejecting them- is witnessing the present moment.  This practice of present moment awareness is the essence of yoga – the union of our awareness with the pure Consciousness that exists here and now.

We can spends days being angry or upset at our partner, friend, or co-worker.  The smallest things can irritate us and effect the rest of our day. We can hold a grudge or feel resentment for something that happened long ago in the past. We can spend days, months, and years living in a way that is dissatisfying and unfulfilling. We get caught up identifying or personalizing each experience as being about “us”.  We are constantly focused on me, my, and mine.  All of this is leading to pain and suffering in one form or another.

Ultimately, pain and suffering is a state of mind, and stems from forgetting who we truly are. Just as we can get lost and forget our true selves, we can remember again and find our way home.  We do this through awareness of the present moment, by witnessing and being mindful of what is, now.  This is the yoga practice of meditation.  Meditate daily, without fail, and witness the enormous benefits it has on your life.  Be mindful and practice present moment awareness, throughout the day and night, and see how this changes your life.

Just watch and witness, and be present with what Is.  Accept what Is without trying to change or judge it.  Watch each thought or emotion without attaching to them or pushing them away.  By remaining a clear witness to the unfoldment of life without identifying or personalizing our experiences, we become unaffected by the ups and downs of life.  We become filled with unshakable inner peace and joy.  Being present in each and every moment is true freedom-  it is living to the fullest.

In the Yoga Nidra practice, the consciousness is said to be resting in a state between wakefulness and sleep, sometimes referred to in modern psychology as the “hypnagogic state”.  It is in this state during the Yoga Nidra practice that the alpha brain wave length is prolonged, providing the body with the ability to deeply restore and heal itself both physical, mentally and emotionally.   During the practice of Yoga Nidra, the mind becomes exceptionally receptive, and the identification of the egoic “I”, “me” or “mine” identification is bypassed.  This enables the practitioner of Yoga Nidra to learn languages and other subjects very rapidly, and the intentions given during the practice of yoga nidra are said to be successful in removing unwanted habits and tendencies.  Even habits such as smoking and over-eating can be overcome with the continual use of Yoga Nidra.  However, the Yogis would advise us to ‘go for the gold’ and create an intention or sankalpa that is of the highest spiritual nature – as this intention would create the ultimate satisfaction and peace in all areas of one’s life.  In fact, it is said that yoga nidra can be used for directing the mind to accomplish anything.

Yoga Nidra is a form of deep meditation that allows us to access the fountain of creativity, artistic expression & deep knowledge.  It is also said that in this same state of Yoga Nidra the source of the most creative scientific discoveries, such as those of Einstein, Goethe, Kekule & Bohr were made.

Yoga Nidra is said to be such an effective meditation technique, that  a single hour of yoga nidra is the equivalent of four hours of  sleep. In this way, Yoga Nidra is especially beneficially for those experiencing insomnia or lack of sleep.

Yoga Nidra is highly effective for the following conditions:

• Stress, insomnia, anxiety and depression
• Diabetes, hyper-tension, migraine, asthma, ulcers, heart diseases, arthritis, digestive & skin disorders.
• Promoting creativity & healthy development in children
• Mental imbalances & psychiatric treatment
• Reducing tension and anxiety

Suggested Reading:  Yoga Nidra- by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

To learn more you can go to our Yoga Nidra page to learn more or download a free, 16 minute, yoga nidra MP3 and experience it for yourself.

>>> Download the Yoga Nidra MP3 “Unwind” <<<

This year this special day is on Sept 19th and to honor the greatness of Ganesha we are re-posting an article written by the revered Indian Saint Amma Shri Karunamayi to give greater insight into the inner significance of Ganesha.  We hope you enjoy!

When done with care, intelligence, and patience, back bending postures are invaluable in opening our hearts, releasing stress and tension, and letting go of deep seated emotions and limiting thought patterns.  We can classify back bending postures, or asanas in general, in two ways: passive or active.  Active back bends are energetic and involve engaging the whole body with great focus and muscular/fascial effort in order to maintain the pose.  Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward Facing Dog), Urdhva Mukha Dhanurasana (Wheel), Natarajasana (Dancer’s Pose), and Dhanurasana (Bow) are all examples of back bends which are active.

Passive back bends involve yielding or letting go into the pose with the help of gravity and/or props, and allowing the breath to gradually bring you deeper into the posture while holding it for some time.  Supta Virasana (Lying Down Hero’s Pose), Supta Vajrasana (Lying Down Thunderbolt Pose), and any seated back bend posture that is being supported by props (for example Matsyasana or Fish Pose with a block or bolster underneath the back), are all examples of passive back bends.  Also, some postures are a combination of being active or passive back bends depending on what parts of the body are engaged and which are relaxed.  For example in Bhujangasana or Cobra Pose, the neck, arms, back and butt cheeks may be fully or partially activated, while the legs and parts of the back may be passive.  Of course these distinctions depend both on how you choose to approach the posture as well as each individual’s limitations.  What might be difficult for one student and requires great effort and engagement of the body on their part, may be easy for another student, and hence allows this second student to completely let go into the pose.

In either case, passive or active, back bends encourage a deep opening in our hearts and the associated subtle energy or chakra center, called “Anahata Chakra”.  Anahata Chakra- which is a vortex of subtle energy channels -  is connected with the thoughts and emotions of love, hate, jealousy, devotion, intimate relationships, the ability to love, forgive, respect each other, and ultimately, the degree to which we love and accept ourselves.  When we try to protect ourselves and hide our emotions, we often hunch our shoulders forward, con caving our backs inward in a symbolic gesture of closing off or keeping hidden how we feel and what we think.  This curving of the back and hunching of the shoulders not only produce stress and tension in the body physically, but compromises our breathing, and subsequently our nervous and digestive systems.  With the breath compromised in both a prolonged exhale, as well as breath retention- as is the case with this particular holding pattern in the body- the feelings of sadness, depression or lethargy are more likely to develop.  You might like to take a moment now, to experiment and reenact what it feels like to be sad or depressed, in order to see just how your body and mind responds to these particular states.  We often find ourselves spending more time exhaling and pausing in between breaths (breath retention), with the exhale ultimately representing death and the pauses our true nature.  Thus, sadness or depression brings us into a place of feeling hopeless, without purpose or intention, and feeling less than or not good enough, which weakens our will to live fully.  The pauses or breath retention gives us an opportunity to reflect or pause at our current state, and to witness its impact on our lives.  During this process our digestion is weakened, giving rise to a plethora of potential physical problems, and our nervous system may be fraught with anxiety and irritation.  This viscous cycle continues to reinforce itself until changes are made within.

This is where back bends come into play.  An asana practice that includes back bends can help to reverse this cycle.  Back bends physically open our lungs and chest, increasing our capacity to inhale and take in prana- the vital life force.  Back bends also help to free these suppressed emotions (for example sadness or depression) and limiting thought patterns (for example, thinking you are not good enough).  Digestion is greatly improved with back bends, especially with such postures as Dhanurasana (Bow Pose) and Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose) which apply pressure directly to the abdominal region.  Back bends also balance and stimulate our nervous system through flex ion and extension of the spine.  You can choose to work with more active back bends that energize and invigorate the body and mind in order to combat depression and lethargy.  Or you may choose to work with back bends that strengthen and lengthen the spine to heal and prevent injuries in the body, that intimately affect your thoughts and how you feel.  Finally, you may choose to work with passive back bends that focus on slowing releasing deep seated emotions and thought patterns.  Whichever back bend practice you choose to incorporate into your asana practice, it is wise to spend time either within the pose or in meditation or Shavasana (corpse pose) to cultivate awareness of the processes unfolding, and to integrate these new insights into present moment living.

What are your experiences with back bends?  Have any questions about how to best work with them?  Leave a comment below and we’ll happily answer…