Is Yoga Cultural Appropriation?
Swami Ji, the OG
What is cultural appropriation? Cultural appropriation is defined as the process by which Intellectual property, artifacts, dance, clothing/fashion, language, music, food, religious symbols, medicine, wellness practices and more are used for purposes that were unintended by the original culture and may even be offensive to that culture. With yoga, this can often be seen through the adaptation of practices in ways that sterilize them for the West by stripping the spiritual aspects of the philosophy, by refusal to use Sanskrit words, or by removing the symbols or stories that exemplify the...
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Journey Into Your Being Plus a Meditation Practice
Swami Ji, the OG
Today we are going to discuss the components of who you are, and then you will be guided through a short meditation. Feel free to listen to the discussion portion, but then stop the recording before doing the meditation if you are not in a location where you can sit quietly and still with the eyes closed. You may have heard the common definition of yoga is “union” and it comes from the Sanskrit word ‘yug’ meaning to yoke. If we think about how buffalo are yoked together or horses or sled dogs are joined together, the purpose of yoking is to unite multiple forces to create...
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Making Life Simple and Easy
Swami Ji, the OG
Is your life simple and easy? I believe it can be and for the last couple of years, I’ve challenged myself to create a life that is becoming simpler and easier. Prior to this time my life was so full it was overflowing, and it often left me drained to the point where I felt so weighted down that I could barely keep moving forward. In 2019, I was in the twenty second year of running a yoga center that employed about 16 staff members and served several hundred students per week. I was also the education director and president of the board of a nonprofit yoga academy, housed in the center’s...
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3 Steps to Healthy Boundaries
Swami Ji, the OG
A boundary is a limit or space between you and another person. It is a clear place where you begin and the other person ends, physically, mentally, energetically and spiritually. The purpose of setting a healthy boundary is, of course, to protect and take good care of yourself at all levels of being. Do you have unhealthy boundaries? Unhealthy boundaries involve a disregard for your own and/or others' values, wants, needs, and limits. Unhealthy boundaries can also lead to dysfunctional and potentially abusive relationships. I’m going to ask a few questions that will help you...
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Letting Go To Find Balance
Swami Ji, the OG
When we feel we are losing our balance we grab hold of something to feel secure and to prevent falling. This is a normal reaction to be able to maintain our physical balance and hopefully prevent pain. At that moment of uncertainty, that moment of being out of balance, we would think it strange if someone told us to “just let go.” But what about our mental balance? What are we grabbing hold of to feel secure? And are we holding on to hopefully prevent the mental and emotional pains? In the ancient text, the Yoga Sutras, within the very first few sutras we are told that it is possible...
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Still Body - Still Mind
Swami Ji, the OG
Sometimes we keep busy moving from one thing to another and believe this will keep us from thinking too much. However, we are only creating a distracted mind, the part that is overdeveloped to start with, and all this busy-ness keeps feeding this part of the mind that is processing sensory information and tries to make sense of the world. We need to develop the part of the mind that connects us with our higher self. When we go to bed at night, we become still and gradually the mind slows down and we fall asleep. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to slow down the mind at any point during...
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5 Keys To Improve Discipline
Swami Ji, the OG
When you think or hear about the word discipline what comes up for you? “Oh, I wish I had more of it,” or “I don’t have time for discipline,” or even “did I do something wrong?” The last implying that the word discipline is a form of punishment. Today we are going to discuss our misperceptions about discipline, its importance, and how we can improve our discipline to be more successful in our lives. Let’s start with the dictionary definitions. 1) the practice of training people to obey rules using punishment to correct disobedience or 2) a branch of knowledge,...
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From Change Comes Growth
Swami Ji, the OG
Today I will discuss the inevitability of change, why we find it difficult, how change and growth go hand in hand, the importance of having goals, and to welcome change! WHEW! That’s a lot to think about! And all of those thoughts are also part of the mechanism that keeps us “stuck” where we are and resisting changes. It has often been said that the only constant is life is change! Yet most of us find it difficult to change, especially when it takes us away from our routine, our conditioned ways of thinking. In actuality we’ve been changing our whole lives! Some of the changes...
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Just Relax!
Swami Ji, the OG
Just relax! I’m sure someone has said this to you at some point in your life! As if the ability to relax is like flipping a switch and something so easy you can just do it spontaneously at any time. When we were growing up, did anyone ever teach us how to relax? Do you know how even now? From my experience teaching yoga since 1995 and practicing yoga since the early 1980’s, I know that relaxation can be difficult to achieve, and few people have a method that supports them to become deeply relaxed. Today this podcast will have a brief introduction to the practice that I’ve done and taught...
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What Is Resilience and Why Do You Need It?
Swami Ji, the OG
Some think of it as endurance, but when I think of endurance, I think it means the power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process without giving up. Or fortitude? Fortitude is courage in the face of pain or adversity. Indeed, both of these words can be a part of resilience, but don’t thoroughly encompass the whole concept. Resilience is the ability to bounce back quickly from difficult situations and actually thrive when faced with challenging circumstances! Some ways of thinking about resilience includes being tough, quick to recover, buoyant, irrepressible, adaptable, flexible and...
info_outlineThere have been so many studies in recent years advocating meditation for managing stress, improving mental functioning and overall health and wellbeing. But in the 25 years that I’ve been teaching yoga, very few people really understand meditation or make it a regular part of their lives. Why is this so?
Well, most often what I have heard is, “I’m too busy. I don’t have time.” Or “I tried it a couple of times, but I couldn’t stop thinking?’ Or “I can’t sit on the floor cross-legged like that.” These are all excuses.
A regular practice of meditation can make a difference even if as little as 10 minutes per day. Regular means doing it more often than not doing it – at least 4 out of 7 days. I’m sure everyone listening to this podcast wastes at least 10 minutes each day! As far as not being able to stop thinking – don’t worry, you won’t. You will keep thinking, thousands and thousands of thoughts – the purpose of meditation is not to stop thinking, but to learn how to witness thoughts, to create space between you and the thought to reduce your reactivity and attachment to thoughts. And you can sit in a chair and meditate. Trust me. There is no meditation God watching you that will judge you as a failure for sitting in a chair. You’re the only one that will judge out of some pre-conceived notion of how you should meditate.
Today, I will teach you a meditation practice that is good for beginners with multi-tasking minds that never seem to find quiet space, but this is also an excellent practice for more advanced practitioners. First, I will explain the practice and then you will be guided through it. Therefore, if you are driving as you listen to this podcast, you can listen to the explanation, but then wait until you are home to do the actual practice. Or you can find a place to park your car and take ten minutes to begin calm your mind and balance your energy.
The practice is called Ajapa japa. Japa means the repetition of a mantra with effort, whereas ajapa means the mantra repeats spontaneously without effort. We all begin by repeating the mantra, but at some point, with regular practice, the mantra will begin to repeat without effort. You will hear it in the sound of the breath as you practice. In the same way as the breath moves rhythmically every moment of your life, the mantra repetition is linked to the breath thereby creating a pulsation of energy rhythmically moving and supporting you.
There are 3 components to this practice. The first is the breath and if you know ujjayi breathing, use that technique. If you don’t know ujjayi you can simply breathe in a slow and relaxed way, focusing on the beath at the vocal cords.
The second component is what is known as a psychic passageway. This use of the word psychic means that it’s created by the mind. For this practice, the awareness creates this passageway between the navel and the throat in the front of the body. The breath moves along this passageway – inhaling from navel to throat and exhaling from throat to navel.
The third component is the mantra and the mantra is linked to the breath and the passageway. The mantra is So-ham. On inhalation, there is mental repetition of So as the breath moves slowly and deeply up from the navel to the throat, and on exhalation there is repetition of ham as the breath moves slowly back down to the navel.
It is sometimes said that So-ham is actually the sound of the breath especially if you are able to breathe in ujjayi and over time you may begin to hear it contained there. The actual meaning of So-ham is, “I am that.” Meaning I am the higher consciousness. And through inference, we can then say that I am NOT this. I am that, I am not this ego with all of it’s likes and dislikes and reactions and emotions and doubts and fears. I am my higher Self.
Of course, it will take practice to fuse the awareness with these three components: breath, passageway and mantra. The mind will wander, think about all sorts of things, or maybe even space out, but there is the work! When it wanders, catch it and bring it back to the practice again and again.
Before we get started, I want to let you know that you can find recordings teaching you how to do ujjayi breathing and a separate ajapa japa meditation on my website swamiatmarupa.com.
So now is the time to either prepare for the meditation practice or turn this off until later if you are driving.
Outline of practice:
- Settle into comfortable sitting position and close the eyes
- Be aware of the natural spontaneous breath for a minute
- Begin to breathe slowly and deeply (in ujjayi if you know it)
- Establish the awareness moving between the navel and throat on inhale, then throat to navel on exhale
- Each time the mind wanders, bring it back
- Stay alert
- After a few minutes, add the mantra So-ham, inhaling So from navel to throat and exhaling ham from throat to navel
- Continue for a few minutes, remembering that every time the mind wanders, bring it back to the practice
- Stop the practice and return to the natural breath for a minute and be aware of how you feel
- Take a couple of deep breaths and open the eyes