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_outlineSometimes 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 the day? Today you will learn a yoga practice that will help you still the mind through the mechanism of body stillness. The practice will take about 10 minutes. After the practice I will explain more about how this works. You will be asked to sit with the eyes closed, so if you are driving, stop the recording and save it for another time.
Now, come into a comfortable sitting position. You can sit in a chair with the feet on the floor and the back straight, or you can sit in a meditation posture on the floor or on a meditation cushion. I will now guide you through the process.
Outline of practice – details will be instructed
- Sit with the back straight
- Scan through the body making any adjustments to align the body
- Find stillness through movement
- Take 5 slow deep breaths
- Become aware of the posture of the body
- Be aware of the various triangles of the body systematically from the feet to the head
- Begin to visualize the body as though looking in a mirror
- See the body from the front, the back, the right, the left and above
- Visualize a second time, then see the whole body from all sides
- Feel the stillness of the body and how the mind is more still
- Breath awareness, body awareness
- Body supported, deep breath and open eyes when ready
How do you feel? Good? Calmer? Maybe some of you don’t really want to move at this point.
This practice is called Kaya Sthairyam, meaning body steadiness, and you have just practiced the first 3 stages of the complete practice which is 12 stages.
Stage 1 is called “finding stillness through movement.” If I simply told you to sit still, you would do so for a short time, but then start adjusting, something would itch, or something would be uncomfortable, and you would move. So, in this stage, you are guided through movements that will hopefully saturate the mind with adjustments until it gets a bit bored and settles into the position.
Stage 2 is “awareness of the posture of the body.” Again, we are saturating the mind with awareness of different aspects of the body. In this recording, I guided your awareness through a variety of triangles made by the awareness moving along the different angles of the body. Sometimes I guide students to feel the inner space of the body as though hollow inside. There are several ways of doing this stage. The purpose is to capture that part of the mind that is interpreting the senses and trying to make sense of the world. It’s giving the mind something to do through the capture and it then follows along, minimizing distractions.
Stage 3 is “visualizing the body.” This recording utilized the idea of seeing the different parts of the body as though looking in a mirror, but it can also be done as though you were outside your body looking at the body from this perspective. This continues to keep the mind focused on the body, but it also creates a “space” between the part of the mind that “sees” the world without judgement and the part of the mind that interacts with world. This is a vital part of managing the mind and connecting with your higher self – this concept of witnessing – the space between “seeing” and “taking action.” As this concept develops, it allows us to cultivate the ability to act with intention rather than react without awareness.
After stage 3, I guided you to be more externalized before moving and opening the eyes. This is an important part of any meditation practice so that you leave the practice with more mental clarity and don’t feel spacey.
As I mentioned earlier, the complete practice of Kaya Sthairyam is 12 stages and it’s a much more advanced practice that takes 40-60 minutes to do correctly. The next stages continue with different ways of experiencing the body and its sensations, then creating a sense of profound immobility. With immobility, the awareness is moved to how slow and subtle the breath has become, and ultimately to a state of pure awareness, separate from the stillness of the body, the stillness of the mind, and even the breath becomes barely perceptible. It’s a very powerful practice that guides the mind into a state of one-pointedness.
However, I want to emphasize two things.
- You are meant to practice these first 3 stages consistently for a period of weeks before trying to advance.
- Notice how the rest of your day goes after doing this short, simple practice.
Overall, the practice of Kaya Sthairyam - just these 3 stages - will help you find more clarity, focus and contentment in your life if you practice more days than you don’t!