Hello from York, UK

Dear friends,

Hello from England, where I have just given a YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine workshop at York Yoga Studio. It was a beautiful space, beautiful people and a beautiful city. I look forward to returning in November!

While I'm busy in England, here is another excerpt from my new book Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie. 

There is no true high without being grounded. High for the sake of high makes us into yoga junkies, where we chase the proverbial carrot in front of us like a distant, unattainable mirage, catapulting out of our bodies and out of this moment, just as we might with a drug. Such experiences do not bring us lasting happiness any more than would a new fancy sports car, a toke of pot, the feeling of being at the top of our class or career, or meeting the person we think is the answer to our sense of loneliness.

Siddhis, the manifestation of psychic skills along the path to enlightenment, are just as much a distraction to full realization as anything can be. It is easy to get caught up in thinking that their powers are the goal. Making us feel special, they can trick us into feeling spiritually enlightened and above it all. Like fool’s gold, shimmer does not make something valuable.

What matters along the spiritual path is not how bendy our body is, how loftily we speak, how “gifted” we are or how high we get, but the integrity in our actions and how relaxed, alert and integrated we are. Are we kind? Do we love well? Are we at peace? Are we happy? These are the questions that we must ask to ensure our spiritual quest is not driven by being an overt or covert yoga junkie. At the end of the day, true yogis want nothing, expect nothing and selflessly serve the highest good of all.

My intention in sharing the ups and downs of my path to wholeness is to support your courageous steps to live your deepest joy and your fullest potential. May you let go of hiding in the dark in whatever way you may be doing so. May you stop living for other people’s dreams and grab onto what makes your soul zing. May you freely shine your beautiful light into the world and call this moment home.

Hello from Dallas, and Parvati Magazine

Dear friends,

As this blog entry goes live, I am at Tsada Yoga in Dallas, TX, having completed a three-hour YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine workshop and preparing for a YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub show.

The latest issue of Parvati Magazine is now live with articles about keeping a sense of fun and making the most of your vacation. Enjoy!

Yoga as Energy Medicine

I pull myself away from the intense focus of creating my new album and preparing for my upcoming show (May 11, 8pm at the Yoga Sanctuary, 2 College Street, Toronto, for those who do not know) to teach a “YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine” workshop today. The workshop celebrates the official launch of my new YEM instructional DVD and CD. I am very pleased with the products and look forward to the opportunity to serve this afternoon.

I feel that my life is blessed. Not that it is without challenges. It is simply that I feel deeply grateful for the gift of being here, on this planet, at this time. As I pursue my love of music and share the grace that sound can fill our being, I also am able to support people’s evolutionary journey home to “the One” through the practice of yoga, in particular, through the style of Hatha Yoga that I teach called YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine.

I cannot imagine what my life would be like as a musician without yoga, because they are intricately linked. Not because my current show is called “Yoga In the Nightclub”, but because spirit can be served through sound and sound can invoke spirit. They are vitally interlinked and sacredly bonded. I have explored this notion in previous blog entries: A World of Sound, Nada Yoga.

Teaching yoga feels like it punctuates my life with a regular meditation bell-like reminder. My commitment to teach people to center, be present and plug to the vast energy of the cosmos ensures that I too walk the talk through all I do. It brings me out of the internal creative process and it brings me in from the expansive performance energy that shows can generate. It ensures I too am centered, and spirit focused. The balance I find from my meditation practice and in teaching YEM is my sanity line and infuses all I do.

So as I take a pause from my upcoming album and show production and officially launch my new YEM yoga instruction DVD and CD, it feels like a great time to share here a bit more of what YEM is about. 

And should you feel inspired, there is still time to join me for the launch through a two hour workshop I am teaching this afternoon at Trinity St Paul United Church, 427 Bloor Street, Toronto, in the chapel from 2:30-4:30pm. All details and tickets are at www.positivepossibilities.com and more info is at www.parvatihealth.com.

I hope to see you there!

YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine

Yoga asana practice, the practice of Yoga’s physical postures, was developed thousands of years ago to assist the purification of the subtle energy channels that flow through our body/being to experience lasting bliss. Yoga teaches us to get out of our own way so that we may know what yogis tell us is Real: that the universe, which pulsates at the eternal rhythm of unconditional love, is in a highly intelligent state of union of which we are each an integral part.

YEM is dedicated to the rooted and expansive state of living I AM consciousness, of being fully alive and in service to the creative flow. It teaches both a quiet and introverted yet deeply powerful and expansive approach to yoga asana, where breath initiates and inspires movement from the inside out. When practicing, allow your focus to be both inward on the flow of energy and the sensations in your body/being and on the universal expanse to which you are connected. This rooted and expansive focus cultivates a balanced state of awareness, which assists the soul’s evolutionary journey back to the One. You can experience greater health and well-being as well as feeling more gratitude and joy for being alive and serving the world.

YEM invites you to go deeper, whatever Yoga tradition inspires you. You can take the wisdom of YEM and integrate it into whatever asana style, physical discipline or meditation practice you have been learning. 

For more on YEM, go to www.parvatihealth.com or come out and see me this afternoon at 2:30pm at the Chapel, Trinity-St Paul's Church 427 Bloor Street, for the official launch of my first YEM yoga instructional DVD and CD.

You can also read through past entries on Yoga as Energy Medicine in this blog, including a five-part series on how the practice unfolded for me.

Enjoy the gift of this day!

Parvati

Hello From My Studio

Hello friends,
I am just in the home stretch of my new album. I will share some sound samples soon. More to come!

In the meantime, the latest issue of Parvati Magazine has gone live. This month's theme is "Blooming" and celebrates one of the most inspired seasons of the year. Please go and enjoy the articles by an abundant group of talented writers devoted to helping you blossom into the magnificence you are.

Also, please join me next Sunday afternoon, April 29, at 2:30pm at the Chapel at Trinity-St. Paul's United Church, 427 Bloor Street West (near Spadina subway), for the official launch of my YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine CD and DVD. I will give a YEM workshop at that time, suitable for all levels. Space may be limited, but you can book your spot in advance at the Positive Possibilities Store and also take advantage of special package deals for the YEM DVD and CD.

Until next week, be well.

Parvati

Hello from the Yoga Show

Dear friends,

I am at the Yoga Conference in Toronto to promote Yoga as Energy Medicine and Yoga in the Nightclub. If you are there, please come by and say hello. I am in booth 806.

My next blog topic is sacred sexuality. It will be posted beginning tomorrow. But here is a preview of what I'll be talking about:

Tantra and sacred sexuality are not the same. As I said in my recent blog entries, Tantra as a whole does not condone the use of sexuality while on the spiritual path. But not everyone is meant to be a hard-core yogi where celibacy is usually considered essential. Most often, people wish to find a more integrated approach to their spirituality and their modern, family life. So where does sex fit into that?

Until tomorrow, be very well. This human form is a gift. Celebrate it!

Parvati

Tantra Yoga: What's Sex Got To Do With It? - Part 4: Funky Sex and Multiple Orgasms

(Continued from The Catch: Tantra’s Sex Appeal and the Need for a Guru)

 

A branch of Tantrics, known as the Left Hand Path, supported, encouraged and condoned the use of sexual rituals as a means to cultivate spiritual enlightenment, whereas the majority of Tantrics, known as the Right Hand Path, frowned upon such, casting out the beliefs of the other group as erroneous, even dangerous. The Right Hand Path instead promoted celibacy as a means to mastery over desire and wanting, in order to merge with the Divine while in form.

 

Saying Tantra is about sex is like saying that Muslims are about terrorism. Nothing could be further than the truth. The vast majority of Muslims are a faith-loving, good people who promote wise and compassionate action. An extreme sect promotes the use of terrorism. The same could be said for Christianity and Buddhism and other world religions, where small sects seem to paint a general picture over the tendency of that belief system. Perhaps because we lack cultural and spiritual maturity as a people, we allow the flavour of one grape to affect the entire batch of wine.

 

I have always had a natural connection to the unseen realms, ever since I was a child. As such, my yoga and meditation practices and studies naturally and organically flowered into a relationship with the realm of the energetic. Fueled by the desire to understand what was naturally occurring within me in my yoga practice, I uncovered references in the Tantric texts to contextualize what I intuitively knew and what I was physically and energetically experiencing.

 

It has been in some sense a personal interest of mine to support a deeper understanding of Tantra through my musical works and performances, and through my yoga teaching method called YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine. YEM naturally finds home in the Tantric traditions, since this Hatha Yoga practice emphasizes the alchemical power of breath and its relationship to the flow of life-force energy throughout body/being in order to create a body/being that consciously co-creates with the divine.

 

So I say to the New York Times article, “Come on! Really?” Surely we have evolved into a people that can hold the notion of potential paradox so that that a few does not colour the whole. A few Tantrics were keen on sexual rituals, whereas the majority stressed the rituals’ deviance from the spiritual path and warned of their self-deluding tendencies. But I guess if we elect presidents and leaders who are overly ready to press the button on war with alarming reactivity to fight terrorism, we must not be quite ready to see that a few does not make the whole. We may need more time to mature.

 

Until then, Tantra will be seen as being about funky sex and multiple orgasms, Hatha Yoga will come from a sex cult and yoga studios will be full of those who seek beautiful bums instead of spiritual alchemy. I used to own a yoga studio in Montreal, then one in Toronto. But my music career become too demanding so instead I offer YEM workshops as I tour my music and shows. I used to also teach Tantric workshops, but tired of having to continually explain that Tantra was not about orgies and how to master blissful sexual climaxes. Thanks to John Friend and the recent sex scandals, here is another opportunity to help clarify the beautiful and powerful roots of Hatha Yoga and Tantra, illustrating what it is, and what it is not. Thank you, John.

 

I believe that sex has a place in the spiritual arena and by no means, though my personal practice lies most naturally in the Right Hand Tantric field, do I dismiss it. But just like Tantra and yoga are easily misunderstood, so too do I feel that the spiritual power of sex is largely misunderstood and misdirected. Sexual power is after all the very force that creates life! So what are we creating with it, beyond new babies? Whatever consciousness we bring to sexual acts will be amplified through it. But this is for the topic of another blog.

 

Until next time, practice fierce discernment and courageously follow your deepest joy.

Jai Ma,

Parvati

 

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 4: The Healing Begins

THE HEALING BEGINS

 

(Continued from India: Meeting My Guru (The Doors Blow Open))

During my year in India, I ignorantly approached my desire for spiritual awakening with the fervour of an ambitious young architect. As a consequence, I blew open my psychic field and was challenged to find the balanced link (or yoga) between spirit and matter.

 

Nine months of intense burning fevers and long periods of spiritual bliss fuelled by intensive sadhana (spiritual practice) awoke subtle energies and connected me to "otherness". A neophyte along the path, I thought spirit and matter were separate. I wanted to meet God. And to me, God was "out there". I had been inadvertently telling my body that I no longer needed it, so off I went, higher and higher until a near death experience forced me back.

 

The fever that I had when I landed on Indian soil grew into an array of physical challenges. That, coupled with the intensity of my spiritual practices, culminated in an experience that changed everything. While traveling in the desert in Rajasthan, I collapsed and was brought by an inn-keeper on the back of his motorcycle to a hospital due to high fevers. A bed-ridden patient there, I had the classic NDE (near-death experience), traveled down the tunnel of light that led "to the other side". At the end of the tunnel of light, I was greeted by a group of beings, welcoming me to travel over. I remember vividly what happened next. As I went to merge with them, a voice I can only describe as the voice from the root of my soul said: “I want to live!”

 

Within every ounce of my being, a total redirection occurred. At that moment I very quickly found myself falling down that tube of light, landing into my body and waking up in a hospital bed unsure how I had gotten there. I had no idea whether I was at the hospital for a day, a week or a month. Meeting my guru Amma opened the doors to who I was. This NDE blew the doors wide open to the multiplicity of otherness. Now I see it was all Her anyway.

 

As I have shared in the past, I was a child sensitive to "otherness", skills I suppressed through high school and university. Well, our puny willpower is no match for the force of nature or the evolution of the soul. My natural gifts were now roaring with a vengeance. What followed was a period of extreme bliss and fierce psychic skills housed in a weakened body. Though my spiritual self had never been stronger, I needed to learn to befriend and heal the neglected body. Standing tall at 5'9", I was then barely 105 pounds. I had lost nearly 20 pounds over the year.

 

My year in India ended after I had an intense dream and gut sense that something was wrong at home. Following my instincts, I began the long journey towards my flight back. It took me almost a week to travel from the middle of the Rajasthani desert in northwest India to the southeastern city of Madras, where I would catch the plane back to Toronto. On Canadian soil at the Toronto airport, I was greeted by my father who looked pleased to see me, but also worried. He told me that my grandpa, his father, was in intensive care and was asking for me. My paternal grandfather died a day or so after I visited him in the hospital.

 

Suddenly back in the West, I felt like I had been catapulted from the Middle Ages right into the heart of the twenty-first century, in the space of a few hours on a trans-global flight. I understood that it was now my time to open to my healing. My mind had become quiet though the all-embracing year of intensive meditation practice. My yoga practice was deep, resounding in my cells. I was listening to nature and operating at a rhythm that was different from what I saw in the highways, concrete structures and speeding lights in the West. I needed to integrate the East I had found and loved with the West I was born into. Everything flowed in perfection while I was in India, so surely that same flow, or "golden thread" as I called it, existed in Toronto, or wherever I would be.

 

Stationed temporarily in my parents' home, I got rid of everything I could and slept on the floor. I meditated for hours every day and thought only to be a dedicated spiritual practitioner, create art and sing. These habits still form the foundation of my character and daily practices today.

 

At that time, my psychic senses were so alive that I could not take a bus or sit beside someone as I felt completely overwhelmed. I would know what happened to them when they were six or what would happen at 86. An Ayurvedic doctor said I was like a hi-fi stereo on volume ten. I had sensory overload and my dials were up too high. The psychic doors had blown open. I needed to learn how to turn down the volume and master the lock on the doors.

 

INSIDE OUTSIDE IN

 

The next years were just as full of amazing people, places and teachings as my time in India. The weak health in my body asked me to move my attention inward in a way I had not yet done. I had touched the expansiveness of the cosmos. It was now time to find that same expansion within, rooted in my being. The universe is immense outside, just as much as it is immense within. In fact, I found that the notion of outside and inside were illusions that did not need to confine me. The more rooted in my being I became, the more useful and practical the psychic skills were. Like anything in nature, the more grounded I was, the more broadly sky-bound I could be.

 

It was at this time that I opened a small yoga studio in Montreal and worked as an assistant minister at the United Church of Canada. I found that my awakening had very practical use. My call was to serve. This life clearly was a gift. I had been given a second chance to live. All I needed to do was love.

 

With subtle insight, I found that I could teach yoga and know where people's energies were blocked or stuck. People could call me from the other side of the world and I would know what was ailing them. I learned to walk down the street or take a bus and find a place (or asana) of balance within the whole flow. Life was becoming Yoga.

 

Over the years, my studies deepened and my practice flourished. I studied Chi Kung, Ayurveda, Thai Massage, Shamanic Soul Journeying, Sound Healing, Astrology and Nature Co-Creation. I offered these skills in treating people. My musical career also flourished with much greater meaning. I went deeper and deeper into various forms of yoga such as intensive work within the Iyengar method and completing another teacher training program with Esther Myers of the Vanda Scaravelli lineage. Healing, yoga, meditation, music, life… it all started to flow as part of one greater whole that I understood as Yoga.

 

These years were the formative years for YEM. Just as I listened intensely "out there" to find God, I listened intensely within to find the Divine and be guided. YEM flowered naturally, effortlessly.

 

Out of this vast array of experiences, I grew to see that all things are interconnected in ways our limited mind and senses cannot comprehend. We are not the body, but we temporarily inhabit it and are responsible for its well being. Like a temple for our spiritual practice, the body houses the spirit and also reflects it. It is a temporal housing of the infinite spirit we are. Just like Siva and Shakti, or Yin and Yang, the body and spirit are married, sharing the most exquisite balance.

 

(Continued tomorrow with My Practice Today)

 

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 3: India: Meeting My Guru (The Door Blows Open)

INDIA: MEETING MY GURU (THE DOOR BLOWS OPEN)

(Continued from Steps Towards Yoga)

THE CALL

I was only 23, fresh off the plane from Canada. It was my first time in India. Though I felt like I was right side up for the first time in my life, I had no idea what was in store for me. They say the guru appears when the student is ready. I suppose I was ready.

 

A guru is not just a teacher. A guru-disciple bond is a profound relationship, as deep or deeper than marriage. It holds an intimacy within its embrace that speaks to the furthest corners of the soul and carries one through an inner landscape we never knew existed. The body of the guru is not bound by the finite, but extends through time and through all things. At least, so it has been for me.

 

Going to India was a true calling. I told my parents, much to their chagrin, that I was not doing my master in architecture and to not expect me back for five years. I would call when I could. (I now realize how painfully scary that must have been for them!) I was going to the other side of the world fuelled by the deep desire to meet my guru.

 

I knew there was someone "out there" to guide my yoga practice, to help me fulfill my spiritual potential. We have doctors to help heal our physical bodies. We have schools and universities to teach us the ways of the world. The guru is a realized being who has traveled along and completed the spiritual journey. Knowing the pitfalls along the path and understanding the mysteries of the universe, he or she can guide our way home. I did not know what that relationship would look like, but I knew how it would feel.

 

INDIA

 

I flew into Madras greeted by a family member of an architecture classmate. I had never met the middle-aged man before. But since it was in the middle of the night in a strange land, I was very glad he was there to greet me. I arrived in India with a fever, what I attribute to a sort of cabin fever, hardly able to stand the confines of the 18 hour flight. When I felt the energy of the land as I stepped onto the ground, I knew I had come to a place I would call home.

 

India is a land of extremes. It either spits you out or embraces you and never lets you go. It is not a place of niceties. You either love it or hate it.  Within any given moment as you walk through a city of village street, you can see the most exquisite sight you have ever seen and the most horrific scene; you can smell the intoxicating fragrance of fresh cut jasmine flowers right beside piles of debris and fresh excrement. It is raw, in your face and real like no other place I have been. In the West, we tend to hide our shadows under layers of prettiness. In India, the beautiful, the sinister, the painful, the rapturous were all hanging out in plain sight for anyone to see.

 

I celebrated my 23rd birthday at a New Years's party (yes, I am a Dec 31st baby) on a roof top watching young India boys show me how they could moonwalk, Michael Jackson style. It was just a couple days after I had arrived, and I was still feverish. It all felt surreal.

 

A day or so later, I boarded a sweaty, smelly bus for another heroic 18 hour ride to Trivandrum, still further south, where I would then pile into a jeep with at least twelve other people and arrive at my final destination. At the Sivananda ashram just outside of the village Neyyar Dam, Kerela, I would attended my first yoga teacher training program and discover a classical approach to Yoga. I adored the whole program and the experience of daily immersion in the practice and study of Yoga.

 

After the month-long program, I remained in India for nearly a year while I traveled from temple town to ashram, often with sadhus (wandering aesthetics) or other fellow seekers. I spent six months in the South of India, then six in the North, staying in villages and cities and all the spaces in between. With just a small backpack carrying all I needed, and often sleeping outdoors on rooftops under an open sky, I had profound experiences outside the well traveled tourist paths. I learned from Brahmin priests, went to religious festivals, lived with impoverished villagers and lavish city folk; and I met my guru, Amma. My life is marked by BA (before Amma) and AA (after Amma) (rather than a BC and AD). This year changed my life completely.

 

AMMA

 

When I was at the Sivananda ashram, I met two young teenagers, a brother and a sister, who simply glowed. They emanated a light that was notable. I asked them what they were doing to exude such radiance. They knew exactly what I was seeing and simply said, "It is our guru." All I knew was I wanted some of THAT! It was intoxicating. By Grace, they told me that their guru's ashram was very close by.

 

As soon as the teacher training program was complete, I went to Amritapuri and met Amma, also known as the Hugging Saint of Kerala, South India. I now know that what I experienced for the next two months were precious jewels, experiences few had. Today, Amma's presence draws crowds that fill football stadiums as She tours the world. But when I first met Her in 1993, I was just one of a handful of people milling about Her. I did not know how lucky I was. I look back on those times with deep fondness.

 

 

Etched in me forever is the presence in the temple where Her devotees chanted bhajans. The modest, cathedral-like space echoed with a sublime sound that set every cell on fire. The hall walls seemed to dissolve into the ephemeral. They were no longer made of white tile, but liquid light. The atmosphere pulsated with a dewy luminosity that saturated the tropical air. If there were a heaven, I was in it. This was Brindavan.

 

Amma gives blessings, or darshan, in the form of a hug. Hugging, considered audacious for her humble South India upbringing and taboo for an Indian woman of her caste, is a gesture of motherly love. Today, thousands of people gather to receive Amma's darshan all over the world. Then, perhaps 30 or so people would gather about her at any given time. I sat for hours with Amma, immersed in a spiritual presence that seeped into my hungry soul.

 

It is hard to describe a darshan as each one is unique and perfect on so many levels, going to places where the mind cannot explain. I could only recreate the experience with the shortcoming of words, which would never do the experience justice. What I can say of my first darshan is everything stopped and I started to cry, and it did not stop. I cried for days. It just would not stop. I was neither sobbing nor whimpering. The tears were not tears of joy, nor of sorrow. I just cried, and cried more as some form of deep inner release. It was like a dam had broken inside of me and my soul started to flow again along the current of the Divine River of life.

 

For the next weeks, I followed Amma and Her renunciate monks and nuns on rickety buses on bumpy dirt roads through South India as She inaugurated temples and performed pujas (worship) in various spiritual settings. I meditated all I could and immersed myself in Her.

 

THE BOND BEYOND

 

Despite the immensity of the experience, after a couple of months, some itchy part of my brain began to stir. I figured I needed to move on and see other things in India. After all, I came to meet my guru. Surely, in India, there were many such saints. I needed to make sure this Amma was "the" one. I left Amritapuri and went from ashram to ashram, temple town to temple town. Though I met phenomenal people and had life changing experiences, nothing compared to the immensity I felt in Amma's embrace.

 

I would take me nearly ten years to fully accept Amma as my guru. Though there was always a "before and after Amma" since the moment I met Her, I was clearly not yet truly ready to fully say "Yes!" Amma continued to make Her presence known to me through the people I would meet over those years or by a broad array of coincidences that made me realize She was keeping her eye on me. I realize now that part of me needed to erode and soften so that I could receive the Grace of Her presence in my life. My ego wanted to do it on my own.

 

When Amma first came to Toronto, I told my partner that I wanted to go see Her. I told him, that I wanted to go see an Indian woman that I stayed with when I was in India. That was how much the denial of Her presence was for me. It was not until I saw Her immensity through his eyes, that I realized what had gifted my life. After that point, both my partner and I have fully accepted Amma as our guru.

 

The magical year in India blew my soul's doors open. I met Amma. That was everything. I also read books that painted a fuller picture of yoga and the spiritual path, such as Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. I studied classical yogic texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradhibika, the Mahabharata, the Yoga Sutras and texts by Iyengar and Sivananda, to name a few.

 

I was only 23, but I felt like I had lived more than most people twice my age. This year changed everything. Though I was immersed for over eight hours a day in yoga, study and meditation, no external action I had taken was the source of any change. It was Amma all along. I realize now that She had called me to India. She had brought those books, people, places and teachers into my life. It is only by the guru's Grace that I am at all. It is only by God's Grace that I have the capacity to evolve, love, think, act, speak, breathe or walk. This year in India created the foundation for my understanding and aspiration to live my whole life dedicated to God, to spiritual truth in service to the magnificence of love. This year showed me that Yoga is everything, everywhere, always.

 

(Continued tomorrow with "The Healing Begins")

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 2: Steps Towards Yoga

STEPS TOWARDS YOGA

(continued from Early Beginnings)

 

At 16 years of age, I took my first yoga class when I was enrolled as a student at McGill University. It was taught, little did I know at the time, by a Sivananda-trained yoga teacher. (I would love to thank him today for helping to spark my path). I adored the class. It felt both physically charged and spiritually inspired. I distinctly remember how the world seemed richer, fully and brighter after the class. I attended it religiously. Each week, the class felt like a homecoming. I would experience a feeling inside of me awaken, something I felt I had always known and also knew I was missing. Without understanding the fullness of what was happening, I sensed something deep within me growing through this weekly practice.

 

Yoga became a love affair. My practice has continued from the day of my first class on. However, I only stayed at McGill for a year. I did not feel personally fulfilled in the Arts and Art History program I was studying, so I chose to switch to Architecture at Waterloo University. At Waterloo, I continued my yoga classes with an Iyengar teacher, and went deeper into understanding postural alignment.

 

Yoga and meditation kept me sane in architecture school. The architecture program was very demanding. It exacerbated my type A personality I have learned to soften and release through my yoga practices. Classmates noticed I was doing something to manage my stress, so I started to guide a few peers through yoga postures and breathing to help us cope with our demanding schedule and tight deadlines. I guess you could say that was my first experience teaching, though I resisted any such title.

 

After university, I worked at a reputed Montreal architecture firm. I was paid well, had a budding young career and was respected, but I felt an inner restlessness. A voice within would not quell. Externally, it seemed that the “right” thing to do was to do my masters in architecture. But that did not feel right at a gut level. I could not put it into words. All I knew was that the light I was cultivating doing yoga seemed to grow dimmer when I thought about a masters degree.

 

What did feel right, was that I was supposed to do something other than work as an architect. The problem was, I did not know what. Music continued through my life as a passionate, creative connection. I had rebelled against the choice I was asked to make between piano and voice when I first applied to musical performance at university, so it continued as a unresolved hobby.

 

I was unhappy. I needed change. Instinctively, I knew that I needed to make room in life so that the "something else" could emerge. So I decided to courageously give my boss my two-week notice and see what would happen. During the process of that two weeks, colleagues repeatedly asked me where I was going. I would continue to say, I don't know. Until one day, my boss asked me that very same question, to which the answer automatically spilled from my lips:  “I am going to India.” The words rolled off my tongue before I knew what I had said. As the words hung in the air in the pregnant pause that followed, I fully absorbed them. I knew it was right. I was going to India to pursue my love of the spiritual path.

 

When I had first arrived back in Montreal after university to work in the architecture firm, I had sought out a yoga school. At the Sivananda Yoga Center on St-Laurent, I became heavily involved with my yoga practice. Swami Sivananda was one of the greatest Yoga masters of the 20th century. He is the inspiration behind the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres worldwide. I learned that his teachings are summarized in these six words: Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize. At the Sivananda Center, I took mantra and meditation classes, advanced asana practices and went deeper into my own personal study. When I heard there was a teacher training program offered in India in a few months, I knew I was meant to be there.

 

Going to India was a true calling. I went with the deep desire to find my guru. I knew there was someone "out there" to guide my practice, a realized being who knew the pitfalls along the spiritual path. I saw the light in the photos of Swami Sivananda's eyes and knew I wanted that same light in a living teacher to look straight into my soul. I did not know what that relationship would look like, but I knew how it would feel.

 

I flew into Madras and had my 23rd birthday in Tamil Nadu, South India. A couple days later, I continued South to attended my first teacher training program at the Sivananda Ashram in Kerala. There I was introduced to a classical approach to Yoga. I adored the whole program and the experience of daily immersion in the practice and study of Yoga. The teacher training program lasted a month, but my time in India lasted a year.

 

SIVANANDA'S TEACHINGS

 

The Sivananda Centers teach a traditional, easy to learn method that aims to naturally achieve the goal of yoga by creating a healthy body/mind that supports spiritual evolution. The goal of yoga is understood as the union of the mind, body and spirit with the Divine.

 

The teachings of Swami Sivananda and his primary disciple Swami Vishnudevananda summarize the vast field of yogic philosophy into five main points:

1. Proper exercise (asana): through the correct practice of yoga poses, one develops a strong, healthy body.

2. Proper breathing (pranayama): the cultivation of deep, conscious breathing aids in stress reduction and wards off diseases.

3. Proper relaxation: by learning to let go, we help keep ourselves in balance, avoiding going into overload, worry and exhaustion.

4. Proper diet: simple, vegetarian foods that are easy to digest aid the body/mind to maintain healthy balance. Healthy eating also helps the environment and all beings.

5. Positive thinking (meditation and Vedanta): the true key to achieving piece of mind come through a devoted meditation practice and clear understanding of the processes of the mind and ego.

 

The Sivananda Centers also offer a beautiful, clear and accessible overview of the various yogic paths. The four paths of Yoga all lead to the same place, union with the Divine. They simply speak more to the varying human temperaments and approaches to life.

 

1. Karma Yoga, the Yoga of Action, teaches us to act without attachment to the fruits of our actions. We learn to let go of expectations, which are driven by our ego, and serve what is.

2. Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of Devotion, inspires people through prayer, worship and chanting to see God unconditionally in all beings.

3. Raja Yoga, the Royal Path or the Science of the Mind, is for those who enjoy study, understanding and thinking. By cultivating mental strength, we learn to master the life force energy known as Prana. This path is fuelled by a strong meditation practice.

4. Jnana Yoga, the Yoga Of Knowledge, is considered the path for those with strong intellectual tendencies and insight. Using Vedanta, non-duality, as a vehicle, one inquires into the nature of the Self to realize the oneness with all that is.

 

SIVANANDA AND YEM

 

I am forever grateful for the experiences I have had through the Sivananda Centers. I was taught though my studies there about the bigness of Yoga, the breadth of it's history and the practical implications it has as a real-life, day-to-day practice, even in today's busy world. Yoga is immense and also so simple. It comes alive when we practice, when we go within and face ourselves, when we get on the mat and do our exercises and when we bring that expanded spaciousness out into the world and chose to live awakened lives.

 

One of my favourite sayings by Swami Sivananda is "An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory". The saying helps us remember that enlightened action, living awake in the world is where our true practice exists. We can stay "knowledgeable" in our heads, but if it does not translate into loving and serving more fully, then it really does not mean much at all as a yogi. Yoga in this way is a practical life science. It helps us live all aspects of life more fully. Yoga is the art of living.

 

Because of the broad foundation I received from my Sivananda practice, study and training, I have been able to open to a big vision of Yoga and its many layers and meanings. I brought these riches into the practice of YEM and into my current show and musical compositions.

 

(Continued tomorrow with India: Meeting My Guru (The Door Blows Open))

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 1: Early Beginnings

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 1: Early Beginnings

 

Thank you for sending in questions while I was away performing in Florida. This week, I answer a more personal question about how I came to develop my yoga practice. Please keep sending your questions. I enjoy both receiving and answering them. Send yours by Thursday to ask@parvatidevi.com to be answered by lottery beginning next Sunday.

 

Enjoy the entries this week!

Parvati

Dear Parvati,
I have recently bought your YEM DVD. I really enjoy your teachings and all the amazing information that the DVD offers. I have found the exercises are really starting to sink into my daily life. Thank you! I would be interested to find out a bit more about you. Would you be wiling to share a bit more about how you came to YEM and what Yoga means to you?

EARLY BEGINNINGS

 

When I was a child, as early as I can remember, I was aware of “otherness”. The unseen world, a place that children know and adults forget, was a place where I felt safe and comfortable. I saw spirits in our house, beings without form. I saw shapeless presences of immense light I called angels and spoke with them. I played in my room with my tape recorder creating songs to communicate with them. I composed musical scores, played my wooden soprano recorder and sang. Though I sang as part of various choirs from a very young age, I felt I sang for the angels. Sound was a way of prayer, a way to communicate with God. It was how I felt connected and alive.

 

I would lie awake for hours and hear the nighthawk sing in the summer sky. I saw nature as alive. I remember lying underneath the massive maple tree in our front yard in Montreal and feeling my body dissolve into the grass and my spirit commune with the life force of that tree. It was my guardian and my friend. In nature, I found a purity of expression that grounded me and supported me to feel safe and fluid as I communicated with a world without form.

 

I grew up in a spiritually aware household. My parents were both Christians. Unlike many people who follow organized religion, my parents encouraged me to connect to spirit in whatever manner I felt comfortable. They just wanted me to connect. They wanted me to know that life extended far beyond the tangible. Family dinner conversations revolved around spirituality, art and culture. I was exposed at a young age to Church and went weekly, but also I was brought to Synagogues and other places of worship, as well as places of need, such as long term care facilities and food banks. Despite my parent's open-mindedness, it was challenging for them to comprehend my comfort with the unseen world.

 

As with most children, I found out that it was not “cool” to be spiritually connected and see things that “were not there”. With the desire to fit in at school, I began to suppress my joy and natural connectedness. I did not speak about what I saw. I suppressed what I felt. Yet as spiritual things are undefinable, so are they unstoppable. Spiritual guidance still crept in.

 

I became aware of Yogic arts when I was about 10 years old. When I was over to play at my school friend’s house, I saw her mother, a tall, beautiful German woman (who I remember as having perfect skin and deep turquoise eyes) quietly excuse herself to go into a room in the house for some time. I was never invited into that mysterious room. When the room door would open, it seemed that it pulsated with something I only now understand as the spiritual energy I have seen in a yoga studios and meditation halls. After what felt like an expansive, infinite amount of time, my friend's mom would come out of the strange room and somehow, she seemed magically transformed, radiating, brighter, glowing. I wondered what went on in there. It seemed somehow the fairies were in there helping her with something. All I knew is that I liked it, and wanted to be part of it.

 

Later I found out it was not magic or mystery that made that room seem so special, but a systematic, disciplined practice and life science called Yoga. She knew that if she did certain breathing exercises, calmed and focused her mind, allowed her body to move into certain positions, she was boosting her life force energy, vitality and sense of inner peace. I later found out she was a long time practitioner of Iyengar Yoga, which I later ended up practicing quite extensively.

 

Around that same time in my life, each year at Christmas, my grandmother from Edmonton would come stay in our Montreal home for a month or so. She was my first spiritual teacher, more consciously so in my mid-teens. My grandmother had a special light. She spoke about her choice to cultivate “quiet assurance” through sitting each day in meditation to "connect with her Maker".

 

Though she had a Christian background, she had long since found the politics in churches dissonant with her joy for mysticism. She had lived through hell and back when she lost her husband around World War Two, and faced a debilitating disease herself that confined her to bed for a full year, without money, no husband and three young children. But she had a deep faith in a God that provides. Faced with what seemed like an incurable illness, she said she just knew that she had to give her whole life over to God, and go to bed and pray for a cure from the disease. At that time, there was a knock at the door. A woman who had also lost her husband in the war was without a place to live. She became the guardian for my grandmother’s children, my mom and her older brother and sister. A year or so later, my grandmother was “miraculously” cured.

 

Through adversity, a deep faith in God, a daily practice of what I now know to be meditation, my grandmother had found and exuded a spiritual fluidity and grace. I wanted to know how I too could find that. Each year she came, we had longer discussions about yoga, prayer, spirituality and meditation.

 

Upon this intimate foundation, inspired by "otherness", meditation and nature, my life flowered in reverence to the mystical. I learned to see that whatever happened, we were part of a much greater whole. I was taught from a young age that we were close to the Divine, something we could embody when we open in humility. Spirit and matter were not two but one along a continuum. From these teachings, YEM would eventually emerge. These early years were just the beginning.

 

(Continued tomorrow with Steps Towards Yoga)

Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM

Dear friends,

I am still settling back in from my trip to Florida for the St. Pete Yoga Festival. I will post the next Ask Parvati beginning tomorrow. But to give you a taste in the meantime, this is the question I will be answering:

Dear Parvati,
I have recently bought your YEM DVD. I really enjoy your teachings and
all the amazing information that the DVD offers. I have found the
exercises are really starting to sink into my daily life. Thank you! I
would be interested to find out a bit more about you. Would you be
wiling to share a bit more about how you came to YEM and what Yoga
means to you?

 

I look forward to discussing my yogic journey with you this week.

 

Namaste,

Parvati

 

Bonding Over Electronica

Bonding Over Electronica

I am now back from doing my show and my YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine workshops as part of the St Pete Yoga Festival in the Tampa, Florida area. It was an excellent time. I met super people and was able to be part of a new wave of conscious energy in that part of the world.

The show promoters arranged that I would meet a couple local dancers who would learn my choreography and perform with me at the festival. Five days before I was to perform, I met Lana and Kerry, two yoga teachers who were willing to be part of the show.

It took some yogic adaptability on their part to get their heads around what they had signed up for: a fully choreographed show, not free form improvised movement. Oh my! Not being trained dancers, they adjusted and rolled with the opportunity with grace and skill.

We met and worked together each day for hours. There was a lot to learn. I watched them move, understood where they were at and modified the choreography to suit their comfort level. We ended up with an excellent final product, a show that wove together a couple local yoga teachers who played the role of reptiles that transform into Disco Yoga Tantric Fairies. Fun!

They both did amazingly well at delivering with confidence and conviction. They were so good in fact that people thought they were part of my tour! Thank you Lana and Kerry for your superb contribution to the success of my show.

As Kerry's rehearsals continued on her own time at her home, her son Porter took interest in learning the moves as well. The photos and video of Porter are here below. A crystal light with intelligent luminosity, I just love that child!

As an active blogger, Kerry wrote a short piece below about her experience being part of my show. Tomorrow I will post my next entry in the Ask Parvati series.
Enjoy!
Parvati

Electronica's Inner Child
by Kerry Wills
10/22/11 @ 4PM

My son is a sucker for a synthesized beat with a dash of gold glitter. He found his heart's longing in Parvati, a Canadian performer who recently graced our little Florida town with her big show, “Yoga in the Nightclub.” In fact, I managed to land a temp job as one of her two back-up dancers. Enter Lana and Kerry as the yoga disco tantric fairies. Don't know how that happened exactly, but it's not really the point of the story.

We've been rehearsing for a week and the show is tonight. I have been listening to dance-y fabulous-ness for about three hours. Only a third of that has been me rehearsing. The other two hours have been that incessant son of mine (He's five; it's normal). If I flub my moves tonight, it will not be because I have not learned the music.

I have had quite the turn around from my mood 10 days ago upon viewing the show for the first time. My first thought was, “Who the hell do they think I am?” And then, “Who the hell are these people?” And finally, “Oh, shit!”

I can be a bit of a curmudgeon sometimes. More self-absorbed than curmudgeonly, I guess.  I mean, fun for me is spending six hours studying the anatomy of the foot. That's what I was doing right up until I watched the 'blocking videos' last week. Apparently, Lana and I were to figure out our dance moves based on these. Enter Audacity :)

Well, Lana and I spent a few days wrapping our head around this new assignment before Parvati arrived, or shall we call her 'Natamba' for our purposes here. That is her character's name in the show. She's an alien being of Cosmic Intelligence, come to Earth in human form to explore yoga. With a sense of humor, thankfully, or I might have cried after that first full rehearsal.

I respond rather well to straightforward instructions though, and Parvati has that in oodles. She's direct and tactful, which is a hard combination to nail. Somehow I've managed to learn the music, the moves and get my head in the right space for a full-on live performance in a few hours. Enter Light… my son.







As I've watched him prance through our family room with his improvised head dress and costume (à la Natamba), singing and dancing to his heart's content, I found the inner child who will accompany me tonight to the performance. And that IS the point of the story.

About Kerry

Kerry Wills is certified in Dharma Yoga (Austin, TX), an approach that emphasizes mindfulness. She has also studied Ashtanga, Iyengar and Yin Yoga, and is currently enrolled in Leslie Kaminoff’s Yoga Anatomy Course. She studies the Yoga Sutras online with AG Mohan. Kerry’s teaching style stresses breath support and functional alignment, which allows each student to feel the internal forms of poses. Awareness in each posture tends to encourage more spacious movement and breath patterns. From this perspective, asana is a tool that facilitates increasing awareness of oneself. She draws inspiration from Yogic and Buddhist philosophy, yet resonates most directly with the sciences of Psychology, Neuroscience and Evolutionary Theory (particularly the work of Steven Pinker, Oliver Sacks and Richard Dawkins). She teaches a naturalistic approach to this ancient practice.

A Life of Charity

A LIFE OF CHARITY

I am about to head down to St. Petersburg, Florida where I will be performing to headline the St Pete Yoga Festival. So think of me next Saturday night, October 22nd, and send lots of happy thoughts of fun and delight. I will be sending you the very same. The following day, I will be teaching a YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine workshop, then a full day workshop that week.

Performing is a great joy of mine, sharing the love I have for music, singing through a vibrant array of colours, movement and sounds. I am happy with my show and thoroughly enjoy it. I can't wait to share the new costumes with you. They are stellar! (Big thank you to Sunanda for that!)

Throughout the week, I will be in rehearsal with dancers/yoginis I will meet there. I have never met them before, let alone worked with them. They have been reviewing the choreography for my show, which we will go over and weave together this week, in preparation for the big night. So this week will be full of rehearsals for me, directing, blocking, coming up with alternate choreography, supporting technical lighting work and art directing. Then, on the night, I let all that go and step into the role of the artist, embody my character Natamba and perform. The life of an independent artist involves wearing many hats!

This show is a fundraiser for Embracing The World. Embracing the World is a not-for-profit international collective of charities founded by renowned spiritual and humanitarian leader, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, also lovingly known simply as Amma, or Mother.

Embracing the World exists to help alleviate the burden of the world's poor through helping to meet each of their five basic needs - food, shelter, education, healthcare and livelihood - wherever and whenever possible. The organization is founded on the belief that these needs are fundamental human rights, and that it is the responsibility of each of us to strive to ensure that one day every human being can live in dignity, safety, security and peace. The organization acknowledges that everyone - rich or poor - has the power to make a difference in the life of another. No selfless gesture is insignificant. Rather, it is selfless actions that hold the key to true peace - peace in the individual, peace in the community, and peace among diverse cultures, nations and faiths. For me, it is a true honour to support this remarkable, inspired organization.

Volunteer work and actions done with no desire for reward form the foundation of spiritual practice. We have all heard, when we give we receive. It is a popular saying because it is true. For spiritual aspirants, one of the quickest ways to realize the divine is through karma yoga, the practice of selfless service.

If you wish to overcome the interference energy of wanting and target it at its root, practice karma yoga. When you redirect your energy to giving rather than getting, to serving rather than wanting, your entire biochemistry changes and begins to vibrate at a higher rate. You feel more connected and fulfilled in ways never imagined. A richness begins to grow deep within that banishes unhappiness, permanently.

If you have not already, participate in your local food banks, shelters, old age homes and hospitals. Volunteer and get involved. Do it just because it shakes things up and asks you to look at life differently. There is nothing like volunteering to ward off complacency. You can also participate in an organization like Embracing The World by sending your charitable donations. By choosing to spend your money wisely, you can give opportunities to those who are far less fortunate than we are. What you give comes back to you multifold, in ways you cannot imagine.

This week, we launch the November issue of Parvati Magazine. I will let you know here when it is up and live. Make sure you check it out. It will be your blog food while I am away performing. There are great articles from a wide range of people.

I have answered an Ask Parvati question this week, but will post it next Sunday since I will be away. Once I return from the show, I will post my next Ask Parvati blog on October 30th. So please do keep sending your questions to ask@parvatidevi.com.

Enjoy!

Parvati

Ask Parvati 18: TO DO OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION. PART 7: THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE

PART 7: The Tortoise and the Hare

(Continued from “To Be And Not To Do”)

The Ayurvedic doctor Robert Svoboda once encouraged me to “think turtle”. I was very ungrounded after a year living in India, where I had a near death experience and an entire unraveling of all I knew. With this simple slogan, Robby was kindly trying to help me ground and be more rooted in my body/being.

I have thought a lot about turtles over the years. The motto “think turtle” helped me grow calm when I would get wired up. It helped me feel more connected to the Mother Earth. Turtles in their slow moving bodies, seem powerfully connected, wise and humble.

The classic fable "The Tortoise and the Hare" became a personal favorite. The story is about a hare that mocks the slow moving tortoise and challenges him to a race. With cocky confidence, the hare quickly leaves the hare behind. With a strong lead in the race, the hare decides to take a nap. He awakens to find the tortoise crawling slowly and steadily across the finish line before him.

To me our minds are like the hare, jumping around, racing ahead in spurts and starts. The tortoise is like our deeper selves that we learn to trust, with which we must connect. We learn to see that the slow and steady ways of the tortoise are like a cool stream of consciousness that moves continually forward.

The tortoise is like the loving force of life in which we can rest. With the zippy vigor of the hare, we may find our tasks done, but with eventual exhaustion and not necessarily having enjoyed the journey. The tortoise flows with a quiet assurance along its path, without fight, without resistance, in humbled surrender to what is. He is more like the karma yogi that Krishna describes.

I know that the more I meditate, the more I go deeply within and find that place of immense perfection and expansion, the more I get done during the day. I have fooled myself at times and thought I had too much to do and could not possibly meditate that day, so I would cut my practice short. Sure enough, as the day progressed, my mind would become more scrambled, my thoughts less clear, my actions less direct. I know it to be true that when we take the time to slow down, we actually get more done. We also enjoy what we do far more than if we were in a stressed hurry.

Ask yourself what is your deepest joy and make sure you do that every day. Life is too short to be full of “shoulds”. I feel the best practice is to eliminate the word “should” from our vocabulary. Should comes from the outside, imposed upon us like Father Time. Joy arises from within, like a flower blooming to meet the sun. When we open to what is, we are happier. We relax. We enjoy. When we do not resist what is, we expand and so does our ability to think, to feel, to process and to act. We accomplish more in less time.

When we act by aligning to our deepest truth and to our highest potential, we experience the divine. Life flowers in joy, rather than in resistance and resentment. Time seems to expand to meet that which is essential. Small miracles seem to unfold, without effort. Slowing down, we meet the fullness of what is.

LIVING WITHIN THE SACRED WHOLE

Every action is part of a whole. There really is no starting and stopping or beginning and ending. We exist within one flowing continuum.  We see our actions as finite, but everything we do affects a greater whole, beyond what we could ever conceive. Our place in this universe is perfect, precise, and interwoven into a fabric of existence that extends beyond our perception of a finite self.

This world is a reflection of the Divine. What we perceive, we experience as solid. Yet all that exists is dancing light energy in constant motion unrestricted by form. We experience reality as a reflection of our perceptions, what we want to see, until we learn to see through the grip of our ego into what is. Beyond our ego lay the dance of pure consciousness arising, which manifests all that is as a cosmic dance of which we are a part. We see ourselves as finite, but really we have no beginning or end.

In the Old Testament, time was understood as a medium for the passage of predestined events. Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, everything has its perfect place:

“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.
A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.”

May we learn to free ourselves from the grip of fear of being not enough and awaken to trust the flow of the divine, of which we are an integral part.

May we enjoy all we have in gratitude.

May we meet each moment, as it is, with mindful presence and with a heart willing to humbly serve.

Parvati