The Making of "YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub"

Hello Friends,

 

Typically, the week of a Parvati Magazine launch, I don’t write a blog entry. But I have been a bit delinquent with my entries to you. So despite the latest issue of Parvati Magazine being now live – go check it out!! – I wanted to share a bit of my heart and my creative process over the last couple of months with you here.

 

As you know, I have been immersed in the world of sound, creating my album “YIN: Yoga In the Nightclub”, which I hope you have had a chance to listen to, and perhaps enjoy as much as I do. If not, please take a listen to it at Yoga in the Nightclub.

 

As I wrote, engineered, produced, arranged and mixed the tracks (and the mix polish process with the talented sound engineer Carl Gardiner in the U.K.), I was literally brought to my knees again and again. There was something powerfully different about this particular album for me. 

 

At first, I thought, perhaps it was the short window of time I had to create it. But that did not feel right. Then my audio engineer friend Carl suggested that perhaps it was the typical ‘second album angst’ that seems to plague most bands and artists. But that also did not seem to really describe what I was experiencing.

 

Then I realized that literally a year ago from the time I was producing the album, I was flat out in bed, in agony, with a severe spinal injury. At that time, I was undergoing a deep spiritual transformation, one that required profound surrender and trust like I had never had before. From that injury, as I have shared with you, my whole world changed. 

 

From the onset, I knew I was creating a series of songs as a nod to the yoga community that shared my love for yoga and the Divine. But doing so at that particular time seemed to channel into this musical work much of the spiritual energy and the fruits of my inner transformation that I experienced during my injury. 

 

In addition, I had never recorded myself chanting in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is a vibrational language geared to invoke states of consciousness through sound. So repeating phrases over and over through the recording process was, in the unseen realm, stirring up my inner consciousness pot, rearranging cells, and moving me deeply.

 

In addition to being face to face with the power of the inner experience I had through my injury and the power of Sanskrit, the entire album was fueled by the depth of my love for my guru, Amma, and the devotion I have to Her and the spiritual path. Cooked to the core through this recording process, I repeatedly met my ego that kept surfacing saying “I can’t”. It kept wondering how something as large as these expressions could come through this tiny body, this finite time and space, ultimately, this “little old me”. 

 

The answer eventually embedded itself into my being deeper than ever before: “get out of the way – you are not the doer.” I relied heavily on the knowing that reality is plastic and that nothing in this world is fixed, despite the ego wanting to think it being so. So I focused on being an instrument, as best I could, and on just taking orders from the unseen.

 

Through the creation of the album, I worked very diligently with my music production soil-less garden. No, I was not tending to plants. A soil-less garden is indeed a garden without soil or any ground and works with Nature’s Devas and the unseen realms on a creative project. It is a very powerful process that I recommend to anyone. You can read about it at the Perelandra website that says:

 

“A soil-less garden is how you apply the principles of co-creative science to every aspect of your life: business, education, the arts, the home, research, your job, personal and professional projects and goals... all those gardens in life that are not rooted in soil. It's how you work with nature to achieve any goal you wish with extraordinary efficiency and balance.”

 

So for hours a day, I was in my soil-less garden coning (a particular energetic configuration of Nature Devas and Cosmic Intelligence) to expand my consciousness so that I could access and download (for lack of a better term) sonic information that would best express what I was called to share. At worst, I felt like I was taking dictation. At best, I was dancing with the Divine through sound. It was an exhilarating creating process. 

 

As you know, the album, with its songs to the Divine Mother, was aptly launched on Mother’s Day weekend. Thanks again to those who attended. I was so glad to see you all! Since the launch, I have tweaked the music, adjusted sets, made costume fixes, redesigned lighting… generally polished the show. I am on tour through the US right through to the first week of August. I will be sleeping out of a van for the next few months, but updating this blog with photos and captions from the journey. I look forward to sharing it all with you. 

 

Just like when I went to the North Pole, I felt I was going with you all. So too, I feel we are all connected, so what I do, I do with you, and wherever you are, I am there too, as you are with me. Space and time are plastic, stretchable expressions of our heart’s focus and divine alignment. As I sing in my song “Shanti”, “we are one earth family”. Yes, we are!

 

If you have not yet picked up your copy of the album, you can get it exclusively at the Positive Possibilities store, in biodegradable packaging or in mp3 format. Your support is immensely appreciated! A percentage goes to Embracing the World.

 

Much peace, gratitude and joy to you!

Jai Ma!

Parvati

 

 

 

Sneak Preview: Yoga in the Nightclub New Tracks

Dear friends,

I am still immersed in the world of sound as I get ready for this Friday's album launch. I thought I would share with you a few of the tracks that will be on the new "YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub" album.

Yoga In The Nightclub New Tracks by ParvatiDevi

Hope to see you this Friday evening at the Yoga Sanctuary!

Jai Ma,

Parvati

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

A World of Sound, The Voice of the Divine

Hello Friends,

As you may know, I am in the thick of the creative process finalizing my new album. This album is a nod of gratitude to the yoga community for the support I have received over the years, and of recognition of my deep spiritual roots there. The album uses my independent hit single "Yoga In the Nightclub" as a point of departure. The album includes traditional Sanskrit chants, original pop songs, anthemic dance tracks and expansive, spacious soundscapes that allow listeners to rest in the lap of the Divine.

The creative theme for the album is "Songs to the Divine Mother", an expression of gratitude to my guru Amma. The release party is fittingly on Mother's Day weekend, at 8pm on Friday May 11 at the Yoga Sanctuary at 2 College Street (at Yonge). All ages are welcome, and kids under 6 are free. Advance tickets are available at my online store Positive Possibilities. There will be an early bird special, so make sure you order yours early. Full details will be on my websites soon. I hope to see you all there!

I feel like I am in a creative cave as I create sounds to produce songs in my music studio. For me, it is a fully engrossing process. A friend from Montreal is in from Toronto and asked me to come to his event this weekend. I would have loved to go, but said that if I were around people, I would open my mouth and symphonic sounds would emerge rather than words. I am in the world of sound!

(In case you are looking for something inspiring to do on a rainy Toronto Sunday, his event is the launch of RISE Kombucha at the Green Living Show April 13-15, booth #1830, at Direct Energy Centre, Exhibition Place, 100 Princess Blvd.)

The creative process is all consuming. My partner's cell phone went off yesterday, and I found myself mesmerized by the sparkling sounds. I paused for a moment. Uh oh. I am in really deep! So I went for a walk in the local ravine to refresh my ears from the intensely focused sonic work. The outside world was also just a world of sound to me.

As I do my daily meditation practice through this intensely creative process, I hear the sound of my breath and the sound of my heart. I can sense the sounds of my cells receiving the oxygen from the breath and the blood flow. I sense the sounds within life, pulsing with vibrancy.

To me, the creative process is like a party with the Divine, witnessing a force unfold and move through that is so much greater than the ego. It is a mystical process, because at its core it is a mystery wrapped in awe and received in humility.

Today, I suggest that you may wish to open your ears and being to the worlds of sound both within and without. We think of sound as frequencies we hear with our physical ears. But there are also unstruck sounds, frequencies that are subtle yet still can be sensed.

For example, we hear the thoughts that pass through our head, that inner chatter. But there is no object that is vibrating to create that sound frequency. Yet we can hear this chatter.

The voice of the Divine is like this to me, everywhere, in all things, pulsing, flowing, alive. When we learn to listen, life is resonant with an orchestral vibrancy that is nothing short of awesome. The power of this sound draws us to stillness and lets us dissolve into the depths of profound silence. Open your ears, open your heart, open your body, open your mind and listen to the wondrous sounds of Life itself.

Until next week,

Jai Ma,
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 2: Hatha Yoga, Sex Rituals and Tantra's Shadow

(Continued from Hatha and Tantra Yoga)

 

I love the descriptions of Tantra by the widely respected yogic scholar Georg Feuerstein who penned one of my favorite books, “Yoga: The Technology of Ecstasy”. For those of you who have seen me perform my song “Yoga In the Nightclub” in my current show “Natamba” (and if you have not yet, please come out!) you know that I use elements of the following quote from Dr. Feuerstein in my extended version of the house music track:

 

“What Tantric masters aspired to was to create a transubstantiated body, which they called adamantine (vajra) or divine (daiva) – a body not made of flesh but of immortal substance, of Light. Instead of regarding the body as a meat tube doomed to fall prey to sickness and death, they viewed it as a dwelling-place of the Divine and as the caldron for accomplishing spiritual perfection. For them, enlightenment was a whole body event.”

As such, the body is more akin to place of alchemy, a caldron to transform the base metals of crude desires into the gold of spiritual perfection. Tantra was not an endorsement of bestiality and debauchery, but a highly ritualized practice that keenly witnessed the nature of desire and a fiercely confronted it at its root in order to use its powerful charge to fuel the fires of inner transformation. Tantra was not about freely doing what one spontaneously desired, but about developing razor-sharp insight in order to understand the impulses that arose through the body and learning acute discernment as to what those impulses fed. Enlightenment for Tantric practitioners is not an intellectual thing, nor something that is beyond form, but a full body experience.

 

The Yoga Bija celebrates the power that the physical body can provide a spiritual aspirant:

 

“The fire of Yoga gradually bakes the body composed of the seven constituents [such as bone, marrow, blood, etc…]. Even the deities cannot acquire the exceedingly powerful yogic body. The [yogin’s] body is like the ether, even purer than the ether.”

 

The obvious shadow to a practice that embraces the physical as a means to enlightenment, and why Tantra is considered the razor’s edge of the razor’s edge, and by far not for most spiritual practitioners, is that aspirants can easily fall prey to the subtlety of greed, the tricks of desire and the illusions of wanting. Just as modern bodybuilders can become overly attached to their physical form, so too can those who use their body as a vehicle for spiritual transformation start to think that their body and themselves are the divine. We see this often in Hatha Yoga, where the goal of the practice seems not to be the release of attachments to desire, but the cultivation of the best yoga butt in Lululemon pants.

 

It is also easy, I guess, for newspaper reporters to let their imaginations get carried away with the idea of sexuality being integrated into spiritual practice, while forgetting to dig a little deeper to find that in fact only a small sect of Tantric practitioners actually used the physical practice of sexuality in their spiritual pursuits. On the issue of sexual practice, Tantrism split into the Left Hand Path, a group that practiced ritual sex, and the Right Hand Path, a group that understood sexuality more symbolically than physically enacted.

 

The development of Hatha Yoga as part of Tantrism was developed to help support the body’s potential so it could meet the challenges of, and change in concurrence with, spiritual transformation. Spiritual bliss is seen not as a purely mental state, but something that involves the whole body/being. The Hatha Yogi therefore cultivates a body of light that is both metaphorically and actually baked in the heat of transformation, and ultimately freed of all notions of separation and desire.

 

As a warning to this shadow of attachments to the body and desire, and an admonition that body-practice alone is not the goal of yoga, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, considered the most popular manual for this path, clearly states: “All means of Hatha [Yoga] are for [reaching] perfection in Raja-Yoga. A person rooted in Raja-Yoga [truly] conquers death.” (IV.102)

 

Even the purified body of the Hatha Yogis is subject to the laws of nature and will eventually pass. If one is a true yogi, one must be rooted in Raja Yoga, that is, yoga that brings aspirants to the goal of full realization, seeing Hatha Yoga as a part of such, but not an end goal in itself.

 

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

 

Natamba

NATAMBA
Ok. I cannot help but offer a little shameless promotion about my up and coming show. I am just too happy not to share! This is the show synopsis:
"When the reptiles invade Avalon, Natamba, disturbed from deep meditation, leaves for planet Earth. Like a ray of liquid gold light, Natamba arrives on Earth to find it riddled with interference. While on Earth, Natamba explores the meaning of Yoga: to be one with all things. By embodying I AM consciousness and by seeing Yoga everywhere, even in the nightclub, Natamba transforms the desolate world back to a lush landscape. Natamba brings to life a message of hope, interconnection, love and celebration for all we have."

Fun, huh? It is kinda sci-fi meets spirituality, Cirque du Soleil meets Madonna. For those of you who don't know, Natamba is the character I become in my shows. She is a ray of gold light that recently downloaded to Earth from a planet she calls Avalon. She embodies Yoga, that is, our true human potential as a ray of gold light. Natamba is one with light and brings to life all that she encounters.

Natamba, the word, came about as I was living in India. I was by chance repeatedly called Natamba by two men from Brazil who were living in Japan. I have no idea why they called me Natamba. The name stuck. It became a sort of alter ego that entered into my creative journal writing and imagination. Natamba was born.

Interestingly, "nat" in Sanskrit is often seen in reference to "Nataraj" referring to dance. "Amba" means Mother or Goddess. So the name means Goddess of Dance. I often hear the name embedded within the chants of the 1000 Names of the Divine Mother. One of those mantras is "Om kumara gananathambayai namah" (Salutations to Devi who is the mother of Subrahmania and Ganesh. Parvati is that Devi.)

I AM CONSCIOUSNESS
The "Natamba" show (and all my work) supports the awakening of I AM consciousness in myself and in all beings. I have used the phrase I AM consciousness often in my blog, but what is I AM really?

I AM is the expansive experience of interconnection to all, through all, of all in each moment… pure consciousness arising. First though, must come the practice of rooting our life in the positive possibilities of being, a state in which we unequivocally know that our true nature is Love. In the positive possibilities we know and experience that we are loved in each moment, connected beyond the grasp of the limited mind to and within a vast, mysterious whole, of which we are an integral part. In this, there is a release of the impossibilities tendency to grasp, repulse, constrict and try to control the moment. In the positive possibilities we meet this moment, without resistance, and witness what is. In that space of what is, I AM arises, and so flows the expression of pure consciousness. The positive possibilities are the fertile soil for I AM consciousness to grow.

ART AS A VEHICLE FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH
My life focus is the realization of the One. Art is a vehicle through which I express and explore this journey. My performances, including my current show Natamba, are Grace for me. They provide me with opportunities to activate, live and share the spaciousness and release I practice in sitting meditation. They provide me with a playground in which to practice non-attachment, to witness what is, to expand and share the joy of being alive.

People have asked over the years about the title of my song Yoga In the Nightclub, thinking it was about doing yoga poses in a club setting. It is not. Yoga is so much more than a series of bendy exercises for physical health. These are only an aspect of Hatha Yoga, the Yoga that awakens pure consciousness through exercises that purify the body/mind. There are many branches of Yoga, from Hatha yoga, to Karma yoga, which focuses on self-realization through selfless service, seeing the love-light energy within all things, especially those in need. Yoga is a vast life science that explores and reveals to us our true selves, beyond the grasp of our limited ego and personal will.

My shows and music celebrate the non-duality of life, that we are indeed expressions of the divine. Through song, lights, sound and theatrical elements, we are brought through a journey of transformation, beginning in the desolate, interference ridden landscape of isolation and despair, to the lush expansion of Avalonian consciousness flowering on Earth. We begin to see the possibility that yoga is everywhere: each moment, be it in a nightclub or in a meditation hall. Each moment provides us with seeds to awaken to who we truly are.

AVALON
This is a word I use quite a bit in context of the show. I understand that it can be confused with other folklore words of the same name that may conjure up images of Sir Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
For me, this word references a place that existed in co-creation with Nature. Avalonians would be a group of beings who remember our inherent state of oneness with creation. Perhaps, some time long, long ago, Avalonians were in communication with humans. Perhaps there was a time Avalon was invaded, hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the gap between Nature and humans grew.
There are people on the planet now I would call Avalonians, those who remember the potency of this subtle and immense interconnection with Nature. With the influx of industrialization and the subsequent increase of greed, there is no doubt that Nature is suffering and so are the Avalonians and our connection with Nature. In denser energies, we lose the ability to experience the power of subtlety.
Natamba is from Avalon and embodies this Nature co-creative intelligence. She reminds us that we are part of it all, not separate.

So I invite your creative imagination to spark. Perhaps, contemplate the way in which you are Avalonian, like Natamba, connected to Nature, one with all. When we remember Avalon, we find heaven here on Earth.

Happy sparkling,
Parvati

PS: The next issue of Parvati Magazine will go live tonight or tomorrow!

Ask Parvati 20 - Tantra: Yoga Is Everywhere - Part 6, Tantra

TANTRA

(Continued from Nada Yoga: The Yoga of Sound)

 

Tantra is greatly misunderstood in the West. Incorrectly thought to be the yoga of sacred sex, confusing orgasm with spiritual bliss, Tantra is instead an ancient, wise and powerful yogic path that few can tread even with the necessary guidance of a fully realized master. Hatha yoga, the notion that yoga is everywhere and the belief that one may find the divine through creative arts all have their roots in the tantric yogic tradition.

 

Ajit Mookerjee, tantric art scholar, says, "Tantra is both an experience of life and a scientific method by which man can bring out his inherent spiritual power.” His writings stress the awesome potential inherent in true spiritual art, defining this as "art created through spiritual discovery". He believed such art to be loaded with the Power of the Goddess and that it was actually part of the body of the Great Goddess.

 

According to the Tibetan Buddhist Tantric master Lama Thubten Yeshe, “each one of us is a union of all universal energy. Everything that we need in order to be complete is within us right at this very moment. It is simply a matter of being able to recognize it. This is the tantric approach.”

 

I love the descriptions of Tantra by the widely respected yogic scholar Georg Feuerstein who penned one of my favorite books, “Yoga: The Technology of Ecstasy”. For those of you who have seen me perform my song “Yoga In the Nightclub” (and if you have not yet, please come out!) I use elements of the following quote from Dr. Feuerstein in my extended yoga studio version of the house music track:

 

“What Tantric masters aspired to was to create a transubstantiated body, which they called adamantine (vajra) or divine (daiva) – a body not made of flesh but of immortal substance, of Light. Instead of regarding the body as a meat tube doomed to fall prey to sickness and death, they viewed it as a dwelling-place of the Divine and as the caldron for accomplishing spiritual perfection. For them, enlightenment was a whole body event.”

 

Tantra refers to both an esoteric school of Hinduism and Buddhism and to a group of scriptures known as The Tantras. The Sanskrit word tantra is derived from two Sanskrit words “tanoti”, which means to stretch, to extend, or to expand, and “trayati” which means liberation. As such, Tantra can be seen as a technique for stretching ourselves, for extending our capacity for attention to the utmost, for expanding our sense of awareness to meet the fullness of what is. According to some, the word tantra also means "to weave", suggesting that reality is a seamless whole, one continuum of interwoven fabric made up of spirit and matter.

 

This path to enlightenment focuses on the worship of the Goddess or Shakti. Through spiritual practices and ritual forms of worship, the goal of a tantric practitioner is to find freedom from ignorance and the cycles of death and rebirth through realizing the universe as the divine play of Shakti and Siva, the male and female principle.

 

Unlike any other yogic path, Tantra insists that spirit and matter are aspects of one whole. In some yogic traditions, a yogi learns to separate himself from the world. Tantra however urges the need to join seeming opposites and revel in a synthesis of reality and consciousness. While some yogic traditions encourage students to seek liberation from the body and the world, Tantra sees liberation in the world. For the tantric, the world is an expression of divine play of which we are an integral part. The body is a microcosm of the universe. As such, it is a powerful vehicle for liberation, an alchemical crucible in which spiritual transformation can occur.

 

In his book "Tantra Asana: A Way to Self-realization", Ajit Mookerjee says, "Tantra itself is unique for being a synthesis of bhoga and yoga, enjoyment and liberation. There is no place for renunciation or denial in Tantra. Instead, we must involve ourselves in all the life processes which surround us. The spiritual is not something that descends from above, rather it is an illumination that is to be discovered within."

 

“Wow! A spiritual path that embraces all of life as divine! Sounds perfect!” you may be thinking. Here is the catch. When a spiritual aspirant begins to look at matter and the body as vehicles for spiritual evolution and personal transformation, he begins to walk the razor’s edge journey to spiritual enlightenment. He must learn to discern between the ego’s tricky wanting and expansive evolution. He must learn to balance the relationship between Nature’s involutionary tendency, that is, the rootedness of being in form, and the evolutionary cosmic play as it unfolds spiritually.

 

A tantric aspirant can easily either become overly mired in the pleasures of the physical and lose spiritual expansion, or he can become overly lofty, detached and ungrounded by the spiritual and lose the presence of the physical. Like a gracious balancing act, the tantric yogi walks an extremely potent path that is both delicate and dangerous.

 

I agree with Georg Feuerstein who stresses the need for tantric aspirants to find the guidance of realized masters. I could not list the number of people I have seen over the years in my teaching and healing work – beginner and advanced practitioners, even teachers - who feel they have found their path through Tantra, yet are more lost than ever. Without a guru while on the tantric path, one runs the risk of losing the plot altogether and sinking into the mire of seductive wanting.

 

I have met many people in the yogic world who expulse wise teachings, but vibrate with constrictive and involutionary energies. Void of humility, openness, honesty and pure spiritual shakti, people can easily become trapped in the tantric path.

 

The ego is a tricky and hungry thing that has power only when we feed it. But sometimes – even often - we are unaware we are doing so. Just as a chameleon can change colour to blend with its surrounding, so too our ego can shift and fool us to suit our desires. We may think we are evolving when in fact we are unconsciously justifying our self-serving ego.

 

The ego can even quietly adjust to fool us, so that we think we are growing when we are actually becoming more attached. It can even feign enlightenment. A spiritual aspirant must be careful of this. Only when we have surrendered to the guidance of a fully realized master can we overcome this.

 

(Continues tomorrow with Being Relaxed And Alert)

 

Ask Parvati 20 - Tantra: Yoga Is Everywhere - Part 4, Yoga Is Everywhere

YOGA IS EVERYWHERE

(Continued from Yoga In the Nightclub)

 

My song Yoga In the Nightclub is a spiritually artistic expression that celebrates the notion that God-realization, yoga, the divine can be found, practiced, lived, celebrated and embodied everywhere. Perhaps even in today’s day, when we are called as spiritual aspirants to engage the world and be lights in the dark, we must find yoga everywhere, even in the nightclub.

 

We like to think one thing is spiritual and another is not. Our minds tend to judge, categorize and divide. In so doing, we may miss seeing the fullness and the beauty of life. When we walk into a yoga studio, we hope to find peacefulness and spirituality. We may find that. We may also find lots of egos stuck to their mats. When we do our own practice, we hope to let go of our ego, but we may end up having a tête-à-tête with our shadow self.

 

When we walk out onto a noisy street, we may only see speeding cars and hear loud noises. But what about the small voice within? What about the stillness we found in our meditation practice? Where have these gone? Are we still anchored, even in stormy seas? Have we have lost the eternal quiet that exists perennially beneath the noise?

 

We may go to a spiritual center or ashram and indeed, feel blessed by the spiritual energy there. But if all we see as holy is the ashram and then the world as mundane, we miss an opportunity to find the divine everywhere, in everything, even in things we find harder to like. Perhaps the world is our ashram and our body is our temple. That way, our yoga practice is everywhere.

 

When I first started to work with my music manager, he had spent his career navigating the murkiness of the music industry. The consciousness found in my music and my dedication to my yoga practice was for him a breath of fresh air. As we walked the yoga tradeshow floor together, he felt he was in bliss-land. But soon, behind the shiny, clean surface, he started to see similar patterns in people as those he had experienced in the music industry.

 

People are people and our tendencies are with us wherever we may be. Sometimes the darkest energies hide closest to the light. Ego and greed are everywhere. Though it is essential while on the spiritual path to take refuge, as the Buddhists say, in the three jewels: the Buddha (the guru or the awakened one), the Dharma (the enlightened teachings), and the Sangha (the community that has attained enlightenment), we must also engage the world. Wherever we are, whatever we may be doing, we learn, as true yogis, to be Yoga.

 

Practice seeing yoga everywhere and the whole world becomes your yoga mat. Practice seeing yoga even in the nightclub and that which you may once thought to be dark, becomes a creative seedbed for the birth of new light. Out of the darkness of the womb, new life is born.

 

(Continues tomorrow with Nada Yoga: The Yoga of Sound)

Ask Parvati 20 - Tantra: Yoga Is Everywhere - Part 3, Yoga In The Nightclub

 

YOGA IN THE NIGHTCLUB

(Continued from Yoga Flowers)

 

It was because I had no good answer to give my now life partner when he asked me why I was keeping my music and my yoga practice separate, that I entered a new phase in my exploration of yoga and all its many faces.

 

Creating my song Yoga In the Nightclub was a yogic experience for me. A spontaneous, expansive and rooted arising from my soul, through my body, that activated my voice, it expresses for me the very meaning of my life: the celebration of merging with the divine while in human form. The process of creating is a yogic act, through which a yogic state can be reflected.

 

Yoga In the Nightclub is not meant to be a yogic practice. It is a way for me as an artist and yogini to perhaps touch and inspire people and plant seeds of possibility. My prayer is that the inspired source that created my songs may resonate in listeners so that they too may be motivated by the expansive expression to lead their most honest and divine lives. The presence of expansion and spiritual transformation exist within the very fabric of sound.

 

I have often been asked in interviews, what inspired me to bring yogic expression into the club scene. I answer easily. Yoga is not a physical practice but a way of life. It is about learning to be present in all one does, to see the divine here, now, in this moment. It is about feeling connected to something much greater than our limited ego or will. It is about being in service to life, feeling interconnected to that very life force.

 

It seems to me that the world could always use more inspired, loving food for the body, mind and spirit. People are in need of and can benefit from the lush wealth found in the yogic tradition. We are active beings, living in a vast, polluted and busy world. We need to learn yoga off the mat and live as integrated, spiritually awake beings in the world.

 

Dance clubs may be thought by some to be seedy, certainly not pure places where one would think to experience yoga, that is, a oneness with the divine. But for me, and for those I know, they are places where I celebrate the joy of being alive. Friends gather and together we have fun, move, connect to life-force energy, connect with each other and share through sound and movement.

 

When you move through your day today, ask yourself, in which way are you practicing yoga, right now? Do you feel connected to something greater than your limited ego or will? Are you aware of how your individual self fits into the whole? Do you feel rooted and connected to the Earth and open to the vast sky? How does expansive expression arise through you? Do you speak reactively, to defend your sense of divided self? Do you express yourself from wholeness, from spaciousness, from joy and delight? Does your soul guide your actions and move you to express? What drives your life?

 

(Continues tomorrow with Yoga Is Everywhere)

 

Ask Parvati 20 - Tantra: Yoga is Everywhere - Part 1, Freedom in Freedom

TANTRA: YOGA IS EVERYWHERE

Dear Parvati,
I started studying yoga ten years ago. I have traveled to India, taken teacher training programs, and adhered strongly to an orthodox yoga style. Now I find my practice shifting. Rather than doing rigorous asana (yoga exercises), I want to explore a more playful sense of moment-to-moment mindfulness. As I follow this, I find my asana practice moving away from the pattern I have followed for so long.
I really like your song Yoga In The Nightclub and it got me thinking about this juncture I am at. When is yoga actually yoga? Just because you call something yoga doesn't make it yoga, does it? If, as you say, yoga is everywhere, even in a nightclub, why wouldn't my current practice still be yoga?

FREEDOM IN FREEDOM

Anything in our lives can become binding. We can feel joyfully free while jogging, later to find that running feels like a constrictive chore. We can find freedom in the new yoga classes we just adore, to later find that we are bored with the teacher and the routines. We can experience heights of bliss never before experienced when we first take up meditating, until we hit bumpy bits in our psyche when sitting practice starts to feel more like listening to nails on a chalkboard than to sweet, angelic music.

For years, I was religious about my yoga asana practice. I woke up and first thing, practiced every day without fail. I had to. Somehow I felt wonky if I did not. My day would unfold more smoothly when I did and I loved that feeling. Yoga and meditation provided (and still provide) an unequaled opportunity for centering, inner spaciousness and evolutionary support. But anything we do can turn from expansive to constrictive. Soon I began to feel confined by my yoga and meditation practice.

In my highly disciplined Hatha yoga practice, I hit a wall. I began to feel stiff rather than relaxed. I began to feel agitated, rather than expansive. I was no longer getting my fix from what I called my meditation medication. So I went deeper.

The practice started to reveal to me ways in which I was hard on myself. In some unconscious way, I felt that if I did not do the practice, I was a bad person. The drive that had led me to doing very well at school and university, that also drove me to wanting people’s approval, had now shown up as a sour motivator in my spiritual pursuits.

I turned more inward and listened to the impulses that made me feel expansive. I listened to joy and how it moved through my being. How did joy express itself through my being? I knew enough to know that living by “shoulds” would only lead to unhappiness. I knew that trusting that still small voice within would lead to greater and greater joy. It, after all, had led me to meditating and doing Hatha yoga in the first place. Where did that voice want to lead me? What did it want? How could I get out of the way and serve it?

(Continues tomorrow with Yoga Flowers)

Ask Parvati 19: What Is Home? Part 2, Home in Meditation and Music

WHAT IS HOME? PART 2: HOME IN MEDITATION AND MUSIC
(Continued from What Is Home? Part 1: The Home Body)

I feel a surrendered sense of home when I meditate. Quiet, perfect, here, now. Sitting practice has been a huge part of my life, feeding me in ways that are truly hard to describe. Everyday I wake up and open to what is. I practice being. In this, I meet the fullness of the moment that a habituated, busy mind would completely eclipse.

The more I practice, the more alive and the less constricted I feel. It is not a linear thing, but evolves, mysteriously unfolding beyond understanding. Through meditation, the relationship I develop with the now feels like a homecoming. Through the dissolve of divisiveness, I return to the one flow of pure consciousness, eventually able to rest in the One. This practice of non-resistance is home to me and also brings me home to the One.

I also feel a surrendered sense of home when I create music. Similar to meditation, the process of creating feels like it moves through me, not something I am doing. When I meditate, as soon as I notice “wow, I am meditating”, the feeling of expansion collapses. Suddenly there is an “I” that is back in the picture and duality returns.

Similarly, when “I” try to create, the juices don’t flow as effortlessly. But when I align myself to watch the flow, to be in service to it, something vast moves, dances and expresses through this body/being. It is pure vitality and joy. It feels like life itself. It is living. It is home. It is.

I have similar feelings when I perform. Though there is always a threshold I need to move through before I get on stage, when performing, life is. The threshold I move though is a form of ego surrender. It is like jumping off a cliff, to find you have wings. In the surrender, there is the death of a divisive self that thinks it is in control, giving birth to a timeless being. In this way, performing is a meditation.

As I meditate, I either witness inner resistance or expand into the bliss of letting go. When I step out on stage, I face that same letting go. In that letting go, I find home. As I perform, there is a sense of something moving through me that is so much greater, broader than a limited sense of “me”. It is like my body is dancing. My voice is singing. My soul is expressing. I am joy. I just am. My mind open, quiet, focused, present. Performing is very much home for me.

The character I play in my show is called Natamba. Clad in gold, like the light of pure consciousness, Natamba brings the timeless message: “Be Here. I Am. Now.” As I step into the costume, I feel a transformation take place. Something expands. Something downloads. Something aligns. The character Natamba represents home to me, the feeling of expressing a more expanded self. That is part of my joy of art and theatre. On stage, I can express timeless truths. Those truths are home to me.

I believe we each find home in things that give us meaning, that make us feel connected to something much greater than our selves. We find home when we love, when we share. Home lives in a transcendent place, beyond “me”. True home lives in “I am”. When we touch the infinite, we have touched home.

(Continues tomorrow with What Is Home? Part 3: Inner and Outer Home)

Healthy Planet, Healthy People

I am about to embark on a journey to the North Pole. For those of you who know me as a singer/producer, I will do a performance-art piece on the icy shores of the Arctic Ocean just 200km south of the 90 degrees North Pole, to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice caps and the global impact on our delicate ecosystem. For those of you who know me as a healer, I will also facilitate energy work directly on our Mother Earth, very much in stress at this time.

Through my blogs, we have been exploring the power of relationships as vehicles for spiritual evolution. We have touched upon the notion of how all we see is a reflection our own state of consciousness. There are no coincidences, but absolute perfection arising from one moment to the next. Our external world provides all we need to wake up, to love ourselves, to love others and to be fully receptive to this moment and the richness is has to offer, in whatever form it comes. Right here, right now, we have all we need to drop the sorry story and awaken I AM.

The relationships we have explored have been with ourselves and with people. All the same principles apply to the relationship we have with the Earth, our mother, our physical home and sustainer while we are in human form. The bodies we temporarily borrow and the material land, air, water, fire and ether we need to live are all part of Her. She is all matter, our mother. We are connected to her in a very practical, life-sustaining way and in a deeply mystical, spiritual way.

LIFE FORCE ENERGY

I feel the global ecological crisis is a wake up call for us all, a call to awaken I AM, the magnificence of who we are. The planet reflects how we collectively treat ourselves, each other and our environment. A collective is only as strong as its individuals. If we want to change our environment, we need to transform ourselves.

What happens most of the time when you yell at someone? If you could see it in slow motion, you would see that person shrivel and close. If you could see energy, you would see that person’s energy shrink and their light fade.

What would happen if we were to yell at a flower? Would it too not shrink, shrivel and fade? Scientific studies have shown that plants respond to sound, much the way humans do. Play repeated, loud, harmful sounds with harsh vibrations to a plant and it literally dies. Play it pleasant, soothing, inspiring sounds and it thrives.

Thoughts are also vibrations. When we think angry thoughts, we emit that vibration. We all know the expression “my ears are burning”: the implied consequences of gossip and the heat of ego being expressed about another.

To me, metaphorically, the planet is like a huge, expanding and evolving flower. It is a complex living organism with intelligence, sense and wisdom beyond what we can truly know and understand. It continually responds to the energy we put out and we respond to it. As such our environment is a huge mirror to our collective state of global consciousness.

Throughout the world at this time, many people are consciously or unconsciously driven by fear and greed, living with short-term desires to get rather than give and serve. Most of us are taught to look out for “me”, rather than think about and care for “we”. In my song 911-1-L-O-V-E, which I hope to perform at the North Pole, the character I play called Natamba, a first timer to the Earth, picks up the phone and calls God to share what she sees on the planet: “A lot of people seem to be suffering. The air is more polluted than ever. Clean drinking water is scarce. People are hungry, hungry for food, but also very much hungry for love. So hungry in fact that there seems to be an epidemic, a disease called greed eating people’s souls. It is like people have forgotten who they are and why they are here on the planet, driven by an energy of wanting, wanting, wanting, living with short-term vision, looking out only for number one. People’s inner world seems polluted so our outer world is polluted.”

Most of us do not know or care how our food gets to our table or how it was grown. Most of us don’t know the tailor or cobblers that made our clothes and shoes. We can buy mangos in January in Canada that have traveled thousands of miles at the cost of gallons of fossil fuels and emitting pounds of greenhouse gases. We in the West have the privilege of clean drinking water, shelter and food. We are so very, very blessed. Yet we have lost touch with the impact of our actions on our environment, how what we think, feel and do affects all beings, everywhere, including the planet herself. We have lost touch with the cycles of Nature. We feel we can control, outsmart, out-do Nature. And Nature cries louder than ever to be heard: I am here.

What about the current natural disasters? What about global food and shortages? What about the floods, droughts, hurricanes? Like a person fighting a raging fever, building internal heat to shake off an invasive bug, so too, to me, the planet is feverish, trying to shake off the weight we put on her: the physical toxins we emit in the air, water and food, and the etheric toxins we emit in selfish actions and distorted thoughts. We live disconnected, thinking somehow we will find the love we seek by wanting more. Yet we are already love. We are already loved. I hear our mother calling us to stop. Make amends. Practice humility. Listen to one another. Listen to the still, small voice within. Reconnect with the beauty we already are, but have forgotten. We are all her children. We come from her. We sustain her as she sustains us. We go back to her. She is the mother we all share.

We need Nature as much as Nature needs us. For me, this is a call to conscious action. The pain I see in Nature is not something I can passively watch, just like I would not walk away from a person in distress. Like a hit and run, we outpour toxins onto our mother, and keep on going, expecting no consequence for our actions.

The pain I see is a call to action. Our wealth is global health. The vitality in nature gives me the energy to help create a world where all people can experience immersion in that beauty, in that health - everywhere. That is why I created Yoga In the Nightclub – to touch, inspire, expand and evolve; to align myself with Nature. That is why I felt moved to start the Earth Team, a group of volunteers that meet weekly to support evolutionary work. That is what my Positive Possibilities projects are about. That which I see in trees and flowers is that which I tap into in my daily meditation practice. Nature embodies the love we seek. Being connected to such is that which fuels all my actions to support all beings being liberated. How could I turn away from others who are in pain, suffering? I am not free until all beings are free. That is what Nature reminds me. For this, I feel so blessed.

CONNECT TO SERVE

Within each breath is perfection, infinite, still space and pure action. Inhale, allowing the notion of beingness to settle into each cell. Breathing out, allow yourself to be, absence of wanting, in a state of receptivity to this moment and the immensity of it.

As we go deeper, touch the way you are connected to Nature and interconnected to all. In that stillness, what do you find? Do you feel deeper expansion, a settling in, a receptivity to going deeper still? Be with such. Expand. If you feel resistance, allow yourself to settle more and be present with what is. Understand the unwillingness as a habit of deep tension, the mind being like a fist caught in muscular grip. This will settle. Keep breathing and allow things to be.

Go deeper. Imagine how every cell of your body is born on the Earth. There is no separation. By finding the connection to Nature itself, how she not only runs through your veins, but is the very stuff of which our veins are made, do you feel a love, a connection and a call to action? As a child of the Earth, as a steward of the land, do you feel the call to give voice in communion with Nature to help protect the life that sustains all?

Maybe you feel you have gone deep enough. You feel the impulse to get up from your meditation cushion and walk out your door to open an organic cafe or turn your company policies to 100% green. Or maybe you decide to start tithing a portion of all you make to helping Nature, protect wildlife, plant trees, save our water systems. Whatever it is, it is there, a voice that is waiting to be heard by each one of us, and belonging to us all. That voice is Her call, reminding us all that we are not alone.

As I travel to the North Pole in the coming days, I will be updating this blog more regularly with thoughts, reflections and feelings. What an immense journey to the crown of our mother’s body! We are all journeying together.

May all be well. May all be happy. May all be at peace.

In service,

Parvati