Ask Parvati 34: The Journey to YEM - Part 5: My Practice Today

My Practice Today

(Continued from The Healing Begins)

Life Is Yoga

 

The question I was asked this week led me to sharing more about myself than I ever have in a blog. I am grateful for the opportunity to share about myself. So how has yoga affected my life? I feel yoga is my life, so I don’t know how to separate myself from Yoga to express how it affected my life.

 

Yoga is life. It is everything. It is the way the branches of each tree converge and make entirely unique patterns in each tree. It is within the mystery of life unfolding and it is the mystery itself. It is the gut “knowing” we all have from deep within and it is within the surrendered not knowing.

 

After two teacher training programs and much in depth study since those early years of practice and awakening, Yoga now forms the root of my being. It creates the foundation of the way I receive the moment, the way I process information, the way I experience life.

 

When I say "yoga", I don’t mean bendy, physical exercises. Those are only a small part of a broad life science. Ultimately, Yoga is about merging back with the one source of pure consciousness, dissolving our identification with our ego, with feeling separate. Yoga is built upon the practice of humility, letting go and surrender. When we allow ourselves to release, we return to flow with a force much greater than our individual will. We begin to live in rhythm with the infinite, as a witness to the finite, rather than bound by the finite, wondering if the infinite exists.

 

My Practice Today

 

In my current practice, Yoga is about witnessing and cultivating a balanced state of being in each moment, softening to a rooted and surrendered state that is part of a much bigger flow. In that state, the notion of separation begins to release and I find a unity with a immensity beyond the sense of "me".

 

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika speaks of the need for yogis to cultivate "sukha and stira", a balanced state of being neither too relaxed nor too alert. I tuck that away in the back of my mind and let it be the backdrop of my day, a sort of canvas upon which the events of the day can be painted. I refer to this throughout the day, and inquire into how I am interacting with my environment, with others and with myself. I find this very useful to keep the notion of Yoga alive in each moment throughout the day. Ultimately, what else is there? Are we not all ultimately merging back to the one, each one of us more receptive to such in our own way?

 

When we take the notion of "sukha and stira" and apply it to our way of thinking (not just to the way we move or breathe as we would in a Hatha Yoga practice), we learn to be alert and receptive in each moment, finding a balance between being relaxed and focus, neither stressed nor spaced out. I find that very useful in the pace of today's world. Our mind broadens and becomes more perceptive and able to receive information and possibilities.

 

Each moment is full of information, which we can receive by softening or reject by reacting to it and shutting down. My breath is my best friend. By being aware of how I am breathing, I can see immediately how I am thinking. Throughout the day, I ask myself: "Am I holding my breath? Is my breath flowing? Do I feel the interconnection through the breath between the world beyond my skin and the world behind my skin?" Yoga is the way in which I choose to practice walking on the Earth, neither stepping sheepishly nor too aggressively. Yoga is the way I choose to practice balance in relationship, open to a co-creative, fluid, win-win experience that resonates inwardly and feels harmonious outwardly.

 

To me, the way in is sitting meditation. It is like priming the pump of consciousness so that it flows in abundance throughout the day. Though I still do physical practice, the majority of my practice revolves around sitting and walking meditation.

 

YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine

 

The years of exploring the meaning of Yoga and how to integrate it into my life led to a deeper listening to an arising from within. That arising guided my physical yoga practice and brought grounded meaning to my day. I don't feel I "created" YEM. It blossomed through my life experience.

 

YEM aims to both infuse the body/being with consciousness and awaken the inner intelligence already present within the body/being. It awakens vital energy through mindful breathing, meditations, vital energy work and subtle attention to yoga postures. It guides the practitioner more deeply into the body, into the present. This is done through exercises that clear the body’s energy channels (nadis), in order to master vital energy (prana and shakti), and tap into unlimited power and ease (samadhi).

 

When beginning with YEM, there are two suggested points of focus: the flow of breath and the sensations that run through the body. The aim of all forms of yoga is to experience the oneness of body, mind and spirit. The breath acts as an interface between that which we perceive as outside our self and that which we experience within. The breath moves continuously within and without. Focusing our awareness on the breath assists the dissolve of the sense of division between what we see as outside our self (other) and that which we feel is within (mine).

 

The objective of breath awareness is to eventually experience a greater sense of personal wholeness and oneness with all things. It assist us in becoming simultaneously more globally aware and personally centered. Awareness on the inhalation draws our awareness inward, into our body/being. Awareness of the sensations within our body allows us to feel more at home in our body and anchor the experience of our breath in a tangible way. Focus on the exhalation allows for expansion and release.

 

There is tremendous spaciousness and ease inherent in the aerial quality of the breath. That spaciousness is brought into the body/being on the inhalation and is allowed to permeate through the body/being on the exhalation.

 

Breath and sensation are continuously interrelating. An embodied, yogic state is an expression of the dance between spirit and matter. The Sanskrit word Tantra, a branch of yoga, means "to weave" or "to expand". In this way, yoga is about weaving a dance between spirit (breath) and matter (body) while liberating dormant potential energies and infusing the body/being with consciousness. Focus on the interplay between breath and sensation becomes a meditation on the relationship between spirit and matter and allows for greater synergy between these two.

 

YEM is distinguished by integrating specific key points of awareness, such as:

 

1) Downward moving energy: Gravity anchors the body/being to the center of the Earth.

2) Upward moving energy: Inspiration connects us infinitely towards the cosmos.

3) The spine: The body’s central channel of universal energy.

4) Two-way-moving energy: In all poses there is at least two-way energy at all times.

5) Pelvic tilt: This is an expression of belly breathing. Our center of gravity is just below the navel. A tailbone tilt on the exhale releases energy downward so that subsequent upward moving energy can arise through the body and float into the crown.

6) Breath awareness: The breath is an interface between body, mind, spirit and soul. Focusing on this clears the subtle channels of the body and allows for integration of body, mind, spirit and soul.

7) Emotional awareness: Emotions bridge the physical and intellectual bodies. By practicing mindfulness, one comes more fully into the present, where healing and transformation occur.

8) Circuit breakers: The first cervical vertebrae (C1) at the very top of the neck, and the tailbone (the coccyx) at the base of the spine, when properly aligned, allow for upward and downward moving energy.

9) Body intelligence: Inherent intelligence exists within the body to be simultaneously released and cultivated. Through breath awareness we infuse the body/being with consciousness and awaken inner intelligence.

10) Global balance: Develop a balanced state of being that is both relaxed pleasure-delight (sukha) and firm alertness (stira).

11) Spaciousness: Allow room for the breath to permeate your body/being by doing 80% your maximum. Create spaciousness and ease rather than tension and compression.

12) Co-creation: When in a integrated state of being, a flowing pulse moves through the spine and radiates throughout the body. It is available in every posture. It is an expression of the co-creative interplay between downward and upward moving energy, rooting us in the personal and opening us to the global.

 

Tomorrow I will post the answer to a new question, continuing to post thoughts on that topic through the week. You can submit your question for the following week by emailing ask@parvatidevi.com.

 

En-joy,

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 20 - Tantra: Yoga Is Everywhere, Part 7 - Being Relaxed And Alert

BEING RELAXED AND ALERT

(Continued from Tantra)

 

There are many faces of Yoga. Ultimately, yoga (that is, the face of the divine) is everywhere. If you feel stuck on your yogic path and you feel you need to expand and try something new, ask yourself a few important questions before any big changes:

 

- What motivates my desire for change?

- Is the desire to move coming from a place of agitation and constriction or from a place of expansion and ease?

- Is this period of transition a reflection of me having met aspects of myself I find challenging and am trying to avoid by changing my practice?

- Is this the voice of my soul guiding me to expand into new areas of possibility?

 

As a rule of thumb, when I first started my sitting meditation practice, I would allow for the voice that said “enough, time to go” to come knocking three times before I got up from my cushion. Our minds are hungry. We tend to be agitated. Our egos want. We are habituated to feeding these tendencies. Spiritual practice is about overcoming and retraining these tendencies so that we may experience eternal bliss. We must therefore train our mind into moving through and beyond these hungers so that we may be truly fulfilled.

 

I believe deeply in the notion that digging many holes leads to just a lot of incomplete holes. But by digging one hole deeply, you will strike gold. It is important to stick with a practice, but one must do so with a sense of serious delight, focused playfulness and surrendered joy.

 

If you feel you are not moving away from your practice from a place of avoidance, always trust your gut when you feel drawn to try something new. Another rule of thumb is that that which feels rooted, vital and expansive supports your highest good and, as such, the highest good of all. That which feels constrictive and ungrounded is not in your highest good and is best released.

 

I do believe we are on the planet to have fun, to experience the bliss of the divine. We learn in both Hatha yoga and meditation practice to balance that which is alert and that which is relaxed. Discipline, when overly rigid, limits. But too much free flow is unguided and has no clear avenue for expression.

 

If you have developed a practice that is disciplined, keep that fire alive. It will serve you well. If you need more flow, do so in ways that bring delight into your life. See if you can shift your practice into a sense of freshness. What has been habitual may be experienced as new, with a beginner’s mind.

 

Ease up where you have been tight or pushy. Apply more attention where you may have been missing aspects of the practice. But above all, remember that yoga is not limited to your mat. Yoga is in how you perceive your mat as well as how you stand on it. Yoga is everywhere.

 

May we become fully awake so as to experience yoga everywhere, always.

May we all realize oneness soon.

Jai Ma,

Parvati

 

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 5, Nada Yoga: The Yoga of Sound

NADA YOGA: THE YOGA OF SOUND

(Continued from Yoga Is Everywhere)

 

The ability to open to finding yoga (the divine) everywhere, even in a nightclub, came from my willingness to trust my still small voice and open to possibilities beyond the boundaries of my yoga mat. One of the greatest gems I found in the period of transition and exploration out of my rigid Hatha yoga practice, was discovering Nada Yoga, the yoga of sound.

 

The notion of art as a means to express our relationship with the divine is as ancient as the first people that walked this planet. From cave paintings to Bach, man has always felt moved to express love for the divine through art.

 

In East Indian yogic traditions, there is a yogic path recognized as a means to attain God-realization through music. It is called Nadopasana, singing, playing and composing music as an expression of the divine. Music is not seen as a form of entertainment, but as a means to attain moksha (liberation).

 

In this tradition, God is known as Nada Brahman, the embodiment of sound. Form, that which we experience as material, was created by sound. The ancient Rishis knew this. The Christian Bible says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…" The ancient Hindu texts that predate the Bible known as The Vedas also say something very similar: “In the beginning there was Brahman (God) with whom was the Word, and the Word is Brahman.”

 

The practice of Nada Vidya, music as spiritual practice, is considered a powerful form of yoga in which an aspirant may quickly realize underlying spiritual truths. There are said to be two kinds of sound: the sound that exists in the music of the spheres and the sound that we create through our effort.

 

When a yogi sees music as a meditation, he begins to express a oneness relationship with the sound of the spheres, rather than expressing the noise of his chattering thoughts. To find and express from heartfelt stillness becomes a point of engaged, meditative focus for the Nada yogi. A quote from the Vedas, attributed to having been said by Lord Narayana Himself, expresses this succinctly: “I dwell not in Vaikuntha nor in the hearts of yogins, nor in the sun but where my devotees sing, there I will be.”

 

A Nada yogi understands that the purity of the soul desires to express, speak or sing. This stirs the mind. The mind activates the body. The body creates sound. The aim of Nada Yoga is to realize the essence that shines behind sound. Music is seen as a spiritual practice, which inspires us to experience the light of pure consciousness.

 

(Continues tomorrow with Tantra)

 

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)