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blog on inspirational yoga

Entries in living yoga (13)

Wednesday
Jun182014

You transfix me: You are my chakras

 

you are balanced. i live with you.

You are a work of art. It’s not easy but you do it. You live true to who you are and know it. When you are open, chakras, in my yoga practice, I don’t question it. 

dear chakras, you help me walk with strength, enchanted. i’m open to each of you as you arrive, speak and feel. i know who you are…

 

-->> chakra article moved to here.

Sunday
Nov042012

Are you more right-brained or left-brained while you practice yoga?

Right-brain? Left-brain?

Do you associate more with the right side of your brain while you practice yoga or the left side of your brain?

The two hemispheres of the brain have fascinating connections (Photo credits: Simeon Schatz)

Creative vs. logical

The right-brain/left-brain theory grew out of the work of Roger W. Sperry in the late 1960s, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981. The cerebral cortex controls rational functions and is made up of two halves, connected by masses of nerve fibers which pass messages between each other. These halves, or hemispheres, are commonly referred to as right-brain and left-brain.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Oct202011

Perception of time

Being on time?

Is a true spiritual practice about respecting time—living by it and being on time for it? Or does the mere concept of time mess with creative flow in life?  

Being late for everything in life

...is most likely to live in a timeless place in your mind. To come down from that—to live with a real clock—is a downer. In this way, the clock can be a method of control, and becomes one to fight against in order to be free...

image by simeon schatz

Let's look at two different spiritual ideas to compare: mindfulness from Buddhism and illuminated thoughts from Tantric tradition. 

Mindfulness seeks to empty the mind of thoughts, letting the thoughts go so that you are left with peace. 

Tantra invites the thoughts to become illuminated, positive or negative, so that you have a beacon in which to focus for your true path.

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Sunday
Oct092011

The secret of breath

Stop what you are doing now

 

Stop what you are doing now, no matter what it is, and for 15 minutes do nothing but close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try to breathe using ujjayi breath used in Ashtanga yoga or Pranayama meditation.

Make sure that you don't cheat yourself on your inhale or your exhale. Make them equal in length. Try 5 second inhales and 5 second exhales all through your nose, breathing through the back of your throat.

This breath is like an ocean with waves ebbing and flowing slowly. With your eyes closed you can even imagine waves moving to the rhythm of your breath as you look with the eyes of your soul.

While working a busy day, living a stressful moment at home, or feeling anxiously happy, this will be like transporting yourself to the beach...

You will be releasing toxins from the body and mind with this practice.

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Monday
Oct042010

Find the right work-life balance: The key to happiness, health, well-being

 

Do you balance your life?

Are you a workaholic? Do you work extra hours because you really need the money, or do you believe your job really needs you, and that it's ok to take care of your job more than yourself? Or do you, for one reason or another, find yourself addicted to your computer whether it's work or personal?

Staying busy all the time does not help you

You do know that if you are working too much, you are acting like you are not very important.

Maybe, without knowing it, you are covering up something basic in your existence and doing it through your work. Staying busy all the time with a task that does not cultivate your soul can be like a drug that you continually allow to drive you. But you can beat it if you recognize who you truly are.

Nurture yourself

If you need rationale outside of yourself in order to ease up on workaholism, remember that no one really gets the best of you if you don't nurture yourself first.

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Tuesday
Jun292010

Receive your gift in silence

what is your intention?

We go to yoga class. We start the class by making an intention. Then what?

Do we hold true to its energy every second of the class? No. We tuck it away in our heart and let it speak its own words to our soul.

be patient for the prana to do its work

For, the energy of a wish comes from within us and can hardly hide its wings when we are allowing the prana to circulate as we move our bodies in twists and waves.

What we feel comes from within. Before the words even articulate themselves to our being, we know what it is we are trying to say.

sometimes no words

Sometimes we are silenced. Sometimes this is a blessing. In this inability to find words, our soul is telling us to go deeper. Look into the still pond of your being. Do not always rely on words. Look to the swirling space that doesn't want to hear your words and give it your thanks.

There is more to living.

Namaste.

 

© 2010 Yoga Robin®

Wednesday
Jun092010

Discipline: A spiritual practice

disciplined mind

I just returned from a Bikram yoga class. What sticks with me is not the power of enduring the heat, but the power of discipline to control the mind.

Bikram yoga, unlike the Vinyasa Flow yoga which I have 13 more years of experience with, has many rules that are not necessarily inherent in many people. In my life and in my yoga practice I am used to living organically, letting my life take me in a flow. When I am practicing yoga alone, I have no plans in advance for my practice. I let my yoga practice take me.

Sure, there is discipline required with many styles of yoga, such as Ashtanga. But the movement inherent in this active style, where you generate your own heat, and move your own prana makes for a more organic practice inately.

Back to Bikram. What I feel in these classes is the necessity for discipline, as I'm led along a distinct path and how the discipline itself becomes the spiritual practice.

 

stay present

It is important to notice where the mind goes in any yoga practice, but in Bikram it is more about needing to stay with the group, listen to the teacher on cue, not close your eyes, drink water only when told, rest in savasana over and over, to name a few

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Tuesday
May182010

An inquiry into my true nature: Self exploration

life force fuels

On my jaunt through life I have contemplated the truth of my nature. I have always felt most comfortable knowing that there is an ultimate source permeating us all, and at times I have felt a unity with this source. At other times I have felt completely alone. It was my yoga—vinyasa flow, ashtanga & meditation, in particular—that saved me from this quandary and answered many questions for me.

My search, through poetic expression, led me to this present moment as I move into my desires to use their creativity and life force to fuel me.

Taken as an excerpt from my poem yoga, what you do for me, I speak to you, yoga, inside me as you are me: You help me find my pure state of mind, you help me change energy into fuel, you help me find the deepest parts of myself without fear, you help me believe in magic and you taught me how I can do whatever I put my mind to.

In studying the histories of Sankhya-Yoga, Advaita Vedanta and Participatory Spirituality I have found inspirations from each to aid me on my path.

sankhya-yoga

Although Sankhya and Yoga are different systems, they work together and support each other so have been combined together as one unique system called Sankhya-Yoga.

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