The Hub of Concentration
Sleeping in meditation is a powerful sign of lethargy and fatigue. It signals that we need to watch the way we are handling our energy levels. Tamasic impulses need to be managed over the long run, and when fatigue or lethargy alerts us to an imbalance, it’s important to give it our attention. In the end, sometimes the best way to manage sleepiness is simply to sleep. A 10-minute nap after lunch, or an occasional early bedtime, may be just what your meditation needs. It can soothe the otherwise irresistible pressure to nod off. Read more
Pre-Meditation Tips
The power of sleep, unfortunately, is real, and easily magnified. The commitment to step back from the brink of slumber requires the ability to recognize and manage factors that foster sleepiness. For example, if you have just eaten before sitting down to meditate you can count on at least 45 minutes of lethargy. That doesn’t mean that you can’t meditate during that time, but you won’t be anywhere near your sharpest while your energy is being funneled into digestion rather than concentration. This explains why meditation manuals advise waiting two to four hours after a full meal before meditating. Read more
Developing a Meditative Perspective
Meditation allows us to explore the encounter with sleep in detail. In meditation we observe the subtle shifting of consciousness. More important, according to the sage Patanjali, we gain a measure of control over it. The aspiration of every meditator is to gain mastery over the fluctuations of the mind. This is accomplished through relaxed concentration – the conscious settling of the mind in a resting place – and by gaining inner distance and detachment from the passing activities and objects of experience. Read more
Hatha Yoga: The Main Traditions
Hatha yoga means literally the “forceful yoga.” As its name implies, this approach to yoga emphasizes the vitality and life force of the physical body. Hatha yoga is undoubtedly the most well known, popular, and frequently practiced style of yoga in the West. It places great emphasis on purifying the body through a variety of means that include physical exercise, cleansing rites, and specific breathing techniques. These practices not only strengthen the body through the force of exercise, they can also help you to expand your own personal force, or store of energy, through their vitalizing effects. Read more
Offshoots of the Majör Branches of Yoga
While most authorities on yoga generally agree that bhakti, jnana, karma, and raja are the four major branches of yoga, there are several yoga practices, or traditional approaches to yoga, that have gained prominence, and which might be considered offshoots of the major branches of yoga. You may, or may have already, come across the names of some of these offshoots. Being familiar with the following popular terms will help round out your understanding of yoga. Read more
The Eight Limbs of Yoga
Raja yoga is frequently described as the scientific path to yoga. This is because it lays out in a very clear, simple, and systematic way a series of steps that a practitioner of yoga can follow to achieve enlightenment. These steps, which are detailed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, form a sort of ladder, each practice building sequentially on the practice that precedes it. The eight limbs, or rungs, of raja yoga, presented from the first to the eighth are as follows: Read more
The Branches of Yoga
While yoga is a diverse system of practice comprised of many approaches to self-realization, many authorities on yoga concur that there are four major branches of yoga that over time have served as a point of origin for developing a practice of yoga. In addition to these four branches, there are several other systems of yoga that have gained widespread interest and attention in building a yoga practice. These might be considered offshoots, or mini-branches, of the main four branches of yoga. The following descriptions will help you understand the four main branches of yoga, with some of their most important offshoots. Read more
The Tree of Yoga
Yoga is frequently likened to a tree. Akin to a tree, it is a living, vibrant system, comprised of many branches and limbs. Akin to a tree, it sprouts new growths as it develops and evolves over time. Each of these branches and limbs has its individual name, as well as its own subsystems with their unique names. It is for this reason that yoga can sometimes seem confusing. Anyone interested in yoga soon comes to realize the myriad diversity of these systems of yoga – hatha yoga, power yoga, kundalini yoga, tantric yoga, and Iyengar yoga are just a few of the more frequently encountered terms. Read more
A Younger You = DNA + the Power of the Brain
Understanding DNA has been an important scientific breakthrough because it is the map to the mind and body. This code identifies and predicts which familial traits and illnesses have been handed down to you. The pauses can be partially determined by our heredity. Our ancestors may have suffered from the illnesses we currently have and passed down their genetic code to us. Our DNA controls how we will emotionally and physically deal with these illnesses. But DNA offers limited information. Genetic testing is mostly valuable for the young, not for the old. By the time we are old, we have already developed into our medical destiny. Read more
The Pauses and Aging
Our body parts will not pause at the same time. For example, a cardiologist treats a patient with coronary artery disease because her heart has become older than the rest of her organs. When a doctor works on a hip or diagnoses osteoporosis these bones have become old. For a patient with these problems, his heart can be 50 years old, his bones 60 years old, yet his chronological, or real, age and the rest of the body is only 40 years old. Read more