What Does Yoga Have To Do With The Moon?

What is the relationship between yoga and the moon? You may have heard that you are not supposed to do yoga when the moon is full. Or that the yogis fast from eating on a new moon.

And why do they do 108 postures with the solstice? Here, your questions are answered; what does yoga have to do with the moon, anyway?

Ha-Tha

“Hatha yoga” is what is generally meant when people refer to yoga in the form of exercise. The word ‘hatha’ means willful, or forceful. Translated from Sanskrit, ha means “sun” and tha means “moon.”

This refers to the balance of the masculine and feminine aspects within each of us. The masculine part of us is the sun—hot and active. The feminine is the moon—cool and receptive. Hatha yoga asanas (traditional yoga exercise) is meant to create balance within the body, and unite the opposites. With the practice of yoga, we develop a balance of strength and flexibility, effort and surrender with each posture.

Hatha yoga is a powerful practice. It is a tool for self-transformation and calming the mind. Within the practice of hatha yoga, we help to still the fluctuations of the mind in order to be more in tune with the present moment.

108

You’ve probably heard of people doing 108 sun salutations around the time of the new year. But what is the meaning of this? Why 108?

The number 108 has much significance in yoga, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Vedic astrologers determined that the average distance between the sun, moon, and Earth is 108 times their respective diameters. It is therefore viewed as a number of wholeness and existence. The traditional mala has 108 beads, plus one guru bead around which the other 108 beads turn like the planets around the sun.

The numbers 1, 0, and 8 represent one thing, nothing, and everything (infinity), representing the belief of the ultimate reality of the universe as being simultaneously one, empty, and infinite.

In tradition of this sacred number, 108 sun salutations in yoga practice is used to honor the change of season, especially during the spring and fall equinox. On the equinox, night and day are nearly the exact same length all over the world. Equinox means “equal night” in Latin. Yogis celebrate this change of the seasons as a new beginning, practicing 108 sun salutations to honor this sacred universal change.

Ekadasi

Ekadasi, meaning “eleven,” is the eleventh day after the full moon (shukla or bright) and new moon (krisha or dark) of every lunar month in the Hindu calendar. It is considered to be a special day with spiritual significance. According to the Vedic scriptures, one who observes fasting on Ekadasi is freed from all kinds of reactions to sinful activities, and is able to advance in spiritual life.

The point is to put all of the focus you would normally put into preparing and enjoying food into concentration on your faith and love for the Divine. In this way, you become closer to liberation.

Fasting is recommended in western medicine and Ayurveda for maintaining and improving health. A water or juice detox cleanses the body of impurities, stimulates the digestive system to rid itself of stagnant waste, and allows better mental focus because the neurologic system is not stimulated by ingested food and substances. In this way, the physical purification associated with fasting is tied to the auspiciousness of this day.

The Full And New Moon

The sun and moon exert a gravitational pull on the Earth. Their relative positions create different energetic experiences that can be compared to the breath cycle.

The full moon energy corresponds to the end of inhalation when the force of prana is greatest. Take a deep breath in, hold it, and feel the prana (energy) in your body. This is an expansive, upward moving force that makes us feel energetic and emotional, but not well grounded. During the full moon we tend to be more headstrong.

The new moon energy corresponds to the end of exhalation when the force of apana is greatest. Take a moment to exhale completely, feeling your energy drain with the breath. Apana is a contracting, downward moving force that makes us feel calm and grounded, but dense and disinclined towards physical exertion.

Yoga and the Moon Cycles

The Ashtanga yoga tradition recommends honoring this natural moon cycle by abstaining from practice on the days of the full and new moon.

As we become in tune with our natural cycles in the universe, we honor the rhythms of nature to live in greater harmony with it.~April Saunders

When the moon waxes or wanes, the mind is influenced. We may not be able to see this influence in the Earth because it is solid, but it can be seen in the ocean which is liquid.

The moon influences the whole earth, but its influence is visible by observing the tides of the ocean. The sun influences the moon, and the moon influences the Earth. When the influence occurs automatically, we are instruments in the hands of Mother Nature. We can be unconsciously dragged from place to place, moment to moment, or we can walk consciously.

UP

From Distress To De-Stress

Stress is a disease of 21st century. Everyone seems to be in stress- from child to a retiree. The only time you are free from stress is when you are inactive. So you look for long weekends and holidays to escape from stress. The moment activity begins mental agitation returns. Vedanta speaks of your birthright  as a human being to combine dynamic activity with perfect serenity of mind. Then perfect action emerges.  You are successful and happy.

What disturbs the mind? You believe a bad boss, nagging spouse or the weather causes you grief. The truth is that nothing in the world can disturb  you except yourself. Stress is defined as mental turbulence caused by unfulfilled desires. As long as a desire remains unactualised you will be in stress. Yet desire is being recklessly fueled and people are in stress.

Unbridled desire  makes you unhappy. When desire is fulfilled you want more and the greed leads to defussion. Fulfilled still further, you are envious of those who have more then you and arrogant towards those who have less. If desire is obstructed the thought flow going from you to the object of desire gets deflected towards the obstruction. This is called anger. All this creates a lot of misery and tension.

Unrestrained desire prevents enjoyment. A person obsessed with money can never enjoy his money. He has the best that money can buy but he is so stressed that he doesn't enjoy any of it. Desire puts you on a collision course with others which prevents you from having meaningful relationships. And desires forces you to compromise your values. When you cross the line set by your own conscience you become a slave of your own weaknesses.

Rampant desires unsettles the mind. The mind rambles to the past and future, unable to concentrate on the present. This leads to failure. When the intellect holds the mind on the present action without allowing it to meander to past worries or future anxieties you are concentrating.The moment a desire is fulfilled your attention shifts to something else you do not have. Thus you no longer enjoy what you have. Lastly, the mind gets attached to what you have. The Law is - attach you lose, detach you gain. Possess and enjoy the world but never get bound to it. Wherever there is attachment the interaction becomes painful and in the end you lose the object. Hence desire is your greatest enemy. Yet this very enemy you pamper, nourish and encourage.

Vedanta says desire obstructs your gaining the object of desire. A person obsessed with marriage finds it difficult to find a partner. A man lusting after money does not gain it. When you rise above desire and work for something beyond, the object of desire comes to you. Then you can enjoy it thoroughly with a calm mind.

So what is the way out? The first step is to manage desire with intellect. If the intellect approves, go ahead and fulfill the desire without fear or guilt. But if the intellect vetoes it, keep away. This gives relief. The next step is desire reduction by upgrading desires. Pick up a higher desire. The lower one drops. Finally, when the lure of the Infinite grips you, all desires vanish.
You are in Bliss.       

Understanding The Shiva Mythology

This vast emptiness which we refer to as Shiva is a boundless non-entity that is eternal and always, since human perception is limited to form, we created many wonderful forms for Shiva in tradition and culture. The enigmatic, non-perceivable Ishwara; the auspicious Shambho; the disarmingly naïve Bhola; Dakshinamurthy, the great master and teacher of the vedas, shastras and tantras; the easily forgiving Ashuthosh; Bhairava, the one tainted with the very blood of the creator; absolute stillness, Achaleshwara; the most dynamic of dancers, Nataraja – as many aspects as there are to life, that many aspects have been offered to him.

Generally, in most parts of the world, anything that people refer to as divine is always referred to as good. But if you read through the Shiva Purana, you cannot identify Shiva as a good person or a bad person. He is everything – he is the ugliest, he is the most beautiful; he is the best and he is the worst; he is the most disciplined, he is a drunkard. Gods, demons, and all kind of creatures in the world worship him. So-called civilisation has conveniently eliminated all those un-digestible stories about Shiva, but that is where the essence of Shiva is. Completely contradictory aspects of life have been built into the personality of Shiva. Such a complex amalgamation of all qualities of existence has been placed in one person because if you can accept this one being, you have crossed life itself. The whole struggle with life is we are always trying to pick out what is beautiful and what is not, what is good and what is bad. You will not have a problem with anyone if only you can accept this man who is a complex amalgamation of everything that life can be.  

In the Shiva Purana stories, you will see that the Theory of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics – the whole of modern physics – has been very beautifully expressed. But somewhere along the way people dropped the science and just carried the stories, and the stories were exaggerated from generation to generation to a point of being absolutely ridiculous. If you put the science back into the stories, it is a beautiful way to express the science.

The Shiva Purana is the highest science of elevating human nature to the very peak of consciousness, expressed in beautiful stories. Yoga has been expressed in the form of a science without stories attached to it, but if you look at it in a deeper sense, yoga and the Shiva Purana cannot be separated. One is for those who like stories, another is for those who are willing to look at everything scientifically, but the fundamentals of both are the same.

The Lotus Of Kundalini Shakti

Swami Vivekananda, among the foremost disciples of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, was of the view that each soul is potentially divine and the purpose of meditation is to manifest this divinity within through awakening of the dormant Shakti or power, kundalini. In his ‘Raja Yoga’, Swami says, “Rousing of kundalini is the one and only way to attain divine wisdom, super conscious perception, realisation of the spirit”. Why did he attach so much importance to rousing of kundalini to attain Self-realisation?

Shakti, in the process of manifesting as Brahmanda or Universe, divides herself into two polar aspects -- static and dynamic. This implies that any given sphere of activity would have its corresponding static background. In the human body too, which is referred to as kshudrabrahmanda or microcosm, the same polarisation can be observed.  Mahakundalini, in Supreme form is at rest in the highest spiritual centre in the sahasrara or brain, coiled around and one with Shiva-bindu.   Then, by her own free will, she begins to uncoil herself in order to manifest.  As she continues to uncoil, the tattvas and the matrikas emanate from her. She first creates mind and then matter and goes on uncoiling until earth or prithvi, the last of the tattvas, has been evolved.

After having created prithvi, earth, Shakti again assumes static form, meaning thereby that at muladhara or root-support, the seat of prithvi tattva, Kundalini is at rest as the residual power -- the power that is left over after the process of creation has been completed. Just as mahakundalini coiled around Shiva (before manifestation) is static potential, similarly, the kundalini power  in each body is the power at rest or the static centre round which every form of existence as moving power, revolves. 

The tattvas mentioned above are embedded in the body in a subtle form, within the sushumna which in yogic terminology are referred to as chakras. The first five chakras, namely, muladhara, swadhishthana, manipura, anahata and vishuddha, are centres of the five tattvas -- earth, water, fire, air and ether respectively. The sixth chakra, ajna, is the seat of the mind.  From each of these radiate thousands of yoga nadis, conduits of pranic force, in different directions.  Swami Vivekananda says that among these, only three nadis are of prime importance, namely

ida associated with moon that ends up in the left nostril, pingala associated with sun that ends up in right nostril and sushumna, the hollow passage that runs through the spinal cord and ends in brahmarandhra, the tenth opening in the brain.  At the lower end of the hollow canal is what Swamiji calls ‘Lotus of the Kundalini’. 

The purpose of arousing the dormant kundalini, says Swamiji, is to get the prana out of ida and pingala and make it enter sushumna, the hollow passage. Through regular practice of meditation and pranayama and by leading a chaste life, the mass of energy stored in muladhara begins to travel along the sushumna with tremendous force, being drawn to the other static centre in the sahasrara.  In the process,  the chakras get pierced and considerable amount  of  ‘ojas’ or sexual energy gets  transmuted into spiritual energy and gets stored in the brain, enabling the seeker to experience the vision.   

Finally, says Swamiji, when the awakened kundalini unites with Consciousness at sahasrara, the summit, the seeker enters the sublime state of nirvikalpa samadhi wherein he experiences infinite bliss and “the full blaze of illumination, the perception of the Self”. 

To Change....

The companions, the relationships, the work, the ideas, and the beliefs and the dogmas that we hold have produced a monstrous world, a world of conflict, misery, and perpetual sorrow. We accept it as normal condition, we put up with it day after day; we never inquire into the necessity, the urgency of a revolution that is neither economical nor political but much more fundamental.

 

No inquiry is ever possible when the mind is tethered to any kind of dogma, tradition or belief. The difficulty is not that we are not capable of inquiring, not that we are incapable of investigating, but we are apparently totally incapable of letting things go, putting things aside and therefore with a fresh mind, with a young, innocent mind, looking at the world and all the appalling things that are taking place in it.

Only when you can destroy completely everything that you have held sacred or right or virtuous that you can find out what is truth.

 

If one has observed sufficiently the things that are happening – not only mechanically, technically, but also in our relationships between people – when one observes that progress throughout the world is denying freedom, the strength of society in which the individual has completely ceased to be, and how nationalities are dividing themselves more and more, one will see that some kind of deep revolt must come about.

Society controls our minds, shapes our hearts, our actions, whether you live in a communist, Hindu or Christian world. Society with its structure shapes the mind of every human being, consciously or unconsciously. The culture in which we live – the traditions, religions, politics and education –past and present, shapes our thought. And to bring about a complete 

 

We are concerned with bringing about a different action, mind, a different entity as a human being; and to go into that profoundly, we must not be slaves to words.

Society is relationship. And that social structure, as it is now, is based on ambition, greed, envy, seeking power, position, prestige, and all the things that man has set up as being extraordinarily significant in life. That is the actual fact – not your gods, not the Gita, not your guru, not your saints and saviours, but the daily life in which you are, which is your ambition, your greed, your envy, your pursuit of power and wealth and position which you want. And, without altering that radically, without breaking down the whole system, you cannot have a religious revolution. 

 

A religious revolution is not concerned with reaction at all. It is concerned with dealing with a fact and destroying that fact; that is, being aware that our relationship, our social structure is based on this extraordinary sense of values – on ambition, greed, envy – and destroying that completely in ourselves, to tally, wholly eradicating it. That is the beginning of a religious revolution – not the pursuit of an idea, which you call God.

You need a new mind because a new world has to be created – not by politicians, but by you and me who are just ordinary average persons, because it is we that have to change completely, it is we that have to being about a mutation in our minds and hearts.

 

It is only when the mind is completely quiet, free of conflict – it is only then that the mind can go very far into the realms that are beyond time, thought and feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

You Become What You Think You Are

The path to success or achieving a goal is never easy. Every task or goal has its unique challenges and roadblocks. Merle Miller says: “Everyone has his burden. What matters is how you carry it.”
 Quotes of people who have achieved monumental success in different walks of life serve as a source of inspiration and help in keeping us in good stead. Despite repeated failures and all sorts of adversities, they never gave up hope and continued to work hard with the ‘never say die’ spirit. Showing a positive attitude during stressful times at any point of time in our life will make a big difference. 
Why do negative thoughts hold sway at times?  Swami Sivananda says that   uncontrolled thoughts render the mind weak as a result of which negative thoughts dominate. If you carefully observe your thought patterns, you will find that many thoughts are inconsistent. The mind wanders at random aimlessly. There will be some thoughts of household issues, some thoughts of   bank balance, some of eating and drinking, some of going to a movie, and so many others. 
It has often been observed that when you are absorbed in studying a book at 7 pm the expectation of pleasure at watching a cricket match on TV at 8 pm distracts your attention every now and then. When it is time to meditate, one thinks instead of sleep, and when the head nods one dive into bed and starts snoring and that is the end of meditation!  The will is thus buried. Paramhansa Yogananda says that   man’s brain is full of ‘cant’s’ which have to be cauterized in order to be successful in life. You have within you the power to accomplish everything you want; that power lies in the will.
It is therefore of paramount importance that one  should analyse dispassionately  one’s  thought patterns for at least fifteen minutes every day,  preferably early in the morning. Introspection will tell us that each of our habits creates a specific ‘groove’ in the brain and that these patterns make us behave in a certain way, often against our wish. However, through the practice of concentration and meditation, one can neutralise the dictates of these bad habits by creating thought patterns of good habits.
For example, thoughts of hatred and anger should be controlled by generating thoughts of  forgiveness, mercy and nonviolence;  thoughts of pride and  arrogance   should  be eradicated  through  inculcating thoughts of humility and a down-to-earth attitude;  greed and possessiveness should be dispelled by pursuit of  magnanimity,  contentment and non-covetousness; jealousy and meanness should be replaced with thoughts  of love and generosity; and, above all, delusion and infatuation are  best  overcome by constant Self-inquiry and developing the power of discrimination.

Aristotle says: “The energy of the mind is the essence of life. It is our attitude which brings in thoughts and shows us the true outlook of life. Lots of patience is required to maintain a positive attitude. One must remember that we become whatever we think. So, we must give everything to prevent negative thoughts replacing positive thoughts”.  

Indeed, it has been rightly said: “As a man thinketh, so he becometh”!