Category: Yoga

Healing / Health / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Fasting for Health and Healing (Series): Introduction

Fasting has been part of almost all spiritual traditions of the world, be they are from the east or the west. Many sages of yore were known to fast for forty (40) or more days. The main reason for fasting is to give the body time to repair itself. The ancients knew of the enormous intelligence that resided in the body, to recognize problems and fix itself. It also adopts itself as best as it can, given enough time. As we eat multiple times a day, and stuff our bodies with foods ridden with pesticides, chemicals, highly processed and concentrated...

Healing / Health / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Fasting for Health and Healing (Series)

In this series, I will discuss a 10-day fasting that I have embarked on starting today, in order to help my body heal and get into a better functional state than it it now. Each day I will post my progress and status. I hope that this will be informational and instructional to you and me. DISCLAIMER: Before you embark on any fasting of any kind, first consult your physician and do it under strict supervision. In this article I discuss my experiment and experiences from it. If you fast after reading this article, you do it at your own...

Health / Nature / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Travel / Uncategorized / Yoga

Mother Nature as Teacher—My Trip to Olympic National Park

I left, with my family, for Olympic National Park on May 26, 2007 around 2 PM, from where we live (Issaquah, WA, U.S.A.). Olympic National Park, is located near the city of Port Angeles in the state of Washington, U.S.A., northwest of Seattle on Highway 101. We reached the location around 6:30 PM, including the wait time for boarding the Edmonds-Kingston Ferry. We stayed overnight at the hotel. Hurricane Ridge We started off first to Hurricane Ridge (about 5200 ft from sea level) from where we got a closer view of the peaks of the Olympic Mountain Range. It was...

Coaching / Healing / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Human Animal and Oneness with the Universe

Merriam-Webster Online defines Human as “a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens)“—a large monkey, if you will—a part of the animal world. Why are we so gung ho about being a human anyway? I hear some of you saying, “It is because we can think logically and animals cannot!” Yes, animals cannot think logically, they have instinctual thoughts. If they are hungry they eat grass, plants or hunt and eat other animals. But, that’s it! Once they are done eating, and are sated they are done! They don’t go around killing indiscriminately to make a business out of it. At least,...

Coaching / Daily Living / Healing / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Fear

You must be the change you want to see in the world. —Mahatma Gandhi There are self-help books and articles that talk about courage and how to live courageously, but very few of them really talk about the significant role fear plays in our daily lives. There is more fear in us than courage. If we want to live courageously, then we must first clear fear and make room for new energies to come in. We are like a house full of clutter. If we want to bring in more valuable items to beautify our house, we must first clear...

Coaching / Healing / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Yoga Nidra or Yogic Rest

In this article, I present a technique for yOga nidra (See sanskrit transliteration scheme) which not only produces great relaxation, but also gives other benefits discussed later in the article. Originally, a technique was taught to me during my kriyA yOga initiations. During my practice, the technique discussed in this article evolved from within, as a modification of the original technique. The technique discussed here is only one of many techniques, just like there there are many meditation “techniques.” The goal is not the technique itself, but entering the state of tUriya (discussed below). Even though the technique itself is...

Coaching / Healing / Health / Personal Development / Productivity / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Health, Productivity and The Power of Presence

(See sanskrit transliteration scheme) In The Power of Presence, I discussed the essence of staying present in the Now. In that I discussed, how being bound to the past, and jumping to the future and back to the past were causing us to loose the beauty of the present moment and how it was draining our vital energy. I also briefly discussed how staying present, improved my day-to-day work and productivity and overall physical and mental health. In this article, I will elaborate more on how I achieved this and give some of the examples of my own improvements in...

Coaching / Daily Living / Healing / Health / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Breathing and Visualization Techniques for Self-Healing

In yOga (see sanskrit transliteration scheme), prANAyAma (control of life-force through breath) is an important and ancient conglomeration of techniques to promote physical, mental and spiritual well-being. In this article, I will discuss simple breathing and visualization techniques, I often use to heal myself of minor ailments like headaches and pains or when I am stressed from dealing with day-to-day issues. Learning and becoming comfortable with these techniques beforehand is better, so you can use them right away when you are in need. CAUTION: This breathing technique or any other technique is not a substitute for proper medical care. This,...

Balance / Coaching / Daily Living / Leadership / Management / Personal Development / Productivity / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Detachment Versus Indifference

One of the main ingredients of spiritual practices is to be detached from the objective world. What is detachment really? How is that different from indifference or apathy ? A couple of years ago in my Babaji’s kriyA yOga (See sanskrit transliteration scheme) initiation class, we were doing an exercise on the identifying of emotions and becoming detached from them. Exercise was that the teacher would say a word and we would write the feelings that come to us on a piece of paper and label them appropriately as anger, happiness, joy, detachment, etc. The word was money. I wrote...

Coaching / Personal Development / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

Surrender

Have you ever noticed yourself getting annoyed by loud screaming of children playing around you? Have you ever got startled by the sudden flare up of a car alarm and got annoyed when it continued to blow? Have you ever gotten scared of the prospect of failure in the projects you are working on? May be that you are searching for a job and you are not getting any leads and that is frustrating you? You might say that these feelings were caused by noisy children, loud sudden noise, the tight job market and so on. You may have noticed...

Balance / Coaching / Daily Living / Personal Development / Productivity / Self Improvement / Self-Mastery / Spirituality / Uncategorized / Yoga

The Power of Presence

One of the readers asked me, “Why should we be present? What does that mean? How does that affect our lives?” Volumes have been written on and much talked about this subject. In this article, I will elaborate my own understanding of the subject. What does living in this Present moment or Now mean? Aren’t we all living in the now? We say things like, “I want this now. I need to leave for an appointment now.” And, what is so special about it? That which cannot be captured by our minds (or thoughts) is Presence, Existence or living in...