What is Hatha Yoga?

Question submitted by Luceli L.

Dear Luceli,
As you may know Yoga has been around for probably more than five thousand years.
Yoga means "to yoke, to harness." The term Yoga has been used as a way to awaken spirituality through the control of the mind. Yoga is a system of techniques that allows the practitioner to achieve Samadhi or Enlightenment.

There are many schools or branches of Yoga. One way to achieve that self-control and attainment of Samadhi is via Hatha Yoga which translation means "forceful Yoga" In "The Shamabhala Encyclopedia of Yoga" by Georg Feuerstein, the term hatha yoga is "applied in general to the vast body of doctrines and practices reared toward Self-realization by means of perfecting the body."

Commonly you will hear yoga teachers mention that "Ha" usually refers to the solar energy and "tha" to the lunar energy. Hatha Yoga therefore is the union of those energies to bring Self-Realization.

All the poses that you take in a regular yoga class, have been developed trough time and many have been recorded in ancient texts. All comes down to the understanding of how the body moves in relation to space.

The poses in sanskrit are called asana (seat) and depending on different texts you can find from 16-200 poses that are more useful to human beings.

Hatha Yoga is also one of the limbs of the Eight fold path. In the practice of Hatha Yoga, the teacher instructs the students in the use of Locks (bandhas) and seals (mudras) "all of them designated to control and regulate the flow of life force (prana) in the body" Feurstein Encyclopedia of Yoga.

Next time you come to your mat, take time to breath and center your energies, be present and mindful during all the poses as they have not only an effect on your body but also on your mind.





Reference:
The Shamabhala Encyclopedia of Yoga by Georg Feurstein pp. 34-35, 118-121

The winter solstice

The winter solstice.

By Swami Enoch Dasa Giri

As spiritual entities we are travelers in time, spirit in form (kala purusha). We exist in a universe that is a matrix of consciousness. This universe is composed of an infinite number of patterns or cycles such as: birth/death, day/night, inhalation/exhalation, and the rotation of the seasons – each with its traditional kriya or ritual. I thought you might find some reflections on the symbolism of the winter solstice and this important holiday season to be meaningful.

The winter solstice and the celebrations of the sun’s return (Hanukkah, Christmas) are festivals of light that remind us of this vital spiritual principal. We are not permanent residents down here, though some of us act as if we may be. We come and we go. We descend and we ascend. We inhale and we exhale. We give and we receive. But as mystics we are always seeking the point of equilibrium, of stillness, of balance and self-awareness.

There are great lessons to be learned from observing nature. There are great lessons to be learned from observing your nature. In yoga this practice is called svadhyaya or self-study. Yet to learn from nature necessitates removing your subjective emotional filters and seeing yourself, seeing Life as it is, not as you desire it to be or fear it to be, but as it is – wondrous and beautiful. Beholding Life as it is (and you are part of Life) is not easy because you have to renounce your expectations and projections. In Japanese philosophy there is a concept referred to as shabuhi. It means that nature is not man’s concept of nature. Nature is not a perfect square or a perfect circle. It is certainly not formed out of straight lines. The pattern of the solar year is not 360 days; it is 365 and a quarter days. Shabuhi expresses the organic nature of life. It reveals that we, like the universe, are not moving in a circle but in a spiral – an ever expansive movement toward greater balance.

Kriya is an esoteric school of yogic thought. It is concerned with inner experiences and dynamics. The root of the word kriya means an action, rite, or ritual – an inner, conscious one. Holidays or Holy Days are like inns upon the path that offer you as a traveler in time an opportunity to stop and reflect at particularly auspicious points upon your journey. Where have you been, where are you now, and toward what are you traveling? Are you moving in a circle or a spiral? Is your path a conscious movement (kriya) or an unconscious karmic pattern?

The winter solstice (December 21st) is the point where the sun enters the zodiacal sign of Capricorn, its extreme southern declination. The sun has descended lower in the sky than it will all year. For three days it stops moving north or south (ascending or descending) and is “still.” It then begins to ascend again on the 25th, the high holy day of Christmas – the festival of the Sun’s return. To the mystic, Christmas and other festivals of this season (Hanukkah, Dawali and Kwanzaa) are celebrations of Light, reminding us that as spirit we too ascend and descend. We have descended into form and shall ascend once again at the appointed time.

The Mystical Significance of the Winter Solstice
The solstice also holds a deeper symbolic meaning. There is an old mystical hermetic axiom: “As above, so below. As within, so without.” Within your astral body (which is a solar system in miniature), there is an astral sun. This sun rotates each year “ascending and descending” around the twelve mansions of your astral spine, the idic and pingalic hemispheres of your six chakras. At the winter solstice, the astral sun moves (transits) into the Capricorn section of your Saturn chakra, the lowest point of your chakric universe. During the Sun’s movement through your Saturn chakra tremendous spiritual energies take “form”, which are then released in the next solar cycle of your existence.

Though it may seem as though there is little or no creative activity at work place right now – either within you or in the nature that surrounds you – there most definitely is. Do not make the mistake of thinking that just because you do not see something (or more accurately are not aware of something) that nothing is happening. The formed arises from the unformed. The very structure of the next cycle of Life, of your life, is being generated at this time. My teaching for you at this time is simple. Make it a kriya, a conscious ritual of creation.

How can you do this? How can you make your life a kriya, a conscious movement through time? One way is to create a map, something that gives you a reference point for where you are, where you have been, and where you wish to go. This could be the cycle of the seasons, the cycles of astrology, or the cycle of the breath. For most people it is the cycle of the holy days (holidays) to which Christmas and Hanukkah belong. Here we are taught to celebrate and reflect on our life through a rich tradition of rituals and observances (kriyas). We begin to see the cycles of our life as part of a whole, part of a larger pattern – the Bharva Chakra (the wheel of existence). We stop to get our bearings, to make sure we are moving forward and not just going in a circle. We slow down our busy lives for a moment and become quiet enough to see afresh the pattern of our lives and the path we are on, just like we do in meditation.

By making our lives a kriya we come to the realization that independent of the cycle or universe in which we find ourselves – physical embodiment, the dream world, marriage, parenthood – it is the hub of our self-awareness that brings clarity of purpose, direction, and the strength to walk the path before us, which we and we alone have created. This insight allows us to refrain from fragmenting or distorting our experience of Life because we no longer fear it, judge it, or blame others for our karma. When we make our lives a conscious ritual each act, each thought, each word becomes a means to become more conscious (a sacrament in Christian thought), to remember from whence we have come, who we are, and why we have come here.

May you find peace, harmony and joy throughout this season and the year to come!

Swami Enoch Dasa Giri is an inspirational teacher, born in Chicago; who shares the living tradition of yoga with warmth, humor, and sincerity. He is a direct disciple of Sri Goswami Kriyananda who carries the flame of the Kriya lineage brought to this country by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Swami Dasa will visit Texas in February. He will offer a lecture on Karma: beyond the myths and misunderstandings. For information please go to http://www.yogasanga.net/?p=2729



The results of family surveys reflect that lately people living in the US practice what is known as serial monogamy, a movement from marriage to divorce to marriage again and again. 
As for religious practices there has been some information on the subject from the beginning of the year and the latest is from last week.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that in general the US population changes their religious affiliation more than once in their life.

Not only a third of those who attend services usually go to a different church but nearly a quarter attend services held by another religion. Besides practicing an organized religion they also affirm beliefs that could have lifted eyebrows 100 years ago: 23% of those who consider themselves Christians believe in astrology, 22% in reincarnation, 26% find spiritual energy in physical things, and 21% believe yoga is a spiritual practice. 



Mr. Prothero wrote for The Wall Street Journal on Friday that "religious promiscuity is nothing new; many early Christians were also practicing Jews. And in China the "Three Teachings" of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism have co-existed for centuries, with many believers turning to Confucianism for etiquette, Taoism for freedom and Buddhism for enlightenment"
For Mr. Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University this might be a sign that people are loosing the sense of the sacred. 



There is not doubt that many times people change religion just because their favorite movie star is doing so, others get bored without even studying the basics of the religion they practice. 
Nevertheless, I don't see this trend as a problem; I like to think that there is something deeper happening, a search for meaning.

People might change their affiliation because they are looking for something more meaningful and less threatening; they want to have a personal experience that can bring them closer to the divine regardless of name or affiliation. 

Let me ad another interesting piece of data reported by the American Religious Identification Survey last March, "the percentage of people who call themselves Christians has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the "nones", now 15% of the USA, are the third largest "religious group" after Catholics and Baptist” 

According to the Pew's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape survey 92% or the population believe in a God 70% said many religions can lead to eternal life, and 68% said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion. 



Could all these changes affect society or how our kids develop a sense of goodness and even morality? Is this tendency making them confused and have a cynic relation to God? Maybe.
The other side of the coin is that questioning the belief system we grew up with can become a search for truth and understanding, a way to trust our own experience and relation with the Divine without dogma. 



It seems to me that all this data represent a new take on religion. People are being more open and willing to understand the others point of view, recognizing that Truth does not belong to anyone though there are ways to approach it. 

This is the foundation of a mystical or spiritual way of understanding, and yoga has been one of those paths for more than 5000 years old. Sages of all times have said it: Yoga gives a series of techniques. If you want to have an experience, you should try them and see where they can take you. 



As for me as a yoga practitioner, I am glad the perception of Yoga has gone beyond the stretches and pretzel-like poses, little by little Yoga is taking its right place as a spiritual practice though not the only one. I truly believe that any search, devoting time and a desire to learn, will transform your life forever.

The missing piece in the Fort Hood incident

Time is ticking, lists have been made and refrigerators are getting full to receive the guest for the Thanksgiving celebration.

Those who will be cooking and cleaning will be worry about who will be attending dinner and if the old feuds will resurface again. For the most part the food will be excellent and there will be some ready to enjoy the black Friday as a "consuming celebration."

Like any other year, some families will be missing a love one and others still in disbelieve after loosing someone close in a violent act, whether is on the street, fighting the war far away or by the hand of one of their own.

So much ink has been used in trying to understand what happened in Fort Hood. What is missing is the reflection that each one of us needs to make regarding our loyalties, sense of righteousness and beliefs.

We can use this time while being among our relatives to see a reflection of who we are and how we react to events. There is Louis who decide to become a Hare Krishna follower, and grandpa Samuel who still is a devoted Jewish and my aunt Lara who prays the rosary every week on her knees even though she is 70!
All these people think their belief is the right one. Fortunately for one dinner, they are able to eat with someone that might think differently and be at peace with that.

My favorite part of the Thanksgiving celebration is that it does not require a religious or political affiliation, it is time to come together and be thankful for all we have and sometimes for things we lost. It is time to remember that this land is not ours and was taken in a violent way and we should honor those cultures that though we don't comprehend, have still so much to teach us.

We should have more of these dinners to move beyond our beliefs, and see that though they seem different and everyone has the right to express their opinion, in the fundamentals they are not that much different. Only by tolerance and keeping an open mind we will be able to live in peace in our inner circle and have hope for the matters of the planet.
At the end of the day, whether they are right or wrong, it really doesn't matter because, the fundamental principle of creation in this plane is not subjected by our puerile beliefs.
The hope is that in every household in the US, this thanksgiving will be a time to get together and to practice tolerance and kindness.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Rocio Morales

Class with Robert Boustany

The 3 hours class I attended at the Texas Yoga Retreat had a long title " Moving deeper into hips & legs, a technically deeper approach toward forward & back-bends." The teacher was Robert Boustany.

Boustany's 40 years of yoga practice has taken form in his own style called Pralaya Yoga. I will explore this concept further in the January issue of Yoga Sanga.

Robert has studied very closely not only the anatomy of the human body but how different muscles that apparently have nothing in common can be used to strengthen and release two different areas.

With a background in Physics, he gives special attention to alignment and lengthening of the spine, not for the sake of it but as a way to increase energy and strength. He told us "strength and flexibility come together, therefore working with the spine is a must"

Boustany asked us to explore having the arm lifted and inclining the head away from that arm to notice how the head and arm can work to release the neck.
He also showed us how to do an abdominal work and then feel how the quadriceps are connected with them . "Strengthening the abs lengthens the quadriceps" he added.

"What is a stretch? Proper relaxation and contraction of the muscles" Robert told us.

He recommends to be present not only when we practice yoga but at all times, living in the past or the future can make an impression in the way our bodies move.
"If we learn to align the spine, if the spine is long, a surge of vitality will be reflected in all our organs" Boustany commented

"Alignment is uniform pressure in the joints. Yoga gives temporary relief from the insanity of the mind." Robert recommends to be mindful of our bodies, "muscles doesn't know how old you are, but the mind can freak you out!" he mentioned.

Being mindful of your body will help to avoid injuries. "The pose is over when the muscle cannot support itself" he added at the end of the class.

When we finished that class we had a feeling of a deep stretch in the hips, abs and quadriceps plus very interesting reflections to think about.

Shanti,

Rocio

What is the link between Halloween, the Day of the Dead and Yoga?

I received this fascinating question after posting the Halloween blog. I would like to share some thoughts with you
about that.

As you read from the previous blog Halloween started as a Celtic ceremony by the
druids who were the Celtic priest.
Interestingly enough the day of the dead celebrates the same as the Celts; it was a well known and common celebration by many indigenous groups (Mayas, Mexicas/Aztecs, Purepechas, Nahuatls, Totonacas), and also celebrated 3000 years ago.

In the Aztec tradition they dedicated this festivity to the goddess Mictecacihuatl (Lady of the night) and whose husband was Mictlantecuhtli (Lord of the land of the dead)
They used to honor children and relatives that have passed away.

For the Aztecs, death had not a moral connotation, there was no hell or heaven, what was important is the way people died, this would determine where to go after life.

Some of those places where:
Tlalocan (Tlaloc's paradise) Any death related to water, and children sacrificed would go here. It was a place or tranquility and abundance. They would buried them as seed to germinate later on.

Omeyocan (Sun's paradise or Huitzilopochti's place) Here was the place for all warriors, prisoners that were sacrificed and women that would died in labor (as they died fighting a big battle)
They buried them in the Palace yard so they could accompany the sun in its daily trip from noon to dusk. It was a high privilege to go to this place after life, because there was everlasting joy and music. Those in there would come back after 4 years as birds with beautiful feather's colors. (For those with symbolism interest, notice the Mars to Mercury symbols!)

There was a place for those who died of natural causes (Mictlan) and for children (Chichihuacuauhco). Depending on the circumstances they would come back to the material plane after a while.

To celebrate this days ( could be up to two months in July and August) they used to choose a tree, bring it down and decorate with bright flowers; celebrations would go for two months with dances and food to honor the dead.

In the XVI century the Spaniards brought their own festivities and blended with the natives. Moving their calendar to the Catholic celebration of all saints.

Today on November 1st they honor children and infants whereas on November 2 it is the day to honor the adults.
The celebration in some places is to go to the cemetery, clean the graves, decorate them and bring food to remember the deceased. Skulls will be display as a symbol of death and rebirth.

Others will gather at homes where altars will be set up for the deceased with food (that they use to like when they were in the material plane), candles, sugar skulls, Mexican marygold flowers with deep yellow and orange colors, incense and special bread called bread of the dead.

So where is the connection to Yoga?

In Yoga we acknowledge the fact that we are in some ways the product of our blood line.
Subconsciously or consciously our reactions are a product of what our families believe and have been.

The name for them is samskaras or imprints from the past. The more we are aware of them, the more consciously we will see how they propel consciousness into action. Who we are is blend of actions of the past and the influences we have received from family and the society we live in. For that honoring the dead is a way to reconnect with those forces and make peace with them in order to remove the subliminal activators, gain awareness and set us free.

So you will be a what?

My Spiritual teacher (Guru), Dasaji frequently tells us "there are magic moments in life, portals that will open in front of you and that if you cross them your life will be transform forever"

For most humans that can be the birth of your child, a sunset, your wedding day, the day your boss gave you that big promotion, and also when you lose someone or when you realize there are things that you have very little control over.

I feel on the verge of one of those moments. Diwali is the festival of light in India and will be celebrated on Sunday at sunrise. At the same time a group of fellow seekers and I will be ordained in the Kriya Tradition as swamis (yogi priests.)

One friend asked me, -will I be able to see light coming out from your ears? -No I said. Another inquire, -will you be levitating and reading my mind? -Definitely no.
-So what is it and why are you doing this? another wanted to know.

Becoming a swami is very simple as I understand it. It is about taking a vow to serve
Life. For those with artistic talent, they will use this gift to share the beauty of life an rise awareness; for those who can teach, they will become teachers or writers; for those who can heal, they will counsel or heal the human body. In other words I will be doing what I am doing but with a conscious decision to be better.
As anyone who has studied the Eight Limbs of Yoga, should know this is not an easy feat but opens an amazing path to live one's life.
I foresee multiple attempts and falls and once in a while success.

So... my friends asked almost rising an eyebrow at the same time, there is nothing practical about becoming a Swami?
I smiled and said, there are couple of practical services in the community. Remember Yoga is not a religion and has no affiliation with any of them. Nevertheless some of the activities that a yogi priest offers to the community are: being able to marry people, blessing of a space, praying for a sick one, ritual of death and rebirth, baptism, and spiritual counseling to mention some.

The word swami means master of himself; in my case the commitment to master my mind, body and spirit for a higher purpose and connection with Life. I have no doubt that there will be a spark transmitted from the lineage at the moment of ordination but it is up to me to keep it alive and growing.

In light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar captures the essence of the commitment I am about to embark. It is important to mention that you don't need to take a vow to do that, it just helps to be supported by an ancient lineage and living flame in the search for truth.

Here are Iyengar's words:
"He who works selflessly for the welfare of others with love in his heart is thrice blessed. But the man who combines within his mortal frame knowledge, love and selfless service is holy and becomes a place of pilgrimage, like the confluence of the rivers Ganga, Saraswati and Jamnuna. Those who meet him become calm and purified.
Mind is the king of the senses. One who has conquered his mind, senses, passions, thought and reason is a king among men. He is fit for Raja Yoga, the royal union with the Universal Spirit. He has Inner light"

What a goal (the one that might take thousands of incarnations)!
But every journey starts with a simple step, and I am ready to take it!

Exciting news!

Tomorrow morning finally you will be able to visit the Yoga Sanga website!

If you have started a business, you might remember all the time and energy that is behind this along with a passion to do something different.
Daring to step into the unknown is not easy, you walk in mud, sometimes it is hard to see clearly, falling quite frequently and some times not having a clear idea of the end result.

So why do you keep trying? because you believe is a good thing and there is always one or many caring hands that cheer you up. To them I express my profound gratitude.

Hope all of you will be able to visit the website www.yogasanga.net and send me your feedback. There might be a little glitch here and there but we are committed to work hard in order to offer a reliable, honest and inspiring magazine.

Share the journey!!!
Rocio