Meditating in motion

Indian legend relates many stories about Lord Shiva, also known as “Rudra”. He is famous for being the embodiment of the power of destruction in an eternal cycle of creation maintenance, and destruction. Shiva is also associated with deep states of meditation where thoughts are absent and only silence and emptiness exist. It is said that Lord Shiva once entered a profound state of meditation for the benefit of mankind for a very long time. When he finally emerged from this state and opened his eyes, the deep joy, peace, and love he felt for the human race was expressed with sacred tears which ran down his cheek and fell to earth. Each tear generated a rudraksha tree whose tiny fruits are born of the tears of rudra—the Lord Almighty Himself.

The word rudraksha, in fact, comes from the two Sanskrit words rudra, a synonym for Lord Shiva, and aksha, meaning “eyes”. Botanically, the rudraksha tree is known as Elaecarpus ganitrus Roxb. These trees grow in very few places in the world including the Himalayas of India and Nepal, as well as in parts of Indonesia. They are large trees with a wide silhouette whose flowers bloom annually. The rudraksha berry varies in size (3-40 mm; 1/8 to 1½ inches). It has smooth light green skin and pulp much like a green grape. Lodged within the pulp is a single round seed which has a rough surface and a hole running through it from top to bottom. It is these seeds which are the rudraksha beads. Each seed also possesses fron 1 to 21 vertical lines running down its surface, like the longitude lines on a globe. These lines are known as mukhas, or facets, and are natural formations of the seed. Seeds with one vertical line are known as ek-mukhi (one facet); those with two lines are dwi-mukhi (two facets), and so on.

Many different Hindu scriptures written over many different periods of history describe divine qualities of this little bead. One intriguing aspect of rudraksha lore is that it is worn and worshipped by absolutely everyone regardless of caste, religion, sect, creed, color, or sex. Given the highly secularized history of India this is quite peculiar. Even today, as in past times, it is worn by the Brahmin priest while performing solemn ceremonies, by the soldier engaged in battle, by the store owner or stockbroker conducting business, by the student for knowledge, the poorest of our society for sustenance.

Generally speaking, one who wears the rudraksha in the prescribed manner will invoke the energies of Lord Shiva and negative thoughts and emotions will be destroyed. Rudraksha has a calming effect on the central nervous system. It is said that the rudraksha helps maintain a normal blood pressure and helps maintain health. It has no adverse effects and promotes peace of mind and prosperity for the wearer. In various ancient scriptures (i.e. Padma Purana, Shiva Purana, Mantramaharnava, Rudrajabalopanishad) it is proclaimed that if a person meets his death while wearing a rudraksha he is released from the cycle of life and death and achieves moksha (liberation).

How To Use and Care For The Rudraksha Mala

• It is best to wear the rudraksha mala (i.e necklace) for the first time on a Monday. If at all possible it should be first brought to a Shiva temple for sanctification early on a Monday morning and then worn immediately after worship. If a Shiva temple is not available then simply wear it initially on a Monday.
• At bedtime remove the mala and place it on the alter in your home. When traveling you should sleep with it on.
• After bathing in the morning, hold the mala in the right hand and repeat the appropriate mantra aloud (see below) for 108 times.
• Do not wear the rudraksha mala during periods of menstrual bleeding or while attending funerals.
• The rudraksha mala has a very long lifespan. A properly cared for mala can be passed along to eight generations as a family heirloom.
• The rudraksha mala can be washed occasionally with warm soapy water and allowed to dry naturally. Do not soak for extended periods of time.
• Rudraksha beads vary in size from 3-40 mm. The size of the bead has no bearing on its effects. However a given mala must contain beads all with the same number of mukhis.

What's the easiest path?

The 6 am practice is well underway.  I've got about 11 individuals that are showing up daily to experience yoga and meditation.  Today was day 4 of our 30 day journey.  There were lots of yawns in the room, including my own.  It isn't easy to get up at 5 am.  It's hard work and requires a lot of commitment and discipline.  Looking around the room this morning, I was overwhelmed for a moment to have such amazing people in my life.  As tired as I am, I can't think of a more wonderful way to start each day than with the energy of these committed and dedicated yogis. 

They get it.  They are doing their work.  They are on a spiritual journey full of self-discovery and hard work.  It's not just the getting up at 5 am that makes this journey hard work.  It's also the process of looking inward and allowing oneself to change.  It's the self awareness and self discovery.  It's more than hard work.  It's bravery.

Some people can't stay the spiritual path.  They think it is too difficult.  I personally believe that being on a non spiritual path is just as difficult.  Perhaps you don't arise at 5 am, but there are other hardships.  Illness, disease, unhappiness, lack of fulfillment and ever eroding less favorable habits are just a few of the hardships.  I think it takes the same amount of energy to stay in one spot as it does to grow and expand.  Staying in a spot simply means you have to constantly battle the emotions, situations and people in your life that are trying to get you to change.  Changing simply means you are battling the emotions, situations and people in your life that trying to get you to stay the same.

Regardless, it's hard work both ways. 

The idea that one is easier than the other stems from the fact that staying the same has quick results.  Changing takes time.  To stay in your habits, your thought patterns and your belief system appears easy and takes no time.  It's impossible for some to envision the long-term consequences and hard work of staying the same. To challenge the ego and the mind and embrace the spiritual appears hard.  The ego does not like uncertainty and battles every step. 

Ultimately, as the ego subsides and the soul emerges, life does take on effortless ease.  In the end, the hard work was worth it.

Om Shanti,  Pamela

Awesome Career or Dharma Questions to Ask Yourself

 I love to work.  I won't bore you with the astrological details of my Saturn (hard work) being conjunct my Venus (love) in my second house of money, but that creates a person that would probably choose to work over eating, sleeping, playing and just about everything else.  Work is play.  I guess that explains my entrepreneurial skills and my enthusiasm for building yoga centers, websites and creating workshops and products.

Another thing that I have tapped into that supports all of this is the ability to embrace uncertainty.  If you could relax into the uncertainty of changing jobs or launching your own career, you would find that the whole world colludes for your success.  Relaxing into uncertainty is a practice.  You can begin this practice by envisioning your dream job that is connected to your Dharma or life's purpose.  When you can combine your passion for work, need to achieve success, and desire for income with helping and serving, you have a slam dunk recipe for passionate work.

Think about the following questions:

• If you had all the money and time in the world making those two things irrelevant, what career would you choose?
• Today, how can you help and serve another?
• What skills do you possess that are unique and set you apart from others?
• What did you want to be when you grew up and how has that changed?  Has it changed?
• What is your biggest material desire and why?  How will you feel when you receive that desire?  How will your life be different than it is today?
• Who do you admire and why?  How can you cultivate that quality within yourself?
• What is your biggest obstacle stopping you from having the career you desire?  What small thing can you do today to begin to move that obstacle?

Manifesting your dream job isn't really that hard.  I think the hardest part is simply giving yourself permission to dream.

Om Shanti,  Pamela

Find Meaningful Work

Live as if you were living already for the second time ~ Vince Lombardi 

Last night I was teaching Week 3 of the Elemental Cleanse Course to my teachers in training.  Week 3 is fun because we have the opportunity to talk about Dharma or Life's Purpose.  Dharma is the idea that you incarnate in this realm to serve some specific purpose through the daily work that you do.  Finding meaningful work where you express your unique skills and talents in the capacity of service to humanity fosters happiness.

Tapping into Dharma is about getting up every single day of your life and LOVING the drive to work.  It's about being passionate about what you do.  It's about helping others.  We spend an exorbitant amount of time at work, so you know how important it is to be happy at work. Many have had the experience of serving a job that they were not happy in.  It takes a toll on your whole life including your emotional and physical health.

As I was speaking, I was picturing that last breath that each of us will take.  I imagined how your life flashes before your eyes.  For a moment, I was sad as I imagined a person greeting death, looking back, and not feeling like they had really embraced their life.  Don't do that.

Instead, tap into your skills and talents.  What are you naturally good at?  What do you do well?  What do you get lost in?  What activities do you engage in where time seems to stand still? Of course, I have yoga centers and teach health and wellness for my work.  I also have my own business and that means freedom to come and go.  I get to help people feel better all day every day.  It's an awesome job and I'm in my dharma.  I know that sounds fun and obvious, but what you might not know is that I used to be a CPA (certified public accountant.)  Each morning, as an auditor, I would slip on my suit, grab my briefcase, fight traffic and head off to a client to audit their books.  

If you've ever been audited, you can imagine.  You can also imagine that you aren't the most popular person in the building.  It's a tough job and requires about a 12 - 14 hour day most days.  There's extensive travel and the pay is lousy.

I LOVED IT!!!

I was great at it.  You see, I took my job very seriously.  As a CPA, I knew that I was keeping the financial reporting system honest.  I also knew that I was helping the company to improve systems and flow.  I loved the travel and meeting new people.  I  was thrilled to have a stack of papers a mile high in front of me, to bury myself in it and to come up for air at the end of the day.  I was young and vibrant and loaded with responsibility which translated to "power" in my young mind.   

There was nothing spiritual about being a CPA.  Still, I was in my dharma.  Think about that.

Om Shanti,  Pamela

95% of People Gain Back Weight Post Diet

I guess that statistic shouldn't startle me, but it does.  95% of the people that lose weight on a diet will gain it back within 3 years.  This is according to many, but I'll credit Gary D. Foster, PhD,Director, Center for Obesity Research and Education, Professor, Medicine and Public Health.   So a person joins a program like Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers and goes through all the hard work, not to mention expense, of losing the weight just to gain it back in 3 years.  

Why? 

Simple.  Dieting changes a person.  Dieting doesn't transform a person.  The constant in change is that it is always changing.  Facilitating change alone is not enough to empower an individual to not go back to their old habits.  To eliminate habitual patterns, a person must transform. 

That's where a lifestyle incorporating yoga, meditation and nutrition come in.  An Ayurvedic lifestyle transforms a person on all levels, body, mind, and spirit.  This is how the Elemental Cleanse™ works and why it creates transformation and not change.

In your mind are little roads for your thoughts to travel that you have created and maintained for a lifetime.  They are familiar to you.  So familiar, in fact, that you can get from point A to point B without even paying attention.  Think about the last time you experienced driving your car and doing just that.  Lost in thought, you arrived at your destination without running any red lights, but you don't really remember the ride.  The Elemental Cleanse™ takes you through a process where you become, not only very aware that you're driving on the road, but it also makes you aware that the road is in need of repair.  You  begin to realize that the road is actually quite ugly and not taking you to your desired destination.   In fact, the road isn't even a road.  It's a track just like at the races that goes around and around forever.

Through the process of Cleansing, you have a tangible experience of health.  Your mind and body receive an experience in what it is to feel good and the racetrack you have been on becomes very unattractive.  You decide to build a new road with a destination.  This is the energy and effort of the Elemental Cleanse™.

Once the choice is made, the new road goes under construction.  The new road is smooth, fresh and screams freedom.  You really like the new road and where it is headed.  Sometimes, though, you find yourself back on the racetrack.  You don't even know how you ended up there.  You were just driving along and there are you.

You notice immediately that it is bumpy.  It is uncomfortable.  You cannot stay there.  You quickly look for the exit to the new road.  This happens again and again until the racetrack slowly disappears.  The magic to the Cleanse is the bumpy road becomes unbearable.  You will not stay there.  Your soul won't let you.  You take action.  It's beyond willpower.

That's how the Cleanse works.  That's why it works for so many different situations.  That's why it will work for you. 

The Elemental Cleanse™ doesn't just work for weight loss.  It works to transform the root cause that is leading to the following symptoms of imbalance:

• Poor digestion
• Heartburn
• Acid reflux
• Indigestion
• Constipation
• IBS
• Hemorrhoids
• Gas & bloating
• Weight Gain
• Obesity
• Acne
• Itchy, flaky or dry skin
• Eczema
• Psoriasis
• Allergies
• Fibromyalgia
• Arthritis
• Headaches including Migraines
• Joint Pain
• Insomnia
• Interrupted Sleep
• Unclear thoughts and Forgetfulness
• Lack of Energy and Enthusiam
• Depression
• Lack of Purpose
• Lack of Joy

The In-Person experience is scheduled for August.  You can Cleanse anytime with the Elemental Cleanse™ ecourse.  Learn more>>>

Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodhah

I'm on day two at Amrit Yoga Institute.  The days start at 7 am with the Amrit Yoga practice.  It's 26 postures designed to elevate the pranic body and still as Guru Dev says, the "modifications" of the mind.  Press points, or establishing yourself in your feet, and then drawing the spine up become your focus.  Your breath becomes your focus.  As you hold the poses for what some would say are excruciatingly long periods of time, the discomfort and sensations in your body become the focus.  All of these serve to bring you back to that sweet space in your mind where you are that, this is that and that is all there is. 

In other words, it's a tangible experience of oneness.  It's the settling and quieting of the mind that allows you to have "no mind" and therefore an experience of who you really are which is not your mind.

 

During practice today I found myself not wanting to move.  Holding a warrior for 1, 3, 5 or even 10 minutes would have been nothing.  The practice is so beautiful.  As you feel the obstacles and blocks in your body you send prana to that spot.  You softly move and adjust until the spot releases.  It's gorgeous.

Relaxed into my body and stilled in my mind, the mind which can be your best friend and introduce your to God or your worst enemy and keep you away forever, went still.  Gone.  Nothing.  No time.  No space.  No....  Spontaneous  mantra came to me:

Yoga Chitta Vriti Norodhah Yoga Chitta Vriti Norodhah Yoga Chitta Vriti Norodhah

Now this would make sense to me if this mantra had been present before practice or if I was focused on this, but I haven't thought this mantra for a very long time.  Honestly, I didn't even know I knew that by heart.  My Sanskrit is poor.  

Yoga Chitta Vriti Norodhah Yoga Chitta Vriti Norodhah Yoga Chitta Vriti Norodhah

Translated.....

"Yoga is the individual discipline that leads to the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind."

Wow.....

Om Shanti,  Pamela

Learn more about Amrit Yoga here>>>

What is yoga?

I'm in Salt Springs, Florida hanging out at the Amrit Yoga Institute for a few days.  It's a chance to observe their teacher training program and learn about Amrit Yoga from Desei Amrit, affectionately know as Guru Dev.  He is truly one of the last living Yogi Masters and it is a true blessing and honor to sit in his presence. 

Today he talked about Yoga and what it really is.  We tend to think of Yoga as this physical practice of becoming strong, lean and flexible.  Certainly, yoga postures are part of yoga, but yoga is much more than that.  As Guru Dev said, yoga brings spirituality into practicality.  It is a system or a technology that allows a person to feel harmony, inner balance, unification and most importantly integration.  It is a way in which you learn to disconnect from what you are not, and connect to what you are, a soul.  

What are you not?  That's a good question.  You are not your name, your occupation, your house, your body or your mind.  You are that quiet place in you that can observe all of those things.  For a moment, just sit with your eyes closed and notice your thoughts.  Just watch them.  Thoughts are simply fluctuations of the brain.  If you can watch them, who is watching?  That's the real you.  The silent witness that observes and does sometime participate in this drama.  This part of you is a constant.  It doesn't change.  It is eternal.  It is Soul.

The reason that you suffer in life is because you have become detached from Soul.  You think that you are your name, your occupation, your house, your body and your mind.  Anytime anything doesn't go right with one of those, you become unhappy and suffer.  You suffer because you are unable to sit with the fluctuation.  For example, on a typical day you make dinner.  This may be something that you enjoy doing.  On some days, however, you are tired or in a hurry.  Making dinner gives you no pleasure and you become resentful that you are the only one who cooks.  You wish your partner or children would help.  This makes you angry and bitter. (It also makes the food angry and bitter so be careful!)  The fact that you make dinner didn't change.  It's just your attitude around making dinner that changed and made you unhappy. 

The physical practice of yoga on your mat is a safe place for you to begin to notice the fluctuations in your mind and cultivate the ability to take that practice off of your mat.  In Hatha Yoga, you get into a pose, you hold it.  You hold it for a long time.  It's uncomfortable.  Your mind will start to tell you a story.  Mostly it's telling you that you can't do something, that you are out of shape, or that the person next to you looks better than you.  You pause, you realize that that is just a story.  You feel the sensations of the pose and you realize that is just a story too.  Your mind goes quiet and you connect.  Back to our dinner example, you would realize that you are just having uncomfortable thoughts that are changing your experience of making dinner which usually makes you happy and doesn't have to make you unhappy.

Do you have to do yoga to have this experience?  No.  Lots of people run, clean or paint and end up in the exact same place.  Yoga is simply a directed approach to making spirituality accessible in your daily life.

Om Shanti,  Pamela