by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | 4 Paths of Yoga
Balancing the energies
The practice of Yoga aims to achieve inner balance. Hatha (Ha Tha) Yoga is balance between the sun and the moon energy. It is the balance between the hot and cold, active and passive, male and female, yin and yang. We need to learn to regulate our energy and understand that all of our problems are coming from the imbalance of energy. Imbalance of energy is manifested in personalities. We can alleviate the imbalance of personality through regulating our energy.
When we are imbalanced, it is like we see reality lopsided because we have a lopsided vision. The imbalance is often times between the emotions and the intellect, that means a person would be left brain dominant or right brain dominant.
Left Brain
A left brain dominant person would not have connection to their emotions . You can say the emotions are stuck, or they cannot feel them because the left side of the personality is dominating the right side, so the person’s behavior is more rigid as everything has to go through the reasoning. They cannot be spontaneous, they have difficulty to practice empathy, either for one’s self or for others. Empathy means putting yourself in the skin of somebody, and understanding the feeling and the experience of somebody, or even putting yourself in your own skin as well and have the feeling for one’s own self, and know how to harmonize our emotions and to adapt. The person can appear self- absorbed . In fact any imbalance either emotional or intellectual brings about self -absorption. Tuning means adjusting , adapting, harmonizing, moderating . You would say “this is the right thing, the right tone, the right attitude , the right reaction”. In the absence of tuning, there will be unhappiness, lack of touch of one’s emotions, there can be self violence, self torture, self denial, addiction, intolerance, fanaticism , abuse, passive aggressive attitude, emotional outburst and emotional repression, incapacity to stop and to regulate yourself back or know what is right and wrong for yourself. It can create difficulties to oneself and to others because it only sees one side of the picture , the logical side. But the truth is life is not just logical, life is not just black or white.
Right Brain
A right brain dominant person would be immersed in their emotions, their likes and dislikes. They would think: “I like this until I die or I dislike this until something or myself will be destroyed. “ The emotions swing and the mind is up and down, all this or all that.
Finding the balance
If we are alternating between Right and Left brain behavior, it is not called balance. It is just compensation and not balance.
A balanced person is a Yogi who has achieved equanimity of mind because they have found themselves and they can be adapting to situations and to people without loosing their sense of Self.
That person is basically calm in all conditions, they do not get excited about anything , neither get despondent about anything. They are content and go about their life, centered in the Self, not living life to attract attention or to prove something.
We need to be aware that an exceptional person that stands out from the crowd is not necessarily balanced but often, they are so imbalanced that they create their mark in history because of their imbalances.
We are not born perfect, so we all need to regulate ourselves through Yoga.
What to do?
First we need to recognize that our unhappiness comes from our imbalanced state and not coming from anyone else. Grief and blame come from our lack of recognition that this difficulty comes from our own outlook . Integral Yoga practice gives you a little bit of reprieve because it balances the two hemispheres of the brain and awakens the Self Knowledge . Yoga practice by helping you to recognize your strength and weakness, by regulating your energy , acts as a pain preventative measure and a self renewal tonic.
Your new balanced Self: Practiced regularly, it prevents you from returning to your habitual mode of imbalance – falsely identified to be your own Self . When you grow in Yoga, you slowly change your patterns and feel gradually very different as if you are losing yourself, but in fact you are regaining your own True Glorious Radiant Self.
© Swami Sitaramananda 2014 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.
by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | 4 Paths of Yoga
What is Sadhana?
Sadhana is systematic, conscious, spiritual practice that is done in order to change consciousness. It doesn’t mean something that you do when you feel like it, and when you don’t feel like it, you do not do it – that is not sadhana. Sadhana means you have to go against the subconscious, lower mind, and do it anyway, whether you like it or not. That means you are using your conscious mind, and even if you do not like it in the beginning, eventually, your consciousness will change. It takes a long time.
Just because you do discipline does not mean you are necessarily doing sadhana. For example, if you train to be a ballet dancer, it is also a very rigorous training that requires a lot of discipline. It can be very painful, and it is a difficult skill to develop. But that is not sadhana, because it does not change consciousness. Sadhana has to change your consciousness.
You have to understand what is Sadhana. In Sivananda Yoga, we often refer to doing our asanas and pranayama as ‘doing our sadhana’, but this is not really correct. The reason for this is that Swami Vishnudevanandaji taught us that we need to start by Hatha Yoga. Also, as staff, the young people need to do hatha yoga daily in order to sublimate the emotional and sexual energy. Otherwise, after a few days, weeks or months, they will be gone. Karma Yoga, when done properly, also will sublimate the energy, because it comes together with bhakti yoga. But most of the time, we are not doing real Karma Yoga – we are just doing jobs.
The 1st Sadhana: Karma Yoga
Swami Vishnudevanandaji used to give the example that there is a person doing pranayama, and nearby, someone is crying for help. At that time, you should stop doing your pranayama, and go and help the other person, because the reason for doing pranayama is to remove the blockages in your astral body in your energy channels that comes from selfishness.That’s why Karma Yoga is the first, most important sadhana.
Sadhana in the 4 paths of Yoga
Karma Yoga is when you do action selflessly, with consciousness, without expectation of result, or by giving up of the results of action. Karma Yoga has to come together with Bhakti Yoga. Bhakti Yoga means that you do things for God, with love in your heart and the understanding that God is everywhere. It has to be done with joy and enthusiasm. When you do Karma Yoga, you may feel that nobody recognizes your work, or you may be grumbling inside because you feel that somebody else is making you do the work. But if it is real Karma Yoga (selfless action), you should not feel upset by external changes, such as a change in your supervisor, or by external feedback, positive or negative, from others regarding your work. You should just do for others, selflessly, with love and the understanding that you are serving your own Self.
Raja Yoga means you have to practice Yamas, Niyamas, concentration and meditation. Jnana Yoga is the final stage – in daily life, it means that you have to practice Karma Yoga, with love of God, with concentration, ethics, meditation, and with the understanding that you serve the Self in all. Also it means that you detach and recognize that everything that you are doing is not really important, because this is all maya.
© Swami Sitaramananda 2014 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.
by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | 4 Paths of Yoga
The majority of us suffer from too many distractions. There are too many choices, too many products, too many nice things to do, too many possibilities. We are suffering from too much freedom and too many choices. We become scattered and lose strength, faith and stability in this increasing pursuit of external happiness. We hanker after experiences from one thing to the next.
One thought at a time
The mind becomes weak if it does not develop the capacity to concentrate, which is the capacity to resist the many temptations to change. The mind becomes stronger by focusing and committing to one point, one thing, one task, one love. Keep a simple and focused life with less needs and desires. Concentration is the practice to hold one thought in mind for a period of time, digging a deeper groove and going beyond the superficial illusion of names and forms.
We are not yet capable to see the Unity in Diversity, and the imagination of the mind still captivates us as we compare one thing to another thing, swinging between the things we like and dislike. However we can improve our chances to find lasting peace by at least learning to concentrate, to gather ourselves together and resist the mind’s allurements for as long as we can. We can develop strength day by day.
Concentration and commitment feel good and give us peace but we need to know that we will eventually feel dry, bored and incapable to yield interest as before, as eventually the object of concentration will lose its attractiveness and will become habitual. This applies to relationship and to work as well.
Spark it up
What to do? Keep going but spark up your life! At that time, we must resist dropping the ball and losing all our past efforts and discipline. This is achieved by endeavoring to find new interest in the same object of focus, by going deeper to better understand and to discover new aspects in it. The Divine Mother has many faces! Changes do not need to be radical, one needs to keep the core interest, remain on the path, fundamentally not switching the path, not dropping all past efforts and fall to re-questioning everything – but consciously making some little changes just to spark it up. A little change in routine, a little change in food, in destination, in the small way of doing things will be enough to bring back zest and zeal.
Remain strong, enjoy your strength, your focus, and yourself with an unruffled mind that has become steady, dwelling in the truth of who you are and no longer on the imagination nor desires.
Remain Established in the Self
Overall, resist the temptation to doubt yourself when you are on the right path. Know this is part of the path, a little attitude adjustment and new challenges. Rejoice in your Self within. Know that others might doubt you and not recognize your achievement but remain strong within the truth of your heart. Choose well what you focus on, not a negative unwholesome object of obsession or addiction, but a pure energy, the name and form of the Divine, and gear yourself steadily towards it in constant remembrance. Dedicate and Love That because it will reveal your inner treasures. Follow your bliss!
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti,
© Swami Sitaramananda 2014 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.
by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | 4 Paths of Yoga
In Yoga we say that we are comprised of body, mind and spirit, so therefore, if you want to be healthy, you have to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. Health is not only physical. Actually, if you are healthy in spirit you will be healthy in mind and body, not the reverse. Sometimes we think that the body is not healthy therefore I am depressed, but you have to think reverse: the mind is not healthy, that’s why my body is not healthy that’s why I become depressed. If you ask your self, am I healthy in body, mind, and spirit? That’s the right way to think.
What constitutes physical health?
Swami Sivananda our SatGuru, was a medical doctor. His definition of physical health was: all organs of the body functioning in an optimum manner, under the intelligent governance of the mind. That means, we are equipped with all the organs of the body and they have to function perfectly, optimally, but under the intelligent control of you, of your mind. The organs have to function, but by your lifestyle, what you eat, what you do, you make sure that your organs function well. So if you ask yourself, “Am I healthy physically?” you have to consider the mind working with the body, and think: “what do I do to regulate it, what do I do to make it better?” Change your diet, change your lifestyle, change your exercise, take supplements, do whatever you need to make sure it is working. Yoga, is the best thing to make it work, because yoga asanas work on all the body systems together.
Stressed Out = Not Healthy
If you ask yourself “Am I healthy mentally?” then you have to consider a few things. If you are healthy mentally, the mind has to be strong, the mind has to be calm, and the mind has to be without negative thoughts or emotions. If you are addicted and craving all the time then you are not healthy mentally. If you are angry, upset, grieving, depressed all the time, them you are not healthy mentally. If your mind is so distracted, that you cannot focus, then know that you are not healthy mentally. You are using energy. Because when we talk about the mind we also talk about your level of energy, in yoga energy is not physical, yoga energy is subtle, it is absolutely connected to the mind. So your level of energy is very important. That means you have to have energy, so all the time you have to check in and find out: do I have energy? My energy is up? my energy is down? And you have to know that negative thoughts and feelings bring your energy down while positive thoughts give you energy. When you are stressed out, you are not healthy, mentally your energy is squeezed. You don’t have enough energy to handle difficulties in life. The difficulty of the whole set up of the body and mind is incapable of responding to demands, what ever the demands may be. External or internal. The thought is too big, the emotion is too big. You don’t have a solution for it, so you get stressed. When you have stress, you lose more energy. So you try to deal with the stress by taking external things that give you support; drugs or alcohol, or anything to deal with the stress. That stresses you more because it weakens the system. It makes the system too weak to deal with it. If you do that a lot then you have a crutch. The system constantly has to be propped up. But if you stay healthy; that means health is your natural state, then you have all the resources to be healthy. You have all the inner resources to deal with your problems.
Sometimes you think, “But my problem is bigger than yours, so it’s nice for you to sit there and say – but you are not in my situation. My problem is bigger that’s why I am stressed, that’s normal.” Not true. The truth is everyone has their stress. The truth is every life is difficult. The truth is the amount of stress, of difficulty, is always tailor cut to who we are, and what we are capable of. The way we cope with our stress will determine who we are.
Control your mind and charge your energy
Energy is unlimited in the universe. That means you can channel that energy in. That means your potential is unlimited. That means you have the whole universe to back you up. You just have to know how to use the support that you have. And not shut it off. Sometimes we need help, and at the same time we close the door. Educate yourself on how to deal with energy, educate yourself on how to control your mind, so your own thoughts aren’t blocking you, is the practice of yoga. Yoga is more than asanas, more than exercise. Exercise, relaxation is excellent for physical and mental health, but the deeper aspects of yoga teach you how to balance your energy, charge your energy, control your mind and how to tune into the infinite source of energy and power. I encourage you to study yoga, not just in the superficial aspects, but really study deeply.
So, are you healthy mentally? Then you have to have energy. You have to be positive. You have to be on top of your life, on top of yourself not dragging behind, not thinking life is passing you by, not thinking that you are not in the life you deserve, not thinking that you are a victim of circumstances, not thinking that someone is better than you, not thinking that the life you lead is not good. Anything negative that you think makes you unhealthy. So when you are healthy mentally you are centered, balanced, in harmony with everything, in harmony with your life. The life you have is the life you always wanted, the life you have is the life God has given you, that is a healthy state of mind. Focused. You have to be focused. Not distracted, not restless, not desirous, not running around, confused. This is mental health.
Spiritual health
That is more difficult to figure out. Spiritual health is when you feel in complete harmony with life and with God. God is the perfection you feel within you. When you are spiritually healthy, you have the idea that you and God are very close, you and God are one. That means that perfection, or that infinite power of God is with you. Most of us are not like that, right? We struggle and struggle against life, we question, we drag ourselves, we don’t know why we are living, we suffer, have misery, questioning all the time – with glimpses of happiness, followed by stretches of misery. Spiritual health means you are always happy. Can you imagine that state of mind, all the time joyful and all the time happy? All the time? You experience it from time to time. That’s when you are healthy.
So you see, health is a big topic. Yoga teaches you this. It is necessary to study Yoga philosophy to understand who you are in reality. If you think you are something you are not, you are not healthy. That’s why your concept of who you are is capital to your health. If your concept is unhealthy then your actions and thoughts constantly confirm you are not the person you think you are. If you understand who you are everything is fine. You start to act healthy, think healthy, behave healthy. You can take any amount of supplements or herbs, get a massage, or anything, but if you don’t have a healthy concept of yourself, you just miss the point. Health is in your hands. No doctor or anyone can help you, really. All the doctors can forgive me. Doctors can be helpful when something goes wrong, because they know the different systems of the body. More or less, they can help regulate it. We are body mind spirit all connected, but the body is subservient to the mind and the mind is subservient to the spirit. Spirit is supreme. This is basic, you have to turn it around. If you think of the body first, then you miss out, because the body is only what you see externally. What you don’t see is the energy and the mind. What makes the energy in the mind the way it is, is your spirit, called your sense of self, or your inner connection with your spiritual self, or your connection to the divine, your connection to God. It’s all connected.
The body can heal itself
So if you have that connection to God, then the mind will not be out of control, you will understand your challenges in life, and you will not create new confusion; you will be content, happy and in harmony. Not self-creating problems or self-sabotage. We do those things because we cannot connect with the intelligence of the spirit within us. The body will be healthy because the body is connected to the energy. It’s incredible. You have seen spiritual healers- they heal. Doctors check things out, and say they cannot help you; and then you have a miracle healing, the healer will switch something and all of a sudden everything becomes aligned, and things that are not perfect disappear, because you have the trust and faith that spirit is powerful and it heals you.
In summary, when you talk about health, talk about physical, mental, and spiritual health. Spiritual health is most important, because it governs the body and mind. Know that your life is perfect, no matter how it is, know that challenge is normal, because it makes you stronger and that’s how you become healthy. So know that there are things that you can do in order to be stronger, and positive, know that infinite energy is there for you, but you have to learn how to access it, know that most of your problems are self-created. Not most – all of your problems. All. Not your husband, not your boss, not your neighbor. It is self-created. That means, if something negative happens, you have the tendency to blame others. If you can change something – do it, if you cannot change something, accept it, because everything is always perfect. It’s you who needs the training. The situations are there for you to be trained. But everything is perfect. So you want to find that perfection and that perfect health? You need to work on yourself. You need to have the right idea. You cannot think the world is at your feet and you can do whatever you like and you’ll be healthy. That’s the bottom line.
Transcription of a satsang talk at the Yoga Farm dec.3, 2006 by Swami Sitaramananda
© Swami Sitaramananda 2014 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.
by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | 4 Paths of Yoga
The scriptures say that all physical disease comes from negative mental patterns, which starts with wrong thinking. The body is the instrument for you to go back to school, that’s why the state of spiritual health, or liberation is freedom from rebirth. It is said that when you are actually spiritually healthy you are not reborn. Can you imagine? That means you have paid all the karmic debts, and you are free. There is no area of darkness, no illusion; you have completely realized your nature as Satchidananda, immortal self, absolute consciousness, absolute bliss, and absolute reality. If you can accept it, and try to be in Satsanga, or company with those who are experiencing this bliss, they radiate it and they talk about it. That energy will inspire you and give your life good perspective. So keep yourself in satsanga. Most people think, “What are you talking about? I just want to be healthy happy, have my family, my job, do what I need to do, in life that’s it.” So don’t expect to know everything, to think everything, but just know that there’s way to get there and one of the ways is being in the company of the wise. That’s why you come to the ashram; to learn the teaching of enlightened people, yogis, masters, and hear this kind of thing. Refresh your memory and know there is another dimension. There’s no magazine in the world that will say that. No place in the world that will talk about that. You see, you go to a place of enlightenment to get some light, you don’t go to a place of darkness to get some light.
The more that you are able to do that, the more that inside you will believe in it and want it to know more. You become a seeker, you become a yogi, you become a Sadhak; a person who seeks. In the Bible it is said, “Seek and ye shall find.” If you don’t seek you will not find. So first you have to seek. You have to know that you don’t know. You have to know that what ever you know is only a limited idea. And then you have to go to place of knowledge, with people who know, and after some time it starts to make sense. What if you cannot be there, cannot be in the ashram forever? Then you go home and you can also practice. You have to learn and practice and learn and practice. So what is it that you practice? You practice self-discipline; you practice the control of the senses. That’s what it means. Control the senses means the tendency to always believe in something external to you, coming through the senses. So you either eat to live or you live to eat. If you live to eat, you are moving in the wrong direction, it is that simple. So already you can practice proper diet in your life. That means eat to maintain the body, but don’t lose yourself in your senses, by living to eat. This is wrong thinking. You can do this immediately; practice control of the senses.
Start moving in the right direction, with proper exercise. Do Asanas, the yogic postures, everyday. Because when you practice asanas, you stay balance and centered and clear, because the postures move the energy in your body. These practices will bring you back to an awareness of your self. After proper exercise you practice proper breathing. Learn how to manipulate your Prana, your energy. Learn how to breathe, learn how to balance your breath. Because when you balance your breath everything is okay. Your right brain left brain is balanced. Your personality becomes balanced. And then what? Proper relaxation. When you truly relax, it’s very deep and profound. Proper relaxation means letting go of grasping, letting go of worry, letting go of control, letting go of thinking “I know,” letting go of ego, letting go of desire. Because when you try to relax, and you cannot relax, it is because you have nourished the idea, “I need to control, I need to do things, I have so much desire in my mind I need to run- do this, do that.” The practice of letting go, the practice of self surrender, the practice of not wanting anything, the practice of openness of heart, of acceptance, that’s part of eventually letting go of the body. If you do not let go of the body you don’t relax. This is the ultimate relaxation in the class. You have to let go. You also have to let go of your mind.
After you’ve let go of the body, let go of the mind, what remains? What remains is Spirit. You have to relax more than five or ten minutes a day. You have to let go in your life. Let go of the body, let go of the mind all the time. In the yoga class you’re doing that in a very focused way. Life is a big yoga class. In the yoga class you have 12 basic posture. In life you have 1008 postures. In yoga class you have only the inhalation and exhalation; two positions of the mind. But in life you have100,000 positions of the mind. But still you have to be balanced, be aware of the body, aware of the mind, knowing that you are not the body, knowing that you are not the mind. This is the state of absolute awareness, absolute detachment; being in the body without being in the body. Living life without being lost by life, all this takes training. So everyday you do asanas, pranayama, proper diet, proper relaxation, positive thinking. You understand your thoughts and your emotions and know how to deal with them. And everyday you meditate, so you can have the experience – the direct experience of that state beyond your mind. And that’s it – you are on your way to enlightenment.
Swami Sitaramananda, 12/03/06
Morning Satsang, Sivananda Yoga Farm, Grass Valley, CA
© Swami Sitaramananda 2014 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.
by Swami Sitaramananda | Oct 20, 2014 | 4 Paths of Yoga
The beauty that you see outside is within yourself
To be spiritually healthy you have to find your bliss independent from objects, and that is a difficult task. Your habits make you constantly go down same pathways either emotional, or mental, or physical, and that makes you unable to experience the bliss that is already there. When you love something, instead of saying, “Oh that thing is so beautiful, it’s so wonderful. I want to unite with that thing because that’s the goal of my life.” Instead of saying that you have to understand that if you want to be healthy in spirit, you have to cease to say that there is an illusion out there that is perfect for you that you love it to the point of losing yourself. You have to cease to do that, and you have to realize that the love that you see and that beauty that you see outside is within yourself. The moment that you realize that the love and the beauty that you are ready to be lost for is within yourself, then you can experience that beauty and that love with detachment. You still experience it, but you are not losing yourself, and you start to be healthy. You don’t react. You are whole. But know that at your weak point you will react.
We all search for the same thing
To be healthy is to be enlightened, that means you have to know how to have light, how to have the knowledge that will dispel the ignorance. If you were not ignorant, you would not be here. You are working your way out – that is true of everyone on this journey. Everyone is on the journey towards liberation, whether you are conscious of it or not. We are all searching for the same thing.
The Yoga tradition has different methods for attaining liberation, and it’s very, very well thought out, very well thought out. It’s very systematic, that’s why you need to take some time. In one lecture I cannot tell you all the secrets of yoga, and even if I tell you, you are not going to make it. Why? Because in order for you to make it you have to have time to apply the teaching. You have to apply and apply and apply and then you have to see, by trial and error where you make mistakes, and then you have to do it again, do it again, do it again. You have to bring it in your life and you have to make it so far with your life. And then, it is said, the teaching will change your consciousness.
Keep yourself healthy
The application of the yogic teaching is called Sadhana or spiritual practices. In order for you to be healthy, you have to practice Sadhana. When you do spiritual practices, immediately you get to a place where you are healthy. That means that you have to keep yourself healthy, otherwise you are out of balance, and you become unhealthy again. Health and ill health is just like that. One moment you are healthy because you have right thinking, right feeling, right conception of yourself, and the next moment, boom! You become thick and dark, and unhealthy; you go back to your old habits. So that liberation, or that enlightenment, or that knowledge, freedom, or that health is something that you have to do all the time until you establish a new way of thinking, new way of feeling, new way of behaving, new way of seeing yourself, and it becomes more and more established.
Remain established in steady wisdom
The definition of a person who is spiritually healthy is a person who is steady in wisdom. You all have wisdom, you have glimpses of it, I am sure, but it comes and it goes. Steady wisdom means you remain there. And it’s not that easy, because you have been born. The fact that you have incarnated shows that you have past karma to work out. You are living in an imperfect kind of way, looking for something that is completely out of your reach because you are looking from an imperfect standpoint. If your consciousness is imperfect, then how can you find something that is perfect?
That relentless search for life, enlightenment, liberation is not easy. It seems out of your reach because of your conditioning. Sometimes there is some moment of awakening, and you must keep doing what’s called Sattvic life- practice Yoga and Ayurveda to regulate your life until it becomes sattvic, then you have glimpses of health. If you stay sattvic, then eventually you will become healthier and healthier in body and mind and eventually you will become healthy in spirit.
Swami Sitaramananda, 12/03/06
Morning Satsang, Sivananda Yoga Farm, Grass Valley, CA
© Swami Sitaramananda 2014 No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.
