Take responsibility in relationships

By on July 22, 2016   /   Health  

Do you feel suffocated by your parents’ expectations?
Can you differentiate attachment vs. responsibility in relationship?
How do you take responsibility in creating a loving and fulfilling relationship?

Many of us are confused with attachment in relationship instead of having a right understanding about responsibility especially when it comes to relationships with parents. After all, our parents are the first two role models in our lives and they have major influence in our lives. Not only we imbibe their body languages, we also are influenced by their thought patterns. This is further complicated by the societal expectations on parents. This is one relationship every seeker needs to complete with as he or she travels on the path of spirituality because the parental conditioning is the last imprint to leave our bio-memory which shows how deep-rooted the conditioning can be.
Relationship is a profound subject, however, I have been blessed to receive more clarity from the guidance of a living enlightened master, Paramhamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji).

  • Relationship with parents. I remembered Swamiji made it very clear in one discourse in 2009, he said that we are not bound by our parents to live our life the way they want. It is not our duty or responsibility to live their unfulfilled dreams through us. One wrong cognition that many parents carry is they think their child is their extension, so unconsciously they try to force their child to live a life they think is ‘best’ for the child. The truth is the moment we are born, we are independent beings with our own wisdom. We have come to fulfil our own life purpose and possibilities. Our duty to our parents is to give them emotional and moral support whenever they need it, love them and care for them but we don’t give them our life. Many times, we mistake our attachment to them and powerlessness as a duty and responsibility. If you are completely bound by your parent’s way of living and it has become a duty, there is then no possibility for growth and expansion. You will lose the courage to break through and upgrade yourself. Responsibility to your parents is giving them moral support but the highest responsibility to our parents is helping them to become liberated by living enlightenment. The same understanding applies to us when we become new parents, we are there to enjoy our children’s presence and support them so that they can experience their highest possibility.
  • Relationship with partner/spouse. The relationship with your partner is like doing penance (tapas) because it truly requires constantly working on yourself and making yourself settle with that person and making that person accept you as you are. To have a loving fulfilling relationship, there should be no hidden agenda but each person is willing to take responsibility in making the relationship work. By working on ourselves and evolving our space, naturally we will be able to align more and more with each other. xannonce.ch
  • Relationship with teachers. The responsibility to our teachers is keeping the knowledge they have imparted to us alive and making it flourish and benefit humanity. Whatever knowledge we learn from teachers, we ensure the continuity of this knowledge to the next generation of humanity.
  • Relationship with Guru. A Guru-disciple relationship is the most mysterious of all relationships. All the other relationships have happened from the mental and emotional levels. But Guru-disciple relationship operates from the very core of our being. Actually it is not even a relationship, it is a connection between a realized one and the unrealized, the alchemy of merging into oneness. Then the disciples will realize that they were always realized, just that they were not awakened to it. So the only responsibility a disciple has to the Master is to achieve a completion with everything in life and experience oneness (advaita) with Existence.

In essence, we are a free being, we are not bound by anything in relationships. The courage to break free from all expectations and the willingness to take responsibility to stay true to who we truly are is the first step toward becoming integrated, complete and authentic with our being. Namaste: D

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Prana: The Vital Life Energy

By on July 15, 2016   /   Health  

The topic –Prana is one of my favourite topics because it connects me back to the very energy source, Nature. I am currently reading a book called ‘Siddhas: The Masters of Basics’ written by Pal Pandian which I like to share with my readers.

The first truth we need to know – not only the structure of our human body but also the structure of everything in the universe, both visible and invisible, with form and without form, from the single atom to the entire universe, is all formed by the principle life-shaping energy called Prana.

The Divine Creator creates and sustains all realms of Existence from this primal life force. This matrix of primal patterns builds up our entire Cosmos along with us in it and the connection between us and Prana is inseparable. In this interconnected web of primal energy, the Cosmos, Prana bridges everything external and everything internal together as ONE. So anything even our breath is capable of affecting and altering every other thing.

Here’s a simple test. Place your left index finger on the spot on your wrist just below your right thumb. You can feel your pulse. Now, without removing your index finger, just hold your breath for a few seconds. That very instant, you will feel a change in the pulse pattern. We can feel for ourselves the diminished pulse rate for the moments we hold our breath in check. The influence is apparent and immediate.

Another example is the way how our breathing becomes distorted over time due to unconscious lifestyle. As soon as the natural flow of breath changes, the regular flow of external air within the body is somewhat disturbed and the temperature of the inner parts of our body rises a little. This rise in temperature is capable of destroying millions and millions of microbes within our body. If the condition is not addressed, this may even interrupt some bodily functions and bring diseases.

This small exercise makes you realise that the effect of any restrain we do extends beyond ourselves to all over the Universe causing appropriate results or reactions. The formless Prana repeatedly acquires bodies in this world and this cycle of taking birth goes on until we attain a state that acquires a liking to remain without a body as pure vital force – the silent spirit. This primal Cosmic energy has its own vital significance and pattern. It returns to the source from where it first originates. For one moment, assume that the Prana of the whole universe is retained for a few minutes. All of us would die in a catastrophe. Compared to the immense universe our petty ego is simply nothing. Similarly, compared to our entire body, the countless microbes that inhabit our body are individually nothing. Fundamentally, we are affected by each and every change that takes place in our environment based on the interconnectedness of this energy web.

I remembered my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) once spoke on the topic ‘Collective Consciousness’, he revealed the first truth ‘All our minds are not individually separate pieces of the universe. They are all one and the same.” We are all totally interlinked, closely networked. If we go a little deeper into this truth, the moment we will understand that we are a part of the collective consciousness, we don’t have individual identity or ego, and we go beyond any idea of pain, suffering, depression and disease. With Prana, we can experience to this egoless state of being. That’s why the yogis perform pranayama as a purification process for the body-mind system before they experience the undifferentiated state of consciousness.

Prana is what connects our formless state with our formed state. Just as the life-principle within us makes use of this energy to structure our body, that very life-principle gets freed from the body by the withdrawal of this energy. It operates involuntarily, similar to the involuntary process of our breathing. Before the formation of different cells in our body, the life force by its own flow first forms a basic structure of invisible channels called Nadis. Depending on this flow, the Nadis assume different names. Sushumna is the central channel which is said to be the Vatha Nadi as it executes the main animating principle. The Pingala Nadi (Pitta Nadi) works the solar principle of giving vitality, growth, metabolism to the embryo. The Ida Nadi (Kapha Nadi) gives enough nourishment to the organs and keeps the body temperature in check. Prana creates and maintains this genetic structure and is in turn maintained by it. The primal Creator in His creation of a human body, using Prana first creates the 3-fold layers before anything else. Prana is based upon which the 3 bio-regulating forces – Vatha, Pitta and Kapha are formed. The tri-doshams (3 doshas) is what determines the constitution of the human body for that entire lifetime. This starts the formation of microcosm – the human body – by determining the looks and design of the 3 life shaping forces of a human.

The next truth – the ancient Siddhas describe Nature as an endless flowing phenomena, always changing and moving. This is Mother Nature’s inherent nature. When this flow of existence experiences a block, it responds by an alarm. We have seen how our insensitive acts hamper the flow of Mother Nature and result in frightening natural calamities. Our bodies are not separate from this river flow of existence and its inherent principle. The ancient masters declare disease and illnesses are a result of our own insensitivity and ill health the undeniable evidence of us persistently turning a deaf ear to what our body intelligence is telling us. The Siddhas call this river flow of natural existence that nurtures life as ‘Vaasi” (living) and the blocks as “Viyadhi” (deviated from own nature).

In essence, Nature which expresses as Prana – vital life energy – responds to those who live as Nature. You can live in Nature only by loving Her. Life is a journey – the journey of a spiritual being going through a human experience. Unfortunately, human beings forgot to identify with the language of the Universe and feel the abundance that Nature so unselfishly shares. Our modern day high-strung lives are crowded with demanding commitments hence making it easy to drop our self-awareness and replace it with an object-oriented mentality which brings stress, fatigue, disorders and chronic conditions. All we need to do is turn our awareness inwards and start listening to the silence, be with our self with great ease. By pure listening to them and to ourselves, we create an environment where they are nurtured and recognized, hence preventing them from being pushed into obscurity by our aggressive misuse. You will soon feel you are part of the grand Universe of life and also inextricably connected to the physical dimensions of life by being in your body. Prana, the energy pervading all over the living Universe is embodied and rooted in physical form and life as it nurtures your body-mind-spirit every moment, your connection with it nurtures it more. Namaste 😀

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Aligning to the Source of Yoga

By on June 24, 2016   /   Health  

On Tuesday, 21st June happened to be the International Day of Yoga, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji), a living Yogi and an enlightened master, gave three important revelations about the Source of Yoga that the world should know.

First, he declared that Yoga does not originate from Patanjali (a great sage and siddha) as taught by many secular Gurus and Yogis. Patanjali is a great organiser of Yoga Sutras but at least 15,000 years before Patanjali, a being walked on this earth, he is AdiGuru Sadashiva. He is the originator of Yoga and there had been sufficient evidence to show that Sadashiva had clearly outlined detailed manual of yoga postures, Pranayama, Kriya as science of enlightenment. The complete works of Sadashiva are called Agamas. The source of Yoga is Sadashiva himself. Patanjali is a great devotee of Sadashiva who lived in Chidambaram and organized this science and presented it in a very systematic way as the Yoga Sutras. As a living representative of Sadashiva, Swamiji reminded that knowing the original source and the scriptures revealed by the original author is needed to keep the purity of any knowledge branch. In Vedic tradition, any sacred knowledge branch will be complete only if the founder’s intentions are revealed “as it is” to the person studying the knowledge.

Swamiji is not only an enlightened Guru, he is also a Shiva Yogi – one who has attained the state of Shivatva (Oneness with Lord Shiva). The moment he came into my life, he had been guiding me towards the authentic source of Yoga. Prior to meeting him, I had learned from several yoga teachers and attended a few Yoga teachers training from India and New Zealand but I struggled to practise Yoga Sutras because the sacred knowledge had to be heard from an enlightened Guru. I remembered in Sept 2005, I was in Christchurch, New Zealand attending a 7-day Yoga teachers training and I asked my room-mate: “Gerry, I know Yoga originated from India, but I have yet to find my connection back to India.” Five months later in early 2006, the Universe sent an enlightened Yogi in the form of Swamiji to me who fundamentally was set to change my entire Yoga journey. The moment he started the discourse on Patanjali Yoga Sutras in 2009, I was absorbing like a sponge. Everything he uttered simply fed my thirst for this knowledge. At that time I knew he is the one who will guide me in deepening the knowledge of Yoga, so it was natural for me to align my understanding and practice to Nithya Yoga. Then Yoga Sutras started to become an experience in me with the sacred secrets revealed by him and his initiation. One great thing happened to me – with the blessing of Swamiji, I become a living teacher – I live what I teach and teach what I live. He is slowly moulding me into a perfect teacher as Sadashiva wanted.

The second revelation is: Always ask for the original source, Yoga is not something to be developed. When you practise from the original source, the atma pramana – personal experience always matches with apta pramana – the earlier Rishi’s experience. Atma pramana should be in tune with apta pramana. The individual experience should always be in tune with the original source – the great enlightened masters, the founding fathers of Yoga. Sadashiva very clearly defined the qualification of a Yoga Guru – He should have atma pramana and he should be completely in tune with apta pramana. Through his own personal enlightenment experience and in tune with the revealed scriptures he should be able to make the science into sakshi pramana – witnessing of the truth, only that person is authorized to teach.

Swamiji had opened up a whole new world of possibilities in me in terms of deeper exploration of Yoga through various scriptures from the source. Now, I am ready to embrace the Yogapada from Agamas once it is available in English. Swamiji has taken the responsibility to collect and archive all these ancient scriptures and make this knowledge accessible to everyone absolutely free without copyright at the website hinduismnow.org. Soon we will be able to read everything from the source. From my own experience so far, if you listen  to his insightful commentaries, take his guidance and initiation, he can simply transmit the experience to anyone if you are open to dive to the depth of Yoga in its purest form.

The third important truth he revealed is: Yoga is not just the science of keeping you healthy, it is the science of radiating enlightenment. Yoga gives you the power to manifest what you want, making you a superman. Yoga is a powerful alchemy system that gives result as soon as you start. So many yoga practitioners are struck with just learning the precision of body postures as a physical workout and some techniques of  blowing nose. To experience the depth of yoga, one has to have the courage to throw out his/her belief system and vested interest because Yoga is an independent intelligence which can lead us to the self-realisation. Sadashiva will reveal himself to you when you are guided by an enlightened Guru.

After having been initiated by Swamiji from several Inner Awakening programs and the recent Suddhadvaitam program in Kumbh Mela at Ujjain, I am now starting to play with a new dimension of Yoga – manifesting powers in creating a reality I want. Just a couple days ago, in the Wednesday samyama practice which I facilitated taken from original source of Patanjali Yoga Sutra with Swamiji’s blessing, I witnessed the first miracle in front of my eyes. A lady who had a blocked ear for 3 weeks, was healed from the Sound samyama practice itself. Another fascinating thing is my body is capable of living without solid food after Nirahara Samyama – the science of going beyond food patterns and living with pure cosmic energy gifted by Swamiji to the world. Since December 2012 after the initiation, the body is constantly in such a high energy level with no tiredness and boredom. With a powerful inner space like hiranya garbha (cosmic womb), I am living a life with constant new possibilities and miracles! I just know the knowledge revealed by Swamiji is coming from the authentic source!

In essence, I may not have started my path to Yoga from the authentic source but I know through my self-effort of practice and pure intention to learn from the very the Source of Yoga, Swamiji happened in my life as my Guru. Having found the right Guru means 99.9% of my job is done, now it is just a matter of aligning myself to the Source of Yoga and letting him do the necessary alchemy process for the ultimate flowering! Namaste! 😀

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