Have you ever felt at some periods in your life that you are literally swimming in madness?
For the last 2 years after I returned from the 25-day spiritual retreat called Mahasadashivoham 2017 in India, there were many moments I felt I was swimming in madness as I underwent various changes in my life. In fact, right now I feel I am living such an intense life with utter uncertainties and no precedence.
There are four major lessons I learned while swimming in madness:
For the first time, I am going to share the science of Pranayama in the second module of Mothers Love Kids Yoga Teachers Training next month. The content is not confined to what I have learned in my yoga teachers training but I will also be transmitting the experiences in my muscle memory and bio memory from the initiation I received from my Guru, Bhagawan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam (fondly known as Swamiji).
What is pranayama?
The word pranayama comprises of two roots: prana plus ayama. ‘Prana’ means ‘vital energy’ or ‘life force’. ‘Ayama’is defined as ‘extension’ or ‘expansion’. Therefore, the word ‘Pranayama’ means ‘extension and expansion of prana’.
I had an ’AHA’ moment when I came across a very old discourse delivered by my Guru in 2013 on the topic of grace!
In that discourse, Bhagawan Sri Nithyananda Paramashiva (fondly known as Swamiji) revealed that there are four representatives of God in Vedic tradition:- 1) Nature; 2) the “Avyaktha” – Unmanifested Nature which we label as “Unknown”; 3) Individual Soul and finally 4) Guru. These are the four representatives of God we encounter in the life.
First of all, Nature is the first representative of God we face. But, if you look what human beings have done to the Nature, we are destroying the Nature at an alarming rate. Many scientists and environmentalists are seeing a rapid destruction of our natural habitat and we may not survive in the next 20 years.