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Prana is the life force in the air you breathe. In the east it’s known as ‘the breath within the breath.’ The breath of life. Prana contains the life force, which is transferred to you when you breathe. It’s much more than simply a combination of oxygen, nitrogen and other chemical components. It’s the subtle universal force that is in all things. Some believe that in Christianity, when they speak of ‘the holy ghost,’ they’re speaking about the subtle force of prana.

Prana can heal you. Conscious breath exercise brings you into a centered state of relaxation.

You take your first breath when you’re born and you breathe your last breath when you leave the body. If that’s not a clue as to the important of the breath, I don’t know what else is.

When you breathe properly and your lungs fill completely, they push down on the u-shaped muscle of the diaphragm. (more…)

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Winter Solstice Sadhana is held at a beautiful ranch in Lake Wales, Florida and although it’s winter, the weather is usually warm enough to swim in the lake and certainly to go horseback riding or just take a stroll. It’s a week of Kundalini Yoga workshops and White Tantric Yoga.

More importantly you’re in the community of nearly 500 like minded, peacable souls coming together to relax, meditate and rejuvenate over a week-long celebration that includes 3 whole days of White Tantric yoga. Check out www.3HO.org for more info.

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This is an amazing organization and a tremendous idea, let alone a great service to humanity. Heifer International gives you the opportunity to give livestock to communities in need around the world. This helps to end hunger, poverty and disease as it builds community abundance in areas that are impoverished.

It’s a genius idea– There are all different kinds of gifts of various livestock you can give to those in need around the world. You can gift an entire Llama for $150, for example, or if you’re strapped for cash, you can give part of a llama for only $20! Have no fear– the cost of the llama is shared over a bunch of people, it’s not delivered in pieces!

At home in rough, mountainous areas of Latin America, llamas are a blessing to families with limited pasture land because they can eat the scrub vegetation that other domesticated animals won’t eat. Llama droppings help fertilize topsoil — improving crops and reducing erosion.

The gift catalog is really cool– check it out: www.heifer.org

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I recently took my classes through the complete basic steps of breath of fire, how it is done, the principles behind it and its benefits. It’s really amazing when you look at it closely. So many Kundalini Yoga kriyas have breath of fire within them, but it’s easy to do it incorrectly unless you learn it properly first, and then apply it after some practice.

Breath of fire is basically an inhale and exhale of even length, in rapid succession. That doesn’t mean it has to be done fast. In fact, when doing breath of fire for the first time, one should go slowly and find the rhythm before going faster. The breath simply has to be an even length with no break between the inhale and exhale. This creates a very unique breath, which is actually considered one long breath, but paradoxically it appears to be many rapid breaths. Because there’s no real break between the inhale and exhale, it’s actually considered very long deep breathing sped up. Here’s how you do it… (more…)

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I was musing this morning about how the words ‘medication’ and ‘meditation’ are so very similar. Kind of interesting I think. What do you think?

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There’s a kundalini yoga yahoo group and a recent thread was posted in the forum about removing negative energy. I gave what I thought was a pretty good answer, so I’m posting it here for all to see. What do you think?

Please tell me how to remove negative energy from my body and tame my mind as my servant so that no negative thoughts ever in my mind…

It’s important to remember that the energy is neutral. It is we who bring meaning to the experiences we’re having. That meaning is shaped by the momentum of our personality and our mind (karma.)

We live in the world of opposites and this duality makes us forget the one source within. The pain that’s caused out in the world is designed to get us to re-member what’s within and seek it out so we can re-unite with it (yoga). In that light, it’s not really negative energy or bad, but rather “it’s all good.” I’m not saying it feels good though. (more…)

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Another quote from the weekly calendar by Swamiji. Please visit him at www.parmarth.com and www.ihrf.com. You can email him at swamiji@parmarth.comWhen’s the last time you emailed a living saint?

We must learn to give, give and give like the sun, and like Mother Ganga - with no hesitation, no expectation, no vacation and no discrimination.

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A student of mine was telling me about an experience she had, recently. She was feeling down about something relating to her Dad. Often times when we regret something it’s because a realization about that situation has come too late, and hence, we regret what we did not do; what we missed out on, or what mistakes we made at the time. In this case, this woman remembered an angry moment with her dad and she regretted not telling him off and it began a whole series of emotions for her.

Thousands of thoughts fly through the mind with each blink of the eye, but they only take hold if we grab on to them and back them with emotion. Soon she found herself following a train of thought back into her past, having a non-existent argument with her dad. Suddenly she realized that this was all happening inside her mind. What was happening around her in the present moment was completely different from where her mind was– off in some non-existent landscape of the mind re-creating a scenario from the past. All of us do this. We grab onto a thought or even an assumption that may have never even happened and we go off in our minds, creating situations that don’t even exist, sparked by something that happened in the past. (more…)

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This is a nice light article which gives an overview of kundalini yoga. I like to reprint articles about ky and other topics to give a greater perspective and different voice to the site… enjoy

The Essence Of Kundalini Yoga
By: Nicholas Martens (with permission from ezinearticles.com)

Kundalini refers to the dormant power in the human organism, which lies at the root of the spinal column and is the individual bodily representation of the great cosmic power. The Kundalini energy is generally described figuratively as a coiled serpent at the base of the spine. The coiled state of the kundalini represents the unmanifested spiritual power and consciousness of humans (more…)

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I came across this great blog called Gurushabad .  It’s maintained by a man from India named Surjit and it’s a pleasant little place with cool, short and to the point entries. One of his posts is so inspiring I am going to share it here.

Two seeds lay side by side in the fertile soil. The first seed said, “I want to grow! I want to send my roots deep into the soil beneath me, and thrust my sprouts through the earth’s crust above me … I want to unfurl my tender buds like banners to announce the arrival of spring … I want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the blessing of the morning dew on my petals!”

And so it grew…

The second seed said, “I am afraid. If I send my roots into the ground below, I don’t know what I will encounter in the dark. If I push my way through the hard soil above me I may damage my delicate sprouts … what if I let my buds open and a snail tries to eat them? And if I were to open my blossoms, a small child may pull me from the ground. No, it is much better for me to wait until it is safe.”

And so it waited…

A yard hen scratching around in the early spring ground for food, found the waiting seed and promptly ate it.

Moral of the Story: Those of us who refuse to risk and grow get swallowed up by life..

Make sure and visit his blog if you can. There’s a lot of nice thought provoking stuff there

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