Swami Ji, the OG

Welcome to Season 3 of SwamiJi the OG. It's the beginning of a New Year and today I'll discuss how to move forward into 2022 with a sense of purpose and potentiality.

I keep hearing so many people wishing each other a Happy New Year with a thin layer of hope but often with an undercurrent of dread, adding, "After all it can't get any worse!"

Yes, we are still immersed in the Covid pandemic, but rather than continually talking about things "getting back to normal" it's time to realize that the concept of what is "normal" is always changing and the lessons we are meant to learn are essential to our progress and evolution as humans.

After all, what has been "normal" in the past would not be considered "normal" anymore. For example, at one time, bloodletting was a medical procedure that was normal, owning another human being was normal, child labor was normal, women existed only to please their mate and have babies was normal – I'm sure you can think of many less dramatic examples. Sending letters instead of emails? Phoning instead of texting or zooming, even just showing up to visit with someone in person? If you notice even these "antiquated" ideas of "normal" are still "normal" in some parts of the world!

It's important to remember that normalcy has to do with our own culture, our own family, our own job – all of the world that exists around us and our perspective of that world determines our perception of "normal."

What makes us believe a situation is normal or not normal? From a physical view, pain is abnormal. It makes us take notice that something is not right. It's the body's signal to reevaluate. Physical pain gets our attention. Energetically, overwhelming fatigue is abnormal. When we feel it, we take notice that we didn't sleep well, or we have overextended our physical capacity in some way. Our inability to respond to our daily activities gets our attention. But when we feel mental distress, we are more inclined to look outside ourselves, our own patterns and behaviors, and try to find the answer by searching for what the world is doing to us. But in the same way as physical and energetic pain, when we feel mental distress, we should realize that we need to look at our patterns and behaviors because we have NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION!

Instead, we are seeking comfort to release us from our discomfort. We are seeking to return to our comfort zone. Or at least how we remember our comfort zone. In our remembrance we are nostalgic for comfort, or at least the parts of our lives that didn't trigger discomfort. Nostalgia is "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations." We tend to almost romanticize our previous experiences. We look back with rose tinted glasses.

But what we remember as "normal" might not be what our neighbor was experiencing. What we are seeking is that return to comfort, and we seek feedback from others to confirm our perspective. Remember when we……(insert memory such as didn't have to wear masks or keep social distance.)

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with seeking a certain level of comfort, but it's important to realize that comfort can be like rocking ourselves to sleep. We can lose touch with our deeper needs. We can lose touch with the needs of others. And we can stop "growing" the capacity of resilience that we may need in the future.

My point is that life is constantly changing and in flux. The term in physics is entropy which can be applied to life. Entropy is simply a measure of random disorder and affects all aspects of our daily lives. Left unchecked random disorder increases over time. Energy disperses, and systems may dissolve into chaos. And when this happens, we may find that we are unprepared.

True growth as a human does not normally happen when one only exists in one's comfort zone. It's the challenges, the chaos that awakens us from our slumber and forces us to develop new ways of looking at life around us or succumb to disordered thinking processes. These thought processes may manifest as denial, anger, anxiety, depression, fear, envy – all emotions of the human condition that we suppress in our comfortable, "normal" life because we have been conditioned to respond to life around us in a patterned way. But this pattern has been disrupted!

In yoga we call these patterned responses samskaras and they are a result of our conditioning first as a child from our family, then from our schools, then from our peers, from our jobs, etc. We become conditioned to be able to respond in a way that we have found "works for us" at some level and over time it has become automatic. We don't even have to think about it.

But in yoga we are asked to see our thoughts. To learn to recognize our patterns. To be able to move forward from a place of intention rather than automation. In yoga, we are asked to know our authentic self. Not the person who is relying on feedback that comes from wearing a variety of masks – the gender mask, the relationship mask such as mother, father, child, wife, husband, the employee or boss mask, etc. Think about it. How many masks do you wear in your life? Who are you…really?

The process of coming to know your authentic self is a challenge. Most of us have come to rely on the comfort of being our masked self and have lost touch with our inner sense of being just who we truly are.

The process of turning our focus from the world around us and bringing our awareness to our behaviors, our thoughts, our feelings and searching for the root cause that has supported these aspects of our being, is the path of yoga.

I know that in our culture, most think of yoga as a physical practice to get in shape, but classical yoga asks more of you. It asks that you become a better version of who at all levels of being. This requires taking time to be still, to be aware, to witness the endless stream of thoughts and to reflect on the nature of the mind's incessant manifestations.

A good place to start is to find a comfortable sitting position and close your eyes. But not if you're driving while listening! Then take a few slow, deep breaths and begin to watch whatever thoughts come up. Don't judge. Imagine you are with a friend, and you are listening to what they are saying. Cultivate that level of detachment from your own thoughts. Just listen. Do this for a few minutes and then take another slow, deep breath and open your eyes. This is a good beginning. If possible do it a couple of times within the day. After all, we let the mind do its own thing without our awareness many, many hours each day, so why not spend a few minutes becoming aware?

If you would like a more guided practice, I would suggest looking back through previous episodes to the BONUS practice episode of Antar Mouna. This translates as Inner Silence, but as we know that's pretty much out of reach. Instead, you will start the process of developing your awareness and begin to see who you might be. It will help you see the patterns and the conditioning that has brought you to where you are. Unless you can see where you are at this time, how will you change and adapt to the challenges of life?

I began this "work" over 20 years ago. In the beginning, it was hard to be still and even harder to see all of the crap in my mind! OMG! But I persevered and experienced breakthroughs and insights right along with frustration and disappointment. With time, I've learned a lot about myself – my strengths, my weaknesses, my aims in life as well as my needs. And in doing so I am able to live my life with more contentment, acceptance and love.

It's a new year. Time will pass. Why not make the most of it?

This year has been filled with challenges! Never one to turn my back on challenges, I have used this time to sort out many feelings, many less than optimal relationships, and many goals. It has made me stronger. It has made me more intentional. And it has allowed me to have more space to find the person I want to become moving forward. Over the past couple of decades, my whole focus was creating a yoga studio and a nonprofit yoga academy. To create more options for people to incorporate the healing practices of yoga into their lives, I created and taught more classes, more courses, did more travel…more and more and more.

And because the work was never ending, the demands of others never ceasing, I found myself letting go of more and more of the "normal" activities of life and was essentially swallowed up by the work seven days a week. As I got closer and closer to my 70th birthday, I knew I didn't want to go into the next decade of my life continuing down this path. I put that energy out into the universe. I meditated on letting go of it all. I put out the intention to move on and I really felt it could happen. But only if I worked toward it. I reached out to other teachers in the community who had a long history of teaching, searching for someone who might be interested. And someone came forward.

Another intention that I made was to help the new owner maintain the student base and continue to teach regular classes for at least a year. The pandemic has made this a considerable challenge for yoga studios and many have closed. Our student base has mastered online classes and attendance remains steady with new students taking the place of the normal attrition

The third intention I set was to get healthier. This summer I realized that any semblance of normal would not be likely before another year or so. I ordered a treadmill. I made some long overdue healthcare appointments. I began to eat and sleep on a regular schedule, eating tons of fresh fruits and vegetables, eliminating most sugar, and bought a sleep machine that plays delta waves to get into deeper sleep patterns. I'm losing weight and sleeping sounder.

So why am I telling you all this? Because the concept of living with intention is SO important. Instead of letting life happen to you, take on life with renewed determination.

Here are 5 ways to start.

1. Make a choice and act on it every day. What do you want? Eliminate the split between what you think and what you actually do. Thinking about something may seem important, but if you don't take action nothing will happen except you will feel frustration or defensiveness. The idea and the action must be fused.
2. Believe in your ability to succeed. Be convinced at a deep level, that you will make progress toward your goal. That daily action that you take can have its ups and downs but know in your heart that you will see changes over time. Adjust your expectations about how long it will take. Be patient.
3. Accept change. Sometimes when these changes begin to happen, they impact our lives in a way that stirs unconscious fears and we engage in self-sabotage. Yes, change will happen and when it does, you cannot be the same. It is impossible to both change and be the same. Accept this. Don't fear it. Embrace it.
4. Practice mindfulness. Develop some sort of daily meditation or self-reflection. A practice that will bring you peace and allow you to be more aware and more present upon its conclusion. And each day when you leave the practice, see if you can be a little more aware, a little more present, as you move back into your daily activities.
5. Adjust your lifestyle for success. Simplify your life, eliminating unnecessary busy-ness and clean out the clutter. Set a daily schedule for those things that will build your energy – regular times to eat and eat health foods, regular times to sleep and rise, daily outdoor activity, exercise, meditation, and daily connection with someone who nurtures you.

I encourage you to live with intention in 2021. Don't make a New Year's resolution that will probably last a few weeks and then go by the wayside. Living with intention requires action, ongoing commitment and patience.

Happy New Year!

This episode concludes the second season of my podcast. In my own need to live with intention in 2021, I will be taking some time off from creating this podcast and spend time creating short yoga courses and developing one on one yogic coaching.

I hope you will stay in touch. Please go to my website, swamiatmarupa.com and sign up for my newsletter to learn more about upcoming ways we can remain connected. Or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @SwamiAtmarupa. My intention is to start another season of this podcast later next year.

Thank you for listening!

On New Year's Day of 2020, I taught a yoga workshop called Perfecting Your Vision in 2020! And yes, the pun of perfect vision being 2020 was intentional! In this workshop I talked about the necessity of self-study. In the yoga sutras, self-study is called swadyaya and is one of the 5 codes of personal conduct. It is through self-study that we experience the nature of the self, who we are, what we are, what we are trying to do, how we are trying to do it. Not as an intellectual concept, but as an understanding at a cellular, primal level.

I never dreamed that I would have so many opportunities in 2020 to engage in self-study!! Not only to gain a better understanding of who I am, what I am, what I am trying to do and how I am trying to do it, but I have also had many opportunities to study how I faced, and continue to face, some pretty significant challenges during 2020.

Early in the year, I sold my yoga center that I ran for 23 years. That transfer of ownership occurred two weeks into the pandemic shut down in Ohio. Instead of spending the last couple of weeks enjoying the conclusion to my hard work and transitioning to simply teaching a few classes per week for the new owner, I was swallowed up by chaos.

I had to close and transfer all classes to the virtual reality of online teaching. Hours and hours each day were spent orienting everyone involved to running a virtual yoga business instead of a brick and mortar. The transition process for the new owner became a "shared screen" experience rather than in person. The party students had planned for my retirement had to be online.

Now don't get me wrong. Many people had many more challenges and far more difficulties than I did. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. My point is that we never know what's waiting around the corner. We frequently have plans and imagine how they are going to be actualized, but then when that time comes, the reality does not even resemble our expectations. It then becomes an opportunity for self-study. A time to watch reactions and feelings. A time to truly evaluate likes and dislikes. A time to be grateful for the simple things in life.

As the curve flattened, and we began to ease back into our lives a bit, I found I was enjoying more time at home. I was enjoying more time alone. I was enjoying more time to be who I am. Who I truly am. Not who I was running a small business seven days a week for 23 years and all that entails. I was rediscovering parts of me that had been placed aside for safe keeping and now I was enjoying bringing them out of hiding and holding them near.

But time keeps marching on, on through the elections, on through the divisiveness and into a place of suffering. The pandemic curve that was flattened is now spiking upward at a record-breaking pace. One million new cases in the last 5 days. The first million took 100 days from January into April. As I am recording this, 2 people are dying of Covid-19 every minute! Every minute! Someone's loved one is dying every 30 seconds! And they are dying in isolation without the comfort of family or friends.

I am upset. As an anesthetist for 25 years, I not only did anesthesia for surgery, but I was responsible for putting tubes into people that needed a ventilator. I can't imagine what it is like to be in the thick of it providing healthcare these days. My heart is breaking! It is breaking for those who are dying and for those healthcare providers who are risking their lives, working endless hours, isolating from their own families, and doing whatever they can to ease the suffering of those in their care.

And yet some claim this is a hoax. Some feel their freedom is being taken away if they are required to wear a mask and follow public health guidelines. Some are mounting an anti-vaccine campaign based on nonscientific propaganda.

In the meantime, people are dying. People are out of work. People are waiting in lines for food like they did during the great depression. People are about to be evicted from their homes. People are suffering.

It is TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH SUFFERING! And the heaviness of all of this suffering is weighing us down. We MUST start caring for each other. It is time to make a concerted effort to care and to put that caring vibration into the world.

It is time for metta.

Metta is a word from an ancient language in northern India, called Pali. Metta means to generate a positive energy of kindness. You may have heard about metta meditation or loving kindness meditation. Metta is an antidote to selfishness, anger and fear. And it is something to embrace during this time.

We need to heal ourselves, as well as those around us, of selfishness, anger and fear. These three qualities are at the very foundation of our lives right now. Selfishness, anger and fear. When we are upset about what's going on around us, the upset stems from it happening to ME and that brings up anger, often from the fears we are facing. We need to generate loving kindness toward ourselves and others. To the whole world that is suffering at some level.

Scientific studies have confirmed that regular practitioners of metta, loving kindness, experience an increase in their sense of well-being and enhanced feelings of empathy. It can even build resilience to face our challenges and help us develop compassion to all, even those who may be thinking much differently than we are.

I have to keep reminding myself to offer some loving kindness to them as well. It doesn't mean I have to agree with them, or even like them, but I need to realize that they are suffering too, or they wouldn't be the way they are.

So now I'm going to go through the stages of the practice of metta, or loving kindness, in the way that I practice it. I will outline it and then guide you through a short practice. There are two things to remember. The first is that it's more important to practice for a short time consistently than putting it off for when you can do a longer practice. And two, if you are driving, you should put it off and do the practice when you are able to be still and quiet.

This is the outline.

You will sit comfortably and settle your mind into the natural spontaneous breath. Take a minute or two to simply follow the breath as it moves in and out of the body.

Then bring the awareness to the center of the chest and feel the breath expanding and releasing the space of the heart. In that space try to visualize a small flame with no source. With each inhalation, see that flame fill the chest with light and with each exhale, it returns to the small flame.

Next you will offer yourself positive intentions. Silently offer to yourself:

"May I be happy."

"May I be safe."

"May I be healthy."

"May I be at ease."

And sit quietly for a short time, knowing this message is received.

You then bring to mind your family, keeping the awareness of the light in your heart, and again silently offer the positive intentions.

"May you be happy."

"May you be safe."

"May you be healthy."

"May you be at ease."

And sit quietly for a short time, knowing this message is received by them at some level.

Sit quietly for short time, connecting again with the light in your heart and then bring to mind neutral people. Acquaintances, coworkers, people that you see regularly but don't know deeply, and again offer them the positive intentions.

"May you be happy."

"May you be safe."

"May you be healthy."

"May you be at ease."

And sit quietly for a short time, knowing this message is received by them at some level.

Now bring to mind a person or people that you find difficult. Someone you find yourself agitated with or annoyed by. Connect again with the light in heart and offer them the positive intentions, recognizing that this person or people also seek happiness, safety, health and ease.

"May you be happy."

"May you be safe."

"May you be healthy."

"May you be at ease."

And sit quietly for a short time, knowing this message is received by them at some level and continue to connect to the light in your heart for as long as you feel it is appropriate to do so.

This practice should not be hurried but it doesn't have to take very long either. It's important that the intentions are not said in a perfunctory or mechanical way, otherwise this becomes and intellectual pastime of thinking about loving kindness but not actively projecting it into the world. Over time, the goal is to generate the bhava, the feeling, of loving kindness.

If you believe, as we do in yoga, that every action yields a reaction, and if you believe that we are all connected at some level, then try this practice and see how it affects you and the relationships with those around you.

Now I will guide you through a short practice.

You may think that I am going to talk about becoming a swami, but I'm not. If you want to know that story, then look back through previous podcast to "What it means to be a swami and the journey I took to become one." Today I'm going to talk about who I am as a person, approaching 70 years of age, and share some of my life challenges that shaped my life.

When we have life challenges, especially as a child, they form what we call "samskaras" in yoga. Samskaras are patterns of thinking and behaving that become quite automatic, because they are buried in the subconscious and unconscious mind. We may not realize how these samskaras continue to exert their influence over the years. We may remember the challenge we faced, but we often think, "well this thing happened, but it happened when I was a child and now I'm grown and I've put it behind me." It's not that simple. It has actually created a neurological pathway where the mental energy flows without awareness when presented with any similar situation. Depending on its strength, the subconscious mind might even be looking for the opportunity to release that flow of mental energy because it is conditioning and familiarity. It reinforces who we are.

When I was eight years old, I had several changes in my home and school life. My only brother went away to college and my only sister got married. Because my brother was going to a private college, my mother took on a fulltime job to help pay his tuition. I suddenly became somewhat of an only child who walked home from school to find an empty house with a list of chores to do until my parents came home. At a very early age, I learned how to make dinner, iron clothing and clean the house.

I lived in a rural area in an extremely small village of less than a hundred people. Doing the chores didn't really bother me so much because there really weren't very many other kids to play with anyway. Besides my cousin, a boy, there was another girl that would sometimes agree to play with me if I didn't tell anyone. You see I was the subject of bullying at school and this girl didn't want others to think she was my friend.

How this happened was that when I was in second grade, it was decided that I should skip ahead and finish the year in third grade. I was big for my age and quite smart. I was not consulted about this decision that I recall. So, I ended up doing two grades in one academic year.

The problem was, in this rural school, each grade had about 20 kids with all 12 grades in one building. There was no chance for anonymity. It seemed like I was suddenly an outcast. The kids who were in the lower grade didn't want to be my friends anymore, and the kids in the new grade began to ridicule me calling me a baby. This got worse as I continued to excel in my academic performance.

I remember the one girl whose mother was a schoolteacher in the same building decided to lead the campaign against me. And because her mother was a teacher at the school, kids were eager to follow her lead because she was what we called, the teacher's pet.

Now it's important to remember this was around 1959. Bullying was up close and personal, not through social media. I remember being taunted on the playground nearly every day during recess. One day it was so bad that I went to the restroom and locked the door to the stall and pulled my feet up and hid rather than go back to class where others would see that I had been crying.

Over then next several years, I continued to be subjected to bullying. I remember decorating brown lunch bags to hang on the chalk tray for other students to put in those silly little valentines on Valentine's Day. I don't remember getting a single one. I was rarely invited to anyone's birthday party.

I didn't know how to deal with my feelings. When I would try to talk to my mom, she would say, "oh don't worry they are just jealous of you." What was wrong with me? Why wasn't I liked?

Then in seventh grade we moved to another state and I entered a new school. No one knew me or my history. I started to make some friends. And I worked hard at it. I learned how to subjugate a lot of my feelings to be able to please others. I even learned to make fun of myself before anyone else could even think of doing so. I learned how to put on a really good front and never let anyone see my pain. I held at bay all of the resentment that had been building for years and tried to convince others that I was like them! And that I was worth liking!

But deep inside was this nasty old samskara of doubt, of resentment, of envy. And again, and again it played out. I was always amazed when someone liked me and wanted to spend time with me. I didn't really like me, so why did they?

Over the next several decades, I became driven. If I accomplished enough I would feel good about myself. Right? I graduated from nursing school at the age of 20, got accepted into anesthesia training at 21, and became an instructor in the anesthesia program at 25. I got married and divorced by 23. I did open heart anesthesia and started pre-med, working and studying, living on 5 hours sleep.

Then at age 29, I burned out. On a whim, I signed up for an adventure travel expedition in India and Nepal even though I'd never slept in a tent in my life! The trip was five weeks. First, we rode camels through the desert of India, then bicycled from the Taj Mahal to Delhi. We flew to Nepal and went trekking in the mountains, river rafting, and then rode elephants through the Chitwan National Park. It was amazing! And I did it all!

It was on about the third day riding a camel in the desert that I suddenly had an insight. I realized that I was indeed riding a camel in the desert of India and that all of those people back home were still there doing what they do, being who they are, and they would never change. I realized that I was riding a camel in the desert of India and that I had made that choice and that I could make the choice to be whoever I wanted to be.

All of those years of trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be. All those years when I felt like I didn't fit in. I was riding a camel through the desert of India and I realized I could be different.

Now because patterns of behavior are hard to change, it took more than that one insight to do so. I spent the next decade alternating between "trying to be normal" and then canning that idea and going off to travel, at one point living in Nepal for nearly 2 years.

Patterns of behavior are hard to change, like I said, and eventually I threw away the idea of "being normal" for the last time. I left the well-paid profession of anesthesia and opened the no pay profession of owning a yoga center!

And it was through my study and practice and teaching of yoga that I began to see that my patterns of behavior were not only hard to change, but they would continue to hold there grip on my psyche until I did enough studying and practicing and teaching of yoga to see them for what they are. They are me. They are my personality. These samskaras, these patterns of trying to please everyone, or working endlessly to feel worthy, to push my feelings down so as not to appear vulnerable – they were still there even though the work, the setting and the names had been changed. Because people are people, regardless of place or age.

What I have learned, just these last few years is that my samskaras are me and I have to accept them and even embrace them, forgive them and then gradually release them by replacing them with more positive ones.

What I have learned, just these last few years is that I am a good human being, worthy of love, worthy of friends, worthy of taking time away from work for self-care. I'm freely admit I'm not perfect, but I am trying to be my more authentic self, and that person is okay.

If someone doesn't like me, or if they act against me, that doesn't say anything about me or who I am. It's about who they are. They are being held captive by their own patterns of behavior. I forgive them and move forward.

In two months, I will be 70. It's taken my whole life to feel truly comfortable in my skin. Oh, don't get me wrong. I still have my moments! There are still flashes of those samskaras that rear their ugly heads, but now I am aware of then and see them for what they are. Old patterns. Not the patterns that will determine my path going forward.

I'm so grateful for all of the good and bad experiences in my life and that I have reached this point of being who I am.

I hope you will reach out to me if you have felt moved by this story. I would be honored to help you identify and overcome your patterns through yoga.

In this podcast I will be talking briefly about the classical codes of conduct prescribed by the Yoga Sutras and then we will delve into more modern lifestyle practices that are greatly needed in our world today.

In Classical Yoga, we study the Yoga Sutras and the eight limbs of Patanjali's yoga or Raja yoga, the royal yoga!

These are:

Yamas – codes of social conduct

Niyamas – codes of personal conduct

Asanas – the poses of yoga

Pranayama – the breathing practices that enhance our life force

Pratyahara – withdrawing the awareness from the sensorial world

Dharana – being able to concentrate and focus

Dhyana – the state of meditation whereby the concentration is extended

Samadhi – merging of the individual consciousness with the universal consciousness

The idea here is that we must first work on ourselves through the practice of the codes of conduct or we will continue to have disturbing mental turmoil that will prevent us from moving into the internal practices. In other words, the mind will always be thinking about every little detail of our external life – all of the feelings, the conversations, the play of our ego, our likes and dislikes – it will remain unsettled and unable to tap into the internal sense of peace and wholeness that exists in each of us.

The five yamas ask us to avoid harming others or ourselves, lying, stealing, wasting energy, and possessiveness. The five niyamas ask us to live a clean life, to value contentment, to know our needs and not exceed them, to engage in self-study and connect with inspiration, and to surrender to something greater than ourselves.

These are all quite lofty goals, but it is said that if you can embody even one of them fully it will lead you into the rest. Just one. But in modern yoga practice we actually see that most people concentrate on the physical practices, the asanas. Maybe some engage in some breathing and meditation practices, but it seems to me that most are looking to yoga as something to be done on the mat or the meditation cushion for a specific period of time and hoping it will improve their daily lives. And it does to a certain extent. Practitioners may feel better in their bodies, have more energy and feel calmer after practicing – these are all good things. Don't get me wrong. This spectrum of yoga participation serves its purpose.

But if you want to be less reactive to life's challenges, to feel more connected to the world around you, to evolve your consciousness and be the best version of you that you can be in this lifetime, then you will need to take yoga off the mat and into your life more. You will need to make yoga your lifestyle.

Over the last few years, the Bihar School of Yoga in India has been emphasizing a set of six Lifestyle Yamas and Niyamas to support bringing yoga more fully into daily life.

Given the worldwide pandemic and the political upheaval within the US, today I will be discussing the lifestyle yama and niyama of forgiveness and respect. This pair is especially useful in dealing with anger and there seems to be an epidemic of anger. Not just political anger, but anger that our lives have been turned upside down by the pandemic. Anger that we can't do everything we want to do.

Let's start with forgiveness. How forgiving are you? Give yourself a ranking of 0-5 whereby 5 is the most forgiving. Now can you bring to mind some time in the past when you needed to practice forgiveness. Can you do it? Even as you recall it now, what feeling comes up inside of you? Sadness, hurt, anger? And as you recall this, how do you feel about the other person? Are your thoughts negative?

To truly forgive means to let go of feelings of resentment, anger or hurt. Are you still holding on to those feelings?

Sometimes we are masochistic about forgiveness. We are stuck in our pattern of suffering. It seems to be a pattern of human behavior that we are more likely to dwell on the negative in our lives than the positive. Think about your daily conversations. Don't most people share more about their negative experiences than their positive? It's more entertaining to talk about something bad that happened.

It is easy to say we forgive but hard to truly release the negative feelings and experience freedom from them. To release the resentment in your heart is the true challenge. It takes strength and courage.

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

Mahatma Gandhi

So we need to make it a yoga practice of forgiveness. Not so much for the benefit of the other person, but for our own benefit!

Let's go back to our forgiveness exercise-the one where you remembered an interaction that needed you to forgive. Once again think about it and see what feeling arises again. It can be the same feeling. And then think about the other person in the interaction, but this time, instead of a negative feeling about that person from that particular interaction, can you think of a positive quality about that person? Everyone has some positive quality after all. Is it hard or easy?

Now from your heart, offer forgiveness again. It can just be a mental process, not in person. How do you feel now? Has the feeling changed from the beginning of the process when you first recalled the situation? Can you smile? Keep practicing this sequence until you can smile and then you can let go of that interaction and start working on another. After all, most of us need to do this work and can benefit greatly from it. We usually have more than one. We may become more conscious of the intricacies of our interactions and are more likely to forgive and move forward without having to pin fault on either participant.

In yoga you may have heard people use the word namaste. The lifestyle niyama in this pair is namaskara. They both have similar meanings. Namaste means salutations to you. Namaskara means salutations to you with respect. It's a more formal greeting. Both greetings are done by placing the palms of the hands together in front of the heart and bowing the head.

Namaskara is a way of connecting and honoring someone while understanding that this person contains inherent goodness that is also a reflection of you. Some will say it means the divine in me sees the divine in you, or the light in me connects to the light in you.

It is an expression of humility. It is an acknowledgment of the value of others. Therefore, it can be an act of ego management.

Too often we greet others as a social norm, but not with sincerity. "Hi, how are you?" is expressed and the person may not even look at the other in the eyes, may keep moving without even waiting for an answer or they wait briefly expecting "Fine, how about you?"

But what happens to you when someone looks you in the eyes, smiles and sincerely asks, "how are you?" It touches your heart, doesn't it? Even if the interaction is just for a minute or less? It is my feeling that we need this now more than ever. We need to connect in this time of social distancing, isolation and insecurity of "the other" and their politics.

It is the time to practice Namaskara. It doesn't mean you actually have to use that word but use the essence of what it means. Say hello with feeling and sincerity, with humility and respect and let that feeling reach from your heart to the heart of each person you greet. See each person as a reflection of you. It doesn't take a huge commitment or very much time at all to make someone smile by reaching out to them with a sincere greeting and inquiry. It takes just practice. And one way to keep up this practice is to keep track at the end of each day, how many people did you greet in this fashion?

Through the recognition and acknowledgement of our negativity we provide the basis for developing positivity. See your strength in being able to look at your weaknesses and let your strengths grow.

As we live through this pandemic and the political landscape of divisiveness, these two practices, forgiveness and namaskara, will support the best parts in you.

Make a resolve to "thin out" your negative nature. As my guru says, "Be sincere, serious and committed."

Over time, it will become easier to develop new neural pathways to a more positive nature.

The world needs a positive you!

There have been so many studies in recent years advocating meditation for managing stress, improving mental functioning and overall health and wellbeing. But in the 25 years that I've been teaching yoga, very few people really understand meditation or make it a regular part of their lives. Why is this so?

Well, most often what I have heard is, "I'm too busy. I don't have time." Or "I tried it a couple of times, but I couldn't stop thinking?' Or "I can't sit on the floor cross-legged like that." These are all excuses.

A regular practice of meditation can make a difference even if as little as 10 minutes per day. Regular means doing it more often than not doing it – at least 4 out of 7 days. I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast wastes at least 10 minutes each day! As far as not being able to stop thinking – don't worry, you won't. You will keep thinking, thousands and thousands of thoughts – the purpose of meditation is not to stop thinking, but to learn how to witness thoughts, to create space between you and the thought to reduce your reactivity and attachment to thoughts. And you can sit in a chair and meditate. Trust me. There is no meditation God watching you that will judge you as a failure for sitting in a chair. You're the only one that will judge out of some pre-conceived notion of how you should meditate.

Today, I will teach you a meditation practice that is good for beginners with multi-tasking minds that never seem to find quiet space, but this is also an excellent practice for more advanced practitioners. First, I will explain the practice and then you will be guided through it. Therefore, if you are driving as you listen to this podcast, you can listen to the explanation, but then wait until you are home to do the actual practice. Or you can find a place to park your car and take ten minutes to begin calm your mind and balance your energy.

The practice is called Ajapa japa. Japa means the repetition of a mantra with effort, whereas ajapa means the mantra repeats spontaneously without effort. We all begin by repeating the mantra, but at some point, with regular practice, the mantra will begin to repeat without effort. You will hear it in the sound of the breath as you practice. In the same way as the breath moves rhythmically every moment of your life, the mantra repetition is linked to the breath thereby creating a pulsation of energy rhythmically moving and supporting you.

There are 3 components to this practice. The first is the breath and if you know ujjayi breathing, use that technique. If you don't know ujjayi you can simply breathe in a slow and relaxed way, focusing on the beath at the vocal cords.

The second component is what is known as a psychic passageway. This use of the word psychic means that it's created by the mind. For this practice, the awareness creates this passageway between the navel and the throat in the front of the body. The breath moves along this passageway – inhaling from navel to throat and exhaling from throat to navel.

The third component is the mantra and the mantra is linked to the breath and the passageway. The mantra is So-ham. On inhalation, there is mental repetition of So as the breath moves slowly and deeply up from the navel to the throat, and on exhalation there is repetition of ham as the breath moves slowly back down to the navel.

It is sometimes said that So-ham is actually the sound of the breath especially if you are able to breathe in ujjayi and over time you may begin to hear it contained there. The actual meaning of So-ham is, "I am that." Meaning I am the higher consciousness. And through inference, we can then say that I am NOT this. I am that, I am not this ego with all of it's likes and dislikes and reactions and emotions and doubts and fears. I am my higher Self.

Of course, it will take practice to fuse the awareness with these three components: breath, passageway and mantra. The mind will wander, think about all sorts of things, or maybe even space out, but there is the work! When it wanders, catch it and bring it back to the practice again and again.

Before we get started, I want to let you know that you can find recordings teaching you how to do ujjayi breathing and a separate ajapa japa meditation on my website swamiatmarupa.com.

So now is the time to either prepare for the meditation practice or turn this off until later if you are driving.

Outline of practice:

• Settle into comfortable sitting position and close the eyes
• Be aware of the natural spontaneous breath for a minute
• Begin to breathe slowly and deeply (in ujjayi if you know it)
• Establish the awareness moving between the navel and throat on inhale, then throat to navel on exhale
• Each time the mind wanders, bring it back
• Stay alert
• After a few minutes, add the mantra So-ham, inhaling So from navel to throat and exhaling ham from throat to navel
• Continue for a few minutes, remembering that every time the mind wanders, bring it back to the practice
• Stop the practice and return to the natural breath for a minute and be aware of how you feel
• Take a couple of deep breaths and open the eyes

I have a confession. I love chanting. The chanting of mantras resonates in my soul. I often feel when I am chanting that I have been chanting for endless lifetimes. There is such a feeling of connectedness to some primal power that allows me to get out of my head. To let go of my intellect and bathe in the vibration of sound. Today I will tell you what mantras are and tell you about one of my favorites.

The word mantra comes from the root words "man" meaning mind and "tra" meaning liberation. Mantra then means "to liberate the mind from bondage." And what is that bondage? That bondage is the incessant rumination of thoughts, our negative patterns of behavior, our egos and more.

With mantras, it's about the sound, the vibration. Simple mantras may be purely sound with no meaning other than the vibration. More complex mantras may have so much meaning that the vibration is an encapsulation of that meaning in a way that vibrates our psychic centers "feel" the meaning on a deeper level of awareness without having to "think" about the meaning. So, mantras can be a single word, such as the universal mantra "Om." Or mantras can be pages long. But, when chanting a mantra the awareness is meant to embrace the vibration and not worry about the meaning.

Sound is vibration. And sound is powerful. Think fingernails on a blackboard. Yikes! Even thinking about that sound makes my skin crawl! Sound is powerful. Ultrasound can penetrate your body and yield pictures of what's going on inside. Highly focused sound waves can shatter a kidney stone! The sound of certain music can bring tears to your eyes. Sounds genuinely penetrate all layers of our being.

One of my favorite mantras is called the Shanti Path which means the "course of peace". It contains eight phrases and when it is chanted in my tradition another mantra with four more phrases that "liberates from death" is added at the end. This combination gives us guidance on how to lead a meaningful life and how to let it go when the time comes.

I will include a phonetic transliteration of each Sanskrit phrase that you can access in this episode's notes if you are interested.

The first line is Asato maa sadgamaya – means lead me from ignorance to truth. The word "sat" means truth. Not your idea of the truth or my idea of the truth, but what is the greater truth of existence, of living? The truth that applies to all beings. That truth. The big truth. The truth of existence. Of humanity.

Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya – means lead me from darkness to light. If you've listened to recent podcasts you might remember the word tamas? Tamas refers to one of the three qualities of life the are a part of, and make up, everything in existence. These qualities fluctuate continuously. Tamas is the quality of darkness, ignorance, depression, but also stability and steadiness. We need a little tamas, but when it predominates, then we slide into that darkness. A Jyoti is a divine light, a powerful form of illumination. We are chanting to remove our darkness, our shadow self, and to bring out our light, our luminosity.

Mrityor maa amritam gamaya – means lead me from death to immortality. This is not so much about the death of this physical body, but to become more fully connect with our eternal soul. To nurture that spiritual aspect of our being.

These first three lines are ways that we as individuals can become a more positive force in the world. The next five are about our connection with the lives of all beings and acknowledging what are meant to be our common goals.

Sarveshaam svastir bhavatu – means may all beings be successful. We are wishing for all levels of success. To have do good works, to prosper, to have the love and support of family and friends.

Sarveshaam shantir bhavatu – means may all beings have peace. We use the word peace to translate shanti, but what we often think of as peace is the absence of conflict in the world around us. Broadening our understanding of the word peace, we need to think about being peace, becoming the vehicle of peace.To live in a way, that we emanate peace into the world.

Sarveshaam poornam bhavatu – means may all beings be full. Poornam is an interesting Sanskrit word. There's actually a mantra just about the meaning of poornam and it is a peace mantra. When something is full, there is no room for anything else, right? So being full is being complete. Some might say, fully baked! Nothing is missing. You are complete. That's a big ask!

Sarvesham mangalam bhavatu – means may all beings have auspiciousness. When we can connect with auspiciousness (mangalam), we are favored by good fortune. From a yogic perspective, we might say that we are fulfilling our karma in a way that will free us to prosper and have a favorable future.

Lokaa samastaa sukhino bhavantu – means may all beings be happy and free. I don't think we would recognize the world if all beings were happy and free, but it is certainly worth putting that thought out there. To me, this phrase summarizes the mantra to this point. If we can accomplish moving from ignorance to truth, from darkness to light, from fear of death to connection with spirit – if we can wish for all beings to live in prosperity, peace, completeness and good fortune – then we can fill the world with happiness and freedom.

Wow! Those eight lines say a lot! And that's just my little summary. I'm sure someone could write a whole book on those eight lines, examining so many philosophical principles that outline the internal obstacles that prevent us from manifesting those phrases and what they mean. Actually, maybe several shelves of books. But we aren't done yet. Remember I said that there's four more phrases?

In our traditional system of yoga, the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra is also chanted at the end of this Peace Mantra. This mantra is from the Rig Veda, an ancient text from about 3500 years ago. It is called the mantra of great liberation. It is said the chanting of this mantra will ward off death, yield great healing powers, and bestow immortality. However, remember this concept of death and immortality should not be taken to mean one can live forever within this lifetime. Through the chanting of this mantra, one is meant to connect with one's own eternal nature, one's soul, and overcome the fear of the body's death this time around. To understand that we are more than this body and that death is not the end to our eternal nature, our spirit.

According to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, one of the five great kleshas, or sufferings of mankind is the fear of death, called abhinivesha. This fear grows from the root of avidya, the ignorance or lack of knowledge resulting from identifying with, and becoming attached, to the temporal, material world instead of seeing ourselves as an extension of cosmic consciousness.

Om Trayambakam Yajaamahe - means we sing praise to the three eyed one: trayambaka being another name for Lord Shiva who is the power of destruction which allows us to experience transformation. After all, we can't change or transform without destroying the way we are now. You can't change and still be the same.

Sugandhim purhtivardhanam - refers to Shiva as being fragrant and nourishing of all beings. This fragrance is a sense of knowledge, presence and support so strong that it permeates our being, and we are then uplifted by it. Think about when you smell something wonderful. What happens? You move toward it, right? This fragrance of transformation empowers us and draws us away from the material realm with all of its likes and dislikes toward a higher level of consciousness and connectedness.

Urvaarukamiva Bandhanan - means releasing a cucumber from the bondage of its vine. Have you ever picked a ripened cucumber? It releases from its vine with ease. It just falls into your hand. But if it is not ready to be picked, all the twisting and pulling may not release it. In this same way, if we are not ready to accept death as the conclusion to a good life lived, we twist and pull away, avoiding it at all costs, taking all possible measures to cling to life because we are totally bound by the fear of death and identification with this body and this lifetime.

Mrtyor Muksheeya Mamritaat - means to deliver us from our fear of death to realize our eternal consciousness. May we be free of one of the great sufferings of embodiment.

Therefore, the mantra is asking God, eternal consciousness, a higher force, or whatever words you may use, that we may feel the support of our eternal nature, and in so doing, we will ripen ourselves to the nature of our being. In doing so we will recognize the transient nature of this body and be released from our fear of death. When the time of death arrives, we will transition with the same ease a ripe cucumber is plucked from the vine.

Now I have discussed just a summary of the meaning of one of my favorite mantras so you have a better understanding of its meaning but when I chant, I don't really think about its meaning even though I know it. I let go of that. You basically know the meaning of it now, too. But do you feel it? Can you let it penetrate into your essence from just knowing the meaning? Not really. So I will finish today's podcast by chanting the mantra. Try to listen with your heart and let go of your intellect.

SHANTI PATH

Om

A-sa-to maa sad-ga-ma-ya

Ta-ma-so maa jyo-tir ga-ma-ya

Mrit-yor maa am-ri-tam ga-ma-ya

Sar-ve-shaam sva-stir bha-va-tu

Sar-ve-shaam shaan-tir bha-va-tu

Sav-ve-shaam poor-nam bha-va-tu

Sar-ve-shaam man-ga-lam bha-va-tu

Lo-kaah sa-ma-staah su-khi-no bha-van-tu

Om tri-yam-ba-kam ya-jaa-ma-he

Su-gan-dhim push-ti-var-dha-nam

Ur-vaa-ru-ka-mi-va ban-dha-naat

Mrit-yor-muk-shee-ya maam-ri-taat

Om shanti, shanti, shantih

Hari Om

I don't know about you, but I feel like there is far too much negativity these days. Don't get me wrong, there are many things to be negative about. After all, we are in the middle of a pandemic that is poorly managed in this country and we are dealing with all of the associated issues. There's political unrest and demonstrations related to current politics and the elections. Conspiracy theories have moved from the fringes to the mainstream. It seems endless. How do we manage? How can we bring more positivity into our lives and the lives of others?

First, we need to understand that negativity is a default setting to protect us, to help us survive in a dangerous world. From the earliest times, paying attention to bad, dangerous, and negative threats in the world was literally a matter of life and death. Those who were more attuned to danger were more likely to survive which means they were also more likely to hand down the genes that made them more attentive to danger. And remembering those negative thoughts creates a framework where new situations are first perceived from a negativity bias.

These days, we might not need to be on constant high alert as our early ancestors needed to be in order to survive, but the negativity bias still plays a starring role in how our brains operate. Studies have shown that more areas of the brain are involved in dealing with negative situations than positive ones. In one study, pictures of people with positive, negative and neutral expressions were shown to participants. Negative images showed a much stronger response.

Another study involved showing study participants pictures of people with a variety of expressions, but this study offered either a cold, icy drink or a hot, steamy drink to the participants while they waited for the study to begin. Those who waited with the cold drink in their hands, then rated a higher percentage of facial expressions as negative versus those who had waited with a hot drink. The participates did not know that the study was looking at the effect of sensations on how the results would be influenced. This implies that our level of comfort, will influence how we perceive the world around us. The researchers demonstrated that having cold hands (which most of us would consider negative) would create more negative judgments when someone began to push the buttons than those with warm hands. They created a negative condition that yielded negativity.

So, what conditions our responses? If something as simple as whether we are holding a cold or hot cup of liquids can shape how we react, what about all of those other factors that rise up out of our subconscious minds?

From a yogic perspective, we react due to our conditioning. We are conditioned by our samskaras, or patterns, that decide your thoughts, behavior, perceptions, understandings, expressions, reactions, basically everything. Our strongest samskaras are created from the negative experiences of our lives and therefore, we are prone to respond negatively.

Psychologists call this negativity bias. Think about that happy little baby that responds to positive facial expressions and your silly baby voice. But research suggests that negativity bias actually starts to emerge in infancy near the age of one. Brain studies indicate that around this time, babies begin to experience greater brain responses to negative stimuli. And as our brains develop and we accumulate more experiences in our lives, that negativity bias is strengthened.

We find that negative comments carry far more weight than positive ones. When we need to evaluate a possible decision, we tend to look at the bad things that could happen before we evaluate the positives. Even though we may say that we are looking at the Pros and Cons, I'm betting that you might start with one pro and then immediately go to the cons. When I've mentored student yoga teachers, sitting in on their teaching, at the end of the class I ask them what did you do well, and most of the time, even though the question was what did you do well, they start talking about something they could have done better.

We all, myself included, need to work harder on positivity. Otherwise, this negativity bias can become so overwhelming that we dwell on dark thoughts to the point that it's almost impossible to be optimistic. Negativity becomes masochistic.

In yoga philosophy, there is a practice called Pratipaksha Bhavana – meaning to cultivate the opposite feeling. So, whenever a negative condition, idea, thought or reaction appears, instantly counteract that with a positive one.

To truly engage in this practice there are a couple of pre-requisites.

1. Develop awareness of the thoughts. When our minds are overly busy and distracted the thoughts run on autopilot. To influence the thoughts there needs to be times of stillness. Most important is to learn a meditation that will help you learn how to see the thoughts.
2. Accept the thoughts. Realize that guilt over negative thoughts is part of the normal human condition. Hey, you're normal! Isn't that a positive thought? Remember, accepting the thoughts does not mean that you don't make an effort to change them into more positive ones. Just realize that they are thoughts and that everyone has them as a part of the personality.
3. Stop condemning others for their negativity. Boy, that's the hardest one, don't you think? But when we continually condemn others for their negativity, it prevents us from seeing ours and accepting it.

Be aware of the thoughts, accept the thoughts and quit judging or condemning others for their negativity. Can you begin to do that?

As you begin to practice these, there are other actions to take in cultivating the opposite feeling – pratipaksha bhavana. And they all begin with you of course. Change yourself. Change the world around you.

When you become aware of the negative self-talk, stop it and replace it with a positive thought. For example, if you think you aren't attractive enough for whatever reason, immediately remember all of those who care about you and tell yourself, I am loved. And recall a few incidents when people that you value have demonstrated that you are loved.

Be aware of resentments that you may harbor. Those deep wounds will continue until you are able to heal them through detachment and forgiveness. These days we are practicing social distancing because of the pandemic, but psychological distancing may be necessary to heal. When I think about someone who hurt me badly, it's hard to let go of the resentment. There's a tendency to keep recalling what happened. It is a little like picking the scab off a wound. Instead I'm learning my hurt is something that I am keeping alive. What the person did is done. I need to realize things cannot be undone and to let it go. When that person comes to mind, I stop that thought and forgive myself for continuing that connection, even mentally. That forgiveness of myself is the balm for the wound and it is slowly healing. This is not a reframing of the situation regarding the relationship. It is a reframing of my emotional reaction.

Once you are becoming more aware and accepting your thoughts, creating opposite thoughts and letting go of old resentments, then you have begun to create new patterns of thinking. These new patterns create new, more positive samaskaras, those pattern that underpin our reactions.

Additionally, it is helpful to establish new, more positive life patterns that will support you in this transformation. Begin to recognize other factors in your life that leave you feeling negative. What are you watching on TV, reading on social media, who are the people around you, the food that you eat, the self-care that you do? Re-evaluate what's been going on before those moments when you begin to feel negatively, think negatively and respond negatively? Be aware that you may not be able to change what preceded those moments, but you can change the moments yet to come.

And when positive moments come, savor them. See the beauty in the world. When someone smiles, smile back. Offer random acts of kindness to others. Practice gratitude.

A positive mind is free. It honors one's connections with the world and is inspired by those connections.

As Norman Vincent Peale once said:

"Those who send out positive thoughts activate the world around them positively and draw back to them positive results."

Become a force of positivity! We need you more than ever!

Last week I talked about your comfort zone and the need to re-examine it based on the philosophy and psychology of yoga in relation to the sense of security mediated via mooladhara, the root chakra. Today, I will be talking about the chakra of happiness. Just to remind you that the chakras are energy centers within us. They are not a part of the anatomy that can be seen with the eyes. You can't dissect out a chakra and examine it. However, it's interesting to note that each of the chakras is located in the physical body near a major endocrine gland and nerve complex. It's the endocrine and nervous systems that help regulate bodily functions and not just from a physical perspective. In fact, the endocrine and nervous systems influence us on many different levels, physical, energetic, and mental. So when the ancient yogis delineated the chakras and their locations, they had an understanding that each of these areas of the body greatly influences us.

This week we will explore the effects of the next chakra, swadhisthana. Swa means "one's own" and adhisthana means "dwelling place" so swadhistana is the basis of our individual human existence. It is said that this chakra is associated with the unconscious mind with its storehouse of impressions from our actions during this life and that govern our individual responses to life as we live it now.

Unlike mooladhara where we seek security and may seek pleasure as a means to acquire security, here we seek pleasure because it just makes us feels good! Swadhisthana looks for the sensorial pleasures based on one's samskaras or patterns of behavior that become the default, patterned behavior that helps us respond to the world around us.

The whole world is viewed according to the amount of pleasure it yields. Basically, this is the chakra that is most predominantly functioning in today's world. Again, there are degrees of how this manifests from one person's life to the other.

To briefly review the continuum of the gunas, the qualities of existence, you will be able to see where you fall on that spectrum to have insight into managing your desires. At the dark end of the spectrum is tamas, the sense of inertia, ignorance, stuckness. At the light end of the spectrum is sattwa, the quality of balance, purity, and luminosity. And to move from tamas to sattwa, in the middle is rajas, the quality of dynamism, action, but also ego.

Considering the gunas let's look at this spectrum as it relates to swadhistana. Since this chakra is about pleasure, then if tamas predominates, there is no pleasure – one is stuck in darkness. This results in a lack of motivation, depression, and even suicidal thinking. There may be inappropriate feelings of guilt and pessimism. Addictions may happen in an effort to elevate this darkness and find pleasure, which, of course is only temporary leaving one unfulfilled and results in the cycle beginning again.

Generally speaking, this person needs professional help along with support from any friends or family. The likelihood is that this person won't come to a yoga class or listen to this podcast or do anything that will help them move forward because they don't believe they deserve to feel better.

Now, many of us have periods where tamas is influencing our lives. We experience sadness, boredom, and loneliness. There is more action, but it may be over-action in an effort to be happy. Overeating, overdrinking, overspending, indulging in sex only for one's personal pleasure. Not caring about how others feel about these actions.

Becoming more fully established in rajas, there is more optimism and drive as long as things are moving along smoothly. All good things still come from outside oneself, but there is humor and a desire for fun.

As the light of sattwa begins to shine into swadhisthana, one becomes more interested in others, kinder, and less self-absorbed. They are considerate of others, contented, and happy.

Continuing further into sattwa, this person lights up a whole room when they walk in and people love to be with them. They are joyful and can always see the funny side of life. Without effort, they see the positive side of everyone and all of life's situations.

So, do you know someone like this? Do you want to be someone like this? How do you get there? Well of course I'm going to suggest you do yoga! But seriously, not so much yoga on the mat, although movement is important and if done with awareness, can be beneficial. What will be most beneficial is yoga off the mat, on the meditation cushion and in your life.

Practicing meditation is essential to be able to see yourself and the ruminations of your mind. I honestly don't think you will progress without it. With meditation you will gain some serious insights as to the number of thoughts that relate to cravings – the seeking of happiness through sensory pleasures. In watching the thoughts, you also see what emotions are attached to those thoughts and how many of your patterns are an attempt at soothing negative emotions.

Now when I speak of meditation, I don't mean you have to do one hour sitting cross-legged on the floor. In fact, I suggest you start with about 10-15 minutes and sit however you wish, in a quiet place without distractions. The mindfulness meditation of antar mouna is an excellent beginning practice and you can get that as a bonus podcast practice last November. In this practice, you begin to find space between you as the witness of the thought so you can be proactive rather than being swept away by your thoughts into your usual patterns of conditioned behavior.

In addition, try using the practice of yoga nidra, a guided meditation where you lie down and relax deeply. Yoga nidra will help to alleviate your stress. Stress creates unhappiness so it is often the triggering mechanism for overindulging.

Remember, your cravings are a result of seeking happiness outside of you through sensory pleasures. Therefore, managing your senses is important and this requires simplicity and regularity in life. For most of us this can be difficult, especially since the pandemic has altered our lives so much.

But you can start trying. Begin to examine the overwhelming variety and amount of sensory input that you experience daily. What things stimulate your senses and cravings, but aren't really healthy or necessary?

When I go to India and stay at the ashram, life is so busy there, but also simple. When you have hundreds of people in a limited space, things have to be organized! There is a time to get up, a regular schedule for eating simple meals, afternoon tea, time for work and time to stop working, time for learning and practicing and time for sleep. Even if I'm only staying there for a couple of weeks, I can feel layers of my usual life being peeled away and I leave feeling a sense of fullness that I rarely feel here.

You don't have to go to extremes, but do begin to engage in some restraint, both physical and mental restraint. Cut back on unhealthy foods and adopt a simple diet. Sit less and go for a walk more. Less screen time on devices and more time in solitude. Less freedom to do anything at any time and more of a schedule for your life.

Start with small steps to begin the journey to stop looking outside of you and find the happiness that lives within, just waiting for you to set the stage for its opportunity to play out.

We are creatures of comfort. When we feel comfortable, a feeling of security and contentment is engendered. Because we like feeling this way, we spend an inordinate amount of energy trying to stay in that comfort zone and feel threatened when we are pushed out of it as is happening during this time when we are living through a pandemic, with a layer of political and social unrest on top of it all.

Today, I will discuss why we feel so threatened based on the yoga perspective of chakra theory.

…….

Let me take a few minutes to help you understand what the chakras truly are. The word chakra means 'wheel' and each one is an energy vortex that is somewhat of a 'meeting point' for the different aspects, the different layers, of our being. Each chakra influences, and is influenced by, the physical, energetic, mental, wisdom and spiritual dimensions of who we are. I want to make it clear that your chakras are all functioning, or 'open' despite what you may have heard or read in what I have to refer to as rather new age teachings. No chakra is 'closed' or 'blocked'. The question actually becomes how the chakra is functioning - poorly, normally, or optimally. It's really a matter of degree – a continuum – and that function slides along the continuum.

As an example, consider your eyes. If your vision is poor, you can't see well, and especially as a child, you may not even realize there's a better way to see until someone tests you. Maybe you become aware there is a weakness of vision and you take the action of getting glasses that allow you to see normally and this correction becomes second nature. Now imagine that you could 'see' beyond that – to 'see' or discriminate more of what is truth. Perhaps realizing that at our core we are all connected and all subject to the same fears and goals. And this level of seeing results in more understanding, compassion and humility. It is at this point that you are seeing optimally!

So, it's not a matter of the chakras being open or closed. It's a matter of where their function falls along the continuum of darkness to luminosity. In yoga we call this continuum that 'gunas' or the qualities of nature.

There are only three gunas but there are various shades emerging from one to the other in the same way as different colors emerge as one overtakes the other. I'll give a brief primer on the gunas.

Tamas is at the dark end of the spectrum and represents depression, inertia, stuckness. Rajas is in the middle and represents dynamism, movement, ego. And Sattwa is at the other end of the spectrum with balance and luminosity. These gunas are always shifting a bit from one direction to the other depending on our lives – our conditioned behaviors, our associations, our karmas, our lifestyle. But generally speaking, the vast majority of people are mainly tamasic with some rajas. In other words, most of us are acting without much awareness and as a result of how we were raised. But this will vary depending on the chakra discussed because you may be predominantly rajas in a couple and more tamasic in others.

So now coming back to the discussion of the chakras and re-examining our comfort zone, I will explain how these gunas play out for the chakra most associated with our comfort zone – mooladhara. Moola means 'root' and 'adhara' means foundation. Our need for security, to feel comfort, is primarily held within this root chakra.

To as certain extent, the chakras align with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow was a psychologist and a bit of a philosopher who laid out a series of levels that are required for self-actualization. Maslow delineated the most important needs to be met first are those that relate to survival – food, water, warmth, rest, safety, security. In yoga this is also the first level, the first main chakra, the foundation chakra of mooladhara.

It is also the root of fear when these needs aren't met because this foundation, this root chakra is about security on all levels. It's about having enough. Having enough food and water to sustain us. Having enough warmth and shelter to protect us from the elements and other possible dangers. Having enough children to pass on our genetic material. And having enough skills to acquire all of this.

And when you don't feel that you have enough, and for some, there is never enough, fear and anxiety result. But even if you do have enough, do may live in fear of losing it. This is the influence of tamas.

If the energy that infuses mooladhara is tamasic energy, then you live in fear. You believe the world is a dangerous place and may be hypervigilant. You fear those you don't know those who look different than you do, those that act different. Because of this fear, you avoid exploring anything unfamiliar. You hold tightly to what you have, both the objects you possess as well as the thoughts because to think a different way creates more anxiety. Actions taken are all about me and mine! Belief systems cannot easily be changed. You are stuck!

But if rajas begins to enter the picture, then you begin to take care of security in a more materialistic, direct way. You believe in hard work to accumulate more money and possessions. You may even use deception and dishonesty to acquire them, continually looking for ways to get more and more! Having more makes you feel secure because your mind engages a lot in comparison. If your friend has the latest iPhone and you are still carrying a model that is several years old, you feel envious and you want it even though your phone works perfectly fine.

This behavior is part of the ego aspect of rajas – to have more than what you need and to let others know it. In mooladhara this can show up as a strong sense of selfishness and opportunistic actions. There is virtually no generosity unless it yields a win/win outcome. There's always a need to get something from the actions.

Gradually as the consciousness evolves into sattwa, one begins to see the bigger picture. There is still a sense of pride in family, possessions and self that can feed the ego, but there dawns the understanding that possessions don't provide inner security. There is a realization that you need just a fraction of what you have, and you begin to take actions that benefit others. You realize that when you give you don't need anything in return other than the inner happiness that you gave.

And when you reach this point an amazing phenomenon takes place. Life starts to fall into place. Your needs become less. Your sense of self is not prideful but authentic. You can embrace your strengths and accept your weaknesses. You can 'see' how your actions affect those around you, the environment, your own inner nature. A sense of security blossoms from knowing that you are able to see the bigger picture, and you will do your part in making that picture more beautiful. There is an inner knowing that whatever happens – I will be okay.

At this point I hope you are asking, "How do I get to that point?" The short answer is 'awareness'. Cultivating more and more awareness. To be able to see your thoughts and question your beliefs, to realize your attachments and acknowledge your fears. This require practice.

To do this you will need to move out of your comfort zone. What!! Why? Why would anyone want to live outside one's comfort zone? Well, because growth rarely happens within our comfort zones. We have to have a push. Think about some of the best, most valuable lessons you have learned in life? How many happened when life was moving along smoothly and all was well? And how many happened when you were challenged? When you had to find a new way of thinking, a new way of being?

This time of chaos from the pandemic and the political and social unrest may just be the push you need. What security we have had through our normal routines has been challenged. Life is in flux. How are you responding to it all? How much anxiety and fear are you feeling and are you facing it? Or are you falling into the common coping mechanisms of denial and distraction? Where is your mooladhara sitting on the continuum of consciousness evolution?

Personally, I feel my mooladhara is rajasic with a little bit of the light of sattwa showing me a glimpse of a different way of being. Generally, I am not as disciplined as people may think. I lean toward darkness and I tend to be overly busy to avoid dealing with that aspect of my nature. For me this means I need to bring more sattwa into my life - more sattwic foods, a more sattwic connection with my body and the environment around me. A more sattwic connection with my thoughts and feelings.

So to help my evolution, I'm engaging in lifestyle changes that support me more fully – eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, walking with a friend outside every morning and walking on my treadmill every afternoon, getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night and doing the relaxation practice of yoga nidra regularly. I've increased my meditation practices and joined an advance yoga study group. To engage all of these changes during these last few months, pushes me out of my comfort zone. And you know what? It's all good. I'm re-examining my dark side, my pattern of overcommitting and taking better care of myself so that I can take better care of others.

I challenge you to experiment with living outside of your comfort zone. I would love to help you find the way. Through 2020, I'm offering free 15 minute clarity calls to support your growth. Just go to my website, swamiatmarupa.com and click on the "meet with Atma" button on the home page to book an appointment.

Start now so with time and practice, you will be secure in yourself knowing that your comfort zone is internal to you and you will always be comfortable no matter what is happening outside of you.