The Final Relaxation

At the end of every yoga session, be you in a class or doing your self-practice there should be a final relaxation lasting at least 10 – 15 minutes.  This should bring complete physical, mental and spiritual relaxation, which is key to your yoga practice, (that of union with the universal consciousness.).  The energy that you have generated during your session needs this time to flow through your whole being, rejuvenating every cell and each part of you as a whole, without the relaxation a large portion of the prana could be lost as you walk straight back into your busy life.  But relaxation is not easy for every one, it is a practice within itself a vital one at that which everybody needs to maintain balance, harmony and optimum health.  So firstly we have to relax the physical body, we start by lying down on our backs in the position known as savasana.  The feet should naturally fall out sideways, the arms about 45 degrees from the body with the palms face upward, the eyes closed.  Allow the spine to find its own natural curve but the head should always be inline with the spine.  For many it is hard to actually feel the muscles relax as we can always hold tension in the body without realising it.  So it is good to tense and release the whole body before starting to really relax deeply.  You can start at the toes tensing the toes and work up the body ending up pulling all the facial muscles into the face hold the tension in the whole body and then release.  Then we start with the relaxation working into the subconscious, feeling the downward pull of gravity of the body onto the mat bringing you closer to the earth, then you can gently and mentally command yourself to relax each part of the body in such a way as ‘I’m relaxing my toes, my toes are relaxed, I’m relaxing my feet, my feet are relaxed.’  Moving up the body through the legs, hips, back etc you can mention each body part individually and make a mental picture of that body part as you mentally say its name and physically feel that part of your body relax.  You can even work through the internal organs depending on how much time you can dedicate to this practice.

Next we have to work on relaxing mentally, the mind is always switching between the past and future and it is hard to catch it and maintain it to be in the present moment, where then it is still distracted by our senses.  So one way to calm and relax the mind is to focus your full awareness on the breath, noticing the movements of the tummy rising and falling as you breath and the subtler movements of the chest.  Notice the speed of your breath and then try to slow it down by counting 5 counts for the inhalation and 5 for the exhalation or a number that is suitable for you.  You will need your full awareness following your breath from the tip of your nose all the way up through the nostrils and down deep into the lungs and then back out again, this full awareness with the breath will calm the mind and give it the vital rest it needs, leaving you feeling refreshed. 

Now we need to relax spiritually also, meaning that the mind has a carefree and contented manor with no anxieties and stresses.  To do this you can make a visualisation of a calm deep blue lake, no waves just still water, it is timeless and unchanging, all is completely still, you will find your inner calm and peace.

So after your asanas don’t rush off of your mat and off back into the world, you are not ready yet, give yourself this time for the 3 steps of relaxation for the well being of your whole self.  It is often the case with self practice that the relaxation is left out because of time constraints and it is thought to be the least important part of the practice, actually it is the most important part, the body and mind can only be pushed for so long before the whole system starts to break down with stress, you can prevent this by emphasising the importance on your relaxation within your practice.

So enjoy your savasana and go and reeeeeeeeeelaaaaaaaaaax!

Eternally grateful for this most precious practice,

May you all find your strength and peace within your stillness.

Mangala / Nicky.

Detox with Kitcheri

Kitcheri is a wonderful Indian comfort food that brings detoxification for your system; purifying the digestive tract and systemic toxins from the body restoring balance.  It provides nourishment but allows the body to spend less energy on digestion and devote more time to healing.  The digestive tract is often overworked constantly having to process different foods that we intake throughout the day, weakening the digestive fire.  Eating kitcheri provides the means to give the digestive system a real rest seeing as it is so easily digestible. 

Ayurveda believes that all healing begins with the digestive tract; so fasting so to speak on kitcheri is a good way to start.  It is the ideal detox food, it has long been used to nourish babies, the elderly, the sick and the healthy during times in need of detox or special calendar dates for detox or for deep spiritual practices.

There are many recipes for making kitcheri especially as this is what is known as real Indian comfort food that would have been prepared in Indian homes over the years to warm the bones and re-energise the system, prepared lovingly with ‘Mum’s’ own special recipe. 

Normally to warrant the name of kitcheri the mixture must consist of white rice such as basmati which is easier to digest than brown or red rice, and split mung beans, also the process of splitting making the beans easier to digest and lighter for the stomach.  For me however if I am making a fast of kitcheri for only one day I prefer to make it with just rice omitting the beans really making it lighter but still as delicious.  However this way the fast should be short as one day only, otherwise without enough protein the blood sugar can become unstable making you constantly hungry and irritable.  The goal of a fast is to rejuvenate and detox the fat cells this will not happen if the body is under stress and strain.  The basic equation is that stress will add to the body storing fat and no stress will allow for fat burning, so as well as the fast it is important to practice de-stressing techniques.  We process our stress through the intestinal wall, chronic stress will compromise digestion and bring a build up of toxins within the body, which can lead to disease. 

Eating Kitcheri can induce a deep inner calm and bring back harmony to your system; here is one recipe but for me for a one day fast I omit the mung beans, but for a 5 day fast it is definitely advisable to keep them within your diet.

1 cup split yellow mung

½ cup white basmati rice

1 tblespn fresh ginger

1 teaspoon each of black mustard seeds (already toasted to remove cholesterol and toxins) cumin, turmeric

½ teaspoon coriander, cinnamon, cardamom

pinch of rock salt

7-10 cups of water

Big spoonful of desiccated coconut

The mixture can all go in the pressure cooker, let it steam for about 20 mins or alternatively you can do in the saucepan but cooking may take a little longer.  The mixture should be stodgy, if you need to add a little more water then do so. 

For now enjoy your kitcheri and feel GREAT!!

Om Shanti

Mangala / Nicky

When the mind becomes disturbed, what do we do?

When the mind is disturbed it can be very hard to get those disturbances out, thoughts keep rolling around in our minds, waking us up in the night, making a small problem into a mountain.  When we are angry it is easy to allow the anger to grow and not so easy to dissolve it.  When we are sad that sadness can build and embed itself without us being able to turn ourselves around to being a contented happy person whatever the situation. 

When the mind becomes disturbed it is vital that we don’t agitate it more, we have to handle our system gently and nicely.  Taking some steps back and just observing ourselves is a good way to free our minds from these lower emotions, by this observation you gain the support of the self, when the intellect becomes strong and can ride over the emotions the thoughts will subside.  One way we can support the intellect and help to overcome those emotions is by chanting or singing.  This way we can turn our mind to something positive letting go of the negativities that can eat into you.  I have found many adults to be shy to sing or chant, they are so caught up with entanglements, insecurities and fear of what they may sound like as the ego plays its part.  When we are children we love to sing, so why not when we are older, it doesn’t matter what you sound like, if you are singing from the heart it is bound to be beautiful no matter of the sound.  And it doesn’t matter what you sing, if you have a favourite song then blast it out (of course something uplifting!)  Or simply chanting Om or Maa can be a wonderful way of self-expression and can turn our anxieties, fears and depressions into joy and peace. 

There are so many mantra’s and bhajans that we can look into, but one of my favourites is the sun and moon healing mantra, coming from the Kundalini lineage from Yogi Bhajan. 

The mantra is RAA MAA DAA SAA      SAA SAY SO HUM.

Raa meaning the sun, we are evoking the suns qualities of creation.  Maa is the moon representing all female qualities of compassion and nurturing.  Daa is the earth as we chant daa we are grounding ourselves.  Saa is an uplifting vibration and saa say meaning that vibration is infinite.  So hum meaning I am that, therefore I am that sun, moon, earth, that infinite vibration of consciousness. 

You could make up your own melody or look for Satnam Kaurs version; who truly has the voice of an angel and chant with her. 

When I have been sick I have used this mantra and when you chant with belief and the right intention you can truly feel the vibrations working their way around the physical body but also around the mind, it can be a very powerful and positive thing, turning any negative health into positive health. 

So smile to yourself and chant away, you can also chant silently in your mind if you are on the bus or train you can still do it, and the effect will be just as strong.  So go ahead and enjoy bring the light back into your life.

Om Shanti

I wish all living entities to be happy, free from suffering and peaceful.

Mangala / Nicky.

Chanting class is held for free every Friday at Pranamaya Yoga Studio, Moksh, Patan, Kathmandu from 5-5.30pm, with Nicky.

My aching back, where is the pain coming from?

All of us at some time or another are experiencing back pain, even children today are suffering with it.  For some the pain can become unbearable and bring a lot of misery into our lives where normal daily things can become very difficult, causing us a great deal of unhappiness and sorrow.  And for others it is just that annoying niggle that you just can’t seem to shift, again disturbing every day life. 

In modern science it is very easy to pin point where the back pain is, but it is not so easy to cure.  And this can be because we are looking in the wrong place for the cause of the pain and hence the wrong solution.  Back pain can be physical due to injury, strain on the muscle, damage to the vertebrae or disk, or pressure on a nerve.  Also it can be caused by other diseases i.e. kidney or heart problems, cancer or tumours, obesity etc.  But quite often the pain is caused by psychological stress.  The mind is very clever and the subconscious mind can create the pain to escape reality.  For example suddenly before a big meeting you don’t want to attend or an exam or interview you are very nervous about, you get a fever or terrible headache, the subconscious creating these so you can escape whatever it is that is causing you the stress.  The pain or the physical problem is being caused by a psychosomatic issue; that of an emotional or mental issue.  To feel the pain the prana (energy) has to be disturbed, and when you have the pain you focus on the pain creating tension in the muscles.  If it is stress causing your pain then often the treatments you are having will not work as you are only addressing the physical and not the mental issues. 

Therefore stress management has a very important role in back pain.  Of course there are heat treatments, wearing supports, strengthening exercises, sleeping on a hard mattress and massage,changes to our diet and lifestyle that can help.  However by following some simple relaxation techniques you can really relieve your back pain.  De-stressing your mind can make the pain vanish. 

The practice of yoga can help to both relieve stress to the mind and to the body, in practising meditation, yoga nidra, chanting of mantras, chanalysing your prana lying in savasana and a technique called cyclic relaxation, where the relaxation takes place in a standing position, for those of you who simply can’t lie in savasana. 

These techniques are vital for all of us but for those of you suffering with back pain, I believe that this is where you should start to approach the problem by de-stressing.

A simple meditation technique is to simply sit in a comfortable position that you can maintain for some time, place your hands in your lap the right over the left (dhyana mudra) you may sit on a chair as long as the spine is free and straight, or you can do it lying on the floor or standing upright, close your eyes, making sure you are not going to be disturbed for the duration of your practice and begin to watch your breath.  Follow your breath from the tip of the nose up through the nostrils feeling all the sensations, keep following deep into your lungs, then follow it back out again from the lungs up and through the nostrils.  Become aware of nothing but your breath, the subtle sound it makes and the gentle movements of your tummy as it rises and falls, letting go of everything else going on in your life, just breathe and find your peace.  You will naturally begin to release any tension in the muscles during this process.  Choose a realistic amount of time that is going to be doable and stick to that time for the practice, it could be just a few minutes or up to half an hour or even longer, that is up to you. 

It is amazing how stressed we can become without even being aware of it, so be careful and really take the time for proper relaxation where the whole body and mind can rejuvenate and you can free yourself from the pains in your body.

For now be calm and content and find peace

Om Lokha Somasta Sukhino Bhavantu

May all living entities find harmony and balance

Om shanti shanti shanti

Peace peace and perfect peace

Mangala / Nicky.

Smile from within and be content!

Contentment is one of the four gateways to liberation according to the Yoga Vasistha; the supreme yoga.  Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing to not be worried about what is around the corner, to not be worried about what the future holds, but to just have that warm smile from within in contentment of any situation, ready to flow with the river to wherever it may take you.  To not need to quench the thirst of our senses and sense pleasures but just be able to sit in good and wise company and simply be content.  Here is what the Yoga Vasistha says, an ancient scripture that can answer all the questions that arise from the human mind.  It is a dialogue between the Sage Vasistha and a young Lord Rama who has fallen into a depression, it has been a favourite scripture of spiritual seekers over the past few centuries and has a real rational and accessible approach of Vedanta philosophy, so enjoy -

“Contentment is another gate-keeper to liberation.  He who has quaffed the nectar of contentment does not relish craving for sense-pleasures: no delight in this world is as sweet as contentment. 

What is contentment?  To renounce all craving for what is not obtained un-sought and satisfied with what comes unsought, without being elated or depressed even by them -  this is contentment.  As long as one is not satisfied in the self, he will be subjected to sorrow.  With the rise of contentment the purity of one’s heart blooms.  The contented man who possesses nothing owns the world.”

It goes on to tell us that as well as contentment that also self-control, enquiry and keeping company of the good and wise are also gateways to liberation.  It is very hard to just be content the same as it is very hard to just stop being sad if you are sad, but through our practice we can find the answers, through the practice of just one of these gate-keepers then the other 3 will follow, but it has to be through our own self effort.  The highest wisdom will then seek you of its own accord, it explains that until you can tame the wild elephant we call the mind through these 4 practices of contentment, wise company, self enquiry and self control there can be little or no progress towards the supreme goal, to free ourselves, therefore we must practice!

So let us smile from within in contentment of our beings, sit in your own love and light, beautiful people will want to be with you when you yourself are content and have calmed all wants of this and that.  Be satisfied in the fact you have this wonderful human life where you can discover yourself, that is enough to be contented with isn’t it?

Om Lokha Somastha Sukhino Bhavantu

May you all find peace, balance and happiness

Om Shanti Shanti Shantih

Peace peace and perfect peace

Mangala / Nicky

How 3 types of food effect your mind - which would you choose?

“The body is the temple.  The soul is the idol in it.  It is made out of bricks of food.”  Bagavad Gita.

If we don’t feed our bodies with the right food our soul will leave!  The quality and quantity of the food we eat directly affects our whole system, how we think, how we react and how we feel.  Not only is the food we eat our energy for the day but it is what is making our bodies, that energy directly turns into tissues and cells so we must think carefully about what we are making our ‘body home’ with.  Would you make your house out of a packet of biscuits or bars of chocolate?  Maybe the answer is yes!!  But what we eat and drink also really does have a profound effect on the mind, that monkey that likes to jump here and there and cause lots of trouble!  So by what we eat we can also start to manage our minds a little more.  Certain foods will make us more prone to gossiping and being more egotistical whilst other foods can make us lazy and lethargic and others can make us calm, peaceful and have good morals, so which would you choose?  Eating wrongly can cause big in-balances in the body and mind system; this affects the pranic level (your energies e.g. respiration, circulation, excretion, reproduction and digestion.)  Any in-balance in the pranic level is going to weaken the immune system and cause disease, maybe of the body but also of the mind.  In fact any disease that is of the body effects the mind directly and visa versa, so we have to really take care of both.

There are three different types of food, Satvic, Rajasic and Tamasic.  Satwa induces harmony and balance, where rajas induces action and tamas induces lethargy and fear. 

These three qualities or ‘Gunas’ we can apply to our food.

Satvic food would be fresh organic vegetables, fruits, natural foods, cereals and grains, nuts and seeds.  Reasonably cooked not overly or under cooked.  Satvic foods are mildly spiced.  They bring cleanliness, calmness, wisdom and spirituality, harmonic thoughts and good morals.

Rajasic foods would be piping hot food, bitter, sour and saline.  Fried foods, coloured and with preservatives, processed foods.  White sugar, MSG, anything in a tin, packet or can.  Anything artificial.  With these foods arises a competitive mind, gossiping and listening to gossiping.  A fast paced mind, talkativeness, a big ego and self-boasting. 

Tamasic foods would be completely tasteless, cooked all night or overly cooked, impure food or food which is decaying.  Fermented foods are tamasic as are meats, alcohol and caffeine etc.  Tamasic foods bring fear and ignorance, lethargy and laziness, sadness and depression.

However having said this and it is quite clear that you can see what we should be eating as opposed to what our minds tell us we would like to eat, it is also important to know that we do actually as people living in the material world need all three of these types of food, but it is in which quantity that is important.  If we eat too much tamasic food we are likely to become depressed, too much rajasic food and we become too full of ourselves so we have to find the balance leaning toward a Satvic dominant diet with a few little bits from rajas and tamas.  Fermented foods are tamasic like dairy products and dosa or idly, but we need a little bit of the B12 contained within them.  If we are working hard which most of us are in this modern world then we need a little rajasic food for our energy a little biscuit now and then is not going to hurt you.

Recommended is a simple healthy vegetarian diet and eating similar types at a time so it easier for the digestion.  You should work toward satwa, but we need to use the right combination of the three according to your situation.  If you are a yogi living in a cave in deep meditation then only satvic food is needed but if you are working then it is different, you need to work out how much of rajas and tamas your system is demanding, but EXCESS of these two will lead to disease of your system that is for sure.

So the important thing is to bear in mind what the types of food are and what effect they have on your mind and behaviour.  It is all about finding the balance and leading yourself more towards being a calm and peaceful person that others love to be around. 

For now have beautiful days full or fresh pure organic vegetables and fruits!!  Become a tree!!

Om Lokha Somasta Sukhino Bhavantu

Om shanti shanti shantih

May you all find happiness, harmony and peace peace and perfect peace.

Mangala – Nicky.

The meaning of life - 'To be like a Tree!'

I have just returned once again to Kathmandu after another amazing, revealing and illuminating time in India.  How lucky am I to be able to keep growing and learning and then to see so many faces from around the world at Pranamaya’s opening of our new studio in Thamel last night, to share all this with.  All this wonderful yoga.  How privileged I am.  How lucky we are to have these human bodies as our abodes, to experience life through.  To be able to work through all 5 layers of our existence through the practice of yoga, to experience our physical selves, our pranic selves, our minds and mental layer, our intellect and our bliss.  What joy to have this human existence and what an adventure of discovery we can have. 

On this trip I had the great fortune to meet and be in the presence with Swami Bhoomananda, as his eyes shone brightly he explained that we should be like the plants, like a tree that gives fruit, giving to all and causing no harm.  We should have no possessiveness, no ego and be desire less.  It is our birthright to be happy; to feel joy and that we should be laughing.  However we should feel pain, pain is a good thing he explained, if we feel no pain this would be a very dangerous thing, if you cut your hand off and you felt nothing you would very quickly bleed to death.  We need pain, but suffering that is different.  By studying Vedanta that suffering can be relieved and eradicated.  By studying Vedanta we can become free there is no doubt he says. 

Although we are lucky to have these body homes we must remain unattached to them, they are not permanent, death of the body will come, the soul is eternal.  Don’t get caught up with the body, with ideas of perfection and appearance.  Does a tree worry about what it is looking like?  I think it just enjoys its life. 

Swami Bhoomananda’s response to the question of what is the meaning of life was to be like the tree, give your fruits, be compassionate, and be kind.  Keep growing with your experience, and having the honour of sharing yoga certainly is a way to keep growing. 

We are all teachers, the teachers learn from the students and the students learn from the teachers, we are all students learning from each other.  Staying in an Ashram environment teaches us so much as we are thrown together with a whole bunch of people that we have to live, sleep and eat with side by side.  When there is no personal space we learn a lot about tolerance and acceptance and how to love one another.  To not judge others but to work on ourselves, don’t worry about what so and so is doing, worry about yourself, keep working on yourself.  Yoga isn’t just about the time when you have your yoga stuff on and have laid out your mat, yoga is something that should be with you every second, it is an attitude not just breath and postures.  Yoga is being able to remain calm, happy, contented and compassionate in every situation, in our success and in our failure.  To simply be like a tree, feel like the tree and give as the tree gives.

Have beautiful days and sway in the breeze!

Om shanti

Mangala - Nicky