International World Yoga Day - round 2!!!

On the occasion of the worlds 2nd International World Yoga day, let us open our hearts to our inner beings and find a simple expression of joy.
EVENT ; Opening the heart through our bodies and sound
PLACE: EDGE Fitness, Sadlers Lane, Naguru, Kampala, Uganada
TIME: 21st June Tuesday - 6.30-8.00pm
FREE EVENT

Opening the heart through sound.  Sound plays a vital part of our everyday lives; it is a way of communication of learning and interacting.  Have you ever just stopped and listened to all the sounds that surround us and see the effect they have on our bodies, emotions and moods?  How they vibrate through our systems?  Then in turn how do the sounds we create affect us?  The sound of gentle breath, the sound of the heart beat the sounds from our vocal chords.  Sound has the power to either raise our vibratory level or lower it, depending on the sound, for example the sound of a drill will have a certain effect on us compared to that of a divine voice sweetly singing.  This International World Yoga Day I will be exploring how sound can open our hearts and elevate us.  Raise our awareness to a higher plane and begin heal us.  It can activate the right side of the brain the creative side and bring holistic development to the individual, using the practice of mantra and kirtan chanting we can uplift ourselves, create happiness and a more focused mind.  We will chant in Sanskrit; the language of the Gods which comes from within so by chanting you are activating your inner knowledge, unblocking and activating our chakras, (energy centers.) allowing our energy to flow positively.
Sound is energy let us make some noise together and let that energy manifest for the benefit of ourselves, all living entities and for the Universe itself.
The session will begin in initial relaxation to free us from the day and tune into our practice, giving ourselves some space.  Then we honor the light of the day with a few rounds of Sun Salutations to re-charge and release toxins from the system.  Followed by a few rounds of Moon salutations to welcome the transition from day to night.  Then we are prepared for the use of sound, sometimes calming and soothing and sometimes with dynamic energy, we will chant, sing and generally make some noise.  Let us see where it takes us! And of course we finish with a lovely final relaxation throughout the whole system to allow the energy we have created to permeate into every part of us.  We will conclude with a surprise treat, as no celebration is complete without a little sweet treat for the soul!

Do please join us all are welcome and experience something a little different.

Be the light that you are

I will also be teaching at the National Theatre Kampala from 4.45-5.30pm so you can catch me there too! And their celebration for yoga day will continue until 8pm.
AUM Shanti
Nicky

Prayer Flag

Drive this Body Car intelligently, Relax perfectly, Breathe Rhythmically, Meditate regularly - You will enjoy happiness, health and love in a long life - Swami Vishnudevanada.   Make your every breath one long prayer, be inspired and send your prayers out into the universe.  Let the world smile back at you. 

AUM AUM AUM

Serve, love, give, purify, meditate, realize - Swami Sivananda

Mangala / Nicky

High Frequency foods to promote Health.

We all know that the yogic diet is a strictly vegetarian one consisting of simple and natural organic foods that promote our health both mentally and physically.  Eating foods that are first-hand from nature that have been grown in fertile soil free from chemicals and pesticides and that have not been genetically modified are going to give the maximum nutritional values that we need.  Processing, refining and over-cooking destroy much of these values. We are all vibrating at different levels consistently, our cells are vibrating our minds are certainly vibrating even our skin – our whole self is operating on a vibratory level, that level goes up and down depending on our situation.  A person in upmost health is vibrating on a high level compared to a person who is suffering with disease either mental or physical or both.  In that case the vibratory level goes right down.  The purpose of eating is to supply our being with life force or prana the vital life energy.  Everything we eat also has its own vibration, foods that have been grown directly in the sun are going to have a much higher frequency than foods that have not received that life giving energy from direct rays of light.  Processed and refined foods are like eating affirmations of death to your system.  So the higher the frequency of the foods that we eat are, the more prana we will have and we will be in better health.  Here I have listed the high, medium and dense frequency foods that a yogi diet would include, so clearly the more high frequency and the less dense frequency foods that we ingest then the more energy we are going to have. –

High Frequency Foods – promoting optimal wellness

Highest – spirulina, blue green algae, chlorella

Medium – sea vegetables such as nori, hiijki, arame, sea cucumber

Low – leafy green vegetables, cabbage, chard, collard greens, kale, red lettuce, green leaf lettuce, spinach, watercress, sprouted seeds, bakchoy, bananas, avocado, kiwi, pomegranates, papaya, melons, plums, lemons, limes, oranges, berries, mango, pineapple.

Medium Frequency Foods – promoting good health

Highest – nuts and seeds, vegetable flowers, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels, artichoke, dates, figs, apples, apricots, raisins, prunes.

Medium – vine flowering vegetables, cucumbers, eggplant, aubergine, peppers, pumpkin, squash, tomatoes.

Low – tubers and stem vegetables, asparagus, leaks, celery, rhubarb, radish.

Dense Frequency – promoting basic health

Highest – green beans, split peas, legumes, lentils, kidney beans, black eyed peas.

Medium – roots, beets, carrots, potatoes, parsnips, yams, turnips.

So munch away on the highest frequency foods to attain vitality and be full of prana with a keen intellect and serenity of mind.

Eat to live not live to eat!!

Have beautiful healthy days

OM Lokha Somastha Sukhino Bhavantu

May we all find balance and harmony

May we all live as one.

Always –

Mangala / Nicky

Soften your Heart, let go of your Resistence.

After spending almost a year now in Kampala; Uganda, I look back to all the people I have shared yoga here with since I came, or have practiced with and think about where we are at.  I have taught policemen, security guards, school teachers, NGO workers, mental health patients, support workers, students, cleaners, mums and lots more, local Ugandans and expats alike.  I have practiced with some guys that certainly like to bring the idea of ‘Power’ to the mat.  Some have been amazingly open and joyful even excited to come to my classes, whilst others have been suspicious and defensive to the practice.  Before coming to this beautiful country I was warned by a lovely Ugandan lady I had been teaching in Kathmandu – Nicky be careful with the deepness in your classes, be careful with your chanting and the spiritual aspect, go gently.  I listened to her of course but I have always stuck to the truth of the teachings, I have complete faith in them because I have felt them and do so on a daily basis and I’m not scared to be challenged, in fact I almost welcome it as I see a lot of modern forms of yoga being practiced here as a physical experience only.  I am only too keen to have the opportunity to practice here and bring to others classical yoga and the depths of all my trainings.  As I look back to how I first started many years ago, sometimes I felt resistance too but this softened and slowly I started to embrace all aspects of yoga.  I stopped fighting and managed to put myself on a little lotus leaf and let it be carried by the river of life.  I stopped needing to be in control.  I stopped worrying about my body and started to be more concerned with my heart. 

When I first started yoga I had no intention really of a spiritual journey I just wanted to play with the body and see what I could do, I wasn’t even really aware of what yoga was and thought it to be just some form of exercise, but over time things started to open within me, and I wanted to and started to connect to the divine.  I started to connect to that which is divine within us, my whole world started to open on a level I hadn’t really experienced before.  Meaningfulness started to poor into my practice, which in turn opened up new possibilities in my life.  I no longer battle to try and find whatever it was I thought I was looking for, I no longer battle to be in a place where I think I should be, but take joy in surrendering to the play of life in a very wonderful and beautiful cosmos.  When I think back before I had found this amazing thing called yoga I seem to have been always searching or fighting something, now I am relaxed and contented.  I am relaxed to be where I am on a moment-by-moment basis and to find a contentment or acceptance of it. 

This yoga is a journey and as much as I love to travel the globe, meet new cultures and learn from them and see the beauties of the planet, I also love to journey within now with confidence to explore the soul.  It is an amazing adventure and one of constant learning.  Which is a wonderful thing to keep learning and being ever inquisitive. 

Yoga isn’t about standing on our heads, putting our legs behind our heads, being able to hold plank pose for five minutes, it is about accepting our humanness and seeing the Divine within and journeying beyond.  It is becoming the master over the five elements - which make our physical bodies, it is being able to observe our mental activities and emotions, it is finding complete balance over our energies, and moving beyond this.  It is about exploring our limitations and then becoming limitless.  Now when I chant Siva Siva Siva Siva, it is not that I am a Hindu or have a vision of a form of a man with dreadlocked hair tied above his head holding a trident, but that of the meaning of Siva – that which is not.  Because that which is – is material, it is physical – that which is not, goes beyond.

Yoga pre-dates any religion, before any idea of religion entered humans mind, yoga was.

So when I meet people coming to yoga for the first times and I find they have a heart that is closed, a mind showing resistance, in a way it makes me smile as I think back to myself, and also now to those people that I met in the past and that also showed that same resistance, but they kept coming and are now yoga teachers themselves. 

Oh for the journey!

AUM Lokha Somastha Sukhino Bhavantu

May all beings find harmony and balance.

Always

Mangala / Nicky.

Yoga is Transformation.

Every day we witness transformation around us as night becomes day and day becomes once again night, I love those times of transition when things are soft and the light is quiet, the noises change around us depending on where we are living and even the smells as you may catch the waft of coffee in the morning or an evening meal being prepared.  Now as I sit in my garden in Kampala, Uganda I love to watch those transitions and listen to the insects begin to chirp or the bird calls in the morning, and see the sky create a beautiful dance of shapes, colour and light.  It brings a sense of real peace to me.  Yoga has brought me that transition too, as I think back to how I was before I found it, before I allowed it to gently and lovingly change me into a much softer and quieter, a stiller and happier being.  Give an angry man a yoga mat and show him the practice he becomes a gentle soul with open heart, give a fidgety man who can’t sit still a yoga mat and show him the practice he becomes at peace and finds stillness, give an anxious man a yoga mat and show him the practice he becomes strong and full of courage, give an unhealthy man a yoga mat and show him the practice he becomes healthy.  And so the list goes on.  I found this lovely story by John Mundahl and would love to share it –

The Man with the Funny Yoga Mat – by John Mundahl.

Once a man came to my yoga class.

The first day he walked up to me and said –

  “I need exercise.  Will I get that here?”

  “Yes.”  I said.  “Yoga can be exercise.”

He was blunt and direct and walked away.

I watched him spread out his yoga mat.

But I could see that the mat wouldn’t lie flat.

The edges were curled up.

The next week he came to me and said,

  “I’m sleeping better.  But I don’t want to give up ice-cream.”

  “That’s fine.”  I said.

He walked away and

I watched him spread out his yoga mat.

The edges were still curled up.

But I could see that his mat was trying to lay flat.

The next week he came but he was quiet.

He only spoke to me after the class.

  “What is this anyway?”

  “What is what?”  I asked.

  “Yoga.”

  “It’s what you want it to be.”  I said.

He was puzzled, but curious.

And I watched him walk out the door yoga mat under his arm.

The next week he came and said,

  “I’m loosing some of this!”

As he shook his belly and laughed for the first time.

He spread out his yoga mat

And I could see that the edges were starting to lay flat.

On the last day of class

He came up to me with a soft face.

  “There was a beautiful sunset last night, did you see it?”

  Yes, I saw it.”  I said.

Then he walked away to a quiet corner of the classroom,

And spread out his yoga mat.

And the edges were flat, his yoga mat lay flat.

I am forever grateful for yoga and all that it has brought to me, for all my guru’s whom have taught me and all the yogis I have shared the practice with. To finding the path and going along it with a happy heart.

AUM Namah Sivaya,

May we all have happy hearts as we return to our natural selves.

Mangala / Nicky

Current Class times

Mondays- 8.30-10.00am Butabika Recovery College, for mental health patients, support workers, Dr’s and Nurses.

Tuesdays- 6.30-7.45pm Edge Fitness Center, Naguru, All Welcome

Wednesdays- Gems Cambridge International School Secondary Students

Thursdays-  Gems Cambridge International School Primary Students and 5.00-6.30pm All Welcome (above the sports complex)

Yoga Mangala has also began its first community yoga teacher-training program for local Ugandans, with two wonderful new students, Elizabeth and James, wishing them all the joy, light and peace on their journeys to become yoga instructors for the community.

8 Ways in which we learn to achieve harmony.

Our tails fell away and we moved from monkey to man, at least in our physical sense, but what about the monkey mind? It is always restless and moving, jumping here and there and imitating that which we like or are tempted by.

So how do we evolve the mind as well as the body?  We learn in 8 different ways and if we can apply those 8 ways to our yoga practice the mind will slowly over time calm down and find contentment and peace. In writing it sounds easy, just do this and you will be happy and in reality it takes patience, dedication and time, but the traumas the mind can cause will become weaker and weaker and the emotions we strive for like happiness and joy will become greater.  Our unnecessary wanderings and wastefulness of energy will slow down and we can find stillness. 

If we look to nature and imitate the wisdom of the plants and trees our inner wisdom will increase.  Trees don’t become depressed because their leaves fall, flowers aren’t sad and discontented when they close.  They simply just are, not looking, not searching and not minding what happens.  A mountain is at peace whether it is covered in flowers or if it is covered in snow, it is unaffected.

With these 8 ways of learning there is scope to reach out to all beings, to find a way where we too can just be and find contentment and strength, not minding what happens, but just being.

Verbal Learning

The study of the scriptures, reading such illuminating texts as the Bhagavad Gita.  Listening to stories and teachings from inspired Gurus.  Communicating affirmations through speech.

Logical and Mathematical Learning

Working with various breathing techniques, the counting of the breath and looking at the mathematics behind yogic postures such as the alignment with stars etc.

Visual Learning

Using mandalas, yatras and uplifting images to lead us to focus the mind and lead us into meditation.

Body Intelligence

Working through yogic postures and proper relaxation.  Following a yogic diet – pure and natural and vegetarian.

Musical Intelligence

Chanting of mantras and the singing of Kirtan, nada yoga – listening to sattvic sounds to activate and stimulate and unblock our energy centers.

Interpersonal Intelligence

Communicating with others – Karma yoga working for others, partner yoga.

Intrapersonal Intelligence

Self-reflection, meditation practices, questioning who am I? And self-observation.

Naturalist Intelligence

Being in nature, getting out there and enjoying our beautiful planet.

Through these practices we can balance through our body, mind, emotions and energy forces within us and harmonize through them all.  Once they become in harmony with each other, then anything is possible.  Then make your choices of what you really want and don’t mind what happens!

“It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants.  The question is what are we busy about?  Henry David Thoreaux.

Have beautiful days

AUM Shanti AUM

Mangala / Nicky.

Womens Day, Community Fundraiser and general class times.

Namaste Dear All, 
I hope you are all having beautiful moments, but if stress is building up, or you are in need of a little healing, or just some company to practice with or those of you that simply breathe yoga, then here are some notable dates for you and general class times.
Tuesday 8th March - Womens Day
Come and celebrate your whole being and spend a little time for YOU with a gloriously slow approach the YIN way! 
10.00-11.45am, EDGE fitness center, Sadlers Lane, Naguru, Kampala, Uganda.
UHS20000

Saturday 12th March - Community Fundraising Yoga
Come and join a rich Hatha yoga class with concentration on relaxation and breath-work then focusing on the body to bring the whole self back into harmony and find the peace within. 
10.00am-12.00pm Ambroseli International School, Bugolobi, Kampala, Uganda.
Class is by donation to raise funds for the Muko school a place for orphans and kids suffering with HIV to live in peace and continue with their studies.
www.buyambilove.webs.com
All are welcome and all donations welcome whatever they are. 
Please register your name to either nickymangala@gmail.com or loucop@yahoo.co.uk  for the security gate.

Saturday 19th March - Become complete with Yoga
A class to introduce some techniques from the classical teachings of yoga, we will look at the sun salutations and which parts of us are activated during the process, positive yogic postures, ways to use the breath to de-stress and re-balance, and essential relaxation techniques.  We will then look at two classic meditation techniques one from the Buddhist Lineage of teaching and one from Vedanta philosophy enabling us to begin to truly dive within.
10.00am-12.30pm EDGE fitness center, Sadlers Lane, Naguru, Kampala, Uganda.
USH40000

YOga Mangala is also working with Butabika Mental Health recovery college bringing the joys of yoga as a breath of fresh air to those who are suffering with mental health issues, please do contact me for further information - nickymangala@gmail.com

General Class times - In Kampala
Tuesdays 10.30-11.45am Edge Fitness Center - Naguru
Wednesdays 6.30-7.45pm Edge Fitness Center - Naguru
Thursdays 5.00-6.30pm Gems Cambridge International School, Butabika (free class for local Ugandans.)
Private sessions also available to tailor make your own practice to your own needs, physically, mentally and spiritually.

Prospective trip coming up to Kathmandu to revisit my students there and meet some new ones! Dates and classes/ retreat to be confirmed.

Yoga Mangala is for non-profit those that support me with payments for classes etc, this money gets put back into sharing the beautiful wisdom of Yoga for a more healthy and peaceful world, and goes to notable causes. 

AUM Namah Sivaya on this Sivayatri - may we all be well, may we all be happy and live in peace and harmony.
I bow to my Guru's those that bring light.
I bow to you and all those that have supported me and encouraged me, I am forever grateful as we continue on the journey
AUM AUM AUM
Mangala / Nicky