My journey

When I was in first grade I was diagnosed with depression; by seventh grade I had been hospitalized for suicidal actions. Looking back I try and understand why at such a young age I had such difficulties. I have come to the conclusion that I saw the world not as I was told to. I questioned everything, not in the incessant "why" some children have at a young age. I wanted to know the reasoning and motivations behind why people did things that made no sense to me.

What I found was a lack of anything that rang true. The world looked like a series of pointless tasked all to gain things. It also became obvious to me that these things didn't really make anyone happy. I felt stuck, trapped in a world that led nowhere, so I gave up. I tried to bury my sadness; however it came back as anger, or food addiction. I tried running away from it by seeking extremes highs to make myself feel happy. None of it lasted. I was still left with the question, what is happiness and why does it never last? Years went by; I learned to live a sort of numbed life.

By the time I reached middle school I was being medicated for depression, as well as having weekly sessions with a talk therapist. The therapist eventually gave a diagnosis of having a depressive personality.This meant my baseline emotions were more depressed than those of an average person. I was told the only way that this can be changed is by changing my thinking. Through a process of constant observation of my thoughts, I blocked the negative thoughts and attempted to replace them by focusing on positive ones.

This constant observation of thoughts is similar to that of Buddhist and Hindu meditation practices. In the eastern practice observation of thoughts in a detached manner is the normal practice. They both lead to the same conclusion, that the consciousness is not the brain. Any person at their base; that is bellow their conscious and unconscious mind, is pure love and happiness. This however becomes obstructed by the misconceptions that are passed onto us in life. Such as the misconception that consumerism can make you happy, perhaps temporarily; but people do not want only five minutes of happiness. The reason we reach out for more "stuff" is that we have been disconnected from our true happiness. To regain this we simply have to look deep within.

My life didn't change overnight. I went away to college, and still struggled. It was January of 2008, four years later I went off of my medication. It was like starting all over, I didn't have the training wheels of medication to stabilize me. I began smoking and started drinking heavily. I tried cleaning up my act a bit, as well as changed jobs, and fell right back into the same pattern. Then everything fell apart; I lost my job, and my girlfriend at the time gave me the boot but held onto a couple thousand dollars I had saved.

I gave up, moved back in with my parents, something I swore I would never do. Then began searching for a job. I was also searching for something else, to pick up where I had left off spiritually. I still had wild emotional swings. It was then after a couple of months I got roped into going to yoga with my mom one Sunday. As I talk about in my post That first step. It took some time but I definitely grew to love it.

It has been three years, I still become depressed in the winter,though I have changed many old ways of thinking. I find myself not becoming angry as often, even while driving. In a difficult circumstance I accept the situation for what it is and move on. I have learned to just go with the flow of life.

Over time I have come to learn that by focusing on the present without being carried away by my thoughts is the true way to any lasting happiness. As I have peel back the false truths from mind, I have found what I have looked for my whole life. There was never a need to reach out or fix myself; I had just forgotten I was whole and all that I need, so long ago.

Yoga madness

Yoga seems to be everywhere, or at least what people call yoga. A commercialization seems to be happening, some feel it is lessening the spirituality of yoga. Removing the sacred and turning it into the next jazzercise. One of the things that made me loose interest in the yoga studio I attended was the change in atmosphere of the studio. When I first began attending it was a quaint place with a peaceful atmosphere. After a year and a half the community there began to grow. The people who began attending started to turn it into a social hour. The peace disappeared and the vibe of a gym took its place. The yoga for me had left, no matter how hard I focused on my own practice.

What I wanted and had found in the studio was a true yoga, between my mind, body, soul, and at times it felt that God was in that mix as well. The translation of the term yoga according to freedictionary.com is union or joining. In this, yoga asana is union of mind and body. Pranyama, the breath exercises which are part of the larger eight limb path mentioned in my earlier post origin of it all is the yoga of mind and breath. Pratyahara is union of mind with the senses. There are hundreds of forms of yoga. The question then becomes what is it that a person if trying to unite with?

If the hope of the practitioner is enlightenment, closeness to God, a greater compassion for others, then the one of the four paths should be taken. These are the four ways prescribed by books such as the Bhagavad Gita, and the Yoga Sutras as ways to achieve enlightenment. The site yoga108 describes them in succinct detail. Jnana is the path using personal willpower and discrimination to understand ones true nature. Bhakti yoga uses love and devotion to transform the person's emotions into pure love for all. Raja yoga relies on selfmastery to attain understanding through stilling the mind to a point that only the pure self remains. Karmic yoga seeks liberation through selfless service. All of these are spiritual yogas in an attempt for people to free themselves from the suffering of life, and understand their true nature.

Hatha yoga and all other forms of physical practice that delineate from it are practices usually added onto the above practices. The purpose of hatha is to keep limber and healthy to continue with the pursuit of the person's spiritual practice. It is interesting that most people, in America especially are now coming to yoga through the hatha side. Beginning the physical practice for their own reasons, some stay with just that. Others find it opens a way to a spiritual side of their life they never possessed before. Opening and healing their minds and hearts as it heals their body. They then reach out expanding their spiritual practice. Beginning on one of the four paths, even if they do not have a full understanding of the final goal or destination.

I believe that even if the majority of mainstream yoga around is of a physical nature it is a good thing. The fact is a lot of people when they first begin the physical practice are inflexible mentally as well as physically. It takes time to open up and explore, to reconnect, to reach into their intuition. Anyone can change however, it takes a slow progressive change. The thing that will amaze anyone is how much they change before they realize anything has even happened.

Old school

The gayatri mantra is one of the oldest prayers to be inscribed in the world. It was written down in the Rig Veda the first of the sacred books in Hinduism; somewhere between 2500 and 3500 years ago.  Though the mantra was most likely transmitted orally long before that. The origin story of the mantra is that the sage Vishwamitra was given the mantra by God as a reward for his many years of penance and meditation. The words of the mantra are written in a poetic line format which itself is actually called gayatri, the mantra is the gayatri Savitur mantra. Most deities have their own gayatri mantra however this is the first one recorded. The mantra transliterated into English follows: Om buhr bhuva swaha, Om tat savitur varenyam, Bhargo devasya dheemahi, Dhiyo yohaha prachodayat. The mantra as seen below in its original sanskrit is a prayer to the goddess Savitur to bring enlightenment to all. (Shekar) 

Source: http://paramapadasopanam.blogspot.com

The problem is when it comes to transliteration that letters in sanskrit represents specific sounds made with a particular part of the mouth. Some of these sounds are never used in English, resulting in poor pronunciations. Since the transliteration is an approximation the reader has to attempt to imitate the sounds, by guess or imitating recordings. This causes one to miss on some of the vibrations that result from correct pronunciation. These vibrations are what bring about the positive benefits of any mantra. (Bachman)

I first experienced this mantra in a yoga class, in which I heard it on a CD. Afterwards I researched it and began trying to learn to recite it. The main difficulty one would have with this mantra is it's length as well as complexity. Many of the common mantras are two to ten words long, as opposed to the fourteen words some of which are quite complicated. As well if the mantra was to be used with a mala, reciting the mantra 108 times takes around fifteen minutes if going at a fluid pace. If someone is still struggling to pronounce the mantra this could take up to an hour for the full 108 recitations. By this time most people would find themselves uncomfortable physically from sitting so long, as well as mentally wondering off. 

I have noticed with this mantra is as I chant it more, is that it seems to draw me in deeper. Each time builds on the last. I feel a settling of my mind as well as an expansion of my heart; each time faster then the last. I do not know if this is due to my prolonged practice with it or the mantra itself. With a prayer this old a structure for its practice has been created over time. A period of forty days is considered an auspicious number for beginners to practice, doing one round of mala each day. Another auspicious number as I mention in my blog on malas beading a path through my mind is 125,000 repetitions or 1,250 rounds on a mala. Taking 42 months to complete if one recites one round of the mantra a day. Completing the daunting task is said to bring about a mastery over the power of the mantra. (Bharati)

The benefits ascribed to continued recitation of this mantra are: an opening of all energy centers major and minor, strengthening of the immune system, a sharpening of the mind, and an opening of the heart. The power of this mantra can be felt whether spoken, thought or listened to. (Shekar) That being said I invite the reader to listen to the track below, sung by Deva Premal another notable musician who is trying to share with the world this powerful mantra. The video below contains a live performance of the mantra, all you have to do is listen, and feel what you feel. 

Work cited

Bachman, Nicolai. About Sanskrit. Sanskrit Sounds. 2013. Web 13, Oct. 2013

Bharati, Swami Jnaneshvara. Traditional Yoga and Meditation of the Himalayan Masters. Abhyasa Ashram. n.d. Web. 13, Oct. 2013

Shekar, Chandra. The Magic of the Gayatri. 2007. Web 13, Oct. 2013

Just let go

Some people think yoga is a cult. That to be in it you have to: be a hippy, give up meat, go all organic, be super skinny, and a health food fanatic. People think you have to change to do yoga. I think it's the one thing you don't have to change for. A person when they go somewhere or meet up with someone is expected to be, look, and act a certain way. Society constantly attempts to pressure us into stereotypes. In yoga we come as we are to a mat, do what we can, and in the end it doesn't matter good or bad how we did. It is for the connection within us mental to physical and not how advanced a posture you can do. As one of my former yoga teachers put it "I consider a student advanced when they stop focus on the physical and start focusing on the mental."

The main point of yoga is stated in the second line of the Yoga Sutras "The restraint of the modifications of the mind is yoga." The modifications being anything that takes us away from our pure core self. It then goes on to talk about the modifications of the mind as they are the source of all suffering. Then in line twelve it states how to solve this problem: "These mental modifications are restrained by practice and non-attachment."(Satchidananda) In two lines the Yoga Sutras explain what is suffering and how to fix it with practice and non-attachment. The practice aspect seems easy enough to most with enough motivation. It's easy to drag your body to the yoga studio two or three times week. The non-attachment aspect some will ignore, others will avoid at all costs. When you bring up non-attachment people think of a monk; they think of a person with no possessions, no source of income, no sex, no pleasure in life at all. This is one of the biggest misconceptions I have dealt with myself.

It is better to think of the original Sanskrit word vairagya which is normal translated to non-attachment to mean instead letting go. The idea is to let go of the self-defeating behaviors, to fix ourselves so then we can begin to help others. With letting go, we free more energy for ourselves allowing us to move forward in our lives. This energy was previously locked up mentally by constantly repressing things, and physically by tight, painful areas of our body.

This letting go can be physical things such as drinking too much coffee and not enough water. It can be mental like letting go of past memories, especially the embarrassing ones that no one can recall any longer. It can be emotional attachment such as past hurts still held onto. All of the nonphysical attachments can be part of the vast arsenal for an internal selfhate campaign. This is the part of the constant brain chatter that most people become so accustomed to that they don't even notice it happening. I used to have it, some days I still do. There are other days I do not. Such as the day I will that follows.

Between classes at the community college I attend, I went to a Starbucks for some tea. As I was getting back into my car the tea slipping out of my hand going everywhere in the floor of the car. Thankfully not burned I began to laugh at myself. The old me would have been pissed at myself for dropping the tea "you're so stupid you should have paid attention" I would have thought, then I would have been mad at Starbucks for using cheap cups, and at the money I just spent on nothing. I would have then beaten myself up about the whole thing all the rest of the day, and then repressed it. Months later the memory would have popped back up out of nowhere. The anger and embarrassment would have surfaced with it, and I would be beat myself up all over again.

Instead I saw there was a little bit of tea left sitting in the cup. After cleaning up what I could I enjoyed what was left. I let go of what I couldn't control and only focused on what I could. The only thing we can truly attempt to control is ourselves. As I have let go of my past mistakes, hurts, embarrassing memories I have made room for more self-acceptance and love. All this letting go isn't letting go of the true you.

A person's true identity isn't anything physical we own, wear, or keep locked away in some cabinet. People can't seem to figure out who they are because it's buried under so many attachments and possessions. A person mind is like a room the first thing in it is a letter saying who they are. Then as they grow up they learn, and those are the books along the walls. In the center of the room is where the junk gets thrown. It begins to fill the room, hidden that letter is forgotten. The only way to find who you are is to let go of what is not needed. No longer stuck in the guilt of the past, not distracted by the fears of what could happen in the future. We are free; free to focus on living in the moment. To actually live so that I won't wake up one day around age fifty and have a mental breakdown about who I am and that I have done nothing with my life. This quote from the Dalai Lama sums it up perfectly. 

Work Cited

Satchidananda. "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali". Yogaville. Buckingham, Virginia: Integral Yoga Publication, 2011. Print. 30 Sept. 2013

From the heart

Before I first started yoga I had done some meditation and heard of some mantras, but when I went to those first few yoga classes I heard in the music a voice. This voice was deep and wide, and had so much heart to it. I did some searching and found the CD; it was Krisha Das "Breath of the Heart". I started listening more and more. I thought it was great, my girlfriend not so much. She hadn't really gotten into yoga yet. She was still trying to figure out if I was just in it for the girls in tights, her words not mine. It was from that CD that my whole experience of yoga changed and it helped move me towards a more spiritual view of it.

If you saw the 2013 grammys you might have seen a performance by Krishna Das. After hearing about his performance I looked it up on youtube. The fact that he is given only about four minutes to preform while his average song length is around ten minutes cause the music to loose impact. A bit of that energy is lost as well by only having two people to respond back in the chant, with microphones seemed to be off.



In interviews he describes himself as doing a practice selflessly it is ironic that as he continues this act of selflessness his prowess only grows. I think it is people searching for a deeper feeling in music. People are looking for something that speaks of more than just superficial love, sex, or drugs. When I got that first CD didn't know what the words meant, but I just know it led me into a happier place.

In his biographical movie "One Track Heart" he talks about his lifetime struggle with depression, drug abuse, and trying to find his path through life. After the death of his guru he fell back into depression and addiction.  It was only through chanting that he could find the love and peace he had experience in the presence of his guru. He uses his chants as a way to lead people and himself into a more loving state of mind. It is through his music that many have found solace, joy, and peace.

Work Cited
One Track Heart. Dir. Jeremy Frindel. Narr. Krishna Das. Zeitgeist Films. 24 Sept, 2013. Film. 30 Sept, 2013

Beading a path through my mind

I chant every morning for at least 35 minutes. This may means getting up a bit earlier yes, some people have two hour plus practices and wake up at three am every day. As I sit down I reach for my prayer beads. Growing up Catholic I remember the rosary and I remember that being what old people did, sitting in church praying for what only they knew.  It was during my time at the yoga studio that I picked up my malas. Mala being the sanskrit name for prayer beads, meaning Garland (Adams), these strings of beads are usually 108 beads or divisions of that number.(Anthropology)  108 represents many things from the number of energy points in the body or 108 desires to overcome. 100 of the repetitions are considered for the practitioner and the other offering to the divine. (swamij) My first encounter with malas was a display in the entrance to the yoga studio I frequented. Each mala like the ones below was made out of semiprecious stones; displayed in its own box with a card talking about the properties of the stone.

 Source: atmaimport.com

Malas are used as a tool for counting prayers, mantras, or even just breaths. This allows the practitioner to focus all their attention onto their practices while working their way around the beads. Starting with a bead to right side of the large bead or guru bead, this bead represents who or what you are praying to. If multiple rounds are done then before the guru bead is reached, the mala is turned around and worked back the opposite way.(Pendragon) In my previous post "Into the Chant" I discussed the known physiological benefits of mantra recitation on the mind, and body. It is then that repetitions through the use of malas allows for a deeper practice, it is considered that mantra siddhi or mastery of the mantra happens after 125,000 repetitions, or 1250 rounds of mala.(swamij)

The mala is a tool, some people wear them as jewelry, and some collect vast amounts of different materials and designs. In the end it isn't the mala but the practice you do with it that make it effective. This practice must be maintained. It is as the yoga sutras say "Practice (mantra practice) becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break and in all earnestness."(Sutras) There may be some instant feelings associated from first practicing mantra with or without malas, but like all great things in life over time it becomes something completely different and amazing.

work cited
Adams, Tom. "Prayer Beads - Tibetan Mala" Eastern Healing Arts. E.H.A. 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2013

Bharati, Swami Jnaneshvara. Traditional Yoga and Meditation of the Himalayan Masters. Abhyasa Ashram. n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2013
Buddhist Prayer Beads.Shanghai Xinhong Cultural Development Co.Ltd, 2010. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

Museum of Anthropology. Museum of Anthropology, College of Arts and Science, University of Missouri. CAS, 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

Rowan Pendragon [Jess Carlson]. "Everything You Need to Know About Malas." Rowan Pendragon. 5 Sept. 2012. Web. 30 Sept. 2013.

Satchidananda. "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali". Yogaville. Buckingham, Virginia: Integral Yoga Publication, 2011. Print. 30 Sept. 2013