Hearts and Hands

Hands are expressive, holding clues in every gesture of what lies within the heart. There is nothing as beautiful as flamenco dancers hands. Gypsies came from India a thousand years ago and with their migration brought unique character to hand mudras that have been around for thousands of years. We learned hand mudras and though the clarity of the fingers fade, the words do not:

Bound within space and time;

by your grace knowledge dawns;

and dispassion is attained.

Understanding the reality of creation;

immersed in Om;

liberation unfolds.

Returning to the self;

with senses controlled;

I offer my mind and heart to thee in complete surrender.

If yoga is a cessation of the fluctuations of the mind, the yoga Sutras invoke having a still mind. Chitta is mind stuff, Vritti is a wave or undulation. Narodaha is a negation of what came before.

"Chitta, Vritti, Narodaha"

The Heart Sutra

Gaté

Gaté
Para Gaté
Para san Gaté
Bodhi Svaha

The great Laama spoke these words just before he died. They speak of the great beyond, going to the great beyond, beyond everything and even further. Svaha means the going and coming, to AWAKE. These words speak of the deepest truest love. The love that exists beyond all else.

Timing and Sequence

Focus on the goal of the practice and build on the participants


Knowing when to push harder and when to be gentle involves reading energy. What time of the day is it? What is the weather? How big is the class? Who is there?

Engineering the order of asanas is demanding and involves skills with reading energy and how to integrate something new with something familiar. Transitions and length of time holding each pose is based on experience level, energy level and participants.

The passing of time can be measured in many ways. Getting the hang of inverted physical poses means that I need to keep focused on the ground. My gaze will lead and the momentum will take me as far as I can see. Its up to me to make sure I have laid a good foundation. A good base.

Fish Story- Matsyasana

Lord of the Fishes


Matsya, the Fish, was one of the incarnations of the Hindu God Vishnu. One of many stories tells that Vishnu assumed this form to save the world from the Flood. My favorite is the one I heard from Mataji...

The story is told that while meditating for many years Shiva was granted the key to the universe and which uncovered the mystery of Yoga. Having awakened from many years of performing austerities with this spiritual knowledge, Shiva returns from the Himalayas to his spiritual consort, Parvati.

Shiva quickly shared this glorious discovery with his wife Parvati while unbeknown to them Vishnu in the form of a fish was listening to them. Parvati wasn't listening too carefully as she had other matters on her mind, mostly concerned with how to engage Vishnu. Several times Vishnu caught Matsya listening and threw him back into the river. Each time he swam back to absorb more knowledge.

As he absorbed the information magical things began to happen and he became enlightened by Shiva's words. Shiva became the first "guru' and Matsya became the first "student". Here began a long lineage of teachers and students who have passed their teachings down to students and teachers throughout the centuries.

Arm Balances and Saving Worms

Somewhere Between Dharana and Dhyana, Balance is Possible...

The effort of trying too hard is like Sisyphus rolling a rock uphill on a Farm. Roll too hard and you just wear yourself out, not hard enough and you will never get there. I struggle between my mind and body every time I try to achieve handstand. Am I warmed up enough yet? Will I fall flat on my back and get the wind knocked out of me again? Where is my drishti?

If we work on doing something right, eventually the pattern makes it easy and the once difficult discipline becomes its own reward. This lesson can be drawn into life as well. With work, play and relationships. Balance is the key for success with all.

When it rains, Mataji suggests helping the displaced earthworms find real ground. I try to carry it from my yoga poses to every day life. Helping others find fertile soil, healing where you can and letting nature take its course.

Helping others is also a pattern that can be created. Sometimes it's frustrating to watch the worm we just tossed into the grass make a bee-line back to the pavement, then balance becomes a matter of knowing when to let nature take its course.

Finding the pivot point is learning how to use momentum without overdoing it. Each endeavor has its own unique balance that we must find through trial and error and hopefully some luck. The main ingredient in finding balance is practice.

Eventually, when no one is looking, I manage a little hang time. Having found that perfect moment in space, where my legs pivot over my body and I balance in the air effortlessly for a few sweet seconds, before I start thinking about the worms and crumble back to the ground.

Karegrea Vasate Lakshmi

Reality is a mere dream of Shiva and Shakti. We call their blessing with invocations. We call to Saraswati for justice and to Vishnu through Brama. We invoke Krishna and ask to be infused with manifestation of their divine presence. Our work is our reality, we take on divine qualities when we perform tasks that guide and aid in the service of others.

Karagrea Vasate Laksmi
Karamule Saraswati
Karamade to Govindaha
Parabate Kara Darshanam

Work with happieness in the light and love of peaceful divinity.

Workshop - May Bliss

1st Hatha Yoga - Ashtanga based poses

7th  Ashtanga Breathing - Basic poses & stretching

14th Ashtanga Primary Series warm-up - focus on inversions

21st Ashtanga Vinyasa sun salutations - focus on backbends and second half of Primary Series sequence

28th Ashtanga Vinyasa overview - Primary Series - focus on meditation (Guided meditation)

Indra Devi

Indra Devi was a student of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the legendary guru who gained worldwide attention for stopping his heartbeat for two minutes. At a time when yoga was almost an exclusively masculine pursuit, she was his first female student.

Like two of his other students, B.K.S. Iyengar and K. Pattabhi Jois, both men, she took his essential teachings and built a style of yoga accessible to Westerners. It was characterized by gentleness. At the time of her death in Buenos Aires, Argentina she was 102, she was studying and writing about Sai Yoga. In 1966, she became captivated by the teachings of the guru Satya Sai Baba.

She dedicated her life to bringing yoga to all people. At age 100, she was still practicing Ardha Sirsasana, Janu Sirsasana, Ardha Matsyendrasana, and Padmasana.

******

Indra began her world travels at a young age. She attended drama school in Moscow as a girl. She lived through the bloody Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which brought the communists into power. She and her mother escaped to Berlin in 1920.

A trained actress and dancer, she became part of a theatrical troupe and toured all over Europe. In Berlin, she became an actress and dancer. Her fascination with India began at 15, when she read a book by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, then some books on yoga. 

In 1927, she sailed for India. Under the stage name Indra Devi, she became a rising star in Indian films. In 1930, she married Jan Strakaty, commercial attaché to the Czechoslovak Consulate in Bombay. Through him, she met the Maharaja and Maharini of Mysore, who maintained a yoga school in their palace where Sri Krishnamacharya taught.

She asked the master for a lesson. He refused, on the grounds that she was a Westerner and a woman. But she persuaded the royal couple to prevail upon the guru, and he reluctantly consented, said Fernando Pages Ruiz, a freelance writer who interviewed her.

Rather than the cursory lessons he had at first intended, Sri Krishnamacharya taught her for a year. When he learned that her husband was to be transferred to China, he trained her to be a yoga teacher.

In 1927, attracted by India's culture and spirituality, specifically the teachings of J. Krishnamurthi, she decided to relocate on the subcontinent. Under the stage name Indra Devi, she became a rising star in Indian films, marrying the Czechoslovakian diplomat, Jan Strakaty, who was posted to India.

Due to a cardiac illness, she started practicing yoga under the tutelage of Sri Krishnamacharya at the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore in South India. Some of the great exponents of yoga today were fellow students, including B. K. S. Iyengar and K. Pattabi Jois. After experiencing a complete recovery, she was urged by her guru to teach yoga the first Western lady to do so in India.

She befriended many, including Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru.

In Shanghai, she taught what was thought to be the first yoga class in modern China, Mr. Ruiz said. Her husband, she said in a 1996 interview in Yoga Journal, was "dead set against" her yoga courses. It was also the time of the Japanese occupation.

For a time she held five classes of 25 students a day in the bedroom of Madame Chiang Kaishek, wife of the nationalist leader and a new yoga enthusiast.

After the war, she returned to India and wrote her first book, believed to be the first book on yoga written by a Westerner to be published in India. She also became known as the first Westerner to teach yoga there.  Her husband, meanwhile, had been ordered back to Czechoslovakia, where he died in 1946.

She returned to Shanghai to recover their belongings and was unsure whether to go to India or the United States. She bought tickets for both destinations and resolved to take whichever ship sailed first. America won.

She found her way to Hollywood, arriving in January 1947. She discovered ready students among movie stars, who found yoga's breathing and relaxation techniques useful to their work. Indra Devi realized it wouldn't be easy to promote yoga in America. Fortuitously, she received the support of Elizabeth Arden, the well-known cosmetology expert who by then already had her famous and fabulously successful line of beauty products and spas. Elizabeth, one of America's wealthiest women, familiar with the virtues of yoga, soon became a follower and advocate of Indra Devi's yoga methods, incorporating them in her upscale health spa programs. This helped Americans learn about Indra Devi's work and open themselves to the ancient Hindu science. Shortly thereafter, noted and troubled actress Jennifer Jones arrived at Mataji's studio in Los Angeles. 

Recommended by her psychotherapist, she was in search of tranquility and peace. Indra Devi, also once an actress, felt an immediate empathy and through asanas and meditation was able to help her young disciple attain better equilibrium. That success quickly elevated Indra to the teacher of great stars of the day, such as Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson (one of her best friends), Ramón Novarro, Linda Christian and Robert Ryan.

In 1953, she married Dr. Siegrid Knauer, who preferred preventive medicine to antibiotics. After becoming an American citizen, she legally changed her name to Indra Devi.

Dr. Knauer bought her a 24-room estate in Tecate, Mexico, at which to give training courses for yoga teachers. He died in 1977.

She went to the Soviet Union in 1960 and became known as "the woman who brought Yoga to the Kremlin." India's ambassador to Moscow arranged for her to meet the top Soviet leaders, including Aleksei Kosygin, the premier, Andrei Gromyko, the foreign minister, and Anastas Mikoyan, chairman of the Supreme Soviet. After she spoke to them of the benefits of yoga, it was legalized in Russia. As with most yoga teachers, she did not directly promote Hinduism. She once said, "I do not belong to any religion. Everything is between God and myself." In 1966 she became a devotee of Satya Sai Baba and began calling her teachings "Sai Yoga."

She conducted a meditation in Viet Nam in 1966 and traveled frequently to India. Also in 1966, she became captivated by the teachings of the guru Satya Sai Baba. This resulted in a new form of yoga that she called Sai Yoga.

She traveled tirelessly around the world giving multiple conferences, aided by her fluency in five languages English, Spanish, Russian, French and German.

In 1982, she visited Argentina, where her popularity snowballed after a single television appearance.

Argentina would be the next chapter in her life. When Doctor Knauer, her second husband, passed away in 1984, Mataji was living in Sri Lanka. Despite being eighty years old, she felt she should continue her same intense teaching. Argentina became her choice, for when she first visited in 1982, in her own words, she "fell in love with the country and its people." According to a New York Times report, "Her popularity snowballed after a single television appearance." She settled in Buenos Aires.

As soon as she arrived in her new homeland, she was showered with invitations to conduct conferences throughout the country. She hardly grasped the phenomenon that was generated around her. Lecture halls had no room for all the people wanting to hear her words. She soon established a studio that was crowded with visitors, not only to attend classes, but also to see her, seeking comfort, looking for happiness, tenderness and hope.

In 1987, Francesca Baldi, who helped Mataji during her first days in Buenos Aires, could no longer continue as her aide. Indra Devi, who did not enjoy taking care of the organizational phase of her work, found a competent assistant in David Lifar, the husband of a dear disciple, Iana Lifar. With him by her side, she established the Fundacion Indra Devi (www.fundacion-indra-devi.org/), dedicated to promoting her teachings in the art of living healthy and in full. During the 15 years she lived in Buenos Aires, she continued to travel around the world spreading the wise principles of love, enlightenment and peace.

The Indra Devi Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to the study, diffusion and teaching of Classic Yoga. The Indra Devi Foundation was created on March 1988, and today, with a ten years' existence, it is an Institute devoted to the Teaching of Yoga. Under Mataji Indra Devi's spiritual guide, it follows the principles of Patanjali's Yoga, adapted to bring a practical and illuminating message to our unserene and nervous Western part of the world.

She formed a foundation to spread her yoga methods. At the time of her death, it operated six studios. Her legacy, which transcended all kinds of frontiers, will always be present through the Indra Devi Foundation. In six major centers they run yoga courses for adults, children, youth, pregnant women, elderly, executives. They teach anti-stress techniques and they certify teachers. 

The Foundation helps the community by offering free classes, visiting prisons, and donating clothing and food to disadvantaged families. Thus the legacy of Indra Devi continues into the third century after her birth.

********

Gems from Mataji's gentle yogic teachings:

"We women must listen to our inner voice. It is easier for women to do this as they are not afraid to say what they feel. We must keep both our femininity and our strength. Men have to descend from their pedestal and learn how to be more broadminded and spiritual.

"A human being's full freedom is to find himself (i.e., be loyal to himself), with independence of judgment, thinking and being flexible and malleable in order to reach harmonization and mental peace. Freedom is living without chains. Yoga is a way to freedom. By its constant practice, we can free ourselves from fear, anguish and loneliness.

"Yoga is an art and science of living. Yoga means union, in all its significances and dimensions. Through a certain amount of physical and mental disciplines we can learn how to stay healthy, alert, receptive and to improve our perception of the external world in order to feel internally harmonized, with a better life condition and spiritual balance.

"Movements in yoga are harmonious, slow, soft, plastic, relaxed, always conscious, and require a permanent and active mental participation. The whole work rests on the dialectic tension-relaxation. It's important to stimulate, turn elastic, tonify, to make oneself conscious of limbs, superficial and deep muscles, joints, and spine, achieving a gradual and progressive limb decontraction, loosening and relaxation.

"Nonviolence (Ahimsa) is one of the keys of yoga, and we should begin it by ourselves. Learning to recognize and respect our own peculiar rhythm and working on that base is essential.

"Try this visualization: Look at the sky and at the stars. Choose one, the one you like the most. You want that star to guide you, it's so pretty! Looking at that star, you would like it to get down. Then you think on really getting this star down as much as possible, going more and more down and down, until you feel it on your chest, disappearing in your heart, and your entire being fills with joy because this is the day in which a star got into your heart and stayed to live there. Now you realize you need to change many things in your daily life for it to stay there; otherwise, it will slowly go away, leaving a huge empty space. Suddenly you feel so happy, knowing you've got a light in your heart which can get bigger and bigger, shining through our eyes, deeds, words and thoughts. We realize we'll never be alone anymore. We've got our own daylight to get bad thoughts away, and we talk with that light—our star in our heart. We take away what's unimportant. If it's the divine will, we ask it to guide us to what we have divine and eternal in this life and in the next one. And let the light in the heart carry us."

********

Indra Devi's published writings:

Forever Young, Forever Healthy

Yoga for Americans

Yoga for You

Renew Your Life Through Yoga

Pilgrims of the stars

Sai Baba and Sai Yoga

Yoga for Americans: A Complete Six Weeks' Course for Home Practice

Yoga for you : a complete 6 weeks' course for home practice

Sources cited:

http://www.ashtanganeworleans.com/Old%20Website/StudentSection/IndraDevi.htm

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=3846

http://yogiswithoutborders.blogspot.com/2009/06/indra-devi-foundation-yoga-for-people.html

http://www.creedopedia.com/topics/Indra-Devi

http://www.fundacion-indra-devi.org/

Gypsy folklore tells Robin brings Good Luck!

Seeing Robins means it is finally Spring! 

Warm breeze with the scent of flowers in the air. Traditionally, seeing a robin means good luck. Gypsy folklore tells us that it brings good luck to see the first robin of spring. Not only is the robin a promise of new beginnings with the new cycle of spring in our midst, it carries symbolic meanings of cheer, joviality and light-heartedness. The robin's song tells the tale of "Live, love, laugh and be happy" and that is precisely what the symbolic meaning of the red robin tells us.

If one robin foretells good fortune, what does two bring? This morning I took my coffee out onto the front porch to revel in the early mist, watching the purple haze gradually change to burnt umber and fade as the day began. As I took in the Vermont mountains from my parents house at the base of  Killington I saw one lovely robin in a tree. Another robin darted from the telephone wire to the sidewalk and began walking down the sidewalk toward us. I was pretty sure he was after the robin in the tree, but before I could ask him, she flew from the tree to another half way down the street. The dance of love was on. Soon they both disappeared from my line of sight behind the neighbor's bushes.

Bird song has returned to the skies, little buds on trees are ready to burst open, and the spring flowers are poised for blooming! Robins are sure to bring luck as they are to be a harbinger that warm weather and all that implies are surely on the way...

"Native American Plains' tribes attributed the return of the sun (inception of spring) with the red robin too. Indeed, many Native American beliefs attributed solar symbolic meaning to the red robin because its rosy red chest is symbolic of the dawning sun. Also, its bright yellow beak is symbolic of sun rays lighting the earth with hope. Omaha tribes believed the sun rose and set on the wings of the robin.

The robin's bright yellow beak is also symbolic of sun rays to the Native American. Native Americans attributed their beak color with being mindful of the spoken word. The robin was a sign to only present the highest truth when speaking.

Further, Iroquois and Shoshone tribe lore indicated the white ring around the red robin's eye was symbolic of prophetic vision, clarity, and great wisdom. The robin would be called upon during ceremonies when clear understanding was needed, and quality judgments needed to be made

The robin brings a fresh new perspective to situations that are otherwise foggy and unclear. Try calling on robin energy for clarity when your judgment is clouded or when you need light shed on an issue.

The red robin reminds us it's time to shake the sleepiness out of our head (both figuratively and literally), get alert, get moving, and start enjoying life! Enjoy the bright road ahead because it's only going to get brighter..."

For more info, visit Animal Totem- Robin.

Significance of 108

What is the significance of 108?

Mala beads have 108 beads. It evolved as a simple logistical solution to doing repetitions of mantras. Aim for 108 times and you will be more likely to meet a hundred reps done correctly.

There are many mathematical reasons why 108 is observed. One of the is a feature of the planets. There are 9 planets; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Pluto. There are also 12 zodiac signs and 12 Chinese animal years. 12X9=108 Another planetary mathematical formula is that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Sun as is the distance between the Earth and the Moon is 108 times the diameter of the Moon. There are also 108 stitches on a baseball.

Parvati is Transcendence

Navratri begins with worship and respects for the initiator of unfolding the universe. The story of Parvati and Lord Shiva is one of ecstatic transcendence. Jimutavahana, Shiva Rides the Clouds from Shambhavi Chopra's Yogini. I take this story from her book.

"Parvati, in the embrace of Lord Shiva, being carried above the clouds, was so ecstatic that she gave him the name "Kamadeva," the Lord of Desire, the catalyst for all creative processes, whom Shiva had slain, was reborn the moment Parvati embraced him...Shiva yielded to Parvati's soft, sweet words, her smile stirring love in Shiva's austere heart.

The two complimented each other perfectly. She was gentle and divinely graceful; He was wild and forceful. Her subtle lasya tempered his energetic tandava and created perfect harmony. Together, the Divine cosmic couple captivated the vibrations of the Universe.

Parvati gently enticed Shiva into the ways of the world, and through a myriad of questions aroused his concern for the cosmos, Nature, society, life, love and marriage, which he was previously oblivious to.

His great wisdom, acquired through eons of brooding and meditation, was shared for the good of the cosmos. Parvati was the perfect student, Shiva the perfect teacher. Through their cosmic union, the world was enriched by sacred conversations and the secrets of the Vedas, the splendors of the Shastras and the deep mysteries of the Tantras were revealed. Lost in the heights of Mount Meru, at the very center of the Universe, Shiva, the supreme yogi and Shakti, his sensual female consort, together view the world. The cosmic couple is satiated with the transcendental peace that follows the ecstasy of their union.

Shiva explained to his consort the meaning of transcendence. The whole of existance is consummated with transcendence, which is the goal of all yogas. Transcendence reaches beyond all phenominal limitations and is the supreme goal of evolution; the ultimate destiny of our creaturely existance. The creative force of Bahma brings all beings into existance, while the preserving force of Vishnu protects their lives. The transcendental force of Shiva leads one beyond worldlieness, moving from the mundane to the metaphysical. On the highest level, transcendence is the complete experience of reality beyond both worldlieness and death.

Each of these deities is inseparable from its respective counterpart, the feminine energy or shakti. In Tantra, every higher principal exists through the union of male and female forces. Shakti is the essence of sheer bliss. Through bhakti or devotion, she uplifts the force of faith. The shakti of Brahma, Saraswati, is the patroness of 64 traditional arts. These arts and sciences add to the charm and eloquence of the person.

Without such modes of expression, our lives would be devoid of zeal, ardor or passion. These arts form a means of communication and self-expression for our deepest urges. Shiva's consort Kali is the initiator to transcendence. A woman becomes one with Kali by coming to terms with her own awesome power of initiation. Lakshmi, Lord Vishnu's consort, is the pure embodiement of preservation, prosperity and beauty. The triad of these three forces of creativity, transcendence and preservation correspond to birth, death and life in our very existance.

Love unites us to the source, the supreme creative force in the universe, where Shiva and Shakti merge."

9 Days of Navratri

Chaitra Navratri or Vasant Navratri was April 4, 2011 to April 12, 2011

Mid-March to Mid-April is the festival of Navarati, celebrated in devotion to goddesses Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati. The first three days of Navratri are dedicated to Goddess Durga (Warrior Goddess) dressed in red and mounted on a lion. Her various incarnations - Kumari, Parvati and Kali - are worshipped during these days. They represent the three different classes of womanhood that include the child, the young girl and the mature woman. Next three days are dedicated to Goddess Lakshmi (Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity), dressed in gold and mounted on an owl and finally, last three are dedicated to Goddess Saraswati (Goddess Of Knowledge), dressed in milky white and mounted on a pure white swan. Sweetmeats are prepared for the celebrations. Children and adults dress up in new bright-colored dresses for the night performances. 

The first is to goddess of action and energy, Parvati, relinquishing attachments to material things for 3 days then the next is to abundance and the opening of the heart chakra, backbends and inversions for the final three to Saraswati. Focusing on the head, the crown chakra and giving life to artistic pursuits. I will be in NYC for part of this fast so finding classes at the Jivamukti Studio in Manhattan should be a good way to go.

I just learned of it, so will begin celebrating on the 14th to end on Easter Sunday. Fast will exclude meat and coffee and highlight smoothies, veggies and quinoa. Mantras will be to each goddess respectively and each day will learn a new story and post. Learning, living and being.

Phlegm

Cleansing is a Natural Process of Both the Earth and the Body

There is a season in Vermont we call Mud. The end of winter when dirty snowbanks still line the roads and new flowers are eagerly poking up from the ground, sometimes only to be killed by a late frost or a hungry beaver. Things are still dead and brown. In many cases, because of the wildly fluctuating weather conditions, sickness overtakes even the heartiest of yogis.

Somewhere between the sunny flashes of warmth and the last minute snowstorms, the virus I had been fighting off from Montreal to Florida and back again overtook me. Possibly the stressful conditions brought on by the movement of new directions coupled with unexpected events and newly acquired family proximity lowered my natural immunity. Whatever the reason, I was feverish and in a state of delerium for days.

Resistance to change found me like a small naked child stranded on a desert island, staring into the approaching tsunami of challenging new events seemed overwhelming. Homeostasis is the body's attempt at balance, a natural equilibrium.Suddenly faced with gaining and then losing everything important in life within only a few months of each climactic event, my body, which had become accostomed to the last long plateau was thrown into an abyss. I faced it head on.

The season of spring evolves and breathes new life into the crevices where the winter has filled and nourished fertile soil. The fermented residue must somehow join the compost pile, the toxins must be pushed out. My body is trying to eject the poisons from my system as well. The white knights of my blood cells chasing the vile invaders out. They are hiding in the moat, waiting for the dragon to burn them out, breathing fiery coughing phlegm. Forceful pranayama.

Final days of mud are drawing to a close. Feeling the vital blessing of mother nature restore us, even on the Northern shores of the East Coast, to abundant health again. I know this phlegmatic seasonal lull is drawing short. The verdant bloom of spring is already budding.

Meditation Techniques

As a child, I used to get comments on my report cards in elementary school telling my parents about my tendency to let my gaze drift out the widow during the school day. Not much has changed. As an adult I find myself investing time and energy in returning to that early childhood disposition. Learning techniques to focus my attention inward has brought me back to a place I was comfortable with before I learned to read and write.

Self discipline and regular practice sessions have allowed me to realize the peaceful tranquility I was educated to replace with cultivated "sense of urgency." Shifting to to a mode of internal contentment has definitely changed my direction. Meditation is a natural state and it is a better than any prescription at balancing out the mental anxieties often brought on by the chaotic world we live in.

Sally Kempton describes ways to find the right technique for developing a personal meditation practice in Letter to a New Meditator.

NADA YOGA: The Yoga of Sound

A Sound Meditation Class with Baird Hersey at Yoga Vermont Today

Baired was an inspirational leader of meditation through sound. This workshop was beneficial and intriguing. I learned more about meditation techniques than I had ever thought I could take in one day.

“Unequaled bliss comes to the heart of the Yogi who hears the internal sound of the Nada.”
-The Nada-Bindu Upanishad

By bringing our minds to single pointed attention on the internal sacred sound, we quiet the chatter of the mind and experience a deep feeling of comfort and contentment.

This meditation, based on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, will use the 4 levels of sound: Vaikhari (external sounds), Madhyama (mental sounds). Pashyanti (visual sounds), and Para, (the internal sound) to connect us with the Nada, the sound of bliss.

Climbing the Nada Mala: The 4 Levels of Sound
Seeing the Inner Light
Hearing the Anahata Nada
Riding The Bliss: Ancillary & Supportive Practices