Twitter: Hatha yoga pradipika on pranayama

Here five quotes from the definitive treatise, on pranayama and its benefits... here

Yesterday's answer, today's query

ANSWER: All of them. The primary impact on the nervous system by moolabandha is impulse control.

Below an easy query...

QUERY:Why kapalabhati must be avoided from being done towards your bedtime? Because ...(only one of them is true:)
a) it will make u hungry b) it stimulates, excites the mind c) it is a dangerous practice d) u will feel dizzy.

Yogic tip for today

If doing the pelvic lock is difficult (and u should not even be doing it if you have urinary infections) u can try the anal lock to get accustomed to the muscular effort involved.

Daily Health Gyan

Oh, apart from fizzy drinks having a lazy brain can up your blood pressure it seems. A study by the U.S. based Brown university found people who studied (specifically doctorates they say, but Indian doctorates being what they are!)had lower blood pressure and lived longer. I worry for all those people who have given up learning things...

My student Nathalie: the quiet, strong type:)

Here is Nathalie. When she started with me, a few months ago, she was apolegetic that she was stiff... But as u can see, she has overcome that more than sufficiently. Earlier too she had issues with Kapalabhati, which used to make her dizzy (because it changes the blood chemistry. Those whose breathing is weak due to bad posture often feel dizzy in kapalabhati, so u must phase that for them), her posture was affected by a spinal curve (scoliosis) at the stomach, so that sitting still was also  issue. She informed me that her mother has that, and it runs in the family. However, if u see her now she sits erect throughout pranayama and is enjoying the fact that she does not have to suffer her genetic spinal curve and can actually control it, by and by. Already she is feeling the benefits of it.

She was the first to try the crow in that batch on first attempt and get it right. She also got the headstand right very early. And amongst the batch to say she wanted to try it on her own! When u have students like that.... u know half the teacher's work is done. Plus she is now moving into the scorpion, far ahead of others who started much before her. She watches my video on it often instead of trying to insert mistakes of her own -- a problem that I often have with some students -- when it becomes even more intricate to correct the mistakes.  So I have a nice suspicion that she is going to be able to hold the scorpion on her own ahead of the others!

She also like the pranayama and yoga nidra, though in the latter between my super-fast (trying to slow down) English and her French, she must be having a hard time following the visualisations:) She also is the first who indicated an interest in learning the prayer, both starting and finishing. So nowadays, in that batch, I repeat them word by word or line by line, and she cutely chimes it after me... It is  a great energy she generates, and relates truly to the idea of a yoga zone. And the concept of energy in a class -- I like that, because whether u believe in it or not, u are also part of an energy in a class. Some people take energy, some people give. She gives!

She controls her mind with the mudra, relates immediately to the idea of the power mudras give. She tells me that even in sleep, if she is disturbed, she finds she has gone to holding the mudra as an effective crutch! Mmm, u know, when u teach yoga u def want students who carry home the practice... and make yoga habits, and practices part of daily life...

She is leaving for Belgium soon, so we are now in a fast mode to get her into some more variations. I hope to advise her on some books that will help her progress without the class, and maybe tape a class in my voice for her, so she continues with the practice.
We will miss her energy, that props that small class so unobstrusively but clearly...

Tweets: Swami Rama and his amazing nidra

Here by Swami Satayanandji, five quotes, on experiments done on Swami Rama and his ability to change his brain wave patterns... related to the yoga nidra practice.

Today's yogic tip

To make bhramari longer and more smooth, draw the stomach lightly in while making the sound, u will find this focus clears the tension or need to overextend, then u relax and naturally make it longer...

Yesterday's answer, today's query

ANSWER: Yes, Sonia, u r right. All ... Salt clams the blood flow (read today's article in all papers, on which will blog tomorrow); sugar steals 44 nutrients from body's limited reserves for its metabolism; oil  in excess of two tablespoons per person  is ruinous; spices (since the body heat goes up humungously) should be avoided; media exposure, too, because we are all what we see, hear and read. When u meditate u will find the mind going back and forth over things that gripped it.. and media grips it, or what?!!

QUESTION:  What impact does Moolabandha, the pelvic lock also used in modern medicine as Kegel's exercise, have on your emotions, pyschology? Suggestions below
a) Helps control impulses b) Strenghtens will power c) Develops focus


Hey, I cannot make it easier than this... the thing is I read a report today about urination control and impulse control and marvelled at how what science discovers today, our yogis knew of,  centuries ago.

Daily Health Gyan : Kashmiri Kava tea

Pro Yo has a version of Kashmiri Kava tea -- since I like to experiment I tried it for a lark (Imagine a large Strawberry tub with rice crispy-walnut topping and this!).  I do not know if this is the orginal taste (it came from a machine, hence my inhibition) and did not have the taste of safran or almond or spices (which it otherwise has, so the net tells me:). But it tasted like WoW... Like coffee, dark and hard-hitting, great caffeine high almost lie Doppio Espresso. And it is said to be a green tea!
Anyways, Kava tea has almost mythical healing properties, my web search reveals: pain killer, removes uro-genital issues, is both tranquilizer and stimulant... removes inflammation and relieves muscle tension... Rs 50 bucks for a cup.. seems worth. Maybe I should brew it at home, in its original version.. soon will blog on that too:) Then I should start a Food blog!!

In class today

Mmm, maybe I should not praise my students here... Just the day after I said Murthy stood on his head for three minutes, he flopped down on his back! Same thing with Jit... the brute is back in his neck/shoulder and not allowing him his halasana.... And damn it all, even Sarah fell from her headstand!! Hope Amitabh does not stop doing halasana at the end of it all!! What say, should I mention or not? May be I start writing the `bad' stuff?? Like one time someone told me, Hey, Shameem, Don't mention me in your blog.. I told her, I only mention students who are exceptional and u don't qualify:) Lol. She has since disappeared, but I know she reads my blog.. So V, u do get mentioned this way.. :)

Any case, today, more than ever I am beginning to get the feel the class conducts itself, through some energy of the Sivananda tradition and something flows... nicely flows:) Every class today felt that way... and yes, the final Om begins to sound right when I feel that way throughout the class, of a free-flowing energy moving thru:) At the evening class in fact, we had four new comers (one might be walk-in, she is still deciding), but Anuya and Murthy gamely did the entire practice on their own, like pros. I was touched at how cooperative both were, seeing that this new bunch was new to yoga so I had to be fully occupied with them. They are wonderful people.. Anuya and Murthy -- and just managed the show themselves.. really really sweet!! THAT is yoga.. that attitude, more than the poses:)

Twitter: on nada yoga

Here, my Sadguru Swami Sivananda, talks of nada yoga.. But the inner nada for which u must involute.. then, he says, you reach another dimension in yoga!!

Nada yoga: music yoga, the yoga of bliss

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I myself have always been chary of classical music in my youth, simply perhaps it was what my dad liked (teens are simple-headed that way:) But since I started learning Hindustani music (without any sense of swar, beat etc, I stumble along, desperate to follow:) I have found that music can answer things inside...

And it does not have to be any specific genre of music... wherever the artist's intention has been loyal to the integrity of his or her genre -- I am moved.. and feel this `white noise' which consumes everything else. I guess I am lucky that way, that I can relate to anything without having to be part of a slot, or a group or a generation... Everything shuts down and the music only speaks its own beat... leading somewhere.. When I listen to the tribal songs or folk music (Banyan tree's Sufi music) I am amazed how the music goes over the words and lyrics don't have to speak at all... If its is devotion or love or pining or grief or joy u just get that message immediately, over the words, through the attitude (bhava) of the singer, the chosen musical structure or the rhythm itself.. How this is so, is a huge wonder to me, and I am glad that even if I discovered music so late in life, it gives me what it is meant to give!!

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Here a few paras from an article I once wrote on Nada yoga: the special branch of ygoa which uses music to reach things into your nervous system!

This scientific definition for vedic `maya' or `illusion' makes it easier for us to accept yoga's definition of a human as being made up of five sheaths or bodies. The gross body that hurts, grows, etc is what we `see'. Beyond this, yoga sees four other layers -- a subtle body of our perceptions; our mental body comprising genetic memories, environmental imprints; our intuition and ego; finally, the bliss sheath, which different yoga schools interpret differently. Yoga believes the constant chatter of thoughts, which rise like restless waves from these sheaths, do not allow us to reach the oceanic depths or the inner core of Brahman. Nada yoga uses the inherent harmony of sound waves to pierce the different bodies to reach the sabdabrahman or the sound of the Universe which in its gross manifestation is the sound Om.


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Even a newborn baby can make out the difference between harsh sound (it is startled and cries) and music (it is soothed and falls asleep). So, it is easy to see how music or nada creates a sort of synkinesis (harmony in different parts of our body and mind) that speeds up meditation which is constantly challenged by the chaotic flurry of our thoughts. Science writer James Gleick's book `Nature's chaos', using photo-essays to depict the method in the madness of natural patterns, quotes metallurgist Cyril Stanley Smith: `All structures (whether of atoms, cells, philosophies, or societies) began from something that was without form and void. A nucleus of a definite structure somehow formed somewhere, and if it was a structure more desirable than chaos, it then proceeded to grow at the expense of chaos...'



Nada yoga uses the consciousness of four levels of sound to penetrate through the chaos of thoughts to reach the core of such creation. Sound has patterns that the mind embraces even though it may not be able to explain why. In the Man'sworld magazine (I recall reading a long while ago) sculptor Balan Nambiar marvels at how when the company Texas Instruments digitally processed the sound Om, it formed the shape of a perfect shankha or conch. Interestingly, when you press your fingers and thumbs into the shankh mudra it immediately ensures a rare calmness.

In our daily practice, the Brahmari pranayama:
The Bihar School of yoga found in a group of around 400 pregnant women the 112 who practiced Bhramari ( the `humming bee' breathing practice, used in nada yoga) had less premature births, less spontaneous abortions, shorter labour, less pain, less caesarean sections, more healthy babies than the others.

Yesterday's answer, today's query

ANSWER: Belly breathing! Yes, all u brave, smart souls who attempted it got it right:)


QUESTION: What is avoided when your pranayama practice reaches high intensity (as in five hours or so of it, as is done at Sivananda Sadhana intensive)? And why? I give a few tips below
a) Salt b) Sugar c) Oil 4) Stimulants 5) Media exposure!!

Daily health gyan: bone up

Things that can weaken your bone...

Stress causes acidity which wears out the bones. High intake of alcohol, sugar, refined products, salt, meat, caffeine (also in tea and coke drinks), smoking also cause calcium wastage.

Yogic tip for the day

Just lying in the corpse pose can be immensely relaxing. Legs out and hands off the body, eyes shut, body not fidgeting. Hanging loose till u feel each muscle drop its tension. It is a very soothing practice. If feeling tense it is a great way to wind down..

In class today

Since Amitabh was there, early morning class was `funny' as usual:) I have given up trying to be serious or meditative in the class, esp when he is there. The point though is that it is a class which is progressing nicely -- so lightheartedness can be a tool. Plus, Amitabh is the only one, including in all my students till now (and just in Mahindra factory I have taught over 300 workers so u can imagine I have lost count of how many students I have taught:), who can keep the right pace without missing a single beat in my surya namaskar. If fast, he will do fast, hold the poses till my next cue.. Other students can get excited when I pace it up and go faster than the rest of the class.. but he will pause till my next cue and catch it just right. So I respect lightheartedness (with focus) as a great learning tool:)

Evening batch came in tired.. but what I love about them is that even if their day was bad they will land up and do the practices up to capacity. I feel a great love for such an attitude.. and feel like a mother concerned about her flock:) Nathalie even tried the scorpion despite being bone-tired.. That is also, so very much, real yoga! I clicked her in some poses today, and will post it tomorrow for sure:)

In my class..

Evening batch, the Monday-Wed-Fri one, is full now:) Young people, enthused. Hope their karma keeps them at yoga! Mayank's yoga karma seems good:) He held the halasana for over two-and-half minutes this morning. Simrat returned after a long gap last evening. But as usual just swims up into poses like she is born to it. Nathalie did the scorpion and I liked that she wanted to try it without any help from me... I recall when I taught the crow she was the first to get it right, and in that batch the headstand also she got right first attempt! Wonder to me, why I have not mentioned her at all before. Will get some pix of her doing her great yoga! She is returning to Belgium in April, so I am trying to cram as much yoga as she can possibly take back home!:)

What is my yoga?

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Sometimes people, strangers, as wells new students ask me what type of yoga I teach. They throw labels at me, and I wince... I myself don't know. I teach the Sivananda style, and I believe the Sadguru and his disicple who found the school to which I belong, believed in something beyond the body... But they also knew that Thing cannot be reached without discipline and cannot be reached if the body or mind was weak, so this yoga, of reaching beyond, is what I wish to teach...

So, where I personally am headed I know, though that place does not have a map ... But  I don't know if I am able to discuss that route in my class.. between my anxiety and enthusiasm to communicate that  I have always felt that I lost a lot in the telling... How do u talk where the real yoga should lead u... I wish I did not have to talk about it..Like an excellent wine which u don't discuss before sipping, or drowning a gourmet meal  with a loud debate  ...
Damn,  I really want to be able to teach my type of yoga without talking!!!

My yoga, I hope, leads u somewhere, where there is That...

Here some quotes I love about where actual yoga should lead u... and how it must break patterns within, of a complacent spiritualism or pat religion..

• Kabir Das is as, as usual  evocative as he is hard-hitting: “With a begging bowl in hand a man with amnesia knocks on his own door.”
• The famous quote from Mandakopanhishad describes this space within us: “There the sun does not shine, nor the moon, nor stars nor lightening. What to say then of the fires of this earth? The self-resplendent One shines in His own light. And the whole universe is a radiant with His reflected light.”
• Catholic monk Meister Eckhart was condemned for his radical sense of the divine, which he shared with our Advaitins (non-dualists). He believed God’s essence pervaded everything. He sings:” “Every creature has a religion. Every foot is a shrine where a secret candle burns. Every cell in us worships god.”
• Mystics believed spiritualism sought the divine inside, while organized religion sought it outside. They also warned against this subtle danger, cautioning how we are bound to fail trying to frame what refused to be contained. Zen monk Dogen warns: `Look for Buddha outside your own mind and the Buddha becomes the devil.”
• Mira, who spun her life around god-love, sung:”The sky’s voice is such that one’s mind must be very quiet to hear god.”
• The Vedas take us even closer towards hearing this unheard: “ My ears open to hear, my eyes open to see. The Light is hidden within my spirit shines beyond it. My mind roams with its thoughts in the distance. What shall I speak and what really shall I think?”

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In the end all words fail. Even silence fails. The divine is beyond either. Zen monk Huan has it pat: “Speech is blashphemy, silence is a lie. Above speech and silence there is a way out.”

Daily Health Gyan: hot water

My mom, in the usual manner in which a timid woman will describe a strong mother-in-law, believes that hers tortured her by giving super-hot bath for her babies, including I. Even now, nothing pleases me than scalding hot water while bathing! Really! So maybe my mom was true, that my grandmom dipped us in hot water just to have my mom wince:) Any case, as I said I love hot-hot baths. And apparently that is not such a good thing. I have been told that my extra dry hair is also due to that:( As well as the red nose! Apparently, too much heat can open up pores so bad, that they make u look bleary red! Read it in the BT today -- the only thing worth reading there, over the PR handouts -- is the rehashed health pieces:)

Yogic tip for the day

Seetali is good for arthritis. Since the joints are inflammed, seetali `cools' this heat off, effectively. I recall this tip Prahlada gave a visitor at our satsang in Mumbai, a long while ago:)

Yesterday's answer, today's query

ANSWER: Thanks to  u all who took on the query, esp Lakshmi and Geeta. Good try, correct too, though actually all the qualities are included... Backbends are difficult because these qualities are difficult to sustain, maybe?

A simple query below
QUERY:  Makarasana/crocodile pose promotes breathing from which part of the body: upper body chest (Shallow breathing) or stomach (deep breathing)?

Twitter: What the great one says about yoga

On what Adi Shankaracharya says about yoga in this treatise Aparokshanubhuti, here five quotes:)

Yoga props all other sports

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As a kid I used to be a crazy cyclist.I could skip for hours.would run like a hare while playing I-spy-you. My school in Chennai,Bains, had a great sports section.I would land up at school before anybody else and take the key from the guard and try everything from the sports shed - hurdles (I would keep increasing the notch to impossible heights and leaping over them like a gazelle only I was a scrawny kid who did not look graceful but awkward:),walk the stilts like a circus clown pro,play volley ball with seniors when they fell short of numbers.I had an immense need for movement,co-ordinated action.I never however got selected for sports cozy was sickly looking kid so always got bypassed during selections:) I was sickly looking kid coz I was always falling sick being a bad eater who avoided non-veg. I realize that the one type of action missing in my childhood was yoga. Yoga would have saved me from the wracking sickness that hounded me most of life and perhaps made me less scrawny looking! Why our schools bypass yoga is a mystery to me. The huge amount of my school life was wasted learning impractical useless faltu things. And if only yoga was there then... Anyways better late than never... Yoga complements everything u do in life ... Below some research on that
Some while ago the University of California decided to test this out. Ten college students were put through an eight-week yoga course. For four days a week they practiced yoga, including its breathing and meditation techniques, for 95 minutes per session. After eight weeks they were checked for the key ingredients which determine health: muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and VO2 which indicates maximum oxygen intake. The students’ muscular strength had upped by 31 per cent, endurance by 57 per cent, flexibility by 188 per cent, VO2 by seven per cent. The latter was a particularly surprising since VO2 normally takes 15 to 20 weeks to react to exercise.


Another study in India proved athletes who practiced pranayama had less lactate levels in their blood (lactate is a metabolic waste that is released during activity). Less blood lactate means less fatigue, better mental co-ordination and faster recovery.

According to Olympic coach Aladar Kogler in his book Yoga for every athlete inclusion of just one or two yogic poses as part of warm-up or cool-down can leap-frog athletic recovery and mental focus. He argues yoga’s compactness makes it a perfect tool to hone specific strengths. He presents a list of benefits that only yoga can confer on the over-taxed body of an athlete or sports enthusiast. These include correction of physical dysbalance that occurs due to lopsided training, sharpening of self-study needed to correct bad techniques and learn new ones. He admits his wards have enjoyed an `extra advantage’ due to the yogic techniques he taught them. While research in this field is still nascent, football clubs recently created an international news flash when they incorporated yoga as part of the training for their tough champions.

Twitter, yoga

Here on how yoga can transform little kids -- five quotes:)

In class

Amitabh held the plough for one minute!! That is like huge:)  Last week Murthy, who recently managed the headstand, did a three-minute hold in it, comfortably. He says that has boosted his sense of confidence tremendously:) Sharmistha and Abhishek are back in class, after a huge gap... This week, Sarah managed to do the headstand on her own, plus hold it for a minute.. Wow!

Daily Health Gyan

The health capsule in the Bombay Times had a sensible tip: I was just discussing that with a student, about weight gain and how it can compromise heart health and longevity. One of the local yoga institute heads,  this person is always talking of mind control but has a huge girth. Cannot imagine what mind control there is in unrestrained weight gain and eating. Not that I mind the person's girth. But I am making a deal of it, because this institute is constantly running other yoga schools down -- so really, why do that when u are not purrrfect yourself, personally??

 Any case, if u are indulgent about being heavy set, think again. The BT capsule says that the only main indicator to longevity is leanness… Other things are relative! So think thin…

Yogic tip for the day

To destress, palming for five minutes daily is recommended. But I myself find this very tough to do.For one, where do u place your elbows without straining the shoulders? Then also that madness of doing too many things, u feel u cannot sit still with hands to your palms doing nothing! For hyperactive people being still is a BIG stress However, that is what this yoga bizness is about. Breaking patterns. So, yes, palming can help – if u overcome ur initial inhibition to it.

Today's query

Praise somebody and they take pot shots at u!! Anila!! Any case, having the female problem, net is down, new students, and pretending to be superwoman -- all of this can affect your memory... So I admit to becoming slack:)

Today's query
QUESTION: What is the quality that  backbend(bow, cobra, wheel, etc)  is supposed to inculcate -- chose between the following

a) Stimulation, mind's exhilaration b) Fearlessness c) Openness of thinking D) Boosts Vata dosha -- the air element of energy

(Btw seems like only Anila is reading this blog, though I can see from the sitemeter there are so many footfalls -- U guys are all scared of me or what?:) U never point out my errors!!)