Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
A BLESSING: Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Science, Knowledge and Yoga
It is amazing how much Western science has taught us. Today, for example, kids in grammar school learn that the sun is 93 million miles from the earth and that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Yoga may teach us about our Higher Self, but it can't supply this kind of information about physics or astronomy.
Or can it? Professor Subhash Kak of Louisiana State University recently called my attention to a remarkable statement by Sayana, a fourteenth century Indian scholar. In his commentary on a hymn in the Rig Veda, the oldest and perhaps most mystical text ever composed in India, Sayana has this to say: "With deep respect, I bow to the sun, who travels 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha."
A yojana is about nine American miles; a nimesha is 16/75 of a second. Mathematically challenged readers, get out your calculators!
2,202 yojanas x 9 miles x 75/8 nimeshas = 185,794 m. p. s.
Basically, Sayana is saying that sunlight travels at 186,000 miles per second! How could a Vedic scholar who died in 1387 A. D. have known the correct figure for the speed of light? If this was just a wild guess it's the most amazing coincidence in the history of science!
The yoga tradition is full of such so called coincidences. Take for instance the mala many yoga students wear around their neck. Since these rosaries are used to keep track of the number of mantras a person is repeating, students often ask why they have 108 beads instead of 100. Part of the reason is that the mala represent the ecliptic, the path of the sun and moon across the sky. Yogis divide the ecliptic into 27 equal sections called nakshatras, and each of these into four equal sectors called paadas, or "steps," marking the 108 steps that the sun and moon take through heaven.
Each is associated with a particular blessing force, with which you align yourself as you turn the beads.
Traditionally, yoga students stop at the 109th "guru bead," flip the mala around in their hand, and continue reciting their mantra as they move backward through the beads. The guru bead represents the summer and winter solstices, when the sun appears to stop in its course and reverse directions. In the yoga tradition we learn that we're deeply interconnected with all of nature. Using a mala is a symbolic way of connecting ourselves with the cosmic cycles governing our universe.
But Professor Kak points out yet another coincidence: The distance between the earth and the sun is approximately 108 times the sun's diameter. The diameter of the sun is about 108 times the earth's diameter. And the distance between the earth and the moon is 108 times the moon's diameter.
Or can it? Professor Subhash Kak of Louisiana State University recently called my attention to a remarkable statement by Sayana, a fourteenth century Indian scholar. In his commentary on a hymn in the Rig Veda, the oldest and perhaps most mystical text ever composed in India, Sayana has this to say: "With deep respect, I bow to the sun, who travels 2,202 yojanas in half a nimesha."
A yojana is about nine American miles; a nimesha is 16/75 of a second. Mathematically challenged readers, get out your calculators!
2,202 yojanas x 9 miles x 75/8 nimeshas = 185,794 m. p. s.
Basically, Sayana is saying that sunlight travels at 186,000 miles per second! How could a Vedic scholar who died in 1387 A. D. have known the correct figure for the speed of light? If this was just a wild guess it's the most amazing coincidence in the history of science!
The yoga tradition is full of such so called coincidences. Take for instance the mala many yoga students wear around their neck. Since these rosaries are used to keep track of the number of mantras a person is repeating, students often ask why they have 108 beads instead of 100. Part of the reason is that the mala represent the ecliptic, the path of the sun and moon across the sky. Yogis divide the ecliptic into 27 equal sections called nakshatras, and each of these into four equal sectors called paadas, or "steps," marking the 108 steps that the sun and moon take through heaven.
Each is associated with a particular blessing force, with which you align yourself as you turn the beads.
Traditionally, yoga students stop at the 109th "guru bead," flip the mala around in their hand, and continue reciting their mantra as they move backward through the beads. The guru bead represents the summer and winter solstices, when the sun appears to stop in its course and reverse directions. In the yoga tradition we learn that we're deeply interconnected with all of nature. Using a mala is a symbolic way of connecting ourselves with the cosmic cycles governing our universe.
But Professor Kak points out yet another coincidence: The distance between the earth and the sun is approximately 108 times the sun's diameter. The diameter of the sun is about 108 times the earth's diameter. And the distance between the earth and the moon is 108 times the moon's diameter.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Easy TRAIN MEDITATION
By Utkarsh Sanjanwala
In Bhaag Daud of Mumbai, we are always on the go, running constantly from Point A to Point B, from one purpose to the other, never resting our minds. We hustle to reach work and hurry back home and to our family or personl lives. In all this we have LITTLE OR NO TIME FOR OURSELVES. Ask your self How much time do i spend, completely alone, all by myself, completely with myself, vin a day?
THE TRAIN JOURNEY TO WORK OR BACK HOME CAN NOW BE
DE-STRESSING • RELAXING • REJUVINATING
HOW TO DO IT?
• Find a comfortable place to sit in the Compartment
• This can also be done if you’re standing: Taking back rest will
make life easier, so don’t hesitate to do so.
• MUSIC: Use ipod/phone/mp3 player
This will help you block out the outside world.
Use soothing music. You want to use music that relaxes NOT
depressing/emotionally charged/ memory related.
• KEEP PHONE ON SILENT.
• Close your eyes: DO NOT OPEN them till the end of the practice
• Sit comfortably: Back and neck straight.
• Be completely still.
• Interlock your fingers and let them rest in your lap in a
relaxed manner.
• Imagine your spine to be a straight column, starting at the base
of the spine and ending at the back of your neck, directly behing your
eyebrow centre.
• Bring awareness to your breath
• Be a witness to your own breath. Don’t try and control it.
OBSERVE ITS RYTHM AND RYTHMIC CHANGES.
Click READ MORE here to learn full Meditation
In Bhaag Daud of Mumbai, we are always on the go, running constantly from Point A to Point B, from one purpose to the other, never resting our minds. We hustle to reach work and hurry back home and to our family or personl lives. In all this we have LITTLE OR NO TIME FOR OURSELVES. Ask your self How much time do i spend, completely alone, all by myself, completely with myself, vin a day?
THE TRAIN JOURNEY TO WORK OR BACK HOME CAN NOW BE
DE-STRESSING • RELAXING • REJUVINATING
HOW TO DO IT?
• Find a comfortable place to sit in the Compartment
• This can also be done if you’re standing: Taking back rest will
make life easier, so don’t hesitate to do so.
• MUSIC: Use ipod/phone/mp3 player
This will help you block out the outside world.
Use soothing music. You want to use music that relaxes NOT
depressing/emotionally charged/ memory related.
• KEEP PHONE ON SILENT.
• Close your eyes: DO NOT OPEN them till the end of the practice
• Sit comfortably: Back and neck straight.
• Be completely still.
• Interlock your fingers and let them rest in your lap in a
relaxed manner.
• Imagine your spine to be a straight column, starting at the base
of the spine and ending at the back of your neck, directly behing your
eyebrow centre.
• Bring awareness to your breath
• Be a witness to your own breath. Don’t try and control it.
OBSERVE ITS RYTHM AND RYTHMIC CHANGES.
Click READ MORE here to learn full Meditation
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