Vayu: God of ~WiNd~

Wind is associated with the Sanskrit word PRANA which means "life force" making the element of wind "the breath of life itself". Vayu is the vedic personification of wind. Other names for Vayu are:  Gandhavaha, "bearer of perfumes", Jalakantara, "whose garden is water" and Satataga, "ever-moving"

As the god of Wind, Vayu is one of the five elemental Gods.The other four include: earth (prthivi), water (jala), fire (agni), and space (akasha).

Vayu is said to be a beautiful man with purple skin who wears lavish jewelry, and rides an elaborate carriage pulled by thousands of white and purple horses. He has four arms- two of which hold white flags. When not riding his carriage, Vayu can be seen riding a deer. 

Lord Vayu is a tempestuous god. He does not hold back fits of rage, or repent for them. Know for lust, Vayu has many children. Some of his most fierce are...

Hanuman: the monkey God who could move with the speed of air

Bhima: who is called the swift

Maruts: the storm God 

Vayu in Yoga: 

Vayu encompasses a range of human behavior. He is the ever moving ever changing life within each of. We call in his essence with deep breathing practices (pranayama), and we feel his life in the air and the wind around us. 

Vayu lives in us in five different places known as the five vayus. One of our five subtle bodies (Koshas) is the Pranamaya Kosha or vital body, and is made up of energetic compartments known as the Vayus (winds). The energies of these five vayus are very subtle and exact. They can be controlled by bringing focus to specific areas of the body. Increasing the awareness of the vayus brings health, well-being, and helps to activate internal energy. Click Here For more on the Vayus

Vayu in Vedic Mytholody: 

"One story tells of Vayu deciding to blow the top off of the mythical Mount Meru. He blew and blew, but the bird god Garuda defended it. At last Garuda took a rest, and Vayu in his unprovoked fury blew the mountain’s top off, where it flew through the air and landed in the water, forming the island that is today known as Sri Lanka"

"A story is told that all of the gods who granted their powers to man gathered one day, each one claiming to be more powerful than the other. To determine who was in fact the most powerful, each god would leave their post on the man. For example, the god responsible for man’s ability to hear would depart, and the man would be struck deaf. When the god returned, the man would be able to hear, and the next god would leave. One by one they each took their turn leaving, and in each case the man was ultimately unharmed. At last it came to Vayu. He departed the man, and one by one the other gods felt themselves being plucked away, as first the suffocating man began to lose his ability to reason, then to see, then to stay awake. So it was the other gods learned each of their powers ultimately came from Vayu himself, and the breath of life he provided."

"Out walking, Anjana feels the wind lift her skirt to her waist. She then feels something being placed in her womb by the wind and this leads to her birthing Hanuman.

Hanuman was born and is sometimes known as Maruti (son of the wind) or Anjaneya (son of Anjana). However he came to be, he caused Vayu to become a part of another story.

Shortly after his birth, Hanuman is said to have mistaken the sun for a piece of fruit and flown up to the sky to eat it. The god Indra was upset by this and struck Hanuman with a thunderbolt which scarred his cheek. This is how he came to be known as Hanuman, hanu being Sanskrit for cheek.

Vayu was furious and, whilst his son lay unconscious, used his power as the god of wind to draw away all the air from the universe. Indra took back the magic of the bolt and Hanuman was given godlike powers in an effort to appease Vayu."

A few words from the Gurus

"Practice and all will come"- PATTABHI JOIS

"Let the goal be to reach perfection, but be content with a little progress toward perfection every day"

 -BKS IYENGAR

"Even if fear comes, accept it and find the courage to come through it." - BKS IYENGAR

"Breath is central to Yoga because it is central to life...

 and Yoga is about life."       

-KRISHNAMACHARYA

"In the process of YOGA one's true nature is revealed 

by removing objects in the mind-field that are obstructing Self-realization."  - YOGA SUTRA 2.3

Ganesha and the Moon

Ganesh, the charming elephant-headed god adored by so many for his generous ways and clever antics, is also known for his wild infatuation with all things sweet. Despite his love for sugary foods, he is a master of yoga, taking after his father, Shiva.

On one of his exploits, Ganesh actually consumed so many sweet cakes that his belly was full to bursting. He decided it was time to head home and relax his stuffed belly, so he hopped on his trusty “steed,” a tiny mouse.

The pair was cruising smoothly along when a very long cobra slithered onto their path frightening the mouse. The mouse darted one way, and Ganesh fell over. When he hit the ground, his overstuffed belly exploded and sweet cakes rained everywhere. This greatly perturbed Ganesh, who was upset not only by the disruption of his ride, but by the loss of the sweet fullness of his tummy.

He walked around and collected all the sweet cakes and stuffed them, one by one, back into his belly. All the while, the moon, Chandra, was watching the extravaganza and couldn’t help exploding into laughter at Ganesh’s crazy antics.

Ganesh was very upset to be the object of Chandra’s laughter, and in a fit of anger (remember he’s Shiva’s son), he broke off his right tusk and hurled it at the moon. Pierced by the tusk, Chandra’s light went out. Ganesh cursed the moon so it would never shine again, leaving the earth continuously lit by the sun.

With no night, no dawn, and no dusk, love was lost to the world. There was no place for romance, and men and gods alike became scorched and hopeless upon the hot earth.

Ganesh was holed up in his palace when a group of gods came to appeal to him to allow the moon to shine once more. Flattered by their appeals, Ganesh decided he could agree to a compromise. He would let the moon shine, but it would be required to wax and wane, shinning at its full potential only once every four weeks.

This, he decided, would be a permanent lesson for the moon so it would remember never to laugh at him again.”

Interesting story right? But what’s the lesson here?

“One of the greatest lessons a yogi can learn is that everything we experience has an internal source of energy, as do the sun and moon. Within our bodies, the sun and moon occupy opposing halves. The moon presides over the left energy channel (ida nadi), and the sun presides over the right one (pingala nadi). Ideally, we strive to seek a balance between both, basking in the moon as much as the sun and learning to wield both types of energy as we progress upon our path to enlightenment. Ganesh may have taught Chandra a lesson, but the real lesson here is that steeped in only sunshine, all love is lost from the world. There is no softness, no shadow to define the landscape of our heart. Without a dawn or dusk, there is no halfway point during which to steals away during those wee hours of perfect balance between night and day.Within our yoga practice, we learn the truth of the at age-old wisdom, ‘As above, so below. As without, so within’ – as with the sun and moon in the sky, so with those in our heart – and we seek to find as much joy in the shadow and lunar places of our existence as we do in the bright and solar places of our life.”

Excerpts from Myths of the Asanas: The Stories at the Heart of the Yoga Tradition, by Alanna Kaivalya and Arjuna van der Kooij (Mandala Publishing, 2010). 

Plunge in

"Plunge into the vast ocean of Consciousness
Let the drop of water that is you
Become a hundred mighty seas.
But do not think the drop alone becomes the ocean
The ocean too becomes the drop."
-Rumi

Eastern & Western Philosophies Meet on: RIGHTFUL ACTION

  

“I express the principle of one’s freedom as a human being in this formula: No one can compel me (in accordance with his beliefs about the welfare of others) to be happy after his fashion; instead every person may seek happiness in the way that seems best to him, if he only does not violate the freedom of others to strive toward such similar ends as are compatible with everyone’s freedom under a possible universal law”.  -  Immanuel  Kant 

Each person should find their own personal path to happiness as long as they do not harm others along the way. Another idea of Kant is that while free to determine your path to happiness, you must perform rightful action along the way with no other motives than the for the sake of doing your duty as a part of society.

Rightful action can be defined as doing things to better the world around you: community service, helping a neighbor, being a working and law abiding member of society, carrying out tasks that are asked of you, and so on. These actions are duties we have as humans, and performing them with that intention will only increase your happiness and bring more positivity into your life. There are certain laws put in place that require us to do things, but the purpose of them is to maintain universal happiness, not to create happiness for individuals.

The third section of  the Bhagavad Gita is about Action. Lord Krisha tells the warrior Arjuna that he must perform action as a sacrifice, detached from the outcome: good or bad.  This is the yogic path known as Karma Yoga. Karma yoga is an active path of selfless service. Action is better than no action and in order to move forward in this life some action must be taken.

“Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life.”  -BG 3.19*

Both Kant and the Bhagvad Gita suggest that through meritous actions from which you are detatched to the outcome, happiness can be obtained.  Moral merit increases your moral worth, which increases your happiness.          

 “Action imprisons the world unless it is done as a sacrifice; freed from attachment, Arjuna, perform action as sacrifice!” -BG 3.9**

By performing action with the intention of sacrafice, a great amount of happiness can be found because there are no expectations for the result of your action. When action is done with altirier motives, we must deal with expectations and assumptions, which will only misguide our intention and create false ideas about what should be. If those ideas aren’t fulfilled, we suffer. When you do not think about the result of your action you can only find happiness. The intention of your action is then pure and pure actions have positive outcomes. Lord Krishna calls men who attach to their actions “ignorant” because they are afflicted with the qualities of nature. The qualitieis of nature are always changing. ….. The Bhagvad Gita emphasize detachment from your actions in the form of surrender. This requires an understanding of your duty, the will to fulfill it, and sense of contentment from the simplicity of performing that actiong. (There is a similar belief in Mahyana Buddhism which includes seeking out enlightment for the good of all beings.) 

“What the outstanding person does, others will try to do. The stanards such people create will be followed by the whole world”- BG 3.21**

By doing good and being a positive reflection for others, you are raising the vibrations of the universe you live in which in turn raises your vibrations.

“Nature has willed that man, entirely by himself, produce everything that goes beyond the mechanical organization of his animal existence and partake in no other happiness or perfection than what he himself, independently of instinct, can secure through his own reason”-Immanuel Kant

You have the choice to take action in your life. The results of your actions will reflect the quality of your actions. You are the only one who can bring yourself to a point where you are worth of life and well-being. 

above picture is a scene from the Bhagavad-Gita



** From translation by Eknath Easwaran
*From translation by Barbara Stoller Miller

Yoga is so cool.

 "The Future is Open"

Great Essay by one of my Favorite philosophers Georg Feuerstein

We must assume that there are many pathways into the future. At the human level, nothing is predetermined. If I show kindness toward a neighbor, I am likely to earn his or her good will. If I am mean spirited, I will very likely alienate him or her.

Thus, our actions matter. They matter more than we would like to think. Fatalism is not a valid option. The belief in fate (moira) was, I think, a weakness of the ancient Greeks despite the genius of their great ones who forayed far into the fields of philosophical and protoscientific inquiry. We need not repeat their error. We can learn from history if we care to.

We also need not repeat the erroneous belief in progress, which arose with the technological development of the eighteenth century. As we can witness all around us, progress is not inevitable. If anything, it is a slippery slope. Any astute observer of the environment will by now know beyond any shadow of a doubt that, all supposed technological progress notwithstanding, we have messed up royally.

Change is certain. Whether we can make it a positive experience for us is entirely our choice in every moment. What needs to happen, then? First, we must recognize that we can determine our future as individuals and as a species. Second, we must realize that we are capable of choosing wisely.

What is wisdom? And how do we generate it in us? Wisdom is knowledge that entails self-transcendence and aims at the good not only of the person claiming wisdom but all human beings and also all nonhuman beings as well as the natural environment. This is a very broad definition, but I can see very little wisdom, if any, in knowledge that offers less than that.

Because wisdom has a moral component, we must consciously cultivate it, which is a matter of discipline. Knowledge as information is readily available and requires no special fitness on the part of the person wanting to acquire it. Not so with wisdom. It is knowledge that grasps the whole human personality, not just the intellect. Hence we could call it “integral knowledge.” A wise individual is not merely clever, but he or she radiates good-heartedness—the kind of person whom you would seek out when you are in trouble.

Yogins and yoginīs who immerse themselves in the wisdom tradition of Yoga have an undoubted advantage over most other people. By practicing Yoga as a lifestyle, they can themselves elicit the quality of wisdom. That’s why, in contemporary parlance, Yoga is so cool.


Georg Feuerstein

The Myth of the Eternal Return: Nietzsche

Nietzsche's Existential Imperative: to will an eternal return of the same  

"The Greatest Stress- What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence -- and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!" -- Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine!" If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything : "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favorably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?"