HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! 20 YEARS AND COUNTING OF COMPLETE GRACE

 

This month marks my 20th Anniversary in practicing yoga. Like a gentle breeze caressing my ear, yoga slipped its way into my life as a beacon of hope and saving grace for my being.

20 years ago I was having to choose an elective class in undergrad at SUNY Purchase College and my dearest and long time friend Anjanette DeCarlo suggested that I take yoga class "because I had anger issues", go figure being an Italian boy from The Bronx. I enrolled in class, there were 60 of us in the gym and we did these stretches, lead by an elderly woman Joe Schaffe, The space was semi-lit as if we were on a sensual date but with ourselves and the teacher proceeded to guide us through this beautiful sequence that finally ended in savasana (corpse pose.) After the session, she turned up the lights and gathered us all for questioning, such as a satsang with the guru. One question she posed to us was "how old do you think I am?" We generally took a consensus and felt that she was in her 50's. She divulged that she was 87!!!! All of us gasped. My mouth dropped and in my mind I was like "how the hell can an 87 year old do what she was doing when at 20 I couldn't?!" What my eyes pereceived was the truth in her revelation, she exuded such warmth, a loving presence and she had this expansive glow to her. I committed to studying with her for a year and after I graduated I continued the practice and promised myself that I would because that first day I said to myself "Self, whatever she had I wanted it too." As part of our reading material she suggested the book by Swami Rama "Science of Breath."

I continued my journey on my own doing my own practice, back then, twice a day sometimes, but it was all under what I remembered us doing in class. I practiced by myself with my inner guru for 7 years. I picked up meditation through the Himalayan Institute in NYC and incorporated that as part of my practice. (Up until then, I simply relied upon the magic of savasana to take me deeper.) As a side note, the teacher introduced me to Neti. Yay for one of the shadkriyas!

Along the way, I was introduced to the teachings of Ram Das through a profound philanthropist in NYC, Cy O'Neil at Friends Indeed. I was also given a taste of Deepok Chopra but this was when I was 18 and in High School. Anyways....

I landed in Philadelphia 13 years ago to live with a master yogi and my partner and soul mate Luis Lago Jr. We were going to join a teacher training program but he fell ill. I took care of him for sometime and as a thank you he gifted me a ticket to see Ram Das in Philadelphia, where I was not only introduced to such an amazing being but also to my initial family through Yoga On Main with David Newman being my brother, and one of my favorite and first yoga teachers, Anna Krain, who was the first yoga teacher for me in Philly, and Rhoni Groff being my spiritual mom, even until this day. This is where it became serious.

I joined the teacher training program, because Anna strongly encouraged me to do so and that where the ball rolled faster. On the first day of class, held by Shiva Das, he asked us all to set an intention. Mine was "for change in my life." Things were rough because I was still adapting to Philly, my partner was very ill and I was a social worker for child protective services and specialized in child sexual abuse. Anyhow, I enrolled in teacher training and this is where the sister science of yoga enticed me. I met Ed Zadlo and he introduced me to Ayurveda. I was in love and have been with Ayurveda ever since. Yoga and Ayurveda and everything that comes with it, which is the entire universe but the doorway is within my heart and the key is surredering of this ego.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

Coming full circle, I have been teaching yoga fo the past 12 years and practicing Ayurveda. Along with being an Advanced Ayurvedic Yoga Therapist I am becoming an aspiring Pranacharya and Mantra Yoga Practitioner. My class teachings are through workshops more these days, versus group classes, though I sub on occasion, and I currently mainly teach through privates as did the founders of yoga, with the one on one application. I have a thriving small private Ayurvedic/Yoga holistic wellness center, Hidden Health Center. I continue with my own home daily practice and have been over the phase of taking lots of yoga classes in other studios. Now and if/when I take a class, it is usually with Dharma Mitra and Erica Taxin Bleznak. I've always taught my students that I know "I'm doing my job right" when I see them less in my classes because I've encouraged them to go inward and practice from home. My yoga room calls me in by simply walking past it daily. I go within to explore the universe as a scientist but also simple innocent child. I bring the ego and offer it up to the divine.

Yoga has transformed my life over and over again. It has never left me even when I may have and might deviate from my yoga mat. One truth holds true, that regardless of the chaos in the world I will always have my yoga mat, or simple ground, to fall upon and to hold me up. I am a perpetual but humble student who is passionate about these teachings and even if I should never be in a position where I had students I will always have one, myself. I have dedicated my life to these practices and in return they have given me more life.

I reaffirm my promise to my practice, even moreso and after this past year, when I participated in the national yoga project with Amy Goalen"Inside the Warrior". One of the questions she asked was "what yogi/yogini first inspired me?" I vaguely remembered my first teachers name and callrd Purchase to confirm. The admissions office provided me with the name and told me that Joe recently retured a few years ago and died after that. Meaning, she was teaching yoga until 104 years old! Thus has raised the bar for me. I aspire to be as great as she was and in my own version of greatness.

I acknowledge her for touching my life so profoundly.

I acknowledge all the well known teachers but importantly the teachers who have been my students/patients.

I continue on in memory of Luis who never made it to teacher training, in body, but is and will forever be a part of me as I continue forward with this dream, our dream, come true today.

My hope and prayer is to touch one life as my first yoga teacher touched and imprinted upon mine.

HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY!
Thank you! I bow down to all! 
Namaste and infinite love to all of you!

Vishnu

LIFESTYLE AND WHAT AYURVEDA IS ABOUT

 

Ayurveda is the oldest system of medicine in the world, predating even Traditional Chinese Medicine.  It is the sister medical side of yoga and Ayurveda translates to the "Science of Life", "Art of Living" and "Science of Longevity." It is rooted in the profound understanding that there are five elements that are Ether/Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth.  The combination of these elements are grouped into categories which are the three primary biological medical terns in this system. The three categories are Vata, comprised of Ether/Space and Air, Pitta, is made up of Fire and some Water and Kapha, made up of Water and Earth. Vata, is catabolic and governs the nervous system where 80% of diseases are a result of Vata. Pitta governs 20% of diseases, is metabolic and is the digestive/endocrine system. Kapha covers 10% of diseases, is anabolic and governs immunity, the secret hidden pillar of life. 

When we are born, we take our first inhale and we take form configuring within the five elements and develop into who we know ourselves to be in this body. Earth forms the density of the body; Water is the liquidity of blood and other tissues such as synovial fluid and cerebrospinal fluid; Fire shows up in digestive enzymes and cellular transformation; Air is experienced through both ends of the body and Ether/Space is in the joints of the body along with the tubular structure beginning with mouth and ending in rectum. 

Similarly, when we die, the final recycling of this body takes place. We take our last exhale, the body returns to the earth; water evaporates from us, the spark of consciousness and fire (heat of the body) releases and turns cold; the exhale is the release of air and we return to space as spiritual beings. This whole journey is a journey of balance and graceful perfection.

It is amazing to see how the spiral of life includes these five elements that permeate all across the universe and with a simple intention and thought we take on a body that represents the microcosm of the macrocosm. The sages have taught us that the entire universe is in this little body.  The sages have also imparted wisdom of maintenance of the body and they have reminded us that stored in each strand of DNA tissue we can unlock the mystery of the universe and all that is needed to care for our vitality while in this precious multi-dimensional form. It is truly all happening right here and right now, all the time.  

Possessing this knowledge affords us the divine right to an optimal quality of life.  Our lifestyle is an expression and enthusiastic way of celebrating spirit within a body.  Our quality of life depends on choice, on some level and perspective.  Being in alignment with the breath of divinity reminds us how not to get caught up in the matrix of life and to get pulled into the drama and stories of life that the mind feeds off of.  When we lose touch with this inherently built and designed pillar of consciousness and awareness then the turbulent waters of life that appear to be disharmonious actually becomes understood as grace. When we sacrifice our lives because of misguided choices and experience the ongoing backlash of life's strikes that can feel draining this is when we must step back and ask of this "is this absolutely true?" and "is this absolutely real?" but it's not a question for the mind to answer, rather, it's an inquiry that is summoning the inner wisdom to respond to in its own way. It's up to us to create the space so that not only can we be clear in our question but we can be even nore clear in the response from the divine within. As long as we seek answers from life, first we must recognize that it is the mind usually seeking answers from the world; we must also find a way to acknowledge that maybe the heart is questioning the matter of the situation because it knows that something is not in alignment with itself and the life that we truly deserve. The heart is the master and when we are loving, when we are living from the heart then the lifestyle will reflect this.  If we feel a grinding experience with life, then most likely is the case that we aren't living in our hearts and have fed into the snowballing effect and collapsing of life upon us.  We must find time through space and in space to re-evaluate where we are and ask if we are in our hearts.  We can make excuses for our choices and complain about the consequences from these choices but that will only deepen our downward spiral of health.  We can blame life but life simply responds to each and every thought. We can play victim but ultimately this is all not true and then we will at some point have to make another choice for a different outcome.  There's no escaping it because there's no escaping ourselves.  We can try as hard as we like but we always return somehow back to ourselves and now. 

So often have I witnessed periods of my own life in the past, my patients that present with symptoms currently and the eaves dropping from others, in passing, sharing and lamenting about their "stories" and with this, how I perceive the overlapping of physical symptoms and mental unrest, which presents ultimately as a lack of peace.  The lifestyle, which is out of touch with the deeper meaning of life because it is a precariously vicious cycle perpetuated by the ego and an undisciplined mind that naturally gravitates to the superficiality of life, lead by modern and ever evolving technologies, that inevitably and will always lead to confusion, chaos, unrest, disease, and losing oneself to the illusion of suffering. 

By returning back to simplicity, Ayurveda shows us how the body is always in the now, regardless of the minds vacilation from the long gone past to the projected anticipatory unreal future. When health is complicated the proportion of life's complication is equal.  The body suffers as the halfway point between the minds dictatorship and the fruits of this sour tree manifested into lifestyle. There's no avoiding it. In order to begin resolving health issues we must simplify lifestyle by simplifying our choices, simplifying diet to match the necessary demands of digestion. We must return to nature by following the biological rhythm that has been solidified in perfection for more than 140,000 years, for instance and not limited to eating during the main three times of day; understanding our constitution according to Ayurveda (since this is our "drivers manual" to our personal health; drinking clean water; sleeping adequately at night; exercising daily; honoring the seasons; following both the lunar and solar cycles; and finding our way to meditative conditions so that meditation can happen. This latter point addresses the mind by taming it and bringing more ease to our whole being. This will also further allow us to sink into the heart more deeply and permit us to the road of our lifestyle that becomes more paved.  We can avoid this for sometime but while we are embodied we will always be called to the body through symptoms. This is how the body knows to communicate when all other road signs fail. In the immediate and in the long run nothing or no one is worth me sacrificing the health of my body and peace of my mind to.  

We should not be in a place where our lifestyle is out of control and dictates the the quality of our life.  This is fundamentally self-defeating.  Our lifestyle should be a mirror image of the greatness we feel from the inside out.  Our quality of health should be of utmost importance and if we should have to sacrifice what is contributing towards imbalances then so be it. We must weigh out our options but reach logical, realistic and practical conclusions when we see one option being the quality of our health/peace of mind and the other option being the momentum that life's chaos has picked up as a result of us being taken away by it. Essentially, in moment to moment awareness we get to choose.  This is how Ayurveda/Yoga show us that these two sciences are preventative healthcare systems.  Corrections in lifestyle has always shown how health can improve willingly.  My patients come and Ayurvedic recommendations are made, that include small steps or a wide range of adjustments, in order to transform their lives amazingly. The time it takes depends on the investment. A little investment will produce a little productivity and slower. Similarly, a lot of investment will produce quicker responsiveness, usually, and more outcome.  All it takes is the willingness to serious commit. But this commitment to Ayurveda is secondary where really the first commitment is to the self.  Ayurveda is just a tool, but the most perfected tool, to help everyone. Ayurveda is for everyone but not everyone is ready for Ayurveda.

Ayurveda may not always be the quick fix everyone is usually looking for but it's worth it in the long run. It's worth the investment and so are you. You decide. I've made my decision 12 years ago and will always be living with Ayurveda and Ayurveda will always be with and in support of me. I am gratefully humbled and appreciative of being its representative through and through. There is no other healthcare like it in the world! It's out of this world!

I'd like to end with this quoted segment: ""However you describe "lifestyle", one thing is for certain: It's not all about material goods or even outward, tangible signs of lifestyle; it's about our behavioral patterns that reflect our attitudes, beliefs, innermost thoughts, and general approach toward life. It's also about the relationships we keep within ourselves and about ourselves...Ayurveda places prime importance on the connection between health and lifestyle, and the bond we continually have with nature.  Health is not defined by numbers, measurements, and other metrics used by traditional Western medicine. Neither is the achievement of health relegated to counting calories, grams of fat, and time spent on a treadmill.  Rather, health should be seen as a vastly more complex, intimate, and ever-changing experience that we enjoy when we're in balance with our inner constitution and the world at large.  This is when our cells operate beautifully according to their inherent intelligence and we are able to tap that intrinsic wisdom to inform smart decisions about how to live.""- Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar?

PARENTING WITH CONSCIOUSNESS AND THROUGH AYURVEDA

 

I was a social worker for ten years and my focus was on Child Protective Services and I was specialized in Sexual Abuse. For ten years and having worked with hundreds and hundreds of families, along with going through my own personal therapeutic healing work around my issues related to my upbringing and with my relationship with Yoga and Ayurvedic Medicine I continue to support parents, intending parents and soon to be parents in how to promote optimal well-being for their children. Essentially, I wear the hat as an Ayurvedic Expert of how to support the health of a child, body-mind-spirit. With my extensive training as a social worker, degree in psychology (concentration in psychobiology of mental disorders) and Ayurvedic holistic medical training, I offer my ongoing experience with the intention of children first.

This is a two step process and by this I operationally define this as such: 1) every one of us adults contains our own inner child with all his/her ages up until this very moment that we are responsible for. Meaning that we must attend to our own inner babies/children and adolescent teens and young adults. 2) As we are in charge of nurturing our own from within we must then be able to hold a sacred and safe place for children that we foster externally, whether adopted, fostered or actually birthed. We must have our own issues in check enough so that we can properly provide the essential and primary foundation so that our children can be optimal in the world and fully functional adults. Otherwise, we set them up for failure because we haven't ensured our own personal emotional and mental success.

I focus on emotional success because without the healthiest version of mental/emotional well-being we can not experience full success in the world which isn't limited or bound to financial. Coming from a happy and balanced mind will ensure an enriching experience in the world independent on money. Incidentally, more often than not, an individual feeling clean love and happy mind will polarize and attract abundance through various facets of life.

I personally am passionate about this topic because my vision and awareness sees all children including those in the bodies of adults. I see so much neglect, ranging from physical health to community/societal health.

Phase 1: 
Planning parents come to me and yogically/Ayurvedically I counsel and supervise both parents, since it is primarily a two parent job, in diet and lifestyle invorder to create a platform of optimal health. 
Phase 2:
Parents that are pregnant or fostering/adopting children, I counsel them according to my experience and during their arduous but hopefully joyful experience.
Phase 3:
One children are present in the environment of these parents, I continue to counsel them and provide additional resources so that parents don't fe r l alone in the process but also have a developing awareness of the bigger and smaller picture.
Phase 4:
Independent of the physical "little ones" and simply focused on parents, or adults who don't want or have children, I remind them that they have a younger version of themselves within.

CHILD ABUSE
As adults, we do the best that we can, or do we?!
Adults/parents who do not provide a safe foundation will only continue to encode into the genetic make up and mental programming that the world is not safe and the ide of what love isn't. These children, our younger versions of ourselves will view this world through such a limited and cold lens. Parents who have an environment that shows instability, dysfunction and vascilation of love and constant fear will only breed these children to be adult versions of ourselves. We say we want the best for our children and yet through our own unhappy hearts we plant these seeds, as far as in utero and thought, and cultivate children in our images.

I see in lower socioeconomic communities how children contine to sprout in families who already struggle with scarcity. These parents are stressed daily and yet continue to live beyond their means. Is this the message that should be perpetuated for these children?

I have parents that live in unhappy households because they are no longer or have ever been in accordance with their spouses. These parents struggle to keep the "family together" but are they really? What mesdage are they brewing within their children? What message do you think the children are truly receiving? When we deny the idea of unhappiness, when unhappiness is being conveyed as a different message, the child is smart enough to encode this message within their little minds and hearts and they will store all of this, even what you as adults think they "don't know" and later it will come to the surface because the body, cells, organs, mind and connective tissue records and stores all this and releases at a later time. I know this from first hand personally. As a "healer" I've witnessed and continue to witness this as patients lay on my tables and have emotional releases from long forgotten stories. I experience these releases simply when an individual is put on a specific dietary regimen and even a series of powerfully orchestrated breath techniques.

Parents bring their children to see me for all sorts of unresolvable health issues and 95% of the time the root cause stems from the home environment and parental dishevelment on various fronts. Parents must become aware of this and be willing to heal their own unresolved emotional/physically toxic stories if they truly want to create a family structure that empowers the child and supports a hopeful future, versus a bleak one; along with supporting optimal physical and mental health in children. It brings me great sadness to see children and the children within adult bodies that suffer. Yet, I feel hopeful for the healing potential that is available for profound transformation.

We are the seeds of our parents, shaped by environment, mind and emotions. Children are our seeds. What are we doing personally in order to instill such quality and values in them? We pass these seeds onto them and they become a version of us in the world. So on and so forth. This is an endless cycle. We can affect change by what we are willing to change today about ourselves. Children are always watching us because we are the models that show them how to navigate the world. What messages are we giving them?

If we really want the best for them it all starts with how we are providing the best for our children. If we say we are sacrificing for them, are we sacrificing the "right thing" so that there is gain through investment, versus loss in the long run. Sometimes decisions to support this process isn't pretty in the moment, but again, this might be the best way to encourage the optimal representation of how to live in the world. If we "get it together", then this creates a better picture for not only ourselves but also to them and the future. There's no hiding from ourselves, and even when we try, an unjaded child will show us through their innocence that we can not really hide. If we try to hide, we deny them their innocence and wisdom. By doing so, maybe we had this done to us and we are perpetuating the cycle of abuse. Yes, lying is abusive because it is a form of violence appearingly in some cases as subtle.

Lets get it together and give a better message by being a model. Lets heal our own wounds so that we can reduce the wounds in them. Lets wake up and walk the walk of truly making a radical difference in our own lives so that this ripples across the board.

I'm optimistic in the work that can be done with consciousness! All this is said with love.

AWAKE: THE LIFE OF YOGANANDA .....A MUST SEE!!

 

Yoga was created in order to self-realize. This is why yoga is known to be the "Science of Self-Realization".  The asanas are but one piece of the puzzle that were created to promote health of the body in order to have less distractions for the mind as we journeyed towards the depth of this inner infinite consciousness. To limit our practice of yoga and to reduce it to simply an exercise practice causes a grave injustice to the practice overall. If we allow the exercises to be the doorway to the inner mystery of the universe, then we are in alignment with the teachings and will greatly benefit on all levels as we proceed in these bodies on this planet and at this time. If we simply stay at the superficial level of practice with the asanas, and play around with fancy breathing techniques, then we're missing out on the greater fruits that await us. 

As I've always told my students that asanas aren't just exercises. They are each keys that unlock the body's potential and deepest places of the mind. Unlocking all the doors in the "wrong" manner or even unlocking the doors all at once (like fitness based and exercise based modernized/westernized practices) brings us to the negative side of yoga where we cause diseases to be birthed to, diseases to deepen if they're pre-existent, and even add to karma. This has all been written about in the ancient texts. The masters knew this and this is why yoga was traditionally taught as a gurukula model where the teacher met with the deserving student one on one and met the student exactly where they were in order to support their progress effectively. Monitoring them closely. Of course, the teacher was versed in these practices because the teacher underwent these practices first hand. All the masters taught a few asanas because they knew that we shouldn't get caught up on the superficial and many other techniques such as pranayam (work with prana and breath) and pratyahara (inward drawing of senses), dharana (focus on one pointedness) delivered us to dhyana (meditation). From there, samadhi may be experienced. This practice of yoga has been in existence and perfected for over 20,000 years. Great masters such as Paramahamsa Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar, Lahiri and Babaji (this direct lineage) gave us an example of how the potency of yoga can really bring us eternal peace by helping us not get caught up on the dance of "shadow and light, as stated by Yogananda. 

So for those of us who have forgotten the purpose of yoga and reduced it to simply asana practice this movie will re-ignite us with the fierceness of yoga that can awaken us all as it was designed to. Our DNA already possesses this wisdom. All we have to do is take the chance, willingly surrender our ego and allow the unknown to "Reveal Itself" as Yogananda shares. We just have to create the space for it by going on our mats and having the asana practice come alive, since it inherently is there to do exactly that. 

Om Shanti!