The pursuit of Yoga requires a journey to go inward, which helps overcome the obstacles.

If any of us think that the path to Yoga is extremely difficult, then we are not alone. Patañjali repeatedly says that this is a difficult journey fraught with interruptions and obstacles. It requires extreme dedication, energy and will power that one can muster. When the mind is taught to go inwards, the obstacles tend to disappear. Going inwards is having faith in oneself, restricting oneself, understanding the self and always in touch with what is important. What are the obstacles that live on the path of Yoga? The next sutra will let us in on what can crash our plan of Yoga.

tatas – thence

pratyak-cetana – reverse/inward-mindedness (from prati + ac is to bend + cit is to be conscious)

adhigama – attainment (from adhi + gam is to go)

api – also

antaraya – impediment, obstacle ( from antar is between + i is to go, lit. get between)

abhava – disappearance (from a + bhu is to become)

ca – and

I can picture myself being on the internet when Mr.Yama (not to be confused with yama/niyama of  Yoga Sutras), the Lord of death shows up and tells me  that it is time to close all connections and leave. I will be pleading for 5  more minutes online. Wait, I actually hear someone telling me the time is up.  I look up, the person looks quite normal. He tells me I need to leave this terminal at the library, my time is over. Damn, I am addicted to this.

Iśvara is someone like god and that he is a special being, quite extraordinary. He is untouched by delusion, agitations, actions, afflictions, consequences and time. He represents past, present and future. He knows everything that is to be known. He is simply the teacher of all the teachers. He is addressed by a special symbol Pranava that specifies the qualities of Iśvara . By meditating on Iśvara, one can realize oneself (or go nearer). By meditating on an object, one imbibes the qualities of the object. How can meditating on Iśvara make oneself realize themselves? Iśvara is within all of us and one needs to be able to see for themselves. Iśvara is part and parcel of all of us.

You can read all the sutras that have been discussed on this blog.

**Vancouver rates, per session

Yoga is definitely an elite activity, you got to make tons of money to spend on a yoga class.

I like this trailer a lot. May be I will watch it sometime this summer. Kung fu cult says, everything is Kung fu, just like the Yoga cult.

This move is called IruttiKaal in Malayalam. This clip is filmed in my Kalari Institute CVN Kalari, Thiruvananthapuram (as complicated as Massachusetts!).  This is one of the toughest basic sequences for me. The hip joints have to be completely flexible to sit down completely like in full splits. I could not do it completely and my Gurukkal Rajasekaran Nair asked me not to do it. Children learn this easily and adults who are already flexible can do this, for others this is quite difficult. The spine turns around 360 or feels like it. And the gurukkal will pretty much manhandle the students. He would pull the kids’s hair to twirl around. It does not look too difficult while watching it. But one gets to do this, it is extremely demanding. One needs to coordinate the right and the left, twirl and change direction. When it is time to twirl, the brain needs to adapt so quickly as to where the body is and the control is important. The gurukkal would never be happy with the students. He would always complain and sometimes hit the children mildly to ask them to keep the focus. This is something I will have to practice next time I go to my Kalari Institute.

We all know that Yoga is good for us. The South African team knows it too. They are pictured here doing a modified Vasistasana. They all have sthiram, but sukham is completely missing.  Here’s Boston’s Big Picture on World cup 2010.

Definitely comes easier when you are 7 years old. I love the Sanskrit name Poorna Bhujangasana. In English, it is translated as King Cobra pose, somehow it loses a lot of beauty in the English version. Poorna means full, complete and it is never captured in the English name of the pose. So lost in translation.

I love the Sanskrit names of asanas and the Indian names of Indian people. Most people in the West want to shorten my already short name, so it gets easy for them to say my name. I have never agreed to that and it is always my full name that I ask people to refer me by. There is so much beauty in the name when it is said the right way. I was definitely cross, when someone wanted to call me “S”, as my name was too complex for that person. I said no way, I cannot be called S. That’s a huge loss for my name.

Imagine teaching a yoga class, come to the top of the mat. Come into U, then U, then A, then B. Just because someone found it too much to handle.

This is a fabulous pose to start an asana practice. It looks so simple but quite works the entire body and wakes it in a gentle but conscious way. I love to start with this and I can feel how it works on my body. I also have to add that I have not seen this sequence in any other “style” of hatha yoga, except at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. This is the asana that made me realize how a mild and easy looking asana can work so well.

Keeping your feet together, as you inhale, begin to raise your hands sideways and come up on the toes. While on the inhale, lifting the arms should make you realize how your chest opens up and the lungs expand. As your hands rise up, one can feel the lungs expand at the same level of the arm, as an indicator. The lungs go all the way up to the neck.  Or at least, internalize this and visualize the lungs expanding and the shoulders working. Towards the end of the inhale one can even clasp their palms and invert the clasped palms. This adds an additional movement on the arm joints. One is standing on the toes and hands clasped on the top. You can feel the toes, the ankles, the shins, the knees, hips, spine, shoulders, arm joints and more. You can feel the expansion of the chest and the lungs. This is a great exercise for ankles as well. This inhale when it is done in KYM style  is a minimum of 7 seconds or so. Seasoned yogis can inhale for longer. One should not try to do this in 7 seconds or longer if it is not naturally possible. This can be easily learnt over time. The idea is never to force, but observe.

No matter how long the inhale is, this sets the tone for the entire asana practice. It also teaches you how to breathe and coordinate your movements with the breath. You can really feel this work if you practice in the morning. The body gets to be more flexible in the later part of the day and the subtleties are harder to observe. Morning practice helps one feel what joints are brought into the equation and of course without music. The breath is the music. This seemingly easy asana gets very difficult when the mind is not focused. If there is a lot of turbulence in the mind, too many thoughts, the balance gets tricky. There is no need to feel bad if the balance is not happening in a particular session, just observe and notice the messy mind. One can induce some calmness artificially just by observing and make a decision to breathe better. Focus on the breath. There is so much to learn just from this basic of the asanas. And, this must be repeated a few times, 6 is a good number.

I could not come up on my toes for a long time when my knee was injured. I would practice it just with the arm movement. Now that I have gained some strength in my knee, I am back to the classic.

When I learnt this at KYM, I got to know that tāda in Sanskrit means palm tree. This pose looks like a palm tree when the arms are raised over. In Iyengar’s book, samasthithi (equally balanced) is termed tādasana. This is why most yogis mean tādasana to be mountain pose, but the actual Sanskrit meaning is palm tree pose.

I found an entire set of asanas that come under tādasana krama in Srivatsa Ramaswami’s “The complete book of Vinyasa Yoga“, which is one of my favorite books. This book is so awesome, it deserves a separate blog post.

I made this cauliflower dish for dinner. It took me 20 minutes to make this. So delicious and extremely simple.

Recipe

Serves 2

1/2 Cauliflower – Reduce it to small florets.

1 Jalapeno (or any chili)  – slice

Small piece of ginger, about 1/2 an inch – minced

2 cloves of garlic – minced

1/4  Onion (or a small piece of leek) – chop lengthwise

1 Tomato – remove the inner content and retain in a cup. Chop the outer part of the tomato into medium squares.

1 tsp Cumin seeds

1/2 tsp Turmeric

1 Tbsp Canola or Olive Oil

Salt to taste

Method

1. Heat a cast iron pan (or any pan). The pan must always be heated in  a slow manner. There should be no hurry to heat the pan by increasing the flame to high and then reduce it. This is a no-no, if you want to be serious about cooking.

2. Add the oil. Let it heat for 10 seconds.

3. Add the cumin seeds. Wait for 10 seconds, add turmeric. Wait for 5 seconds. Add minced garlic and ginger. Wait 5 seconds.

4. Add the onion. Cook for about a minute.

5. Add the tomato’s insides. Cook for a minute.

6. Add salt.

7. Add the cauliflower florets.

8. Mix them well. Cook for 5-6 minutes.

9. Add the chopped tomato, the outer part. Cook for a minute or two.

10. Voila, done.

Serve it with rice or chapati. Cost -  less than $3. Taste – priceless!