Yoga

[Zili]

Yoga and meditation go hand in hand. Last year I thought I would start doing yoga but failed to keep up with it after a few days because my dvd's went too fast for me and its hard to go from a pose on the ground to the table where my laptop is propped just to rewind and review what I've missed.

Today I decided it was time to go back to yoga. I'm doing it without a dvd right now and only doing the most basic of poses held for 10 seconds each. I've learned that although I am right side dominate that's my weakest side, especially when it comes to balance. I have rotated hips due to a spinal condition and added injury. I'm hoping that by combining yoga (for physical healing) and meditation (spiritual/mental healing) I can become a healthier and happier person.

Since I'm just starting out I'm finding focusing on my meditation while performing yoga to be very distracting and for now I'm holding off on meditation until the end and using it as a cool-down time.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to continue using both yoga and meditation (together) for beginners please leave me your words of guidance.

Also would it be appropriate to heat oil or light a scented candle during yoga?

[Shub Niggurath]

Hey Zili,

I'm not a professional master in yoga or anything but I believe I'm experienced enough to answer your question

See, the difference between yoga and meditation is that they're basically designed to do the same thing BUT starting from opposite sides of the spectrum. In the end they both take care of your body and mind health and well-being.
Yoga takes care of your body first while meditation is focused on your mind and spirit.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that you can reach a meditative state during yoga once you mastered it on the body level. Meditation during yoga comes from deep reflection awakened while being focused and concentrated on Asanas. So once you master a set of Asanas (make sure you do them the right way, not the easy way!) to the point when you can smoothly perform them, your mind will be free to bring more awareness beyond the body and thus will add a meditative state to your practice.
If I had to use a metaphor, I'd say it's like a process of creating a mandala. If you're too concentrated on not ruining the symmetry you won't allow your mind to benefit from the process. But once you've practiced pouring those little grains of sand for a long enough time it'll become effortless and thus will allow you to reflect and meditate on the process itself and learn more from it.

So take your time, be patient and it will pay off, I promise

If you want something easy to memorize and master to start with, I'd suggest doing Sun Salutations every day.

Hope this helps,
Good luck! <3

[Sakura Blossom]

I used to do yoga all the time, because I took a class in college that was an entire hour of just doing yoga. It was my first time doing it, and I was able to achieve meditation through it because the room we were doing it in was incredibly quiet. I hadn't ever achieved a great place of meditation either, before this time, which makes me think for myself personally, yoga is what helps me reach this state. (: Of course, everyone is different and it might take you a little longer to get there.

If you're having problems with achieving the peace of mind and meditative state you're wanting, I will share with you advice I got from someone else that helped me amazingly! Just focus on your breathing. It really clears your mind, and while you're doing this let your mind drift to a place that you find calming and relaxing. If you start to drift off, imagine yourself doing a rather repetitive motion that will help keep your mind in a relaxed state (such as counting or throwing rocks). I hope I'm explaining this clear enough so that it makes sense! Haha!

I have the same problem of being able to focus and concentrate or even finding the time to do it! But to also just add in yoga poses to your daily life, our instructor told us you can do standing poses in line as well and in your chair when you're on the computer. (:

I hope this helps at least somewhat! I'm really tired tonight, so I apologize if it's all scattered.

[Kassandra]

If anyone has any suggestions on how to continue using both yoga and meditation (together) for beginners please leave me your words of guidance.

Really good suggestions there, Levitating Cat and Sakura Blossom.



Breath Work

My suggestion is to find a teacher who understands the role of breath work in yoga. As yoga was taught in India, each asana might contain three components (which, and to what degree, depends on the asana itself, and the skill level of the student as determined by the teacher): the incoming breath (puraka), the outgoing breath (rechaka), and holding the breath (kumbaka). For instance, "opening" movements require an in-breath, while "closing" type movements (folding down over the legs, for example) naturally require an exhaling breath. Most DVDs don't even mention any of this, though some do. And if you ask most yoga teachers in America what any of these Sanskrit words mean, you'll probably get a "deer in the headlights" stare, lol. But a teacher who's been trained properly could teach you how to incorporate these things into your practice.

When done properly, good breath work during yoga practice can lead to a meditative state, as L. Cat and Sakura mentioned. Deep breathing stimulates the "vagus nerve," a nerve that runs throughout the body and which causes a constellation of physiological responses that have the collective effect of pleasantly calming down a person. Breath work should be incorporated during the entire yoga session, and at the end as one relaxes in the corpse pose (savasana), as you mention in your OP. Personally, I also like to start a session meditating in the corpse pose.

And sometimes I will do so in the middle of the session a couple of times too, depending on how fatigued I get as I work, because despite what "hot yoga" and "power yoga" enthusiasts might have us believe, the point of asana work is not to get all sweaty and worn out doing a bunch of repetitive yoga motions, etc. That was a bastardization of asana practice invented by early 20th century yoga instructors from India who, quite wisely, wanted to make yoga appealing to the Western psychological palette, which tends to favor an obsession with hardship and competitive behavior. That bit of tweaking proved to be a very lucrative move on their part, indeed.



Adjustments

Another reason I suggest working with a teacher on a regular basis is because of the issue with your spine and hips. DVDs do not take into account injuries or other conditions. They are made for the mainstream, not tailored toward the needs of particular individuals. You might further injure yourself using DVDs. There are what are called "adjustments" that need to be made for each individual, esp if health conditions and past injuries are involved. Mainstream videos do not teach adjustments. As you mentioned, they go really fast. They are basically created as sales products, nothing more. They do not contain good quality yoga instruction, instruction which ideally should be individualized.

Only yoga teachers who have studied and been properly trained in what's called, "yoga therapy," will know how to assist you with the correct adjustments so that you will get the most out of each asana. Otherwise, you really could hurt yourself, seriously. Learning adjustment work is a whole separate field of yoga instruction, believe it or not. There are whole workshops and seminars soley on adjustments. That's how important they are.

Some teachers take the time and effort to train themselves in adjustments, breath work, etc. Some don't. It's probably not required for most yoga instructor licensing, so most teachers probably don't bother to learn it. Most yoga instructors simply pay a few hundred (or thousand) dollars to some local yoga studio to effectively buy their "certification" as yoga instructors, and go to work, regardless of their abilities or (lack of) knowledge as yoga teachers.



Manifestation

So, it's a lot of mundane work to locate a good teacher. They should be interviewed to see if he or she has been trained in adjustmentand breath work (called pranayama) and how to incoporate pranayama into yogasana. Don't feel you're being intrusive when you pick a potential teacher's brain for what they know and don't know. Our health is at stake, so this is important. If they don't understand that, they're in the wrong profession for the wrong reasons, as far as I'm concerned.

As you do that, also do the spiritual work to back up those efforts. It wouldn't hurt to utilize some spell work to ensure that you find a good teacher, and that you manifest the resources needed to be taught by him or her, so that proper compensation could be arranged. Let the gods of your chosen spiritual path, and your own ancestors, know that this is very, very important to you, that it means a lot to your health and to your well-being and affects your path and life purpose. Especially emphasize this to the healing spirits around you. Then, the right doors will open, and more than enough resources needed for your efforts will appear.

Good luck.

Also would it be appropriate to heat oil or light a scented candle during yoga?

I do not think it would be inappropriate.



.

[Zili]

the problem with finding a teacher is that it usually costs money and I know from the town I live in no one here would teach it properly if I could find a yoga instructor, that be said aside form a lack of money I have no car to drive to a larger town with the possibility of better instructors. :/ this is why I'm doing what I can from home. I was in martial arts when I was younger and we used some basic yoga for warm up stretches and cool down exercises so I'm going with those and incorporating some of the exercises I was taught to work on my hips and spinal condition when I went through physical therapy.

[Kassandra]

the problem with finding a teacher is that it usually costs money and I know from the town I live in no one here would teach it properly if I could find a yoga instructor, that be said aside form a lack of money I have no car to drive to a larger town with the possibility of better instructors.

Haha, yes, somehow I anticipated all that would be the case, I really did. That's specifically why, if you read back over my post above, you'll notice that toward the end of it I wrote the subtitle, "Manifestation," and specifically made it a point to write the following in response to your situation:


"It wouldn't hurt to utilize some spell work to ensure that you find a good teacher, and that you manifest the resources [including transportation, etc.] needed to be taught by him or her, so that proper compensation could be arranged. Let the gods of your chosen spiritual path, and your own ancestors, know that this is very, very important to you, that it means a lot to your health and to your well-being and affects your path and life purpose. Especially emphasize this to the healing spirits around you. Then, the right doors will open, and more than enough resources needed for your efforts will appear."


I hope you are not irritated with my suggestion to try magic to manifest the teacher, and resources to be taught by the teacher. This is what came to me to tell you in response to your request that "anyone" leave you "words of guidance" regarding the issues you brought up in your OP. I was hoping you would read over the paragraph above in my first post in this thread and take it under consideration, but it seems you did neither, haha. And that's OK. Perhaps you're like, "That stupid Kassandra, she doesn't get it. She doesn't understand my circumstances. What does she know!" lol

But, I want to elaborate, if I may....

While I addressed your question about meditation and yoga, for some reason I also felt compelled to bring up the subject of manifesting what you really want as it relates to this topic (I sense that you probably know all about "manifestation" concept in general, but I'm getting that you need to apply what you know to this situation in particular). Sometimes Spirit speaks through people with unexpected answers (I talked about this in an old blog post I wrote). And like I said in this post under the subtitle, "Be Open-minded About the Responses You Receive," sometimes a response someone gives another person on a public message board like this is not what that person may have been expecting to hear.

Nevertheless, I'm also compelled to say to you that if you leave the narrative of any situation as, "I don't have [this and that]," period, then you indeed you will never have these things. Witches say, "So mote it be" because they're declaring to the forces of the universe that as they've spoken it (or even thought it), so it is to be in their lives. But when you change the narrative, you can also change the circumstances. I feel strongly that Spirit wants you to step up your game as far as your belief in yourself and in your manifestation capability as it relates to this topic. Perhaps it is not just a yoga practice that is at issue here, but also coming out of what some call a "lack mentality," and learning to "have faith" again, to "believe" again, and so on.

Perhaps that wasn't the "guidance" you asked for, but I still stand by what I said. For who knows, maybe your spirit guides already have the resources and teacher awaiting you, and simply need you to ask them for help with this, and claim it. I don't know. But, I do know I felt compelled to specifically make the comment to you about manifesting these things, so I did. Like I also said in the EUTM post I hyper-linked above, I give honest answers and tend to be straightforward in my approach. And again, I was fully aware when I wrote the post in response to your guidance request that you did not currently have a teacher, resources, transpo, all that. That was the point of my response.

I know my suggestion may seem like a tall order to you, but try to keep an open mind on this. If magic didn't open otherwise-closed doors, it wouldn't be magic, and I don't think anyone would bother to use it, ever. I know I wouldn't, lol. And I wouldn't suggest it to other people had I not tried it myself and witnessed doors opening and unexpected resources falling in my path, with my own eyes, in my own life. It may take weeks sometimes, even months before we manifest exactly what we want, but I find that persistence always pays.

So, try it and see. I know this is important to you, so good luck with everything.

With this post I will end my comments about this topic, and will comment no further on this thread. I hope that I have not upset nor frustrated you too much with my points of view. Perhaps you'll even find some part of what I wrote helpful...if it's not helpful to you, perhaps it is to someone else reading this. I'd settle for that too, lol.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and take care.
K



.

[Shub Niggurath]

Nevertheless, I'm also compelled to say to you that if you leave the narrative of any situation as, "I don't have [this and that]," period, then you indeed you will never have these things. Witches say, "So mote it be" because they're declaring to the universe that as they've spoken it (or even thought it), so it is to be in their lives. But when you change the narrative, you can also change the circumstances. I feel strongly that Spirit wants you to step up your game as far as your belief in yourself and in your manifestation capability as it relates to this topic.

This is the most epic advice ever!
As I was reading your post Kassandra, I picked up images of a spiritual yoga master sticking to the back of Zili's body and guiding/correcting her every move with his own moves. And when I picked up images like that then it ensures me something's right

It's beautiful and strong advice Kassandra gave you so don't ignore it, Zili

[ladybloodie]

I from small town and Yoga just really becoming popular one good teacher on main street and way way out my price range. but my grandmother was/is still a exercise teacher. so any way I can't keep up with alot of them myself or there to adv. physically to do. So for you ,might wana try a book on yoga moves before going to vedios. I'd suggest Chakra balancing (Box set) By Anodea Judith . she bases yoga moves around the lol well the Chakra. Me I like doing one chakra a day to 1 a week . any way the moves are well showen so u can learn each move and u can do. each one for how ever long ur comfortable with.I even got to were I move them around cause one move is smoother to get into from another.
if you want to stick with dvd i start with kiddie yoga (may laugh ) but they beginner moves . reg dvd you got a piece together wat you like. am-pm videos are good cause there usually a medium yoga and expert yoga. rember u don't got to do the in tire workout or at once. if a vedio rush you don't push that's how ppl get hurt just find a new video until u advance more.yes you can use candles and wat not(some ppl perfer it).libery good place to start for videos so u don't got a buy unknowns.

hope it helps.

[AnaisStar]

Yoga was actually created for the sages who spent hours meditating. The poses were used to help ease the pains and stiffness in the body from long hours spent meditating.

Yoga means "yoke" and it is meant to unite you with your body. Think of it has a moving meditation. I am a Yoga teacher. I always teach the first 5 minutes of class as "silent sitting" which is my sneaky way of having my students meditate. I guide them in by having them focus on breath, and then I just hold space for them to sit in stillness.

Then we move through the full class, and end in savasana which is another time for them to connect to the body, and find a meditative state.

I really would recommend finding a in person teacher, and Kassandra gave you some great advice already. Yoga is so popular now that you can find it anywhere. Gyms, YMCA, Martial Arts studios, Adult Ed Center, etc. You can usually just do a drop in class to try it out.

There are also so many styles and schools of Yoga now that you might have to see what really works for you, and that you like.