An interview with dr. David Frawley, a Yoga, Ayurveda and Vedanta teacher, author of more then 20 books.
By Madu Cabral
1. Why do we have so much violence nowadays?
The human race as a species has a long history of violence as any study of history quickly reveals. The history of our species is largely a history of wars and conquests that has frequently led to genocide. Today this aggression still continues in spite of outward developments in civilization through science and technology. It is manifesting in the economic, political and even religious realms worldwide, as humanity competes for dwindling natural resources and energy sources. The media also prefers to highlight and promote conflict and violence, which gets better coverage and attracts more viewers. Our modern society that is so linked together world wide in terms of economics is also more vulnerable to terrorist attacks that in the past would only have local action.
So violence remains prevalent throughout our world in spite of all the peace keeping missions. But we ourselves create and promote this violence where it suits us and then try to reduce it when it becomes a problem for us. What we need to do is seek to reduce violence overall, which is to remove the roots of violence in our society and in ourselves.
2. How can we bring more peace to our lives? Can you give a practical example?
First of all we have to confront our inner violence and remove it from our minds and hearts. Peace is always there. It is the universal reality. If we don’t have peace in our lives, it is because we are in some way promoting violence and not valuing peace. What we do in life reflect our intentions.
One of the best things that we can do is begin and end our day with prayers for peace for all beings, not just one human community or even just for human beings. If our minds and hearts are rooted in the wish for peace, then peace is more likely to manifest in our lives. But such a wish must be deeply heartfelt, not just a passing urge or effort to gain good grace in the eyes of others.
3. How can Ayurveda help us get closer to peace?
Ayurveda is a system of medicine that is based upon regarding all life as sacred and helping us access the universal power of peace. A natural and vegetarian diet helps bring calm and peace into the mind. It also reduces the violence brought into the world from killing animals for food. Using herbs and massage to detoxify the body, helps removes drugs and pollutants that agitate the mind and senses and make us more violent and aggressive. The more we live in harmony with nature, respecting all life as sacred, the closer we get to peace.
If our medicine is rooted in violence, then peace will be very difficult. Yet if our medicine reflects peace then peace will be much more easy to achieve. Ayurveda provides us this medicine of peace.
4. What about asanas practices? And Yoga?
Asanas help us calm the body and release the patterns of agitation and aggression stored in our muscles, bones and nerves. Pranayama, yogic breathing practices, helps turn our vital energy within, neutralizing our patterns of aggression that direct our energy to the outside. Yoga teaches us to turn our mind and senses within to create healing and transcendence of our outer urges.
Yoga in the broader sense of meditation is necessary for creating a lasting inner peace. Without meditation in our lives, it will be difficult for us to find peace whatever else we may do. Yoga is all about the pursuit of peace. Yoga is the power of peace. Through Yoga we are bringing peace into ourselves and into the world. What is important is to be conscious of the process and spread the peace that Yoga naturally creates. Gathering in the name of Yoga and Peace we can spread the peace of Yoga for the benefit of all.
5. What can meditation do for your health?
Real meditation is not done in order to get something. It has its own value. It is a resting in inner peace. So it is important that we don’t approach meditation trying to get something good for ourselves out of it, which are ego impulses that strengthen the powers of division in the mind.
Yet meditation is a very important force for healing. Meditation allows the mind to naturally heal itself and for negative emotions to be neutralized. Without cleansing the mind through meditation, like an unclean body the mind will accumulate toxins that will inhibit its function and promote physical and psychological disease and malaise. So meditation should be part of a daily regimen for optimal health, just like taking a bath.
However, meditation has many more benefits than just for health. It helps us bring lasting value and understanding into our lives.
6. How can an individual behavior influence the whole world?
The world is the manifestation of the behavior of the individuals within it. We are born and die as individuals. The individual holds the consciousness in the world.
First of all we should make sure that the world does not control our individual behavior. Otherwise whatever we do will reflect the compulsions of society, which are seldom enlightened, particularly in this consumerist age of advertising. Once the individual breaks away from social compulsions, he or she can bring a higher light into the world that can awaken other individuals and gradually form enlightened communities that can change the world.
Yet we cannot wait for the world to change. We must change ourselves first in order to change the world. This requires that we look beyond the human world to the spiritual powers of the greater universe and the higher consciousness that pervades all existence. Then the transformative power of peace can enter into our lives.
Yogini Shambhavi, a Tantra practitioner and author of the book Yogini: unfolding the goddess within teaches some antidote for the violence that surrounds us today
By Madu Cabral
1. Why is there so much of violence in today’s world?
Aggression and assertion is very much the way of the world these days, which we highlight in the media, in our work places and even in our homes. This creates an inner agitation that easily erupts into some form of conflict or violence. Violence shadows our ego self which colors the world of Maya or illusion. Our existence in the world of illusion reflects an unreal delusion where the material world holds prominence over our deeper aspirations.
Our personal desires overpower our real needs giving rise to a conflict in getting what we want. Violence in our own mind and hearts manifests as domestic violence, which is then transferred into the greater society. So a chain of violence gets forms through all levels of our lives. Spiritualizing our lives will lead us to a more peaceful existence in today’s world. In taming our outer nature and curbing our desires we manifest a simplicity and purity that allows us to experience the subtle grace of higher values.
2.How can Tantra help us?
Tantra is the sacred art of weaving our inner and outer lives with the cosmic reality of consciousness and bliss. It is not, as in much of popular Tantra, a kind of pursuit of pleasure and sensation. Using Tantra as a tool to spiritualize our lives guides us to be in sync with the universal sacredness. Understanding our true nature unfolds the mysticism of love, compassion, tolerance and peace.
Tantra through its tools of meditation, sacred rituals, yoga asana, mantra chanting, Ayurveda, Vedic Astrology and Vedanta guides us into a mode of peace, balance and bliss by revealing to us the universal sacred light. It shows us how to spiritualize our lives in harmony with nature and our higher selves. Tantra if practiced with that inner sacredness can bring a deep peace into our lives balancing the masculine and feminine, fire and water, earth and space energies and all dualities and oppositions within us.
3. What is wrong about our priorities and belief systems?
Our belief systems are entrenched with the me and the mine, whether it is my job, my family, my country or even my religion. So everything gets corrupted with the ego. Our priorities rest up this need to promote ourselves, or whatever it is we believe in by being assertive in the outer world. Finding a balance in life requires us to prioritize relative to our inner being and spiritual life in order to bring clarity into our existence, which means subordinating our desires to some higher aspiration. This requires giving up the consumerist approach to life and once again to revere all life as sacred.
Manifesting divinity in our life teaches us the art of compassion, tolerance and grace, the attributes necessary for a sacred existence. Our belief systems must integrate with universal principles of divinity, setting ego divisions aside. Honoring and revering the Shakti force through Mother Earth, Great Nature and the Mother Goddess allows us to resonate with these higher sacred vibrations prevailing in our universe.
4. How can we get closer to peace?
Peace is not something we reach out to, it is our inherent nature, once we let go of our aggression. Our true higher nature is shadowed by our outer ego nature, which enhances our intolerant impulses. Once we let go of these outer compulsions and turn our awareness and energy within, we can create the sacred space in which universal peace, not just political peace, can come into our lives.
Peace is a universal quality, which has been waylaid by de-sensitizing our sacred nature. All we need to do is to bring the sacred back into our existence and the flow of divine grace will ensure us the deep love, compassion and tolerance of Shakti, the divine feminine power. For this we have to make inner peace the goal of our lives, not merely outer success, achievement or acquisition.
5. How can an individual behavior influence the whole world?
Behavior rests upon deeper attitudes and values. Changing these, action can change at a fundamental level. The universe is a mirror image of our being and its mindset, thoughts and actions. The violent world today reflects attitudes and values that reward aggression and denigrate peace. These values must be changed for the world to change. This must be done at an individual level through a change of heart. Merely changing how we vote is not enough.
A sacred influence in our lives will reflect beautiful qualities of loving kindness, peacefulness and gentle demeanor. Working with divinity allows us to nourish our sacred space, which will allow the cosmic grace to flow into our lives, allowing its reflective rays to embrace and transform our inner darkness and turbulence. Yet it is not we as individuals that can really change the world. The world can change when we open up to the higher powers of consciousness through letting go of our separative urges and embrace the cosmic reality. Shakti, the power of consciousness, embraces all space and time where the benevolence of Mother Nature nourishes her Cosmic Womb, which is our earth!
Ya Devi sarvabhutesu matrirupena samsthita
Namastasyai! Namastasyai! Namastasyai! Namo namah!
To the Goddess who dwells in all beings in the form of the Divine Mother
We bow to her in deep reverence!
The Holistic Approach to Life
By: Doug Swenson
It used to be that most Americans viewed Yoga as a weird cult, practiced only by the lost souls on the fringe, who were wasting their time reaching for an abstract view of life. An aspiring student of Yoga was not someone you would want living in your own neighborhood, let alone in the house next door.
Today, Yoga is the latest and greatest pastime for movie stars, rock bands, computer geeks, athletics, and us common average every day folks. Now if you practice Yoga, you are automatically respected and valued for your philosophical viewpoint on life. You are a celebrated hero, definitely the one who has it all together.
The recent overwhelming popularity of Yoga has its positive and negative aspects. On the one hand, we no longer have to search the world over for a good Yoga teacher. No more walking great distances over blazing deserts, climbing frozen mountains, sleeping on beds of nails, or walking barefoot on hot coals just to earn the right to practice. In almost any town across America, you can now find great Yoga teachers from an array of diverse styles. What's more, you don't have to audition to be taken seriously: and all you have to do is show up and your accepted in the group.
On the other hand, Yoga has become more complicated now that it is accessible to everyone. You have to be knowledgeable enough to decide which style, or teacher is most beneficial, educational, fun, and down to Earth. So where do you begin on your search to find the wisdom and answers to all your questions for every day life and beyond, yet in a nice cheery, leveled headed manor? Should you base your practice on the softer styles, which embrace flexibility and relaxation, or the harder styles, which promise a great workout and lots of muscle resistance and sweat? Should you invest in spirituality or just use Yoga for the physical attributes?
All styles of Yoga have their own unique benefits, appealing to your own individual personality, or goals. Among them, there are many similarities. For instance, all Yoga posture practice is categorized as Hatha Yoga, which translates as meaning masculine and feminine, strength and softness, or yin and yang. I always tell my students that when choosing a practice, choose one that defines the true meaning of Yoga: union. Within this definition it is to your advantage to practice both hard and soft forms of Yoga. This creates a greater balance of both physical and mental energy, allowing the student to progress a more rapid pace, without injuries.
Surprisingly enough the way you move from one posture to the next is as important, if not more important, than choosing between hard or soft Yoga practice. The movement between postures is called a vinyasa, or connecting link. What you do with your body affects your mind and whole energy level. When practicing either hard or soft form styles of Yoga, try to move with fluidity and grace as you enter and exit each Yoga posture, still maintaining strength and power. This manor of practice will reward you with greater energy, deeper relaxation, and a more focused mind. Let your Yoga flow naturally like the energy of a river as it journeys to the sea, sometimes powerful and other times soft.
As for spirituality and religion - this can mean different things to different Yoga students and is often two separate issues. For many students - Yoga itself is not a religion it is a philosophy, integrating body mind and spirit. On the other hand, some Yoga students seek out specific religion beliefs, as many Hindus practice Yoga. The choice is ultimately yours - you may feel spirituality in itself is a natural bond with nature, or a faith in a greater power, or perhaps a union of universal energy within your own body and mind. This is a personal matter and the answers will come as you practice your Yoga. Remember the masterful words of Yoga: “the journey is everything.” Just by committing yourself to the practice, your answers will come to you.
In time you will discover that your Yoga practice also affects your whole life in a positive way. Your daily life will take on the essence of confidant energy flow, productive organization, flexibility of mind and body, clear communication, with a sense of inner peace. Yoga is an internal practice with eternal results touching every aspect of your whole life in a positive way. In Yoga this is called harmony within! You become aware of how your thoughts, actions and words touch others and the world around your.
Yoga is a wonderful science and art, yet your overall health, (aerobic, muscle resistance and cardio) could greatly benefit from some cross-training as well. Yoga will complement your other physical activities, just as they will in turn complement your Yoga. For complete fitness, we need a balance between cardio exercise, muscle resistance training, and stretching. Combining these activities, in a holistic manor - will enhance your vital life force, or flow of prana and lesson your chances of injury.
Cardio activities are any exercises that strengthen the heart and lungs, including jogging, bicycling, surfing, walking, or even your Saturday night dance fever contest at the local gym. Try to include at least 30 minutes of quality cardio exercise every day.
Muscle resistance is found in specific exercises, which strengthen and challenge the different isolated muscle groups. The classic form of muscle resistance is weight lifting, chin-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, or isometric exercises that push one muscle against another. The more challenging forms of Yoga offer a fair bit of muscle resistance, such as Ashtanga, Power Yoga and Vinyasa Yoga, although sometimes fall short of the whole body demand. Even the softer forms of Yoga such as Kripalu, or Integral create some degree of muscle resistance. Once again, if you are concerned about whole body health - it can only benefit your Yoga and your overall health – to cross train getting at least 20 – 30 minutes of quality muscle resistance four times a week.
Stretching is a plus for Yoga students; yet don’t get stuck in the same routine day after day. Strive to rotate with different practice and postures over a period of time to insure covering every area of your body. If you ignore the whole body concept, or practice the same stretches daily - you may end up flirting with the dark side and dancing with injuries.
When you get hungry and find yourself staring down the barrel of a sugar donut, armed with a full mug of hot coffee, preparing to declare war on your whole anatomy…be sure to remember your body is your temple and you should treat it with respect. Stay away from junk food, fast food, and artificial and unnatural food. You can enhance your overall health by simply eating food in its raw, natural state. Try to eat lots of green, chlorophyll-rich foods such as raw leafy greens, which protect your body against pollution and enhance you immune system. Drink plenty of liquids daily and try not to overeat.
Strive to use the energy you create in Yoga to help you to become a better person. If you throw a pebble in to a quite pond, this energy creates ripples, which eventually touch every shore. In the same respect, your presence in life creates ripples in time, what you do in one way or another affects people in future generations
Words to live by –
Think before you speak
Think before you eat
Think before you act
© Doug Swenson - 06/08/04