Last week there were a few minutes to spare before I was teaching my class. One of my students asked: “What comes first, yoga or meditation?”

I had to think for a moment on how to answer that question. Historically, traditionally the opinion is that the end goal of any type of yoga practice is enlightenment. Enlightenment is the ability to live in a permanently blissful state regardless of what is going on around you. The blissful state arises from the knowledge that there is no separation from the divine (however you define this for you). This is the highest goal of yoga. The word “yoga” actually means “union”. Some argue it is the union of body and mind, or breath, body and mind, others are of the opinion that it is the union with the “source”.

According to the traditional teachings, to reach that enlightened, blissful state, regular meditation practice is required.  Meditation was done sitting cross legged and motionless for long periods of time. It is thought that all the yoga postures were designed to make the body supple and flexible, pain-free and disease free so that the practitioner was able to:

• sit cross legged
• sit upright with a straight spine without slumping
• sit for long periods of time without the body distracting him/her
• have a healthy and undisturbed energy flow along the meridians (energy channels) in his/her body
• stay healthy
• live longer and therefore have more time and more of a chance to reach enlightenment (remember life expectancy a few thousand years ago was not what it is today!)

So, answering the question from a traditional point of view, I would have to say that the physical yoga postures (or hatha yoga as it is commonly referred to) are only a means to facilitate meditation and eventually enlightenment. They are the vehicle to reach that blissful state. They are secondary to the desired goal of enlightenment. My first teacher, Acharya, fully supported that view and tried to live and teach accordingly.  

In our modern times, not many people in the western world are striving to reach enlightenment. Even if they did, it would be a long, hard road. Most people are unable to sit cross legged on the floor with a straight spine for long periods of time. Hip flexibility is at an all time low in the developed world. (more…)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Over the last week, Sydney was buzzing with excitement. A huge global event, the World Youth day was held here. It is a gathering of young people from all over the world who have one thing in common: they are catholic and actively involved in church, prayer, missionary work, charitable work and so on.

About 125,000 pilgrims from many different nations gathered here. We hosted two of them in our place.  I got involved in as many events as I could and spent a lot of time in the city over the last week. The atmosphere was lovely. Groups of young people were everywhere. While moving about they sang, played instruments, clapped or stopped somewhere and started dancing and singing. Some of the songs were more like chants, repeating a few simple words or phrases. A lot of them sounded like yoga chants and had a very similar effect on me. One group did a lovely circle dance.

Those young people were genuinely happy and running on “very little sleep, adrenalin and cups of coffee” as one newspaper article described it. For me, one of the highlights was the walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This massive bridge does not get closed very often. It is very special to be able to walk across it. (without any trucks or cars going past you).

I had no concept of how many people 125,000 people really are. Now I have an idea! The first pilgrims started walking across the bridge at about 6am. The last ones were allowed onto the bridge at 2pm. They all had set out on a 9.6km walk. I walked with them for about 4km. Then I found myself a good spot where I could observe everybody going past. There was a steady stream of people for a total of 8 hours. Imagine a parade conisting of lots of people walking past you and not stopping for 8 hours. You don’t see the same group or person twice. The different groups carried their national flags or items of religious significance with them. The local Hare Krishna devotees had joined the walk and drummed and chanted their way along. They blended in really well.

The next day was the final mass, celebrated by the Pope who is the absolute highest leader of the the catholic church. Attendance at that mass was between 400,000 and 500,000 people. I had never seen such an “ocean” of people. It is hard to describe the magnitude of the crowds and what it felt like being part of it. If I understood correctly, there had never been so many people in one place in Australia before.

I am certainly glad that I took part in as many events as I could, it was an amazing experience. It is interesting to see that all spiritual practices and rituals contain very similar elements. Also, it doesn’t seem to matter which path someone has chosen, if they are confident that it is the right path and deep within their hearts they truly believe that they have found their calling, they will be happy. This happiness is contagious. It only took 125,000 people to make a huge impact in a City of close to 4 million. Unfortunately it didn’t last. It certainly planted a seed.

World Youth Day was the idea of a previous Pope and now has become a regular event. The next one will be held in the capital of Spain, Madrid.

Wouldn’t it be great have a World Yoga Day? (Did you notice - same initials WYD!)

Till next time,

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

http://www.yogainahurry.com

Last week I was travelling in Queensland. This state in Australia has a subtropical climate and an amazing variety of tropical fruits are grown here.

I attended a talk and fruit tasting session and learnt a few new things which I would love to share with you.

Paw Paw (or papaya) contains an enzyme that digests protein. It is great for people with poor digestion. As with all good things, don’t eat too much in one sitting. One thing that really amazed me was that you can eat the seeds as well, they taste peppery. They sold a dressing made out of oil, sugar, vinegar, garlic, salt, mustard and crushed up papaya seeds - it is yummy.

Pineapple also contains a digestive enzyme. It also contains anti-inflammatory enzymes. They are growing varieties where you can eat the core.

Starfruit aids high blood pressure and is the ultimate stress management fruit.

Dragon fruit aids memory - but you need to eat it long term, it won’t work overnight. In the talk it was also stated that eating too much of it may bring back unwanted and long forgotten memories. I am not sure how true that is.

Some people consider dragon fruit to be very bland, but it is one of my favourite fruits. The ones I ate in Asia were always white on the inside but the variety they grow here is dark red. Dragon fruits get their name from a “scaly” look. The plant is part of the cactus family.

Custard apple tastes great (like a blend of apple and custard) and has lot of round, smooth seeds. These seeds are toxic and cannot be eaten. For the fruit to taste really nice it has to be soft and ripe. It is a messy fruit to eat.

Avocado is classed as a fruit. It contains lots of omega 9 fats (like olive oil). The oil is directly underneath its skin. Squeezing an unripe avocado really hard will release the oil. We saw a demonstration of that during the talk.  Avocado is great for skin, makes it smooth and supple but firms at the same time. We all should eat 2 avocados a day!! Guess what I have been doing the for last week!

Bananas are an all time favourite and I picked up a little brochure that claims they are suitable for everybody, virtually from the “cradle to the grave”. They have a reasonable amount of magnesium and deliver a quick boost of energy. My opinion is that they should be consumed in moderation.

Staying on the topic of tropical fruits: I visited a market and found “Rainbow Fruit Flats”. They look and taste delicious.  I had the chance to meet Stephen who had the idea and who grows most of the fruit they are made out of. Stephen gets a real buzz out of seeing children eat his “rainbows” and enjoying them.

Have a look at http://www.rainbowfruitflats.com.au to see what I am talking about.

Till next time

Connie

Your Yoga Partner

from

www.yogainahurry.com

I have some great news for regular yoga practitioners!

A study has shown that yoga “may upregulate the antioxidant capacity of cells to combat oxidative stress”.  In simple words this means that yoga seems to help the cells in our body to get rid of nasties like free radicals. This protects our cells from being damaged by these free radicals.

What is a free radical?

In layman’s terms it is a molecule that has an uneven number of electrons which causes it to become unbalanced. The unbalanced molecule then tries to steal electrons from another molecule to make itself more stable. This starts a chain reaction that can harm the cells of the body. Free radicals can enter the body from the outside (mainly air pollution) or they are produced by the body for various reasons. Sometimes there are good reasons - like killing viruses.

How does Yoga help to combat the free radicals?

How much yoga do I need to do?

The participants in this study did regular yoga practice as follows:

1 hour a day in the morning,

5 days a week

for six months

consisting of:

• half an hour of postures (fairly basic ones for the first month)
• yogic breathing (pranayama - different types) for 15 minutes done immediately after the postures
• meditation for 2 minutes (sitting cross legged or with feet touching and legs out to the side)
• chanting the sound “Aum” for 2 minutes

What were the results? 

The results were that Glutathione levels increased significantly and total antioxidant status also increased significantly in the yoga group.

What is Glutathione?

Glutathione is an important substance in our bodies that forms part of the antioxiodant defence. In other words: it makes free radicals harmless. In the process of doing so, it turns into GSSG, meaning oxidised glutathione. So if there is lots of GSSG in a person’s blood, it means there were a lot of free radicals that had to be gotten rid of. In this process the Glutathione was used  and changed to GSSG.

 What exactly happened to the yoga group?

• They had a significant increase in Glutathione levels (this is great news - more free radical quenchers on patrol in the body)
• At the same time they had less GSSG (which means that there must have been less free radicals floating around that had to be gotten rid of).
• Assuming that the environment didn’t change, yoga must have caused the body to produce less internal free radicals.

What did the other group do?

5 days a week, for 6 months the participants:

• jogged for up to 4km for 30 minutes, did flexibility exercises for 10 minutes, pull-ups for five minutes and games for 15 minutes.

What were the results?

• GSSG levels increased significantly. This means that there were more free radicals than before that had to be gotten rid of by the body.
• GSH levels decreased significantly - meaning either that the Glutathione was used up at a greater rate or that the body produced less. 
• None of the above is good news.

So, get moving and practice your yoga! It has a lot of “invisible” benefits apart from feeling great.

For those of you that are scientifically inclined and want to follow up, the reference is:

Sinha S, Singh SN, Monga YP, Ray US. Improvement of glutathione and total antioxidant status with yoga. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 2007; 13 (10): 1085-1090

Connie,

Your Yoga Partner

from

www.yogainahurry.com