Month: July 2018

Was there a reason why Swami Rama taught us to start the relaxation from crown to toes?

Posted on by Mandala

Question

I run a yoga center and 2 teachers are helping me voluntarily. They are good teachers of Hatha who are not from our tradition, and they do the relaxation exercises after the Hatha, starting relaxing from the toes going up.

During my class, being a certified Yoga Teacher I start from the forehead going down, as I have been taught.

I have asked them this morning to do it my way. But I am feeling bad. Was there a reason Swami Rama taught us to start relaxation from the crown to the toes? Please enlighten me. Aum, in service

Answers

Four have answered this question: Stephen Parker (Stoma), Swami Radha Bharati, Lalita Arya (Ammaji), and Pat Layton.

Stephen Parker (Stoma)

Swami Veda addressed this question by saying that we begin from the head because we begin by relaxing from the seat of the mind.

Swami Radha Bharati

A few years ago Swami Veda gathered us together at SRSG and went over progressions of practice in meditation, shavasana, breath awareness, kundalini, and so forth. An excerpt from the shavasana portion is as follows:

2. Relaxation. Many schools start relaxation from the toes. We start from the head. We start from the mind, except in one place where Swami Rama has done from the toes and that is the Om Kriya practice.

Prasava and prati-prasava, sṛiṣṭi mārga and saṁhāra mārga and sthiti mārga; it is all connected with Śhri Vidyā and Sāṅkhya. Someday I will write, like the ‘Philosophy of Hatha Yoga, I will write when I am one hundred years old on ‘The Philosophy of Śhavāsana’. It is very detailed. All of Sāṅkhya and Śhrī Vidyā are applied in the relaxation practices.

• So relaxation can be in almost all cases from the head down but in some cases from the feet and in some rare cases from the hands. It is a different system that we do not teach. That is part of ‘sthiti nyāsa’ in Śhri Vidyā.

Lalita Arya (Ammaji)

I remember SVB repeating this relaxation exercise from the head “as the seat of the mind” which (mind) has to be used to guide through the muscles, etc of the body.
The other exercises are from different practices.

Pat Layton

I was once in a class with Swami Rama who was asked why he started relaxation at the head and he said (I’m paraphrasing), first relax the brain, then the rest of the body relaxes more quickly and deeply.

Editor’s Note

If you have any questions about your spiritual practice, you may write to the AHYMSIN Spiritual Committee at adhyatmasamiti@gmail.com.

2007 New Year Blessing

Posted on by ahymsin

LIKE THE NEXT LINE OF A POEM
THAT YOU ARE COMPOSING
BE YOUR COMING YEAR.

LIKE THE NEXT BUD TO BURST INTO BLOSSOM
IN THE GARDEN YOU HAVE BEEN TENDING
BE YOUR COMING YEAR.

LIKE THE NEXT CYCLE OF THE SONG
IN THE RAGA YOU ARE IMPROVISING
BE YOUR COMING YEAR.

LIKE THE NEXT FRIEND TO GREET
IN THE CIRCLES OF AMITY YOU ARE EXPANDING
BE YOUR COMING YEAR.

MAY YOU BE THE ILLUMINATION
TO A WORLD DARKNESS-INFESTED
SO YOU GRANT THE LIGHT OF WISDOM TO THOSE WHO GROPE IN THE DARK,
A PROFOUND PEACE TO YOUR MIND
AND THEREBY TO ALL WORLDS.

During this Year also read:

1. Spirituality: Transformation Within & Without by Swami Rama
2. Perennial in the Millennium by Swami Veda

These will become the theme for the 40-Day Spiritual Festival 20th June through Guru Purnima 30th July 2007.

Love-mantra

Posted on by ahymsin

[This from a hard copy made and distributed in 2008.]

Lady of the universe invites you to her mansion
just above the heart gorge
Over full cups of ambrosia she grants your three eyes
her vast grandeur’s vision
View of magnificent worlds stretched out as far as
soul-falcon’s wings can fly
Eternity!- She says – and all this, too, Soul,
Is, had been your own estate, you forgot?

LOVE, she names this grandeur-sharing of Herself with you
and thenceforce
the only word gods living secretly in your ears can hear is
LOVE

Hairtip Mandala

Posted on by ahymsin

[This from a hard copy made and distributed in 2008.]

I saw
The sun and the moon
Slide down through the sky
And dive into a bindu.
Bindu was a tip of Brahma’s hair,
the centre of a mandala drawn there.

Yes, I saw with mine own eyes
How the sun and the moon merged
Into this, Mother’s Lion’s lair.
Lights rippled layer upon layer,
Slide down through inside the Brahma’s hair.

The sun and the moon
merged into one
superimposed,
at first sight.
That is how they made their
– at this other end
parted into two –
a man and a woman
as they each other woo.
Then from their union
Emerged one galaxy, and many more,
And, that is how the cosmos
got recreated that we see
below and above, and aft and fore,
from the other side, stretched to this shore.
All of it is true
Forever after,
Forever before,
Only in my heart’s core.

May you become a curved petal
In the mandala that is drawn
On the tip of Brahma’s one hair.

How the Guru taught

Posted on by ahymsin

[This from a hard copy made and distributed in 2008.]

I was an old papyrus, a birch bark, a palm leaf
Half crumpled, unwritten upon.
He picked me up, smoothed and polished me,
Wrote on me
A mere dot.

From the dot I emerged
A full person,
The dot undeleted
Shown yet brighter.

I now spend life times
Reading the dot
Written upon me

And I go searching for other half-crumpled
Unwritten upon
Papyri, birch-barks, palm leaves
To write the dot on
So that other full persons may emerge
To read the dots,
And to write them on again.