Classical Yoga, Modern Science – A Joint Conversation | Eddie Stern & Swami Sarvapriyananda

[SPEAKER_01]: We are very happy to start the full season with a visit and talk from Eddie Stahn, the founder of Brumstreet Ganesh Temple here in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also founded Brumstreet Yoga, the Breathing Up, and the Yoga Education Collective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eddie has been practicing yoga since 1987, learning primarily in South India.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has an extensive background in science and health education and has a multidisciplinary approach to yoga, which includes studying traditional texts and combining the application
[SPEAKER_01]: technology and most importantly, collaboration.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first part of our session today on the subject of classical yoga, modern science, Eddie will speak for approximately 30 minutes and will then be joined by Swami Sava Piananda and there will be time for Q&A at the end of their conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Eddie, welcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're so happy to have you here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
[SPEAKER_04]: Mahāgāna pāta ye nāmāhā.
[SPEAKER_04]: Pranūdhevi sarasvati vādhevi vādhevi vādhevi vādhevi vādhevi.
[SPEAKER_04]: Dīnāma vittrevātu vādhevi ye nāmāhā.
[SPEAKER_04]: Guru-bremāhā, Guru-vishnu, Guru-devāma heśvarāhā.
[SPEAKER_04]: Guru-sākṣād para-bremāhātasma heśvī, Guru-vī nāmāhā.
[SPEAKER_05]: Swamiji and the congregation, thank you so much for having me.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's an honor to be here.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have to admit.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm terrified to speak I in front of Swamiji and all of you, but that's how it goes.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have a quite a nice long history with the Ramakrishna mission.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't believe Swamiji knows about this.
[SPEAKER_05]: One of my early teachers when I first began practicing yoga and began living a spiritual lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had a teacher named Lex Hixon, who was a director-cycle of Swamini Kilananda.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I had received initiation in the Ramakrishna and Divine Mother Muntiras from Lex Hixon many, many, many years ago.
[SPEAKER_05]: And when I was first going to India in 1988, Lexix and said to me, when you reach India, the first thing you have to do is go to the Ramakrishna Mission wherever you are.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then go to every other single one that you can find along your travels.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you will be guided and protected.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I did exactly as he said.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I've been going to the missions ever since.
[SPEAKER_05]: I first came here to the Vedanta Center.
[SPEAKER_05]: In 1994, and it was around this time of year, and I bought a copy of the Debbie Mahatmim that I've been actually looking for, and I have been reading that copy of that Debbie Mahatmim that I bought here right before the Navaratary Festival started every year since 1994.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this particular location is dear to my heart also because that book has always been close to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: I also was lucky enough to study Vedic chanting under Swami Yuktaatmananda who's at the Ramakrishna Mission on 94th Street.
[SPEAKER_05]: In rib, at Rimsi in my sword, I studied with him and I spent a lot of time learning from Swami Nityus Tananda in Bangalore also in my sword, in my sword.
[SPEAKER_05]: So my heart is very close to the Ramakrishna Mission and Tishri Ramakrishna and the Divine Mother in Vivekananda, so it's really a pleasure to be here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Today I'll be speaking a little bit about yoga and science and the intersection between those two things.
[SPEAKER_05]: We hear a lot these days about the scientific effects of yoga and the scientific benefits of yoga.
[SPEAKER_05]: And one of the things that often comes up is the people who are very diehard yoga.
[SPEAKER_05]: enthusiasts say we don't need science to prove yoga we already know that it works and that's absolutely true and then the people who are die hard yoga enthusiasts and also are scientists say it's true we don't need it to prove that it works we already know that it works we're curious about why it might work and on what level does it work so we'll be talking about some of those things and
[SPEAKER_05]: One thing that also is important to mention is that traditionally, I use the word traditionally very loosely, and India yoga is called the yoga video, and video means science, it means a system of learning.
[SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't necessarily mean science in the way that the West is thinking about science, but it's still mean science, it's a proto-science.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's an experiential science, one of the most important things about yoga is your direct perception of truth.
[SPEAKER_05]: And clarifying your fields of perception so that you can see clearly and understand, hopefully, eventually, who is the seeer and what is being seen.
[SPEAKER_05]: And within scientific research, there is a great interest in how are we looking at things.
[SPEAKER_05]: What is the actual process of examining and figuring out what we're going to study and how we are going to study it?
[SPEAKER_05]: I've been involved in scientific research for the past 12 or 14 years or so.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I came into it in a very, I guess, coincidental type of a way.
[SPEAKER_05]: There was a researcher up at Columbia.
[SPEAKER_05]: His name was Marshall Higgins.
[SPEAKER_05]: And he wanted to do a study on if yoga could help African Americans with pre-hypertensive conditions lower their blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so someone at Columbia said, you should meet this guy at the Brume Street Temple.
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe he can help you design a protocol.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so Marshall came down to meet me and he said, would you be interested in working with me on this study?
[SPEAKER_05]: I asked him what it was about and he told me the parameters and I said absolutely I would love to.
[SPEAKER_05]: At that time, I knew zero about science.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had never gone to college at that point, I went from high school to India.
[SPEAKER_05]: I knew where the heart was and I roughly knew what blood pressure was but I knew literally zero.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it was very steep learning curve and what I did was I put together a protocol.
[SPEAKER_05]: that seemed like it would be kind of relaxing for people and he had funding from the National Institute of Health.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was a very serious study lasted for two years and we had about 120 or so people in the study and the general outcome was very positive.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sleeping blood pressure lowered and the waking blood pressure also lowered especially for the diastolic blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so it was statistically significant.
[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, it was statistically significant to the same level of statins.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this was a good study.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it was widely cited.
[SPEAKER_05]: And from there, we went on to do another study in this next study that we did.
[SPEAKER_05]: was on high school students in the Lower East Side at a Title 1 school.
[SPEAKER_05]: A Title 1 schools in America are schools where 95% of the kids are on free lunch and free breakfast programs because their parents don't have enough money to provide food.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, 95% of the kids are on free lunch and free breakfast programs.
[SPEAKER_05]: We compared 40 weeks of 40 classes of yoga against 40 classes of physical education, and found at the end of the study that the youngsters who had 40 yoga classes, their great point average went up 2.7% in comparison to the gym class.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is also quite a good jump.
[SPEAKER_05]: This brings you from a D to a C. It brings you from a C to a B. If you're in the
[SPEAKER_05]: So, from there we went on to do another study, but the thing that started striking me at this point was that the protocols that I put together for the blood pressure study and the protocol put together for the educational study, they weren't all that different.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was basically using the same poses, basically using the same relaxation, there wasn't all that much that was different.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I wondered why was it that you can have this intervention, which is the same for two radically different groups and two different types of outcomes and still get positive results.
[SPEAKER_05]: And what my intuition was was it was basically because of the nervous system.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the nervous system when it becomes regulated knows what it needs to fix and knows what needs to come into place.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this led me into further studies about physiology, about the nervous system, and about what are the mechanisms in yoga that are directly affecting the nervous system
[SPEAKER_05]: and how could the yogis perhaps have been using these different practices specifically for nervous system regulation, for a bunch of reasons.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm just going to, for the sake of time, discuss one of those reasons today.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm assuming that most of the people here have watched Swamiji's lectures on Raji yoga, on yoga sutras, show of hands, if everyone is listening to those.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, if you haven't yet, homework tonight, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's part one and two.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're available
[SPEAKER_05]: and your favorite streaming platforms.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a concept within yoga called clasias.
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyone heard of clasias?
[SPEAKER_05]: OK, good.
[SPEAKER_05]: So those who haven't heard of the clasias, clasias, are first discussed in, well, they're discussed primarily in two places in chapter one, they're discussed.
[SPEAKER_05]: in regards to the five states of mind, but they're really elaborated on in chapter 2 of yoga sutra, where they're discussed as, for lack of a better word, the five reasons why we suffer or the five obstacles to self-knowledge.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the first of the glaciers is a video, a video.
[SPEAKER_05]: A video means an absence of a true knowledge of who we are.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have some partial knowledge about who we are.
[SPEAKER_05]: My partial knowledge about who I am is it.
[SPEAKER_05]: On a relative level, my name is Eddie.
[SPEAKER_05]: I seem to be a yoga teacher, although that's questionable.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I seem to not have hair and I seem to have these physical characteristics and so on a relative level.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know myself to be these things so I can operate within the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's an important thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have to know that you have a body or an apparent body in order to operate in the world and get things done.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, but on an absolute level, I don't know truly who I am.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know myself as consciousness.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know myself as awareness.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know myself as an absolute being.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the beginning of this congregation today, you sang a beautiful song, Satyam Gyanam Anantam, and you hear in the second chapter,
[SPEAKER_05]: Satyam-yana-manantam-bremha-yove-da-ni-hitam-guha-yam-paramay-viyoman- that the self exists within the cave of the heart is the expanse of the infinite, and this is dwelling within us, and the experience of that is Satyam-estruth is Gyanam-est knowledge and anantam is the infinite unlimited being.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I don't know myself as that.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so when I don't know myself as that, what do I do?
[SPEAKER_05]: I create some narratives that create some stories.
[SPEAKER_05]: So then all the stories about my relative being come in.
[SPEAKER_05]: My name, my form, my occupation, my family, my genealogy, my history, the things that happened in my life, my traumas, my successes, all of these things become the narrative of my personality and I start to identify with them.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, as my identity begins to, and my narrative starts to solidify, and it starts very, very soon as soon as we come out from the womb and we're held by our mother or not held by our mother, our narrative starts to form.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's based on two basic things, so the narrative is called Asmita.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when there's a video, we don't know who we are, then we naturally have Asmita, the false story, the narrative, the constructed story.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's based on two things, Raga and Dwaynecia, the attachment to the things we like, and the attachment to the things that we don't like.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is how I'm constructing my story.
[SPEAKER_05]: I like vegetarian food.
[SPEAKER_05]: I like to listen to punk rock music.
[SPEAKER_05]: I like modern art.
[SPEAKER_05]: I love yoga.
[SPEAKER_05]: I love studying Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_05]: I love studying Sankyad.
[SPEAKER_05]: These are all of my likes.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't, and so I'm attached to those things.
[SPEAKER_05]: And there are certain things I don't like.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't like right wing fundamentalism.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't like a number of different things.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't like suffering and sickness and pain and injustice and all of these types of things.
[SPEAKER_05]: I also don't like particularly, I like coffee.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't like matcha.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's keep it simple.
[SPEAKER_05]: I like pasta with spicy tomato sauce, but I don't really like pasta with lemon on top of it.
[SPEAKER_05]: So don't feed me that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, and all of these things are constructed, so we have these preferences, these likes and dislikes that are, we don't know all the time where they come from, and yoga they know where they come from, it comes from some Skara and from Adikara, but we don't necessarily investigate where all these likes and dislikes come from, but what they do is they form the foundation of our Asmita, of our constructed narrative.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then after these likes and dislikes, begin to settle in and become part of who we think we are, then we adhere to them.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this adhering to the likes and dislikes,
[SPEAKER_05]: leads to a not knowing who we would be if we didn't have them.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if all of my likes and dislikes and all of my narrative were pulled out from underneath me like a rug, who would I be?
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's a terrifying proposition because if you don't know who you are and you very carefully constructed a narrative, your entire life and it's based on all these things that you think are right and wrong that you like and dislike, if that's pulled out, what's left?
[SPEAKER_05]: And the fear that comes along with that is a fear of extinction, a fear of not existing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that is also called the fear of death.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's a clinging to life and a fear of death and a fear of extinction.
[SPEAKER_05]: Any of those it resonate with you because we all have them.
[SPEAKER_05]: That comes from this entire operation.
[SPEAKER_05]: So these punchic lesia,
[SPEAKER_05]: of India, and incomplete knowing of who we are, also called ignorance.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't like to say ignorance so because if I say, oh, we're all ignorant in this room.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now we're only ignorant of one main thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, maybe a few things in my case, but we're mainly ignorant of knowing who we truly are.
[SPEAKER_05]: But we all have a lot of knowledge in this room.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know about so many different topics I can't even imagine.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're not fully ignorant.
[SPEAKER_05]: We just don't have this knowledge of the self.
[SPEAKER_05]: From that, constructed.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm personality, constructed narrative, and story, and then our likes and our dislikes, and then Abini Vesha, the clinging to our story, the fear of death, the fear of the void of extinction.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so this is our condition.
[SPEAKER_05]: So what do we do?
[SPEAKER_05]: We come in, we do some yoga.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, according to Chapter 2 of Yoga Sutra, we do a particular type of a thing which is called the
[SPEAKER_05]: And these are tapas, swadhyaya, and ishwara pranidhana.
[SPEAKER_05]: So these actions in yoga are the things that all have to be done.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tapas is some type of, you could say, it's a type of austerity.
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's certainly something which is usually done with the body, like asanas and pranayamas, restrictions that you might adhere to like yama and niyama.
[SPEAKER_05]: But the word tapas also has been defined by Sri Krishna Macharya as ripening, and that this word ripening is a very beautiful way of talking about tapas, because if you think of a fruit on a tree, it needs the heat of the sun, and it needs the soil, and of course the tree, and the wind in the rain and the change of seasons, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and all of these things, and
[SPEAKER_05]: to slowly slowly, slowly ripen this fruit, until it's ready to just fall from the tree or be easily plucked from the tree to be enjoyed.
[SPEAKER_05]: But it has to ripen at its own pace.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can't force the ripening of a fruit, or it will always be hard, or it will always be stale when you try to eat it or inedible.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this natural ripening is what occurs in tapas.
[SPEAKER_05]: If we overdo it with osanas, if we overdo it with pranayama, if we overdo it with austerities, we will harm our body.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's trying to force the ripening process.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then that can set you back.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can lead to illness.
[SPEAKER_05]: It can lead to pain.
[SPEAKER_05]: It can lead to burnout.
[SPEAKER_05]: It can lead to all sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_05]: Things in fact, I've experienced from pushing too hard in postures.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can even see some people who try to meditate for too many hours a day and after some time Maybe some years they get tremendous back pain.
[SPEAKER_05]: They can barely walk and then they can't even sit to meditate anymore I've seen this on multiple occasions So we have to do things in the right manner with moderation of the right amount of effort which we are eligible for and then Tell us towards the body then we have swaddia.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the repetition of mantras
[SPEAKER_05]: And the repetition of mantras, the Vedic mantras are a very important process because the Vedic mantras are all related to the idea of SWA, of SELF, who am I, what am I doing here, what is my purpose, how do I engage in the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so all the mantras that we can repeat or just a small sections that we repeat are going to remind us about this introspective process.
[SPEAKER_05]: And within this comes along the idea of self-examination.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the mantras, or the wisdom contained within the mantras, or whatever text we're studying, are going to be self-reflective in that they turn our awareness back within ourselves, so we can contemplate all of these deep issues that have brought us to yoga in the first place.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you don't believe in God, this can be surrender to the unknown, but it is some type of a letting go of the narratives that we have in order to experience something expanded or beyond ourselves.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, and we'll talk a little bit more about that shortly.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, these are the three basic components.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tapah Swadhyaya is what are Pranidana, what do they do?
[SPEAKER_05]: They weaken the clacias, they're going to thin the clacias and prepare us for samadhi, which is the 8th limb of yoga, which is discussing the different levels of cognitive absorption so much so that the one who thinks they're meditating disappears and only the outcome of that meditation exists or the experience of that meditation.
[SPEAKER_05]: And there are 10 different samadhis that potentially speaks about leading towards
[SPEAKER_05]: But we're going to stick right now, only with the idea of how to these clashes, which seem to be invisible things, not knowing who we are, forming a false identity, likes and dislikes, fear of death.
[SPEAKER_05]: These all seem to be kind of mental things.
[SPEAKER_05]: They seem to be invisible things.
[SPEAKER_05]: We know that we feel them inside of ourselves, but how is it that standing on our head or doing a sun citation, doing a triangle pose, or breathing in through a nostril?
[SPEAKER_05]: How is this going to begin to diminish any of these clacias?
[SPEAKER_05]: So, from a physiological perspective, and this is where we move a little bit into the science part of things, in my last six minutes, we have, um,
[SPEAKER_05]: Whenever I get in front of a microphone, I think how am I going to talk for half an hour and then I look at the clock and I have six minutes left.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, from a physiological perspective, remember, the last of the clashes is called Abhini Vaisha, slinging to life.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, where in our body do we cling to life?
[SPEAKER_05]: it is the absolute job of our brain stem to cling to life.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the purpose of the brain stem is to cling to life.
[SPEAKER_05]: How so?
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to breathe all through the day in order to stay alive.
[SPEAKER_05]: Our heart needs to be.
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to have regulated blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to sleep.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's essential.
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to digest food and if we wish to create more little beings then we need to procreate.
[SPEAKER_05]: our body temperature needs to adjust depending on the temperature outside in the seasonal changes that we're going through.
[SPEAKER_05]: So all of these things are survival functions.
[SPEAKER_05]: Breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure, body temperature, sleep, digestion, reproduction.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are some other things as well that are survival functions, but these are the main ones.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so these survival functions, they are keeping everything going.
[SPEAKER_05]: They are the literal things that are clinging to life, clinging us to our lives, to our bodies, to make sure they maintain.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now the yogis, what did they do?
[SPEAKER_05]: They did awesanas, they did praniyama, they did mithahara, the regulation of food, they did regulation of sleep.
[SPEAKER_05]: they did regulation of sexuality and they did regulation of temperature by different types of topics.
[SPEAKER_05]: All of the primary things that we see as brainstem functions, the yogis were doing practices specifically to control these brainstem processes, these are autonomic nervous system processes.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, postures, for example, are going to help you.
[SPEAKER_05]: to regulate blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm just going to give some basic examples.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ponyama is going to help you slow and regulate your heartbeat and your respiratory pattern.
[SPEAKER_05]: When your breathing becomes very, very slow,
[SPEAKER_05]: your heart rate is also going to slow.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the yogis try to slow their heart rate is slow as possible.
[SPEAKER_05]: They tried to slow their breath, so it became so thin and so fine that it would spontaneously stop something called stambavriti.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is how Patanjali speaks about praniyama.
[SPEAKER_05]: He doesn't say breath holds.
[SPEAKER_05]: He says stambavriti, the pause in the movement of the breath.
[SPEAKER_05]: Later with Swatmarama and Hati yoga we see Kumbhaka, the the willful holding of the breath.
[SPEAKER_05]: For Potangeli, it was a little bit of a different project.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, what else?
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm control of food to control the digestive processes, et cetera, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, what begins to happen is when you start to willfully and consciously regulate your blood pressure, stop your breathing for a little while, slow the heart rate, go without food for periods of time, without suffering.
[SPEAKER_05]: What happens is you're overriding signals
[SPEAKER_05]: in your brain stem.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the first time you try to hold your breath for a long time, your body is going to start to panic and it's going to go, hey, I need to breathe here so I can stay alive so I don't know what you think you're doing, but let's start breathing body.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so but after a little while, you begin to get used to this and the breath can naturally pause for longer and longer periods of time.
[SPEAKER_05]: When that happens, the operations of the brain stem begin to shift.
[SPEAKER_05]: and they stop trying to run the show, but they start to adapt to what the yogi is doing in a very conscious and deliberate and slow manner to shift autonomic nervous system function.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now what begins to happen specifically is that as your breathing becomes under your control and begins to slow and pause and stop for periods of time, this idea of clinging to life through breathing begins to diminish.
[SPEAKER_05]: You stop losing the fear of holding on to breath, of holding on to these things.
[SPEAKER_05]: In Abinevaisha, the clinging to life,
[SPEAKER_05]: is associated with the brainstem functions in brainstem information flows.
[SPEAKER_05]: It is going to be affected through your tuppus, through your changing of breathing patterns, changing of bodily patterns, changing of eating patterns, changing of sleeping patterns, changing of stress patterns.
[SPEAKER_05]: Your autonomic nervous system is going to shift.
[SPEAKER_05]: and the deep, deep hold that Abini Visha has over us is going to begin to thin, and our fear begins to lessen, and as our fear begins to lessen, it changes
[SPEAKER_05]: Things that are happening in the fear structures of our brain, the amygdala's, which are in the limbic system, the emotional centers.
[SPEAKER_05]: Our brain doesn't work in isolated networks that owe the brain stand on the doesis and owe the prefrontal cortex on the doesis.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have networks of information flows going through the brain.
[SPEAKER_05]: But as one area of the brain shifts and opens, it is going to signal to other brain centers to make a shift as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when we begin to consciously,
[SPEAKER_05]: diminished the fear of death through slow breathing and all these other types of things, those signals are going to the amygdala's and to the limbic system in general, and start to send signals of safety, of calm, of equilibrium, that everything is okay, there's no need to panic.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then these centers of the brain are able to then generate these
[SPEAKER_05]: because now self-reflection is able to come in on an emotional level.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's very difficult to self-reflect on an intellectual level because when we do self-reflection on the intellectual level, we usually think we're pretty good.
[SPEAKER_05]: We go, oh yeah, pretty much I got it together, you know, I know what's what, I know what I'm doing what I need to do in my life.
[SPEAKER_05]: I might have one or two flaws, but people can put up with it, you know, we don't go really deep into it because that's not what the prefrontal cortex does.
[SPEAKER_05]: Prefrontal cortex is strategic planning and, you know, planning for the future and getting things done and all these types of things.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also expression of compassion and empathy and prosocial engagement, but it needs to be linked with the limbic system.
[SPEAKER_05]: So at this level of self reflection on a limbic system level on an emotional level, we can feel, am I being honest with myself?
[SPEAKER_05]: Am I being really true about how I behave in the world, about how I treat other people, about how I'm attending to my spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, is it just lip service or am I really, really doing it?
[SPEAKER_05]: So we need to feel on a deep level,
[SPEAKER_05]: Am I really listening?
[SPEAKER_05]: Am I being true?
[SPEAKER_05]: Am I being honest?
[SPEAKER_05]: And that happens on that level.
[SPEAKER_05]: When we feel that level of honesty and we can say, for the things yes I'm being honest and the things no I'm not yet being honest, at least when you begin to tune into that level of Swadhyaya.
[SPEAKER_05]: on a, and this is on a brain level, of course, when that becomes grounded and we enter into this real level of honesty with ourselves and being very honest about our flaws, that then expands into prefrontal region where this idea of letting go can occur, this idea of surrender can occur, of devotion can occur, of humility,
[SPEAKER_05]: And humility comes along with acknowledging where our flaws are.
[SPEAKER_05]: Humility doesn't come from bowing down in front of a God or bowing down in front of the the Saints are in a temple.
[SPEAKER_05]: It comes from feeling these are the places where I've really gone awry and hear the things I need to work on and I can't do it on my own, I need some help, I need some blessings, I need some grace, I need some community support, whatever it might be.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so the humility is actually comes from being humbled, and that's a little bit painful.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not the type of a thing which is joyful all the time.
[SPEAKER_05]: When you feel humbled through your mistakes and feel humbled, through the ways that you know you need to change your life in order to move yourself forward.
[SPEAKER_05]: That leads to humility.
[SPEAKER_05]: That leads to a shift in character.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that leads also to devotion, to this idea of, I can't do it all on my own steam.
[SPEAKER_05]: I need to let go, I need to merge my mind into the source.
[SPEAKER_05]: So now I'm going to basically stop there and now what does this have to do with science?
[SPEAKER_05]: So basically the idea about the nervous system, the brainstem operations of all these types of things I've spoken about, these all happen on a relative level.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the relative level in yoga is real, this is percrity.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's an eternal reality which is always changing.
[SPEAKER_05]: But on the relative level, we feel things, we experience pain, we experience sickness, we experience suffering, we experience challenge.
[SPEAKER_05]: But those things can be shifted.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the way that those things are often shifted are within our own body, within the chemistry of our body.
[SPEAKER_05]: We can shift the chemistry of our body to shift the outcomes of our relative shared experience and our relative personal experience.
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the things that modern science is very good at studying is our relative existence.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not good at studying the absolute reality because that can't be studied.
[SPEAKER_05]: but it's extremely good and getting better at studying the relative reality.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, what does modern science look at?
[SPEAKER_05]: It looks at everything that has to do with our unnamyocosia, the physical body, the pranamyocosia, the nervous system, body, which is also connected with breath and our bioelectric nature, and also the monomyocosia,
[SPEAKER_05]: the mind body, through psychology and therapy, and along with that, the buddhi, or the vignana myocosia.
[SPEAKER_05]: So modern science can look at all of these different levels, and these levels are very important to be healthy in order for us to go to the next levels, which are the transcendent levels.
[SPEAKER_05]: So what is the use of modern science?
[SPEAKER_05]: The use of modern science to help us be healthy, to understand mechanisms, and apply those mechanisms for the best possible
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_08]: Namaste and welcome back.
[SPEAKER_08]: We had a long summer break, and we are beginning in a grand way with Eddie.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm profoundly grateful to him, and very happy that he's come here with to be with us and inaugurating our fall session.
[SPEAKER_08]: We are also thankful to his team, which made it possible for him for this even to take place.
[SPEAKER_08]: He told us about his connection with our order, with the Vedanta society, with the Ramakrishna order, which I didn't know about that.
[SPEAKER_08]: He came here in 1994 and got the Devi Mahatmaam.
[SPEAKER_08]: I was just thinking, I became a monk in 1994.
[SPEAKER_08]: That was, I joined the Ramakrishna Order in 1994 as a novice monk.
[SPEAKER_08]: And what a wonderful coincidence that
[SPEAKER_08]: This is the Devi-Paksh.
[SPEAKER_08]: We have started the worship of the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_08]: And Eddie is reading the Devi-Paksh every year at this time.
[SPEAKER_08]: You didn't have a Rathri.
[SPEAKER_08]: Today, if you want to know yoga, yoga is a phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_08]: New York is a hot spot for yoga in the world today.
[SPEAKER_08]: And when New York want to know more about yoga, you Google it.
[SPEAKER_08]: And his name will come up.
[SPEAKER_08]: He's central to this yoga in the 21st century.
[SPEAKER_08]: And here, especially in New York.
[SPEAKER_08]: And behind Eddie, if you look back, he will find these names, the big names Krishna Macharya whom Eddie mentioned just now, B.K.S.
[SPEAKER_08]: Anger, Pertabhi Joyce, and Eddie actually belongs to that lineage of yoga teachers, they so called my source school of yoga.
[SPEAKER_08]: He also mentioned Swami Nittya Sananda Jay, Swami Yuktaak Mananda Jay, so these are monk senior monks of our order.
[SPEAKER_08]: Nittya Sanjay know because he was an Acharya, the training center for young monks.
[SPEAKER_08]: And Swami Yuktaak Manjeev, who taught Eddie the Vedic chanting, he is right here across the park in the 94th street, the Ramakrishna Vivekan, the center.
[SPEAKER_08]: So you go back to Kishnamacharya, Patevi Joyce, Bikes anger, and they are the ones who really kick started Yoga in a big way in the West, especially here in New York.
[SPEAKER_08]: Go further back and you'll find Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_08]: In 2013 there was a Wall Street Journal article, the man who bought Yoga to the West, and it was about Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_08]: you will immediately say, ah, but not that kind of yoga.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, the kind of yoga that we are popular, which is popular now, we are familiar with is the physical kind, the, the, the hot yoga.
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's true.
[SPEAKER_08]: Although there are accounts of wavekran and the teaching to headstand, here in, in originally in between.
[SPEAKER_08]: He's teaching the headstand to, I think, one of the American men who was close devotee at that time, and one of the ladies in the house suddenly, she probably had not no response, so she barged into the room and she found that men doing a headstand and women were
[SPEAKER_08]: You don't have a lady suddenly barging into a in the men's room and he fell down.
[SPEAKER_08]: And Vivekananda scolded her.
[SPEAKER_08]: She said, you should always knock before you enter somebody else's room.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, let us see what is left of this poor man.
[SPEAKER_08]: But it is true that the yoga that he talked about was Rajayoga Bhakti Yoga, Karmayoga and Ganyoga, which is the yoga that we talk about here in the Vedanta society of New York.
[SPEAKER_08]: But then there was just talking with Eddie before the program started.
[SPEAKER_08]: The first book that Vivekananda wrote was Rajayoga.
[SPEAKER_08]: He didn't write a book, he didn't take up a text of Adwaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_08]: He rather took up a text of yoga, and the most central text of yoga, repartentially yoga sutras.
[SPEAKER_08]: He translated it and he commented upon it.
[SPEAKER_08]: and give a very unique commentary on the Rajayoga, which has become a classic ever since.
[SPEAKER_08]: That was also our first publication, a proper book from the Vedanta Society of New York in all the way back in 1895.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, Rajayoga.
[SPEAKER_08]: That is a nice segue into the rest of this conversation now and then the Q&A which we will go into after this.
[SPEAKER_08]: Eddie mentioned the Taitidiyo Panishad.
[SPEAKER_08]: We started with Satyam Gyanam Anantam, Ramha, that beautiful him.
[SPEAKER_08]: Brahman, the ultimate reality is infinite consciousness and existence.
[SPEAKER_08]: infinite reality consciousness is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_08]: But then, Eddie also pointed out what follows after that.
[SPEAKER_08]: In the dietary, open-ish of itself, it's all wonderful that we are infinite consciousness.
[SPEAKER_08]: We are infinite existence.
[SPEAKER_08]: But how do you realize that?
[SPEAKER_08]: How do you make it a living reality in our day-to-day life?
[SPEAKER_08]: So what are the practical, the nuts and bolts of spirituality?
[SPEAKER_08]: And in that open-ish of itself, in the next few passages you find what is called the Punjya Koshavicara, the analysis they enquiry into the five levels of the human personality, the physical, the vital, the mental, the intellectual, the causal, and beyond that our real nature, pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_08]: and Eddie referred to that as the, you know, he mentioned what science is specifically good at at investigating the physical side of it, the physiological side of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, the unnamaya, physical side, the monoma, the pranamaya, the physiological vital side of it, the monoma, the vigyanamaya, the mental and the intellectual side of it, and science actually has a lot to say and can say more about it.
[SPEAKER_08]: When Eddie was talking about the confluence of science and yoga,
[SPEAKER_08]: I was reminded of what Vivekan this said about Vedanta and science.
[SPEAKER_08]: He said these questions about the fundamental nature of the world and our fundamental nature, who we are and what this world is.
[SPEAKER_08]: These are ancient questions, and they have been asked when the most ancient times in the yoga sutras, in the Brahmasutras, in before that, in the Vedas, in the Upanishads, they've been asked.
[SPEAKER_08]: But Vedic antises, each generation must ask these questions for themselves.
[SPEAKER_08]: We must again ask these questions in our time, because we will pose it differently, and the answers will have different meanings for us.
[SPEAKER_08]: Second, Vedic antises, it's not that the answers were not found.
[SPEAKER_08]: as the erie says the yogis will say what do we need with science I mean we know we practice yoga we know yoga and yoga works quite obviously so while our Vedantans can also say that we know a Vedanta why do we need scientific collaboration or corroboration of a Vedanta let's true but as we can't say it's not that the answers were not found they were found they found by the yogis by the Vedantans by the tantric they were found
[SPEAKER_08]: and yet he says the answers are rediscovered as the ages go on and they gather strength down the centuries.
[SPEAKER_08]: So if you have the same answer which yoga gives you, but you supplement it with modern neuroscience, with modern nutrition science, and you know modern physiology, medical science.
[SPEAKER_08]: The answer is enriched.
[SPEAKER_08]: The answer becomes more powerful, more effective even.
[SPEAKER_08]: It becomes a rich, richer understanding of yoga itself today.
[SPEAKER_08]: So that's why these continents of science and yoga is very important.
[SPEAKER_08]: What we will do is we will follow the track set by Eddie, the titary openishad, the five levels of the human being, and we will see what practical spirituality, what yoga does at each level, what can we deal, and what can we take away from it, from this very session itself.
[SPEAKER_08]: So welcome once again, it's wonderful to finally meet with you and have you here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Wonderful to finally meet with you as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: We exchanged emails ten years ago.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, when I first came here.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, the body, let's start with the most obvious thing, the body.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, we are not the body, but as Swami Pavitranandaji used to say, I have heard from disciples of Pavitranji, who are with us.
[SPEAKER_08]: He used to say that, don't abuse the horse, you cannot dismount from.
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean don't abuse the horse anyway, but don't abuse the horse you cannot, I am not the body that's true, but as long as it seems quite obvious to me that the body is there that and I am the body, I feel like that I am the body, and I behave as if I am the body, I talk as if I am the body, I think as if I am the body, so in that case what does yoga do for us?
[SPEAKER_08]: big question, let me make it more, let's say take away one thing, yoga is big on posture.
[SPEAKER_08]: What is posture, what is what are the bad things that bad posture can do, what are the good things can that good posture can do, what can it do for spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_08]: What is good posture, take it away.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, one nice definition of posture is the attitude of your body that, you know, if you're sitting up straight in your calm, there's an attitude within your body which is calm and straight and attentive.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're slouching and you like you're in high school and you don't know the answer to a question in your.
[SPEAKER_05]: sitting in your chair like this the attitude of your body is don't call on me, so what we're doing with posture is we are aligning an internal attitude with this external thing that we call our body in an intention away, and Potentially calls this Tidam-sukam-asanam, Tito-sukam-asanam.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, stita means to be stable and steady.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sukha comes from Ka, which means space and su, which means to easily enter into.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, it's also translated as happiness or pleasant, but suka means to easily enter into an expanded space.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, this is something that happens mentally, so physically you're stable.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mentally expanded space of the mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: How do you do this?
[SPEAKER_05]: By Prat Nishaitalia, Anantasamal Patibyam.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have the Prat Nishaitalia, a relaxed effort.
[SPEAKER_05]: You make effort, but it's relaxed.
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't abuse a horse that you can't dismount from
[SPEAKER_05]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then the Ananta Samapati Brahm is the cognitive blending of your awareness with the infinite or meditation on Ananta, that which is without limitation.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's how you merge into Sukha.
[SPEAKER_05]: So through a relaxed effort, you get sthita.
[SPEAKER_05]: through merging your mind in the infinite you get Suka and then the outcome of that is Tato Dwandawani Bikhata Ha, the transcendence of the pairs of opposites or the ability to withstand the ups and downs of life or the ability as we could say to roll with changes to not get thrown off by them.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is essentially from potentially point of view, this is the purpose of us.
[SPEAKER_05]: If we force too hard, we won't get these things.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if we don't make enough effort, we won't feel that anything is shifting.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it takes basically some repeated effort to understand where to find this sweet spot you could say.
[SPEAKER_05]: And from the Taitiri Upanishad perspective, this idea of punch a kosho, or the, in the word koshen fact, as I know you know, is not used there, it's just called the punch in Mayos.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's a beautiful, and so this idea which is presented early on is that each of these bodies pervades the other one in the same shape, so it's likened to a bird with a trunk and to wings and a head and a tail, and that each of these five bodies is perfading the other one in the exact same shape, which to me says that through this pervasive
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, the, um, um, uh, uh, anandemaya is pervading, vignanemaya in the same shape of vignanemaya as monomaya, pranemaya, and anandemaya.
[SPEAKER_05]: Each of them are pervading so that all of these bodies, they're present at all times, so that when you do awesome with the right intention in the right way, not only are you doing something to affect your physical body, but you're doing something to shift.
[SPEAKER_05]: the body of breath, the body of mind, the body of intellect, and the body of bliss at the same time.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, Austin, ideally, should be so that we are kind of harmonizing the communication or flow or awareness we could say, of each of these five.
[SPEAKER_05]: states of relative being.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that doesn't come all at once.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, first you have to figure out how do I touch my toes, for example, or how do I lie in my back or how do I get up off the floor without hurting or whatever it might be.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, from a higher order, I think this is what Austin is supposed to serve.
[SPEAKER_05]: It teaches us number one awareness of the body.
[SPEAKER_05]: Many of us are not aware that we have bodies.
[SPEAKER_05]: We go through the day, not thinking about our bodies all that much.
[SPEAKER_05]: We don't pay attention to our breath, to the posture, to our anything.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's only when our bodies start to cause us problems, do we pay attention to them?
[SPEAKER_05]: So the idea in Austin is develop awareness of the body, and be aware of your body throughout the day in the most gentlest of ways.
[SPEAKER_05]: And through that developing awareness that you have a body, that you need to take care of it, that you inhabit a body,
[SPEAKER_05]: It will begin to shift your inner understanding of what your body is and what's powering it.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is how I think of Asuna.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a beautiful answer and the awareness of the body is reading exactly what Eddie said that the moment you are aware of our bodies is usually because it's aching, it's painful, you feel sick somewhere.
[SPEAKER_08]: So that's why you become aware of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: But before that, in Asana, we become aware of the body deliberately.
[SPEAKER_08]: to the body.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, this might sound a little contradictory if you are trying to understand that you are not the body.
[SPEAKER_08]: Why would you want to be aware of the body?
[SPEAKER_08]: A usual state of not being aware of the body is actually an utter identification with the body.
[SPEAKER_08]: We are so one with the body that is just I, so I don't give any attention to myself.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is an utter physical oneness with the body, physical vital, even intellectual oneness with the body.
[SPEAKER_08]: In fact, it is only when we
[SPEAKER_08]: Attend to the body when we become aware of the body.
[SPEAKER_08]: Here is the body.
[SPEAKER_08]: Notice an interesting thing about awareness.
[SPEAKER_08]: What you are aware of that you are not.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's something you're aware of, so I'm aware of the clock, or the table of this clock, and I know that I'm not it.
[SPEAKER_08]: In the same way, when I become aware of the body, I also subtly, the mind begins to grasp this idea that I am not this.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm not a thing, and the body is complex, wonderful, but still a thing.
[SPEAKER_08]: posture can do all of that for us, and more, as Eddie said, and by the way, I love that phrase, it relaxed effort.
[SPEAKER_08]: And it's really important, as Eddie pointed out, you can hurt yourself through a lot of effort, overdoing effort, which is a very American, a very New York thing also.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: I, the story of the student who goes to the master and says, teach me how to become enlightened and the master says, OK, these are the things you need to do.
[SPEAKER_08]: And the student says, how long will it take?
[SPEAKER_08]: The master says, 20 years, if you do it well, 20 years, students just 20 years.
[SPEAKER_08]: Suppose I work twice as long.
[SPEAKER_08]: Then how long will it take?
[SPEAKER_08]: He says, 40 years.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just one thought I have been ready was talking about posture that it's an internal attitude I love that because Spain is you cannot straighten the spine.
[SPEAKER_08]: We have been told from our childhood Set up straight.
[SPEAKER_08]: Don't slouch Well, the spine cannot be straightened out.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is a gentle curve, but it's an internal attitude to sit up straight
[SPEAKER_08]: the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Thurian and the Ghi and the Remini senses of Swami Thurian Ji, they would often the monks and the devotees who saw him in his old age when he was sick a few months before he died.
[SPEAKER_08]: They all remarked in their Remini sense, how ramrods straight he would sit, even in that sick condition.
[SPEAKER_08]: You have been able to sit up and you would sit up straight.
[SPEAKER_08]: Moving on from there, more subtle, more inwards, and I'm now I'm coating literally from the Taipei, the open-ish of Anniwantarathma, Pranamaya, more subtle, more inwards than the physical body is the vital body.
[SPEAKER_08]: And the first thing we know about the vital body is the breath.
[SPEAKER_08]: And that's something very fascinating and very very important to our physical health, our mental
[SPEAKER_08]: Before I ask Eddie to jump in here, there is a wonderful series of classes on Pranayama.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think the best series available online.
[SPEAKER_08]: where eddy teaches you Pranayama in 12 classes and they are available on Deepak Chopra's channel on YouTube for free it's there.
[SPEAKER_08]: If you look it up it's a playlist of 12 classes and from the very beginning of Pranayama to somewhat more intermediate even little bit advanced also towards the end 12 classes.
[SPEAKER_08]: So the breath, Plana Iama.
[SPEAKER_08]: What is Plana Iama?
[SPEAKER_08]: Why is it important for physical health, mental, and emotional health, and ultimately for our spiritual purposes?
[SPEAKER_05]: OK, that's a big question.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because there are a lot of things in there.
[SPEAKER_05]: The so Plana on an individual level is considered to be bioelectricity.
[SPEAKER_05]: Biolectricity means the electricity generated within our body, within our physiology.
[SPEAKER_05]: So for example, in often we think of Prana Justice breath, and it is breath, but let me talk about biolectricity for a moment first.
[SPEAKER_05]: In our heart, we have the Sino-Hatriel node, the SA node, where the pacemaker cells are.
[SPEAKER_05]: In these pacemaker cells, they propagate their own electrical impulse.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if you take some of these cells out from your heart, put them in a petri dish, these cells will continue to beat because that's what they do.
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't need anything else to make them beat.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so this is bioelectricity.
[SPEAKER_05]: Bioelectricity is going to oversee the functioning of our nervous system, all of its different branches, the communication from the nervous system through our internal organs, the firing of neurons,
[SPEAKER_05]: all of these things which keep us as functioning human beings are going to be ruled over by this ability of the body and ability of ourselves to generate electricity and electrical impulse for communication and for directing action.
[SPEAKER_05]: This on a physical level is prana and when things go wrong with our biometric nature, then problems start to happen.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, the support of all of these physiological patterns and the health of our physiological systems is a large part of Pranayama, because we have, as well, in the body, the number is contested, depending on the text you look at, but these are called Pranat Nadis.
[SPEAKER_05]: and Prananadis are the invisible channels we're Pranaflose.
[SPEAKER_05]: In Hattiyoga Pradipoko and some other Hattiyoga texts, we read there 72,000 Nadis.
[SPEAKER_05]: In Chimdogu, Upanishad, we read that the heart has 101 Nadis coming from it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And from each of those 101 Nadis, there are 72,000 Nadis coming out.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a much bigger number.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm probably a little bit closer to what could be accurate.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, through all of these prananadis, they have little knots in them or little blockages in them.
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the things that pranayama is supposed to do is to untie these knots, so there's a free flow of prana.
[SPEAKER_05]: How do these knots come about?
[SPEAKER_05]: The knots come about, or the blockages come about, from the next level that we're going to talk about, which is the Manomaya.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when there's a disturbance in the mind,
[SPEAKER_05]: It disturbs the prananodis.
[SPEAKER_05]: When the prananodis are disturbed, then it disturbs the flow of the breath.
[SPEAKER_05]: When it disturbs the flow of the breath, then it disturbs the state of the body.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then when there's enough disturbance, this is when disease or pain or ill health or sleep problems or digestive problems settle in.
[SPEAKER_05]: So from the yogic model, what's happening on the level of pranayama,
[SPEAKER_05]: is that we're using some type of physical activation to smooth out the prononades so that we can then move a step deeper in to correct any mental imbalances and emotional imbalances that are occurring.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is one idea about pranayama, which I quite happen to like.
[SPEAKER_05]: Another important thing about pranayama is that the regulation of our breath.
[SPEAKER_05]: is happening in the brain stem and our autonomic nervous system, and there are certain centers of the brain as well like the pre-boat singer complex, which is a cluster of neurons, which tells our body when to breathe in.
[SPEAKER_05]: All of these things are related to breathing or happening within the brain.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we get stressed out in life, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: There's pressures, there's illness, there's financial things.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to worry about, we have to remodel the top floor of a house and it takes too long and then you can't sit there and have tea all sorts of things arise.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so whenever you start having some different stresses and problems, what begins to happen is it is going to begin to affect the way that you're breathing, because mind and breath are linked together.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so what we begin to do with Pranayama is we have a direct access to our nervous system, which is dictating how we are feeling in that moment.
[SPEAKER_05]: If we are in a calm healing state, this is the parasympathetic influence.
[SPEAKER_05]: If we are sensing that there is some threat or danger or stressor around us, then the sympathetic nervous system moves into hyper-arousal and we are too alert and too afraid that something wrong is going to happen around us or is happening.
[SPEAKER_05]: So slow breathing is going to turn those sympathetic hyperarousal signals, it's going to dampen them.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as they get dampened, then the parasympathetic or healing response naturally begins to arise.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the feelings that come within our body from a parasympathetic dominance are going to be safety, equilibrium, calm, evenness, presence.
[SPEAKER_05]: types of things like this, which are very, very important if we want to do what meditate.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so without this physiological balance in the nervous system affecting our emotional states, we're not able to go into the meditative states as easily.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, we can and we do.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I do regularly because I'm definitely not always in a parasympathetic state, but I meditate anyway.
[SPEAKER_05]: But when you're in a parasympathetic state, it's easier to enter into the meditative states.
[SPEAKER_05]: So basically what's happening is, um, awesomenos are preparing the stability of the body, and the stability of your mind in the body.
[SPEAKER_05]: Pranayama is developing the stability of your nervous system and nervous system signaling in concert with the mind, and then that prepares you to move to the next layer after that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'll stop at that point.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's wonderful, there's a lot to unpack there.
[SPEAKER_08]: I can see what he is doing with what little bit of reading that I've done, he is packing lots and lots into every carefully chosen sentence.
[SPEAKER_08]: But down to brass tax to actual work, breadth work.
[SPEAKER_08]: We're all breathing right now.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a very good idea to continue breathing.
[SPEAKER_08]: But then, how do you start Prarayama?
[SPEAKER_08]: What would be the first thing that could you lead us through?
[SPEAKER_08]: I would need to be too much to ask you.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I'd be too much to ask you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'd be too much to ask you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just to begin Prarayama?
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_05]: OK.
[SPEAKER_05]: So everyone, please sit comfortably in your chairs.
[SPEAKER_05]: And be sitting up just a little bit straight, but not too straight.
[SPEAKER_05]: So your back can rest against the chair.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's OK.
[SPEAKER_05]: But since this attitude of presence within you,
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll do a very short exercise.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if you would be so kind as to bring your awareness into your nostrils and just feel your breath moving in and out of your nostrils.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you might notice as soon as you start to pay attention to the sensation of your breath and your nostrils, you automatically change it a little.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because the thing that we observe responds to us and also begins to change, says you watch your breath or feel your breath sometimes it begins to shift a little.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's fine.
[SPEAKER_05]: But just feel the sensation of your breath moving in and out of your nostrils.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we're going to bring your awareness a little deeper into your nasal cavity, near your sense of smell.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as you breathe in your next breath, see if you can sense smell in your nose.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as you breathe out, keep your awareness near the sense of smell.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can also do this imagining that you're smelling the scent of a rose or lavender or coffee or cookies in the kitchen, baking in the oven.
[SPEAKER_05]: That one, of course, has mild danger associated with it because afterwards you might want a cookie.
[SPEAKER_05]: So smelling a rose is nice.
[SPEAKER_05]: Begin to savor that scent, high in your nasal cavity.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as you breathe out, keep your awareness fixed near the sense of smell.
[SPEAKER_05]: Try it a few times.
[SPEAKER_05]: As you inhale, you're savoring the scent of the rose, the breath naturally lengthens, and as you exhale, keep your awareness right at the sense of smell in the nose.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you might have a sense that you're almost restraining the breath in the nose a little as you exhale.
[SPEAKER_05]: As you keep your awareness deep in the nasal cavity,
[SPEAKER_05]: and we'll keep the breath adhered in sukshma as potentially describes it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Dheerga means long, sukshma means fine, subtle, thin.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not deep breathing.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's slow, regulated breathing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll just do one more breath here letting your awareness merge with the flow of your breath.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then relax your breathing, relax your posture, little.
[SPEAKER_05]: Notice your internal state.
[SPEAKER_05]: and then we can slowly open our eyes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, Eddie.
[SPEAKER_08]: We all noticed the almost instant effect it has, on our mind, body, breath, and then mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: Did you notice Swamiji that as you were focusing in the nasal cavity, the breath naturally began to get longer?
[SPEAKER_08]: Longer, yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: That leads me to a weird question.
[SPEAKER_08]: But people think about it, why do yogis hold their breath?
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are a number of different reasons.
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the reasons for holding the breath is this control of autonomic nervous system function to transcend the need to breathe.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the another reason is that as you hold your breath for longer periods both in and out,
[SPEAKER_05]: You change your carbon dioxide, tolerance levels which means that you can breathe less and breathe slower.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the idea within yoga is that your breath dictates your life.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so we're given a certain amount of years to live in a certain amount of breaths to live within those years.
[SPEAKER_05]: If we slow and reduce the amount of breathing that we actually do, we can lengthen and expand our life.
[SPEAKER_08]: So it's actually good for you.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's actually good for you.
[SPEAKER_05]: The holding of the breath, especially the holding of the breath out, has a strong impact on the production of red blood cells and the spleen.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is scientifically shown as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the production of more red blood cells, when they leave the spleen and go into the blood stream, and eventually go towards the lungs to pick up oxygen.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have more oxygen exchange, which is occurring.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you oxygenate the body better through the breath holes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hmm, who knew, and holding the breath out, moving on or moving deeper.
[SPEAKER_08]: The Upanishad says, a new antiratma manomayaha, subtler, more inward.
[SPEAKER_08]: We have gone inward from the physical body to the breath, from the breath to the mind now.
[SPEAKER_08]: And here we are in a world of thoughts, memories, impulses, desires, like scientists, like ideas.
[SPEAKER_08]: So the world of the mind, the Manomaya and the Vigyanamaya, the Manomaya, let us see.
[SPEAKER_08]: What does yoga do there?
[SPEAKER_08]: What is meditation?
[SPEAKER_08]: Why should we meditate and what's the goal there?
[SPEAKER_08]: And how should we meditate?
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, the how should we meditate is of course, depending on the tradition that you follow.
[SPEAKER_05]: Some traditions are going to stay, you should meditate at this time of day and that time of day.
[SPEAKER_05]: other meditative traditions will say that you should meditate whenever it strikes you.
[SPEAKER_05]: And within Patanjali he has a very nice sutra in chapter one where he says, and it's describing the idea of abhyasa, commonly translated as practice, and he says, tetrasdito
[SPEAKER_05]: which means that practice is the effort of remaining present.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so from a potentially in point of view, one of the houses or when you meditate is continually always try to practice presence.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think this is a beautiful sutra of his and I like it a lot.
[SPEAKER_05]: In order to do that, you usually need some fixed time periods in order to begin to train your mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: And when you are sitting for meditation, you are also training your body to sit for meditation too.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because as we all know, after you've been sitting for a few minutes, you might want to fidget, your spine starts to hurt, or you can't over-sit up.
[SPEAKER_05]: The meditation is the training of your body to be still, the nervous system will be still, and also the mind to find stillness too.
[SPEAKER_05]: One thing I would like to say about the idea of meditation in the purpose is that we know that meditation is for, it has something to do with our mind, in yoga, it's called chitta.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the idea of mind and chitta,
[SPEAKER_05]: is very interesting because often when we think of the mind, especially in a modern context, someone's meditating and they might say, I try to meditate, but I have so many thoughts in my mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: And how do I get these thoughts out of my mind?
[SPEAKER_05]: And the idea of mind often in a Western context is like the mind is the thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: That stuff goes into like it's a box that you can put some thoughts into and then you can take those thoughts out when you want to From a potentially in perspective and if you haven't noticed, I have a big fondness for potentially The idea of Chitta is not that there are thoughts inside of the mind But the entire moving of the mind is where thoughts are coming from
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is idea of the ocean in the waves and Swami Jesus speaks about this a lot in his lectures on Raja Yoga and another place is too.
[SPEAKER_05]: The wave is non-different from the body of the ocean.
[SPEAKER_05]: and the wave is arising from the ocean because of the currents underneath and also the wind which is blowing and moving the waves about and the tectonic plates and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when we think and we never see like a wave rising up out of the ocean I mean we're summing this and the wave doesn't go I'm the best wave there ever was you know all those other waves which they could be like me and a smaller wave doesn't go I'm such a tiny little wave
[SPEAKER_05]: And what waves don't think that to disrise up and they go back down and they follow their own patterns.
[SPEAKER_05]: But our entire chitta has all these different layers.
[SPEAKER_05]: And one of the layers is our narratives and our identity, called the Hongkata, and another layer of our chitta is going to be our intellect, which is discerning.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we have all these different layers of the mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as the mind, in the mind also is made of the three goonas.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, as these gurus move, and as the chit-to moves, because it's blown by the winds of the world, by some scar or whatever, it moves and thoughts are the whole movement of chit-to.
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's not something happening in chit-to, a thought is happening because of the movement of chit-to.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, if you can sense that your thoughts within meditation and your feelings and meditation,
[SPEAKER_05]: are not a thing that are separate from you that you can take away, but are something which is happening from this whole internal movement that can calm and settle like a calm placid ocean.
[SPEAKER_05]: Then you work with your thoughts in a very different kind of a way because they're not something to remove.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're just something that can settle back into the placidity of the depths.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so one of the ways of doing this is, of course, keeping the body
[SPEAKER_05]: and having an observing nature of the mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: And when you understand or start to understand, what is Chitta?
[SPEAKER_05]: How does it move?
[SPEAKER_05]: What is within Chitta, which is moving forward?
[SPEAKER_05]: You understand that in meditation, you're working directly with Chitta and not with thoughts happening in something, but you're working with the whole field.
[SPEAKER_05]: And one of the reasons I like this is that, number one, it doesn't give primacy to thoughts.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because normally in meditation thoughts come up, we get primacy to them thinking, but here's the problem.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thoughts are the problem.
[SPEAKER_05]: I thoughts aren't the problem.
[SPEAKER_05]: The problem is the movement of Chitta, why is it moving so much?
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to figure that out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Potentially says another very nice thing in Chapter 4, where he says that basically there is one mind, and this one mind is the cosmic mind that we hear about in Sankha.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so we have the, um, we have mahakt, uh, and then we have ahangkada, and then we have all of the different evolutions through the sunkyo coming.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so this one cosmic mind is reflecting into all of the individuated minds.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's us.
[SPEAKER_05]: We are individuated minds.
[SPEAKER_05]: So our sense of an individuated mind is really a small ray of reflection of the cosmic mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: which has no movement in it, which is just the potential for perception and cognition.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so I like this idea of the meditation from this potentially in sense is to link our individual mind with the cosmic mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: so that our Chitta becomes calm from knowing that it's just a disturbance in the field.
[SPEAKER_05]: And nothing that we need to really take personally.
[SPEAKER_05]: But the more we take it personally, the more the thoughts are going to revolve.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I love this idea of one mind.
[SPEAKER_08]: I love the way you put it, that meditation is not wrestling with the particular thoughts or impulses or emotions, which are the things which are really troubling us all the time.
[SPEAKER_08]: And it's not, that's not the problem.
[SPEAKER_08]: The problem is, why is it moving so much?
[SPEAKER_08]: Not what the particular way is at that particular type of point and not trying to make one way of
[SPEAKER_08]: And then the idea of the Cosmic Mind of which our minds are part, these minds are aspects or parts of the Cosmic Mind.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just before we started the dialogue,
[SPEAKER_08]: Adi was talking about his favorite traditional commentary on the yoga sutras, which is actually a pretty modern commentary, Hariharan and Aranyaka's karab commentary.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's originally, it was written in Bengali, and then translated into English, there's a Sanskrit version of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's the original Sanskrit commentary, but it translated into Bengali and then translated into English also, and it's popular among academicians.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, don't go out and buy a copy or you can buy a copy, but what the problem is that it's meant for a professional, it's meant for someone like, like, Eddie.
[SPEAKER_08]: On the other hand, there's another book which he recommended, which he liked, and I like also, is Edwin Bryant's commentary on the yoga sutras.
[SPEAKER_08]: So what Edwin Bryant has done is, he has studied all these commentaries, the modern ones, and especially the pre-modern ones.
[SPEAKER_08]: We are Subhashya and others, big Yana, big Shwain others, and then selected insights from all of them.
[SPEAKER_08]: And very lucid, I think that's to his credit, he has, it makes for good reading, lucid, it's not a patchwork.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is a big hefty volume, but the Patanjali Yoga Sutras by Professor Bryant.
[SPEAKER_08]: And the reason I mention it is that he is speaking next week.
[SPEAKER_08]: Professor Bryant is coming here, he is speaking next week here.
[SPEAKER_08]: There are all these connections.
[SPEAKER_08]: He mentioned Hariharanda Aranya and I was saying that where I became a monk,
[SPEAKER_08]: Hariyana Dharunyaka's monastery is right there in Madupur, that Ashram is still there, and they have continuous lineage, his disciples, disciple, I think is now the head of the monastery, is the president of that monastery.
[SPEAKER_08]: They are very old-fashioned monks, not like here in the Vedanta society, not like me.
[SPEAKER_08]: Therefore, for example, you'll be surprised to know that when you become the head of that monastery, what immediately happens, the privilege you get is that you're locked away in a cave and the keys are thrown away.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm metaphorical keys.
[SPEAKER_08]: So the head of the monastery enters into a cave upon becoming the head of the monastery, they enter into a cave and they never come out again.
[SPEAKER_08]: And you get to see them only once in a week through a hole in the cave where you can put your questions and see them peering through and answering your questions.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_08]: No other connection with the rest of the world till the end of their lives.
[SPEAKER_08]: So no, I'm not going to do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: On the fourth floor.
[SPEAKER_08]: of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of the form of
[SPEAKER_08]: So there's a wide range of spiritual philosophies which come from ancient India.
[SPEAKER_08]: There are the Vedantic, in the Vedantic schools, there are many schools.
[SPEAKER_08]: The Advaita, Vishestad, Advaita, Advaita, Advaita, Advaita, Advaita and so on.
[SPEAKER_08]: There is a sanghian worldview which is very closely allied with
[SPEAKER_08]: The yogic world view, there is a philosophy of yoga, of Patanjali, which is very fond of.
[SPEAKER_08]: There is the more pluralistic, logical viewpoints of Nyaaya, Vaisheshika.
[SPEAKER_08]: There are a whole range of buddhistic philosophy, the world views which are available, both in India and later on, developed in Tibet and so on.
[SPEAKER_08]: there's the Jane of World View.
[SPEAKER_08]: So there are these enormous range of philosophies which sort of grew and were nurtured and developed around the same time, about 2000 to 3000 years ago.
[SPEAKER_08]: The original texts are even older, the Upanishads and Vedas are even older than that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Philosophy.
[SPEAKER_08]: What is the world view of a yogi?
[SPEAKER_08]: Who are we?
[SPEAKER_08]: What is this world?
[SPEAKER_08]: What's our purpose in the world?
[SPEAKER_08]: What do we do?
[SPEAKER_08]: your and your particular personal philosophy of life.
[SPEAKER_08]: There are big questions of course.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah, OK.
[SPEAKER_05]: What's my philosophy of life?
[SPEAKER_08]: What's your personal philosophy of life?
[SPEAKER_08]: What is the yoga philosophy of life?
[SPEAKER_08]: What does it tell us about who am I, what is this world, and what's the purpose of life?
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, the philosophy, the vegan and my level of our understanding of ourselves and the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, the who am I?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, it's one thing to know.
[SPEAKER_05]: I am consciousness on an intellectual level.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this idea is spoken about in some of the commentaries on the Sutra on Vikalpa.
[SPEAKER_05]: Vikalpa means imagination more or less.
[SPEAKER_05]: And imagination can be a vritti or a thought pattern which is helpful or not helpful.
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the ways that Vikolpa can be a helpful vritti is when we care things like satyam ghanam anantambramha.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we don't really know fully on an experiential level what is truth, what is consciousness, what is infinity.
[SPEAKER_05]: But,
[SPEAKER_05]: The words give us this idea of something transcendent, and we sing Sathyam Ghanamanantam Bhammaha and our mind transcendent into the potential.
[SPEAKER_05]: of what could be if I was living in full truth and full knowledge and without limitation.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so if you call it fruity is an idea and these are many of the things that we read in the text and the reasons why we study books and spend time around saints and listen to the words that are being spoken because they inspire us behind our limited, beyond our limited identities.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we might not know completely but we have this feeling of aspiration.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this idea of aspiration is a very important thing for the yokees to have because it is the thing which is going to be the flame behind our enthusiasm to seek, to know, to learn, to expand, to know that we never know all there is that there is to know and to be eager for more expanded knowledge wherever it might come from.
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's a quality of openness that needs to come along with the yogi.
[SPEAKER_05]: There needs to be a quality of aspiration, a quality of enthusiasm, a quality of knowing that there is... This journey is a journey of adventure, as Swatma Rama says.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to be courageous in that journey.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because inwardly, we're going to come across things that are not always so fun to look at about ourselves.
[SPEAKER_05]: and we have to have the courage to face the demons that we have within us, not be afraid of them.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to spend time in good company, and avoid the company of people who deter us from practicing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And these are going to be the basic things of a philosophy in the lifestyle of a yogi.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, getting up early is important in eating the right food at the right times is very important.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll say one thing about food because there's always a lot of conversation about,
[SPEAKER_05]: What should you eat?
[SPEAKER_05]: Should you eat this?
[SPEAKER_05]: Should you eat that?
[SPEAKER_05]: The most important thing is to eat the thing you can digest
[SPEAKER_05]: and to eat the thing which is going to give you a good balance quality of mind.
[SPEAKER_05]: And one of the important things that we know about the end-tarric nervous system, which is the gut nervous system.
[SPEAKER_05]: And our gut, we have about 100 million neurons, and we have about 100 million neurons in our spinal cord also.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so this is called the gut nervous system.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not really a brain.
[SPEAKER_05]: The brain is up here, but there's a nervous system here.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this nervous system contains the microbiome in it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the microbiome is all the bacteria in fungi that are living within us, which help us to
[SPEAKER_05]: live in concert with an external environment.
[SPEAKER_05]: But the microbiome is also a big regulator of mood.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have 20% of the serotonin in our body, which is sort of the feel-good hormone, is being produced in the entire nervous system.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the production of hormones that is happening in the gut,
[SPEAKER_05]: and in the microbiome, and then the signaling of the anterior nervous system is signaling through something called the vagus nerve up to the brain, dictating to the brain what is the state of our body and the brain is responding to that, releasing more hormones as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: And these hormones are important because they make us feel in particular ways.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, if you want to be enthusiastic, if you want to feel that you have an aspiration for something, if you want to be socially engaged in seeking knowledge, if you want to have motivation to accomplish things, if you want to have a sense of fearlessness in your seeking.
[SPEAKER_05]: your chemical composition is very important because if you're not producing the right chemicals, you're not going to feel those ways or be able to have those things.
[SPEAKER_05]: So eating foods that are going to stimulate the right digestive capacities within you are going to
[SPEAKER_05]: Strengthen the health of your gut microbiome and help to produce serotonin signal to the brain to release dopamine and all types of other things that are going to shift your chemical nature So this is a very important reason why we should eat well eat whole foods as much as possible eat at the right times and not overeat and avoid processed foods as much as possible
[SPEAKER_05]: and oily foods to much oily food as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is going to be very, very good for not just your health, but your chemical composition in terms of hormones.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's going to shift your ability to feel enthusiasm and spiritual practices.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is something I wanted to mention earlier about the body.
[SPEAKER_05]: Best eat reason really for a yoga lifestyle to eat well and eat the right foods for your body is for this reason.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you very much, Adi, we have made this journey from all the way from the body, inward journey, through the physiology, the prana, through the mind, the thoughts and emotions, to the intellect, to philosophy.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now it's your turn, you have, I'm sure you have questions, I'm already answer going up, but we have volunteers who will come with the microphone to you.
[SPEAKER_08]: Tell us your name and ask a clear short brief.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well thought out question.
[SPEAKER_11]: When you're taking your breath in, the heart and then the force of the breath as the man, and then the outward of it is breathing out being the sound.
[SPEAKER_11]: And it's actually, I've been doing that, and it's quite crazy how it seems to connect with
[SPEAKER_11]: You know, the baby outside, the transactual outside, and internal, you know, around Krishna inside.
[SPEAKER_11]: And it's been quite a remarkable exercise.
[SPEAKER_11]: And that actually continues for me almost on a regular basis for me.
[SPEAKER_11]: Just breathing, not a meditation, but also outside.
[SPEAKER_11]: But here, I keep to New York, and I join up sweet yoga, just listen to me.
[SPEAKER_11]: And I join up sweet yoga.
[SPEAKER_11]: They kept talking, they kept doing this yoga where they said, Harp was outside.
[SPEAKER_11]: So I found it really disturbing.
[SPEAKER_11]: I don't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_11]: So I think you'd be perfect person to answer that, to connect between them.
[SPEAKER_11]: So I was saying, Harp was outside.
[SPEAKER_11]: Harp was outside.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I would do what Swamichee said.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's always safe.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I would allow him to perhaps comment since he was the one giving the lecture.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, you heard it in the Kashmir Shave's meditation thing with the lecture on that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, I know what you mean.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is taken from, it's not a yogic tradition, it's not a Vedantic tradition, it's a Kashmirishayva tradition.
[SPEAKER_08]: And this technique is taken from the Vigyanabhairava.
[SPEAKER_08]: Vigyanabhairava is a text where there are 112 such meditation techniques.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is the first one.
[SPEAKER_08]: And what I said was based on Jadev Singh's translation and commentary on that.
[SPEAKER_08]: Now then later came to hear that the river is also practiced in the Muktan under the tradition.
[SPEAKER_08]: So what you heard in that yoga school is also right.
[SPEAKER_08]: You can do it.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, hum, ar, hum, sa, both ways.
[SPEAKER_08]: But the points of inflection are the same.
[SPEAKER_08]: The breath goes out and then in breath starts.
[SPEAKER_08]: And the in breath is filled up.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then the out breath comes out from there.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_08]: But you're right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Both versions are going around.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the homster is the natural one.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the arjoa one.
[SPEAKER_08]: You can say that, yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Even to consult it yourself, we should look at the we can have a pair of a text.
[SPEAKER_08]: 112 Tharnas, first Tharnas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have shown on the equality of, yeah, I think you mentioned about the blood pressure curing through using the yoga and pranayam and asana.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you put some light on it, tell me what are the combination of asana and pranayam can help bringing down the blood pressure level, kind of a low or like an acute that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's a practical question, I don't know how much you can.
[SPEAKER_00]: on the online, but if you can point out some of the material or something, I can go through our, you know, explore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, certainly there are a few things that can contribute to the normalization of blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_05]: And usually there are a bunch of factors that people need to look at.
[SPEAKER_05]: Number one is sleep, getting enough sleep.
[SPEAKER_05]: Number two is eating foods that are going to be easy to digest and low insult.
[SPEAKER_05]: And again, digestible quantity, avoiding processed foods into much sugar.
[SPEAKER_05]: these are very foundational things.
[SPEAKER_05]: In regards to exercise, it's good to do some aerobic type exercise, something to get your heart up a little bit, which is what we did in this study as well with the people who are post 50, post 60 with pre-hypertension.
[SPEAKER_05]: Some aerobic exercise is going to stimulate the activity of the respiratory system along with the cardiovascular system in a positive way.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then finally, for slow breathing, like what we did earlier, this is a very good thing to do, especially breathing at a ratio where it's called resonance frequency, where you're inhaling for four seconds and x-hailing for six, or inhaling for five seconds, x-hailing for five, inhaling for six, x-hailing for six, anything in that measurement where you're breathing between five to six breaths per minute.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the reason for this is that there is a resonance frequency in the body, which is called the cardiac cycle.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was discovered by a German physiologist in the 1800s.
[SPEAKER_05]: And where the heart is signaling to the barrel receptors, which are monitoring blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are barrel receptors in the aortic.
[SPEAKER_05]: and there are burrow receptors in the crotted artery, bless you.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they're basically like a bundle of nerves wrapped around the crotted artery that are monitoring the force of the blood flow and then sending the signal to the brain about what's happening with the pressure the brain signals back down to the heart to shift how it's pumping out blood depending.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so this whole cycle from the heart to the bowel receptors to the brain and back down to the heart takes 10 seconds, roughly 10 seconds.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if you're breathing along with that signaling, what happens is you line your respiratory pattern along with the cardiac cycle, and this supports homeostasis, which is your body's innate ability to restore balance.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so you're supporting the function of the nervous system to restore normalization of your physiological processes.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is a very good thing to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you do about 20 minutes or so of resonance breathing a day, maybe 10 minutes in the morning, 10 in the evening, along with all these other types of things, a little bit of aerobic activity, clean up your diet, get enough sleep, and that can go a long way for many people to normalize and blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_05]: It might not do the entire trick, but for a lot of people, it does a lot of the job.
[SPEAKER_05]: So those are the basic things and changing stress perception.
[SPEAKER_05]: People say, oh, minimize stress, that's hard to do, stress never stops.
[SPEAKER_05]: But what we can do is we can shift our perception of stress.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as we shift our perception, we don't have the same physiological response.
[SPEAKER_05]: How do you shift your perception?
[SPEAKER_05]: Something mildly challenging comes up.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have too many emails or a bunch of texts are coming in.
[SPEAKER_05]: Instead of getting stressed out, you think, I can do this.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can handle this one by one.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a growth opportunity for me to answer all of these one by one without getting stressed out.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then you just do that and you look at challenge as a growth opportunity.
[SPEAKER_05]: But you don't take like all of the challenges in the world as a growth opportunity.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can again handle all of them.
[SPEAKER_05]: You just take the ones that are manageable.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you shift your perception.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's a very important part of it as well.
[UNKNOWN]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Sharma.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Raman.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm a question.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what he was talking about is me on my photo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is the layer where he was named as the higher questions and like.
[SPEAKER_02]: My understanding is a human being asked to those questions after they've gone through human suffering, like, gross, then they tried to ask higher questions and like, as well, am I?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why am I here?
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll be practiced.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so for the question for those who didn't hear is that Swami to you was speaking about the Vigyana Mayakosa, which is often associated with asking the higher questions of life who am I, what am I doing here and often these questions arise when the blows of life have come our way and we've gone through trials and tribulations and done, and as yogic practices get us to that point, perhaps quicker.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, the idea of the trials and tribulations of life leading us to ask those questions is not bound by age.
[SPEAKER_05]: This can happen at any time in your life.
[SPEAKER_05]: This can happen.
[SPEAKER_05]: It happened with Audie Shankar Charya when he was about five years old, if I remember the story is correctly.
[SPEAKER_05]: And there are many young people who question what meaning is in life, because in fact, at a young age, this is the best time to question life, because if we naturally are in a state of wondermin and all about the universe in earlier ages, in earlier ages,
[SPEAKER_05]: And if we're encouraged and we encourage our children to ask these questions early on, that is going to filter into the way they live their lives and make the choices that they do.
[SPEAKER_05]: Most standardized education, especially, well, the only one I can speak about in America, those questions are not encouraged.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so we're forced to sit in a box and move to another box and move to another box all through the day and have information poured into us which we absorb very little love and make almost no use of later in our lives for 18 years and then we're thrown out into the world and then we wonder what to solve about.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we start to question.
[SPEAKER_05]: But the questioning actually starts at a younger age, but we don't nurture that in children.
[SPEAKER_05]: Instead, we throw them into school.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I am in school, of course, has its value.
[SPEAKER_05]: I never understood that value.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I went to school every once in a while.
[SPEAKER_05]: Actually, when my daughter graduated from college, I had this idea in my mind that after my daughter graduated from college,
[SPEAKER_05]: And so I did, I went to college when I was 52, and I did well, and my dad was proud.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, but I remember when I was in, and this is something I've spoken about a lot.
[SPEAKER_05]: In 10th grade, my English teacher, Jane Bendits, and had us read Siddhartha.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I was miserable in school.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was, you know, I had a punk rocker, I was a punk rocker, I had a mohawk up to here.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was doing all sorts of things that I shouldn't be doing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I was just counting the days until school was over.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I had been for many years.
[SPEAKER_05]: And she said, the three most important questions you can ask yourself in your life are, who am I?
[SPEAKER_05]: What am I doing here and what do I do next?
[SPEAKER_05]: And I was like 15, 16.
[SPEAKER_05]: And at that moment, Bells went off in my head and I was like, finally, someone who's talking about something that matters.
[SPEAKER_05]: And she had us write an essay on the outcomes of the unexamined life.
[SPEAKER_05]: What were the repercussions of an unexamined life?
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is where my spiritual life really began.
[SPEAKER_05]: I had done a little yoga before that in the 15, but at this point it was like, I had a format for questioning and seeking.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then when I got to India and had a book from Ramana Maharshi and saw, oh, why am I?
[SPEAKER_05]: This is what Jane Benditson told me.
[SPEAKER_05]: I thought, oh my god, this is, so my English teacher was talking about.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, the questioning starts earlier, but it's not nurtured, and it needs to be nurtured.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then when we get to middle-age, then we don't have midlife crises, and we don't have crises of all these types of things, because we've actually been asking these questions for a long time and trying to live in adherence with them.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, I think the idea of questioning is innate for every small person and it's a matter of drawing that out in the right type of way.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're welcome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Swami, do you have anything to add to that?
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, I've been talking about it all the time anyway.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, I find it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I was just thinking about the value of schools.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think it's probably George Bernard Shaw who said school.
[SPEAKER_08]: He meant university there in England.
[SPEAKER_08]: The universities are great repositories of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_08]: So much comes in so little goes out.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, please ask the question, tell us your name and ask the question, and we'll go to the lady behind you.
[SPEAKER_09]: and how they impact how you feel and aid your spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_09]: I was curious what you think about modern treatments, like hormone replacement therapies, specifically as one ages, and how do you reconcile that with the yogic model of treating the body
[SPEAKER_09]: natural system relying on diet, sleep, exercise, yoga, all the things that we talked about, just curious if that interferes with the body's natural way of being or is that something to be considered.
[SPEAKER_05]: A well since you asked me how I personally feel about those things, I'll just answer it from that perspective.
[SPEAKER_05]: From perspective of potentially, everything in this created universe is nature.
[SPEAKER_05]: Everything, from our bodies, to these flowers, to these rugs, to GLPs, you know, ozampic as part of nature too.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so all these things are created things and they can all be used in positive ways and they can be used in negative ways Western medicine has a lot to offer to the world and
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to resist speaking about vaccines and autism right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: So Western medicine has a lot to offer to the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: And yes, there have been wrong turns, but there have been wrong turns in everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are wrong turns in the ideas that you can balance everything in your body by lying down and placing crystals all over you, and that's going to heal cancer.
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's all sorts of wacky stuff out there, and there's all sorts of harmful things too.
[SPEAKER_05]: But there are also a lot of things that are really beneficial, and are needed by people.
[SPEAKER_05]: when other interventions don't work.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I am very open to all the interventions that work that restore health and happiness and functionality to people and I don't discount them.
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's my feeling on that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think adding hormones were necessary.
[SPEAKER_05]: Add them in.
[SPEAKER_05]: If other things are not working, you know, chemotherapy 100% yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, for some people absolutely necessary, you know, it's not going to work if they just try to do slow breathing.
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's my feeling on that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am all into the Mukherjee coming from India and I am my filledies philosophy.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I will be asking question from that side.
[SPEAKER_10]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I just want to ask you that, when you're talking about the cosmic mind or something like that, you know, I can talk about also at that time, I'm talking about the cosmic mind I can talk about the transcendental field.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, when we actually, you know, get rid of our, you know, limitations, our limited qualities.
[SPEAKER_03]: We actually, actually try to go to the transcendental world.
[SPEAKER_03]: But my question is, when we go to the transcendental world, or we try to go to there, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, we actually under into some kind of narratives again, do we do that?
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so that's a very nice question.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when we move from the state of narratives and somehow make this say quantum leap into the transcendent, where there is no sense of a meditator anymore.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is what happens in those realms.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's no individual sense.
[SPEAKER_05]: And please step in anywhere swamiti where I must speak.
[SPEAKER_05]: So a potentially defined samadhi is such a deep cognitive absorption that the meditator disappears.
[SPEAKER_05]: And all there is is that beingness or that consciousness.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now what happens though is when you come out from the transcendent and you enter back into your person lies to mind field, all of the some scars that have not been evaporated will still be there and you will attach to the Hongkata will attach to them again.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so you might be sort of in the same personality state as before you went into these transcendent states.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you have a lot of people who can or some people who can go into these deep-deep states of meditation and completely disappear from conscious body awareness.
[SPEAKER_05]: But when they come back to their body, they're the same as they were before.
[SPEAKER_05]: So what Potentially wants us to do is through the different levels of samadhi begin to weed out all of the arising some scars so that in there's different types of practices that are different samadhi is that have to do in the later stages with how we understand word and meaning and meditation with word and meaning meditation without word and meaning.
[SPEAKER_05]: All these things that contribute to our some scars,
[SPEAKER_05]: In little by little, they dissolve or some people say they burn away, so they because they are less thaning and the some scars are weakening or getting burnt away, that when we go into these transcendent states and then come out from them, we're entering into sort of a different field where there's not the same type of storytelling going on.
[SPEAKER_05]: But a lot of the work that happens with some scarra,
[SPEAKER_05]: doesn't necessarily happen in a transcendent state, but happens in a state where you're actively working on the samskara as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: In these are the samadhis with objects, the samadhis, where you're going to be cognitively absorbed in things, but you're working on samskara at the same time.
[SPEAKER_05]: The final samadhis of chapter one of the yoga sutra is where in what happens is you put a very purposeful impression in the field of chitta in that purposeful impression is going to form a new pattern.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so the final pattern that you put in is the pattern or the impression you could say, the samskara of the non-arizing of thought.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so when your only mental impression is of the non-arizing of thought, then thoughts don't arise.
[SPEAKER_05]: So everyone could try a short experiment, you could close your eyes if you would like to, but you can keep them open also.
[SPEAKER_05]: And breathe in a slow breath and in out, and then say to yourself, I wonder what my next thought will be.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just ask that question one time and see what happens.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, let's open the eyes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Did anyone notice anything happen when you asked yourself that question?
[SPEAKER_05]: It stopped, it stopped, pretty cool, huh?
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not so hard.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is from Deepak Chopra, actually.
[SPEAKER_05]: And lose a dear friend.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so this type of an impression, the non-arizing of thought, when that's our constant, some scar of the non-arizing of thought, then even when we go into transcendent states or come out of them, we come back into this field where no thoughts are arising.
[SPEAKER_05]: If we need to have a thought, we can have one.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is what Ramanama Harshy spoke about, that if someone asked him a question, he could answer it.
[SPEAKER_05]: But at other times, nothing was happening in the field.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so this is the, this is the nidamana chitta, the created mind of the yogi, the constructed mind, that when you need to have a thought, you can have one.
[SPEAKER_05]: But otherwise there's nothing going on, which sounds to be wonderful.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't wait for that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Swamiji?
[SPEAKER_08]: I, yes, that reminds me of Ramanmashi, at one place he's the description of him sitting quietly in that place, surrounded by seekers.
[SPEAKER_08]: And after the long period of quietness, somebody asks a question, what is the Maharishi thinking about?
[SPEAKER_08]: And he doesn't say anything, he sits quietly.
[SPEAKER_08]: And after some time, somebody else answers.
[SPEAKER_08]: The Marci is not thinking about anything.
[SPEAKER_08]: And Laman Marci smiled, indicating that he is right.
[SPEAKER_08]: One might think, what kind of an existence is this?
[SPEAKER_08]: But it's just pause and think about it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just because we have feet, does it mean we'll continuously walk around?
[SPEAKER_08]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just because we have hands, does it mean continuously start to grab things?
[SPEAKER_08]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just because we have a tongue, does it mean you have to continuously chatter?
[SPEAKER_08]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_08]: Similarly, just because we have a mind, doesn't mean that we have to continuously think and imagine and desire and, you know, be angry or upset or excited or bored.
[SPEAKER_08]: No.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's an instrument.
[SPEAKER_08]: It shouldn't rule our lives.
[SPEAKER_08]: The mind is a great servant and a terrible master.
[SPEAKER_08]: A similar instruction I found in the yoga varchister says, if your mind is troubling you in meditation, then stamp your mind with this instruction, with this thought before you go into meditation.
[SPEAKER_08]: So thought, what is the thought?
[SPEAKER_08]: All mind, whatever you can think about, whatever.
[SPEAKER_08]: It'll immediately start thinking.
[SPEAKER_08]: If you tell your mind if you leave this stamp on the mind, whatever you can think about, oh mind, I am not interested.
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_08]: Whatever you can do here, the mind will say, no, I think about spiritual stuff, I don't care.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm not interested.
[SPEAKER_08]: And there is something that I am interested in, and that's something you cannot think about.
[SPEAKER_08]: and enter into meditation with that powerful impulse, you'll see the mind will be quiet, at least for a while.
[SPEAKER_08]: Whatever you can think about, I am not interested.
[SPEAKER_08]: And there is something I'm interested in.
[SPEAKER_08]: Atman, Bramman, pure consciousness, it's something that you cannot think about.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's beyond you.
[SPEAKER_08]: It will shut down the mind.
[SPEAKER_08]: If we just say I am not interested at all, it will become a vacuum, you will become thermosick, either thoughts will start up all over again or you'll fall asleep.
[SPEAKER_08]: But if you have an alert, subject to state of mind, where I am seeking, I am alert, I am centered and quiet, and that which I am seeking, the mind has no role in it.
[SPEAKER_08]: What the mind can do?
[SPEAKER_08]: I have no interest in it, at least for the duration of the meditation.
[SPEAKER_08]: It'll work.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's something like that.
[SPEAKER_08]: We'll take one last question from the back, the gentleman at the back, has been raising his hand for quite some time.
[SPEAKER_08]: Tell us your name and ask the question.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_06]: My name is Prithvurayaj Maharaj.
[SPEAKER_06]: Namaskaram, I digi.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, incidentally it is something related to what I have been doing, I find it a blessing that I am here on this day, I have an Instagram channel called Ganesha everywhere, where I draw one Ganesha every day and there is a conversation between Ganesha and Musika.
[SPEAKER_06]: The conversation is all on thoughts, so I'm G. Sri Ramakrishna and Mazartha.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is intended to spread their messages to children and adults.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's on their 19th day and I've traveled here on a business trip from India and but I found it very challenging.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is just the end of the first week.
[SPEAKER_06]: I found it very, very overwhelming to be here in New York because of the amount of
[SPEAKER_06]: rushing around that I noticed and it it it overall me over this weekend and I was trying to understand and you brought a point at the about the overall field and the small field we are in.
[SPEAKER_06]: So is it okay just to take care of the small field or where is and when we say we are expanding where are our boundaries because sometimes when we take too much if you want to
[SPEAKER_06]: too much then it's very overwhelming and sometimes when I think mother will take her off everything why do you want to do then it's extremely relieving but where is the balance of what I am supposed to do at this moment and where should we go?
[SPEAKER_08]: How do you not get overwhelmed especially in New York?
[SPEAKER_05]: I was born in Manhattan just if you walk directly across the park you'll get to the hospital where I was born and so it's like being born in the briar patch you know how to navigate all the thorns in the the briars.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't notice that New York is overwhelming until I go to time square
[SPEAKER_05]: or I leave Manhattan.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it all depends in terms of you know what you're doing in your day, where you're going, what you have to do in all those things, but it's a good idea to start off your day slowly and to make sure you have a little bit of a meditative beginning to the day.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, something fiscal is good to do in the beginning part of the day as well, and also your young, so you should be moving in the physical part of the day, also doing some exercise.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then that sort of sets up your body in mind for going out into a busy world, because you're connected within yourself.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then during the day, when you start to feel that things are going too quickly, take a moment to retreat for a moment, sit down, go to a quiet place, take a few breaths if you're in the midst of a thousand meetings and you can't do anything, which often happens, and then at the end of the day try to do something to slow yourself down as well, something at the end of the day, excuse me, to slow yourself down doesn't mean
[SPEAKER_05]: having a drink or going to a bar, it means doing something again meditative or a movement oriented.
[SPEAKER_05]: What these do is they ground you.
[SPEAKER_05]: So being overwhelmed means that we're not grounded.
[SPEAKER_05]: It means that we're getting lost in the monomyocosia.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so to ground the monomyocosia, we have to use the breath and we have to use the body.
[SPEAKER_05]: So start the day off with some grounding.
[SPEAKER_05]: ground in the middle of the day if you can remember to.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then in the evening time do a little bit of grounding as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a thousand different things you can do.
[SPEAKER_05]: But try to choose just a couple of things and make them habitual.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as they're habitual, your body in mind will fall into those rhythms a lot more readily as you do them.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you can try that.
[SPEAKER_05]: See how it works.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me know.
[SPEAKER_05]: Send me an email.
[SPEAKER_08]: A couple of emergency measures, we can call them Manhattan measures for.
[SPEAKER_08]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_08]: Not being overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_08]: One I learned from a very senior monk of our order, where he said, you know, the real emergency measured for not being overwhelmed for coming down for relaxing, is to slow down, slow down dramatically.
[SPEAKER_08]: Someone told me, instead of slamming that door, close that door for five minutes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Take five, hold minutes to close that door.
[SPEAKER_08]: So slowly, that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_08]: It'll work, guaranteed to work.
[SPEAKER_08]: By the end of it, when the door is closed, you'll be in a transcendent state.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_08]: The other one is what Eddie was talking about.
[SPEAKER_08]: Breathe.
[SPEAKER_08]: do a whole set, maybe two, three minutes also, just one pranayama.
[SPEAKER_08]: Again, I must once again recommend the 12 classes, which Eddie has given, it's available on a playlist on Deepak Chopra's YouTube channel.
[SPEAKER_08]: What you just saw, the breathing technique we were introduced and we practiced once, that is the beginning, that is the doorway which Eddie starts with and something similar, little more preliminary there and then more until intermediate, even advanced stages for in 12 classes and all you can learn all of that in 12 sessions.
[SPEAKER_08]: So we come to end up this wonderful session.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I hope this end is also a beginning.
[SPEAKER_08]: We'll have more of Eddie, we'll plan it out in the months and years ahead.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, telling me the first thing we talked about was Manhattan, New York, and you said how overwhelming it can be, the city that never sleeps.
[SPEAKER_08]: But what Eddie was telling me, you know, I noticed when I come back from Calcutta or Mumbai, how quiet New York is.
[SPEAKER_10]: There.
[SPEAKER_08]: True.
[SPEAKER_08]: Big hand of applause for Eddie.
[SPEAKER_05]: Swamiji, thank you so very much for having me, and she told, thank you so much for arranging this as my friend.
[SPEAKER_05]: She told Shaw who's been a dear friend for the past 14 years and set all this up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Swamiji will be speaking at our temple, the broom streak in Eshitemple.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Thursday evening at 630, so everyone is welcome to come and we will continue our dialogue, and we're the roles will be switched.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a Ganesha temple, so if you are here, please come, yes, Ganesha every day, let me do a piece chant and then we wrap it up.