SECRETS WITHIN YOGA: BE THE GURU

Photo Credit: Painting of Mahavatar Babaji by Nandhi

YOGA WORKS ON THE PUSH AND PULL FACTOR.

The push is our own daily discipline and effort. The pull is grace. This grace is attributed to our Guru whom we invoke through our daily yoga. If in a yoga class, expressing reverence and gratitude to the yoga teacher at the beginning and end of yoga sessions does contribute to enhancing the inherent goodness of the inner journey of yoga.

In nearly all Eastern philosophies importance, reverence and respect is given to the Guru, the one who opens the door to our inner wisdom.

This “Guru” is most times a living master or sometimes a spiritual being whose grace and guidance, the journey through consciousness as in yoga is enhanced. Awareness from a yogic perspective is the wisdom guiding us beyond the state of the ‘no-thought’ where the mind has no more thoughts. This ‘awareness’ as the wisdom behind thought is the Guru. In yoga, as we journey through consciousness and states beyond the mind, the awareness beyond the mind as the Guru continues to guide us.

This Guru could be Christ, Ramana Maharishi or any master of consciousness whom we feel deeply connected to or grateful for. When we invoke our Guru through our daily hatha yoga by way of breath, bandha (inner lock), visualization and intent, we open ourselves to be at the receiving end of grace that transforms our inner and outer realities.

The mind is the tool to awareness and the journey beyond consciousness.

Breath is the key to utilizing the mind. Each thought carries energy and thoughts of our Guru as in physical or spiritual form does carry expanded energy of wisdom that guides, transforms and evolves us. When we invoke our personal Gurus to guide us through our yogic journey, we are guided through a higher wisdom connection that is fulfilling and nourishing as the next level of consciousness.

The Guru Chakra:

The Guru Consciousness is from the awareness of the chakra above the navel called by the yogis, the Guru Chakra (not described in any text books or intellectual teachings of yoga). Taping into this energy field just above the navel, we possess vast unlimited energy even as we awaken to primal wisdom of higher consciousness. Yogis activate this energy field above the navel, the Guru Chakra to climb above consciousness that gives the freedom to be beyond hunger, heat/cold and sleep/tiredness.

With daily practice invoking our Gurus, we master consciousness to become the Guru. Expanded consciousness is Mother Kundalini. When we realize that the Guru is Kundalini and that Kundalini is a state of consciousness, we are the Guru.

How to incorporate the Guru Chakra in your daily yoga practice:

[It is recommended to practice Sun Salutations as a sequence to incorporate the invoking of the Guru. Sun Salutations is a sequence of postures that help warm up at the beginning stages of yoga. In this sequence, from posture to posture, awareness of breath, the mind and the body is with ease.]

1. Invoke your Guru at the start of the sequence when bringing your palms together as in Anjali mudra (palms together at the front of the chest). Remember your Guru through each following sequence and through each breath.

2. Stand with the legs slightly apart imagining ourselves as a pyramid. Feel the root chakra within ourselves as the center of the pyramid. Experience ourselves as stable and steady while aware of each breath.

3. Inhale our breath all the way down from the root chakra. Let the breath fill up from the lower belly and upwards.

4. In the retention of breath, be conscious of the spot above the navel. Contract the spot above the navel.

5. In the exhale, elongate the breath as a slow exhale while being conscious of the navel chakra and the Guru within our breath.

6. Do the entire sequence of Sun Salutation being aware of each breath as the journey within the breath invoking the Guru.

7. Through each posture, feel the Guru Chakra and all our effort from the body towards the postures coming from the Guru Chakra.

8. Upon completing the Sun Salutation sequence and coming back to the Anjali mudra (palms together at the front of the chest), exhale through the third eye, visualizing the Guru as Spirit within ourselves.

Ultimately, through our daily yoga, we realize our inner fire and the invoke Gurus as the higher consciousness we awaken to be. The Guru within is awake as blessings of yoga!

 So be the Guru!