By Bipin Baloni

The ancient tradition of yoga that took birth in the Indian sub-continent is much more than just a mere physical exercise. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit word ‘yuj’ which means to unite or join. Yoga is a way of life through which a person attains unification of the individual consciousness with the higher ‘self’ or universal consciousness.

The spiritual discipline of yoga focuses on harmonizing the body, mind and soul through different practices or principles. Patanjali, the great Indian sage came up with the 8 limbs of yoga which guides a person on how to live life the yogic way and gradually progress towards the final state of enlightenment or Samadhi. Among the 8 limbs of yoga, asanas are the physical exercises meant to keep the body healthy, fit and strong. Since the soul resides in the body (the vehicle), it is important to take proper care of the body in the quest for enlightenment.

There are numerous yoga poses and styles available but for those who are just stepping into the vast world of yoga, a few foundational poses can do wonders in just a month. Here’s a look at 5 such yoga poses:

1. Tadasana (Mountain Pose)

This is the foundational pose for all types of standing poses. The Mountain Pose can be practiced during any time and helps in improving body posture, reduces flat feet, tones the abdomen and buttocks, improves balance and make the spine agile.

How to do:

• Stand straight with the legs apart by a few inches.
• Hands should hang beside the body.
• Keep the thigh muscles engaged and lift the kneecaps.
• Draw in the abdomen, expand the chest and keep the shoulders relaxed.
• The palms of the hands should be facing the body.

Contraindications

Those with the following issues should avoid the practice of this asana:

• Low Blood Pressure
• Insomnia
• Headache

2. Trikonasana (Triangle Pose)

Trikonasana or the Triangle Pose resembles the shape of a triangle and hence the name. Apart from improving bodily functions, the pose stretches the muscles and needs to be practiced with the eyes open. Regular practice of the pose aids digestion, reduces stress and anxiety as well as strengthens the chest, legs, arms, ankles and knees.

How to do:

• Stand straight with a gap of 3-4 feet between the legs.
• Place the right foot at ninety degrees and the left foot at fifteen degrees.
• Ensure that the entire weight of the body is equally distributed.
• Inhale and while exhaling bend the body towards the right keeping the waist straight.
• Touch the ground with the right hand and lift up the left arm.
• Look at your left palm and be stable.
• Keep breathing normally.
• Hold the position for 30 seconds, release and repeat on the other side.

Contraindications

• People with neck problems should avoid looking up and instead, look straight.
• Those with heart conditions should perform the pose against a wall.
• Those suffering from diarrhea, headache or low blood pressure should avoid the pose.

3. Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose)

Ever noticed a dog stretching out its front paws and bending the body backward? That’s Adho Mukha Svanasana or Downward Facing Dos pose. It is quite an easy pose which needs to be performed when the stomach and bowels are empty. Daily practice of the pose improves blood circulation, digestion, decreases anxiety and strengthens the muscles of the abdomen.

How to do:

• Stand on all fours resembling the shape of a table.
• Breathe out, straighten the knees and elbows and lift the hips slightly.
• Ensure that the body forms the shape of the letter ‘V’.
• Press firmly with the palms on the ground and shift the gaze towards the navel.
• Keep breathing.
• Stay in the position for 15 seconds and gently release.

Contraindications

People suffering from the following conditions should avoid the pose:

• High Blood Pressure
• Dislocated Shoulder
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
• Detached Retina
• Diarrhea
• Weak Eye Capillaries

4. Virabhadrasana 1 (Warrior 1 Pose)

The pose resembles a mythical warrior and is undoubtedly an elegant and graceful pose that comes with a plethora of benefits. This pose is a must include when it comes to 200 hour yoga teacher training in Bangalore, Rishikesh, Nepal or any location. The asana helps to treat frozen shoulders, relaxes the mind, strengthens the legs, arms and back and increases stamina.

How to do:

• Stand straight with the legs 3-4 feet apart.
• Rotate the right feet outwards by ninety degrees.
• Rotate the left feet by fifteen degrees.
• Lift the arms so that they are parallel to the ground (palms should face upwards).
• Bend the right knee slightly and ensure that the ankle and knee forms a straight line.
• Look to the right.
• Now join both the palms in Namaskar position above the head.
• Keep breathing and feel relaxed in the pose.
• Hold the position for 30 seconds and repeat on the other side.

Contraindications

• People with chronic illness and spinal issues need to consult their GP before practicing the pose.
• People with high BP (blood pressure) and heart issues should avoid the pose.

5. Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend Pose)

A beautiful Hatha Yoga pose, Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend Pose) is especially beneficial for those suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes. It is also a wonderful pose for stretching the entire body.

How to do:

• Sit with a straight back and the legs stretched out in front.
• Take a deep breath and raise the arms.
• While breathing out, bend forward and move the chin towards the toes.
• Again take a breath, slightly lift the head and elongate the spine.
• Breathe out and move the navel close to the knees.
• Keep doing it a few times and release gently after 3-4 minutes.

Contraindications:

• Those suffering from diarrhea and asthma should not practice this pose.
• Pregnant women should avoid this pose.
• Those with back injuries should take the help of a professional teacher before doing this pose.

Practice the above mentioned 5 yoga poses on a daily basis for one month and witness the physical and mental change yourself.

Author bio:

Bipin Baloni is a passionate Yogi, Yoga Teacher and a Traveller in India. He organize 200 hour yoga teacher  training in Rishikesh. Bipin Baloni conducts Yoga Teacher Training in India in different cities. He loves writing and reading books related to yoga, health, nature and the Himalayas.

Website: https://shwaasa.org/

By Charlie, from https://moderndaymanifestations.com

“Be positive!”

These two seemingly simple words can evoke a range of different emotions…Excitement for someone who is waiting in anticipation. Encouragement for someone who is feeling doubtful. But, for the person who is in deep emotional despair…The words “be positive”can sometimes seem downright annoying!

 We have all been there…

Trying to maintain a high vibration in order to manifest the best possible outcome for this earth experience, only to meet with a bump in the road.

A backward step on the path to our dreams and desires. Depression, anxiety, whichever form this dark shadow casts, it’s always a blow to the body’s energetic frequency.

What makes it worse is knowing that you are supposed to be positive and fearing the effect that this momentary weakness may have on your highest path…

But, guess what?

Crappy feelings are not the end of the world!

They are not going to send your manifestations into the abyss nor are they going to inhibit your spiritual growth…

 So stop feeling bad about feeling bad!

The truth is that feeling “low” is all part of the human experience.

We perceive life as dualistic…

There’s no light without dark…

No sunshine without rain…

And no bliss without sadness…

This point is especially valid when it comes to manifestation…

After all, how can you ever know what it is that you want out of life if you haven’t first experienced the things that you don’t want?

It’s always frustrating to hear so-called “spiritual gurus” telling people that enlightenment is the ability to disassociate with pain and feel nothing but pure bliss.

This condition is not enlightenment, it’s psychopathy.

Not feeling anger toward those who hurt others…

Not feeling pain for all of the suffering that goes on in the world…

How could anyone be so far removed and yet claim to be connected?

Get this…

 Your pain is not lowering your vibration, your inability to continue healing and growing is!

You do not need to maintain a chirpy, bubbly persona 100% of the time in order to be considered “high-vibe”. But you probably don’t want to slump around depressed your entire life either.

Here is the ultimate truth…

Just as the physical universe is ever expanding, so are we. Your vibration is therefore only affected by your depression when you don’t accept, learn and grow from it. And yes, part of that growth will be about steering yourself toward better feelings. After all, a positive attitude has been proven to be directly linked with success…But in order to achieve that positive attitude, you need to stop being so hard on yourself!

Quit with the self-guilt tripping and invite more love and acceptance into your life.

Now, you may be asking “but how do I do that?”

And that would be a fair question. It’s not easy to reach joy from a place of anger, sadness or depression and therefore the journey to raising your vibration must be done in small, easy to reach steps. Here are some examples:

 1.) Distraction

The last thing you probably want to do while feeling low is to work on having more positive thoughts. In fact, if anything, this could possibly end up stressing you out even more. Instead, distract yourself.

Write a list of all the things that you can do right now…

Again, if you feel like the task is going to cause more pain than it’s worth, leave it out.

Fill your list with simple tasks such as…

• Make the bed
• Have lunch
• Empty the dishwasher
• Take a shower

As you distract yourself with everyday tasks, you will begin to pull your mind away from a lower vibration and into the present moment.

 2.) Reach For The Next Best Feeling

When you are feeling low, joy and happiness are often just too hard to reach from your current gloomy state. So instead, why not treat your emotions like a ladder? Move your way up step by step always reaching for the next best feeling. Anger feels better than sadness, frustration feels better than anger and so on. Remember, when it comes to raising your vibration it’s all about growth.

3.) Self Love

Self-love is a great way to recharge when you’re feeling down…But what does self-love look like? Well, that depends entirely on you! There are no hard and fast rules on how you choose to take care of yourself. For some, it may mean a quiet evening of rest and relaxation…For others, it may be a nature hike in the woods…It’s all about the things that make you feel good! The things that you love but perhaps don’t make time to do enough of. Treat yourself to some guilt-free self-love, you deserve it!

 4.) Social Time

Friends and family are great for picking us up when we’re feeling down! Nobody sees your greatness quite like the people who love you. Therefore, if you feel your frequency getting low, surround yourself with people who make you feel good. Social time is a great release. It’s a way to talk about the things that are getting you down. When you express yourself within an understanding environment, you naturally release and let go of any heavy energy weighing you down. Whenever you surround yourself with high vibrational people, your energy can’t help but raise up to meet those higher frequency levels. As the saying goes, “you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” With that being said, it’s easy to see why quality social time is so powerful for maintaining a high vibe.

 5.) Meditation

Meditation is hands down the best tool for maintaining a high vibration even when you are feeling down! In fact, people who commit to a meditation routine for even just 10 minutes a day are able to maintain more balance and positivity in general than those who do not meditate at all. Meditation allows you to step out of pain and depression and simply observe from a higher perspective. It calms both the mind and body while allowing a heightened sense of awareness between you and your higher self. Meditation has been used not just for raising vibration but also for manifestation in general as well as cementing a deeper connection with the universe.

By Pierre Pradervand

Blessing, in the meaning used on this site and in books* I have written on the practice of blessing, often results in healing.  A perusal of the section on healing testimonies shows that numerous healings or resolutions of “impossible” situations have occurred through this practice:  including a severe depression; very difficult relationships; being freed from captivity by rebel Tuaregs in the Sahara; finding deep peace after being abandoned by a spouse… the list is almost endless.

Blessing is not a healing technique, rather it is a loving impulse from the heart which surrounds a person or situation that arouses our compassion. I won’t give here a definition of blessing, which you will find in the basic text, but the experience of thousands of people all over the planet who have adopted this practice is that, after a while, it becomes a way of living and looking at the world. Some who practice blessing in their daily lives have reached the point where they spontaneously and above all instantaneously bless any form of suffering they encounter during the day, be it an old peasant woman carrying a load much too heavy for her (in which case blessing might lead to a concrete act of carrying her burden!), an aged prostitute trying to find one last client at 3a.m., a dictator bellowing on television, a wounded bird, a country field ravaged by a terrible thunderstorm. Everything can be a subject for blessing and has indeed become so for some who use this practice in viewing life and the world.

Every single blessing heals in that it brings peace, it acts as a balm to any suffering, and it expresses heartfelt joy in the presence of beauty, kindness or any other form of good.

One last comment. Most of us are familiar with the “little monkeys”, these totally ridiculous thoughts which invade out minds all the time (and especially when we try to meditate!). However, those little monkeys cannot enter a spirit which radiates thoughts of loving kindness, compassion and love all day long. Therefore, become this pillar of positive and quiet radiance wherever you go and be one of the numerous silent sentinels who are transforming the world from the inside and in total joyful anonymity.

*For books on blessing please visit 365 Blessings to Heal Myself and the World and The Gentle Art of Blessing

By Ruth Broyde Sharone

Would it be possible to create a seismic shift in our spiritual perceptions just through music and art alone?

I posed this question to David Young, 58-year old musician, composer, artist and now religious provocateur.

Known for his virtuoso playing of two recorders simultaneously, David has sold more than one million CDs featuring music people often describe as “the sounds of heaven on earth.” As author of  “THE TRUE STORY OF JESUS AND HIS WIFE, MARY MAGDALENA: Their Untold Truth Though Art and Evidential Channeling,” David has undertaken a new and challenging role he never dreamed a Jewish boy from Brooklyn might have imagined or dared to attempt: to debunk what he calls “the myth of Jesus dying on the cross and then disappearing into thin air.”

David maintains that Jesus, still barely alive, was taken down from the cross by a sympathetic Roman soldier who then helped Mary Magdalena, Jesus’ wife, hide Jesus in a cart with hay and escape to a small town in France.  In Saint-Maximin, in the south of France, according to David’s sources, Jesus and Mary Magdalena lived in a cave while Jesus healed from his wounds. Jesus and Mary allegedly had three children that they left behind in the care of Mother Mary in Jerusalem—because it was too dangerous to try to take them along–and they had a fourth child in France, named Sarah.

David attributes his inside information to a series of ongoing revelations provided to him by individuals who attended his music workshops and experienced direct contact with their deceased relatives as well as with Jesus, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalena.  Other eye-opening data was subsequently transmitted to David by professional channelers, including a former girlfriend named Mimi, enabling David to have direct access to Jesus and Mary Magdalena and even dialogue with them.

Considering the power of Christian believers around the world, estimated at more than a billion, don’t you think most of them will be highly skeptical about these revelations? I ask David. I promised him at the very beginning I would not spare my own skepticism during the interview.

“Yes, of course, but I am the greatest skeptic of all,” David responds excitedly, “and I could hardly believe what I was hearing from the workshop participants or the corroborating evidence I then received through the channelers.  I doubted it myself, but ultimately the weight of the evidence was too great. I couldn’t ignore what I was seeing in the images that emerged from more than 100 pieces of art I painted during an 18-month period while performing at some 150 concerts and meditation events around the country. The evidence was overwhelming,” he emphasized,  “and I share details of that in my book.”

Born to a traditional Jewish family, David went to Hebrew school from age 10-13 and then celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. He grew up in a predominantly Jewish and Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn.  He did socialize with Italian Catholic youngsters and played sports with them, he recounted, but he never had religious conversations with them. That was a taboo subject, he explained. And in his home, he and his brothers were never allowed to say the name of Jesus.

He briefly dated a Catholic girl in high school and once she convinced him to attend a mass at her church. “I remember being afraid to go into the church,” he recalls.

He studied classic guitar and business administration but after college he chose the life of an itinerant musician, playing guitar and singing in numerous rock bands around the country.  “I liked the soft side of Led Zeppelin, but I played a lot of hard rock.”

When he was 22 he left Judaism behind and embarked on a spiritual path with an Eastern orientation. “I quit drinking and smoking completely.  I didn’t even have chocolate for 30 years.  I was deeply immersed in that community, fasted every Friday, and used to play music with more than 3,000 devotees in the audience.

“The spiritual track was not new to me when I wrote this book because I have been meditating all of my adult life,” David related, but I was not prepared for the message I had been hand-selected to deliver.”

“Why you, rather than someone else?” I ask.

David acknowledges that at first he considered himself a most unlikely candidate to deliver this message. But the key lies in the music, he insists.

“Music and art are the entrée to the divine message I have been asked to share.  Consider this. More than a million people every month are listening to my music being played in retreat centers and spas across the world. Two generations of children have grown up listening to my music as a lullaby. Who knows how many of those children were conceived while their mothers and fathers were listening to my romantic music?” he quipped. “The book I wrote includes 90 minutes of my music through QR codes that you can access through your phone.  Each one of these books is a transmitter of that heavenly energy through the vibrational sounds of the music, through the heavenly colors of the artwork, and the truth of what Jesus, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalena want people to fully know about their lives.

“During my performances, “ he continued, “over 1,000 people have experienced Jesus.  They have come forward voluntarily to say that during the concert they have connected with their loved ones who passed and many have also experienced healings.  They also related that they had fun in dialogue with Jesus and that he has a sense of humor.

“That was my experience as well when I first dialogued with him through channelers,”  David recounts.  He vividly remembers his initial conversation with him.

“I told him it was awkward for me to speak with him because I come from a Jewish family and I have never been close to Christianity.”  Jesus’ humorous response was not lost on David. “I can understand that,” Jesus said.  “I grew up in a Jewish family also.”

Jesus, the man, had many messages to relay to David but his main message was an interfaith message, the one David was being asked to share widely through his art and his music:

All of the ascended masters: Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Krishna, Buddha, etc. and the Archangels are on the same team.  They like to be called “the heavenly team”. What people think of, as God, is actually a heavenly team because when people experience that huge light and God’s love and everything beyond, they’re not actually experiencing the Creator, they are experiencing the ascended masters and the archangels appearing to them as representatives of God.  And they’re all on the same team.

 David used a sports metaphor to drive home his point.  “There’s not one team in the league of baseball. There are a lot of teams. The same is true about religions.  There are a lot of paths.  The difference between the physical world and the heavenly world is that, in the physical world, everything is separated, and in the heavenly world, there is no separation.”

The point of the game is to win the game. And the way the game is won is by having more light-workers and positive people around the world contributing to the uplifting of humanity.

David Young is not concerned if everyone will accept his revelations.  “Enough people will resonate with what I am presenting”.  Most important, he said, is the desire of the heavenly family to reveal the truth. “Jesus did not die on the cross.  He did not die for our sins.  You don’t need a leap of faith.  You don’t have to believe in that myth.  If you want to talk to Jesus, you can talk to him directly.  The great irony is that Christians love Jesus for things he never said while Jewish people resent him for what he never said. The difficulty arises because what most of the world said about him for the last 2000 years is not about him. It’s about what they think about him.  If you could ask Jesus for a wish for us, he would say for everyone “to love and accept one another without judgment.”

Jesus was arrested for “disturbing the peace,” David concludes,  “but he was actually trying to share the peace.”

*********************************************

Short Bio for Ruth Broyde Sharone 2019

Honored internationally for her interfaith activism and leadership, filmmaker/journalist Ruth Broyde Sharone is the creator of INTERFAITH: The Musical. (interfaiththemusical.com) She pioneered ground-breaking interfaith pilgrimages to the Middle East in the 90s and served as Co-Chair of the Southern California Parliament of the World’s Religions for 10 years. Her documentary, God and Allah Need to Talk,and her interfaith memoir, MINEFIELDS & MIRACLES, have received multiple awards. She is a regular contributor to the on-line magazine,The Interfaith Observer, and also a co-author of  the 2018 best-selling Amazon book, 21ST CENTURY VOICES: Women Who Influence, Inspire, and Make A Difference.