The Manganiyar seduction: a quesiton of devotion

The Manganiyar Seduction features this year at the Melbourne Festival and when I heard Roysten Abel interviewed on RRR this week I decided this was something I couldn't miss.

Roysten described how the musicians had seduced him, following him and serenading him while he was putting on a production in Segovia Spain. After several days of this treatment he began to notice the effects that the music was having on him. To the point when, once in Bonn, he rang the singers to again sing to him. That was when he realised he was seduced. Remember that these musicians originate from the same province of India as the Snake Charmers!

The show was nothing short of phenomenal. The You Tube clip does it little justice. I was very interested in how the audience was slowly charmed, like a collective snake, out of our individual experience, until we were all one - in absolute rapture.

During the performance and as I drove home - devotion was on my mind.

These songs are ancient Sufi Love Poems and devotional spirit was the power used by the musicians to bind them as one and consequently bind the audience in a shared state of rapture and ecstasy.

However, so quickly the lights come up and we scatter into our individual selves.

I could see why Rosten would feel compelled to ring the musicians. As the performance was coming to an end I was thinking - don't let it end just yet. So I pose myself this question. How can we live our lives with single focused devotion and to what do you devote your awareness to? Does it bring you happiness and a sense of belonging, or does it bring you loneliness and a sense of separation?

At the end of the performance Roysten Abel the director came on stage and read out a letter he had been given by Geoffery Rush who had seen the performance the previous night. In the letter Rush described his experience of universal one-ness, as though vibrating at the centre of an atom, on the outer edges of the cosmos. Immediately his portrayal of David Helfgott in Shine came to mind. Where the mind has no distraction - just absolute rapture in the music, in the vibration of life, giving us a sense that perhaps union is a state which we can know.

My challenge to myself is ... don't rely on the music, don't rely on the outer stimulation, how do you generate that for your Self and share it in union with others?

Distance Healing

For many years distance healing has been an important practice at the Miyoga Club. You will be familiar with the Distance Healing Book if you have been to the Miyoga Club, where you can write the names of people who you feel need some positive energy, support or prayer sent in their direction. We have decided to extent this pratice by placing the names into a bowl which will be placed on an altar at the front of the class room. After each class, during the metta practice we will collectively send positive prayer to these names. Each new moon the names from the previous month will be ritually burned and the names of the following month will be written and placed in the bowl. We will remind you when the cycle will change and this will also assist in connecting with the moon cycle. We have had such a great deal of success with distance healing and this is a very exciting new chapter for the practice.

If you would like to have a name written in the book and placed in the bowl please email mail@miyoga.com.au

Namaste

Prayer

Prayer formalises devotion and awareness of life beyond the perceived nature of reality.

The opening prayer 

Om Namo Bagavate 

Vasudeveya 

is practiced at the Miyoga Club as a means to connect with your high Self and to allow that aspect of Self to guide you through the class. 

With practice and as this connection is strengthened you will find that throughout your day this aspect of Self is available to guide your thoughts, words and actions.

Vibration and language is a science in the Sanskrit tradition, which aims to connect the individual with the divine through sound. 

The ultimate aim of yogic practice is to be able to focus the mind on one point, fixing your awareness, heart and soul on that which is beneficial for you on all levels and for those around you. 

Mantra and Prayer assist in training the mind toward this focus.

There are no boundaries to the practice of prayer, it can be done in the car, at the dinner table, in the morning as you wake up, at night before you enter into sleep, before you cut a flower, as you pour water, or prepare meals, before a trip or an important event in your life or the life or another.

Over the years Mimi has introduced many prayers to the Miyoga Club and community. 

These prayers are ripe to be shared and will become available each month on the Miyoga Website. 

The first prayer featured at the website is the Prayer to Lady Quan Yin, the deity of Compassion.  

We hope you enjoy this new aspect of the website and look forward to bringing many more prayers into your practice and your life.

Alternate Nostril Breath

Why does the alternate nostril breath work?

Scientists have proven what yogis have always known... throughout the day we breath alternately from one nostril. That is one nostril will tend to be more open and that this will switch every 2-3hours.

Why does the body regulate the breath in this way? It is how we keep the left and right hemispheres of the brain in balance, by subtly stimulating one side and then the other. Rather than letting one dominate over the other. 

While breathing in the left nostril you are stimulating the right side of the brain, which governs creativity, lateral thinking and your intuition. This side is associated with the female energies in yoga, or the lunar cycle.

As you breath through the right nostril you are stimulating the left hemisphere of the brain which governs linear thinking, decision making, language and is associated with the male, solar energies. 

These two opposites are experienced in yoga and ida and pingala, the two opposing energies which run up the central cortex of the energetic body - at there meeting point is the shushumna. The aim of alternate nostril breath is to equalize the ida and pingala in order to activate and experience the energies of shushumna. 

1)Close your right nostril, and breath in through your left

2)Close your left nostril and breath out through your right

3)Still closing left, breath in through your right 

4)Close your right nostril and breath out through your left. Repeat

As your breath in take your awareness to the third eye. Begin to slow and lengthen the breath. Stay relaxed and continue for 5 minutes before silent meditation.

Namaste

Ancient Yoga?

In Yoga Journal Mark Singleton shared his experience of discovering the lineage of prominent yoga asanas. 

He found how the modern movement, while seemingly referencing an ancient art form, actually advocates asanas which are far more modern and in fact inspired by Western physical health practices from the early 1900s. In fact, the movements of yoga were not easily found in the ancient texts.

He writes; Scoutring these primary texts, it was obvious to me that asana was rarely, if ever, the primary feature of the significant yoga traditions in India. Postures ... were not the dominant component. They were subordinate to other practices like pranayama (expansion of vital energy by means of breath), dharana (focus, or placement of the mental faculty), and nada (sound), and did not have health and fitness as their chief aim. (Yoga Journal May/June 2011 p 56).

This is a timely article, given the boom in asana practice without consideration or commitment to the more subtle and indeed more challenging components of yoga. Those which encourage your to encounter the Self and to create a relationship with the Soul through knowing your body and understanding the nature of your mind.

Miyoga Club has remained a small operation because it has never moved away from these core aims, aims which challenge and create deep change and in ways (that is disciplines) that society is craving.

The beauty of yoga is a private and inward journey. While sometimes sitting with the breath, making unusual sounds and holding focus on the mind may seem impossible - the rewards are immense.

It is nice to know that you have a choice!

Herbert Benson on the Relaxation Response

Happy New Year! May 2011 bring more understanding and a deepening of Peace both within and out. Namaste Sarah

Cambewell Market

Camberwell market
We have had a hugely successfuly 3 weeks of trading at the Camberwell market - raising funds for the Miyoga Club! Great fun had by all and we have made some new friends in the regular customers! Chenya was our mascot and Kali our visual merchandiser - Lisa the manager and the team - Kaye, Sarah, Joe and Shayne sales assistance! A great start to Spring!