 Practice. It is said that where there is no effort, there is no benefit. Strength, stamina and sweat are unique aspects of traditional yoga, seemingly contrary to the western perception of yoga. This demanding practice requires considerable effort and taps into and circulates a vital energy throughout the body, strengthening and purifying the nervous system. The mind then becomes lucid, clear and precise. And according to Sri K. Bhatapi Joyce, wherever you look, you will see God. Only through practice will we realize the truth of what our Guru often says. Everything is God. And these are words said by Saraswati Joyce from KPJAYI in Mysore, India. Hello everybody and welcome to Wednesday's video over here on esoteric Atlanta. Normally on Wednesdays, as most of you know, we do a recap from our Tuesday episode on the Dark Outpost. Of course, the Dark Outpost platform, that link is down below in the description box, and normally that is where we read through the missing books of the Bible. As you guys know, before I left for a week, we had finished up the Ascension of Isaiah, and David Zublik suggested that we take some time before we start our new missing book of the Bible to talk about yoga. This is because, as most of you know, I have spent a good portion of my adult life in India studying traditional yoga. And yes, there is a difference between traditional yoga found in the motherland versus 99% of the yoga you see here in America or anywhere in a Western country. And we are going to talk about that today. David suggested that we do this because there is a lot of disinformation out there regarding yoga. There's a lot of people that feel like yoga is demonic. But unfortunately, that is propaganda. That was propaganda, I believe, instated by the deep church, or the cabal-owned church. We know that by now that church is not what it says it is. And it was used as a tool, this propaganda to conquer and to divide. Now, those of you who follow along on the Dark Outpost, you know that a few weeks ago, we had Melissa Redpill the world on the show talking about the book of Revelation, and she brought up a wonderful, wonderful point, that Brahmin, which is the cast in which my teacher comes from, the priest cast, that comes from Abraham. And so the people of India are also God's people. Now, a lot of what people say in regards to yoga being demonic is not actually a part of yoga. Some of the things I've heard people say just are literally nowhere to be found in any of the yoga texts or the yoga practice. And so that is why David thought it was a good idea. And I do too, to kind of briefly talk about the yoga philosophy, especially the yoga philosophy that I follow. Because from my experience, the yoga philosophy that I follow can be intermarried with any faith in any religion because it's all about God. Now, before we get started, yoga actually started in the Indus River Valley, which is part of Pakistan now. I will link the video we did on Pakistan down in the description box below in case you missed it. But it is a practice that has been going on for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. It is believed that the Yoga Sutras of Patanjaleen were written about 5000 years ago. Now, there are two main lineages of yoga. And this is the Tantric system and the Patanjaleen system. I practice the Patanjaleen system. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. I do not practice the Tantric system. So if that system of yoga is something you are interested in, then I would suggest finding a Tantric teacher. Now, because yoga is a practice that has been going on for thousands and thousands of years, obviously I'm not going to be able to sum up the full scope of this practice in a few short videos. There is something called Pratyahara in the 8 limbs of yoga, which we're going to talk about in just a minute, that is really being self-study. And something that we've learned in this great awakening is that we all have to take accountability and we all have to be able to critically think. We can't just go off of the information given to us, second or third hand from somebody else. By just going off what somebody else told us is how we got in the position we're in today where so much of our information is censored from us. And so as we go through this discussion on yoga, I do encourage each of you to do your own study of yoga. If you think yoga is demonic, then I'm going to ask you why do you think that? Have you ever read the Yoga Sutras? Have you ever actually taken a legitimate yoga class? Not just a yoga class that's on the corner studio that's not really yoga, but more like yoga size, which we'll talk about, but like a legitimate, have you actually listened to a legitimate Brahmin yoga teacher speak? Because I think if you actually listened to them speak and read the sutras, you would realize that the teachers of India are talking about the same God that we talk about over here in the West. We are all God's children. So let's start with the basic yoga knowledge in terms. So again, I practice one of the lineages of Patanjalin. And so that lineage is called ashtanga. That's the form of yoga I practice ashtanga yoga. So ashtanga yoga comes directly from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjalin. The word ashtanga can be found in the second Pada of the sutras. So the Yoga Sutras consist of four different Padas or four different chapters. So this literally translates to eight limbs in reference to the prescription prescribed by Patanjalin, the writer of the Yoga Sutras, Patanjalin to cure human suffering and human disconnect from God. So basically Patanjalin and the Yoga Sutras just to sum it up is like human beings are disconnected from God. In the Christian world we call this sin. Same thing, we're disconnected from God. So he has written a book, the sutras, to teach us how to reconnect to God. And through his prescription of reconnecting to God, you are going through a process of practice or self accountability, where you're observing yourself. In the practice of yoga, you have no one to blame your faults on. You don't sit there and blame your faults where you fall short on the devil or Satan or anybody else. It all comes down to you. You are the one accountable for where you are disconnected from God. So what are the eight limbs? The first limb is Yama. So Yamas can be described almost like physical restraints. And so we have five Yamas. Ahemsa is the first Yama. And Ahemsa means non-harming or non-violence in thought, word, and deed. So don't hurt people. Now notice here that Patanjalin did not pick the word peace or peaceful. He picked Ahemsa. So he knows that there are going to be things that come up in our life that upset us. And instead of reacting in a violent manner, he is suggesting that we act non-violently, that we peacefully do things. Kind of like what Mr. T and the White Hat suggest we do. We peacefully go about things in law and order. Same thing as what Patanjalin is saying here. The second one is Satya, and that's truthfulness. And then Astivia is non-stealing. Brahmacharya is celibacy or right use of energy. So for many years the only people who practiced yoga were people who were like monks almost, the Brahmins. And so they weren't that point marrying. Krishmacharya, who was my teacher's teacher, he is the first one to really come and bring yoga to what we call householders. So those of us who are not Brahmins, we are householders. And so at that point the celibacy turned into the right use of energy. So don't give yourself away sexually, basically. Preserve that energy. And then we have Aparigraha, which is non-greed and non-hording. And this kind of happens naturally. Like both my boyfriend and I are minimalists. We don't have a lot of stuff. We don't want a lot of stuff. And over time the more you practice, the more you don't hoard stuff, you kind of just live a very simplistic life because life then becomes about something greater than what you have in your material world, which we'll get into when we get into like the yoga philosophy in a second. So the second of the limbs is Nyama. And this is kind of internal restraint. So the yamas are external. These are internal. So Sautra is the first one. This is cleanliness. And so this is cleanliness and the fact that you need to keep yourself clean. But it also represents order, making sure that you are disciplined in living in order. Then we have Santoshia, which is being content with wherever you are in life, finding that contentment. And then you have Tapas. And no, this is not the appetizer. Tapas is like firing discipline. So it's austerity. It's burning enthusiasm. So that would be sweat. Like we have to sweat in your asana or your physical practice of yoga. There has to be sweat. Because without fire, there's no purification, purification in the mind or the body. And even in the Bible, it talks about Jesus coming down with fire. The fire is to purify. You know, my teacher in India often says, if you want to clean gold, you have to boil it. And when you boil it, you're able to wipe the impurities off the top. That's how important sweat is. We have to be sweating daily. We have to exercise. That's how things are purified. And then we have Sadhya, which is the study of self and of the text. That's taking time to read the Yoga Sutras, to study the Yoga Sutras, to read the Bhagavad Gita, to read the Bible, to read all these texts. Then you have Ishvara, Pranidaya. And this is basically surrendering to a higher being or contemplation of a higher power. It's surrendering to God. It's letting go and letting God. So again, Yoga is very much focused on God, letting God be in control, surrendering to God, putting your ego aside, the part of you that disconnects you from God, which is pride and ego, and letting God be that sole purpose in your life. So the third level of the Ashtanga system is Asana. So that's the posture practice. So that's what you think of most people when they think of Yoga. They think of the postures. Now it's crazy. It's so almost comical, because I hear people say, oh, the posture is you're letting demons in when you move your body in those shapes. Well, that's true. If it's true that when you, you know, do uttitasrikonasana posture, stretching posture in yoga, then that's also true for dance and zumba and any other type of stretching you're doing. It's absolutely ridiculous to believe that demons come into your body when you do postures. It is not that easy to sell your soul to the devil. There is actually a ritual involved. A demon just doesn't just accidentally or haphazardly fall into your being. You have the main rule of the universe is free will. It's the main rule of God. God gives us free will. With that being said, you have to allow your soul to be sold to the devil. You have to allow for a demon to possess you. It doesn't matter what you're doing with your body. It doesn't matter if you're doing downward facing dog, or you're doing a pirouette in a ballet class, or a zumba move, or the cha-cha-cha, or if you're just doing a basic forward fold stretch. None of that matters. You could be lying completely still in a bed and make a deal with the devil to sell your soul. It doesn't matter. You consciously have to be the one to do that. That is the most idiotic, stupid thing I've ever heard in my whole entire life. It shows me that if someone says that they have not done their homework on what it actually takes to sell your soul to the devil. That's just stupid. The fourth limb is pranayama. This is breath control. Yama is extension of life. Prana is life force. You're extending your life's capacity through breath. Again, in the Bible, God breathed life into man and man stood up. We're seeing correlations between the yoga practice and the Bible. Pranayama is breathing. Pratyahara, again, is self-study. That should be the motto for the great of waking. Pratyahara, we all need to start taking that accountability and doing our own self-study, not just of our own self, but of our world around us. Then you have dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. These are all kind of more cerebral, spiritual aspects of the limbs of yoga leading up to meditation, self-reflection, and then samadhi is oneness with God or going back home to God. You could even call it possibly enlightenment. The yoga sutras do say that enlightenment comes in what they call prativa, which is a flash of illumination. Prativa, like all of a sudden you just get it. Things just make sense. In traditional yoga, the system in which we learn is called parampara. That's spelled P-A-R-A-M, P-A-R-A. This is a system of teaching and learning again through traditional yoga, not through the contemporary yoga that you see all across the United States. This is an unbroken chain of transmission of knowledge from guru to student. This is a sacred form of education. This is the main reason why no authorized or certified teacher or company like the yoga alliance can make someone a teacher. Every person teaching ashtanga yoga has to go directly to the source. This keeps the knowledge pure. Parampara started with Patanjali as the first teacher who passed on his knowledge to his students and so forth. So for those who are not aware, the yoga alliance is a company based out of the United States that does things like yoga teacher trainings. Now in my opinion and from the contract that I signed with my teacher in India in order for me to teach, I cannot be involved in the yoga alliance. My teacher in India is very unhappy with the yoga alliance because in his opinion and also in my opinion, the yoga alliance are nothing but scam artists. All right. So there are some people out there that teach really good training courses like Cindy who comes on my channel a lot. She teaches a different lineage of yoga than I practice but she does courses and she's a really good teacher. But some of these training courses, 99% of what you're taught in these yoga teacher trainings are not actually found in yoga and that's why yoga in America has turned into something that's so different from yoga that you see in India. Going back to the quote, Saraswati's quote, I read at the beginning of this video where there's a very different perception of yoga here in the West than what it is actually taught in the East. And so with the yoga alliance, again, I have my authorization. I'm the only female in the state of Georgia who is authorized to teach Ashtanga. I got that authorization through KPJY in Mysore, India. It took me many, many, many years of going back and forth to India and studying with my teacher there in order to get authorized. My boyfriend is also authorized. There's only two men authorized here in the state of Georgia. One is my boyfriend, Todd Roderick at Ashtanga Yoga Atlanta and the other is our friend, Sava, who runs Mysore Atlanta over in Sandy Springs. And so there are good teachers. There are good Ashtanga teachers out there who are not authorized. However, in order to be authorized, you do have to go to India. And anybody running a yoga teacher training, Ashtanga yoga teacher training are not authorized Ashtanga teachers themselves. You can't be, if I were to do something like that or if my boyfriend were to do something like that, we would have our authorization taken from us. From India, we, again, we signed a contract saying that we wouldn't do that. And that is because, you know, in the East, my teacher gets very emotional about this. Yoga is a very much a part of their culture. And over here in the West, some of these training courses have kind of been a mockery out of this very sacred practice to them. And so it becomes a really, really big deal. So, you know, buy or beware when you're going into these courses. So in the East, the place to practice yoga is called a shala. A shala is a yoga school. When observing the practice of Ashtanga, all places of practice should be referred to as a shala. So we always refer to our business as a yoga shala. It's a yoga school. In India, they are yoga shalas, yoga schools. I have a theory, I believe personally, that people started calling them yoga studios because back in like the 60s and 70s, when all these people were first going over to India and then bringing the information back to the West, they were looking for places to teach. And at that point, the only place they could possibly rent space from or rent a time slot from to teach in was like a dance studio. And so that's where the name studio kind of also got attached to yoga as well, when it really should technically be called a yoga shala. It's a yoga school, a yoga shala. So the way in which we teach yoga in Ashtanga, as well as traditional Iyengar as well, is kind of like an open format. And we call the open format in Ashtanga Mysore. It's Mysore class. So we teach Mysore five days a week, and then we have a lead primary on the final day of practice. Now Mysore, that spelled M-Y-S-O-R-E, is the traditional way of practice in India. And it is the foundation of the Ashtanga practice. It is an open practice, meaning that the shala will be open at a certain time and will close at a certain time. The student is to come in during that time period to practice his or her given practice. In Ashtanga, we call Mysore in reverence to the city in India that holds the Ashtanga lineage. No other forms of yoga are to be practiced in the Mysore room. A student is only to practice what has been given to the student by the teacher. For example, if the student only practices up to the half primary point, then that is as far as the student will go in Mysore class until the next posture is given by the teacher. This gives room to parampara for the teacher to work directly with each student one-on-one through verbal cues and hands-on adjustments. This is truly the only all-levels yoga class. So in the Ashtanga system, we do not make up our own choreograph for practices. That is only found in like Vinyasa Flow. And Vinyasa Flow is the contemporary style of yoga. That's more American. That is not what's found in traditional the lineage. That's not no. That is because each posture has a purpose of opening up different parts of the body which then correlate to different parts of the mind because the body is the mind field. So in the Ashtanga system, we have six different series. Now there's only one person living right now who has finished all six series and that's my teacher in India, Sharath Joyce, who was Patabi Joyce's or is Patabi Joyce's grandson. Patabi Joyce, Guruji passed away in 2009 and he was Guruji was my boyfriend's teacher and he passed down the lineage to his grandson Sharath who is now my teacher. And so he's the only one that it's ever completed all six series. Most people practice between the first and second series. Now down in the description box below, I do have some links to some videos of Guruji teaching first series and second series. I also have a video of Thai teaching primary series that would be easier for people to follow along with. I also think I have a half primary series down in the description box. And I also have a demo from my friend Santina down in Australia of her doing a third series. Now second series led, that is probably one of the most advanced classes that you will ever see in your life. These are no joke. In Ashtanga Yoga, the asanas, the postures you're given are no joke. They are very, very serious, very, very challenging postures. We put our leg behind our head multiple times starting in the primary series. Now of course, if you're new to the system, if you're a new student, you build up to that. The teacher works with you and works with you and works with you until your body's open enough to do that. But you have to start with the primary series. You have to work up. You can't skip postures. You have to move through each posture as you go. And the teacher gives you the postures one-on-one when you are ready for the next posture. You cannot self-assign postures to yourself. I don't give myself postures. My teacher gives me postures. And so if you're coming into my SOAR class, for example, in Atlanta, our Shala Ashtanga Yoga Atlanta, we open up the door at 5.30 in the morning and we close the door at 8.30 in the morning. And so students come and go during that window of time. And they work with Todd. My boyfriend are one of his assistants one-on-one. So you're constantly having a one-on-one interaction with the teacher. It's not like a big group that's being directed. There are other people in the room practicing, too. And over time, you memorize your sequencing. And so Todd can kind of weave in and out of students helping them individually. Now, led primary is what's practiced in the last day. Now, our led primary series, that's taught on Fridays because Saturdays is our rest day. Traditional yoga follows the same laws as traditional Christianity. The Sabbath day. In traditional Christianity Sunday, Sunday is the day of the Sun God, of Ra, Horus, Mithra. That's not God's day. The church did that on purpose, changed the day of worship from the Sabbath Saturday to Ra, Mithra, Horus' day. We've talked about this numerous times in the Dark Outpost. Well, traditional yoga also takes the Sabbath day off. So Friday is technically your last day of practice. And then you rest on Saturday and Sunday, then it becomes the first day of the week or the first day of practice. So led primary series, this is not for beginners. So if you see a led primary series on a schedule, if you are a beginner student, do not go to led primary series. It is not going to be the class for you. So in led primary, if a student is not finished with full primary series, the student will stop in led class where he or she stops in Mysore. Once it is her final posture, he or she will sit on his or her mat until final rest is taken. Traditional led class is not taught like contemporary yoga classes in the West. It is taught on a Sanskrit Vinyasa count. Please note that this is the most advanced class in the Shala. In order to participate in this class, a student must be given all the way up through John U. Sharshasana A. in Mysore class. So that is the quarter primary series mark. In traditional led, the teacher does not workshop poses and rarely adjust. All major adjustments happen in Mysore class. Students are required to move together on a Vinyasa count and not jump ahead. So led class is very, very serious. Again, that is not where you want to start in traditional yoga. You always want to start in a Mysore class where you are working one-on-one with a teacher and build up to coming to that led class. For example, when I teach a led class, Surya Namaskar A, Sun Salutations A, is how we start off every class. Every series starts with the Sun Salutations. And so instead of directing you, telling you forward, fold hands by your feet, inhale, look up. No, I don't do that in a led class. You are expected to already know that. And so there are nine Vinyasas in Surya Namaskar A. So I'll say Ekam in Hail. Nava Inna Hail. Exhale, Samas Diti. So that's counting to nine. There are nine points of movement in Surya Namaskar A. So instead of saying, for Surya Namaskar A, inhale, arms up, eyes to the thumbs, exhale, forward fold. I'm just counting those points because you as the student are already expected to know that when you come into a led class. You're not babied in a led class. It's just the teacher counting. And that keeps, there's a purpose for that. And so again, if you are looking to start a traditional yoga practice, not a Vinyasa flow practice, but a traditional yoga practice, the rules and the setup of the class are very, very different. And a lot of contemporary classes you hear like music playing. We don't play music in traditional yoga. You also have teachers who speak in a very like sweet yoga voice or read poetry. That doesn't happen in traditional yoga. In traditional yoga, you get yelled at. There's no changing it. There's no fakery. There's no bells and whistles. It's just you, the teacher in the classroom, and that's it. And so it is a very serious discipline. It's not for people who are just looking for a good time or looking to exercise. It you have to really be committed to doing this if you want to do it. So again, the Ashtanga Asana practice consists of six different series. Each series builds on each other. Every student, regardless of past yoga experience, should start with a primary series and build up once again. So there's a lot of incorrect things that are done in Vinyasa flow. A lot of postures are taught incorrectly in Vinyasa flow. A lot of transitions are taught incorrectly in Vinyasa flow because again, monkey see monkey do and yoga teacher trainings most of the time, not all the time, most of the time, teach incorrect method. And so we have students in our shala, in our yoga school, I teach a beginner course on Sundays. Every six weeks we have this beginner course that I teach. And we suggest that even people who have years of Vinyasa flow experience do the beginner course because we have to start from ground zero. We have to erase all the stuff that you've learned prior and re-correct some bad habits especially with the hands. You see a lot of people coming in from Vinyasa flow and they're doing funky jazz hands, weird shit with their hands and that's not proper. In yoga we keep our fingers together. We draw straight lines. There's nothing fancy about the hand motion. There's no dance involved in yoga. It's very much a systematic practice. So the primary series is called Yoga Chakitsa and this is physical therapy. People lose a lot of weight doing a primary series. Actually we have this kind of this joke when people first come to the yoga shala and they start practicing ashtanga. They go through almost this like ashtanga rexic is what we call it phase where people drop a lot of weight. You burn a lot of calories doing this form of yoga, lots and lots of calories. And part of the primary series is to lose weight if that is needed. Regardless if you don't need to lose weight then the primary series will help you build muscle. It'll just help your body align itself that physical therapy because you cannot do nerve therapy which is second series is nerve therapy or nati shodana until your physical body is in its peak healthy place. So the third or the sixth series are the advanced series and these are ego therapy. We're not going to really get too much into those in this discussion because those are just again you can watch Santina demo third series. Beyond that it's just not even practical to really look at third through sixth until you're at least in the second series which takes many years. It takes most people about five years to work through primary series alone. It's taken me I've completed both primary and second series and it took me many years to complete second series. So it's not just for the faint of heart again. So again each series takes many years to complete no student is allowed to skip postures or skip a series. The postures work in an order to provide potency and purification. A student should never take a new posture or start a new series without the teacher giving the student the posture or series first. So again this goes back to non-stealing so we don't steal postures. If you assign yourself a posture that is considered stealing in yoga. Again we never play music in our in our classes never. At the end of the second pota Patanjali tells us that through yoga and self-reflection we learn to control our senses especially in our practice. We learn to control our reaction to things in life and we learn to control our reactions and thoughts about our practice. When we play music in our practice we are enticing our senses not controlling them. Please be aware of this when you are in practice. In order to focus our minds we never close our eyes in practice. So many of you who have taken like contemporary yoga classes like vinyasa flow you might have been in a class where the teacher's like close your eyes you know we don't do that in traditional yoga that's a big no-no. If you want to get yelled at by your teacher in India close your eyes and your yoga practice and you will get yelled at. This is because the eyes are are really potent when it comes to the thought process. So when we close our eyes we are not focusing our mind. Our mind is then scattered. Our mind is going a million miles an hour. When we look around the room our mind is scattered they call monkey mind and part of meditation is actually focusing your mind. When you can focus your mind that's when you're living in the now and when you're living in the now when you're not living in the past the present or another timeline or whatever when you're in the now in the moment that's when you connect with God. So we practice what we call the tristana method of active meditation in our asana or our posture practice. So this is a try method of practice for active meditation it's asana drishti and breath. Every posture has a gaze point. The eyes should remain focused the whole time. So again when the eyes are closed are wandering around the room the mind is not focused. So there's nine different drishti's are gaze points and every posture has its own specific gaze point that the teacher will teach you when you're learning that particular posture. So again asana means posture or a seat for meditation in the asana method we do not practice seated meditation we are taught our minds are too scattered and lost to sit and focus. By doing seated meditation the student runs the wrists of creating deeper vrittis and moving further away from narodaha which we're going to get to in a minute. Therefore we need asana or a string of asanas to create a mala for meditation. For more information please reference the book Yoga Mala or the Hatha Yoga Pradikapa and I will put links to those down in the description box below. So again the Hatha Yoga Pradikapa a lot of people here in the West say Hatha Yoga H A T H A that's not Hatha in Sanskrit that's Hatha Hatha Yoga in Sanskrit the T H do not make the th sound like they do in English remember this is Sanskrit this is not the English language is the Hatha the Hatha Yoga Pradikapa. All right again dristi our gaze is the focus point of every asana by focusing the focusing the eyes on a designated point we keep our mind sharp and in the now with the asana and the work the asana is presenting okay breath in asana practice it is incorrect to take ujjayi breathing ujjayi is only for seated pranayama practice remember we talked about earlier about pranayama that's breath work so again in a lot of these contemporary classes they also for the teacher really hasn't had enough experience to be a teacher because the yoga alliance doesn't allow for that they're teaching ujjayi breathing and that is absolutely incorrect ujjayi breathing is for a seated pranayama practice not for moving and breathing this understanding is lost in translation in the West and is taught completely to try and practice ujjayi breathing in asana is dangerous to the student's health the breathing through asana is free breathing with sound please note that belly breathing is also incorrect we do not we want to keep our bellies pulled in you know keep the belly button pulled into the spine that's core control we want to keep everything controlled in practice not just loosey goosey so no belly breathing no ujjayi breathing we want to be breathing through the nose almost like the breath for asana for the asana practice the posture practice if you've ever been a long distance runner and you get on that even breath that shallow breathing of running the runner's high that's the same breath we want for asana not ujjayi breathing that's a seed that's a totally different form of practice we do not take breaks or rest during the asana practice please do not stop your practice and get into child's position so you'll see that again a lot in contemporary yoga classes where they'll tell you to get into child's position if you're feeling tired or winded or want to take a break that's not correct we want to keep moving because that's top is that's internal heat so this disrupts the movement of internal heat you want to keep the blood flowing keep the heat going and keep the meditation going if you pull yourself out of your asana practice and you get into child's position then you've lost your active meditation we also do not drink water during practice so take time to hydrate during the day water cools down the internal heat needed in practice bottles of water should be kept out of the practice room or against the wall for after practice that's another thing now of course we always tell our students if you feel like you're going to die go and get some water you know like but but really try not to drink during your your practice because you're going to be cooling down your internal heat and then when you get back on your mat you're not only going to be disrupting your digestion by the flow of water in your digestive system but you're also going to be cooling the body down you're gonna have to reignite that heat it's just it's just really tried to drink after practice and hydrate during the day for your next practice the next day another mistake the final posture is not called shavasana it's the resting posture is not called shavasana it's called tukasana are the active no asana shavasana is a sixth series posture where you literally stop your breath you go into like a mock rig amortus which is not what you're doing your final resting pose that's another inaccuracy that's taught here in the west so in astanga we focus on the bundas our internal energetic locks in the body so again that's pulling the belly in as i was just saying these close off portals of energy in the body so our prana or our life force cannot escape prana can also be called chi so for like tai chi it's the same thing it's your life force the root bunda is mola bunda that's between your legs that's in your perineum the belly bunda is uriana bunda and the throat is jalandara bunda so again we pull the belly and we do not push our belly out we always want to pull the belly button in to the spine you see a lot of uh athletes do this they're taught to do this as well in sports not only does this energetically keep energy in your body but it also protects your body so as i tell my students all the time passive stretching when we passively stretch or passively do something lazily do something that's when we get injured when we actively stretch when we actively engage our muscles pull our stomachs in make sure our feet are flexed and all of our muscles are actively involved that means that we are less likely to hurt ourselves because our bones and our joints are then protected so there's a logical reason why we keep our belly in this is why many people who practice yoga have very nice bodies they have very very nice physiques um i'm very obviously very attracted to the yoga body my boyfriend has a yoga body very long slim dancers muscles six pack very very physically fit people who practice ashtanga yoga the mysore room in india is like a room full of muscle you know but it very very um uh not not bulky just very healthy looking and so not a lot of that comes from the activation of the bundas in your yoga practice so according to the yoga text brahma brahma morta is the time of day when a student should practice so brahma morta this is the early early morning hours this is the time when the world is silent and higher levels of focus can be achieved shallows all over the world run their mysore and lead classes on this principle that's why we're open so early in the morning when i'm in india i have to get up at two o'clock in the morning after be at the shallow like at three thirty ish so that's because it's brahma morta it's the time of god it's the silent time of day again that's why we get up so early in the morning for those of you who have joined our telegram channel the sacred tent the sacred blue tent that i run with um some other ladies sometimes i do have to jump off early from those calls because i have to we have to get up early the next day because my boyfriend has to get up and open the shallow so we get up in our house anywhere between three a.m. and four a.m. and that's brahma morta and even though i'm not in the shawla every day anymore i'm working from home now most of the time i still get up early with my boyfriend he goes and teaches and i do that's when i do my practice is early early early in the morning before the sun comes out and it is it's such a beautiful time of day once you get used to it once you transition and you get used to getting up that early it is one of the most special times of day and you can really feel god around you your ego still has not woken up yet you're you're very humble at that time of day you're very quiet at that time of day and so you can have more of a humbled approach to your own practice and it gives you a better focus in your practice to really focus on god and focus on what you're supposed to be focusing on in your practice your mind isn't at a place to be distracted yet and i know a lot of people listening probably exercise early in the morning anyway and a lot of people who do early morning exercises really enjoy it and they can't quite put their thumb on why they enjoy doing it that early and it's because it's brahma morta it's because it's a very sacred time it's like my mom gets up and does a bible study early early in the morning it's the same principle whether you're reading your bible or you're on your mat doing your yoga practice it's the same thing you're connecting with god on what ways you need to connect with gods that you're set for your day i tell my students it's like you get up early and you have your morning baptism every day so that you can greet the day as a better human being as a human being that just exudes god's love and the light inside of you we also observe moon days in traditional yoga so no practice happens on full or new moon we also for women for ladies out there when you're on your cycle the first three days of your cycle you're supposed to rest and that's not a um chauvinistic response the chronic energy or the life force the upward moving life force is very hyperactive when you're doing your yoga practice but for women we are a panic we are downward flowing energy that's our natural state of energy um that's why we have babies is that think about having a baby that's a downward push not an upward push and so when you're on your cycle those first three days when your uterus is contracting you are basically mimicking to a lesser extent the birthing cycle and so you need to take those three days and not mix a lot of chronic energy in your body so that your body can actually detox and when i was in my late 20s early 30s i did not observe my own cycle i just practiced through it because i thought oh i'm fine i can do it and i actually lost my period i got so skinny and my body fat just dropped and i just it was not getting my cycle anymore and so i had to start taking three days for my cycle to get it to restart again and so there is something very very special to that we we need our cycles as ladies i personally have not decided yet if i want to have a child or not um we have not decided that yet and so i still need to have my cycle in case that's something that we do want to do is have have a baby and so that's really important for women and my teacher even says for women who have gone through menopause you still need to take a day or two a month to observe that aponic cycle most women you find that your cycle comes around either the new or the full moon so start tracking that that's the monthly cycle we get the word month from the moon on different energy so any emergency room a doctor a nurse or a cop will tell you that things are crazy on full moons um i usually feel really i'm a full mooner that's when my cycle comes over the full moon um full moon is very hectic energy new moon is like very lethargic tired energy so just start observing that just something to observe all right let's talk about yoga philosophies so i want you to note that with traditional yoga there are many contrasting differences to the western evolution of yoga yoga in india comes directly from patanjali in the yoga sutras patanjali tells us that man's quest to find god an inhuman suffering comes through man's own attachment to the form or property although traditionally we begin to study the sutras by first studying the second pada the second sutra of the first pada sums up the whole point of the yoga practice this is yoga chitta vritti narodaha this means that through the practice of yoga we are trying to focus our mind chitta enough to calm our thoughts subconscious or conscious this is vritti to find the nothingness or the void narodaha patanjali tells us that we are caught in a constant cycle of birth and rebirth samskara because we have delusion or maya we have delusion because we think who we are as human beings is who we are when who we are as humans has nothing to do with who we are in relationship to god or ishvara so let's talk about that again so the main purpose of yoga is yoga chitta vritti narodaha so the point of yoga is to calm the mind so chitta is the mind of the thoughts vrittis so most vrittis most thoughts we have um are duplicate thoughts that just kind of subconsciously like when you drop a pebble in a stream and you see the water the waves kind of shoot out from that pebble those are like your vrittis and they come from your brain and they come into your body and they hold certain patterns in your body and these thoughts become truths become realities and none of these thoughts are actually true like one of my favorite quotes is don't believe everything you think right and that is what separates us from god so we're trying to get that thought process to stop to go into narodaha to nothingness so then we can be filled with the presence of god okay and they they call god ishvara that's just the word for god and the yoga sutras ishvara so through the practice of yoga we start to experience deep and profound moments of self-reflection pratyahara so that's true so like when i've got my leg behind my actually leg behind my head for me it's not that big of a deal that my hips have always been pretty open backbending is really my struggle and backbending in asha yoga is is no joke it's not just the regular backbends you see you have to like catch your ankles and do forward and back hand springs with your head on your your beat on your head i'll be very deep backbending and i have a lot of come to jesus moments in backbending i have a lot of thought and a lot of attachment a lot of fear around backbending and so in my practice when i get to that point i can self reflect as my teacher says why fearing why fearing fearing is false evidence appearing real why are you afraid again remember part of yoga is is submission to god let go and let god why are you afraid and so when we bump up against these postures in a very elementary level in our bodies we do these shapes and they trigger us they cause us fear and that is how we then self reflect on that we cannot have an opportunity to self reflect on why we're feeling a certain way and work through it so we can let it go and get closer to god yoga is not about being comfortable let me say that again yoga is not about being comfortable yoga is not an escape actually yoga is about like sitting in your own ship basically it's not an escape you have to be brave to practice real yoga you have to really be able to look at the ugly parts of yourself yoga is not about being comfortable as is often taught in the west in fact it is the exact opposite and yoga we need to bring ourselves to places of deep discomfort in order to truly find focus humility and openness yoga is not about light and love that comes way later when dealing with deep seated vrittis so deep seated thought processes or samskaras the unmasking can actually be very hard and somewhat emotionally and physically painful to move through we call this process an ego death now we've talked about this a lot with Cindy which I'll link some of Cindy's videos down below as well actually I'll link Cindy's channel down below as well so you can you can see some of Cindy's talks on this this ego death can last for many many years in traditional yoga we never take rest in the middle of our practice nor are we allowed to skip postures this means that the student's practice could stop at the same posture for years before moving forward usually unauthorized or certified teacher with a lot of experience can see when a student is emotionally mentally and physically ready to move on and sometimes a student can be pulled back if the work has become too much this is where discipline and devotion come in please note if you're going to yoga class to experience comfort and bliss then observe what it is you're actually avoiding so yoga works hand in hand with therapy all right so through self-reflection we are learning to tap into the seer of parusha parusha is the silence or the nothingness within that is simply watching life instead of living it parusha is not persuaded by any thoughts or emotions it simply is next time your emotions are high or when you're experienced frustration in yoga class try to tap into that within you that remains unaffected the more you can observe that the calmer your life will be even in times of stress this parusha within us is what connects us to god our ishvada so again the three main stars of the yoga sutras are prakriti parusha and ishvada prakriti again is nature anything that has a birth a life and a death and because it has that cycle of nature it is constantly changing so the biggest form of parusha we each have is our individual identities our bodies and that's not who we are it's like that saying we are spiritual people having a human experience the humanness of us is temporary the spiritual side of us the parusha that's what's eternal and so our confusion and our suffering is that we think that we are prakriti we think we are our egos we think that we are our who we are in this life and that has absolutely nothing to do with who we are because who we are we'll never die whereas our physical bodies will they are mortal they will eventually pass on and so that is what patanjali is saying and that is through the practice of yoga we are coming head to head with our own ego head to head with our own fear of our own mortality all the dark stuff that lingers within us and we come head to head with it we have to look at it in order to release it and let it go now again this is just a brief synopsis of the form of traditional yoga that i practice again that's called ashtanga yoga i will link as well to our website here in atlanta ashtanga yoga atlanta so you can kind of get more information from that website as well if you are interested in practicing ashtanga yoga i have again i've put some videos down in the description box however please please please find a teacher do not attempt to do any of this at home some of this stuff is very very dangerous as well physically don't try to put your leg behind your head without the help of a teacher a qualified teacher and i can do the best i can to try to help you find a teacher if that's something you're interested in if you are completely brand new to yoga then i would definitely suggest trying out all different lineages all different styles and see which one resonates with you the most but beyond that i hope you guys enjoyed that i have disabled these comments because of some of the bullies we have out there that call themselves christians but they're actually bullies that's the only reason why i again will link cindy's youtube page down in the description box as well she has a lot of information on her channel too for you to find your own way to your own teacher and the lineage that resonates with you the best all right guys thank you for sitting through this and i will talk to all of you soon bye