Yesterday was Mysore style in the morning at 6.30am…i think my body at this point was quite tired…not sure if it was tired or the late meal i had the night before, but my body felt stiff and heavy! SO still & heavy…took a while to loosen up….normally after the 10 suryanamaskars i’m loose, but this time i believe i didn’t loosen up till seated postures, can’t remember which tho.

This time i made it on time to the afternoon session – phew – decided to take the metro instead 🙂 In the afternoon we did the Ganesha Puja, unfortunately i won’t be able to tell fully how the entire afternoon went as i had to leave 30mins earlier (had to run off to teach a class) so here is what we did:

We started off the proceedings by singing the Shanti Mantra (Sahana Vavatu), then we sang the Ganesha Mantra, followed by some pranayama: 5 rounds of Surya Bhedan & 5 rounds of Chandra Bhedan. We sang “Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha” another 108 times and again 5 rounds of Surya Bhedan & 5 rounds of Chandra Bhedan. We then placed one palm over the other, rubbed the palms together creating heat, and then placed the warm palms over our faces – this is good for the nervous system, we are warming the facial nervous system which in turn affects the brain and in turn the rest of the body.

Puja means to worship.

The following are notes i took frantically trying to write down everything Eddie said, some might make some sense, i’m sure some won’t, let’s see shall we? 🙂

Advaita Vedanta – absolute pure consciousness has no name, no form, no dimension – cannot be known by mind or intellect or body.

It’s difficult to experience something that is nowhere and everywhere at the same time. We must focus the mind at 1 place at 1 time.  This is where Tristana comes in – Asana/Breath/Drishti – working on the physical body, nervous system & mind. When all 3 cooperate at the same time, we have a state of attention – we can direct it wherever we like.

First we must localise the awareness. Right now our awareness is fragmented.

Body – Nervous System – Mind

3 Bodies – Physical Body
Subtle Body:
– Prana (energy + breath)
– Manas (mind – memory, thoughts, feelings, emotions)
– Buddhi (intellect – faculty of discrimination)

Causal Body:
– Body of Bliss – our Karmas, our hopes, dreams, imagination, purpose born into this life, things we feel & sense (not defined)
This is not the first time we’ve done yoga – Bhagavad Gita: “by contact in a previous life, we again have contact in this life”
That pattern in our Causal body
– Mythology & Archtypes that we find in different traditions we find around the world
Archtype is shared consciousness, as Carl Young called it: “Collective Consciusness”
We are all sharing this collective impulse toward love, happiness, goodness, etc.

– Level where all apparent diversities dissolve in unity.

All these things are locked in our practice.
The intellect decides things all the time – it thinks it’s special & that it knows best, better than all. We start to second guess – we stop listening to our intuition & the natural needs of our body: i.e. going to bed when the sun goes down, or eating when hungry -> when the body needs it.

The Body is nature – we ignore what the body needs & listen to the intellect. The intellect is just a tool to understand perception, it’s a sort of filing system.

How do we go past the intellect? -> Devotion & Surrender.

Surrender the idea “I know Best” & open up to possibilities & not-knowing. In that Not-Knowing space things happen in our hearts: gratitude, appreciation, worries disappear, stress is less & grace flows.

These are encouraged doing Puja – we surrender thru offerings – it’s an expression of Love. Purity of offering creates an open space in our Hearts.

Why then is doing Puja so complicated?

Same reason why we have many asanas, we need to have a place to bring awareness to develop it.

Guruji compared each asana to a mala, and the breath to the thread that united all the malas – practice is like sowing.

Thru the practice we engage our awareness in the present moment, each time we do an asana.
Puja is the opportunity to express devotion & surrender.

Why 3 Bodies? 3 bodies of the Devas:
Shape – physical
Subtle body – yantra (geometri diagram of energy pattern)

Nadi’s are our personal geometric diagrams (we have 72,000 nadir’s in our bodies, energy channels thru which prana flows).
What is the causal body of a Deity? Mantra
A Mantra brings the energy of a Deity to life – energy is installed thru yantra & mantra.

Tantra – to weave, when we weave – there’s form
Mantra expresses itself as a yantra
Yantra expresses itself as a Deity.

We are an expression of an energetic pattern with particular purpose. What is that purpose? That is for each of us to find out.

Simple Puna of 16 steps – Shodasha Pachara (16 offerings):
1. Stating our intention
for the removal of all stains from our consciousness (Karma leaves a mark – good & evil is arbitrary)
[Eddie here then told us the story of the Ramayana and said that we must all read it – it is now on my reading list!]

….and then i had to leave! But not to worry, in another post i’ll tell you what the other 15 steps of a simple Puja are!

OK now off to day 4.2: Chanting-Meditation-Yoga Therapy!

Ciao!