Yogani - Asanas, Mudras and Bandhas - Awakening Ecstatic Kundalini (eBook)

Asanas Mudras and Bandhas

Awakening Ecstatic Kundalini

Yogani

From The AYP Enlightenment Series

Copyright 2006 by Yogani

All rights reserved.

AYP Publishing

www.advancedyogapractices.com

Note: The legibility of illustrations in this ebook may vary depending on the reading device used. If needed, PDF illustrations for this ebook can be found at:

http://www.aypsite.com/abamb

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006907578

ISBN 978-0-9786496-1-6 (eBook)

ISBN 978-0-9786496-0-9 (Paperback)

Chapter 1 The Body - Door to the Infinite

From childhood most of us are taught that we need an intermediary to find a connection to that magical something more in life that, down through the ages, has been referred to as God or Truth . Our priests, ministers, mullahs, gurus and rabbis promise that if we behave rightly, we will receive the everlasting rewards that have been promised. And that is It , the thing we vaguely conceive of as our salvation. Whatever It is, we often feel we are leagues away as we trip our way through the ups and downs of everyday life.

But then, once in a while, quite miraculously, we might take a long slow stretch, relax our mind, or be resting in complete stillness, and, suddenly, something vast opens up inside us a continuum of inner peace and happiness that is as endless as it is timeless. And then, just as suddenly, we are back in the fray of life again. Where did it go, that unfathomable happiness that came from within us and then disappeared again? How can we get it back, and make it a full time experience?

When we have had such an experience (and nearly everyone has), we have been shown the door , so to speak. And the door is none other than us. More specifically, the door is found in the inner workings of the human nervous system. That is this nervous system, the very one we are sitting in right now. So, no matter what intermediary we have been using for guidance, in the end, it is the inner functioning of our own body that will lead us home to the promised land . Our body is the door to the infinite.

There is nothing new in the idea that the kingdom of heaven is within us. It has been around for thousands of years. But there has been so much confusion about it, you know. Throughout history, whole civilizations have risen, and fallen again, surrounded by this confusion about the true nature of humanity, first on the way up, and then on the way back down again. Will the confusion ever end?

In the meantime, over the centuries, small groups of people have been carefully collecting knowledge about the human machine tinkering, experimenting and learning through trial and error, finding out ways to open the inner door, finding out how to open it permanently. Mostly, these people, who we tend to call saints and sages (they dont care what we call them), have labored in secret, hiding out in remote places doing their work. Once in a while a few step forward into the public eye. When the confusion gets thick enough, they do. They share their knowledge, and are often treated badly for it. It has been a repeating cycle over the centuries. But change is in the air

With the rise of information storage systems over hundreds of years, knowledge of all kinds has become much more accessible to millions of people around the world, including spiritual knowledge. What used to be transmitted orally from generation to generation became available in writings on stone and parchment. Then printed in books, which gave rise to an explosion of knowledge during the last millennium, and especially over the last few centuries. And now information is stored electronically on computers and beamed around the world instantly via the internet. The staying power of knowledge has greatly increased, and this is leading steadily to better application of all kinds of knowledge, including knowledge about how to maximize the inner capabilities of the human nervous system opening our door to the infinite.

Yoga Ancient and Ever-New

One of the oldest systems of knowledge designed for unfolding human spiritual potential is called Yoga , which means, union or to join. That is union of the inner and outer qualities of life opening the door of the human body and its inner circuitry, the nervous system, to its full latent potential. Yoga is not a religious system, though it can be and sometimes is combined with religion, mainly because people need a framework of belief to wrap around human spiritual experiences. The spiritual experiences cultivated by yoga practices are self-evident, with or without an attending belief system, in the same way spontaneous experiences of inner expansion are self-evident. The difference between spontaneous experiences and those cultivated by yoga is that the latter are systematic and lasting. This is what we would like, yes?