Step 6- Illuminate- Insight and Peace
As you not only open your eyes, but also your mind and heart from step 1 to 5, now the experience is more transcendent, taking you beyond this world and into an archetypal realm of deep wisdom and beauty. Color and form, insight and intuition spring into view as the inner eyes open wide, here you can sit still, and take it all in.
Purposes: Insight, guidance, wisdom
Practices: Quieting the mind, focusing the gaze (candle light meditation)
Actions: Centering, stillness, imagination, visualization
Yoga practice: Any poses that are in sitting, balancing, inversions position.
Radiance - Openness ($13.00/ 48 mins)
To increase fluidity and function of each shoulder muscle down to your back, try opening up the shoulders with this series of strengthening and lengthening exercises. These exercises can improve posture, stimulate blood flow, and provide a great energy boost.
Video available for 180 days
Stability and Balance ($13.00/ 58 mins)
To further enhance your body's balance and stability, try exercises that strengthen the muscles responsible for keeping you upright, including your legs and core, as well as toning the glutes. This series of exercises can improve your body awareness, increase muscular strength, and enhance mental clarity.
Video available for 180 days
Capturing Light
Light is a necessary vitamin, as important as food, water and love. In our indoor society we spend most of our time behind walls, and the result is a kind of light deprivation. This simple exercise can be done anywhere and takes only a few moments. It is the process of drinking in light from natural surroundings and bringing it inside to the inner temple, much like squeezing color out of a tube of paint and putting it on your palette.
When you see something bright, colorful, or beautiful, such as the sun streaming through the leaves of a tree, a ruby-red rose, or simply a vision of beauty, be it natural or artistic, stop and take it in fully.
When you have fully received the light, close your eyes and imagine you are depositing that imagery into your inner eyes. Re-create the image in your mind until you can see it clearly. You can open and close your eyes, repeating the process until you feel you can see the image clearly with your eyes closed.
This can also be done while meditating in a dark room with a candle flame. Gaze upon the flame, drinking in the light, then close your eyes and bring the image to your inner temple.
When you're observant, you use your senses to examine something that you're curious about, and you evaluate what you experience. I was on The Qinghai-Tibet Railway runs from north to south between Xining— the capital of Qinghai Province — and Lhasa — the capital of Tibet. The total length of the line is 1,215 miles in the summer of 2018.
Attention
The capacity to direct consciousness is called attention. It is the facet of consciousness we are most familiar with yet least able to master. The root of the world is from the Latin tendare, to stretch toward something. Attention stretches consciousness toward an object.
When you put your attention on something, you have an experience. If I put my attention on my feelings, I have an experience of joy or sadness, worry or excitement. If I put my attention on my inner alignment, I have a deeper connection to grace. If I put my attention on universal truths, beauty or love, I begin to experience the underlying source of everything.
Learning to command your attention is one of the goals and by-products of yoga. Your focus gets sharper; you become aware of subtler levels of reality. You can concentrate better, and your perception deepens. Now you are ready to explore subtler levels of attention itself.
The eight limbs of yoga that forms the backbone of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, listed below, describe a path toward awakening. Almost every book on yoga philosophy discusses these principles in detail, so we will just touch on them briefly to see how they form a structure for building up to the upper awareness we are seeking.
The Eight Limbs of Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga
Before we jump directly into the theory, we should know that the Ashtanga yoga practices are completely practical, and just knowing may not do any good. And hence, one should implement the concepts practically for the progress of humanity. The Ashtanga Yoga is classified as the eight limbs of Patanjali’s yoga sutra i.e.,
Yama (Universal morality), Niyama (Personal observances), Asana (Body postures), Pranayama (Breathing exercises), Pratyahara (Withdrawal of the senses), Dharana (Concentration) Dhyana (Deep Meditation) Samadhi (Absorption into union with the Divine). It is an active combination leading to the purification of mind, body, and soul. Ashtanga yoga practices have a direct impact on the present-day crisis. These impacts have to be studied properly for the well-being of all. Beneath the breath, listen for your heartbeat. Feel it as a vibrating organ at the center of your being, whose vibrations flow rhythmically throughout the body, through every artery.
The concept of Zen gardens originated in Japan. It is a way of life and is associated with stress reduction. It is supposed to evoke feelings of tranquility, calmness and peace.
Meditation
The means of meditation are dharana, and they are all paths for taking you to the root of awareness. What is important is that you select one that works the best for you, and continue to practice it. It takes time for a practice to be incorporated into your nervous system. It takes time for the neuroplasticity of your brain to adjust. It takes time to become adept if sitting quietly for a new to you. Hatha Yoga, the practice of postures, is designed to prepare the body for meditation. Meditation is by far the oldest form of yoga, with postures coming much later.
Practice:
1. your body in a way that you can be comfortable, upright, and still. This one step could take months or years of fine-tuning, yet its benefits are instantaneous every time you attempt it.
2. Close your eyes and go inward, allow the body to relax and take a few slow, deep breaths here. Give time to allow your body to become still with each breath, setting into place, and allow the inner voices to quiet down, listen to the emptiness.
3. Direct your attention more to the space between your thoughts rather than to the thoughts themselves. Allow the thoughts to become like background music as it become less and less in your thoughts, then simply observe without comment as the emptiness grows larger and the thoughts begin to wane.
4, Then allow yourself to become aware of your body, from the inside, with your eyes remain closed, feel its weight and the flow of your breath, and the presence of your body taking up space.
