Meditate!

 

Imagine that after everything you have experienced in your life to date, after all of the wonderful things you have already discovered and lived, you came to realise that there is a whole other “world” inside of you that you had never known existed. A place that you find so indescribably delightful to settle in that you want to visit very often, and stay there for as long as possible.

I am talking about a type of consciousness in which you feel no fear, no anxiety, no sense of time or space. Like being a small child who for the first time realises something new and wondrous about our world. How incredible to discover something like that at the age you are today!

This is as close as I can get to describing an experience of meditation, more correctly called dhyana (a Sanskrit word that has the prefix dhi – which means an expanded state of consciousness).

Today the word meditation is misused and overused and this has created a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding about this ancient and fascinating technique. It is sadly more common today to hear about people who don’t like to meditate and don’t want to practise than it is to hear of people who treasure it as a part of their regular routine. The reason is that the market has been polluted with “meditation techniques” that are ineffective and unappealing.  Often what is called “meditation” is nothing more than closing the eyes and becoming aware of thoughts and feelings; for the ancient philosophies, this is not meditation.

In the DeRose Method, meditation practice has a simple but well-structured process which includes other vital techniques, like breathing techniques and physical positions, to reach its real goal; a state of hyper-consciousness and self-knowledge.

In accordance with our matriarchal roots we practice in a very pleasurable way, and you will know that you are on the right path when you simply cannot pass a day without practising at least 5 minutes of your meditation; a day without meditation is a wasted day!

Join us on this fabulous journey personal evolution. You will not regret it!

 

A short interview for pulsedup.com about an ancient point of view.

… but what is it?

WHAT IS YÔGA?

Is it gymnastics? A religion?

A fighting style? A flower arrangement?

Once upon a time a famous dancer improvised instinctive movements that were, however, extremely sophisticated thanks to his virtuosity and, because of this very fact, absolutely beautiful. This body language was not exactly ballet, but it had undeniably been inspired by dance.

The captivating beauty of the technique moved all those who watched; they were overwhelmed with its expressiveness, and asked the dancer to teach them his art. And so he did. In the beginning, the method had no name. It was something spontaneous that came from within and only echoed in the hearts of those who had been born adorned by a more refined sensibility.

As the years passed, the great dancer was able to convey a good part of his knowledge until one day, long after, the Master passed on to the invisible planes. His art, however, did not die. The most loyal disciples preserved it and assumed the mission of re-transmitting it. The pupils of this generation understood the importance of also becoming instructors, and of modifying nothing, altering nothing of the outstanding teachings of the first Mentor.

At some moment in History, this art received the name integrity, integration, union: in Sanskrit, Yôga! Its founder was entered into mythology with the name of Shiva and with the title of Natarája, Lord of the Dancers.

These facts occurred more than 5,000 years ago in the Northeast of India, in the Indus Valley, populated by the Dravidian people. Therefore, we will study the origins of Yôga in this period and find its original purpose, so that we can identify authentic teachings and distinguish them from others that have been compromised by consumerism and interference from alien and incompatible methods.

Shiva Nataraja

This text was extracted from the book, Tratado de Yoga (Yoga Treatise) by Professor DeRose 

Ásana, the physical part of Yôga

Physical Yôga, positions, ásanas…

This a subject that captivates almost everyone. Me too, I love ásanas! I do, I love them! They make your body strong, supple and definitely healthier. But when I started studying Yôga, eleven years ago, I was always intrigued why most of the Masters and scholars of this practical philosophy that I admire slightly reject this anga (part) of Yôga and don’t even consider methods that teach only pránáyáma and ásana to be Yôga. For example, Sri Aurobindo didn’t consider Hatha Yôga (pránáyáma and ásana)  “necessary” and Pátañjali, the great Master, in his renowned work, spoke mainly about meditation and samadhi, dedicating only three sutras to ásana, and only then as a means to achieving these objectives.
II – 46 The physical position must be steady and comfortable. (So, systems that use ásana with repetition probably lost the connection with the origin)
II – 47 It’s dominated through elimination of tension and meditation on the infinite.
II – 48 As a consequence, the duality is ceased.

So is practising only ásana practising Yôga? Ásana itself doesn’t fit the technical definition of Yôga. Do you remember the definition that Proffessor DeRose gave us? “Yôga is any methodology strictly practical that conduces to samádhi.” I cannot see a practitioner that only practises asana achieving samadhi, so, it’s not Yôga only in itself.
The point that I want to make is, why Yôga practitioners in general don’t start to give more value and pay more attention to more important angas, such as mudrá, pújá, mantra, pránáyáma, yôganidrá and samyama.

Despite all this..as we are all passionate about yôga physical techniques, I will let you admire this beautiful choreography of ásanas.

*Remember that Sanskrit is not English and accents must be respected.

A perfect place

A society where the values are equality, harmony and evolution. Where the science of war is not developed, where there is no waiting to be attacked or to attack other people. Where women are the leaders and the men respect them over all, because they know they have the natural sensoriality that men weren’t born with!

A place where sensoriality is revered, as well as love and respect for both others and for nature, which is the source of our survival and something which we are not separated from, but a part of. A place where there is no religion, or even concept of god, above us just the beauty of the sun.

I am not dreaming or replaying a John Lennon song… such a society once existed, the cradle of the most ancient philosophies, Yoga, Samkhya and Tantra. Although I believe that at that time there weren’t names for, or codifications of, these philosophies, they were a habitual part of the life of the Dravidians, those extinct people.

How much we have to learn from the traditions that they left to us as a cultural inheritance!

Mudrá

by Mircea Eliade,

“…mudrá is susceptible of several interpretations, the most frequent being the realization of certain states of consciousness by hieratic gestures and postures, more precisely by the echo aroused in the deepest strata of the human being upon his rediscovering the “message” hidden in every archetypal gesture.’ 

Yoga Immortality and Freedom, pg.: 211

 

 

The oldest definition about Yoga.

Patanjali, a wise man, wrote the Yoga Sutra, more then 2000 years ago. And he gave us a very simple and complete definition about Yoga:

Yoga is the suppression of instability of consciousness

Yoga Sutra – I-II

The question is: Does everyone who say that teach or practise Yoga follows this principle?

Who was Ardhanari?

Ardhanari. Púrusha and Prakrití.

The symbolism of the Ardhanari can be understood in the context of the Sámkhya philosophy. According to this naturalist system, every cosmic manifestation is founded upon the fundamental duality between the Púrusha, the transcendent principle, represented as masculine, and the Prakrití, the primordial substance, represented as feminine. The Púrusha, the principle of consciousness (which is neither creation nor creator, which bears no attributes nor qualities, and which resides in the core of everything yet remaining external), is beyond both the non-manifest and the manifest. Prakrití, in turn, can either remain undifferentiated, resting in its natural state (the equilibrium of the union of the opposites that precedes manifestation and follows dissolution within each creative cycle) or, under the non-active influence, contact or proximity of the Púrusha, the Prakrití can become manifest, generating universes.

This duality exists only in relation with the manifest and, as a polarisation, it represents the first division within an original whole, with the aim to produce the multiplicity of the manifest, thus bearing a cosmogonic reach. The Ardhanari, anthropomorphized as half-masculine/half-feminine, represents this duality, also bearing a cosmogonic status.

‘In India a whole literature has been devoted to explanations of this paradoxical relationship between what is pre-eminently unconscious – Matter – and “pure consciousness”, the Spirit [Púrusha], which by its own mode of being is a-temporal, free, uninvolved in the becoming. And one of the most unexpected results of this philosophic labour has been the conclusion that the Unconscious (i. e. Prakrití), moving by a kind of “teleological instinct”, imitates the behaviour of the Spirit [Púrusha]; that the unconscious behaves in such a way that its activity seems to prefigure the mode of being of the Spirit [Púrusha]’ (Eliade, 1977, p. 122).

Nice talk with Master DeRose

Message to the women

March is the month of the women. In their homage I took this beautiful text from the book “Messages”, written by Master DeRose.

Devi

Tantric Message to the woman

Life is beautiful when you have someone besides you, whom you can truly love, without reserve, giving yourself completely, body and soul. Someone we may offer our life to, our heart throbbing with emotion. Someone we may make pújá to with our tears of happiness and with those of grief. Someone to share the suffering, the solitude, the despair, but also the glories of a mission accomplished side by side, hand in hand…

Give it a thought: how beautiful to have the privilege to be chosen among thousands, among millions of people, to live moments of peace and love besides someone and, on and on throughout life, both dissolve in ecstasies of supreme joy, attainable only with the loved one! And, year after year of pleasure, happiness and personal accomplishment, have the contentment of growing old by the side of the right person! Without ever regretting what you never did – there is no worse regret than that…

… And then, together, marking Mankind and the Universe with the strength generated.