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Overview
Her dreams made sense now. Her spiritual download paved the way for a new level of understanding life, illness, stress, and practical spirituality. She started practicing Bhakti yoga and meditation, and she finally found calm.
Bhakti yoga is defined as a spiritual path described in Hindu philosophy used for fostering love, utter faith, and surrender to God. There is only one path to God: the path to grace, or Bhakti. Through yoga and quiet contemplation on top of the mountain, she soon discovered that it was possible to literally “be” unconditional love.
In Living a Bhakti Life, Pashayan opens a pathway to enlightenment and God’s love through Bhakti yoga through divine power and divine love.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781475970340 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 01/30/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 140 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
Read an Excerpt
Living a Bhakti Life
Yoga of DevotionBy A. R. Pashayan
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2013 A. R. PashayanAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-7033-3
Chapter One
How I Discovered Bhakti
We had been living in Manhattan and the Hamptons when we relocated suddenly to take care of my mother in Compton. It that's not culture shock enough, we had to start all over with our businesses dealing with the left coast.... oh sorry, I meant the west coast (smile). With a savings account constantly dwindling, taking care of a toddler and my mother, stress was high even though I was happy to be with Mom. Money use to come easy when I was a Model, working in Europe and New York was a snap and fun at the same time. Now I had to punch into a real bonafide time clock for what seemed like pennies, as I worried about my mom being alone all day. Eventually I was blessed with a great job and my husbands new business took off nicely. However with child number two on the way we were busier than ever. Mom enjoyed the kids, they kept her going. We moved her to Marina Del Rey to enjoy the last years of her life in a different surrounding. She thrived for four years on the love that floated through the house. When child number three was on the way, Mom was on her way out. It seemed like an exchange of life or prana within the family. In August 2003, mourning from the recent death of my mother and celebrating the birth of my third son, my spirit was pinning for space and time to slow down and just 'be'. I knew that something was going to happen soon, either positive or negative. Little did I know, both were occurring simultaneously. Something negative had been happening in my chest, as my heart was pulled in too many directions. I was still grieving the loss of my Mother to whom I was very close, yet my heart was pulled in the complete opposite direction preparing for the beautiful little spirit growing inside of me (my 3rd son). Another emotional tug of war involved my husband, for he needed my time as well as my other two young sons. And don't forget my job......oh and did I forget what we always tend to forget, time for myself. These emotional tugs created a lot of confused energy in my body over my heart, left side = breast cancer.
I moved to Telluride, Colorado on a whim with my husband and three young sons. It was one year nearly to date of my mothers death, and Telluride was intended to be a month long vacation. After 3 days of being there something positive began to take place in my mind and spirit. Protected on three sides by the jagged mountains, I began to feel alive and free from stress and worry. The town, only three blocks long, made life simple. There were limited choices of items to purchase which actually made it easier shopping for everyday items. People were friendly and it was safe there ... only one way in and one way out due to the three mountains surrounding the town. A grassy field full of holstein cows (the black and white ones), can be seen at the beginning of town as visitors drive in. Main Street is where it all happens, and no place else. The buildings look like facades from an old western movie. The whole town is preserved by the National Historic Society. Rowdy, one of Americas last real cowboys rides his horse into the Sheridan Bar once a year for a drink. To top it all off, the whole area is surrounded by beautiful nature and perched at 10,000 feet above sea level which makes a blue sky look even bluer if that's possible. I was literally living in the clouds!
The purity of air and pristine views of the Rockies was like heaven to my spirit, I had found my "Green Pasture" from the book of Psalms. God did not have to maketh me lie down, I was ready for it! After 3 days of vacation, my husband and I decided not to return to Los Angeles. I felt a big sense of surrender on that day, that I could leave my ego behind in LA and be content (Santosha) with the simplicity of this town. It was that day I began to learn the Bhakti way. Each day thereafter, another layer of my ego would fall away ... and so would my problems. I was on my way to becoming a Bhakti Yogini without even knowing it. I continued to practice yoga and meditation for a year.
I sat in seated meditation relishing in the bliss of my daily morning ritual. The sweet sound of nothing, strangely audible, filled my soul with a connection to God and to the best within myself. No human presence around me as of yet, all souls in the household still voluntarily unconscious in bed resting in the precious state that is as close to re-birth that is possible. I could feel the presence of the animals in and around my home; the elk and the coyote especially. I filled up spiritually with the mere silence and the most powerful connection I know how to achieve with my creator.... as a new method of yoga asana practice arrived in my head. A flood of warmth ran from my Sahasrara Chakra (crown) to my Anahata Chakra (heart). Bhakti chose me.
When it occurred, the experience was likened to those who describe a 'Kundalini Rising' except in reverse. Kundalini Yoga is a style of yoga whereby the ultimate experience includes an electric feeling beginning at the sacrum ending at the crown. The feeing did not occur from the base of my spine to my crown but from a much shorter shorter distance; crown to heart. The intensity of my experience was felt right in the center of my body, physically from the anterior fontanelle (soft spot on crown at birth) through the center of my brain down through my vocal chords and directly into my heart. Unlike Kundalini, I was not altered to a state of non-function but exalted to a state of profound clarity. The skull is made up of 7 bones that are not joined together firmly at birth. This allows an easier passage through the birth canal. The area where the bones are joined together are called sutures and close naturally over 7 to 19 months after birth. The sutures of the 4 largest bones of the skull create a diamond shape directly above the vocal chords, felt as a 'soft spot' on a newborn. The suture running from temple to temple that connects with the diamond is called the coronal suture. The coronal suture caresses the frontal lobe (the center of thought) and leads to the front of both ears (the center for hearing). The sagittal suture runs from the center of the forehead (Third eye, center for higher purpose) to the top of the Occipital lobe (the center for visual perception). Additionally, the word 'suture' is defined as 'the process of joining two surfaces or edges together in a line as if by sewing'. Complementing this is the sanskrit word 'sutra', commonly used in reference to Patanjali's Sutras. The word sutra is defined as 'a thread or line that holds things together', metaphorically speaking of the teachings of the sutras. And so we find that the Sutures of our skull at birth have a very coincidental relationship with the power of our thoughts, our programming from God, and the truths of the ancient sutras. All of this to note the importance of the crown of our heads, and to expound that everything regarding our diamond shaped soft spot is absolute perfection from our Creator. Could there be a better way to connect with God to receive higher thought, vision, and hearing with the additional purpose of softening our entry into this world? I believe there is no better way, and that the references to the crown chakra in yoga and vedic texts support the crown as our method of connecting to the Divine.
There are yet still other inferences to our point of connection to the Divine being near the crown, think of a 'halo' as seen on depictions of angels or sentient beings who roam the earth. Even when Bug's Bunny hits his head too hard, the cartoonist illustrates stars or birds flying around his crown perhaps indicating a dis-connect with a sense of wellbeing, or a loss of connection to be well grounded.
The head in relationship to the rest of the body is also thought of as command central. Its the place where all the action occurs to get us moving, thinking, planning, anticipating, reacting, and creating the things we want to do in our lives. It is our 'speak box' where we can express ourselves verbally to share our truths with one another. It is our vibrational intake center where the highly sensitive eardrum can pick up the vibrations of sounds near and far. It is our olfactory center for smell and taste, which kept us safe from predators and unsafe foods during evolution. And alas our sight, which most often deceives us with illusions that fall prey to our delicate ego. Therefore when this download occurred, something within felt that the crown-throat-chest-heart chakras were the right place for this to happen.
I can best describe the experience as a download of information about yoga postures and their personal meaning, applicable to every practitioner individually. Caps of closure were blown away in regards to the limited manner in which Trikonasana was being taught around the world. Sitting in meditation and basking in an indescribable mental zone, I was keenly aware and astounded at what was being transferred to my mind. I was also afraid, as fear of the unknown surrounded me when I realized that I was not in control. However, my trust in God kept me seated.
Receiving this information felt like a mixture of viewing a high speed movie but with the physical sense of being in the movie. I felt like I was physically in asana practice, while another part of me was the 'watcher' of all that was occurring. My head and chest reverberated with warm ripples of a vibration that was pure as water. These pure vibrations felt like moving energy of light passing through my body in a rhythmic manner, as if the rhythm was communicating something to my cellular structure that cannot be understood in another way. It was as if the vibrations were the message, and sent to a part of me that communicates best through feeling instead of words. A message that speaks the language of sprit.
What accompanied the download immediately afterwards was my own astonishment that I was privy to this information. I thought, "Why was this being imparted to me, a Compton Girl who does yoga at home? Someone who has not studied under a famous hindu guru, nor ever been to India at that time. Someone who does not wear special head wraps or prayer beads. Someone who does not even practice regularly in a studio. Someone who would be least likely to attract a large audience because famous yogi's are either male or white female."
There is no black audience in yoga because blacks traditionally think yoga goes against their religion. Since I've never let anything stop me in the past, I let those thoughts go just as quickly as they came to me. I wrote everything down from my mystical experience so that I would not forget the information. I took the rest of the day off to contemplate what had occurred.
That evening during my meditation before bed, the download started up again. I got nervous this time and opened my eyes. I thought, "Why is this still happening?". I began to wonder if something really freaky was going to happen at the end like my head would start spinning around non-stop or something. I went to my husband and explained to him that something strange was occurring during my meditation, and that I wanted him to check in on me often when I started again the next morning. In a totally different mind and place, he agreed "yea, yea".
The next morning I began my meditation again as usual. I normally sit for 60-75 minutes. I heard my husband enter the room to check on me less than five minutes after I began and it comforted me. I quickly found my sweet silence within and the download began to flow once more. It occurred a total of three times over the course of two days, giving me meanings for over 36 postures which I documented at the end of each meditation. With my husband checking in on me, most times I thought I had been meditating my usual hour plus, when actually time had eluded me completely ... my husband noting that less than 20 minutes had passed for each of these meditations. "How could this be?", I thought. I felt as if I had been sitting there for hours, allowing this download to take place. It seemed impossible for less time to have passed. I knew that the components of experiencing time were different that what most of us believe, and in this case I had actually experienced it.
My spirit was unified with the Divine, and I was given information to share with others for healing and liberation of life's illusions that often bring us down. These illusions make us forget who we really are, Children of God, loved and accepted just as we are, and provided for completely. My soul was in a state of surrender; Patanjali's Sutras B.1 V.23 Isvarapranidhanad Va / and B.2 V.45 Samadhi Sidhir Isvarapranidhanat. Both verses mean the same, that a life surrendered to God offering complete service to God's will leads to Samadhi (tranquility of mind). "Do everything in my Name" is written in the Bhagavad Gita, as are other verses that speak to the nature of Bhakti.
During my mystical experience, my sense of time was altered but not my physical being. I felt nothing in my spine or even in my brain for that matter, only as if someone pushed a field of energy through the crown of my head which stopped at my heart and put an internal 'glow' in my chest. I believe Bhakti leaves a permanent mark on the heart of a yogi already inclined for devotion to Ishvara (God). My upbringing and life experiences put me in preparation for this full explosion of surrender.
Many yogi's who yearn for a mystical union with the Divine practice Kundalini, in hopes that they will experience the Kundalini Rising. The actual sensation of my mystical experience differs from Kundalini Rising in an interesting way. Kundalini Rising is of Prakriti (primary matter or the Body). Something physical takes place in the body with Kundalini Rising whereby people have reported intense electrical impulses moving up and down the spine. People also report being in an altered state afterwards for up to two weeks. My experience was of Perusha (the spirit). Nothing happened to me physically, instead my mind and spirit were vibrating at a fast rate allowing the download to occur. I am taking nothing away from the Kundalini experience, only noting the differences from Bhakti. Bhakti is nearly unexplainable, which is why we have no famous Bhakti Guru's. The closest way to experience it is to understand the practice and practice often. You have to let life teach your heart the rest of the way.
I remained in awe of the experience, then went to share with my husband what occurred. I could not express to him my full excitement. I thought he might get worried and call an exorcist over to check me out. However I did let him know that something unique happened during my meditation, and that I now have a new way of practicing yoga. I left the house after breakfast and went for a long hike to let it all sink in. The hike was good, it gave me time to contemplate the splendor and beauty of this new way to practice. I wondered "What kind of practice is this? Is there a name that describes it?"
On hilltop, I looked over my notes written about the postures and began to practice. I cried at the perfection of looking at the past over my left shoulder in a seated twist, and visualizing/creating my future over my right shoulder. Later at home in the full practice, I cried again as I expressed a 'prayer in motion' through mind, body, and heart in a contemplative way.
My spiritual union with the Divine cranked up my home practice to two hours a day.....not for the sake of vanity but for the sake of working through emotional gunk stuck in my body. It could now be release through this method of asana practice. Through this release came clarity and a commitment to the style of asana I was practicing. My tennis teacher, Sam, noticed the amount of time I was spending on the mat vs on the court and was the first to ask me, "Angela, what style of yoga practice are you doing so much?". I had no definitive answer for him, and his question made me think and led me to research deeper into spiritual texts.
I share these personal details with you in efforts to exemplify that I am a regular human being just like you. I am no more special than you are. What happened to me could happen to anyone. And reading these personal details may jog your memory of times when the Divine may have been trying to communicate with you. Through reading this book, you will be more attuned to subtle nudges from the Divine and find Bhakti within.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Living a Bhakti Life by A. R. Pashayan Copyright © 2013 by A. R. Pashayan. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword....................ixPreface....................xi
Acknowledgments....................xv
Introduction....................xvii
Chapter 1. How I Discovered Bhakti....................1
Chapter 2. The Nature of Bhakti....................19
Chapter 3. Ishvarapranidhana: My life in Telluride....................31
Chapter 4. Virabhadrasana III: Share your Gifts....................39
Chapter 5. The Garland of Life, or the Noose of the Journey?....................47
Chapter 6. 4 Steps to Bhakti:....................65
Chapter 7. One Nation, With Liberty and Yoga for All....................85
Closing....................91
Appendix: List of Bhakti Asana Postures....................93
Notes....................103
Glossary....................109
Bibliography....................119