Dhyan Foundation

The Final Frontier

2012-01-31T22:41:00.000-08:00

YOGI ASHWINI.

Our civilisation is the lone civilisation that has the concept of Guru. It is important to understand here that Guru is not the physical. It is an energy that can flow through a person, a stone, a book or anything else, provided the shishya has the Guru bhaav. While the energy of Guru is limitless; it is upon the shishya how much he/she chooses to receive. You get a Guru as per your level of evolution. A Guru sees the capacity of the shishya and relates to him/her accordingly. The thoughts and desires of the shishya determine how he/she sees his/her Guru. Being in the sanidhya of the Guru, the thoughts of the shishya manifest, and the Guru has to respond the same way.

In ancient times, Gurus used to exhibit phenomenal power - because there existed shishyas who respected the science and the energy. Likewise, the energy respected the shishyas and endowed them with phenomenal gyana. There was a reason why our ancients would denounce material pleasures and stay in ashrams to take diksha from Guru. Not only the Guru, they respected energy in every form - be it the sun, the moon, the fire and the like.

In this present yug, people have undermined all the energies and hence all the gyana is lost. Take the simple example of the sun. It comes to meet you every day at the same place without fail and brings enormous light and energy. While your ancients did surya sadhna at dawn and dusk, you choose to ignore it for people and things that are temporary, inconsistent and constant source of trouble for you. You might consider yourself as being ‘advanced’ in not following what the ancients had set out for you but the ultimate has evaded you.

Yoga is the final frontier. You have to treat the subject as ultimate for it to become ‘yog’. If you want a cure for a disease, you will get a doctor. If you want solutions to an emotional problem, then you will get a counselor. First see why you want a Guru. If you actually want to go beyond the art of living and living, then you get a Guru.

Yogi Ashwini is an authority on the vedic sciences and the author of Sanatan Kriya- The Ageless Dimension. He can be reached at dhyan @dhyanfoundation.com

SHIV, PARVATI AND MARRIAGE

2012-01-26T23:17:00.000-08:00

YOGI ASHWINI

We all know the importance of "balance" in Creation. Everything in the universe is in its place because of balance. Similarly, all the forces of nature, higher or lower, have to be in balance all the time for the sustenance of Creation. The smaller forces are nothing but a microscopic representation of the higher forces of universe.

The Ardhanareshwar form of Lord Shiva represents the union of Mata Parvati and Lord Shiva, the union of purush and prakriti. Both are two different aspects of nature but come together to create a perfect harmonious balance. The Ardhanareshwar form represents the union of complementary forces in nature to create a complete whole. They are one, existing without duality. That is the concept of marriage in Vedic philosophy.

Marriage between a man and a woman symbolically represents the Ardhanareshwar, a union between two people. When two people come together in marriage, they become an inseparable part of each other for an entire life. There is no individual identity and, therefore, no scope for divorce. In the Vedic period there was no such thing as a divorce.

Once a marriage was consummated, the man had to take full responsibility of the woman's needs — financial and physical — for the rest of her life and the woman in return looked after the man and his entire family with complete devotion and respect. She was responsible for expanding his family and inculcating proper values in the children.

Woman is considered as a force or shakti in a man's life. A woman is like fuel and man the vehicle, both come together to complete the journey of experiences they chose to go through in their lifetime. It is a certainty that a woman committed completely (in thoughts, words and deeds) to her man can take the man to any heights. There's nothing impossible for him to achieve in the physical world.

As every phenomenon in nature serves a purpose, there is purpose behind two people coming together also. As the root of every action is desire, this desire decides the purpose they unite for and, accordingly, they go through the experiences they had asked for. The union of two forces always occurs for Creation. Based on their desire they connect together at different levels to create, experience and go beyond. These connections, based on desire and purpose, also decide the length of that relationship.

The higher the purpose, longer the union. Connections are the bonds established between two people at the level at which their energies merge, that is to say connecting at the level of chakras. As we know there are certain characteristics pertaining to each chakra, and union happens at the level of these characteristics.

The lowest or the grossest level is that of the basic earthly desires, characteristics of mooladhar chakra. They merely satisfy the grosser needs of life such as sharing of material wealth, belongings etc. There's no higher purpose of them coming together. A little above this is the connection based on sexual desires at the level of swadhishthan chakra, or the level of physical Creation. Above this is the connection established on the plane of power, be it social, political or economic. Like it used to be in earlier times, where two empires used to come together by way of marriage between the heirs.

The purpose of this union was to expand the political or economic status that led to the expansion of kingdoms. Also, a merger of two kingdoms meant stronger defences against enemy aggression.

— Yogi Ashwini, an authority on yoga, tantra and the Vedic sciences, is the guiding light of Dhyan Foundation. His most recent book is Sanatan Kriya: 51 Miracles... And a Haunting.

Who are “you” ?

2012-01-24T00:08:00.000-08:00

"This is mine, my bank balance, my house, my kids, my car, my office…"
Have you ever wondered who is "me" here?
Ok tell me, in this body where are you? We know for a fact that there are many systems which make up this body- Nervous system, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, digestive, excretory, etc.. out of these which one is you? Let me rephrase my question - for whom all these systems are working?

(Various answers were given by the audience)

Answer- "I am energy"
yogiji- Energy is measured in joules so tell me how many joules of energy are you?

"I am just one cell."
Yogiji- A cell has various components -mitochondria, nucleus, cytoplasm – so where are you in that cell?

"Ego"
Yogiji- where is the ego… where is it present in the body?

"Desires"
Yogiji- Who’s desires?
Answer- Soul’s desires
Yogiji- where is the soul present in the body?

A very famous person had a slip disc went to the hospital and forgot everything. Now he cannot recognise himself or his family or profession. So where did that person go by slip of just one disc?! (Think about it and let me know next time.)

Just think about it for which you are so concerned all the time-"I, me ,myself" …what is it? If I ask you your residential address immediately you will give an answer but you don’t know who you are!

If you don’t even know who are you, then how will you know what are you searching for? For whom are you searching or why are you searching at all?
This is a very specific subject, there is no ambiguity in it!

Every person, each one of you has a corresponding star, from where you have come and where you return to after every birth. Each star is a specific divine energy. What you are is a reflection of that unique star. That is why earlier it was said that when a person dies s/he becomes a star. We have more stars in the creation than our population. So then what are we and where are we? Are we here or are we there? The answer is- we are neither here nor there but there and here simultaneously. How?

The sloka Om poornamadah poornamidam poornata poornamudachyate poornasya poornamaadaya poornamevava shishyate Om implies that infinity plus infinity is infinity, infinity minus infinity is infinity, infinity multiplied by infinity is infinity and infinity divided by infinity is also infinity. But infinity has no definition or does it? If two mirrors are kept facing each other and you stand in between the two, then would you be able to count the number of images? No that is infinity. That is why the star, the creation, is called infinity, everything has originated from it and will go back into it and it has no boundaries. Can you explain something which has no boundaries, something which has no limits?

Have you thought about this- What is there beyond the boundaries we know? Afterall there has to be a limit to what has been created. This creation should end somewhere. Everything that is created or manifested is limited and so it should have boundaries. We can see the sky and we know after that there is the space. So till where does space exist? How can it be infinite if whatever is created is finite and is always defined by boundaries? Just think about this, you do not even know the basics of your existence - where you are and till where that extends, who you are or why you are where you are. But what you do know with certainty is how big your house is, what car you own and what you would like to have in dinner tonight! This is all you know of!

You say science has developed so much but you do not know the boundary of the ‘place’ where you are staying and what is there after that. You do not know the farthest star, till where does it go and what lies after that. And in comparison to that, think about yourself - what are you and where do you stand in this massive space? There is no clarity at all on these basics. You have created boundaries to your own self, you have limited yourself. Even those who have been around for 5-10 years, they too are unable go beyond their self-made limits. Because that is the basic problem when you will limit yourself in the physical you will always remain in that physical.

Let me discuss another concept. (though not many understand what I explain but still no harm in trying (now it has been almost 20 years!). From where has this physically manifested creation emerged?
Let me rephrase the question, the creation that we see- so many plants, animals, etc on this planet, from where has it all come?

One of the names of sun is Hiranyagarbha (the golden womb), that means sun is the womb of some energy. It has no existence of its own, it is only a womb. Let us understand this in another way, a gynaecologist knows that inside the womb of a mother a lot of heat is present, but that heat is of one mother. If you sum up heat of wombs of all mothers (across species) that equals to heat of the Sun! We all know that the heat of the Sun is reducing constantly. This in turn implies that heat of every womb in the creation is reducing everyday. Earlier a mother could give birth to many children but these days they have one or two children only, and that to through c-section...

The sun is called hiranyagarbha because it is the womb of Adishakti - the whole creation emerges and survives because of this heat or shakti. The shakti (energy) takes the form of heat and this creation is simply a manifestation of that heat. A human being is living till the time that heat is present it the body, when the heat diminshes soul departs from this body and goes beyond the physical dimension. Adi shakti is first level of physically manifested creation. There are two things in creation- vyakt (manifest) and avyakt (the unmanifest).The avyakt state is prior to Adi shakti and vyakt is what comes out of that womb. Every aspect of this creation has emerged from that womb only and that is why Adishakti is called the mother. Yet every aspect emerging from that womb while playing its part thinks that ‘I’ alone exist, no one else exists. As the child is born and starts growing up, that heat starts reducing, As the kid grows the body loses heat continuously and in old age heat content becomes minimum and finally it is lost completely on leaving the body. This transformation is also seen in the whole creation, all the stars are losing their heat constantly. Heat of the stars is reducing and as a result, the heat of every being too is reducing.

Like I said, each one of you has a star and once you identify that star and develop a relationship with it, then it automatically guides you. But remember that star’s heat is also coming down constantly. The more the number of births you take, ie, the more the number of times you emerge from that womb, the more the heat declines . On death of the physical body, you go back to the womb and then emerge once again but in this process heat of the womb (your star) is constantly reducing. So with every successive birth, your heat is reducing. All the stars (sun, moon etc) balance each other. If there is even a slight movement of the place of any of these, there is a distinct disturbance in the creation (whether you feel it or not). But these are keeping themselves in balance and not allowing that imbalance to set in, but when you are born again and again for the purpose of physical experiences you isolate yourself from other aspects of the creation. And the funny part is, that you do not even know who, what or where that 'you' is! Till the time you do not know what you are and where you are and what is this creation and what your assets are vis-a-vis the assets of this creation, you cannot understand what evolution is. And this is the very reason why people who have been for so many years they too are going round and round in the physical only, as their vision is so limited that it is not allowing them to understand a simple fact that every birth is reducing their heat even more.

Your heat, heat of your star, heat of the sun and thus the heat of whole creation is reducing. And as this heat is reducing, the form is changing - because the energy can neither be created nor destroyed it only changes form. That is why the form of human being today is not the same as the ones who were born say 500 years ago and that form was not same as the form of rishis 5000 years ago (heat then was much more from now). This is the reason why gyan of rishis has becomelupt (lost) because how many people today have enough heat in them to hold, understand and act on the gyan of the rishis. How many people have that much curiosity- very few! Most people think- "What can I get? How big is my house? Which car will I buy next? How can I improve my looks?" You just cannot think beyond your own self. Moreover you do not know who you are, even if you think for yourself first you should know who are you and from where you have come and where you will go. You know none of these answers and you are just following what your limited buddhi is telling you, collecting and getting stuck more and more with each passing day and losing that vital heat every instant. The heat is also called Prana shakti, iccha shakti and chitta shakti. All these are present in the mother and all these are reducing because the heat of womb is declining because of your births.

The more heat is lost, the more artificial your life will become. 40 years ago, kids were found in playing fields, 400 years ago kids used to go to specialised training grounds- painting, dance, music, art of war. Even till a 100 years ago, a girl used to learn 64 different arts and then she was considered fit to manage a household. Some of these these 64 arts were- painting, dance, instruments, decoration of house, significance of flowers and their specific use, how to make a bed, respect of elders, upbringing of children…. You don’t even know 64 names and they had so much heat to learn all these 64 arts. Compare this with kids today, they are in a totally mechanical environment ( playing virtual games etc) and thus their brains are becoming more and more artificial. The mind is going more and more away from nature and into artificiality and away from reality. And just think about this… You don’t know your reality, how do you think will the next generation know… Who will tell them if you yourself do not know of it? This is why the gyan of rishis has been lost. Human being is completely stuck and tied in vasnas. You cannot see anything beyond your vasnas. Because you don’t have enough heat to take that gyan, so you just cant see anything beyond your vasnas that is why you are wasting heat of this creation by taking birth again and gain, wasting that heat in your experiences. You are not able to conserve it at all!

Just go back and check, whenever you have interacted with me - it is either about some of your problem or because you want blessings for your birthday! There is no other reason. This is why I say you are wasting atomic energy to light a candle because you don’t even have the slightest of idea what you are missing every single moment of your life. If you have even the slightest of hint of what you are missing you will leave everything in a moment and get into yog sadhna . Why? Because you do not have enough heat. You have wasted your heat in your physical experiences, vasnas. The physical pleasures is ultimate for you and you just cant understand anything beyond it because there is not enough heat left and you will waste your life and birth in what you perceive as finality.

I just do not know from where should I start explaining! You don’t even know your purpose or who are you. But what you do know and what is always included in your planning is what food you want to have and what pleasure you want indulge in today. You have to go over this if you want to interact with me, otherwise it is just not possible to interact with me. If you find my talks complicated now then after a year or so you will just not understand nothing. So if you want to come with me it is very important for you to understand that you have to conserve this heat, rather increase it otherwise you will completely waste your lifetimes (plural!)

Yogiji, how to conserve this heat?
I have given 4 chapters in the book on anti-ageing. But the thumb rule is- be in the present moment. No memory’s neither past nor future. What were you, why were you like that, what will happen tomorrow, how will it happen, how will I look tomorrow, if I am bald or not, nothing matters at all. Because when that gyancomes nothing else is required as then it becomes crystal clear to you- where are you going, what you are doing, why are you doing it ?
So be careful about this- increase heat in your body and for that only present, no memory’s (past or future).

Yogiji where are we in our body.. where is that "you" that we spoke of last time? Where does it exist?
Last time we had left our discussion on questions who are "you" and where are you. Did anyone think about it?
Is it in the body which will go to shamshan after a few years or is it in that unmanifest before you were born… where is that "you" that you can say "this is me."

Just the way no two stars are same similarly every person is an individual no two individuals are the same. Each one has individual needs and has an individual journey. Nobody comes with somebody nor goes back, we just keep fooling ourselves that too till the time old age comes and senses become dull, if these basic senses only do not work then how will higher senses develop, ultimately Maya has the last laugh…when your body is on the funeral pyre.

Yogiji, how to identify with the star?
That is my job, not yours.

Yogiji, Is that star the higher self?
That is what you perceive yourself as, that is what you are, your reflection But the question is what are you what is that star? It is very important for you to identify your own self. Whose property is it, whose ego is it, who is that to which that house, that car belongs to, who is that to which that star belongs to and who was the one who was born from the womb? Who is that which is experiencing all this- money, status, property whom does it belong to?
So before gyan comes who is ‘that’ to which gyan should come?
Where are you in this body and why are you in it? Where is that soul?

A few years ago (18 years approximately) a friend from US came to meet me. On the way she saw cows on the road and said it is so dirty here. So I asked her why has she come here then. So she said I want to learn spirituality. A few minutes later we were passing through Connaught Place in Delhi so again she said I want to live in a multi-storeyed building like this and at the same time learn spirituality of the country. Both things are possible how? By first understanding who you are?

Even if I give you the answer to this question you won’t be able to understand it and you won’t understand the purpose behind my telling you this. How will you understand something with 8% active brain of yours that which requires 100%? Think about it, not from from your brain because that will use only 7-8% of your brain which is required for the functioning of the 5 basic senses and beyond that you just don’t need.

If I tell you- What your eyes see, the one who is seeing with those eyes –you are that. The sound which you are hearing from your ears the one who is functioning those ears- you are that. The one who is taking pleasure (without paying for it) of that taste and fragrance (you think you are enjoying but you are paying for it because you are thinking yourself as your body by expending your energy and senses for that pleasure) you are that. So the one who is enjoying pleasures of these 5 senses you are that, Did you understand it?

We talk of big beautiful philosophies, but do we know them? You don’t even know where you reside in your own body! The various organ systems cannot be serving themselves and if there are serving an entity, then you should have had the gyan of that entity, not the knowledge. The Vedic philosophy is not about knowledge, it is about gyan. It is not about talking big, it is about practically experiencing every aspect of it. Unless you experience it, you are just wasting your time, don’t do it!

The subject of Yoga goes much beyond religion, yoga is the science of the being, science of your self, it is the science which will tell you where you are residing in this body. Who are you? What are you? Where are you? Words are limiting, I won’t go into discussions on this. You have to go through the experience of Yoga to get these answers

Sermon of the week- http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/sermon/

‘Yoga has become a joke’

2012-01-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

YOGI ASHWINI.

Last month he stunned doctors at the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Mumbai, just by looking at photographs of 10 random people — sick and healthy — and identifying the sick ones within 10 minutes. Dhyan Foundation’s Yogi Ashwini’s feat left the doctors speechless. We caught up with the dynamic yogi who is in town for the launch of his book and to hold workshops.

On the recent IMA feat, he says, “We asked doctors to give us two types of patients, those with cancer and spinal problems. Most diseases including cancer and trauma are psychosomatic diseases. The emotion manifests and shows. I pointed out the areas where the problems lay and also when the ailments started for all 10 people after seeing their photographs.”

“Also, volunteers were made to do 50 minutes of asanas without a break after which the pulse rate of one of the volunteers was checked. It was found the pulse rate had dropped by 15 counts. The doctors were amazed and gave a letter informing that the experience had changed their perception of yoga.”

So, why did the yogi feel the need to have an open demonstration? “Because yoga has become a joke and I had to prove what it actually was. Yoga has been reduced to mere stunts. Doctors have fragile egos and we needed to tell them in a polite manner, that yoga can complement medical science. Yoga doesn’t heal nor cure diseases. It can only prevent you from falling sick. If you are ill, go see a doctor or a vaidya.”

Criticising the popular notion that sweating by doing yoga helps lose weight, Yogi Ashwini says, “Sweating actually makes one age faster. The strength of one’s body is lost via bodily fluids and sweat is a bodily fluid too.” When quizzed about why yoga is misunderstood by the masses and self-proclaimed yoga gurus, he says, “We don’t respect our own culture. We look up to Egyptians and Greeks, who couldn’t survive a war or two, and Mayans who lived for a few hundred years. We forgot the Vedic civilisation that is one lakh years old. By civilisation, I mean ‘civilised’ people who were well-learned and evolved. Not one TV channel here shows real yoga. The yoga and facts shows aired on channels are not wholly real and they only show the smaller picture. When we called the media to cover the demonstration at IMA, we were told that they’d cover it only if an SRK or Salman came. We don’t respect our own culture.”

He adds, “The Pythagoras Theorem was not discovered by Pythagoras. It can be traced 16,000 years back in Gunita and Shatpath Brahman books. When Harappa and Mohenjodaro were found, 50 times more radioactivity was recorded compared to Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Even the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer said that Japan’s nuclear bombing was the first in modern history. There is a reason why Oppenheimer specifically mentioned ‘in modern history’. When Thomas Alva Edison invented the gramophone, the first record he played was Vedic mantras from the Rig Veda. Most discoveries were made only after the 1600s after English merchants took our knowledge. They repackaged it and gave it back.”

The Yogi who was in town to launch his latest book Sanatan Kriya — 51 Miracles... and a Haunting, has plans to pen two other books. “One book is on ageing that has secrets of rishis and another one that is on reviving our culture.”

Deccan Chronicle- March 28,2011

Process of Awakening

2012-01-16T23:29:00.000-08:00

When a sadhak follows the path of yoga he/she ties himself/herself to a certain regime. By following this set routine over a period of time the sadhak starts evolving. In the physical plane we can identify certain dormant centers in the brain which start awakening and becoming sensitive to subtler stimuli which we are not able to identify in our current states i.e. the higher areas of the brain get activated, which were considered dormant or those were not used in the day to day acts of normal physical life.

But this stage arises by following the eight-fold path of yoga comprising of Yam, Niyam, Asana, Pranayam, Pratyahar, Dharana, Dhyan and Samadhi.

By following the practice of the five Yamas and five Niyams, the path of yoga becomes clear. The impediments in the progress of the practitioner or sadhak get removed leading the sadhak to the next stage, which involves the purification of the physical and the etherical self of the individual.

We all are divine beings going through our individual journeys in this world of Spirit. In the present journey of which we all are a part our physical body is the vehicle. Therefore after clearing the path of Sadhna through Yama and Niyamas we need to cleanse our physical bodies of its afflictions to help us traverse this path.

Asana is a posture, which is attained with the objective of gaining mastery of the physical body. The practitioner or more appropriately the sadhak practices the posture with complete awareness of the physical and internalization of senses till the posture becomes effortless or in other words till the physical is completely mastered.

This internal awareness leads to activation of every cell of the physical body thereby cleansing the physical body of any disease or discomfort. The sadhak attains a healthy physical body, helping him or her to move further in the spiritual practices. A sadhak who has perfected the asanas does not have to bother about the discomforts, aches or pains of the physical body, which a normal human being is afflicted with. His consciousness is so heightened that through awareness he/she removes physical ailments and discomforts.

Pranayama is the practice of gaining control over the next the layer of the being, which controls the physical layer. This layer called the Prana Maya Kosha is our etheric self and from here starts the world of the Spirit. This layer comprises of various colours of the spectrum and millions of shades within each colour. It is these colours, which govern each and every aspect of our physical. Clairvoyants are people who have the ability to see these colours and also understand the impact of these colours on the physical. The practice of Pranayama helps the sadhak gain mastery on this etheric layer, through which it becomes simpler to send instructions to the Anna Maya. This layer directly controls Anna Maya.

Only once one has gained control over the physical and the etherical can one proceed to the next stage of Pratyahar that is when you learn to withdraw the five senses inwards. Till the time the sadhak is affected by the physical and the factors influencing it, it is not possible to control the senses. Then comes the next stage – Dharana, which is the stage when you have one single aim, the aim to achieve the ultimate i.e the samadhi or to be in yoga with yourself or Atma Sakshatkar.

After all this actually comes the state of Dhyan. Dhyan is going back in time when there was nothingness, when there was nothing physical, there was just you as pure consciousness.

Can you imagine a time when there was nothing physical? Close your eyes and try imagining that. You might imagine yourself as a point in space. With the eyes closed you see nothing yet you are the observer. Which implies that even when there was nothing physical, there was you existing in nothingness. Then what does this mean? This means that there was only one you. You will find that you are unable to draw boundaries to this fathomless space in front of you, after this is no space in physical terms.

But then what about all the others; we are so many human beings. This only indicates one thing and that is that at some level we all are one, which means the source and we are one at one level but become different in manifestation because of our individual impurities and blocks that we have created due to our own actions.

Dhyan is a state, which is higher than the present moment’s state and keeps us taking closer to the source with regular practice. You do not achieve but enter into the state of Dhyan. However, this state can be entered into when you have full control on your physical and emotional self and the external and internal disturbances have died down.

Finally comes the state of Samadhi. Samadhi is a state to be experienced and not to be discussed. So the process of awakening is a subject of continuous and dedicated practice leading the sadhak from one dimension to the other till yoga is achieved.

This is a practice, which requires a very strict discipline and a Guru, and, if either is missing there can be no Yoga. Why?, This I shall discuss in my next article.

"Yoga actually is for healthy people and not for the sick."

2012-01-16T23:11:00.000-08:00

"Creation has emerged from stillness. The ultimate purpose of yoga is to gather that stillness because it holds Creation in it," says Yogi Ashwini, founder of the Dhyan Foundation.

The yogi, who advocates yoga 'in its truest, purest form', was in Bangalore recently to conduct a 'dhyan' workshop. He spoke to Prithvi Manjeshwar. Excerpts from the interview...

What is the significance of being in a 'still' body state while practising yoga?

The stillness is the state of shunya (zero), which is neither negative nor positive. Zero comes from the Rig Veda. It is where Creation has taken place — everything is inside it yet it signifies nothing. Once you attain the state of zero, you are everywhere.

What about New Age yoga?

Yoga has come to us from the great rishis who documented it almost 5,000 years back. Today, everything is commercialized. Our brain functions only at 5-7% of its capacity, which is enough for us to enjoy the pleasures of the five senses. Yoga takes us beyond those five senses. However, people are so busy satisfying their five senses that they miss out on what is beyond that. Hence, they don't understand the essence of yoga. Yoga is not about standing on one's head or doing complicated asanas; it is about stillness.

Can you tell us a bit about the Dhyan Foundation and how it will teach the real yoga?

It is run by volunteers who do unpaid community service. The Foundation feeds 5,000 people every day across the country, runs a school for the underprivileged in Gurgaon and even provides clothes to the homeless. This because we feel that whatever you have, you must share with others to ensure there is regular movement and flow. Else you will stagnate. Life is flow, stagnation is death.

As for the real yoga, when you associate yoga with maya, read money, it loses its efficacy. The rishis who passed it on to us did not do it for money. So, people who teach yoga as a money-spinner do not understand its very basics. Somebody who is tied to maya is in no way equipped to take you beyond your five senses.

Can yoga be a substitute for medicine?

There are no diseases in our body, only imbalances. The body has to be in a state of 'sync' within itself. If it is not, you can't practise yoga.

Sanatan Kriya works on all layers of the human body and helps attain that state of balance. Yoga actually is for healthy people and not for the sick.

It is not an alternative to medicine, because if it were to be, then both Ayurveda and yoga would not have been mentioned in our vedas. The fact is that yoga and Ayurveda serve different purposes. Ayurveda is preventive in nature whereas yoga is for evolution.

How long have you been practising yoga?

For more than 25 years. I am nearly 50 now and want to carry on with it as long as I can.

(This came in Times Of India- November 25,2010)

Churn the sea within

2012-01-16T00:31:00.000-08:00

YOGI ASHWINI

Every microcosm in this creation exists in layers. Cut across a bark or peel a fruit and you will see the layers. A human being too exists in layers, the panchkoshas — five layers of being. At a basic level you may relate to things around as substance, but at the subtler level they all possess energy. Every being, every object, every event, every day corresponds to a specific charge of energy.

In yoga, you access this creation from the realm of energy. It is from the level of energy that you effect a change on the physical plane. When you start relating to the dimension of energy, you free yourself from the ties of rituals and customs, men and material, and that’s when the underlying patterns of this creation are revealed to you. You are then able to tune yourself to those patterns and pave your way for union with the Supreme.

Look at the lives of great men from the past — Krishna, Rama, Christ, Guru Nanak... Today we celebrate their birth, marriage, victory and salvation. Yes, they were all divine beings. But so is each one of us — the only difference being, they had realised their potential by accessing the energy in the world through the practice of yoga and Sanatan Kriya. We, on the other hand, relate to the physical events, oblivious of the energy patterns that generate them.

Our ancestors had predicted the plight of man in Kalyug, where one would forget all the gyan (knowledge) and live in darkness. Hence, they marked important dates with certain stories, customs and rituals for us to notice them. Have you ever wondered why Rama came home on Kartik Amavasya or why Krishna was born on the Ashtmi of Bhadrapad (a month in Hindu calendar)? The answer is simple — because the energies on these days are conducive to the positive forces of the creation.

The month of Shravan is associated with the legendary “samudra manthan” (churning of the ocean). The suras and asuras started the churning of the ocean in order to please Goddess Lakshmi. They decided to share the fruits of labour equally. Fourteen ratnas came out of the ocean, followed by the venom (halahal), which neither group was willing to accept. Hence, Shiva had to intervene. Then came amrit, which was taken to Devalok.

For a spiritual seeker, the story marks the time that is ideal for tapa and sadhna, which include introspection. The energies in this month are such that all beings (deva or danava) can access them with equal ease, to accomplish the myriad sidhhis (ratnas). It is the time of the year when both the daivik and asuric energies are at their peak and hence the role of Guru (Neelkanth or Shiva) cannot be undermined. The union (amrit) is impossible without his grace.

Raksha Bandhan falls on the last Purnima of Shravan, marking the end of this powerful month. It has come to be associated with the tying of a talisman, essentially to seek protection of the creation from negative energies. The day must be devoted to the higher practices of yoga and Sanatan Kriya under the guidance of a Guru to access positivity and to realise your hidden potential.

Guru-shishya

2012-01-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

Yogi Ashwini Ji

What prompted me to write this article was an interview published by one of the newspapers on a yoga teacher. In one of the lines he was quoted as “my Guru requested me to……” This sadly shows the level of knowledge one has of the Guru and the level of reverence for the Guru today. The Guru never requests you but instructs you and guides you to do a particular act. It is so unfortunate that the people have forgotten the meaning and importance of a Guru. It is very important to understand what a Guru is.

Om dhyan moolam, Guru murti
Puja moolam, Guru padam
Mantra moolam, Guru vakyam
Moksha moolam, Guru kripa, Om shri guruve namah
Om

The foundation of Dhyan is your Guru’s image, the foundation of your puja is your Guru’s feet, Guru’s words are like the mantra that cannot be defied and moksha or nirvana is possible only by your Guru’s grace.

It is so interesting to know that the concept of Guru is prevalent only in India. There is no synonym of Guru in no other language and the closest that you can get is teacher or master. A Guru is much above both.

The Guru is the channel between you and the Divine and the only medium to get to know the Divine. Guru is the one who knows your capacity and leads you on the path of Sadhna as per your entitlements. Guru is just like a mother and the shishya a child. The Guru knows exactly what and how much the shishya wants and provides with the same. The Guru transfers just that much gyan to the shishya as much the shishya can absorb or hold.

It is like if you pour extremely hot water on a cold rock it will break. The gyan is like hot water and the shishya is the cold rock. The Guru holds the gyan and transfers it slowly to the shishya as per his or her capacity.

It is extremely difficult to find a right Guru but in your search for a Guru do not go by what you get to hear from others. yoga is all about experiences and it is your own experience and own insights that will lead you to a Guru. Once you reach your Guru you no longer feel the need to go to any other discourse or any other teacher to get the answers to your questions. Your search is said to end when you find your Guru.

The Guru is responsible for all the acts of the shishya, good or bad and it is essential for the shishya to have 100% faith on the Guru to progress in the path of Sadhna. Even a slight shake in the faith will ruin the whole flow of energy and the bond. It is a complete surrender to your Guru. One should go with complete reverence and without the veil of ego to learn something from the Guru. It is only then that gyan will flow from the Guru to you.

That is why it is said that it is very difficult to make a Guru and even more difficult for the Guru to make a shishya. Once you make a Guru then it is obligatory to do what the Guru says and the whole sole responsibility of the shishya is that of the Guru. Once a shishya makes a Guru it is extremely important to follow your Guru’s words and deeds and at no point of time show even slightest of disrespect towards your Guru because one cannot imagine what the karmic repercussions would be if you disrespect your Guru.

It is impossible to tread on the path of Sadhna without a Guru. The Guru interacts with the shishya on a one to one basis and monitors the progress of the shishya every moment.

The Guru shishya relationship is the only way to pull you up to a subtler and a higher form.

Therefore make no haste in making a Guru. Step into this path of Sadhna only if you have completely made up your mind because once you are into it you will need to give your hundred percent.

For a guru, there is only one party - divinity

2012-01-13T20:29:00.000-08:00

Yogi Ashwini is a spiritual teacher and yoga guru. He spoke with Ruchi Kale on whether saintly figures renouncing the material world should get involved in politics, mythological precedents and differences between politicians and gurus:

Who is a yoga guru? Both being leaders, how is a guru different from a politician?
A yoga guru is beyond the clutches of maya. Physical attractions and pleasures don't affect him. Everything in the physical world is at his beck and call. There is nothing he desires and is not able to achieve. A yoga guru reaches this state practically, he doesn't just talk about it. He actually experiences and radiates the glow this state is associated with, he doesn't just talk about this...promising these to others and not exhibiting these signs himself is fraudulent.

A practitioner becomes a guru and then he's beyond the clutches of maya. He desires nothing in the physical world, yet can achieve anything in the physical world by just a thought.

A politician is largely responsible for running the day-to-day affairs of the physical world. A politician gets into yoga just for the purpose of his health and to acquire more in the physical world. All his practices are to do with the dynamics of money and power. The ultimate aim of a politi-cian is to rule the world at all costs, the final frontier is the king's throne. The ultimate aim of a yoga guru is to leave the world, and he never desires the throne.

Do yoga gurus get involved in politics, elections, parties and votes?
No. For a yoga guru, physical power and the throne are of no consequence. For him, all human beings are equals, whichever religion or party they belong to. If he finds a politician corrupt, he makes attempts through his sadhana to correct that person, not ridicule or speak negatively about him. For a guru, there is only one party and that is divinity. All humans are a part of that divinity, a guru should have the ability to change politicians, not let politicians change him.

You say gurus don't think of physical power or thrones. However, India has powerful symbolism in the form of gurus like Parshuram who fought against corrupt people himself. How would you explain that?
Parshuram had immense strength in his body. He was forever youthful, a very strong man with phenomenal abilities...not just him but all the yogis of Vedic times are described like that. Can we compare them with today's so-called yoga gurus? Give me one name from today's so-called sages who are anywhere close to him - not in talking big but in abilities.

A guru is a teacher, a guide and much more. It does not suit him to enter politics, nor speak wrong or crack jokes about normal mortals. Let us first experience the power of a guru - then the debate would die down on its own. Or there would be no debate.

Positive Thinking: Power of stillness

2012-01-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

We like to be with some people and prefer to stay away from some. This is because people who are at peace or are shaant create a serenity around and one feels good in their presence whereas people who are ashaant or disturbed create disturbance wherever they go and send signals to people to stay away.

This is due to the difference in positive and negative vibrations. Birds of feather do flock together, people with similar vibrations like each others’ company. This is why some people love chaos while some prefer stillness.

If there is a coin at the bottom of a river bed, it can only be seen if the water is clear and still. Slight ripples and waves affect the clear view. Similarly, if a person is disturbed, he or she will not be able to take any concrete decision and will remain in a state of conflict and turmoil while creating more disturbance within and all around.
The key to shaanti is stilling the brain, takingit to a state of no thought. Our thoughts are linked to the movement of the eyeballs.
The basis of thoughts is desires. It is impossible for a normal person to try to achieve complete stillness by meditating on one’s own. The process is long and needs a Guru’s guidance. That is the reason why Rishi Patanjali propagated the eight limbed yog on which the Sanatan Kriya is based.

The power of the person who is able to sit absolutely still in a thoughtless state is unimaginable. Anything is possible for such a being. That is the state when all ripples have died down and the vision is crystal clear.

This state of being absolutely still reveals dimensions which are beyond logical explanation. Even one thought, movement or a slightest twitch will distort the vision.

Find your Guru today without falling prey to clever businessmen selling “meditation or yoga “. Let your Guru guide you to this blissful state of shaanti.

Yogi Ashwini is an authority on the Vedic sciences and is the guiding light of Dhyan Foundation. He is also the author of Sanatan Kriya- The Ageless Dimension. He canbe reached on dhyan@dhyanfoundation.com

Yoga Demystified With Yogi Ashwini

2012-01-09T09:23:00.000-08:00

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

The True Meaning of Yoga and Sadhana

2012-01-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

by YOGI ASHWINI JI
The Times Of India

The guru, through shaktipath, initiates a person on the path of sadhana. The process requires immense energy, which is transferred from guru to shishya. If this energy is channelised towards people who have no value for it, the energy dissipates. That is why it is said that knowledge or 'gyan' should not be distributed before people who don't value it. This can also be said for people who come to listen to a discourse not to imbibe gyan but to defy it. These people are not searching; they are ruled by ego.

They are not interested in sadhana, are a drain on the energy of the initiator and are no good for the evolution of mankind (which is the purpose of shaktipath).

The practice of yog has become a subject of social discussion. It is fashionable to proclaim, "I do yoga..." There are no dearth of people who, for selfish reasons, go around claiming to be yoga masters. What one needs to understand is that yog is not tying yourself up in knots or standing on your head. Yog is a complete science of the being's evolution, of which the physical is just the beginning. If this were not so, we should be calling trapeze artists yoga gurus. It is surprising to see how people go about introducing yogic practices to all and sundry, without proper instructions or an understanding of an individual's capacity. Today, through the medium of television, people are introducing certain higher practices which are becoming a fashion among the masses.

These practices may impart a feeling of shortlived well-being to the practitioner and disturb the Kundalini. Kundalini, if awakened in an uncontrolled manner, may cause irreversible damage to the body, because a normal body does not have the capacity to hold this shakti. These practices are being peddled only to gain name, fame and money. They are no good for either teacher or sadhak. It is unfortunate that the indiscriminate teachers of yoga do not understand the negative karmas they earn for themselves as a result. They are trapped in a web of maya, described as such in 'Patanjali Yog Sutras'.

A real sadhak would never indulge in such careless acts. Modern methods make a mockery of a pious and sacred path such as yoga.

It is very difficult to stay away from the clutches of maya. Only those who hold the hand of a guru are able to truly adopt and walk the path of sadhana. This is precisely why it is so difficult to find a true guru and serious sadhaks.

When a guru accepts somebody as a shishya he takes complete responsibility. The shishya is monitored by the guru not daily or hourly but every moment, which is why earlier gurus had such few disciples. Sir John Woodroffe, a renowned sadhak and practitioner of tantra in the early 19th century, understood this. He observes, "In older times a guru used to give diksha to 10-15 disciples in his or her entire lifetime. Initiating even a single person requires immense amount of energy and even greater amount of practice to regain that energy. I wonder how people go around initiating thousands of people and still at the end are smilingly there, ready to initiate more. These must be super beings far surpassing their ancient masters in strength and sadhana”

Having been a teacher of an ancient healing technique, I observed that people were coming to learn this method only to gain in social prestige. This set me thinking. I stopped teaching to get deeper into the true meaning, practice and purpose of yog. Gyan is energy which flows only to those who have the capacity to follow the practices of yog strictly as told for mankind's evolution. For others, it is merely words, to feel good about and to impress others with one’s great knowledge of yog.

Sabrina Dutta and Yogi Ashwini: Yoga is necessary for evolution

2012-01-04T06:10:00.000-08:00

Soft-skills consultant and a modern day Yogi discuss about spirituality, yoga and more...

Sabrina Dutta: I’ve heard a lot about your IMA (Indian Medical Association) event in Mumbai. Could you tell us about it?

Yogi Ashwini: I was invited by IMA, Mumbai, to teach asanas to the students. We wanted it to be a private affair and didn’t even inform the media. But I was surprised to see over 1,000 people coming for the event. We made the students perform different asanas and found that after an hour, the heart rate fell by 15 to 20 counts. Doctors and the public at large, needed to be told what true yoga is all about. What is your belief?

SD: I am a strong believer of Shirdi Sai Baba and I feel my health complications seem to have miraculously vanished too. I consider it to be a miracle and am still awed by the thought of it.

Yogi Ashwini: That’s amazing to hear! There are a lot of people who ask me if health complications can be cured through yoga. However, yoga can complement medical science but does not heal nor cure diseases. Yoga is necessary for our evolution.

SD: That’s true. There are always such misconceptions about yoga and meditation. So, tell us a little about your family life?

Yogi Ashwini: I am married and have two children. A lot of people ask me if it’s difficult to manage spiritual life and family side. There have been times when I’ve hardly got any time to spend with them. However, I seemed to have managed it and definitely, my family is a priority. So, tell me a little about what you do...

SD: I am into event management and soft skills consultant by profession. I’ve been training a lot of corporate companies and hotel firms on communication skills and basic etiquette. So, you’ve spoken a lot about your spiritual side and gave a glimpse of your family life as well. In a nutshell, tell us who Yogi Ashwini is?
Yogi Ashwini: That’s a good question, but tough one to answer (laughs). Well, Yogi is the reflection of Guru. Merging the guru and I as a person is what Yogi Ashwini is all about.

Sabrina Dutta is a soft skills consultant and into event management as well. She has been in the field of training for the past nine years. She trains for corporate houses and has worked with a lot of hotel groups on topics like etiquette, communication and the like. She loves meeting people and often holds events in the cities.

Yogi Ashwini is a modern day Yogi, a Living Master and the Guiding Light of Dhyan Foundation. He has been teaching for many years. He believes that every individual has the capacity to heal himself through the Sanatan Kriya.He also says that yoga is a divine science which should be available to one and all, free of cost. Sanatan Kriya, which is the prescribed sadhna by Yogi Ashwini, is followed at Dhyan Foundation.

योग साधना है, कारोबार नहीं : योगी अश्विनी

2012-01-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

योग के एक विशेष स्वरूप सनातन क्रिया के प्रवर्तक योगी अश्विनी, योग पर अपनी एक खास दृष्टि रखते हैं। सनातन क्रिया के प्रचार-प्रसार के जरिये इन्होंने लाखों लोग को एक खास जीवनशैली से जोड़ा है और इससे उन्हें शारीरिक, मानसिक और आर्थिक स्थिरता हासिल हुई है। सनातन क्रिया और समाज, धर्म, अध्यात्म से जुड़े खास मुद्दों पर बिजनेस भास्कर के दीपक मंडल ने उनसे बातचीत की। पेश है

खास अंश-
आज की व्यस्त और प्रतिस्पद्र्धा भरी जिंदगी में योग को शारीरिक और मानसिक सुकून का माध्यम माना जा रहा है। लेकिन मौजूदा दौर में विभिन्न माध्यमों के जरिये जिस योग का प्रचार-प्रसार हो रहा है, वह इस मकसद को पाने में किस हद तक कामयाब है?
योगीजी-आज योग का जो रूप दिखता है , वह एक्सरसाइज है। इसे तमाशा बोलेंगे। सिर्फ उछल-कूद या एक-दो आसन से योग नहीं होता। योग गंभीर विषय है। इसे हल्के में लेना ठीक नहीं।

आप जिस योग, सनातन क्रिया का प्रचार करते हैं। वह मौजूदा योग क्रियाओं से किस तरह अलग है?
योगीजी-सनातन क्रिया में अष्टांग योग का समावेश है। यह पूर्ण योग है। जब योग के अलग-अलग तत्व यानी, यम, नियम, प्रत्याहार, आसान, प्राणायम, ध्यान और समाधि का योग होता है, तभी यह पूर्ण होता है। इन तत्वों को इकट्ठा किये बगैर योग नहीं हो सकता।

सनातन क्रिया गुरु-शिष्य परंपरा के आधार पर ही सिखाई जाती है, जैसा कि वेदों में बताया गया है। सनातन क्रिया पातंजलि की 4000 साल पुरानी परंपरा पर आधारित है। आज के व्यक्ति के लिए हमने अष्टांग योग के सूत्रों को सनातन क्रिया में डाल दिया है। यह मनुष्य को प्रकृति की ओर ले जाती है और विकृति से दूर हटाती है। सनातन क्रिया के निरंतर अभ्यास से भावनात्मक और आर्थिक स्थिरता आती है। शारीरिक शक्ति का विकास होता है। सनातन क्रिया का अभ्यास मनुष्य को आध्यात्मिक विकास की ओर ले जाता है।

बिजनेस की दुनिया में मुनाफा कमाना सबसे बड़ा लक्ष्य है। बड़े सीईओ, मालिक और प्रबंधन के लोग रात-दिन इस लक्ष्य के पीछे लगे रहते हैं और इस चक्कर में तनाव में रहते हैं? क्या सनातन क्रिया से इस तनाव को दूर करने में मदद मिलती है?
योगीजी-बिजनेस के लोगों को समझना होगा कि सिर्फ मुनाफे से दुनिया नहीं चलती। आपको एक संतुलित नजरिया अपनाना होगा। सनातन क्रिया पूर्ण पद्धति है और इससे कारोबारी दुनिया के लोगों को भावनात्मक, शारीरिक और आत्मिक तौर पर एक संतुलित जीवन जीने में मदद मिल सकती है।

आप चैरिटी यानी दान या कल्याण कार्यों पर काफी जोर देते हैं? हमारे यहां भी दान की समृद्ध परंपरा रही है? लेकिन बिल गेट्स और वारेन बफेट जैसे दानी हमारे यहां नहीं दिखते। क्या वजह है? क्या आपके योग सिद्धांत से इस ओर प्रेरणा मिलती है?
योगीजी-यह दुख की बात है कि हम अपनी परंपराओं से कट गए हैं। हमें बाहर के लोग दान और कल्याण कार्यों के बारे में बता रहे हैं। आजकल हमारे यहां जो दान या कल्याण कार्य हो रहा है वह भी बिजनेस को ध्यान में रख कर हो रहा है। ऐसा नहीं होना चाहिए। सेवा नहीं तो योग नहीं। लालच योगी की निशानी नहीं हो सकती।

आप अर्थशा के छात्र रहे हैं? मौजूदा दौैर की आर्थिक समस्याओं को आप कैसे देखते हैं? जैसे महंगाई?
योगीजी-महंगाई सप्लाई सिस्टम के करप्ट होने से पैदा हुई है। सप्लाई सिस्टम में जानबूझ कर अभाव पैदा किया जाता है और इससे महंगाई बढ़ती है। करप्शन महंगाई की एक बड़ी वजह है। हमारा 15 फीसदी जीडीपी ही बाहर दिखता है। 85 फीसदी जीडीपी अंडरग्राउंड है। दरअसल करप्शन आज की सबसे बड़ी बीमारी बन कर उभरी है।

आपका संस्थान ध्यान फाउंडेशन सनातन क्रिया सिखाने के लिए क्या करता है?
योगीजी- हमारे अलग-अलग शहरों में सेंटर हैं। वहां जाकर आप सनातन क्रिया सीख सकते हैं। यह मुफ्त में सिखाई जाती है। इसके लिए कोई फीस नहीं ली जाती है। हमारा मानना है कि योग को कारोबार नहीं बनाया जा सकता।

आप कई तरह के चैरिटी प्रोग्राम चलाते हैं, उनके बारे में बताएंगे?
योगीजी-हम आनंद विद्यालय चलाते हैं। यह ध्यान योग सोसाइटी की ओर से चलाया जाता है। इसके तहत वंचित और गरीब तबकों के बच्चों को शिक्षा दी जाती है। हम उन्हें खाना, यूनिफॉर्म और मध्यान्ह का भोजन मुहैया कराते हैं। हम मेधावी छात्र-छात्राओं के प्रायोजक बन कर सीबीएसई पाठ्यक्रमों के स्कूल में उनका दाखिला कराते हैं। महिलाओं के लिए सिलाई-कढ़ाई की कक्षा आयोजित करते हैं। फ्री हेल्थ चेक कैंप लगाते हैं और गरीब मरीजों के इलाज के लिए धन का प्रबंध करते हैं। कैंसर के मरीजों के लिए मुफ्त दवाओं को प्रबंधन करते हैं।

चैरिटी के लिए धन का प्रबंध कैसे करते हैं?
योगीजी- हमारा कंस्ट्रक्शन का बिजनेस है। इसके अलावा हमारे गेस्ट हाउस हैं। उनकी आय से हम यह काम करते हैं।

-बिजनेस भास्कर

The Indian Constitution defines India as a secular country. Still, the Indian government took up with the Russian government the issue of the impending ban on a translation of the Bhagvad Gita by a Russian court. The court has finally rejected the petition for a ban. Should governments be involved in such matters? What are your views?

2012-01-02T00:18:00.000-08:00

"Government's prime responsibility is to ensure justice and smooth functioning of the various systems, which are the basis of any country. India primarily being the oldest known civilization and the ol ldest cultured country has its roots in the teachings of the Vedic Rishis, the Gita being one of the forms of teaching the Vedic thought. The book talks, primarily about detachment and the code of conduct, which should be followed. It does not instigate violence or denounce any other religion it actually steers one beyond the bindings of religion to freedom. Normally it is misunderstood as the Hindu thought and teachings, but anyone who knows about history, well understands that it was written when there was no religion, not even Hinduism (the word Hindu comes from Persian, which is one of the recent languages). Governments should not be involved with the affairs of other countries and should not interfere in their thought process, but definitely the Indian Government has a department of culture and it becomes a prime responsibility of that department to educate about our culture to those who do not understand it or to those who misunderstand it, after all the sciences of astronomy, mathematics, dance, music, geometry etc. all have been given by the Vedic seers; it's just that the world understood them and so they follow them. If some one in the world does not understand the Gita...forcing our thought on anyone is out of question as it goes against the fundamental teachings of the Vedic Rishis, educating is a must. Secularism means treating all form of religion equal by the government, so if such a step is taken against any other religion by any other foreign country, the reaction of the Indian government should be same... But I have my doubts whether any country would do something like this with any other form of religion. "-Yogi Ashwini

Read answers by Yogi Ashwini on various issues on Chanakya Forum of Times of India-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/questions.cms

Purifying Nature Of Fire

2012-01-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

Agnihotra was performed to transmute one form of energy to another for cleansing, writes Yogi Ashwini

Rig Veda talks about techniques to gain knowledge from subtle forces of creation through havan or homa which is transmutation of energy from one form to another using the medium of agni, fire. Agni is the first word in the Rig Veda. Agnihotra havan is mentioned in the Yajur Veda more often than in the Rig Veda.

The sun is a significant source of prana or life. In 12 hours the sun changes colours from light pink to dark pink, saffron, golden and bright golden. The final shade changes from saffron to violet. Each colour has its own energy pattern; each of these energies relate to an aspect of the physical and subtler worlds. We are blessed with everything we desire in colour codes. Colours are also used in healing sciences, nutrition and creation maintenance.

Agnihotra is performed at sunrise and sunset. The prime chant is “Idam na mam” – “All this is not mine,” indicating detachment. To perform this you need to be detached from aspects of maya that intoxicate the five senses. One who performs the havan has to be in vairagya, the samidha and samagri, ingredients should be of pure quality and all participants ought to have purity in their achar, practice and vichar, outlook.
Precisely at sunset and sunrise a specific shade of the sun’s prana is awaited and as it appears the havan begins; it is all over in a in a minute or two.

Rishis who mastered natural powers were not rulers or leaders; they would simply do what was necessary and then return to their hermitage. They were not allowed collection, though pleasures were not forbidden. Rishis are known to have spoused and family; they ate and lived well. Despite being masters in the art of war and politics they never indulged in war or politics, for service was their mainstay

Two families who lived close to the leaking Union Carbide plant at Bhopal at the time of the Bhopal gas tragedy were regular performers of the agnihotra. The tragic incident occurred on the night of December 3, 1984, when the poisonous MIC gas leaked from the Union Carbide factory at Bhopal. Hundreds of people died and thousands took ill. However, members of two families – of Sohan Lal S Khushwaha and M L Rathore, living about one mile away from the plant, remained unscathed. No one in these families died; no one was ill enough to be hospitalized despite being present in the worst affected area.

This was perhaps due to the fact that performance of agnihotra proved effective in serving as an antidote to pollution. Media reports wrote of this unusual phenomenon, calling it the `Vedic Way to Beat Pollution’.The air quality was different in these two homes and the poisonous gases were simply transformed into harmless matter akin.

When ecologically clean fuel is burnt during agnihotra, it does not produce carbon monoxide. Only oxygen is released since the homa acts as natural biosanitiser provided the ingredients used are non-toxic or clean. The toxins could be organic, inorganic and salts.

RUDRAKSHA

2012-01-01T08:35:00.000-08:00

Striking blue fruits (drupes) of the blue marble tree (Elaeocarpus grandis

Rudraksha

From times immemorial Rudraksha beads have been worn and worshipped by sadhaks for their spiritual and bio-medical properties. They come in various facets or mukhis. These beads have found mention in ancient literatures like Shiva Puran, Rudrakashabalopnishad and Shri Gurucharitra. The science behind Rudraksha beads was well understood and respected by the Vedic Rishis. Today unfortunately, as is true with any spiritual subject including Yog, people for their own selfish and commercial interests have introduced a lot of misconceptions around these beads. A buyer comes across large quantities of rudraksha beads of various facets at enormous rates but without any proof of their authenticity.

Based on years of exploration and experience, we bring you information on rudraksha beads from authentic sources. According to Shiva Puran, rudraksha trees, the favourites of Lord Shiva, grow in Gouda Land. In the present era, it is the area of the gangetic plain on the southern border of Asia to the foothills of the great Himalayas and middle area of Nepal.

The Legend

According to the ancient text Devi Bhagwat Puran, there was a demon known as Tripurasur who was very strong and had Divine energy and power. Due to these qualities he became proud and started to trouble deities and sages. No one was able to defeat this strong demon in war. On seeing his immoral actions Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu and other deities prayed to the Lord of Lords Mahadev Shiva to destroy the evil Tripurasur. Lord Shiva closed his eyes and meditated for some time. When he opened his lotus-shaped eyes, tears fell from them onto the earth. Wherever his tears fell, a rudraksha tree grew. The fruits that grow on this tree are known as rudraksha beads. Lord Shiva then used his lethal, divine weapon known as Aghor and destroyed Tripurasur.

According to another ancient text Shiva Mahapuran, Mata Parvati asked Lord Shiva about the origin of the rudraksha. Lord Shiva answered that he had done penance for a thousand years. Tired of keeping his eyes closed for so long Lord Shiva opened his eyes and tears fell from them and from these tears the rudraksha tree was born. The seeds of the tree were distributed on the earth. Hence the word rudraksha comes from two Sanskrit words ‘rudra’, a synonym for Lord Shiva and ‘aksha’ meaning tears.

It’s not a seed

Rudraksha is not a seed, but a fruit. The fresh fruits of rudraksha are deep blue in colour and look magnificent. Therefore the rudraksha plant is also popularly known as the blue marble fruit plant. Its beautiful colour is not caused by any plant pigment, but is due to the microstructural character of the cuticle and light interference. The blue colour is because of the reflection of light from the cuticle. This phenomenon is very rare in the plant kingdom.

As the fruits mature, this blue colour slowly changes to deep grey to black. The dark coloured fruits are soaked in water for a few days to soften the fibrous fruit skin. After removing this dark cover, we get the hard, stony endocarp of the fruit that we know as the rudraksha bead.

Rudraksha fruit, the "blue marble"

The "Blue Marble" tree

Biomedical properties

The seed of the rudraksha tree is credited to possess mystical and divine properties. Necklaces made of rudraksha beads are considered auspicious as well as powerful, and are supposed to have profound astrological and health benefits. According to ancient thought, rudrakasha beads have several amazing powers to cure the human body medically as well as spiritually.

Scientifically, the rudrakasha beads are dielectric as they store electrical energy and also possess permanent magnetic properties. The dielectric and magnetic properties of the rudrakshaseeds impart positive charges in the bioelectrical system of the human body in a life-supporting manner. As a result, the electrical make-up of the body changes.

These beads also have the property of diamagnetism. Diamagnetism is the phenomenon wherein a material acquires temporary magnetic property in the presence of an external magnetic field. Therefore, the rudraksha beads can induce holistic healing.

Though the powerful effect of the rudraksha beads has been a known phenomenon in Vedic knowledge, it is only since the late eighties that their effect has been more widely acknowledged, after the research done by a group of scientists led by Dr Subas Rai, of the Institute of Technology, University of Benaras, India.

http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/rudraksha.php

“In nature, whatever flows remains healthy and whatever stagnates leads to disease.”

2012-01-01T06:27:00.000-08:00

Yogi Ashwini, the Guiding Light of Dhyan Foundation, is an authority on Yoga, Tantra and various spiritual sciences. He has an Honours degree in Economics and a Master’s in Management. Blending the best of traditionalism and modernism, he has assimilated the Vedic techniques to formulate Sanatan Kriya for modern man. He spoke to BE’s Abhijit Ganguly about yoga being sadhana (devotion) that brings stability and peace.

Q) You talk of mind pollution. What is it and how can it be removed?

A) To understand pollution, you must first understand nature. In nature, whatever flows remains healthy and whatever stagnates leads to disease. Stagnation would lead to pollution, which is the first stage of a disease. So, stagnation of wealth, thoughts or that of the body would definitely result in disease. The disease could manifest in any part of the atmosphere as air, soil and water pollution. In the body, it may be manifest in the form of diseases like cancer, which are a manifestation of emotional pollution. The simple solution for this in Sanatan Kriya is that you let yourself flow: help others, feed others, defend the weak, become the strength of the disturbed. In so doing, your resources, whether mental or physical, shall flow and keep you and your atmosphere healthy. Don’t allow any stagnation in your bodies or banks; and hence, no pollution will be there, neither mental nor manifested (physical).

Q) How can you tackle corruption through yoga?

A) Corruption stems from a wrong knowledge of the world that we live in. One who is taking a bribe for giving undue favours or to look the other way in the face of corruption is a ‘happy’ (unconcerned) soul as he/she has had teachers, masters and trainers but not the grace of the Guru. A teacher has taught them moral science and equipped them with the tools of technology that are required for their profession but the teacher has not blessed the persons with the Gyan of the real world. In other words, moral science is only understood by the intellectual mind, not by the complete being as even the teacher does not understand the being in totality. The Gyan has evaded the teacher and the pupil because they were not the Guru and the Shishya, and the pupil was never in Yog with his/her teacher. So, along with the teachings of your masters, teachers or trainers, it is imperative to have the grace of your Yog Guru (to remove corruption).

Q) Are there yoga solutions for grave problems like Naxalism that affects one third of India?

Naxalism is definitely a grave problem but it is nothing compared to the cancer of commercialisation of Yog from where most problems stem, eating into our culture. Fake Yog Gurus, who are planning to build corporate houses, have completely bypassed the teachings of Sage Patanjali such as asteya and aparigraha (non- stealing, non-coveting and non-hoarding) that are a must for a progressive society.

Besides, the Naxalite youth are brainwashed into believing that they are killing and terrorising for the sake of equality in society, that the haves, with their ill-gotten wealth, have to be brought down and looted so that the have-nots can get this wealth. Simply put, they believe that a redistribution of wealth can only happen by force. The concept of karma has been entirely bypassed as there is no Guru to explain that violence begets violence, that violence cannot harmonise society and that if you kill today, tomorrow you shall also get killed.

Naxalism affects one third of India but its root cause affects the whole world. Making the youth practically experience the effect of violence on themselves is one of the main remedies for this problem, which only a Yog Guru can effectuate.

Q) Since the very basis of business is profit-making, can business houses be charitable and can charity be profitable?

A) Every major religion of the world talks about charity. I would quote Saint Francis of Assisi here: “It’s in giving that you receive, it’s in dying that you are born again.” So, one point on which every major religion rests is completely ignored by all modern day business theories and laws. The principles of profit -maximisation and innovations have no room for charity. The law of physics that every action has an equal and opposite reaction is accepted in physics but ignored in business economics. One forgets that the opposite of profit is loss, which would strike us in some way. Even if you don’t want to follow the religious preachings, at least mix physics and economics and come to a stable conclusion. The room for charity is a must to negate the equal and opposite, and to maximise profits.

http://www.businesseconomics.in/?p=1748

Yoga - Of Yoga and Yugas...

2011-12-31T07:05:00.000-08:00

YOGI ASHWINI

The Vedic culture was conceived thousands of years back by the vedic masters who had a direct connection with the creator. This gyan was documented by Rishi Vyas at the beginning of kalyug, approximately 5000 years back. Respect for creation and everything within it and beyond it, is characteristic of Indian culture. Our Vedic ancestors were descendents of Herculean beings who not only gave the world the knowledge of the material world but also the etheric world. Any serious practitioner of the subject of spiritual sciences would clearly see the devolution of mankind, which was anticipated by the Vedic Rishis hence they gave to the world tools as per the anticipated capacity of the beings who would inhabit this planet at different points of time - poetry, art, romance, economics, medicine, physics, chemistry, dance, music..........peace; you name it and they gave it.

Creation began from stillness, in the opening yug, In Satyug, the beings were highly evolved and had complete mastery over nature so Yoga existed as Shrotras (oral knowledge which was transmitted through the medium of dhwani). They were well aware that creation's outermost manifested periphery was dhwani and it was this energy which will take them back to their source or will get them to yoga. Hence, the Vedas became the yoga of that yug.

According to Vedic cosmology, time is circular, one moves from stability towards chaos and again from chaos back to stability. With a change in the yug, devolution of man set in and so in the Treta yug shrotras were forgotten. Now only remembrances remained and smritis became the yoga of those beings - the path to evolution was simplified. In the next yug, Dwapar, the epics became the yoga, which were interpreted by the Gurus to suit the level of evolution of the Shishyas. The gyan of evolution was simplified further.

In the last and present yug, Kalyug, the ancients knew that the beings in this life would have a shorter lifespan and a myriad of desires. So, Rishi Patanjali, being aware of the suffering that was to befall in kalyug, imparted a simplified way to evolution, Ashtang Yoga.

The beings of kalyug only understand the dictates of quick money and beauty. As demand creates supply, distorted physical aspects of yoga, asanas and pranayams, began to be sold off as secrets to a healthy and beautiful body. Perhaps, it is the law of karma at work. India, exploited for centuries, is now getting back at the world. We have forgotten here that a practitioner of Sanatan Kriya or ashtanga yoga if practiced in totality would get beauty and health as a by product, the main benefit would remain evolution.

Importance of a Guru

2011-12-31T00:28:00.000-08:00

By Yogi Ashwini

I am often asked why one cannot read all the Vedas and other books available and evolve? Why does one need a Guru? People often say, “I cannot bow before another man”. Such questions and thoughts, asked so very frequently, made me write about the Guru in great detail.

To grasp what is a Guru imagine that the sadhak is a piece of very hot stone and that ultimate knowledge is like ice. If this ice melts and falls straight on the sadhak, the body of the sadhak would crack with the force and sudden change in temperature. The Guru is the force that holds this ice cold water and very gently pours it on the sadhak’s body — very gently the sadhak begins to cool and ultimately becomes as cold as the ice, now he is also a Guru.

Sir John Woodroffe, a famous tantrik from the West, impressed me greatly with his works, especially the ones in which he has explained, with quotes from various authorities, the Guru. The following paragraphs echo some of his views and are dedicated to this great master.

The path of yog or any other sadhana cannot be traversed without a Guru; a Guru is not a physical being or a physical form but the embodiment of the ultimate Guru who assumes human form to guide us through the journey of yog. For a sadhak, a Guru is the basis and ultimate goal of his sadhana, for it is said that one is a disciple only so long as one is a sadhak, that is to say for as long as shakti is not fully communicated to the disciple’s body from that of the Guru, through shaktipath. Till then there subsists the relation of Guru and shishya. When a disciple is given shaktipath or diksha, siddhi is attained and on the attainment of siddhi this dualism (Guru-shishya relationship) is surpassed and they are one.

In the Mundamala Tantra, it is said that the root of siddhi is in the Devta. The root of Devta in mantra, root of mantra in initiation and root of initiation lies with the Guru. Just as it is impossible to attain liberation beyond the reach of attribute without worship of the Devta with attributes, so it is impossible to attain monistic knowledge without the worship of the Guru.

For a sadhak there is no force higher than the Guru. Such is the place given to the Guru that no shastra speaks of anything which is superior to devotion towards the Guru. A sadhak should place the Guru and all that is around him or connected with him as the ultimate truth and most sacred; so much so that the place where the Guru resides is considered the abode of Lord Shiva or Kailash; the house in which the Guru lives is Chintamani house. The trees in the Guru’s house are kalpa trees for they would fulfil all the desires of the sadhak. The creepers are kalpa creepers. The water, which flows in any form in the Guru’s abode, is Ganga, which is also the tirtha of kalyug. In short, everything in that sacred place is sacred.

It is in this manner that a devoted sadhak should think of his/her Guru. In the Rudryamala it is said, “The fool who commences japa and tapas by reading books instead of receiving it from the Guru acquires nothing but sin, no one can save him. Guru alone can, in a single moment, destroy the mass of his sins…”

Shastras speak volumes about the greatness and importance of Guru. Earlier yugs saw the transference of gyan only through one way, from the Guru to the shishya, for if gyan could be imbibed by just reading books or listening to discourses, the Guru would not have been given the supreme place in all the yogic and tantrik practices as these sciences and their principles are so deep and profound that they have managed to remain unaltered and unscathed till date.

Where there is no proof of the authenticity of the ancient texts available, the experiences of saints and rishis of yesteryears can be experienced today also, and the energies and gyan revealed to them is revealed today also, to sadhaks who have realised who and what a Guru is, and take the word of their Guru as mantra and follow it with dedication, as strict discipline or niyama. Their journey, which begins when they meet their Guru, requires continuous and dedicated practice and must be followed as niyama culminates into yog.

— Yogi Ashwini is an authority on yoga, tantra and the Vedic sciences. He is the guiding light of Dhyan Foundation.

Contact him at dhyan@dhyanfoundation.com

Positive thinking: The law of karma

2011-12-29T07:37:00.000-08:00

by YOGI ASHWINI
This universe is a balance of positive and negative forces. Everything in the universe, all the laws are circular in movement. Whatever we do comes back to us, either in this or in another form and life.

Every action of ours whether positive or negative releases a force in the universe i.e. whatever we do has to come back to us. But unlike the Newton’s law, the reaction can be greater or lesser and not necessarily equal. This depends on the capacity and the level of subtleness of the action and the level of subtleness of the event or person against whom the action has been performed.

Greater the subtleness, higher will be the magnitude of the reaction. While the time gap in the action and reaction depends on the level of consciousness of the person. Higher the level of consciousness lesser is the time gap and lower the consciousness level, longer is the time.

When a person is born in a rich family it is believed that previous good karmas are responsible for the pleasures and comforts of this lifetime.However,the more powerful the person is,the stronger maya (a tool of the preservers to keep people tied in material life) attacks him . It is said that we are born with nothing and die with nothing. But this is not exactly true.We carry forward the karmas of one life to another like a genetic code and our karmic databank decides the family we will be born in.

We must also not try to hoard and hold on to things, money etc.Anything that is not flowing, stagnates. So money and all that we have more than we need should also be put to good use. All our efforts in our present lifetime must be towards helping others.

Ensure positive thoughts, words and deeds to assure an enriching life ahead.

YOGI ASHWINI'S Miracles

2011-12-28T06:12:00.000-08:00

A miracle is a phenomenon which has remained elusive to mankind despite hearing and reading about it. To make it a reality or tangible, people worship God in various forms and even pay huge sums of money to witness miracles for their health, emotional and financial problems. Yet they are able to change nothing, succumbing to fate and accepting themselves as powerless to make miracles happen. We are fortunate that Yogi Ashwini is a living Master who is here now and he is for real! Its a blessed opportunity to meet Yogi Ashwini in person and interact with the Master and have misconceptions dispelled.

Yogi Ashwini, the guiding light of Dhyan Foundation says, “These miracles are not just possible but it is impossible for them not to happen if you walk on the path of Yog and have sanidhya of a Guru" . These words and his philosophy have been endorsed and validated by the Prestigious Indian Medical Association (IMA) in Mumbai in February 2011 where he was invited by them. Yogi Ashwini’s words, “The world of spirit begins where logic ends” was backed by miracles performed by practitioners of yoga from Dhyan Foundation in the presence of medical fraternity at IMA. They gave clairvoyants of Dhyan Foundation randomly selected images of some sick and some healthy people. The clairvoyant’s in matter of 10 minutes were not just able to identify the sick but also pinpoint the exact diseased area. In the words of the past President Dr. Lele, “Your clairvoyant predictions by looking at the photographs of the subjects which were provided by the Indian Medical Association are 80% accurate, which is good.” At this event there was also a demonstration of strenuous asanas (by practitioners of Sanatan Kriya) and the pulse of the practitioners was noted before and after asanas. IMA has given written validation that the pulse of the practitioner dropped by 15 counts after 50 minutes of strenuous asanas. They also gave us in writing and I quote, “Our perception about yoga and abilities of a Yogi have changed for the positive" After such recognition any prevailing doubts are dispelled, re-affirming that Yogi Ashwini’s book "Sanatan Kriya…51 miracles" is a reality. This book is a compilation of 51 true stories and experiences of people whose lives have been completely transformed by the incredible power of Sanatan Kriya (an encapsulation of Ashtang Yog). All these stories are backed with medical validations of doctors and reputed hospitals and all 51 stories reiterate one fact- the reality of miracles and power of the ultimate science of Yog. The book seeks to present the much elusive phenomena of “miracles" in a very scientific and tangible vernacular minus the hype and myth that usually comes with a package.

In a world that has learnt to reward scepticism and accept pessimism, Yogi Ashwini through the power and efficacy of Yoga gives us hope and awakens us to a new world of magical possibilities that had in reality existed all around us, yet we had been oblivious to its divine power. He has made miracles accessible to a common man and has shown us the power of the final frontier of human journey –Yoga. As you grow in Yoga, miracles become a way of life for you...But then for you they are not miracles anymore but simple laws of nature that you now understand and use for aiding the positive forces of Creation to make this world a happy place to be in, and in the process you too go beyond.

Miracles @ IMA- http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/dhyan-foundation-ima-certification.php

Yogi Ashwini invited by the prestigious Indian Medical Association(IMA) in February 2011

Demonstration of asanas at IMA

One of the doctors checking the pulse. After 50 minutes of strenuous asans pulse came down by 15 counts as noted by the doctor

What a Yog Guru is not...

2011-12-26T03:14:00.000-08:00

"There are millions across the globe who are pulled towards yoga. In the last twenty years, I have interacted with a sizeable number from among them. However, very few have managed to stick on. Given the ‘dropout rate’, I would suggest that each yoga enthusiast must ask himself/herself before venturing into Yog - what is it that they are looking for? Depending on the answer they get, they need to choose whom to approach. In the rarest of the rare cases would the need arise to come to a Yog Guru. For the rest, here are the more ‘viable’ options that must NOT be confused with a Yog Guru.

(Note - This is not an exhaustive list, but covers the more sought after ones. It has been prepared so that you may save your precious time by making the right choice. )

Astrologers - While astrology is a precise science based on calculations and like in mathematics, a 2*2*2 would always be an 8. The twist comes in the various versions of that 8 that one gets to hear on approaching different astrologers. Attaching it to ‘maya’, they have adulterated the science, and as a result can only produce a physical interpretation to it. The more a person is into the physical, the more basic level of predictions – growth in business, lottery tickets, job interview, marital future, how many kids, exam results etc. Nevertheless it can entertain those anxious about their physical future.

Yoga Instructors cum Physical Trainers - This variety prescribes a set of funny postures, rapid breathing exercises and severe diet regimes to rid you of your ailments. While the pain leaves the area in question, it takes entry into other areas within the body and beyond…This (dangerously) dynamic lot is for those who are hell-bent to verify Charaka’s ‘shiryate iti shariram’. (body is something that constantly moving towards destruction)

Vakta - This category includes the pandits and the intelligentsia who know the scriptures verbatim. They can reproduce the most complex slokas and mantras at any given point for they have burnt the midnight oil in quest for knowledge (grossly sidelining the gyaan and experience). They are ideal to impress the ones seeking to tickle their intellect.

Vachak - These are the people who are adept in narrating the stories from the epics. So profound is their understanding of the texts that just listening to them read out from the books is enchanting and emotionally stimulating. Those looking for a feel-good therapy may approach this category.

Healers - The science of healing is rooted in the law of karma. Every disease, every suffering is a product of an individual’s actions in this life and those past. A healer uses his energy to alter the karmas of another person and thus it leads to depletion. I have known many healers, most of whom are sick themselves today having spent their energy in healing for material gain and sans the grace of Guru. My suggestion to ones looking for healers – improve your karmas.

The so-called Tantriks - Here, I am not referring to the practitioner of Tantra (the science of Tanoti-Trayati, ie. Expansion and liberation) but the popular image of tantriks as a scary looking scar-faced man shaking in front of a fire with skulls around and speaking incoherently. Yes, they sure have power but they tap into the lower energies (those of the bhutaal, rasataal, pataal and the like). While you may give it a try but I would like to tell you that you only reflect what is your sadhya. So if the Earth with Sun as its sadhya reflects the light of sun, with the like of bhoot-pret-peshach as your sadhya, you can well imagine what you would reflect.

Magicians- These are by-far the most popular and in the same light the most dangerous of all. They entice you with ‘magic’ in the physical, what one most relates to. I would not recommend this to any. There are enough sources of entertainment.

So if you fall into any of the above-mentioned categories and are thinking of going to a Yog Guru, it is time to rethink. A Yog Guru does not predict your future, give prescriptions, read and memorize texts, deliver lectures, cure diseases or perform magic. He simply carries you on the journey of the spirit, putting you on the path of improving your karmas and wiping off the dust that you have so accumulated, to self-realisation and in turn, union with the supreme."
-Yogi Ashwini

http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/sermon/

Sanatan Kriya- A Complete action

2011-12-24T11:09:00.000-08:00

Sanatan Kriya is an assimilation of ancient sciences and philosophies as were given by the Vedic rishis sixteen thousand years ago, designed specifically to suit the lifestyle of modern man.

It is a measure to stop exploitation of the gullible at hands of sly businessmen selling Yog for personal gains. This one-hour kriya has four parts to it, namely, basic joint rotations, chakra santulan pranayam, paanch mahaprana dhyan and dhyan with Guru.

So what does the kriya do? Just carefully observe the name 'Sanatan Kriya', complete action. It encompasses in totality whatever needs to be done in this entire janam - yam, niyam, asana, pranayaam, pratyahar, dhaarna, dhyan, samadhi. A practitioner of Sanatan Kriya is on the path of Yog, which leads to only one state- that of ananda or complete bliss.

To attain this, a being has to overcome hurdles called experiences - each experience being a new salvation, taking him a step forward from where he was. Everyday I encounter seekers with problems ranging from common cold to those of the cosmos. Yet, all are able to find their answers in Sanatan Kriya. That's because the kriya is designed to facilitate salvation, to each his own.

The benefits of Sanatan Kriya thus come to include anything and everything that is desirable. It works on the simple principles of Prakriti and Santulan. Regular practice of the kriya helps the being to attain a state of balance in all layers of existence - physical, emotional, financial and spiritual. What follows can be best be gauged from the experiences of those who practice it. Every member of Dhyan Foundation is a living example of the power of Sanatan Kriya. They have actually compiled a book 'Miracles- A Way of Life' to share what they have gained…

Sneha Sharma, 23 enjoys the attention she gets from all around her about her glowing skin and shiny hair; a few months ago no one bothered to look at her a second time.

Deccan Herald- http://www.deccanherald.com/content/103965/banner-300x250.swf

Myths about spirituality

2011-12-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

In today’s modern-day world the study of spiritual science has been confused with certain religions or sects that are prevalent. A major myth about spirituality is that people tend to think it as a part of a religion. Religion is a code of conduct prescribed by certain highly evolved souls who have taken birth in the world at a time when they were needed for the benefit of mankind.

A particular group of people following a specific religion is actually following a way of life or a code of conduct and certain practices for its upliftment. No religion can be judged or commented upon by a human being. This domain belongs to the Almighty. Spirituality and religion cannot be equated or compared.
Another major myth about spirituality is that listening to discourses of evolved people and spending time with them would lead to salvation. In the world of the spirit, it means to take us to the subtlest layer of our “ether”. It is definitely possible but the possibility is a very remote one. Because how do we know that the person we are approaching is not just another moneymaker. Newspapers are full of stories of supposedly evolved people indulging in acts, which are considered not so pure and pious by the country’s law! (Are we not law-abiding citizens?) Depending on the law of probability, it is little risky here. To walk on this path, you need a Guru who can guide you. It is a long process. Just listening to a few discourses will not take you towards salvation. Remember how shishyas spent years in gurukuls to learn this science.
Often people equate spirituality with being a sanyasi or use it as a way to escape everyday responsibilities. But spirituality is not the proprietorship of the recluse. When the knowledge was given, you were never supposed to give up everything and go and sit in the mountains. As a human being you are expected to evolve stage by stage. There are levels of dhyan for all the four ashrams prescribed. You start from step one and slowly master each level and then progress, from brahmacharya to grihastha to vanprastha to sanyas.
When Gautam Buddha came back to his palace to visit his wife and child after attaining nirvana, he had commented that for what he had achieved, there was no need to abandon his family. He said it would have been possible to achieve nirvana by staying with his family. The Vedic masters proved this in their daily lives. Majority of them had families and the duties towards the families and society were discharged in a much finer way compared to the modern kalyug man.
The Puranas and the Upanishads are full of stories of rishis and maharishis who were happily married and attained salvation while being grihasthas like rishi Kashyap, rishi Dhadhichi, rishi Gautam, etc. So there is no recommendation for any kind of escapism. Do not forget that a man and a woman both are individually incomplete (concept of Shiva and Shakti); there is the need for a union between them for creation to take place, and once you create you have the responsibility to nurture it also; so escape how, to whom, and from where? We do not find in any book the Lord Shiva, who is also called Mahadeva, at any point letting go of his responsibilities towards Mata Shakti or his family. So what escapism are we talking about?
It is unfortunate that in today’s world, misguided people think that to enter into the spiritual realm, you have to leave your family and responsibilities. I remember here a song from the Bollywood film of the early 1970s Chitralekha, which is appropriate to describe the fallacy of such claims: “Sansar se bhage phirte ho bhagwaan ko tum kya paooge, is lok ko tum apna na sake us lok ko kya apnaoge….” (You try to escape the world, how do you expect to find the Divine; you could not embrace this world, how do you hope to embrace that one).

Read more such articles on Deccan Chronicle- http://wwv.deccanchronicle.com/taxonomy/term/9114/0

or Asian Age - http://www.asianage.com/yogi-ashwini-632

articles in media- http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/articles_media.php

what is yoga?

2011-12-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

Herald- http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/Details.aspx?id=1997&boxid=45153278&uid&dat=11%2F19%2F2011#.Tsfdh7mHtE8.facebook

Unravelling the mystery of ageing with yoga

2011-12-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

Yogi Ashwini from Delhi believes that yoga means integration of the mind and body with the universe and one can be in the moment without actually meditating.

In conversation with NT BUZZ he shared his thoughts on yoga, positive thinking and his new book on anti-ageing
Ageing may be a natural process, but it is in our hands to control it. This is possible with the help of yoga and ayurveda. But, if you thought yoga is only about asanas then think again for according to Delhi-based yoga guru, Yogi Ashwini you are mistaken.
He is of the opinion that, “There are no asanas in yoga. It is all about connection or integration of all aspects of the mind with the body.”
He is now ready with his latest book, ‘Sanatan Kriya - The Ageless Dimension’ that will speak about issues of ageing and remedies to arrest it. He says, “We are the reflection of one cell. The day the baby is born and takes its first breath, the process of ageing sets in. Every breath results in the production of energy and the equal and opposite effect is the ageing of the cell due to the production of toxins, called ‘ama’ in ayurveda.”
His book will list kriyas, tonics and ayurvedic remedies which he has compiled after 20 years of research. “These are the remedies our rishis discovered. Due to this they could maintain their glow till their last breath,” he adds.
He also suggests that ageing is directly related to our thought process. “Ageing is connected to our thought process and is basically reduction of our five senses. Today people who are in their 30s have lost sense of smell and those in their 20s, the sense of touch. These senses are directly related to the emotion of love,” he observes.
He states that a lot of it depends on our breath. The faster we breathe the faster we age. Thus, he is against any physical form of exercise. “The law of physics is that every action has equal and opposite reaction. Thus, when we exert our body through jogging or running, along with the positive effects we are also creating an equal amount of toxins, which are bad for our body,” he explains.
Regarding positive thinking he says that thought is one of the aspects of the body. “There is a way to have a thought process. If the way is not right then thought will not work,” he adds.
On the point of meditation he maintains that the right word is ‘dhyaan.’ “Dhyaan is being in the moment, but mediation is focusing on one point,” he opines.
Elaborating further about yoga he stresses, “Yoga is about increasing the body’s efficiency and it is a comprehensive technique. You don’t have to force your body for that.”
He adds, “Yoga is the ultimate science. There is only one asana mentioned that is Sukham Stiram Asan. It means stability and peace. It is upgradation of energy, which could be done with the help of a guru, and you have to choose your guru.”
He says that one can connect to the natural resources around us, but for that one needs to have a guru. So how can one get the right guru? “Improve your karma to get the right guru,” he concludes.

The Navhind times

The unconventional Yogi Ashwini

2011-12-24T06:54:00.001-08:00

Yoga gurus are usually associated with long saffron robes, flowing beards and a Spartan lifestyle. But the same is not so with unconventional Yogi Ashwini.

His disciples refer to him as "the guiding light of Dhyan Foundation" which has centres in nearly 30 cities around India as well as in the US, UK and Germany.

The foundation says it wants to extend yoga knowledge to the people for free and claims that it is run on voluntary contributions of its volunteers who range from businessmen to doctors and engineers.

On his visit to Goa to make people aware of the true yoga particularly the Sanatan Kriya, the yogi believes that "Yoga is a science. It is an interaction with creation, and is not a religion." "Yoga does not ban anything. I have experienced everything there is to experience,"

Speaking to STOI, the yogi was critical of the commercialization of yoga. "There are a lot of people fooling people in the name of yoga. It is very easy to wear robes, grow a beard...it has become so rampant," says Ashwini.

While many may associate gurus, sadhus and yogis with austerity, the yogi affirms that this is a wrong notion and feels there is nothing wrong in "making money and enjoying it".

Besides yoga, he has other interests too. Having studied economics at the Delhi School of Economics, Ashwini says "I've been into the construction business for the last 25 years, and I still am."

Interestingly, the yogi claims that ageing can be stalled by natural means and has penned a book titled 'Sanatan Kriya, The Ageless Dimension' to provide and insight into anti-ageing.

A strict adherent of the guru-shishya parampara, Yogi Ashwini interacts with his numerous students worldwide one-on-one.

Poonam Kapoor, a disciple who was present told STOI, "there are no words to describe the yoga experience we have. Sanatan Kriya is 45 minutes of connecting with the guruji."

- Times of India

Yogi Ashwini- A rare blend of the real and ethereal, of the modern and the ancient and a personification of Vedic knowledge

2011-12-19T22:07:00.000-08:00

In the age of (mis)information, a Yogi becomes an author to change the mass mindset about Yoga.
A self-realized soul or Yogi does not have to be an author but under exceptional circumstances. Yogi Ashwini is one such author.
A rare blend of the real and ethereal, of the modern and the ancient and a personification of Vedic knowledge, He has been driven to writing by the sheer concern over the popular myths about yoga.
As He looks at it, popular interpretation and misunderstanding of the subject are bad enough. But He is even more pained at the exploitation-- both commercial and sexual-- in the name of Yoga and the other ancient spiritual sciences of India.
That this is happening in the age of information makes it rather ironical. For example, you just have to type the word, “Tantra”, on the net to get scores of thousands of websites that link this great Indian system of knowledge to sex. In reality, it is the ultimate formula for liberation from the limiting five senses and into the subtler realms of existence. Sex is too base to have any place in these realms.
Similarly, the saffron robes that originally signify renunciation, detachment and the sacrifice of ego (that keeps an individual tied up in selfish knots) are being worn by power-hungry politicians, greedy businessmen and conmen.
The charlatans and the businessmen are exploiting the vulnerable and the gullible through the mass media and through cleverly-written literature and books, promising miracle cures.
It is to stem the tide of misinformation and exploitation that Yogi Ashwini took to writing books, after “Thoughts of the Inner World”, a compilation of His discourses was published.
In the last five years, He has written two books and contributed to one—on His subject, Sanatan Kriya, which, according to Him, is “the essence of Yoga.”
In fact, the first book is titled, “Sanatan Kriya, The Essence of Yoga.”
Sanatan Kriya, meaning, the complete technique, is a Yogic Kriya based on Vedic texts that encapsulates all the eight limbs of Sage Patanjali’s Ashtang Yog. The focus of Sanatan Kriya is on breath and posture, it is simple to do; involves no complicated twists and turns of the body and has a phenomenal impact on the physical, mental and emotional health of a person.
The Kriya is ideal for a serious practitioner of Yog as it prepares a person for connectivity to the subtler layers of existence.
Sanatan Kriya is being taught at the Indian Medical Association; hospitals, including the Research and Referral Hospital of the Indian Army; schools like Sanskriti School and Delhi Public School; MNCs like Wipro, Infosys and Cisco; India’s Public Sector Undertakings and to the security forces, including the Delhi Police.
The second book, “Sanatan Kriya: 51 Mircales and a haunting” is a compilation of the personal stories of people, who experienced miraculous cures from life-threatening ailments and situations, thanks to the practice of Sanatan Kriya.
The book validates the experiences with names and pictures of those narrating their stories as also with medical certificates.
Yogi Ashwini’s contribution to this book is limited to “Guruspeak” atop every story in which He explains how the miracles happened. In some cases, He does so with a complete description of the past lives of the narrators, a fascinating element of the book, because it gives you a peep into the abilities of a Yogi and His connectivity to the world that lies beyond the reach of the average person.

The latest book, “Sanatan Kriya, The Ageless Dimension”, based on Vedic texts, is a thesis on anti-ageing.
Book Synopsis: The book explains and critically examines the process of ageing in the human body. It suggests remedies for arresting the ageing process and maintaining “THAT” youthful look till your last breath.
Techniques for enhancing the length and quality of life are explained in the book along with recipes for diet to combat the process of ageing. There is a mention of certain rare rasayans for rejuvenating the body and maintaining youth. The techniques have been taken from Shiv Samhita, Grehand Samhita, Charak Samhita, Hatha Yoga Pradipika and other ancient, some, nearly extinct texts.
Studies by various American and other western and eastern universities, which corroborate certain techniques, have also been quoted.
The book explains in detail the complex process of ageing in all the five layers of the body and provides remedies and solutions to combat this.
Yogi Ashwini firmly believes that if the Rishis of the yore could maintain their youth and glow till the end of a very long life, leave the body in full consciousness and awareness and even know where they were going, so can the modern man.
Nearly twenty years of research has gone into Yogi Ashwini’s book, a step-by-step practical guide to the anti-ageing techniques.
The bonus comes in the form of a list of various harmful chemicals and radiations present in modern day products, authenticated by western studies.
The book also provides rare and authentic substitutes and formulae for preparing these substitutes at home along with a list of certain companies which, even in this day and age, manufacture unadulterated and pure products.

A note on the other aspects of Yogi Ashwini, the Author:
All the three books on Sanatan Kriya have been bestsellers, but a realized soul like Yogi Ashwini neither needs money nor fame that the books bring: The proceeds from the books all go to charity and He takes a byline for them only for the sake of connectivity with the readers. Left to Himself, He wrote—for several mainline publications, including The Times of India, anonymously, for 15 long years-- to keep the focus on what was being written rather than on who was writing it.
He is a householder, who works for a living and leads a regular life while never losing focus of the purpose of His life revealed to Him by His Guru: to educate whoever He can about the exploitation happening in the name of Yog.

When Search And Research Go Together
Yogi Ashwini’s search for Truth began 20 years ago—after His mother fell prey to cancer. The modern doctors gave her three years to live after the cancer was discovered. In those three years, Yogi Ashwini literally ran from pillar to post for an alternative cure, including the spiritual. The mother, however, died just when the modern doctors had predicted she would.
It made Him think: modern medicine is just about 200 years old but it predicted accurately. The Indian healing sciences were documented 4,500 years ago and the healers He approached for His mother claimed to be masters of these. Why did they fail in giving a cure?
Then began His research into the body, mind and soul. Inexorably, Yogi Ashwini was led to the all-encompassing ancient Indian systems of thought, available in the form of the Vedas and the Puranas. They contain entire treatise on all aspects of life, its continuity and the art of dying.
Blessedly, He found His Guru during these years.
The pall of gloom on account of the mother’s premature death lifted. He realized the purpose of life, even that of suffering. In short, He was on the path of self-realization/Yog. More revelations were to follow, the most important being, “The only doing that counts is the doing for the other.”
He says that although the journey of each individual is exclusive, the shortest cut to the goal of self-realization is service. In His parlance, “service” is a very broad word. It not only means healing, patient care, touching the have-not through free education and feeding the hungry, but also empowering the masses with knowledge about the profound system of thought that is yoga.
It takes a person of His modern mindset to know that it is the mass media which is mainly responsible for the misinformation about the profound and precise spiritual sciences, and that, it is through the mass media that the right information would be spread. So, Yogi Ashwini has made it His mission to share the knowledge with the world through talks, interviews, signed articles and books. (ends)

http://writing.wikinut.com/Self-Seeker/2j.lkbut/

Heads of more than 190 countries are currently meeting at Durban to discuss action to be taken on the climate change issue. What advice would you offer to governments and individuals on how to live in harmony with the environment?

2011-12-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

"The environment is nothing but a reflection of an individual at the micro level and the entire society at a macro level. What we think manifests. That is the principle behind the theory of collective consciousness, which translated at the level of a normal man amounts to democracy ie voting for your favourite candidate, (environment in this case), the problem being here that we have voted for selfishness and are stiffing ourselves... so is the environment. There has been more pollution on the planet in the last 100 years than it has been in the last 4,000 years; the last 40 years have been worst. It's interesting to see that these last 100 years have witnessed: a] Industrial revolution, which amounts to produce more artificial products on the basis of innovation, depleting the scarce resources of the planet further, polluting the air and water and creating more waste. b] Green revolution, which amounts to increasing the chemical input of the agriculture sector resulting in polluting the water and soil and adding to the chemical intake of humans, the results of which can be seen in any doctor's clinic or hospital. c] Travel boom, the result again being creation of more vehicles and aircraft polluting the air and the skies, in all developed countries residential areas are kept away from airports as studies point towards more lung cancer cases in people who live near airports. d] Nuclear power, the results have been seen in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima and Chernobyl to name a few known cases; in unknown cases selling of radioactive waste in the market by the esteemed Delhi University and many such non reported events... The results of the above are enough to give sleepless nights to any honest journalist or leader of a country. The environment is like the womb of the mother the pollution of which would kill us. The main reason for the above has been the selfish nature of man to want more and more on the underlying theory of profit and innovation, maximisation. To maximise profit one would have to cut costs and when we do that we cut our own lifeline. And that is the basis of climate change... and the environment. So control your selfish urges and live like our ancestors did, in harmony with nature. May I recommend simple solution, Agnihotra havan, which changes the thought process of an individual, from selfishness to selflessness, removing the basic source of pollution, i.e. selfish mind. "-Yogi Ashwini

Read Yogiji's views on other such current issues (FDI, corruption,etc) ..http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/questions.cms

Go Back To Basics

2011-12-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/popups/article.php?aid=287

What is Charity?

2011-11-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

The simplest definition of charity is when you do something for someone without expecting anything in return for it. If someone asks, it obviously means he needs it and your duty is to redistribute what God has given to you. For a Sadhak the path is to evolve, to reach a higher state of being and to reach a higher state of being. Charity is one of the 5 Yama defined in the 8 fold path of Yoga which a Sadhak has to practice for evolution.

Let us take up the example of a person who goes in a function and has donated a lot of money. He goes up on a stage and announces his contribution in front of the audience.Would you call this charity? No, this is a business. The gentleman has used his money to buy appreciation and praise for himself. He has exchanged his money for some name and satisfaction of his ego.Charity should be like—the left hand should not know what the right hand is doing because it is not the right hands business to know. One should give irrespective of what use it will be put to. There should not be any judgment whatsoever.

We always believe that one should not give it (money) to someone who will not use it in the right way. We first make a judgment whether a person needs money and then we give it. That person whatever he chooses to do with the money is not your business.In Gita (Lord Krishna) says that judgment is only in my hands. In order to judge another human, you ought to be perfect first and we know that only God is perfect and no one else.Judgment is a state of mind and this state of mind will interfere with the charity you are doing. This charity will be done for some satisfaction. So effectively what you have performed is a business transaction, bought satisfaction by giving something.We all have heard of Karna in Mahabharata. He used to pray to the sun god and every morning after the puja, when he would turn around, whoever came and asked him for something/ anything, he would just give it.

If you have something, you should feel lucky that someone has to ask you for something. If you have something and before giving, you want to ascertain what he will use it for, then this means only one thing—which you think the wealth is yours and you have the power to judge. This is the first step of attachment and is not correct.

Now the question arises does Charity need always be in monetary terms. Charity need not be with money; charity can be kind words, can be helping someone, can be teaching or doing service for someone without expecting anything in return. Your work is only to act and do your karma as a channel and not count your blessings.

If you feel satisfied within, that means that this physical world belongs to you. When giving, you should not have any feelings. It should be just like walking. If you walk, you do it to get from A to B. You can enjoy the walk but do not get attached to it. If you get attached to it, then you will get stuck in that and will forget the purpose of your walk.

The purpose of Sadhna is evolution and as you evolve you move up the Pyramid becoming responsible for all under you. A sadhak takes on this responsibility voluntarily and Charity is the foremost and the most important tool towards this evolution.

Sanatan Kriya workshop, Indian Medical Association, East Delhi

2011-10-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

Miracles @ IMA

2011-09-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

"Our perception about yoga and the abilities of a yogi have changed for the positive."

- Indian Medical Association

There comes a moment, in the history of mankind, an event that challenges the existing perceptions in the court of evidence and redefines them forever. As a result evolving humanity & taking it to the next level. This truly, is one such event. When arguably the only exponent of Ancient Vedic Sciences in the modern era and the living master himself, Yogi Ashwini, proved its power and ability to the medical community at the Indian Medical Association.

Watch this historic event for yourself at:

http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/dhyan-foundation-ima-certification.php

It is time we accept that there exists a highly advanced science, infact THE ULTIMATE SCIENCE of the spirit- YOG which is beyond the understanding of the "logical mind" yet no less scientific.

It is time we WAKE UP!

Yog For Hidden Potential

2011-09-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

Add caption

How Clean Are You?

2011-09-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

If done right, a Havan is one of the best ways to cleanse the environment. It is also the oldest, writes Yogi Ashwini

Ancient Indians had excelled in everything from Geometry to Grammar, Physics and Medicine, along with spiritual quests. Huston Smith asserted the supremacy of Vedic Sciences over modern astronomy. He said, “While the West was still thinking, perhaps, of a 6,000-year-old universe, India was already envisioning ages and eons and galaxies as numerous as the sands of the Ganga.” German philosopher Schopenhauer found solace in the Upanishads. “It has been the solace of my life; it will be the solace of my death,” he declared. Voltaire was convinced that, everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganga — Astronomy, Astrology, Metaphysics. The great mathematician Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganga to learn Geometry.

The civilisation that knew so much lived in perfect harmony with nature. Compare this with what we have done in the modern era. In the thousands of years of human existence, pollution has never reached such a high level so as to make the environment unfit for living. What is it that the ancients did different from what we are doing now? Was it selflessness, as opposed to today’s selfish behaviour? Contamination first manifests in the mind as a selfish thought. Self-centred thoughts permeate in society, creating distrust and greed, which deplete natural resources. The increasing corruption as well as self-centredness makes the world not such a nice place to be in.
The ancients gave us the key to purify the environment, through practices such as the havan or the sacred fire ritual.

In Kalyug, havans have become quick-fix solutions to problems; mantra recital is often flawed, with wrong pronunciation. Grey smoke that emanates from the altar is an irritant.

A havan is food for the Divine; to seek the Gods’ blessings for a cleaner and purer environment. The samagri or mixture, samedha meaning wood and ghrit or cow’s ghee used in the havan should be unadulterated. The intention of those participating in the havan should be pure. Lastly, the uchharan or pronunciation of the mantras must be flawless, with correct emphasis on crests and troughs. All these, when combined, ensure that offerings made to the fire are sent in their purest form to the Divine, thereby bringing about desired transformation.

If done right, even during the longest of havans, people feel serene and peaceful. The smoke that comes out of the agni is aromatic; it cleanses the environment and dissipates negative energy. The havan releases positive vibrations in the environment and removes toxicity. This is the reason why yogis always have a fire lit and yet they stay healthy because the element of fire can never be polluted.

To witness and experience for yourself a true vedic havan write into us at info@dhyanfoundation.com or call 9999567895/9654156556

Should spiritual leaders take to politics?

2011-06-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

Science of the spirit or spirituality is a practical and experiential; there is no ambiguity in it. A spiritual practitioner does not leave anything, as yoga does not have any rituals lifestyle or diet...Yog sets you free. On the other hand it is said in your initial years of practice you try and indulge in whatever that you desire, but holding the hand of your guru. It is said that what is not good for you will automatically leave you, your desires would be fulfilled and you shall go beyond your five senses to higher senses; to a much more happier peaceful and satisfying state, a state unperceived by the five basic senses hence cannot be explained to a basic human being with just five active senses.

Anybody who is joining politics wearing saffron obviously is at an initial stage of the practice and is trying to collect power (physical); definitely not the signs of a Yog guru. The role of the media becomes very important here as today the pen is mightier than the sword...if the media calls someone a guru then the masses believe so..the problem is that the media should learn to differentiate between the real and the reel, of course accepting the real and respecting it.

A spiritual leader can do whatever he or she so desires to do and whatever is the need of the hour...but not for his personal gain, only for the society. Wearing saffron is no license nor a block to do anything permissible under the law of the land. Spiritual leaders have never collected wealth for themselves and have never sat on the throne to rule ,they have always corrected what is incorrect and then gone back to their sadhna ,or have given their life in the path of their duty, Christ and the Sikh Gurus are examples of spiritual people. Just any one propagating to be a spiritual Guru and getting endorsement from the media is no criteria to be an evolved soul and last but not the least, spiritual Gurus face death or injury smilingly...they don't run away from it.

-Yogi Ashwini

Journey of the soul

2011-05-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Soul is a unique pranic frequency. In unmanifested form it exists as part of Para Brahma, just as salt exists in ocean. Only when it desires a certain experience or a set of experiences does it choose to go through the cycle ofkarmas, birth and death. The basic reason or the root cause of the soul separating from the source is ego that recognises one’s existence as an individual. The ancients called it “asmita”, or “I”. This was the first step we took when we separated ourselves from the Divine Consciousness, which is Sukshma-iti-Sukshma, subtlest of the subtle, the unmanifested.

Ego led the soul to realise that it is an individual and so came into existence the jeevatma. The individual consciousness combined with chitta formsjeevatma. Chitta or chetna is all pervading and resides in each one of us asbuddhi. Buddhi is unlimited mind. It has the potential to become once again unlimited from the limited but it remains shadowed by manas the sheath, which blurs its vision, which provides logic to the mind and fetters it with thevrittis. Together, buddhi and manas form the chitta. The jeevatma, chitta and vrittis unite with panchmahabhutas (five elements) to take form of a human being. As the soul separates itself from the source, the distance is directly proportional to the evolution of the soul. For example, a droplet of water when it leaves the clouds, is pure, but in its journey towards the Bhuloka, it gathers dust. Further it travels, more contaminated it gets, and finally when it touches the ground it becomes dirty. This phenomenon is similar to the journey of the soul. Now to go back it needs to do tapas, i.e. heat itself and get rid of the impurities. Only then would it covert into vapour and get rid of the bandhan of form, shape and ego.

The three states of chitta are conscious, unconscious and subconscious. They exist because of desires, the reason the soul chose to take the journey called life. These desires form a circular pattern like ripples in water and go on expanding and contracting, keeping the soul entangled in their movement. Till the time there are vrittis, the soul is tied up with the objects of the senses. It is through the senses that the vrittis operate and keep the chitta occupied with the desire of one object or the other. They operate at every level; the conscious, unconscious and subconscious. Therefore, complete consciousness is not achieved. It is only when the disturbances (vrittis) become still that complete consciousness is achieved and the soul realises its true self. This is the state of dhyan, achieved by the practices of yog. That is why yog is defined by sage Patanjali as “chitta vritti nirodh”: to stop the activities of the chitta, to still the thoughts emerging from desires so that the vision becomes clear.

Let us understand how maya operates on the human mind through the senses and keeps the soul entangled in the web of karmas. Maya is said to be the most potent tool of Lord Vishnu, the energy responsible for preservation. The sole purpose is to keep the creation going, keep the soul indulging in karmas. A human being is all the time — when awake (conscious), sleeping (subconscious) or unconscious — running after one object, or the other, as the desires of the soul are fulfilled only through the five senses. Ayurved says that at any given point of time, one of our senses is always at work. That is to say, even if we think we are sitting and enjoying the pleasure of two or three senses, like watching TV, eating food, holding hands with our loved ones, we can experience only one of these pleasures. If you’re watching something, in that instance you can’t experience touch; and when you’re relishing the taste of a particular food you’re not watching. But the reason you’re feeling all of these together is because the senses alternate or juggle so fast that you don’t realise the time gap between these experiences. A human being is running after the pleasure of the senses all the time. It is evident as even when you are sleeping your eyeballs are not still. Not many of us know that the most active muscles in the body are not the heart but the eye muscles. Eyes become still when complete consciousness is achieved, when the mind is still and the senses are not at play. This is the state of pratyahar, a state not possible without the practices of yog. When the senses are still, the mind becomes still and a complete focus on dhyan is experienced. Dhyan is that state when the mind is completely still and visions disappear. What you experience is beyond the realm of senses — secrets of the universe are revealed to you. When this state prolongs and awareness expands, the fourth state of consciousness (after conscious, sub-conscious, unconscious) is achieved. It is called turaiya, where buddhi disintegrates and the three states are awakened and active. Therefore, complete consciousness is achieved and truth is revealed. You are given a glimpse of what you truly are — the ego dissolves, and the state of atma sakshatkar is achieved. The soul realises the true self.

The events of a person’s life are the experiences that the soul chooses to go through. When the soul as a result of the positive karmas of the past life meets the Guru, only then it chooses to go back to the state it came from. With the blessing of the Guru, it chooses the path of sadhana, the path of evolution and reaches the state of complete merger. The journey of the spirit gets completed there. This state is described by ancient rishis as “Aham Brahmasmi”, “I am like Brahma” — not Brahma but part of the unmanifested, or to say looking similar to Brahma, like salt in the ocean.

Detachment Is Key To Life

2011-05-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

by Yogi Ashwini

We all know that we come in this world alone and go back alone. We will not be accompanied by anyone, no matter how close or dear we are to them, or they to us. Pause a minute and think: A majority of our problems stem from our near and dear ones. That is, relatives, immediate family, enemies and friends, not from someone unknown. You will also find that the rootcause of arguments, fights, emotional turmoil, congestions, broken relationships and business losses are also these very people. So it is safe to conclude that for the greater part of our lives we get troubled, not by absolute strangers but by people who are known to us.

Your relationship with every individual is a result of one basic principle — as you sow so shall you get. It is a mere give and take. This give and take is a payback of our karma from our previous births and from this lifetime. You get associated with people because they need something from you and you need something from them too. Without any level of dependency or give and take you will not remain in touch with people. The amazing fact is that you remain caught in this cycle of give and take lifetime after lifetime. This is the state of the common man; he forgets that he is alone, he then gets troubled by those seeming to be close to him. Such a turbulent life leads to innumerable ailments and diseases, hyperactivity and a general state of dishevelment.
In contrast, a practitioner of Sanatan Kriya, who follows the path of yoga and sadhana, reaches a state of detachment wherein he does not get affected by anyone or any situation or for that matter by anything that happens around him. Neither is the practitioner troubled by anyone nor does he trouble anyone. While this state is devoid of emotional congestion it does not imply that he is missing out on any aspect of life. It’s like how it happens in a videogame. Once you have crossed a particular level you won’t go back to it for there are better, more exciting levels ahead. Similarly, while the body indulges in pleasures, it is merely experiencing the pleasure and not attaching itself to it.
Yogic techniques and practices prescribed in Sanatan Kriya reveal that the rootcause of a majority of problems lies in our Surya Chakra located in the solar plexus region. This chakra is highly volatile and forms connections with everyone we meet in our daily life. These connections can be seen clairvoyantly, as tubes or strings. Constant exchange of energy of varying frequencies through these connections between people slowly congest the free flow of energy.

We all know that your body is like a beautiful flowing river of energy called prana. And any congestions or blockages in this channel will obstruct the flow of prana. Interestingly, this is also the region where the thymus gland, responsible for immunity and preservation, is located and also all organs that preserve the body. Due to congestions the chakra gets into a state of imbalance and may get depleted or hyperactive. These etheric congestions manifest on the physical in the form of shortness of breath or deranged stomach. Physical ailments like asthma, high blood pressure and arthritis follow and if this imbalance continues for a long period of time it can cause irreversible damages, even cancers! The very fact that you would not find anyone who is emotionally congested (for a period of time) and yet remains healthy in the long run substantiates the above. Detachment is the key.

It has been observed that regular practice of Sanatan Kriya helps decongest the chakras and brings a beautiful flow and balance of prana in the being. Relief from chronic ailments happens to be one of the byproducts of this practice.

Dhyan Foundation gets validation from Indian Medical Association (IMA)

2011-03-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

Great news to all! Dhyan Foundation gets validation from the scientific community.

The prestigious Indian Medical Association (IMA) has validated the power and efficacy of Yoga.

It fills our heart with great joy and pride, to share with you this rather special news. The event held in February 2011, Mumbai, marks the renaissance of Ancient Yogic Sciences in the modern times, and one that should delight all true practitioners of Yoga.

Some of the miracles performed by practitioners of yoga from Dhyan Foundation in the presence of the medical fraternity were:

Dropping of pulse rates during 50 minutes of strenuous asanas without rest

Pin-pointing areas of disease with complete accuracy by looking at the Aura (from pictures of total strangers given by IMA without meeting or even knowing the people’s names)

After examining the above demonstration, Dr. Jayesh Lele, Imm. Past President, Indian Medical Association said, “Your clairvoyant predictions by looking at the photographs of the subjects which were provided by the Indian Medical Association are 80% accurate, which is good.” He further added, “This is a first-of-its-kind experiment at the Indian Medical Association and a unique experience for us."

This, Dr. Parthiv Sanghvi, Hon. Joint Secretary, Indian Medical Association reiterated by saying, “As Dr. Lele just pointed out, 80% of the (clairvoyant) comments matched the diagnosis.Without knowing anything about the patients, if you can have such a good co-relation rate, I think that’s very nice.”

Regarding the dropping of the pulse rate the IMA has even given a written validation that the pulse rate of a practitioner dropped by 15 counts after 50 minutes of strenuous asans. He then announced, “We have today, changed for the positive our opinion on yog and a yogi.”

Visit the link below and see it for yourself :

http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/dhyan-foundation-ima-certification.php

Dhyan Foundation Yoga Retreat

2010-12-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

Dhyan Foundation Yoga Retreat
2nd-4th December, New Delhi
As part of its commitment to share the gift of Yog with all those who seek, Dhyan Foundation* organised a Yoga Retreat from 2nd-4th December, 2010. Set in the clean and green environs of TERI campus, the 3-day Yoga Retreat was truly unique and saw seekers from all over the world make full use of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn Yoga from the Master Himself, Yogi Ashwini. A modern Living Master, any opportunity to interact with Yogi Ashwini is one full of surprises and marked by unforgettable experiences. The recently concluded Yoga Retreat was no different. By the time a modest seeming 3-day Retreat neared consummation, participants had experienced realms that were well and truly beyond time and space, something that truly surpassed any expectations they might have had.The mornings hosted special chants and invocations followed by vitalising Asana sessions to prepare for the afternoon and evening sessions with Yogi Ashwini. Sessions with Yogi Ashwini were keenly awaited, very special and invariably leave the participants baffled and at a loss for words and logic. During one such session, He took the participants through Past Life Regression, and the experiences were nothing short of extraordinary. Many advanced practices were taught by Yogi Ashwini Himself and again the results were immediate and for everyone to see!
So unique and rewarding was the Yoga Retreat experience that everyone was just left asking this one question: When is the next Retreat and where?!

Dharma in sync with nature

2010-10-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

Yog is to be one with nature. In this sense, anything that follows the code of nature is in yog. Suppose we observe the things around us, say a tree...

Green leaves, branches spreading far and wide, fruits and flowers, a tall thick trunk and roots that run deep into the ground -- that's what we would expect to see. Now, if one were to imagine a tree devoid of these attributes, would it still be called a tree? Why doesn't a tree (even in our imagination) exist without these attributes? This is because each of these individual traits is indispensable for the tree to perform its dharma.

A tree withstands the vagaries of nature – storms, downpours and floods – to protect the flora, fauna and soil. A tree provides for those around it – animals, birds and insects with food and shelter, as nurturer and healer. A tree purifies the air around it, binds the soil together, participates in causing rain, a tree decomposes to enrich the earth and it befriends the environment. The tree imbibes the character of strength and stability, of tallness and of expanse, of benevolence and of selflessness, and that of not succumbing to adversities. All of which means that a tree performs its dharma.

Dharma is not religion. It is the lifeline that keeps Creation going. For a lay person, dharma is the code of nature, that which sustains Creation, something which is inherent in every microcosm and is thus instinctive to human existence; but that whose awareness we are losing on account of ignorance.

It is the dharma of every one of us to protect those who are weaker; to feed all persons, animals and plants in the vicinity; to provide clothing and shelter to those in need and give according to each one's capacity. We need to protect, conserve and nurture the environment, avoid pollution, and foster holistic growth and abundance. It is our dharma to develop strength of character such that we are able to deal with injustice and exploitation.

With ignorance comes increasing incidence of adharma. It is time for resurrection of lost principles and values and it is time for conservation through the practices of yog. Sanatan Kriya accounts for basic purification of a being so that he may progress undeterred on the path of truth and non-violence, non-stealing and non-hoarding, as laid down by Vedic seers.

"Shaucha, santosha, swaadhyaya, tapas, ishwar pranidhan niyama'' is the Vedic way to develop 'human' character. Shaucha refers to observance of intrinsic and extrinsic cleanliness as well as purity of thought. Santosha may be understood as contentment in what one has – this motivates one towards growth, devoid of greed and with consideration for others.

Swaadhyaya is synonymous with constant evaluation of the self so that one may correct oneself promptly at the slightest deviation from dharma. Tapas involves heating oneself through selfless labour, service and charity – it is this heat that facilitates the evolution of a being. Ishwar Pranidhan or submission to the Divine Will at all times while dedicating all that one does to the Supreme Energy ensures that all deeds are in line with dharma.

Vedic rishis earmarked the first quarter of human life for the study of dharma. Only then he was to venture into subsequent purusharthas of artha and kama. Only that being who is conscious of his dharma can transcend worldly pleasures and experiences to enter the realm of moksha or the highest good.

Read more: Dharma in sync with nature - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/spirituality/speaking-tree/Dharma-in-sync-with-nature/articleshow/6690989.cms#ixzz11h3J8Abp

Gurur Bramha, Gurur Vishnu...

2010-07-30T23:36:00.000-07:00

Guru a word, a four-lettered word, has the phenomenal potential of taking you beyond, beyond not the pains and miseries of life but beyond yourself. In other words, beyond what you know yourself as, opening the doors to the higher worlds and taking you through experiences which turn you from a normal being to a super being. So let us go beyond these four letters, into the energy of these four letters, to fathom this phenomenal force.

A guru-shishya relationship is beyond the ambit of maya or a commercial transaction. Guru does not charge a material fee for what he gives you, for it is said that material is maya and it binds you to the physical and someone who himself is bound with the physical cannot take you beyond. Guru has to take you beyond the clutches of maya to give you the real experience.
In vedic philosophy the highest place and regard is given to the energy called Guru. Guru is not a physical being; Guru is the energy considered even higher than Para Brahma, the divine consciousness. The first Guru, or Adi Guru, is Lord Ardhanarishwar, Lord Shiva Himself. He is the energy responsible for dissolution and transformation of all forms of existence. Souls who have completed their experiences of the physical world and want to go back to the source adopt the path of evolution and go back to where they came from. This is the journey of the spirit that cannot be completed without a Guru.
Guru is not our guide or teacher. His every word, every indication is divine word, divine indication. For a sadhak (practitioner) Guru is the Divine incarnate.
We all are bound by our limited senses and cannot think beyond what the individual mind perceives. To go beyond the limitations of the body and the senses, one has to gradually evolve or transform — one cannot learn, just have the knowledge and go beyond. It’s the Guru who gradually gives you the experience so that you gently transform and are finally liberated.
Guru’s shakti (force) is not limited, as the energy is anant (endless), akhand (expansive). A shishya should always consider the word spoken by his Guru as a mantra. Ancient rishis have emphasised the mahima of Guru in a shloka: “Dyhana moolam Guru moorti, puja moolam Guru padam, mantra moolam Guru vakyam, moksha moolam Guru kripa” (the root where dhyana comes from is Guru’s form, puja or any form of austerities a disciple practices comes from the lotus feet of the Guru, root of mantra is Guru’s word and root of liberation, moksha, only lies in Guru’s blessings).
Only those who are blessed can see beyond the egoistic perception of the limited senses and do not use the mind to make the mistake of assessing this energy for what is unlimited cannot be assessed by a limited mind.
Guru-shishya parampara is the world’s oldest system of evolution and learning and its power and ability can be judged from the fact that it is still being practiced today. Most successful people in various fields would always have a Guru. Guru can be a physical being or a material object; it is not the shape and form which is important but the energy which a Guru holds and the ability to channelise it into the shishya.
Guru Purnima holds the highest place in yogic philosophy for it is the day when the Guru’s force is in full bloom and is very easily accessible. Just like on a full moon night the moon’s magnetism is at its height, similarly on Guru Purnima a Guru’s glow is at its height and merely being in your Guru’s presence can have amazing effects on your evolution and give phenomenal experiences to the inner world.

what is yoga?

2010-07-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

SANATAN KRIYA for youth and radiance

2010-06-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

Sanatan Kriya (synthesized by Yogi Ashwini), as the word "SANATAN" indicates is a complete kriya, complete meaning, that it covers all the aspects of a human being and it balances all the layers of individual human existence.

A human being is not just what the five senses perceive, as a blind man can not sea a human body but can touch it, taste it ,hear it or smell it,simillarly in a normal human being there is activation of just the five senses and 8 to 10% of brain activity,with this limited activity he or she can only perceive the basic sheath of existence ,this sheath is made up of the five basic elements viz.Earth,Air,Water,Fire and Ether.The five active senses are able to perceive this sheath and falsely the limited brain takes this perception to be the complete human being.

The proof that their exists other senses lies in the fact that each one of us knows someone who at some stage in life has had a premonition or has had a brush with the paranormal, both of these are beyond the scope of the logical mind and the five basic senses ,the very fact that we are reading this magazine indicates that we know that something exists beyond and are willing to search for it,of course the search always begins with the limited senses which in this case is our eyes and logical mind which reade's this article.

Sanatan kriya is a tool of the Vedic seers which activates the higher senses inside us so that we are able to perceive, our higher bodies through the sixth and the seventh sense,the basic Sanatan Kriya is limited to activating the sixth and the seventh sense only,anyone desirous of activating the higher doorways needs to take up Yog seriously.We have a total of sixteen senses and a total of five layers of existence and seven dimensions [www.dhyanfoundation.com].

Sanatan Kriya is based on two simple laws, the first that the basis of the human body is the single cell, which is limited in pranic energy [life force ] and is not renewable. The second that as long as there is a balance in the body [five layers] the body's youth can be maintained for as long, without any external procedures or aides.An animal which breathes faster dies faster,its this fact which is he basis of these laws,the kriya brings about an increase inn the efficiency level s of the cell which in turn now needs less oxygen resulting in less combustion and hence a healthier and longer life of the cell.

The youth and radiance which Yogi Ashwini radiates is enough proof of the effectiveness of this practice. Lets see the Sanatan Kriya in a gist.

1. Chakra santulan pranayama requires one to point the palms towards all the chakral points, fleetingly stopping at every chakra while following ujjai breathing pattern. Seven cycles of this practice are very effective in harmonizing the chakras and bringing them into a state of equilibrium by distributing prana between all the chakras removing the imbalances.

2. Pancha mahaprana dhyan energises the energy body by directing the five basic elements which comprise the body. By joining the fingertips, which represent the elements, earth, water, fire, air and ether, in various combinations, the state of elements can be manipulated and modified according to individual constitution. As the body comprises of the five elements every cell of the body rejuvenates with this practice followed by the chakra santulan pranayama.

3. Dhyana with the Guru, the most potent part of this kriya establishes your connection with the energy which introduces one to the miraculous world of yoga. While sitting with the eyes closed, from the centre of the chest, the anahat chakra, the practitioner connects to the Guru who then gives him the glimpse of the higher manifestations of consciousness, which reveal themselves in the state of dhyana. It is from this state of consciousness changes translate into the physical bodies of practitioners, which are often termed as miracles in normal course of life. A testimony of 51 such instances are compiled in the book “Sanatan Kriya 51 miracles, and a haunting”.

The Dhyan Foundation teaches Sanatan Kriya across the globe without any fee or charges. The kriya gently brings the practitioner close to prakriti(nature), which is a state of balance, the result is a glowing body in harmony with its surroundings.

For more information on Sanatan Kriya visit www.dhyanfoundation.com

PEARLS BEFORE SWINES

2010-04-10T01:17:00.000-07:00

PEARLS BEFORE SWINES

YOGI ASHWINI

The saying ‘Don’t waste pearls before swines’ traces its origin back to the time when Gyan of Geeta was rendered by Shri Krishna. It has a deep meaning attached to it. How can we ignore the immense knowledge or rightly the Gyan that the people of that era had.  Yoga is a practice, which requires a very strict discipline and a Guru, and, if either is missing there can be no Yoga. It is said that the knowledge or the Gyan should not be wasted in front of the people who don’t value it. That is to say that Gyan should not be imparted in front of the people who come to listen to the discourse not with the aim of imbibing some Gyan but with the sole purpose of defying it or arguing on it or showing disrespect to it. These people are not searching, they are only looking to prove to the world how great they are and much they know, these are people who are ruled by their ego’s.  

A lot of energy is lost in initiating a person on the path of Sadhna by way of shaktipath and if this energy is channelised towards initiating the uninterested or people in the path who are bound to leave it in between, then this energy goes waste. The people who are not interested in the path of Sadhna are a mere drain on the energy of the initiator and are no good for the mankind. That is why it is even mentioned in the Geeta.

Today its surprising to see how people go about introducing the Yogic practices without proper instructions and without analyzing the individual’s capacity, to all and sundry.  Today through the medium of television, people are introducing some higher yogic practices which are becoming a fashion among the masses. These practices may be giving a feeling of immediate well being to the practitioner which is very short lived and which has the detrimental effect of disturbing the Kundalini. But since they are only a portion of the overall Yogic Practice, they do not take the practitioner to any higher level. They are just being introduced by people to gain name, fame and money. Beyond this they do not do any good to either the teacher or the practitioner.  

Unfortunately, people who are teaching these practices only for their personal glorification, don’t realize the karmic implications of the said act and the negative karmas they earn for themselves as a result of this. Even if they do realize they still continue because they have been caught in the web of Maya and have fallen prey to it, this has been described as pitfalls in the Patanjali yoga sutras.  A real sadhak or anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of yoga would never have indulged in such a careless act. They go about making a mockery of such a pious and sacred path which only a few can adopt.  

I myself had been a teacher of an ancient healing technique. I found that people were coming to learn this advanced technique to glorify themselves in social circles. They were learning not for service but to show how great they are that they can heal someone. This set me thinking that the purpose of yoga or any component thereof has to be much deeper than just being a subject of social discussions just because it is the in thing. I stopped teaching this technique of healing to get deeper into the true meaning of Yoga.  

The practice of yoga today has become a subject for social discussion. It is elitist to proclaim “I do Yoga ….”. There is no dearth of people who for their own selfish gains go around claiming to be Yoga Masters.. Here we must understand yoga is not tying yourself up in Knots or standing on your head, yoga is a complete science of the being s evolution and the physical is just a beginning, if this were not so then we should be calling trapeze artists as yoga Gurus. That is precisely the reason that it is so difficult to find true Guru and serious Sadhaks. For a Guru it is a huge responsibility to monitor the Shishya and mould the Shishya. This monitoring is done not daily, not hourly but every moment. Sir John Woodroffe, a renowned and serious Sadhak of Tantra in the early 19th Century in one of his books has said “ In the older times a Guru used to give diksha to only 10-15 disciples in his or her entire lifetime. Initiating even a single person requires immense energy and it requires an even greater practice to regain that energy. I wonder how people today go around initiating thousands of people all over the place…. and still at the end of it are prepared smilingly to initiate more, these must be superbeings far surpassing the ancient masters.” 

This Gyan in the form of energy would flow only to those who have the capacity to follow the practice of yoga strictly as told. For anyone else it will be mere words. This is why it has been said that sharing the deep knowledge of yoga with non serious and casual listeners is like throwing Pearls before Swines.

Yoga-Mastery over the five senses!

2010-04-06T17:21:00.000-07:00

"For a normal human being with five basic senses, the satisfaction of these five basic senses is a must. When such a human being holds the hand of a guru, then he or she crosses the sansar sagar and gains complete control and mastery over the five senses. The sense of touch (sexual sense) is one of these senses.

Yoga is a mastery over the senses, where if you choose to have sex then you will. However, desire does not control you, but you control desire and may want to indulge for generating a specific kind of heat, which is used to activate the higher senses. (The orgasm has to be held back in this case and a yogi would maintain the sexual heat for two to 48 hours). Ancient rishis were householders, at times having several wives.

There is no doubt that a sexual orgasm drains a yogi of the vital sukra (life force) and a person who orgasms frequently doesn’t deserve to be called a yogi (unless he chooses to orgasm at will, for a specific purpose). If a ‘dhongi’ is commercialising the subject, he is not anywhere near yoga. Faith has been shattered, as fake gurus wear saffron to gain power and money. It is up to the genuine yogis to bring the faith back."-Yogi Ashwini

Pure energy needs an appropriate channel - Yogi Ashwini

2010-02-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

Nature has its way of providing balance in Creation. For every aspect, there exists one that is equal and opposite.Darkness is nothing but the absence of light. Similarly, silence is the absence of sound. It is only duality in nature, the coexistence of the positive and the negative, that lends meaning to the whole of existence.

If at any given time, there exists the entire gamut of the positive and the negative, the two will balance each other out completely, the net result being shunya or zero. There would be everything, yet nothing. The only thing that could fit such a description is the formless, the Nirakaar or Para Brahmn. This is the swaroop or essence of Shiva. In the words of Shankaracharya: "Na punyam na paapam na saukhyam na dukham, chidananda rupa Shivoham Shivoham" ^ Neither good nor bad, there is no joy or sorrow, only the Universal Presence.

What then do we make of Nataraja, the dancing male form, or the half-man half-woman Ardhanareeswara, or the sadhu whose body is smeared with ash? Are all these mere mythological constructs? To understand the import of these, we need to go back to the beginning of Creation...

When Creation began, there existed just one Supreme Consciousness that manifested as Adi Shakti, the Primordial feminine energy. From her emerged Shiva. Interestingly, the first physical manifestation of Creation was the sound of "Aum" which emanated from the damru or drum of Shiva. His dance of Creation gave form to the Universe. Thus, what manifested was Shiva and the energy responsible for this manifestation was also Shiva.

Adi Shakti in all her glory then chose to be the consort of Shiva as Parvati. While entire Creation (including Shiva) draws energy from Shakti, Shakti without Shiva is just pure energy that needs a vehicle to channelise itself. Complete evolution thus becomes a union of opposing forces.

This evolution is seen as awakening of the Kundalini or seat of energy in us. The process involves rising up through the chakras, what rises up being Kundalini or Shakti. This is a semi-dormant force residing at the base chakra. For this to happen, Shiva seated at the highest chakra has to come down and unite with Shakti at every subsequent chakra. The Samudra Manthan or the churning of the celestial ocean where both nectar and poison were produced is nothing but the awakening of Kundalini.

Amrit or nectar is the union of Shiva-Shakti that bestows salvation. The vish or venom produced as an equal and opposite phenomenon necessitates the role of a guru in evolution. It was Shiva as Neelkanth who took in all the poison and preserved it in his throat for maintaining balance. In this sense, an evolved guru strives to achieve a balance.

Shiva then becomes the transformer, the granter of salvation, 'dev-adi-dev Mahadev'. The first experience of this all-pervasive energy of Shiva lies in closing the eyes. When the eyes are shut, one experiences a vast expanse of space, the chittakaash, wherein lies everything perceivable and unperceivable.

The night of Mahashivratri has special significance as the energy patterns of this day resonate with the energy of Shiva. For a spiritual aspirant this is the night of Sanatan Kriya and mantra sadhna. The guru, in his role as facilitator, gives the disciple-seeker a specific mantra and kriya to practise at the right time on this night. The special night of Mahashivratri creates an ambience that enables close communion between seekers, the guru and seeker, and helps one to focus on channelising one's energy in positive ways.

Cleanse your soul, awaken higher forces

2010-02-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

The movements of earth change the dimensions of time. Earth lies tilted on its axis; when it rotates about the axis, seasons change and when the axis shifts, yugas change. Every transition from one dimension to the other brings about a transformation because each day has its own unique energy patterns.

Based on the energy patterns, four nights are given great importance in the life of a spiritual aspirant — Maha Shivratri, Holi, Guru Purnima and Diwali. Maha Shivratri falls in the Krishna Paksha (waning moon) of the month of Phalguna. The energy patterns on this night are most conducive to the progress of a practitioner of yoga, this being the night of the union of Shiv and Shakti.
Life, which we call as the journey of the spirit, requires a yogi to go through the process of continuous cleansing and tapasya to cause an awakening of higher forces in the self. This is done by accessing certain very powerful energies prevalent on specific days, by a simple phenomenon which modern physics terms as “resonance”. Yogis perform certain practices like Sanatan Kriya and Tantra Sadhna to tune their frequencies to the frequency of the day, resulting in production of supernormal energy.
So while Galileo discovered resonance in 1602, the Vedic rishis had already applied it for the purpose of evolution millions of years back!
The tool used by the rishis for producing these resonant frequencies was none other than agni. Agni or fire is the first word of the Rig Veda. Fire is an element that can never be polluted and whatever goes into fire also gets cleansed. The same property of fire is harnessed in a havan, to tune oneself to the subtler frequencies, and hence the resultant divine visitations and visions.
In the earlier times havans were performed to cleanse the atmosphere, the samagri and samedha were used to release positive vibrations in the atmosphere and remove toxicity and negativity. For the skeptic, I would like to add that even today in the caves where sadhus live, a fire is constantly burned (dhuni), but do we ever hear of a sadhu contracting lung cancer or lung ailments?
Sadly, however, today havans have become synonymous to a patient hearing in a smoke-filled atmosphere. That’s not what a havan is. When a yogi performs a havan, besides the manifestation of the energy the havan calls for, the atmosphere becomes serene and peaceful, there is no coughing or restlessness amongst the attendees, even birds of all varieties in the vicinity come and perch upon the nearby trees. Such is the force of attraction in a havan. Needless to say the fumes that come out are soothing and aromatic and heal people of their asthma and other problems.
Such a havan calls for purity of thought, uchchaaran and samagri; any kind of adulteration will do more harm than good. As goes the saying what you sow, so shall you reap; so the next time you approach someone for a havan ensure he is in yog or a true yogi

SANATAN KRIYA- 51 MIRACLES...and a haunting

2010-01-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

"A miracle is actually a fact of nature which is beyond the capacity of the normal mind to interpret. As you grow in yoga, miracles become a way of life for you… But then for you they are not miracles anymore but simple laws of nature that you now understand and use for aiding the positive forces of Creation to make this world a happy place to be in, and in the process, you too go beyond." -YOGI ASHWINI

Synopsis:

A distraught mother sees a steel wire nearly decapitate her teenaged daughter. The doctors are not sure if she would live, but they are sure that even if she does, she would definitely not be able to speak ever again; and yet, today that girl is not only alive and speaking, but is also heard chanting. The doctors can’t believe their ears. “It’s a miracle”, they say…

A woman is exploring a cave in Austria. The ground is slippery and drops away at a steep angle into a nearby gorge. The woman trips… The other tourists in the cave raise an alarm but can do little as they helplessly watch her as she slides along the icy floor towards the bottomless gorge. She closes her eyes and prays for deliverance. She sees the hand of her Guru… She says, “It cant be in my imagination because I held it and it saved my life! My family and friends are a testimony to it.” Those who saw her fall in that cave can’t believe she survived without a scratch. Yet again, “It’s a miracle!” they say….

A Dhyan Foundation publication, Sanatan Kriya: 51 Miracles... is their story and the story of 49 others who have been touched by life-changing miracles. These miracles are not just possible “but it is impossible for them not to happen, if you walk on the path of Yog and have the sanidhya of a Guru”, says Yogi Ashwini, the leading light of the foundation.

In a world that has learnt to reward scepticism and accept pessimism, this book gives reasons for hope, and gently, but firmly, pushes us awake from our sleep to a world of magical possibilities that had existed all around us and yet until nudged awake, we had slept through our lives, oblivious to its divine and enchanted existence. This book is that wake up call…

This book not only tells us about a living master but actually makes us experience Him through the medium of the contributors. The solace here is that He is very much in the body and alive and living among us. He is not a story, He is not a myth and He is not history...He is here and now and He is for real.

"In my various assignments as a bureaucrat, I have read and listened to various stories on miracles. The lacuna has always been that these masters are no longer in their bodies, and neither are those people who have experienced these miracles. So, in the absence of validations and self-experience the logical mind remains thirsty. This book fills up that gap: it has 51 validated stories for the logical mind. In this day and age, it's truly amazing to be able to meet a Yogi in flesh and blood, and actually experience His power."- Madhavan Nambiar, Secretary, Ministry ofCivil Aviation, Government of India

About the author

Yogi Ashwini, the Guiding Light of Dhyan Foundation, is an authority on Yoga, Tantra and various spiritual sciences. He has an Honours degree in Economics and a Master’s in Management, and is widely travelled. He practices and propagates Yoga without any dilution, innovation or modification. In short, it is Yoga strictly according to the ancient tradition.

Having studied 'the being' for more than a decade, Yogi Ashwini has assimilated the Vedic techniques to formulate Sanatan Kriya for the modern man. The Kriya encapsulates all the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga as laid down by Sage Pantanjali 4000 years ago.

Sanatan Kriya, with its wondrous power, has transformed the lives of innumerable people. It has bestowed remarkable benefits on the them at all levels: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. The practitioners are a testimony to what it means to have the sanidhya of a Guru like Yogi Ashwini.

He interacts with His students worldwide one-on-one. By His Grace, the students have graduated from reading and hearing about miracles to experiencing them. Such is the phenomenon called Yogi Ashwini.

About Dhyan Foundation
Dhyan Foundation is a spiritual and charitable organisation deeply committed to spreading the message of Yoga in its original form. The Foundation practices and propagates Yoga as per the 'Guru-shishya-parampara'.
Dhyan Foundation is sanitised of commerce. All its activities including Sanatan Kriya workshops worldwide are free.
Dhyan Foundation is actively involved in a host of charitable activities. Among other things, the Foundation runs schools for street children under the banner of Dhyan Foundation Anand Vidyalayas, where a few hundred children are helped with education, food and clothing. It organises food distribution camps in various parts of the country where thousands are fed.
Other publications of Dhyan Foundation:
Sanatan Kriya: Essence of Yoga (ISBN-9788190450607)
Thoughts… of the Inner World (ISBN-9788190450614)
Sanatan Kriya: The Ageless Dimension... (forthcoming)
The Foundation also brings out The Inner World, a monthly magazine on Yoga, Tantra, Vaastu, Gemology, Ayurveda and Spiritual Healing.
The website of Dhyan Foundation, www.dhyanfoundation.com, is a virtual encyclopedia on Yoga.

http://www.dhyanfoundation.com/

QUIRKY CURES INDEED

2009-08-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

-by Neelam Pandey, Hindustan Times, 16 August 2009

Quirky Cures indeed

Today morning, as I was going through my daily ritual of newspaper scanning, a rather queer cartoon of saffron clad man holding a pot caught my attention.

The article while informing about various traditional remedies that are being suggested to prevent Swine Flu, arouses a feeling of mistrust in the reader for the Vedic Sciences. While it is as true as is sad that today lots of people are disgracing the ancient sciences by using them as excuses to hoard money and fame, DOES THAT MEAN YOU START DISREGARDING THE SCIENCE ITSELF?

I do not think so. We are blessed to have been born in the land of Vedic Rishis who thousands of years back had answers to questions modern science is still struggling to find. While it is only sane not to fall prey to unscrupulous people selling plants in name of jadibutis, it is important identify and distinguish genuine from hoax.

I wish the media would some day take this responsibility for the sake of the preventing exploitation as well as for preservation of our dying culture. After all it is the popular media only that have made these con men reach out to the millions, victimized who have started doubting their own roots.

Result? Even the tried and tested techniques such as nasal cleansing are being looked at with skeptical eyes and have been deemed as 'placebos' by ill informed doctors…

Jal Neti as described in the scriptures is indeed extremely effective technique against nasal viruses. I can say this out of personal experience and supported by the fact it has already been researched in the US. In fact, they are also selling a kit complete with all material for this.

I have been learning Yog at Dhyan Foundation for nearly two years. It is unfair to question the integrity of the institution because of ill deeds of some others. The very fact that they do not charge for their services indicates they have nothing to gain. Their sole aim is to spread awareness and to revive the lost glory to pious science of Yog and Tantra.

An epiphany, anyone? - THE SUNDAY INDIAN

2009-06-23T04:19:00.000-07:00

A towering figure, his voice boomed in the darkened hall. His huge feet, like gnarled roots of a great oak, marched to the beat of his voice as he chanted mantras, walking amongst his shishyas who too were chanting. Every once in a while, he would check if the throng was pronouncing the mantras correctly, and when satisfied, walk to another corner of the hall… As he came closer, our eyes met. The intense gaze softened and he smiled… then he pointed towards his eyes and closed them slowly… I did the same. I heard his feet march away…. I closed my eyes and wondered, ‘Is he for real?’

A week ago, my cousin and I were driving back together and our conversation meandered from shore to shore until… looking straight ahead at the heat haze that shadowed the burnt brown landscape of an Indian summer, he asked, “Would I know a miracle if I saw one?” Now cousin’s a bit of a romantic, so I assumed that he was speaking in metaphors, as men in love often do… “Em (a friend of his) lost six kgs in three days…” Cousin was always talking workouts...“What did she do?” I asked. “She meditated as she looked upon her guru,” was my cousin’s response. “Heard of Yogi Ashwini?” my cousin asked. I hadn’t… I usually dismissed such ‘yogis’ as wannabes in the Great Indian Yoga Bazaar…. “What’s he about, Cousin?” I asked.

“Yogi Ashwini is Em’s guru… She lost weight, and her insecurities and addictions… At Yogiji’s discourse the other day, I met this lady whose four-year-old niece had been diagnosed with a fatal renal disease… She was rushed to Apollo where the doctors immediately put her on dialysis. This girl, employed with a big consulting firm, turned to Yogiji for help. Yogiji told her that her niece would be out of the hospital in 21 days but she should get the child off the dialysis machine. When she spoke to the doctors at Apollo about Yogiji’s instructions, they were appalled… they said the child would die without the machine. The machine wasn’t removed…

Then this sophisticated and usually reliable dialysis machine stopped working. The doctors panicked and started making frantic arrangements for another machine. It would take a while… The doctors went to check on the child, and inexplicably, her kidneys had kicked back into gear and were functioning normally… “It’s a miracle!” they exclaimed. Twenty one days after she had first entered the hospital, the little girl was back home, happy and healthy… But if you ask Yogiji, he says there are no miracles, nor coincidences… just subtle workings of the universal energy which our unrefined sensibilities find impossible to comprehend…”

Intrigued, I called up Yogiji’s foundation, sought an appointment and was graciously granted an audience. “You’re lucky” said the kindly voice on the other side… “He is indeed a very special being…” I thanked the voice and returned the receiver to its bracket. On the day, my cousin and I showed up at Yogiji’s elegantly appointed abode in south Delhi. He was sitting on a low couch - a broad shouldered man draped in saffron robes and rudraksha beads. He smiled, and his eyes smiled with him. His first few lines revealed to me that he knew what thoughts and actions kept me occupied during most of my days. I was impressed but “he must’ve read my aura”, I told myself. “Pranic healers do that… an intuitive and acquirable skill… nothing miraculous about that” I insisted. Tall glasses of homemade ginger-ale accompanied Yogiji’s account of the evolution of yoga and how it pulled the strings of creation… Then his voice took on a strident note…

“Yog isn’t just for the sick… Yog is a gift from ancient masters, to help us become stronger, spiritually, intellectually and physically… to be free of ailment and disease, not so that we may devote ourselves to sensual indulgences but so that we may be of service to mankind and ‘creation’, unhindered by infirmity. Yog is not a product meant to be bought and sold, and the guy who teaches you how to stand on two hands on a rubber mat isn’t a yogi… mere asana isn’t yog… it’s acrobatics. Yog is the quest for stillness and spiritual strength.
Physical strength and beauty are mere by products of this quest, but should never be confused with the goal. Those who sell the by product alone betray the noble purpose of yog. Equally mistaken are those who claim to heal hundreds with a few breathing exercises. Every ailing body’s needs are different and it needs the guru’s healing touch. I challenge any yogi who claims he can heal in the aforesaid fashion to heal just 10 terminally ill patients. I could… it would leave me half dead but I’ll do it, just to prove that yog works, but only if we stay true to the path shown by the great sage Patanjali… I don’t have countless students… just a few, but I take care of the ones I have.”

“How does one find one’s guru?” I asked. “You don’t… your guru will find you and your karmas would lead him to you. Our karmas are the cause, and destiny, the effect. Even the day of our death is written as soon as we are born… that too is a function of our past karmas…”

“But if our fate is inevitable and unalterable, what good is a guru?” I wondered. Yogiji nodded, “ Your guru can make a difference… Your karmas are like an arrow, and the bow-string of time will send that arrow on its course… that’s inevitable, but what the guru can do is deflect the arrow… or act like an armour… it affects the guru, but if he has the requisite spiritual strength, he’ll manage to stave off the inevitable…”

“When your shishyas fall ill…?” Yogiji waved his massive right arm… “No one suffers… my students are never harmed” His disciples rattled off cases of patients who doctors had given up on but had been brought back to life by Yogiji. One of them had been shot from point blank range by a robber and yet he survived…

But Yogi Ashwini insists that he is a regular guy, just like you and me, a mere instrument of his guru. When I asked him if he was a perfect yogi, he replied “If I was, I wouldn’t have been trapped in this body. I made money in the real estate business. You know the nature of that industry. Then my guru took me under his wing and the experience cleansed my soul. I followed my guru on the path of service. Only 18 months ago, my guru asked me to step out with the sole purpose of revealing the true nature and power of yog…”

“Do you ever give in to your baser emotions?” I asked. “If I’m in a body, I’ll also have its weaknesses. When I heal people, at times, their words of praise and gratitude feed the ego… But that is when I learn my lessons. I have a few dogs, German Shepherds. One of the bitches gave birth to a litter. We were to give most of the pups away but my daughter picked one for herself (yes, he’s a householder). Unfortunately, it was the weakest, and was dying. But it isn’t often that my daughter asks for something so I started working on saving that pup… I expended all my energy and yet, nothing happened. The little creature died in my arms. My daughter couldn’t believe her father had failed her. “You heal everybody. They all say you can heal anybody… and you couldn’t heal that little puppy… why didn’t you, papa? Why didn’t you?” She was inconsolable. The truth is, I had tried my best and failed. You can ask my students, I’ve never failed them. But with that little puppy, my powers deserted me. It was my guru’s way of reminding me that I am nothing on my own… nothing but a mere channel for his powers. I had learnt my lesson.” Not many would own up to something like that… I wanted to believe in this man…
So, is he for real? Well, anecdotal evidence suggests that short of raising the dead, Yogi Ashwini has healed bodies, souls and lives in various states of disrepair. Indeed, if you talk to those who’ve known him, you’d think they were talking about Jesus. So what’s in it for him? It isn’t fame or a horde of disciples… I’ve heard him refuse people who want him to be their guru. “It’ll take years for you and me to get to know each other and then we’ll see if I can be your guru” And it surely isn’t money. Yogiji and his foundation members teach yogic kriyas, feed the hungry, and run schools for the poor, all for free…
I’ve never been in such a dilemma on this platform before. There is great peril in recommending a guru for this search for a guiding light is such a private affair. And we’re conditioned to disbelieve anything that seems too good to be true. Yet, it is pertinent that we don’t miss the woods for the trees… This piece isn’t without bias for I too want to believe… this journey promises a lot but I don’t know if this is our destination. But we won’t find out unless we step out… are you coming?

Prashanto Banerji

Recession Spearheads a movement Back to Basics

2009-06-17T23:50:00.000-07:00

by Yogi Ashwini

THE DRIVE to achieve more in lesser time and instant gratification of senses has taken man to a level where demands have taken over needs or requirements. The crash which we have brought upon today is a perfect example of exceeding beyond our requirements.

Economics says, create demand and meet supply, but in this world you can not create something new everyday but can only go on to innovate, and that’s the principle markets thrive on, something that’s bound to reach saturation sooner than later.

Nature has a way bringing things into a state of balance whenever man has tried to overlook the basics and … if we look back in time, which the modern scientists believe to be an age of barbarians, vedic rishis had laid the principles which are relevant in today’s age• time, asteya and aparigraha , meaning non hoarding and acquiring only what is required for a limited period of time. Even the concept of shanti , which focusses on a certain internal quitening of desires, is relevant than ever before. Vedic masters have taught us that desires are never ending, they have named them as vrittis, which are like ripples, they move in circular motions, and go on expanding.

The various principles like aparigraha ( non covetousness), swadhyaya ( knowing the self in retrospection) teach one not to run blindly after the objects of the senses and the techniques given in yog sutras give the ability to recognize the various facets of human nature and teaches one not perforce but naturally to let go of the excess, acquire, enjoy and overcome one state and move beyond.

We can call it survival theory or going back to the basics, but people are slowly coming to terms with failing attempts to overcome shortlived ideas of modern innovations and resorting to age old techniques attempting to strike a balance between the present and the past. Depleting resources have forced man to adhere to long forgotten rules given by highly evolved souls, who exactly understood the being and the diversions of human mind in changing times.

Today yoga and ayurveda are back in demand not just because some Hollywood personality are practicing it but also because people can see the benefits, having experienced the failure of consumerism. Yoga and spirtual practices are inclusive in nature and do not discriminate on basis of bank balance, age, race or body type.

Besides being democratic in nature, they are also relevant in a world that today needs an anchor, a path. The one reason that the downturn hasn’t affected India all that badly, is because of the spiritual nature of our people.

( Yogi Ashwini is a spiritual leader and yoga guru at the Dhyan Foundation)

Rationalists argument

2009-05-30T11:40:00.001-07:00