<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FA3sv_r3IkLVpdcgfjrmzyNGnae1kofP/preview" width="100%" height="80" allow="autoplay"></iframe> Thank you. Thank you. Vielen Dank. Juhi Juhshin Ne Tocchang Viralikshin Inde Kempadi Sangye Shindyumite O Hagi Jokun Amdakshin La Jupa Shou Satsang with Mooji Siddhartha Siddhar Chantru Pardhu Dhanmi Khyam Su Chi Daki chunyem kipesanam kip Drolav and shir sangye jupasho So before we all get sleepy, we'd like to lead you one more time through the meditation we've been doing. So everybody get in a comfortable seated position. They can stay in without moving at all. Place your hands either in your lap or on your knees. Make sure your back is straight. And close your eyes. Focus for a minute just on the tip of your nose, watching the air as it goes out and then back into your body. Thank you. You will focus on the inside of your body, see everything inside us completely hollow empty shell, the color like a clear blue sky. Go down from your head all the way to the tips of your toes, see everything, this light blue empty space. Then the outside shell of your body, what's holding all this empty space. Now see as made of light. Just colour and line. Then again focusing inside. from the space between your eyebrows curving up and around your head and then shooting straight down where your backbone used to be to the point opposite your navel is the center channel it's made of red gold light about the size of a large drinking straw then running down from either nostril alongside the center channel they say close but not touching it are the two side channels the channel of the sun on the right and the channel of the moon on the left The one on the left is milky white, also made of light. The one on the right is dark red, the color of blood. All three channels join at the bottom, just below the navel. So again, remember inside your left channel are all those thoughts of selfishness and disliking things ignorantly, thinking you can grab the things you want to get what you want. Then in the right hand channel are all your thoughts of anger and disliking things ignorantly, thinking you can get rid of things by pushing them away. So, take an inhale, see it go all the way down to the joining of the three channels, and then exhale through your left nostril, all the way through the left hand channel. Inhale back through the left hand channel. And then exhale all your negative thoughts out the right hand channel. Inhale back through the right hand channel. Then exhale all your ignorant thoughts through the center channel coming out through the spot between your eyeballs. and inhale back in. Again exhale your selfish liking thoughts out through your left channel all the way out of this room, out of this building, dissolving into the air and then inhale back through the left hand channel. Then exhale through the right hand channel, pushing out all your negative thoughts of anger. And inhale back through the right hand channel. Then washing the air as it passes all the way up and out. And then inhale back through the center. Try a couple rounds now on your own time. Try to lengthen out the exhale as long as it's comfortable for you. Thank you. Try to find the little twinge at the end of the exhale after you've pushed all the air out. And then try it one more time, holding the opposite nostril so you really are breathing out just through the left or just through the right. Make sure to keep the visualization strong even though you're using your fingers now. Okay, put your hand down and then slowly open the eyes. Just two notes about that. If you're trying to do pranayama like that and one nostril is blocked, just close your eyes and pretend it's going through that. So it'll be going through the wrong nostril, on the exhale, for example, and you just visualize that it's going to the correct nostrils. If you have one nostril that's just not cooperating today. And I think we forgot to mention, the condition of your nostrils is very much affected by the moon phase. So on a new moon like when? Today. Today. You might notice that the left nostril is shut down or that it's not cooperating very well. And then there are cycles, about 90-minute cycles, but that's a very long, long story. The two nostrils switch and the breathing is easier through certain nostrils. And then certain nostrils are connected to certain vayus. And depending on how that vayu is in you, if upon a vayus-hiring problem or done a vayus-hiring problem, then one of the nostrils might shut down like that. So it's not unusual that one nostril or another is shut down. And then you just, you don't squeeze, if you're trying to go out to the left, then it's not even available today. You don't squeeze all the way in with the right finger. And then in the Tibetan Pranayama tradition, it can be a little distracting to hold your fingers up. So as we'll talk about later, visualizing that the breath is coming out and into the right nostril is also a very powerful practice. Sometimes you try it without your fingers, just imagining it through the right nostril and imagining it back to the right nostril. You'll get it. It'll come easier. The prana will probably follow where your thoughts are and not where your breath is in that case. We're on verse 35, which is in reading 4. When you exhale and inhale in a flurry of motion like bellows driven by the hands of a blacksmith. It is what we call sinus freshening, and it dries up any excess of the humor of mucus. So most people don't translate kapalabhati. They just call it kapalabhati. I mean, everyone who's done yoga pretty much knows what this practice is. Kapala means what? Skull, right? And the word cup comes from that because it's so similar in shape to a skull. And then bha-ti, it means to, yeah, bha means to shine. And we find it in the word basa also, right? And we get the word photo from that, or beacon from bha. So Kapalabhati is a practice of very sharp exhales. You let the inhales come naturally, and then you work to get the exhales out, like it says, a bellows driven by the hands of a blacksmith. And they have this practice in the Tibetan system as well. And it's called, we did it, for anybody who knows, we did it in Series 5 in Tucson the other day. Just the other day. Everything is just the other day for me. Just the other day. I have no sense of time. So just the other day we were in Tucson together. And we were doing this Series 5 thing. And we're studying all of these different Tibetan Asana series. And this one was by Marpa. And Marpa was the teacher of... Milarepa. He was the teacher of Milarepa. He was the student of who? Naropa. Right. So, you know, Master Marpa is very important in our lineage. So it was very exciting to find a whole Tibetan asana series written by him. And his Kapalabhati is called Laughing Lion Pranayama. Right? And it's similar, except you hold the thumb against the base of your ring finger and then make a fist, and then hold that against your knee. So you're sort of braced, like, you know, I can't do it with both hands because I have to hold the mic. But, you know, you're braced like this, and then you put your chin down. and then he says, you laugh like, ha, ha, ha, you know, but through your nose, right? So he's trying to tell you, Morphe's trying to tell you what your stomach's supposed to be doing. Like if you were going to be doing a big guffaw, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know, your stomach would be doing this. And so that's how they describe it in the Tibetan system. In the Indian system, it's this bellows action driven by a blacksmith. you want to do it for us? do you want to show them the yeah so Anatole our wonderful yoga model because I'm too shy to fully show up it's going to demonstrate Kabbalabati and he'll do both the Indian and the Tibetan ways because he's now a master of both. So, yeah, first... So, it's like these series of sharp exhalations through your nose where you're consciously moving your abdomen quickly back, like you're pushing your navel back into your spine. Like, right? He gets up. He's like... And then that inhale comes naturally after that. So you work to get the exhale. And the exhale should come all the way from your abdomen. You know, the whole thing is about... In Marcus' system, they call this a fire practice. They call this a practice for generating fire in the body So it's a practice of inner heat And that's why it stems from the navel And if you don't do it from the navel If you just do it from your nostrils And you're not working your abdomen It's not Kapalabhati It's not this practice Right? Because it's a fire practice It has to be used You have to be from here So the idea is you use this at the beginning of your asana practice to get all the snot out of your body, right? You can compare it, you know, when you just blow your nose with a tissue or something like that, it doesn't get everything out. You need the force of coming all the way from your abdomen up to shoot everything out of your nostrils. So use it like that. You should let everything go. You should, you know, don't be shy. Get a Kleenex like here. And then get everything out because it's really, it's not healthy to keep those things blocked up inside of you. You know, the idea is to get all the mucus out of your body to use this practice. Can you do the Tibetan one? So your chin is down in the Tibetan one and your hands are pressed against your... And they do it in a series of three. So good at this. Thanks. Thank you. So you want to try it? Everyone wants to be like Anatole? Do we have like tissues to pass out to people? I know it's cold season. What? Can we get some? Yeah? Can we pass them out? Just maybe a couple people help, and then anyone who wants a tissue just raise their hand, Like I want a tissue So when we try this The whole idea is to do it From way way down in our abdomen And to try and Get a Completely open channel from all the way down here, all the way out your nostrils. So try and think of opening as you're doing this. It's not just an exercise in your stomach. It's not just from here. It's an opening in your throat. It's an opening in your head. It should actually wake up all of the area of your sinuses. And that's one of the reasons why they call it Kapalabhati or Shining Skull. I'm waiting for everybody to... I have one. We've got our own. That's what the monk's pockets are for, you know. I don't know. Everyone got a tissue? Okay, yeah, you know, you could do like Jamie, you could test it now, you could like blow out, just try and like blow your nose normally with your tissue, and then see how much comes out, and then do the Kapalabhati and see what difference it is, right? These are, you know, yogic experimentations, you think it's just like this normal blowing of the nose. Ready? Everybody ready? Okay. You can do it either way you want. The Tibetan or Indian system. Okay? Try to keep your back straight. I keep going. Okay, start to slow down and then... One last... A couple of things. When you're doing this, the only thing that should be moving is your abdomen. You shouldn't be like, I saw a couple people doing that. And the other thing is, your face, it shouldn't be like, you know, like, yeah. No, no, no, you shouldn't have this, like, it should be totally, you know, try and keep your forehead totally relaxed, you know, and like, slight smile on your face. It's supposed to be this laughing, ha, ha, ha, you know? Like the Tibetan system. Ha, ha, ha. So, that's Kapalabhati. One thing. You can push yourself a little too hard in this practice and you will get low. So you have to be careful not to do too many rounds before you're ready for it. You know, work according to your capacity. And work according to what your own personal teacher who's right beside you, who knows your body, tells you to do. I was in a situation once in India where I was just in a class, a very new class, and a teacher told me who didn't know me, You know, who wasn't like my pranayama guru. It was just someone that we met yesterday. And we went to this class and they over pushed me. And all these strange ailments came afterwards. You know, physical ailments. Because I over extended myself in the kapalabhati. It can be quite a strong practice. But on the up note, if you do it according to your capacity, you just do a couple rounds each day, because it focuses so much on the exhale and on getting the stale winds out of your body, it can actually be a good remedy for them. If you have some sort of blocked wind in your chest or something like that, and you do a Kapalabhati practice, it can get that stale air out of there, and get those blocks out of there, and you can use it for that. When you start your asana practice, or when you start your pranayama practice, this is a great practice for that. Oh, I'm supposed to tell you one thing. The Sanskrit for inhalation is puraka. Say puraka. Puraka. And in the Tibetan it's up-nup-pa. Come on, you should do and that means to send out the air push out the air one word in Tibetan for Pan Amos is to join those two words so say that's the very basic that it starts with what? it always starts on the out breath that's a big difference and I think it has a big difference in the energetics of it if you try it you count your breath from the out breath first And you know, in the West we tend to think, one, two, and in Tibet it's one, two. And they say in the study of laya, in the study of the dissolution of the universe, it's important to go out first and then dissolve the universe back into your heart, you see? so in a Tibetan yoga practice you would always count the breath from the exhale first and then on the inhale we're on to verse 36 satkar manya gata sthalya kapadosha maladeka pranayamam tatakoyan anaya senam siddhati once you have these six practices to correct any ailments such as those where the humor of mucus is either overly or insufficiently active then when you go on to practice control of the brethren you will succeed with ease it's not a lot of commentary to give about this it's just that there's a flow to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika there's a reason why they go through certain practices in a certain order and that's a big deal in Tibet Lam Rim, right? That there are certain steps to the path. And in the Tibetan tradition the order of the steps is very important. So you wouldn't... I've heard Guruji doesn't give people pranayama till... Like the third series or something? I don't know. Is that true? Is that just a rumor? It's true, yeah. Yeah, so like Sri Patavi Joyce doesn't give you pranayama till you get to the series which is impossible for anyone to do in asana, you know. And it's the same in Tibet. They would consider, it's not just important to know what all the practices are, it's important to do them in the proper order. And they would say that a lot of reason why people fail in yogic practices is that, you know, they know how to do asana, they know how to do pranayama, they know bandhas and kumbhakas and mudras, but they're not doing it in the right order. So they read about them in a book, and the thing on page 63 was kind of interesting, and they tried that, and like that. So you should have a teacher. They say it's like starting a car or something. You know, you do it in a certain order, and certain energies go through the car in a certain order, and if you try to do it backwards, then you damage something really good. And I think you see that the Shat Kriya, the six cleansing practices are largely again for imbalance of the kapha, the kapha dosha. What English word comes from kapha? Kaff, right? Yeah, so like that. And that's the main reason they give for the shakriyas. So once you clear that out, then you're ready to undertake actual pranayama. So he sort of gave a light pranayama at the beginning, the alternate nostril breathing, and now he's going to be going on to the real pranayama. Verse 37. The masters declare that these practices of controlling the breath winds dry up every impurity. As such, they bow their top knots to them, honoring them as they do no other practice. What's master here in Sanskrit? Acharya. So, this is talking about the breathing practices that we are about to embark upon in this chapter. And we are going to embark upon trying to control the breath winds. Why do we call them breath winds? Because we're not just talking about breath, right? We're talking about the inner winds that are connected to the breath. So when you see that word breath wind, it should mean something profound to you. It should mean everything about your inner body. And once you have control of your inner body, then you have control of your mind and you have control of the world around you. Everything is stemming from the winds and channels and drops inside of your body. So, if you manage to control these winds, then the whole universe is at your disposal. The whole world is at your disposal. So, this verse is talking about drying up every impurity. These practices in general, there are different elements in the body. There's the element of earth, which is actually, I don't know, the element of solidity or hardness in the body. And then there's an element of water, which is any kind of liquid in the body. Then there's an element of fire, which is warmth or heat in the body. And then there's an element of wind, which is movement, right? Then there's an element of space, which just allows everything else to happen. The practices of these inner winds tend to lower the earth and water elements in the body. And they tend to raise the fire and wind elements. And this is what, when we're talking about all of those, all of that enigma, all of that dross inside the channels, do you remember that? We were talking about those impurities. And this is how the practice of the breath winds gets rid of these impurities. It literally burns them away by lowering the earth and water elements and increasing the fire and wind elements in the body. And then you send it through. Once you have control of your winds and channels, you can send that through your channels and you can burn up all the dross. So that all that's left is this really pure substances inside of your channels. And we were in retreat, and we were practicing this. And it's, I don't know, it was very funny to me that I started practicing these things, and then I moved to a desert. You know, because the outer world will change according to what's going on in your inner body. So I start practicing these practices to lower the earth and water elements, and I find myself in a desert, in a hot, dry place, that totally reflects what's going on in my body. You should pay attention to the shifts that happen around you as you do your practices. One more thing. How do you control the breath winds in your body? I mean, do you go... No. Just to remind you, you have to work on both levels. You have to work from your mind as well. You can't expect your wins to be under your control if you're not also practicing trying to get your mind pure. They go hand in hand. Your winds will come under your control when your mind comes under your control. Udyriya, Kanta Nāle, Krama Parichaya, Pashanādi, Chakra, Gajakara Niti, Nigadyate, Hattas Nyai. Vamut up the items that have already passed into your stomach. Join the sweeping wind of elimination up to the passive way of the throat. Gradually as you become accustomed to this practice, it will help tame the power of the inner channels and chakras. This is called the elephant practice by those who know the yoga of sun and moon. I learned this practice. A lama taught me this practice. I was having a really bad headache and I had a really bad migraine, like super bad migraine. And I was in retreat. I think I got a very bad case of loom. And then a lama came to check on me and I said, oh, I feel like I'm dying, you know. I had this migraine for like two days. And this is very, very, very common in retreats. So those of you who try retreat, you shouldn't get discouraged. If you know, the first 20 retreats are disastrous. It's fine. Retreat is a very, very hard thing to do. So I was having, then the lama said that, I want you to throw up for me. And I'm like, how? And then they said, well, you just stick your finger down as far as you can. And you induce it, you see. You can induce it. And then I did. And it was wonderful. After the migraine went away, and everything just changed. The whole power, the whole... You change the movement of the Upana Vaya. And this is one of the first cases in this book where he actually mentions Upana Vaya. In Tibetan it's called, say, Torsel? Torsel. I always remember where I learned the Tibetan word because I didn't use a dictionary. I lived with my lama and I cooked for him and I served him and I went to work for him every day for 15 years. So my knowledge of Tibetan doesn't come from a dictionary. It comes from a human universe. I remember when I learned tur. We were driving to a place in Virginia to give a teaching. And it was these rolling hills outside of Washington, D.C. And it would go up and it would go down. And he'd say, Gen Tor. Gen Tor. Say, Gen Tor. Gen Tor. So Gen Gyor Gidlong means Udana Vai. It means the upward moving wind. And then Tor Sel Gidlong means the downward clearing wind. So the Tibetans translated literally, as they did everything. So they didn't translate words, they translated syllables. Like conscience, they would have translated as the together knowingness, or something like that. They translated every single syllable perfectly. They didn't miss a single syllable. I've checked thousands of pages, and they didn't miss anything. It took them 700 years to translate these texts, which is John Brady's next job. so apa means down and then ana means to go or to breathe so apa ana means to clear downwards towards self they translated both parts of the word so apa na bayu means to downward clear responsible for elimination of semen, menses urine, feces and things like that. Tibetans would also say sometimes coughing, if you're coughing up something, or you're vomiting up something. So the point is to try to reverse the apana vayu and try to get it to do the opposite of what it normally does. So that's what's happening in this case. He's suggesting that the wind of elimination be turned upwards. This in itself is a very healthy practice. In some Tibetan texts, yoga itself, Naam Jhara, is defined as the joining of the downward clearing wind, Apana, and the Sopron, the Pranavayu, the wind of life in the heart. So can you bring up, can you reverse the directions of the two winds? The Pranavayu, instead of its energy going down, can you bring it up like the bottom half of a cup? They say the bottom half of a pea or the bottom half of a walnut or something like that. Can you bring it up? And then can you bring the pranavayu down? And we're going to be getting into some practices for that tonight. Can you reverse the normal movement of the life wind, the pranavayu, which is not the same as the pranavayu, right? Pranavayu itself is just inner wind. The pranavayu is the wind at the heart. So can you bring one down, like the top part of an Easter egg? You know those chocolate Easter egg things? And then can you bring the other part up like this? And then can you bring a pressure? Can you close a capsule? In Tibetan they call it Bumbachend, which means to close a capsule. In Sanskrit then that's Kumbhakar. And we'll be getting into the different kinds of capsules. So anyway, this is elephant practice. I asked Christy, why elephant practice for vomiting practice? And she said, well, I'll have to spread that stuff out of their mouths. I don't know. But one more thing to say, those of you who travel a lot or you're in India, sometimes you eat something bad, or even in New York, you eat something bad, and you know within five minutes that it's not good. Something, like it tasted a little bit off, and you swallowed it anyway because you really like that thing. and then you just feel like immediately like it's not going to be healthy for you. This is common in India. Like you eat something, and it tastes bad, it tastes a little sour or something, but you're really hungry, and you eat the whole thing, and then in about five minutes, you know you're going to have a problem with it. Then you can do gajakanami. And it's very, very helpful. You just prevent like three weeks of diarrhea in the first ten minutes, you know. And if you eat something, and you know it's not healthy, if you realize it's not healthy for you, right away, if it starts to have a reaction right away, then it's good to know how to do this practice. So it's good to practice it. It's like the other day we were in a yoga studio, and the teacher was encouraging us to practice falling out of inversions. You know, fall out this way, now fall out this way, now fall out sideways, and I'm good at that. But it's good to know how to do these things before they're needed. so know how to fall out of a pose practice falling out of a pose and then practice sometimes gajikarani I don't know, maybe after you eat too much dinner or something but it's not to be used as a method for looking skinny okay okay I'll do one more verse 39 प्राः्मादायो प्रिदश्या प्वणाद क्यासा तक्वरा आभूवन नंतका भायात तस्मात प्वणाम अट्रासेथ. Even the Pure One and the rest of the 33 are devoted to this practice of the sweeping winds, for they too fear their extinction, their death. And we too, for the same reason, should undertake this very practice. This is a reference to 33, in Tibet they're called Sumjutsatsum. And when you do this mandala offering, it's supposed to represent the world. And there's supposed to be four continents to the four directions. Which are your four fingers here. And then this thing in the middle is called Manmeru or sometimes Sumeru. And this is the central mountain of the world. And then there are different beings supposed to be living on the different... We're on the southern continent called Jambudvipa. And then there are beings living on terraces up this central mountain. There are four great terraces. And on the top, there's some sort of god realm, worldly god realm. It's still the desire realm. Those of you who know Triloka theory, it's still the realm of desire. but the highest place in this realm is at the top. And then there are 33 deities there. It's a very famous group. Pure one here is a translation of Brahma, one of the powerful deities. But even these deities in the desire realm, they have to die. They're not enlightened. They're not beyond death. So they also fear their death. And so what Master Swat Marama is saying is that even these beings are trying to learn to do panayama properly. and then he's giving us the real reason to do pranayama which for me, I need a reason it's not comfortable for me to do physical practices I'm not interested in in physical practices particularly you know, I like books I like meditation but I'm not attracted to doing something physical to get enlightened but the story of yoga these are tantra in our tradition, this is tantra this is high secret practices at the end of your path you must get into the body you must get into the physical part also and you must learn to master the physical part also the inner winds through this gross vehicle this ugly gross vehicle of the outer body so but why? you have to have a reason to do these practices otherwise I don't think you would want to do them we had an interview today somebody called from Brazil we're going there next week I think. And they said, well, why are you doing all this stuff? Why did you become a monk? Why did you study all this stuff? And I was thinking it was because of... In my family, we had four kids and our mom and dad. And then in one year, three of them died. My mom died, my dad died, and my brother died. And then it like... That triggered something. I had been mildly interested in spirituality and I'd never seen a dead person before and then three people die like that one after the other and you know I grew up in a Christian context I grew up in a church very happy very nice church I really honor it it was a great beautiful place to be but they couldn't explain to me what was going on or why you see well why my mother didn't sin in particular. She's a good person. She took care of people. She would leave our front door open. People would come in and have food. Just come in and eat our food, you know. People knew they could sleep there anytime they want. Anybody. One night she found a pistol under her pillow. And she said, that guy can't sleep here. You know. But that was the only one. He would just drop by coming in and sleeping in the room, you know. And so she's that kind. And so really, in the back of your mind, as you're doing these practices, it has to be death. It has to be about death. It has to be about this thing of death. And as a yogi of the inner and outer methods, you have to begin thinking of death as an accident, as something unnecessary, suffering for people. You live in a realm, We are in a realm right now where everyone we see dies, right? This is not normal. This is abnormal. We live in like a retard realm. No, we are sort of down in the evolutionary. We're way, way down. We're not as glorious as we think when you see a skyscraper or a plane. On a spiritual level, we are very, very much like amoebas or something. and we not only do we die unnecessarily but we think that's normal we believe we're from a small town there's a story in Tibet about a frog who's in a well and he becomes king of the well the frog and everybody's like the tadpoles and all these old minnows he's number one he's the lord of this entire realm the well, the well, you know and then this crow comes and he peeks down and he says, what do you mean the lord of the well, he's the lord of all waters here in our well he says, you ain't seen nothing, you know, there's bigger waters than this, you know, and he says I don't believe you, so he took the frog he carried him to the ocean and he set it down on the beach and then the frog's head exploded when you go fat in Tanka, that means his head exploded. We're like that, you know. We're in this little well called Earth, you know. And everybody we see dies. And it's not normal. It's not the normal condition of things. It's because we don't understand karma. We don't understand yoga. We don't treat each other well. And then we are liable to death. and our death is brought about by how we treat and think about other people and so when you do these practices, pranayama what he's saying even the gods practice these things because they're afraid of hayam, they're afraid of death and then you know you get these people they say I'm not afraid of death I think it will be a challenging experience you say come up on the roof with me and then you take their arm them up on the edge, and they're like, what? You say, look over there. Then you take that arm and you go like this. Just go like this. And then there's this reaction, human reaction back. Because you have died countless times. You have died over and over. You know how painful it is. It's a terrible, terrible, terrible pain. It's beyond all pain in this realm. The few minutes of dying in your mind, they stretch on for years. And what you feel is unimaginable pain. And you have been there countless times. you have done it countless times you fear death you have a great fear of death and it's justified, you should so the irony is that it's not necessary you don't have to die it's not necessary it's just an error in behavior an error in thinking and it can be fixed and that's what these practices are for so I mean the next time you're up there and Anatole's up there and he's blowing his nose out and you're like no I just had this huge Indian dinner I don't know if I can do that. Do it for all the people you know who died. And probably in the last six months, someone close to you has died. Maybe you could have stopped it. Maybe you could have helped them. Maybe if you had, you know, worked a little harder on your practices, maybe you could have done something. So think like that and it will drive you. It will give you energy for decades of practice. Okay? Like that. verse 40 so far as you can restrain the unruly winds within the body so far as you can keep the mind from agitation, so far as you can hold your gaze between the eyebrows, then you are that much closer to having no reason to ever fear death. You know, when Gishimaiko speaks about death, I always get this sense like, oh, I haven't thought of that for a really long time. You know, because, you know, I do my meditation practice every day. I do my yoga practice every day. And I never really think about it. it's hard in your daily life, if someone hasn't died in the last six months that you're really close to, it's hard to think about, it's hard to remember, you know, so for me, I like to think about the little deaths that happen to me all the time, because those two are what we're trying to prevent, like, you know, you have a really good friend, And then suddenly, I don't know, something happens and you're not like friends anymore. And something's died. And it's just as painful. It's just as painful, those little deaths that you experience every day of your life. You know, or, I don't know, you go to work one day and the management changes. and you can't work there anymore. You know, like something shifts, something died. You're the opportunity, you know, you used to fit in there and now you don't anymore. And now you have to go or they have, you know, it's like you can never hold on to anything that you love. You can't hold on to relationships. The realm that we're in, everything dies, you know, and it's not just your body. It's everything, you know, it's everything. it's every single thing that you love in this world will be ripped away from you one by one, slowly or quickly if you go out to New York streets and you get run over by the bus it'll all be quick it'll all happen at once everything will be ripped away quickly but normally it doesn't work like that normally we just age and things just die one by one and we think that this is the way things are think that we can't change it. But if we were to master these practices, if we were to become acharyas in these practices, we could change that. We wouldn't have to have friendships that die. So, this verse says, if you can keep the unruly winds within the body and if you can keep your mind from agitation. And this is talking about working with the outer and inner methods. If you don't want things to die on you, if you don't want your friends to go away, and if you don't want your friends, your family members to die, literally die on you, and if you don't want your body to die, and if you're sick and tired of getting those wrinkles in the mirror, and you don't want to get any older, you have to work with both the inner and outer methods. You have to have a deep understanding of karma and emptiness. You have to understand that the reason you're seeing things die is because you haven't done good enough things to perpetuate the karma for the things that you love in this world. The reason things are dying on you is that your karmas are wearing out and you've done nothing in this life to perpetuate them. So we turn it around. We have to turn around. Everything is this downward spiral and the process of yoga is turning it back to the left, you know, to an upward spiral. So learn what kind of karmas you need to perpetuate the things you enjoy in this life. In order to learn karma and emptiness very deeply, you have to find some kind of stillness. You have to find some kind of meditative stillness because you're never going to be able to understand karma and emptiness in a very deep way unless you stop for a minute trusting your six senses and go inside and find some kind of truth inside yourself. Because these things, they're lying to us, you know? These things say that he's out there and I'm out here and I have nothing to do with him. Like, the reason I'm seeing him is just because he walked in the door from some other place and I have absolutely no control of that. It's lying to me. Every single thing I see in these eyes is coming from how I treated other people. If I see like any of you, it's because of what I did to other people. But we can't function in the outside world with all these things lying to us and then have a deep understanding that things are just the opposite of that. We have to shut them down first. We have to shut down our six senses. We have to go inside. We have to keep the mind from agitation. We have to reach some kind of meditative stillness. That's the mental half. We have to keep the unruly winds inside the body. We have to pull them closer and closer inside the center channel. Right now, you know, we're distracted. Our winds are distracted. Our winds are running every which way all over our body, and they're unruly and untamed, and we need to pull them in the way that we pull our minds in. You know, it goes hand in hand. You pull your mind into stillness, your wind starts slowing down. You concentrate on your winds and pulling them more into stillness, your mind starts slowing down. And it feeds on itself. And that's why we have both methods. You know, you use the outer method of focusing on your winds, like a physical thing, it's a very subtle thing, it's a physical thing in your body, to calm the mind. Then you use the mind to calm the winds more, and it keeps, you know, keeps going closer and closer and closer to the center. Until you get to absolute stillness, and you can really understand emptiness. Then it says, so far as you can hold your gaze between the eyebrows. In Sanskrit, this is bhruhor madhyah. Say bhruhor. Madhyah. It means between the two eyebrows. Madhyah means in the middle. Like madhyamika, it's the middle way. So, yeah. So, between the pruvor. In Tibetan, it's called minsam. Say minsam. And this is what they call the Ajna Chakra in Tibetan. They just say minsam. The place between the eyebrows. They don't normally use a different word for the Ajna Chakra. So, this is a very good place when you're first starting out, especially to learn how to gather the winds and to gather the mind. If you are not used to meditating, if you don't have a meditative practice, or if you've just had a really busy day and your mind is scattered every which way, or if you're kind of tired, really, really good place to focus is right here. You know, it gathers the mind very quickly. It gathers your focus very quickly. It energizes you a little bit. So I want to just practice where it is in the body because a lot of people think it's right here, like it's actually pasted on your forehead in between the two eyebrows. You know, like they draw these, you put the little bindi here and you're like, ah, it's my third eye. But actually it's a little bit farther back. I swear so the reason you have bumps here, like indentations here on the side of your thing, it's like the Ajna Chakra is in between those the reason you've got a bump on the upper palate of your mouth the Ajna Chakra is above that, so you can draw like a coordinate You know, like between these two things and like put your tongue at the top of your palate or just when it starts to curve back, push it up. Draw the coordinates. Try and find the Ajna Chakra. Just close your eyes for a minute. Don't worry about me. Try to find it in your body. So. Go up from your palate until you get to the point between your two eyebrows. But it's about an inch and a half, maybe two inches for some people, up inside your head. and just see like tiny pinprick white light there. Okay. Okay. So, that point is used at the beginning of meditation sometimes to focus the mind. It's also used in certain practices where you're holding a capsule or doing pranayama. Instead of visualizing your whole channel up through the left and then back, an alternate way to do that pranayama is just to focus on this tiny pin and prick of light about an inch and a half, two inches into your skull. then one day your exhale will just keep going on and on and on and on and then you won't notice but you'll just not have to inhale again for a while you know this is the door to the center channel You know, it's the upper opening of the center channel. It's a very important point in the body. In general, any of the chakras could be used as that kind of focus point when you're doing a pranayama. and you should pay attention to what your specific teacher tells you about where to focus in the body for what particular pranayama that you're doing. In Tibetan they call this a ne. Say ne. Ne. Ne means a crucial point in the body. There are certain crucial points like chakras where it's like if you focus on that particular point It's like a place of great power that can get things done in a very short amount of time. Right? We're on verse 41. Vidivat kāna sāngamaya nārī chakrī viṣadhīte viṣadhīte suṣunā varanam bītva suḥkār viṣatti mārita Those who are able to concentrate their inner winds in the proper way thereby purify the inner channels and chakras. They break open the mouth of the sunray channel and then the unruly winds enter there with ease. this is the first verse in a while that we've had the word Sushumna say Sushumna that's the Sanskrit word for the central channel and then there are many many words in Sanskrit for central channel and in Tibetan the most common one in Tibetan is Tsa Uma again I think Professor Thurman may have called his daughter for that but it means central channel, the most important channel in the body. There's a word here, sayama. Have you heard this before? Where? Yoga Sutra, third chapter. What is the sayama? The team. Yeah. In Sanskrit? Dhanana? Jnana? Samadhi. It's the combined effort. I like to call it the team of the last three of the Ashtana, of the eight nens. Dhanana, Dhyana, Samadhi. The ability to focus the mind on a single point. The ability to focus the mind for over an extended period of time on a single point. And then finally, Samadhi. Perfect meditation, perfect single point in this. So that's the Sayama then. it means to bring a team together to bring a team together as Christi Lach said in Tibetan in the Tibetan tradition which is an Indian tradition working with the winds working with the chakras is done mostly with the mind so you can do pranayama or you can do asana from the outside and you can cause changes in where the wind is moving. You can direct the prana. If you stick your finger down your throat, the downward clearing wind, the prana, will be reversed, right? And so with physical means, with gross physical means, you can affect the movement of prana in your body. But what they're talking about here is sayama means to gather the winds by concentration, by the vehicle of concentration. It's kind of cheaper and easier. It doesn't take two hour sessions. and lots of sweat. So which is better? Which is better? Yeah, bad choice. Yeah, Phong Sambha. Bad question. Chinang tabla cormbe. Say chinang. Tabla cormbe. As a yogi in this lineage, in the lineage of these yogis, Guraksha, you swear to use outer and inner methods. And the outer methods are more clumsy, they're more, they take longer time, but they are steady. You know, like you progress. If you keep doing an hour, two hours of yoga every day, something will happen. You know, your body will change. And then necessarily your prana will change. So it's like Swami Sivananda called it a jackass patient's practice. You know, you just do it every day then you make some progress. And so in that sense, it's very grounding and very necessary and very proper to do. You're required to do it. But then also at the same time, sayyama, the mind. Move the winds through the body by the concentration of the mind. And bring them into certain places. We're going to be talking about, for example, how to do a capsule practice, how to do a retention of the wind. And once you take a retention, you can actually direct it to different parts of your body. And we'll be talking about it when we get to the capsules. But if you direct it to the wrong part, you might get a little lungi, or very lungi. You might make yourself crazy. And then there are special instructions for directing the, concentrating the mind to move the prana to a different part of the body, which is safer, you see, to do your pranayama there. And more progress. You can make more progress. So, it's very important what he says here about Sayama. Concentrating, in his book, it means the ability to concentrate the mind at a point in the body, and then it makes the prana flow there. You see what I mean? Due to the what? The fact that winds and thoughts are jupa-chipa. Say, lung-sem, jupa-chipa. Lung-sem, jupa-chipa. We have this Chinese meridian teacher in Vancouver, very high master. He's like the Chinese national coach for Qigong. And we went through the meridians with him. We sat and we went through all the characters and all the sounds and all the meridians. And then we wanted to give him a gift afterwards. And we were studying calligraphy with this other Chinese teacher. So we took this huge piece of rice paper and we got this huge brush. sometimes they look like a mop, the really big ones and then we did lung sem chupa chupa you know and then we gave it to him and he said, oh that's the best thing you can give me you know, because it's just a statement in yoga that the prana and the thoughts ride in tandem they always ride in tandem they always go together so by thinking your thoughts into your leg you move your prana into your neck. And there, you know, we meet teachers who, we go out every day to a different yoga studio. It's really fun in New York. You have a great karma happening. You have a great, great karma happening. There's so many wonderful centers, really beautiful centers. But a lot of teachers will tell you now, if you're having trouble, or you feel like something's not stretching the right way, then send your mind down there. Think it longer. And that's a very good instruction. That's a good instruction. Then the prana will move. You can't get to prana. You can get prana into your leg by sinking it into your leg. That is supposed to open up, but I haven't experienced that yet. Okay, no. That's okay. One thing it says about the unruly winds entering the sunray channel. Sunray is a translation for Sushuna. I don't think we'll go into it tonight, but it's a long story where this word comes from. It's a component in sunlight. relates to the central channel. But in Tibetan, there's a very, very beautiful presentation of the stages by which prana enters the central channel. And then there are special signs that come in your body. And we're going to be covering that, I think, on Wednesday. But there are beautiful signs. And so, in any spiritual practice, it's really fun to have some kind of guidelines about, what do you call it, milestones. If someone can teach you, if this is happening with your breath, you've reached level two and the prana entering your sushumna. Or if this stops happening with your breath, then the prana has just left your sushumna. But if somebody can give you a specific outer science that accompany in Tibetan tradition three stages of how the wind moves in the sushumna, then you kind of get a feeling for where you're at and how far you've still got to go. And that can be very comforting in any practice, any spiritual practice. So we'll be covering that, I think, on Wednesday. Okay. Is it this Wednesday or is it this Wednesday? Verse 42. Atta manon mani Marute madya sanchare Manah staryam prajayate Yo manah susthiri pavah Saiva vastha manon mani When the unruly wind moves into the middle, then one achieves the solid fixation of the mind. And anyone who has reached this kind of fixation has reached the point beyond thought or no thought. So there's a slight typo here. It's not solid fixation of the wind, it's solid fixation of the mind. Manastaryam. Not pavanam staryam or marutas staryam. It's manastaryam. So it's solid fixation of the mind. We covered man on money before. It means... You can cheat. It's right in the reading. What's manas mean? Mind. What's unmani mean? No mind. So this means beyond thought or no thought here in the reading. Yeah. So this is about, this verse is about seeing emptiness directly. Mananmani is another word for seeing emptiness directly. So, your instructions, according to this verse, get the winds into the center channel, achieve a fixation of the mind, a solid fixation of the mind, on a single object, which is the emptiness of your own self. And then you will reach this state which is beyond thought or no thought. Now this is like, I don't know, this really esoteric beyond thought or no thought, you know, what does that mean exactly? And the Indian gurus would be, go meditate on it, you know. The Tibetans write like 20 billion pages about it. You know, it's like the two opposite systems. One says too little, one says too much. And we meet in the middle and we give like a really short commentary on it. I like both methods. So beyond thought. Thoughts here, first of all, means your misperceptions of the outside world. what we were talking about before when we said every single thing that you ever see or hear or taste or smell or even think is lying to you. So everything that we ever have experienced up to this point, if you've not seen emptiness directly yet, is a lie, is some kind of misperception. You are having some kind of misperception about every single thing, even your own thoughts. Right? So we want to get beyond that. We want to get beyond these misperceptions. But it doesn't mean we get beyond them by not thinking at all. And that's what no thought means. It's not like you just go into some catatonic state, like you drink too much beer one day and you pass out and you're in mud on money. That's not true. You know, it's beyond thought, but it's also beyond no thought. Right? You're not, you're not, you're actually in the most awake, alive, alert, intense space that you've ever been in your entire life. But you're not thinking, per se. There's no conceptions in your mind. There's no words. Right? It's not... We're not thinking in words and pictures anymore. It's beyond that. It's a direct experience, you could say, of the divine. A direct experience of the divine. It's like you're in direct contact with whoever you would call God. Time doesn't exist, space doesn't exist, you don't exist. In this space, beyond thought or no thought. And in the Tibetan system, they say it's jidda mepa, it's beyond description. Like, someone could have been there, someone could have seen it, someone could have been in that space in direct contact with the divine, but they would have no way of telling you about it because it's beyond words. It's beyond any kind of conceptual thinking. So we use concepts to talk around it, to get different pictures and different ideas in our mind. What could this be? What could this direct perception of emptiness be when the winds go into the central channel and you disappear? and you're in direct contact with the divine and it's beyond all thought or no thought. It's nice to imagine. It's nice to try and imagine. Even though we can't get to it, the more we imagine it, the more we plant seeds to see it directly. So, you know, go home, think about it. Wow, my whole practice of yoga, every single pose in my asanas is to get these winds into the center channel so I can see emptiness directly, so I can become free in this lifetime, so I can be a real benefit to other people. What is it like? What is it like? It's beyond all thought or no thought. What kind of picture does that bring to you when I say that? It's direct contact with whatever you think of when I say the divine. What does that mean? You're no longer there. Time's no longer there. Space is no longer there. What does that mean? You gather as much information as you can about emptiness, and then you try and think about it all the time. Plant the seeds all the time. I will see emptiness directly in this lifetime. Be like a mantra for you. I will see emptiness directly in this lifetime. I will see emptiness directly in this lifetime. I will see. You can do your surinamaskaras about this. Because this is the ultimate. This is what we want to get to. If you want. Okay. Don't you have one last thing to announce me? I'm going to take a break. Did Michael come tonight? He's right there. Oh, yeah. Both Michaels. Good. I'd like to meet with Michael, Gordon, Bengali, Raupel, and that's all. Do you have any other way? Oh, Andreana will tell me. Okay. Have a nice break, and we'll see you shortly. Do I have a question? Do I have to do it? Thank you. sorry you gotta sit down we'll teach to outstanding people do you have the other standing people? you can do the other standing We left off one word from the last verse. Mananmani verse. It said from the Mananmani, what is that, number 42? Yes. There's that second keyword there. What's it say? Abastha. Say Abastha. Abastha. In Tibetan it's nekap. Say nekap. Nekap. Nekap means usually a situation or a point in time or a point in a progression of something. And there are four famous avastas in the yogic literature. And you should know the word avastas. This is like the first place that it happens. And it'll be coming up later a lot. So you should get familiar with this word avastas. In Tibetan it's called the nekapshi. Say nekapshi. Nekapshi. The four modes of the mind, the four states of mind. The first one is called ni sepe nekap. Say ni sepa. Ni means to sleep. Sepa means to dispel sleep or to wake up from sleep. So the first mode of the mind is the waking state. That's the first avastha, is the waking state. Then it's say ni ki nekap. Ni ki nekap. The state of sleep. Then there's the Nhi, I'm sorry, Milang. It's called Nhi Thupo. Nhi Thupo means deep sleep. Deep sleep. Dreamless sleep. You can say that. Then Milang Gineka means the dreaming state. So the mind can be in one of these three states, right? either your mind is awake, or your mind is in deep, dreamless sleep, or your mind is in a dreaming state. And then in Tibetan they call the fourth state, the fourth state, say, Nekap, Siva. Nekap, Siva. And it's secret. It was meant to be kept secret, so they didn't name it. They just called it state number four. In the yogic literature it's called Turiya. and this refers specifically to the time when you are practicing high practices with a partner and your mind is into another state of mind it's a deep state of mind that you achieve with practicing yoga with a partner so what they're describing here, manon mani as being an avastha is a reference to that state, very deep state in which you are perceiving emptiness directly very commonly through the aid of a partner, working with a partner. We've reached the loom section of our program tonight. Today we're going to talk about the mental signs of loom, which is my personal favorite. We talked about physical signs and we talked about behavioral signs. And today we get to talk about how you go a little bit crazy when you have soklum. Or that disease of the prana that they call just lumb. Genshla said, I should tell you stories to describe them because then you will remember them better. So I was trying to think of funny long stories, you know. And most of them happened during three-year retreat. Okay, so we were, this one says, quick temper, sudden flashes of irritation or grumpiness, right? So I was like, what kind of story could I tell about sudden flashes of irritation or grumpiness? I don't want to tell you stories about me, that's too personal, I'll tell them about Gisla, right? But I got his approval at dinner, so it's all right So we're in a three-year retreat And we're in this canvas yurt It's made of sticks and felt and canvas On top of some wooden board And it's really easy for little things like mice To just chew their way through and kind of take up residence with us in the yurt. And they're really, really quiet when we meditate. They're very thoughtful. It's only when we try to sleep that they start getting a little bit noisy. They start going, you know. And already you have lung, you know, so already it's really difficult to sleep. But then you've got this noise. You know. And it only happens after you've been silent in the bed for about 30 minutes. So you're like almost asleep. And then, you know. And this used to drive Geshe Michael crazy. Like he got really, like he pretended to get really wrathful about it. One night he like turned all the candles on, you know. Like, we didn't have lights. But, you know, it was the crew that are flicking all the lights in the house. And he, like, lit all the candles. And he's like, okay, I'm going to find this mouse, you know. And he got the broom. And he pulled every single item of furniture we had away from the wall. And he chased the mouse around the yard. And, like, I'm like, you're not going to catch him that way. Please, let's go to bed. I just want to go to bed. And, um, but he was a little bit obsessed about the mouse. And, um, then it would, it continued, you know, he, he, he built this like trap for the mouse. It was like, it was like this box with this thing on top of it. And when the mouse would go in, it would knock the thing down. And like, it was, it was great fun. It was really great fun. But it was all this like, you know, it's like even if you're in retreat by yourself and there's nobody else to get mad at, you'll find somebody. You'll find the mouse. You know, you'll find someone to get mad at because it's the winds in your body that's making you irritated or irritable or, you know, or grumpy. You'll get grumpy at the birds that are sweetly chirping outside of your window. I can't meditate when you do that, you know? Like, you just find an object of your anger, and then you learn that anger is not coming from the other person. It's coming from you, because you could just pretty much direct it anywhere and be mad at just about anything. You know, there was another incident with the fireplace, you know, it's like 2 in the morning, crawling up on top of the... Anyway, it's the longest time. But, you know, you can get mad at inanimate objects, And it's all this sign of sop-rom. It's all this sign of loom. Someone does something or says something to you and you just immediately have this, you know, or irritation or grumpiness. It's this overreaction to things around you. Okay, second story. I told this one at Diamond Mountain already. But you remember when I was telling you about the physical problem of handshaking and you're trying to feed the person and you can't get it in their mouth? Well, we were miming this story. When we were in a three-year retreat, I don't know how many of you know, but we had periods of deep retreat where we wouldn't go past our fence. We had a yurt and then we had a fence around the yurt. It was like an eight-foot fence and you couldn't see anybody past it. And we had just like a small yard, like a small platform that extended maybe to that pillar right there. And that's about as far as we could go. And we would spend maybe one to three months in deep retreat. And then we'd come out for our break retreat. And we'd still be silent. And we'd still be meditating every day. But we wouldn't say, like we'd take a break from getting up at three in the morning. We'd get up at like six or something. It's like such a luxury. And we could actually walk outside the yurt. Like, we could walk in the desert. We could roam the desert. We had another bigger border around the whole desert. It was quite large. So you could take these huge long walks during the break periods. One thing that happened during the break periods is that the first day we broke deep retreat, we would all meet in the temple for this prayer, this ritual prayer. And when we met, everybody had really, really high pranic energy, you know. So it was like very extreme. You know, you hadn't seen another person in a really long time. And then all of a sudden, there's, you know, five of us together. And we're like, you know. It was very exciting to see them after a long time of being apart. So we did these stories, like these mime stories to each other because we couldn't talk. We developed this very elaborate sign language. And we told this story to Trisama and Petra about how I couldn't get the food into his mouth. And they thought it was so funny. They were like hysterical on the floor laughing. And the whole night they were doing this to each other. You know, like, this is a sign of love. Like, you take something that's not that funny. And you roll on the floor laughing about it all night long. You know, like, they had a little bit of work. You know, it's like this hysterical, giddy, laughing thing. That gets, and you notice that there will be a mood swing. It's like manic depression or something like that. A lot of the modern psychological terms for behavioral disorders are actually just lung disorders in the Tibetan system. You know, something like manic depression. Oh, they have lung. You know? It wouldn't be its own separate category. They would categorize it as a disease of the prana value. You want to tell some stories? You want me to keep going? Okay. Okay, the next one says, unfounded doubts or paranoia. We would, again, all of my experiences with lung come from three-year retreat. It's such a beautiful way to experience lung disorders. No, no, don't get scared I want all of you to go on through your retreat with us next time To tell you the truth Whenever you get into a really deep retreat Especially a long retreat You're going to be on the edge of them all the time You actually want to be You want to have sort of a high chronic rate going on in your body because it's the intensity that you need in order to succeed in your practice. But like I said before, there's a line. There's a line, and if you cross it, you no longer are achieving anything in your practice. Then your focus goes scattered, and then you can't meditate. So what we're trying to do when we're talking about lung is we're trying to find the line. You know, we're giving you symptoms of, okay, this is when you're starting to get it or when you already have it. And this is how to prevent it. We are going to talk about how to prevent it, by the way. We're not just going to keep talking about what's wrong with it. We're going to talk about a lot of different methods to prevent it. So, when you go on a deep retreat, you will experience certain types of, you know, certain tendencies towards this. You'll notice certain things in yourself. Don't freak out and say, I have lung, I have to stop retreat or something like that, you know. Try and manage it, but know that it's going to be a high chronic content anyway. And you're just going to have to try and balance, really. So we were in retreat, and I forget, we wrote one of the caretakers for something. I think it might have been Shiki. And they were our caretakers for three years, and they just served us in retreat for three years. And we couldn't have done it without them. So it was pretty amazing. They took care of us night and day, anything we asked. And so we wrote one of them, let's say it was Chicky, for some sort of item. And we got this note back, Chicky's not here. And then what happens in your mind when you are in retreat and you have a little bit of lung is you start getting these paranoid fantasy delusions about what could have happened to Chicky. She got in a car accident, or I don't know, she's really ill, or I don't know, what happened to Chicky. and we gotta find out and oh maybe she just doesn't like us anymore and she left no your mind does that you know your mind when you have lung it starts going off on all of these like amazing tangents and it had absolutely no basis in truth Chiki was like right there she just like went to the store that day or something you know I mean it was nothing it was just like Chiki wasn't there that day but they forgot to put that day in the notes And so it's your mind. Your mind goes off on all these tangents. And that's a sign of love. You know, like this paranoid fear in your heart. There's like a fear in your heart about things. What's the opposite of that? Yeah, pronoia. I like it. Is that you? It's when you think that everyone is like this holy enlightened being to help you, right? And you see the two sides, right? Your mind could go either way. And which is it, really? No, no, she's going, no, no, no. I can't fool me. It's neither, really, right? Yeah. You can say, I think you have succeeded in Hatha Yoga if you don't get long. That's why we're spending so much time on it. The whole game is about room. Are you a good yogi? Is your asana successful? Is your pranayama successful? Are you doing bandhas and mudras and kumbhakas successfully? Then do you exhibit any of these mental problems? It's not like how strong is your body or how clear are your nostrils or something like that. You are a success in yoga if you're not getting room. And you're a failure if you are getting room, no matter how good you look in asanas. You see, I mean, you're not doing yoga. Something's not successful about your yoga. A yogi who's successful in moving prana, in doing asanas, in doing pranayama, is exhibiting the opposite of all these characters. They have a great degree of comfort in their mind. They have a great degree of peace. They have a high degree of capacity for stillness. They are very kind and affectionate and considerate of other people. And they have the opposite of delusions. They have these delusions where they believe everyone's out to help them. And we were there, we met with a major, major Tibetan scholar guy the other weekend. And he said, what about this thing going on with these people? And we gave him our version, you know, we think they're out to help us. He like leans over, he says, that's kind of naive, don't you think? And I said, I don't know, naïtivity has served me my whole life. You know, to be naive has made me happy my whole life. And I don't see any need to stop, no, you know. I think it's a sign of your prana moving well in the right places. If you are naive in the sense of you think the world could be a beautiful place, or you think everyone has the capacity to become divine, and you know, these kind of people are moving prana well. They are happy, they are contented, they are peaceful people, and we're just trying to describe the opposite to you, which we have been through countless times. which we go through every week even after much practice but it's really helpful to know the signs that you're off track and then you can do something about your prana so to me this is more important than the book because these came from real three year retreat these came from real we could have written a book about all the problems of doing prana on the wrong and I think it might be more helpful for you so anyway here's some more Violent depression Very, very deep depression I've never been depressed in my whole life Never, ever Until three year retreat And then, yeah No, and then Your prada gets moving the wrong way You get a loom in your chest And you get insomnia You can't sleep And then Trying to do yoga with a full stomach Is hard try to do back to back four hour sessions with Dave and Sharon in the desert out in the sun you know, like eight hours of yoga with them, three or four days straight you know, and then physically you feel exhausted, right, but then try to do yoga asanas on no sleep and you can't you know, you just can't and so you get this you get a sleep problem and then it throws you into depression problem so like if you're having these mood swings and you find yourself getting deeply depressed, you may be moving prana the wrong way. Your practices of asana and pranayama may be moving prana the wrong way. You need a teacher at your side. Now, you need someone at your side that you trust and that you will listen to. It's hard to find, right? And then you say, I'm having depression. And they say, of course, you've been blowing out your right nostril. I told you left nostril. No, something like that they will say. And if you don't have a teacher and you just try to do these practices, the tiger will turn on you. You might get very depressed or you might get very loony and nervous or you might get insomnia. If you were to take the time to find a good teacher, then they would be guiding you through these problems. They wouldn't have happened in the first place. Feeling of being trapped or confined, you think people are dictating to you. You feel like you don't have any power in your life. Everyone's pushing you around. Everyone's telling you what to do. Nothing is, even physically, you have this beautiful, spacious yard in the desert. People come in, they look at it, they say, oh my God, this is so beautiful. And to you, it looks like it's like a closet. This is room. This is a sign that you have room. A yogi who is in prana is moving in the right direction. They sit in a room, and it just looks beautiful together. It just looks shining. And the light is, oh, look at the light against that thing. It's so beautiful. They see only the beauty of the room. This is a sign that your prana is moving in the right direction. And if you get into rooms and they feel oppressive to you, or you feel no beauty in a room, then you might be doing your asanas in an improper way. The breathing might be wrong somehow, especially. Sensations of disorientation. It's like, I think of it as an inability to connect with the here and now. You just, you find yourself, you walk across the yurt to get something, and then halfway across the 21 feet 3 inches, you stop, you know, and you're like, what was I going to get, you know? And it's just this inability to be connected with the present moment. And that's a sign of flow. David once said to us in a class, in a three-year retreat, they could talk, we couldn't, right? They told us we were the perfect students. He said, I have this feeling that if I could just walk across the room to pick up a pencil with perfect mindfulness, I would have the ultimate asana. That would be the ultimate asana. And I never forgot that. It was a beautiful thing. Obsession with past events, particularly old girlfriends and boyfriends. But this is a sign of love. It's when you can't break out of something, someone hurt you in the past, and you just can't forget it. I heard a beautiful nun speak, an American nun in Tucson many years ago, when his holiness spoke. Who's the one in Oregon? Clifton Chibin. It was her. She gave a beautiful talk about old boyfriends. But she got to this point and she said, I can still quote to you verbatim what this person said to me eight years ago that hurt my feelings so bad. But I would wager that they don't remember the incident at all. You see what I mean? So we tend to remember something that someone said to hurt us and then we obsess on it. It's called a, in Tibetan, it's a shargong. Shargong means, it's a kind of meditation. You review it over and over until you burn synapses, new synapses into your mind to remember every word this person said to you 18 years ago. So in a loon condition, you will find yourself doing it more. So that's a sign. If you find yourself obsessing on what someone did to you, hurt you 18 years ago, we're just trying to give you warning signs. And you know, now that you have 23 warning signs, at least you should notice one of them, probably. That's the hope. 22, you will say, no, okay, my urine's all frothy, but that's because I had chocolate yesterday, you know? But you will lie to yourself. But then if they start piling up, the signs, then at some point you'll probably do something. Like what? Ask your teacher what to do. I think I have a little, little, little. alright one more and I think that's enough this is also negative this obsession and worries about the future like we're going to get out of retreat like oh my god we only have two years, one month and 13 days and a couple hours how are Christy and me going to live You know, we don't know anybody. We don't have any job. We probably can't even get to Tucson. You know, and will there be anybody out there when we open the door? Can you talk about that? Yeah. I have to think around. What are we going to do, you know? And, you know, all this is like years away, you know? And then you build up this whole scenario, this whole threatening scenario. of the future. And it gets bigger and bigger and more and more threatening of the future. What am I going to do? And if this happens, then what are we going to do? And then it gets more and more sophisticated, bigger and bigger. That's a sign of wrong. You might say that all unhappiness is a sign of wrong. How's that? All manifestations of unhappiness, of lack of contentment, lack of peace in the mind, lack of appreciation, lack of love or affection for others. All of these aren't moon. They're all moon. They're just a minor they're just an ongoing never-ending moon condition that we have. So think about that one. Anytime you're not feeling contented and well-being you have some degree of moon. You know, after we've been teaching this for a while, everybody has been coming up to us and saying, I think I have both. It's like, yeah. If you, you know, when you start studying this, you start to realize that we all have a degree of imbalance in our wins to one extent or another. You know, if we have certain symptoms like this, it's because we have an imbalance in our wins and practicing this properly will balance them out. And then we'll start to open up our hearts. Because it's here, it's in our heart. It's a soplum problem, it's a pranavayu problem, it's the wind here. And when your heart starts opening, it will be exactly opposite of this. Every single person you see will be like your best friend in the whole world. and you'll just want so badly to do something to make them happy. It will, you know, imagine walking around New York and every single face you see, you just want to make them smile. You know, and you're not thinking about yourself at all. You're just thinking about other people and that, you know, your heart is wide open. And that's sort of the opposite. That's sort of where we're going for, right? Okay. So, we almost got to Friday. We'll do Friday tomorrow. Amen. Thank you.