Namaste

Community Welcome New Members
#1

I am Nobody.

I used to be Somebody who was closely related to Everybody (you may even know me).

Seriously now…

My name is Dianne. I am 45 years old and I live in Sydney, Australia.

Way back when, I was a member of The Theosophical Society and The Divine Life Society. For many years, I practiced Hatha, Laya and Kriya Yoga religiously (or should I just say ‘a heck of a lot’). lol

Thus, I had quite a few profound insights into the true nature of ‘self’ and the Advaita philosophy has been a very strong part of my life ever since.

Then something happened…I got married, had a family, found employment and spent a lot of time just being ‘hedonistic’ and rejecting what I felt deep inside until one day, about 20 years ago, I just stopped feeling it.

Now, 20 years later, I am quite obese, my body is wracked with arthritis, I get frequent chest colds, I suffer from depression, I eat junk and I am too lazy to get out of my own way…my life is a mess.

A month ago, something happened. I woke up one morning from a deep, sound sleep and upon waking, it felt for all the world like I had been meditating all night. The clarity of mind I experienced was incredible and the love I felt was just pure bliss. It has been a very long time since I felt anything like that.

This forced me to question my life and a lot of ‘wtf are you doing girl?’ ensued.
I didn’t know whether or not to start attending Yoga classes again in my ‘condition’ because I can barely move as it is.
I have been lurking around the internet trying to piece this all together…trying to make some sense out of it all…

Then, I found this forum here and so I decided to join.

#2

[QUOTE=Nobody;39683]I am Nobody.[/QUOTE]

I think I saw you in a couple of spaghetti westerns in the early 1970s. :slight_smile:

welcome to the forum.

#3

Hello Diane and welcome to the forum.

Do you think you could for now just start up a practice in a small way? Could you do it at home for awhile and modify the poses by using walls and furniture, etc., if you can’t get into the full pose?

You know a lot more about this than I do, because I’m fairly new to yoga, but one thing I can tell you from the perspective of a 55 year old, is that at 45 you are still young, and if you just begin now and get started on the right path again and start taking steps in the right direction, however small, you will make progress and gain confidence and will be well on your way to being the yoga babe you used to be, and will still be relatively young when you get there.

I wish you all the best.

#4

Welcome Dianne, its a pleasure to meet you. You can definitely do some asanas. You will feel even better for having done just a few.

Thank you so much for sharing your lovely spiritual moment.

#5

Thank you for the warm welcome. <3

I am thinking about doing some very simple asanas (like those that really elderly people do) and as I get more flexible, I shall adjust my practice accordingly.

For now, I think I will just try sitting on the floor and getting back up from it. LOL

I also have to look into dietary restrictions and I personally feel this is the best place to start.

I am 40 kilos overweight and something needs to be done about that…

I am just so happy…so incredibly thankful and humbled that my life has been touched once again.
For the past few weeks, I have often found myself with tears streaming down my cheeks and a huge smile on my face.

I feel like this is going to be the start of something truly epic. :slight_smile:

#6

Nobody,
Please stay in the awareness of this latest wake-up call for a little while. Your spiritual practice is the only asset that does not erode nor vanish. You will surprise yourself by going back to the ‘heck of a lot’ of Yoga in a short stride once you resume.

But before you get into the ‘to do’ list, meditate earnestly over that incredible ‘clarity of mind’ you experienced a month ago. You will naturally ask yourself why did you leave a good thing going twenty years back. The answer to that is karma. A portion of material life was still in balance in your karma account. But, remember how the spiritual life returned dutifully once the karma’s debt was paid. Now only you will stand between ‘nobody’ and ‘somebody’. But, with help from this forum, you will make it.

Let us request experts like InnerAthlete to understand your exact physical status and he will definitely come up with a wholesome, sensible plan of exercise and diet. For any other concerns, all of us will be happy to help.

#7

[QUOTE=Suhas Tambe;39714]Nobody,
Please stay in the awareness of this latest wake-up call for a little while. Your spiritual practice is the only asset that does not erode nor vanish. You will surprise yourself by going back to the ‘heck of a lot’ of Yoga in a short stride once you resume.

But before you get into the ‘to do’ list, meditate earnestly over that incredible ‘clarity of mind’ you experienced a month ago. You will naturally ask yourself why did you leave a good thing going twenty years back. The answer to that is karma. A portion of material life was still in balance in your karma account. But, remember how the spiritual life returned dutifully once the karma’s debt was paid. Now only you will stand between ‘nobody’ and ‘somebody’. But, with help from this forum, you will make it.

Let us request experts like InnerAthlete to understand your exact physical status and he will definitely come up with a wholesome, sensible plan of exercise and diet. For any other concerns, all of us will be happy to help.[/QUOTE]

Thank you, Suhas. That makes a lot of sense. I sort of knew I had a debt to repay society and certain obligations that I needed to fulfill in this life.
I never regretted leaving the spiritual practice for one second.

The only fear I had was that once lost, it would never return. I couldn’t imagine leaving this life with my karmic ‘spiritual debt’ still outstanding and never knowing that love and peace again.

Therefore, I don’t even have to try to ‘stay in the awareness’ of my latest wake up call. My awareness has once again taken on a life of its own. :lol:

After being ‘out of the loop’ so long though, I’d really like to know what to do/where to start.
If you could put me in contact with InnerAthlete and help me take this one step at a time, I would be very appreciative.
Bless you.

#8

Time to learn a little bit more about me.

I started practicing yoga at age 15, after visiting Bali with my family and being cured of very painful periods by a village dukun (shaman).

When I was 18, I met a Yoga teacher in Sydney by the name of Udit Ram who was the Divine Life Society representative in NSW at the time.
Sydney-based Yoga practitioners may have heard of him

I trained under him, eventually becoming a yoga teacher myself. Later, we got married and had a family.

Then, in the late 90’s, I received Mantra Diksha from Swami Chidananda. I did not place great emphasis on it at the time and was initiated because ‘Swamiji’s visit to Australia was just too good of an opportunity to pass up’.

Then, my husband stopped practicing yoga and focused all his energies on becoming a Hindu ‘Pujari’.
I was forced headfirst into the role of being ‘a dutiful Hindu wife’ and I never felt comfortable with that (being raised in the Anglo Saxon tradition).

Whilst I embraced Hinduism as an integral part of my own sadhana and the religious part of it was never an issue for me before, it suddenly became a huge one when our whole household became the centre for Hindu pragmatism.

Eventually, I found the whole situation so restrictive and stifling that I couldn’t breathe.
We ended up getting divorced.

#9

Hi Nobody…just backtracking…I know we’ve talked before but I somehow missed your thread…your experience reminds me that when we are at rock bottom, something wonderful often steps in to revive us…something profound. Someone once said it is when the ego is defeated…often by suffering, that the divine easily reaches us to gives us a hand.
xx

#10

Hi Nobody,
We have amazingly similar stories!

Flip over to my intro (which I will be writing shortly) to see what I mean.

In the meanwhile, have you come across the Shakti Bandha series of exercises? They are amazingly good for people in our condition…

I’ll see if I can dig out anything on t’Internet, but I suspect you might need to get a book.

#11

[QUOTE=dharma66;44514]Hi Nobody,
We have amazingly similar stories!

Flip over to my intro (which I will be writing shortly) to see what I mean.

In the meanwhile, have you come across the Shakti Bandha series of exercises? They are amazingly good for people in our condition…

I’ll see if I can dig out anything on t’Internet, but I suspect you might need to get a book.[/QUOTE]

Thank you so much. I look forward to your link and recommendations.

#12

Hi Nobody,

I’ve done my intro…it goes on a bit. I can’t post a link because I have done less than 15 posts, but it’s entitled ‘Namo Narayan!’

I’ve had a look round t’Internet for the Shakti Bandha exercises, but can only find pages that are breaking copyright, so I don’t feel comfortable posting links (turns out I can’t anyway until I make 15 posts!)

Maybe you could do a google search…

Or you could see if you can get your hands on ‘Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha’ which contains the exercises. They are very, very simple exercises, but they are amazingly powerful. They really help overcome that horrible feeling of stiffness and blockage in the joints, and have an amazing effect on the ability to perform other saddhana.

I’m currently hovering somewhere around 20 stone (280-300 lbs) due to a chocoalte addction. But after spending 20 minutes slowly doing shakti bandha, I can then move on to something resembling surya namaskara without too much discomfort.

#13

20 Stone!..My goodness…unless that’s your normal BMI.Hope you lose weight if that’s your aim.You sound very commited & devoted.

I might take a look at the shakti bandha series again…i am mainly doing more pranayama & meditation practice at the moment.I tried that series a little at the start of the year.

sorry to but in…

I currently hover around 13 stone(13.3 or so i think last night,6ft,37) but there are energy blockages or obstructions ,if you will, i think.I think i was possibly near 14 earlier this year but i ate for the dopamine fix here… comfort eating.Rather sedate lifestyle.Stiff, yes and so on.Although the yoga helps no doubt.That’s why i do it.But i need to get some serious sustained sadhana in, i feel.

#14

Don’t want to hijack Nobody’s thread, but yes, I’m slowly losing weight. Down from 23.5 stone!

I’m male, 44yo and 6ft, so I should be around 14 stone tops (BMI is bunkum - it reckons I should be 12.5 stone, which is less than I weighed when I was an 18 year old martial arts black belt who ran 50 miles a week :rolleyes:).

But to me, the religio-philosophical stuff is way more important than athleticism. I reckon you can reach enlightenment with a crippled body, but not with a crippled spirit. If I had to choose between loosing the ability to do asana, or loosing the ability to do japa, I’d keep japa every time :smiley:

#15

I reckon my right brain hemisphere corresponding to the ida nadi (dormant) has gone to sleep. I say that because i can always feel third-eye activity all down one side, my left, rather than both (more evenly) whenever i do sitting practices… My ajna the control centre therefore prob. needs balanced and all the other chakras opened of course. But i have been observing this past year and seeking to re-dress this imbalance.When i get activity in the right hemi-shpere that is the cue that balance is occuriing, the ida channel is getting awakened if you like though i think i’ve come a long or some of the way perhaps through exploring more of what yoga has to offer since first taking up asana 5 years ago… So pingala(left hemisphere gets most of the activity) is more dominant.Too much of the logical side and less of the creative,intuitive etc.You can probably detect that in my posts.

I can feel it… these things.

It is so uncanny to notice and observe this durinig P & M sitting practices.

Most of it( the work if you like, the effort) is letting go to what is… perhaps aspects of our personality or life we don’t like or perhaps don’t feel comfortable
facing at times. I don’t know?The yoga forces you to confront yourself deep down. There is no escaping, kind of thing, knowing thyself deeply.

Yes definitely crippled spirit is not good.Accepting the body you’ve currently got.Although i would’nt get too bombed out with the religio-philosophical ideas or ideals.

Sounds to me like you your natural weight could be higher than the BMI.You could have alrge frame and skeleton,special metabolism etc

I always did wonder about all those fat swamis.lol What was their secret really.Now i have a better idea.:smiley:

Consistent meditation practice i’ve noticed helps you lose weight without less fighting or effort.I hope you get a comfrortable weight.The mind tends to want food because it expects it.Like conditioning. I could eat much less myself .One of my main vices that prob. gets in the way of practice.

#16

I’ve also been trying to relax my eyeballs and pressure at the temples more as one had a tendency to go up more,the left, during sambhavi mudra.And i think this may be also connected with my eyesight , the eye-ball that pulls up more and stimulates pingala more is weaker dioptre-wise.But like tighter muscles.Could be a co-incidence but the stimulation is more in this regard.

So equalisation (of the eye-balls etc,where we put our awareness and so on) is likely optimal here hence why you get all those gazing techniques such as trataka to help open & balance the third-eye/ajna chakra. And the eyes are connected somatically to the rest of the brain and neural system & neurobiology(subtle and so on) .So there does appear to be good science behind all of this including whatever else and all rest that is going on… the subtle stuff and the stuff you’re not aware of…you can or could (therefore), within this yogic paradigm, call it “spiritual”…I mean all of it

Just thought that was an interesting piece of data worth mentioning.

#17

I find it pretty hard to gain weight, because I have a really fast metabolism. I have always been pretty skinny, but now I think I am just average. I am 13 stones and 6’3, but wouldn’t mind gaining a stone more to fill out the body more. It is hard work though, because it means eating more than 3 meals a day. I would rather spend extra time reading, writing or socialising with friends. Besides soon I am off to India to live in an Ashram, where I am bound to lose weight and become skinny again. On average, in India, I lose about 2 stones in weight whenever I go.

In any case, yes it is better to lose weight if you are overweight, you will feel much better. Weight is tamasic. It brings you down literally, but also emotionally and mentally. There are countless routines out there to lose weight - but the best is to simply eat less and do loads of cardio. You should consider Ayurveda, as they can design specific diets for weight loss.

#18

20 Stone!..My goodness…unless that’s your normal BMI.Hope you lose weight if that’s your aim.You sound very commited & devoted.
Yes. I went from 62 kgs to 98 kgs in about 6 months and doctors are at a total loss to explain my sudden weight gain.

I realise that I will be on a low fat and low carb [B]liquid diet[/B] for the next 6 months to lose it all again.

I have already seen a doctor/dietitian and for the next 6 months, I will be living on nothing but Optifast (low carb shakes for 3 meals per day), water and multi vitamin tablets.

There’s no question of ‘taking it slow’, actually eating ‘healthy’ or just living on veggies and such…I am way beyond that point now…because the next step is surgery (jaw wiring and stomach stapling which I want to try and avoid).

#19
  • but the best is to simply eat less and do loads of cardio.

I cannot do that.
I am so unfit, that if I become exhausted and start breathing heavily, I pass out. :frowning:

#20

Weight is tamasic. It brings you down literally, but also emotionally and mentally.

I [I]totally[/I] agree.

I cannot understand people who are happy being fat and others who view ‘body image’ as being totally unimportant.

People always tell me ‘who cares if you are obese? that’s not who you are inside’.

I care! and they are right, that’s not who I am because I hate being this way.