DHYAN FOUNDATION

Recently I got an email from someone seeking a meditation technique to help his situation. The gentleman had apparently learnt the sri vidya and some other vidyas (names of which, even I don’t know) from an avadhoot baba who conducts shivirs across the globe. I told him that he knew so much, he should be the one giving me lessons in yog; so how could I possibly help him? His reply was, ‘that is what the problem is. I have learnt the vidyas, but I do not know what to do now, how to prove myself…’ This gentleman is not an isolated case. There are so many across the world who are caught up in the buying and selling of myriad vidyas and kriyas in the hope of gaining name, fame, money, power, success or for the solution to a physical problem. There exists no kriya, vidya or upay  to solve your life’s problems. The only method lies in improving one’s karma. The law of karma states that whatever you give, comes back to you manifold. If you want to grow financially, start feeding th...

“Om poornamidah poornamidam poornaata poornam uddachhyate Poornasya poornamaadaaya poornamevaava shishyate Om” The above shloka 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. The brahmand is a complete whole. Everything has emerged from it and will go back to it. It has no boundaries; it is infinite. Our body is a poorna ansh (complete part) of Creation. Like everything else in Creation, our body, too, is run on the principle of balance and imbalance. When you are in a state of balance, you exude health, beauty, glow and radiance. You possess within you the magnetism and attraction of the entire Creation. But whenever there is imbalance disease and ageing set in. We need the help of yog. In yog, you do not see body as different parts but in totality, as poorna. Sanatan Kriya addresses the whole body — from core to the pe...

Ram Navami falls on the ninth day of the waxing moon in the month of Chaitra. The day marks the birth of Shri Ram, and is commonly seen as a Hindu holiday. However, Lord Rama was on earth at a time much before the Mahabharat, referred to as the treta yug...at that time, there was definitely no religion nor were there ‘Hindus’.  These were the times of the Vedic rishis, rishis who lived by the principles of nature and balance and had access to the deepest secrets of creations in the form of Vedas. Vedas again, are not religious texts, in fact, they are not even texts. They are a science encompassing within their folds all aspects known and unknown to the human mind. They were revealed to the rishis in deep states of concentration, and can be accessed by anyone through the correct practices of ashtang yoga and sanatan kriya, irrespective of the part of the world they are living in. Ram, is a symbolic representation of the positivity in creation and took birth to restore order withi...

PARUL SHARMA SINGH The ancient skill of practising mace balances body energy Think mace and the first image that crops up is of cousins Bheem and Duryodhan locked in a  gada battle in the epic war at Kurukshetra. However, many believe mace is not merely a weapon, but a form of  sadhana  as exercising with it tends to balance one’s physical and spiritual energies. Projecting mace as a “manifestation of energy that represents concentrated  prana ”, Dhyan Foundation (a spiritual and charitable organisation headquartered in Delhi spreading awareness about yoga) has been teaching this ancient skill to a bunch of health-conscious and spiritually-inclined people for the past several years. Seeking to dispel the mace’s association with any particular religion, these sessions propagate that just as the earth revolves around the sun and gets life force from it, the mace, too, moves around the body to gather force which is used by its practitioner. “A beginner sh...

What is yoga? Simply put, it is being in union with something. In that sense, one may choose to be in yoga with fashion, with beauty, or with a sport . But none of these makes a person a yogi. To embark on the path a yogi travels, you need to go through a certain experience, which will bring you face to face with what is called atma sakshatkar , your true self. Once you come face to face with your true self, you are in yoga, and once you are in yoga with yourself, you are a yogi. A rakshas (demon) undergoes enormous tapah (penance) to impress God. When God finally appears before him to grant him the desired boon, what does the rakshas ask for? Immortality, riches, pleasures… Why? Kyonki woh apni yoni se bandha hua hai because he is constrained by his karmic protocol of being born into an order of being that is demonic — he cannot understand a world beyond that, so he cannot ask for more than that. He is bound by his desires, he needs certain experiences so he asks f...

All of you must have played the game of Mario at some point in life. In Mario, the player  collects the coins, kills the dragon and rescues his girlfriend; every time he collects a hundred coins, he gets a new life and the game goes on. As you play this game, you get thrilled when you collect a coin, or reach a higher level—you stay glued to the screen, oblivious to what is happening around you. Pause for a moment to think—have the coins that you collect helped any of you buy a real car or a good meal? As soon as you switch off the power, the coins disappear, so does the girlfriend. You think you passed the time, but in reality, time passed you. After two hours of play, you are still at the same level, maybe a little lower than what you were, because virtual stimulation dulls your reflexes, your eyes sting and even you don’t know what all junk you had stuffed into your stomach when you were engrossed in the play. The game of Mario was unreal, and the state it left you in, is y...

The nine days of Navratris are very powerful. Each of these nine days has a specific purpose. During Navratris, the weather changes — various energies of this creation move from imbalances towards a new normalcy. Since a human being is poorna ansh of this creation, every object and energy of the creation resides within you as well. In these nine days you also move towards a new normalcy. The prana shakti inside the body also undergoes a process of realignment. And to realign, the body should be kept light. The nine days are divided into three parts, each comprising three days. Each set of three days is for the three parts of the body — the region below the navel, between the navel and shoulders and the region above the shoulders. The nine Devis worshipped during Navratris originate from Maa Durga, Maa Lakshmi and Maa Saraswati which, all of whom have their origin in Adi Shakti. The head region of the body is symbolic of Durga, and the middle and lower regions represent Lakshmi an...

Today, one can find so many different arts that promise an experience of the energy world. There is a plethora of organisations selling everything under the sun in the name of yoga. Once, I read a newspaper article about why one should hang a wind-chime in the middle and not on the side of the door. Such things beat all logic. People say whatever comes to their mind first, just to make it sound a little diifferent. Once it is different, it is something new, it’s an innovation ready to be marketed and sold! All this buying and selling makes one wonder whether yog and the various spiritual sciences are exit from or entry into the world of maya. One enters the dimension of yoga without knowing where one is headed to or what one wants. Majority who enter, meet these clever businessmen selling them courses and realise that they wasted this lifetime and achieved nothing. The rishis of yesteryears possessed phenomenal glow and radiance, exuded youth till the last and had access to the v...

The  belief that  Shiva is all about indulging  and intoxicating your senses is a misconception, says  YOGI ASHWINI   The month of Phalguna is usually marked by a plethora of spiritual events organised for Shivaratri and Holi, two major Hindu festivals. The highlight of most of these events is  bhang , the herb that intoxicates. It is consumed by many as a prasad of Shiva, as a token of Shakti.   Gyan And Drink Don’t Mix   Interestingly, I, too, have done this in the past, but when I entered yoga, I started realising that among the people who come to me, the ones who consume alcohol are unable to comprehend the subject. The inebriated neither get the  gyan  or knowledge, nor the experience. In time, either they leave the spiritual path, or alcohol leaves them. It is clear that intoxication with external substances and agents that stimulate the senses, and the path of spirituality cannot go ha...

If you recall the episode from Ramayana, you will find that Ravan appeared to be invincible despite repeated attacks by Rama, and was killed only when Rama pierced his navel with an arrow. The navel corresponds to the seat of power in the body, the Manipoorak Chakra, that makes up for any weakness and directly controls the digestive system in the body. Ayurveda maintains that death begins in the colon and the modern science agrees with this fact. Hence, in order to ensure a long and healthy life, it is of utmost importance to keep the colon healthy. Realising this, today the market is flooded with various techniques and equipment to ensure the same. One of these is the hydrocolon therapy. The therapy with the aid of certain instruments washes the intestines with saline water to flush the toxins out of the system. However, being a synthetic process it entails certain side-effects such as dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, discomfort, cramps and infection. During the hydrocolon th...