Living the Teachings

• Useful Tip

Take a COLD SHOWER in the early morning. Yes! It's the best! It just takes a little courage. Massage your skin with a little oil, then jump into a cold shower and constantly massage your body until it no longer feels cold. When the cold water hits the surface of your skin, all the blood from your inner organs rushes to the surface as a defense reaction. This flushes your organs, improves your circulation, and strengthens your nervous system. It will help relieve early morning depression. It is definitely better than coffee! Then, briskly dry yourself off and you are on a good start to having a great day! 
------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

• Article published in the Ashland Yoga Center Newsletter December 2015

   Mantra, the Sacred Sound

  by Emmy Graham, Certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher

  
  

  As a child of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was a devout Catholic.  I recited prayers daily, instinctively paying attention to words and rhythm.  I said a rosary regularly, intuitively understanding that words, repetition and intention were important.  Nobody told me to do these things, I just felt compelled to spend time with God in this way.  Little did I know this was my first introduction to mantra.

  
  

  Yogi Bhajan, the master of Kundalini Yoga says, “Mantras are not small things, mantras have power. They are the mind vibration in relationship to the Cosmos. The science of mantra is based on the knowledge that sound is a form of energy having structure, power, and a definite predictable effect on the chakras and the human psyche.”

  
  

  In 1999 when I became a student of Kundalini Yoga, I was immediately struck by the sensations I felt when chanting mantras in class. The first mantra I learned was “Sat Nam” which means truth is my identity.  As my teacher instructed, I trained myself to hear this sound on each breath.  It was through mantra that I discovered my own divine internal wisdom.  It was through mantra that I felt safe and content.  It was through mantra that I found compassion and love for all life on earth, even for the person I could tolerate the least.  It was through mantra that I understood that the most painful moments of lives are our greatest teachers.

  
  

  The yogic aphorisms of Patanjali address the importance of the sacred sound:

  I.27 Repeating the sacred sound manifests Divine Consciousness.

  I.28 When expressed with great devotion, the sacred sound reveals our Divine nature.

  I.29 By faithful repetition, the inner light luminously shines.

  
  

  Mantra is a science where we create a vibration with a specific outcome.  When done correctly, the sound vibration stimulates the hypothalamus which stimulates the pituitary and pineal glands changing the chemistry of the brain. We don’t even have to understand it to benefit. In Kundalini Yoga there are mantras for healing, abundance, protection and much more. We can throw things into the sound current - confusion, pains, losses, sufferings - and experience its transformation into something that serves us. 

  
  

  I chant mantra daily and incorporate it into my Kundalini classes regularly.  To chant with a group of people magnifies the results. Mantra is so powerful that even chanting for 3-11 minutes transforms not only one’s life, but one’s community and world.  It might be argued that it is one of the most powerful and profound ways to change the world.  I invite you to befriend a mantra that resonates with you.  Let the sacred sound current carry you to new places.  Sat Nam.

  
  

  For more information on mantra:  http://www.3ho.org/kundalini-yoga/mantra

  
  

  For more information on Emmy’s Kundalini Yoga classes: www.ashlandkundaliniyoga.blogspot.com

  
  

  
  

  -------------------------------------------------------------------
  Article Published in Ashland Hot Yoga Newsletter February 2016
  
  
  
  

  Kundalini Yoga – There are no Accidents

  by Emmy Graham, MS, certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher

  
  

  As a child growing up in rural upstate New York during the early 1970s, yoga was an exotic and foreign thing to my family.  Certainly I had never met a soul who claimed to actually do yoga. So, when I was nine years old and my mother brought home a yoga book for me, I was curious. The book was full of words which I skipped right over.  However, I was very drawn to the middle section: photos of men and women contorting into these interesting yoga postures. I was flexible and made it my mission to accomplish every single pose.  Eventually I even mastered lotus pose while standing on my head (sirsha-padmasana)! To me, yoga was nothing more than a strange set of postures that for some reason was supposed to be good for one’s health.

  By the time I was a young woman and living in Boston, yoga had become more mainstream, but still I didn’t practice it. Yes, I was flexible and strong, but quite frankly yoga bored me.  I was full of vitality and easily distracted by young men and saw no point in sitting still in a yoga class.  How did I ever become a yoga teacher?

  I owe it all to my older brother Jeff. He lived in Boston too and started attending a Kundalini Yoga class in Harvard Square taught by a Sikh woman named Sat Kartar Kaur.  One day he suggested I attend the class saying, “I think you’d like it.”  No way, was my immediate answer.  Each time we got together my brother continued to press the issue and I emphatically told him I was not interested.  Finally, I decided to go to the class so he would stop badgering me. 

  You can guess what happened.  I attended the class expecting nothing from it. Sat Kartar Kaur had a radiance and a glow that I had never experienced before in another.  Her class was fun, she was encouraging and helped me to really push myself to excel. By the end of class I felt like I had connected to my true self, that I’d finally come home.  I’d been searching for Kundalini Yoga my entire life and at age 36 I’d finally found it.  I’m now 52 years old and I’ve been practicing ever since and have never, ever gotten bored. Not once.

  Kundalini is the yoga for householders.  This means you don’t have to be celibate and live in a cave to experience the benefits.  There are kriyas and meditations that are effective in just three minutes.  It is a yoga designed for people with busy lives, in committed relationships, people with children, ordinary people with jobs and responsibilities living in the community.  It is meant to be incorporated into your daily, full life.

  Yogi Bhajan, the master who brought Kundalini Yoga to this country in 1969 said, “In Kundalini Yoga the most important thing is your experience.  It goes right to your heart.  No words can replace that experience.”  Whatever your experience as you practice this yoga, it will be personal and unique to you.  This yoga incorporates movement, asana, breath work, mantra, mudra, and meditation.  At first it may feel challenging physically, and then somehow your breath takes over and it all becomes easier.   

  If you attend my Kundalini Yoga class, it won’t be by accident.   Over and over I hear people’s stories of how, like me, they were led to a Kundalini Yoga class and it changed their lives.  Even if you only attend one class, a seed will be planted; something within you that was dormant will be awakened. I encourage you to do your level best but not be too concerned if you find you just can’t keep up.  And you don’t need to be flexible. This yoga meets you where you are and takes you where you want to go.  Bring your imperfections and your humor and see what happens.  As Yogi Bhajan once said, “If you show up, breathe, and lean in the right direction, you will benefit.” That’s all you need to do.   And the next time you come to class, you might find that everything just got a little easier.  That’s how it was for me.

  
  

  
  

Final Day of Kirtan Kriya
January 29, 2010
Today was day 40 of doing Kirtan Kriya.  We have been on a journey together and I continue to reach toward the light.  Just as I finished and was sitting in the one minute of silence, my daughter bounded up the stairs and tapped me on the shoulder.  ”Here, Mama,” she said, “I drew a rainbow for you.”  And then she kissed my cheek.   I feel like I made it and she presented me with a gift to hold dear to my heart.  My sweet girl.  Sat Nam.

Kirtan Kriya Keeps on Going
January 28,  2010
Here I am one day from finishing this amazing kriya.   While I do this kriya, I am given such insights and images.  I always come back to the image of the garden: Sa-Ta-Na-Ma:  Birth, Life, Death, Renewal.  And I have been shown many painful memories and as I wallow there in the memories of my own sh-t, I was once again given the image of the garden. Gardens love poop and with lots of good poop, up sprout seedlings that turn into bountiful plants to eat or beautiful flowers.  And plants beckon to the light.    So, I am grateful to the sh-t in my life for inevitably it brought me to the Light.
Another observation I’ve made is when meditating on the meaning of the mantra Birth, Life, Death, Renewal it occurred to me that each event is given the same amount of emphasis.  Birth is just as potent as Death as is Renewal as is Life.  Birth is a moment as is death.  And yet we, as humans, place so much emphasis on the Life part and shade out the others.  This life is but a visit.   While how we act in life should be done seriously, when we put so much seriousness towards our life, I think we miss the point and then we live without happiness.   Life is too serious to be taken seriously. Sat Nam.