How to Meditate

When you sit on your yoga mat and dive into any of the practices that are currently called ‘meditation techniques,’ you are actually engaging in Dharana: learning how to meditate. You are practising how to focus and still the mind and hold your attention in one spot or on one thing.

Whereas Dhyana is, by definition, meditation, Dharana is the practice by which you learn how to meditate. In yogic terms, Dhyana is the seventh of the eight limbs of yoga, following Dharana.

Quieting the Mind

The two practices are more like interconnected processes which naturally lead from one to the other. When you practice Dharana (concentration techniques), you are actively engaged in a process of mental effort. You are willingly inviting your mind, over and over again, to become quiet and to hold a focus. Your focus may be on the sound of your breath or perhaps on an object of visualization.

“I” and “it”

In this state of concentration, you will probably find that you are aware of a strong distinction and separation between yourself, the ‘concentrator,’ and the object of your focus. Then, maybe one rainy day, when you get back on your yoga mat or meditation pillow, wrap yourself up in your blanket, and ease yourself into lotus pose, you find that your mind fluidly slips into a calm lake of focused attention. This is the beginning of meditation.

Meditation is a State of Mind

Meditation, or the state of Dharana, is differentiated from Dhyana mainly by effort. Meditation begins when your mind moves from a state of actively doing to more passively being. In other words, meditation is a state of mind, not a practice.

In a meditative state of mind, you lose that distinction between the self and the object of your focus. You might be concentrating on sustaining a static image of a lotus flower in your mind when a subtle yet dramatic shift happens. You no longer notice the ‘you’ that is sitting on the yoga mat.

Imagine you are visualizing an imaginary flower on a rainy day and think about how difficult that might be as the flower keeps changing colour with the sound of each raindrop against the window. In a state of Dharana, you would not be distracted, because there is no ‘you’ anymore. All that exists is that perfect flower, which doesn’t even feel like it’s in your mind anymore. You and the flower are now one in the same.

Am I Meditating?

At this point, when you reach a meditative mental state, words truly fail to describe the experience. This is because your mind is getting to exactly where it is supposed to be in true meditation: beyond the point of human experience in this temporal realm.

All words fly out the window as you enter this uncharted territory. Perhaps the best indicator of whether you are meditating or not is if you ask yourself, “Am I meditating?” If you can ask that question, the answer will always be absolutely not!

How to Practice Yoga for Others

Have you ever dedicated your yoga practice to someone else? Have you ever practised yoga for the benefit of all beings? If so, you may have felt the levity of surrender, as you shifted your attention away from yourself, towards the bigger picture, seeing the interconnectedness of everyone and everything on this planet.

What is Yoga?

Hatha yoga literally means “union with god,” but most yoga classes focus on union with ourselves, by making the goal of our practice physical or psychological health. Yet how many yoga classes have you attended that invite you to connect with a greater force outside yourself?

It is reasonable that many yoga classes and yoga teachers tend to skirt the contentious and gray area of spirituality (which is all too often confused with religion). Nonetheless spirituality is at the very core of yoga.

Even without entering too deeply into the conundrum of faith and belief in the existence of god, divine nature, or life force energy, you can explore how your hatha yoga practice can bring a sense of deep connection to the world around you. In this way you will see the greater forces at play — forces which will help you connect to yoga on a deeper level. This can be done through the yoga practice of Ishvara Pranidhana, or “surrendering to god’s will.”

The Yoga of Surrender

The first step to shifting your focus away from yourself lies in accepting a degree of surrender. We can become so entwined in the illusion of control — controlling our bodies, our minds, our lives — that we easily forget that the results are external to us. Indeed, it is our efforts and our intentions that count, not the results.

Stepping into the Unknown

Opening up to the larger picture of what is going on outside yourself and giving up control can initially be scary, as you step out into a place of trust, of surrender, into the unknown. But soon, as you give up your singular focus on the self, you will become more attuned to the larger picture of life. You will start your true yoga practice when you come to sense this deep connection to the universe.

Within the first few minutes of getting on your yoga mat, dedicate your practice to the well-being of all living things. Surrender your attachment to self-centred desires and you may begin to feel a lightness in your heart as you lose your grip on selfish desires and open to the realities of the world. Connect to the suffering, the joy, the love that everyone feels.

How will you walk around in the world after your yoga practice ends? How differently will you talk to and connect with other people?

The World is a Stage

As Shakespeare put it “all the world’s a stage” and we are players on this stage of life. Ishvara Pranidhana (“surrendering to god’s will”) is about perspective: we are all equally important on the stage of life. Your life is intricately affected by and in turn affect sothers. We can receive the greatest personal good by living and practising yoga for the greatest good of everyone else.

What is Meditation?

Sitting in perfect lotus pose on a rocky outcrop overlooking a placid lake sits the solitary meditator. With eyes-closed, palms upturned, thumb and index finger gently touching, she drops into a state of deep meditation. The serene tranquility of her mind reflects the depth and stillness of the lake before her.

This pretty much sums up the stereotypical image that most of us fabricate when thinking about meditation. Even yoga students and teachers, after many exasperated hours on our yoga mats trying to still our minds, continue to hold onto this ideal meditation experience. But if this image is a mere abstraction, then what is meditation?

Meditation vs Concentration

There are two distinct ideas in yoga that come together in contemporary yoga practice to form what we now define as meditation. Originally, within the Patanjali’s ‘Yoga Sutras’, there are two separate stages of mental yogic gymnastics: dharana (concentration) and dhyana (contemplation, or meditation).

What is Concentration?

Dharana, a sanskrit word, translates as: holding, bearing, supporting or maintaining. These words signify your mental state while you practice concentration techniques. You are striving to maintain and carry steady focus on your point of concentration. Conversely, you try to calm the mind and stop its natural desire to jump from idea to idea, thought to thought, emotion to emotion — all the internal disorder that makes us run away from the present moment like a train without brakes.

Runaway Train

This idea of our minds as a runaway train is pretty easy to identify with. Just sit down, close your eyes, and try not to think of anything. Impossible right? At best, you might find yourself thinking about not thinking about anything, and then realizing that you are still thinking.

Start to Meditate by Not Meditating

This is why we begin with trying to concentrate on one thing. It takes a massive amount of time, patience and practice to slow down — let alone stop our racing mental trains. We need to ease on the brakes slowly, or else we risk derailing the train completely.

Dharana practice is really where we all begin when we start to meditate, and it is why most of us stop meditating. Here we are actually not meditating; we are concentrating. Now think about that idealized meditator you met on the lake only moments ago. It is easy to see why we get frustrated and quit, because we usually imagine that we should be able to still our minds and pressure ourselves to get into that deep meditative state rather quickly. Then we give up when we realize that this not only quite difficult but seemingly impossible.

Focus on a Flower

Begin your concentration practice by finding a quiet space alone and setting a timer for 5 minutes. Get comfortable, sitting or lying down on your yoga mat, just don’t fall asleep! Close your eyes and engage dirgha breath. Imagine an object to hold in your mind’s eye. This could be a lotus flower, as is traditional to yogic and buddhist practice. See every detail of your object, and suspend it at the center of your attention until the alarm goes off. Pretty challenging right?

Stick with your practice everyday, and you will notice your ability to concentrate, on and off your yoga mat, gradually increase. Now, are you ready to know what mediation really is?

Yoga for Weight Loss

Yoga for weight loss is not a new concept. Many yoga teachers and yoga writers have focused on the epidemic of obesity that plagues North American society. But here’s a unique and more holistic spin on the idea of losing weight.

Holistic Weight Loss

Yoga is a practice that strives towards bringing physical, mental, and spiritual health to its practitioners. Yoga is most effective when a yogi or yogini views their practice from this holistic perspective, even when their goal may be focused on one particular realm.

So, in the case of weight loss, we can optimize our yoga practice by addressing each realm of our being. Below you will find a breathing practice, pose, and concentration technique to help feel mentally and physically lighter.

Boost Your Thyroid

The thyroid gland, located in your neck, produces two types of hormones. These hormones affect how your body uses energy, which directly influences your metabolism. To increase your metabolic rate, and help you loose weight, you can target the thyroid with this yogic breath.

Come to a comfortable seated position, and begin to slowly deepen your breath until you are working with full yogic breath, or three-part breath. Exhale completely, and keeping your mouth closed and your throat soft let your chin drop down towards your chest so you are gently compressing your thyroid. Hold the exhale as long as feels comfortable, then bring your head back up so you are looking forward before slowly inhaling again. Repeat this throat “lock,” or bandha, five times.

Integrate the following concentration technique into the breathing practice outlined above. Each time you exhale, repeat to yourself, “I release negative thoughts and feelings about my body.” Each time you inhale repeat to yourself, “I inhale acceptance for myself and my body.”

Dynamic Spinal Twist

Spinal twists are the ultimate asanas for weight loss. Not only do they facilitate digestion, but they also stimulate the fat stored in the midsection, making it easier to burn off.

Lie down on your yoga mat, bend your legs and bring your knees in towards your chest. Bring your arms onto the floor straight out from your shoulders with your palms facing up. On an exhale, let both knees drop down to one side towards your armpit. Let your legs rest on the ground and breathe as deeply as possible for ten full cycles. Repeat on the opposite side.

Releasing Self-Judgment

Meeting the challenge of weight loss is frustrating: you might feel like you are fighting against your body most of the time rather than working with it. While the often paradoxical advice of yoga can be further irritating, it does work remarkably well.

Transformation can only be achieved by embracing our challenges. We can fight with ourselves as much as we want, but this only builds more physical and mental rigidity. As difficult as it may be, being compassionate and gentle with your body by releasing judgement is the first step to lasting weight loss. When you yield to your body, your body yields to you.

Tapas: The Original Hot Yoga

What comes to mind when you think of the words: yoga, fire and purification? Do you picture a sweltering hot yoga class jam packed with people dripping sweat all over their yoga mats, wiping their exhausted looking faces with yoga towels? Most likely.

Virtues of Fire

But what about stoking the internal fires of discipline and determination? In addition to sweating out toxins during our yoga practice, the idea of fire and purification relate directly to the yogic practice of taking a passionate and dedicated approach to our personal goals. This is tapas, the fourth niyama, derived from the sanskrit word tapasya, literally meaning ‘fire’.

Olympic Athlete

Take for example your New Year’s resolution to learn to play the guitar, or maybe your five-year dream of leaving your job to start your own business. From our smallest hobbies to our greatest life goals, we need discipline and determination in order to succeed.

Imagine living your life like an Olympic athlete. Whatever your ‘event’ may be, wherever your gold medal may await you, bringing tapas into your yoga practice means igniting your energies towards these goals, to fuel you and propel you forward.

Burning the Candle

Yoga, being a practice of balance, means that while being passionate and driven towards your goals, you can also be relaxed while being disciplined. Sometimes, high levels of determination and productivity are far more relaxing; indeed, getting things accomplished is often much more calming and satisfying than that stressed-out state where we grasp and reach for those yet un-achieved goals. Just as an athlete must rest properly to excel at her sport, we should not make the mistake of draining our energies by burning the proverbial candle at both ends.

Burning Off Negative Energies

Now let’s get back to that sweaty hot yoga room. Practising yoga stokes our inner physical fire, known also as our metabolism. This helps us burn off fat, calories and toxins. It is as important to achieving our life goals as any other practice, because it keeps us healthy.

We can also burn off important psychological toxins in yoga class. This is the key to maintaining our athletic drive in life: staying clear, happy and driven.

The Practice

Dedicate your next yoga class to burning up your negative emotions. Do this by attending a very challenging practice for you, which will be sure to bring up anger and frustration.

When you are in the middle of the class, so at the apex of your effort, notice if you are frustrated, or upset, or wanting to run away from your yoga mat. Imagine your breath like bellows and with each exhale visualize all of your anger and frustation for everything in your life, being burned to ashes.

In relaxation pose at the end of class, visualize these ashes sinking through your body, going back into the ground. Feel your body lighter and more spacious. Move back into your day with a relaxed sense of determination, ready to win the gold.

How to Practice Yoga at Home

Many yoga students are wary of going it alone, but you can learn yoga at home — even without a teacher.

I always tell my students that their body is the real yoga teacher, and that I am their guide. What I mean by this is that a certified yoga teacher can describe and demonstrate yoga poses, but only your body can tell you how to wiggle into the perfect expression of that pose, which pose is best to practice at any given time, and what the particular effects of each one will be.

Trust Your Teacher

As your yoga practice evolves, on and off of your yoga mat, the next logical step is to start practising at home. The essence of a home-based yoga practice is trusting your body to be the teacher. To bring your yoga practice home you need to trust that your body has ingrained within it enough muscle memory to know how to move in and out of poses without the verbal queues of a yoga teacher. You also need to trust that, if you listen deep enough, your body will tell you which poses and movements it needs. Listen carefully, and it will tell you.

Learn From Your Body

Once you have been practising yoga for long enough, your body will know and tell you what it needs. It will also let you know how to adjust and adapt the poses to what feels best for you on any given day or at any moment in your practice. Always be ready to learn from your body, and it will surprise you by teaching you something new. The best way to do this is not to think, but to feel. Go with what feels best, and you will be rewarded with an authentic practice.

Keep Your Mat Clean

To begin your home-based yoga practice, you need to establish a space in your home that is exclusively for yoga. Keep this space clean and tidy, so that it will always be appealing to practice — nothing deters you more from practising yoga than a cluttered space and a dusty yoga mat.

Commit to Your Class

Establish a regular time for your home-based yoga practice. Treat it as you would a pre-paid yoga session at your studio; commit to a time and regularity, regardless of how busy you might be. Also, make sure your space is removed from distractions, like a TV or your computer, and make sure it is isolated, not in the middle of high traffic areas where you will easily be drawn away.

Leap of Faith

If you are not quite ready to let your body guide your practice, you may want to start by following a yoga video. This is a perfect way to start your home practice by first committing to a schedule without the extra pressure of leading your own class. After you establish your yoga groove at home, try alternating your yoga practices between video-led and solitary sessions. Take a leap of faith and you will feel empowered by the innate knowledge of your own body!

Saucha: The Yoga of Purity

We have all heard the saying “your body is your temple”. This popular adage raises some interesting questions: exactly what type of temple is it? And what and how do I worship here? From a yogic perspective, our bodies are manifestations of prana (life force energy). To respect and make best use of our individual and unique bodies, an essential form of “worship” is to keep our temple clean.

The essential idea of saucha, or the yoga of purity, is to commit to practices that have a purifying effect on our bodies and minds. In addition to emphasizing the importance of a regular asana and pranayama practice, saucha is about paying attention to what we eat, how we eat, the state of our homes, and of our minds.

Clean Your Plate

We can do hours of yoga everyday, but if we eat poorly and pollute our bodies, we are counteracting the cleansing benefits of our practice. Proper diet is the bedrock of a yoga practice that will bring about real transformation and well-being. The yoga of purity means we need to take a good look at our eating habits.

Whole Foods

In general, a good yogic diet (and good all-around diet) should contain no processed or refined foods or sugar. Cooking can be an enjoyable, even meditative activity. Focus on eating as many whole grains, fruits and vegetables as possible.

Eat Meat?

In terms of the meat debate, the traditional yogic diet is vegetarian. However, the best indication of what you need is to listen to your body. When you are at a restaurant or in the grocery store, try to “turn off your brain” and let your instincts guide you to the food your body needs. Once you begin “clean” eating, you will find your cravings for unhealthy foods vastly diminished.

Mindful Eating

Another important yoga practice is to notice how you eat. We often eat way too fast and chew too little. This impedes proper digestion and can lead to digestive troubles. Also, the yoga of purity ask us to notice our state of mind when we eat: are we even aware of what we are putting in our mouths and of all the joyous and subtle tastes? Many times we are either thinking about something else, or we’re distracted by watching TV or reading a magazine. Try slowing down, chewing properly and being present to the experience of eating.

Clean Home Clear Mind

Practising the yoga of purity also invites us to look at the interplay between inner and outer environments and surroundings. As someone who often works at home, I experience the direct correlation between a messy home and a cluttered mind, finding it much easier to write when my desk is tidy. And in terms of your home-based yoga practice, it is probably safe to assume that a clean yoga space means a more consistent practice.

Letting your personal space get really messy is also a window into your state of mind. Is this a reflection of stress, depression, over-commitment or simply moving too fast through life? Reflect on this and find your own yogic lesson hidden within.

Come back to your inner and outer practice of conscious awareness and purity in your living and eating habits. Do so, and you will be rewarded with a gleaming temple!

Start Your Own Yoga Journal

In a sunny corner of my room, beside my yoga mat, yoga block, yoga strap and meditation pillow, sits a little blue journal. It may seem out of place beside the more familiar yoga supplies, but it is without a doubt an integral part of my daily yoga practice.

While most studio yoga classes rush you on and off your yoga mat, the major advantage to developing a home-based yoga practice is having time to reflect when you are done. So many ideas and revelations surface, both at a conscious and unconscious level when we practice yoga, taking a moment to write them down is essential to your personal and yogic growth.

Relaxed Writing

Here are a few starting points for your yoga journal. Don’t force your writing. Much like forcing your yoga poses does not help you deepen them, forcing your yoga journaling will just lead to frustration. You should be calm and relaxed after shivasana so try to maintain this state of mind while you journal at the end of each practice. Relax and let your thoughts and words flow.

Be Honest

Secondly, don’t question your writing. Write everything that comes to you, whether yoga related or not. Use your words like a deep yogic exhale, letting out everything you no longer need to hold onto. Remember, there is no right or wrong thought, so don’t second guess yourself. This is a part of your yoga practice that is just for you. You don’t have to impress anyone, so be honest and real.

Conscious Reflection

If you are really stuck, there are two ways to break through your yogic writer’s block. First, consciously reflect on your yoga practice. Was there a yoga pose you found especially challenging today? How did you react to this challenge? Were you able to stay present, or did your mind wander? What were you thinking about? Did you have any physical, mental or emotional revelations? This form of journaling can help you see the lessons that we can teach ourselves. When you get back on your yoga mat, revisit your last entry, and jump-off from there.

Unconscious Surfacing

The second approach you can take is to tap into the unconscious well-spring of ideas and knowledge that your yoga practice opens up. By reflecting at this level, we can begin to identify the issues, emotions and ideas that are important to our immediate lives — ideas and emotions which may be deeply hidden.

Start by writing about any images, colours, words, sounds or thoughts that you had during shivasana. If nothing comes up, put down your pen and find your comfortable seated position.

Now clear your mind, begin deep yogic breathing, and imagine a cool dark pool of water. Slowly, tiny bubbles begin to rise to the surface from its depths. Each bubble brings with it an object, a color, a word or sound, from deep within you. Let these bubbles rise and reveal themselves naturally. Do this for as long as feels right, then slowly transition back to your journal, and make a note of what you visualized.

Swadhyaya: The Yoga of Study

When I think of studying, I flash back to the days of being holed up in the McGill University library, pouring through stacks of Anthropology and English books, hurriedly putting together research papers. While studying in yogic terms does not have to be as stressful or daunting, the practice of Swadhyaya does ask us to crack open the tomes of ancient yogic knowledge and commit to some intense study.

The Science of Liberation

Swadhyaya, being the second yogic practice of the Niyamas, means commitment to knowing the truth. If we study the teachings of wise beings (through reading yogic texts) and also study ourselves (through meditation and reflection), we can reach a greater understanding of what it means to be human. This is also called, in yogic terms, the science of liberation. Once we understand the truth of our existence, we can transcend so much unhappiness to live in joyful acceptance.

Wait a minute, didn’t I say that the yoga of study should be less stressful and daunting than preparing for final exams? And are you now doubting this because the ‘science of liberation’ sounds way more intimidating than any ill-humored professor you have ever encountered? Do not be dismayed, dear yogi. You will have more than enough help along the way!

Om-Work

Your first yoga assignment, or om-work, is to practice conscious awareness. Notice all the thoughts that swirl through your mind during your yoga practice. Notice how you react to them at a mental and physical level. Does a stressful thought make your body tense? Do you fall down the proverbial rabbit-hole of self-criticism? Study yourself first, all of yourself, the things you love and dislike, on and off your yoga mat. This self-knowledge is the first chapter of Swadhyaya.

Stretch Your Mind

Next, pick up a book. This is a refreshing change from opening up your hips and hamstrings; your yoga practice is now about opening and stretching your mind. The two foundational yogic texts are The Yoga Sutras and The Bhagavad Gita. While these texts are cornerstones for your yogic study, they are also very difficult to digest. This is because they come from a culture and an era vastly different from ours. While these texts have been linguistically translated for us to read, they also require a certain amount of cultural translation for us to fully understand them. Stephen Cope has done an incredible job of this in his books, Yoga: The Quest for the True Self and The Wisdom of Yoga. I highly recommend reading these books, as well as the original texts.

Studio as Classroom

Finally, engage with your yoga teachers and fellow students. Listen to the concepts they share with you during class and commit to studying them. Your yoga teachers, while being fallible human beings, are great resources to support your yoga practice of Swadhyaya. Talk to them, ask them questions about yoga poses and yogic texts, engage with them — and you will open a new door of knowledge. You can also start a dialogue with other yoga students and learn from each other while strengthening your local yoga community.

Let Your Yoga Dance!

Far too often I find yoga students holding poses like marble statues. With tense shoulders and static stomachs, many yogis become tense as they strive to maintain an asana with the ideal image of what it should look like.

Breathe Deeply

When this happens, I ask my yoga students to inhale together and then exhale with a sigh. I wander around the yoga studio, placing a hand on their shoulder, inviting them to soften, or even reminding them to breathe. My favourite queue is asking them to slightly upturn the corners of their mouths: their smiles become wider when when they realize what I have asked them to do.

The point is that yoga should be fun. We run around and work hard all day, worried and stressed-out. The last thing we need is to bring this stress onto our yoga mats. Yoga can be an art form in many ways – a space for creative expression and a source for constructive personal release and awakening. In short, yoga can be fun, if you approach it with the right outlook.

Just Dance

Once you have progressed enough in your yoga practice to understand the basic principles of alignment, which will allow you to make sure your body (mainly your knees, lower back and neck) is safe, why not have some fun? My invitation to you is to deepen your yoga practice by letting your yoga dance!

By dance, I mean: Stop being a statue. Allow your body as many micro-movements and adjustments in your yoga poses as you need. Play around before you settle into a deep hold by moving in and out of it until you find the right spot. Experiment with the placement of your arms, the spacing between your fingers, the length of your lunge: you will never find the perfect expression of your pose until you experiment.

Five Cycles of Breathing

You can also use your breath to help your yoga dance. The next time you are in Virabhadrasana II (Warrior II pose), feel your inhale move up your spine from your tail-bone to the crown of your head. Feel your whole torso float towards the ceiling, light as a feather. Then as you exhale, imagine letting your breath flow down from your shoulders as you soften them, moving through your arms and exiting your body out your fingertips.

Try this for five cycles of breath, noticing the subtle movement of your pose: a lifting and lengthening in your inhales and a widening grounding release in your exhales. Do you feel a light flapping motion in your arms, like a bird flying above the clouds?

Open up your body to the idea of dancing and you will liberate and evolve your yoga practice. Break out of that static, statuesque approach to being in your yoga poses, and you will learn more about what feels best for you. If you can let go of any intimidation around the idea of being adventurous in your body, you will see how innately creative you are, and how therapeutic it can be to let your yoga dance.