Yogic Lifestyle

This chapter includes … Make Your Life a Victory 246 Drugs & Kundalini Yoga (Don’t Mix!)246 Relaxing to Sleep 247 Waking Up to the Day 247 Cleaning the Monkey Glands • Massaging the Body lshnaan-the Science of Hydrotherapy 248 Why take a cold shower? Hair-A Yogic Viewpoint Yogi Bhajan Talks About Drugs COPYRIGHT YOGI BHAJAN 2003 249 250

Make Your Life a Victory THE MAIN RULE FOR A GOOD YOGIC LIFESTYLE IS TO BE CONSCIOUS. to cultivate moderation and to commit to presenting ourselves before our highest awareness through meditation and study. This will lead us to a vital. expressive. victorious lifestyle of love. service. self-esteem and happiness. Kundalini Yoga gives us access to the storehouse of resources built into our body and mind. The body is the instrument through which we receive our tangible experiences. If we treat it with respect and care, we are that much more able to experience and direct our life effectively. Imagine the body as a high performance automobile. You would give it only premium gasoline to make it run smoothly. You would bring it to the service station frequently for oil changes and preventative maintenance. You would love it and take good care of it. • 246 • KRI I NTERNATIONAL TEACHER TRAINING MANUAL LEVEL I We must treat our body at least as well as we would treat that car. It is the only vehicle we will get and it is, in fact. designed for high performance. These teachings are the owners’ manual that may have been misplaced. Our awareness, training, and commitment are often deficient, so we act and experience the body and mind as less sensitive than they are. We eat erratically and often poorly. We stay up late and sleep late. We pretend our bodies are a low cost car! We clog our valves and forget about our high-performance ranges. Our occasional self-mistreatment develops into chronic bad habits. We become ill, out of balance, unpredictable and untrustworthy even to ourselves. Regular practice of Kundalini Yoga puts us in touch with our ” high performance” abilities. It becomes easier to treat ourselves well. We eat in moderation, sleep in moderation, exercise in moderation: we create balance and well-being.

Relaxing to Sleep The following routine can help you fall asleep more quickly, sleep more soundly, and ensure a more revujenating sleep. I. Exercise. Do some yoga and meditation to help relax the body and process the stresses of the day. 2. No big meals. It is easier on the liver and digestion if you have not eaten a heavy meal for at least two hours. Neither is it is good idea to go to bed too hungry, since this might wake you up in the middle of the night. 3. Comb your hair down with a wooden comb. 4. Do your bathroom routine. Void the urine. Brush your teeth and clean the mucus from the throat until the eyes begin to water. 5. Drink a glass of water. 6. Wash your feet with cold water, rub them with a coarse towel. and massage them with almond oil. While doing this process. separate yourself from the world and tune yourself into the One Creative Cosmic Power. 7. Your bed. It is best for your back and for proper sleep to use a firm bed, and bedding of natural fabric. Have your bed facing East-West, so that you are not aligned with the Earth’s magnetic field. 8. Lie down on your back and start long deep breathing, consciously relaxing and letting go. 9. Tum onto your right side as you relax into sleep, so that you are breathing through your left nostril, which brings a calming and cooling effect on the body and brain. It also relaxes the heart and lets the stomach and small intestine drain as you sleep. As soon as the breath becomes regular and slow, you will go quickly through the preliminary stages of sleep and almost immediately reach the deep dreamless sleep state, avoiding the energy draining dream stage altogether. Plus you’ll be able to come back out of deep sleep more easily and gracefully when it’s time to wake up. COPYRIGHT YOGI BHAJAN 2003 GOING TO SLEEP .& WAKING UP Waking Up to the Day The following routine can help adjust the body upon awakening. It will adjust your spine, navel point and nervous sytem, so that you will feel more alert and ready for the day. While still in bed … I. Turn onto your back. With the eyes still closed, bring the hands to the face and begin stroking the face with your hands. 2. Open your eyes into the hands. Slowly lift the hands away from the face. keeping the eyes open so you can adjust your eyes to the light in the room. Massage the face. 3. Stretch the arms overhead, point the toes, and do a Cat Stretch. 4. Do Stretch Pose to set the navel point. 5. Turn onto the right side and pull the knees to the chest for a moment. This will strengthen the heart. 6. Return onto the back, and pull the knees to the chest with the nose up between the knees. Lock hands around the legs. Do Breath of Fire for about one minute, then roll up into Rock Pose. Bring the forehead down to the bed for a moment and relax, breathing normal ly. This helps eliminate gas. 7. Lie back down on your back, and rub the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet rapidly together. This breaks up crystals that build up in the nerve endings and allows the energy to flow through the body. Now you are ready to get out of bed, and head for the bathroom. CLEARING THE “MONKEY GLANDS” Brush the teeth and gums with a powder of: I part salt 2 parts potassium alum Clear the throat. Massage the back of the tongue, making yourself gag, and bring up the mucus to be spit out. There are two pockets in the throat called “monkey glands,” which contain a mucus which collects in the throat at night and gathers toxins from the body. This must be expelled. The gagging reflex also causes the eyes to water. and helps maintain good vision. Potassium alum mixture is effective for preventing gum disease. Also brush the tongue to remove toxins. MASSAGING THE BODY Massage the body from head to toe with almond oil. This brings toxins out through the open pores, and nourishes the skin. Now you are ready for your cold shower, your ishnaan, or hydrotherapy.

IshnaanThe Science of Hydrotherapy I’d like to share the technology and science of hydrotherapeutic massage. As I’m sitting before you my first qualification and field of expertise is in hydrotherapy. I carry the lineage of those who now are very unknown. but who once were worshipped. They worked on the bones. adjusted the body, and did massage to recreate healthy organs. Since ancient times. people have prayed for the blessing of ishnaan. What is ishnaan? lshnaan is the total sum of hydrotherapy. The word is ishnaan. We don’t say, “we are going to take a bath.” We never say “bath.” lshnaan is when the body by its own virtue creates the temperature that it can beat off the coldness of the water. lshnaan is not just wetting your body. There is a whole respect to it. There is a whole grace to it. The power of water is sixty percent of the power of the human. In hydrotherapy we believe that the sixty percent internal water of the body can be totally exchanged in sixty minutes with the use of external water. When we do ice-cold water massage, not only do we open up the capillaries. but then when they return to normal. that blood goes back to the organs. The heart. kidneys, lungs. liver – each organ has its own blood supply. In this way the organs get flushed. When the organs get a flushing. then immediately the 1fiH!\\ili¥iiii8!%\i!\i§i&$ij%%1 51 ,&\1!\!\ , w;:m;;;;.’\!1! :Why take a cola shower?1 : · · . .. . … ·t t  Keeps your skin radiant . · . ,i h Opens up the capillaries. f:i t-‘· ._;::: ; : ::<: .:.:· . . . – i , Flushes the organs. ‘!I §\. ._,::.:· : : :· . :-;:::: ::.:. ,:: . . : . . . . . .’.,.{t [  Keeps the blood chemiStry 1 .. . . . — .. . .. : . ‘ Stimulates th llalthy · . secr tion of’tl,i ttiidutar .• m. glands have to change their secretion. It is a law. And when the glands. which are the guardians of the health and life. change, youth returns. What is youth? Young glands. If your glandular system secretes correctly. the blood chemistry is a young chemistry. All this neurotic neurosis and angriness will be over. • 248 • KRI I NTERNATIONAL TEACHER TRAINING MANUAL LEVEL I A PRECISE SCIENCE TEACHINGS OF mE MASTER FROM A LECTURE BY YOGI BHA.]AN The Science of Hydrotherapy is very precise and sophisticated. and very simple. Here are the effects on different parts of the body: If you let the cold water fall just below the lower Up for ten or fifteen minutes. you will be bright and your mind will be very dear.  If you put the water between the eyebrows and the upper lip, you will be very energetic.  If you put the water on the forehead, you will be so sleepy that you can’t match it.  If you massage the upper arm, you are totally curing your stomach.  From your elbow to about two inches (S em) above your wrist corresponds to your digestive tract.  Two inches above the wrist to the wrist corresponds to your heart.  The wrist corresponds to your liver. and the fingertips correspond to your brain.  If you put the water on the front of your neck and let the water run down your entire body and hands. you will totally change all your cells.  If you let the water hit your chest and go all the way down to your genitals and you stay under it for a while. you are totally changing the chemistry of the blood from unhealthy to healthy.  If you let the water hit your feet and massage the right foot with the left foot. and the left foot with the right foot. you are actually massaging your entire body. Stand before a cold shower and massage your feet and your calves by yourself. Use your feet to massage. Don’t use your hands.  Then stand away from the water and using both hands. massage your entire body and let the body get hot. Then take a cold shower again and massage your body again . Do that for about twelve to fifteen minutes. You should have a friend handy to pull you out. You will be in a totally different space.

maximum, the body will not feel cold. Then you come out and totally towel yourself. put on warm clothes, and put a blanket around you. Or if the weather is hot. use a big bath towel. Then your body will become wild hot. All the blood that is in the capillaries will go back to the organs: the kidneys, the liver, the spleen, the lungs – because each part of your body lives on its own blood supply which is regulated by the beat of the heart. So the organs will get a rich supply of blood like a crop getting a beautiful rain, and then that crop grows up. This is how you can balance your health. By doing any exercise for hours, you cannot stimulate your cell psyche to the extent that you can with cold water. And the procedure is very simple. Take your hands, let the cold water fall. and rub them until they become hot under the ice-cold water. Do this with every part of the body; let it go, let it be, and stimulate yourself. And this stimulation may look to you like a fanatic, painful attitude. Some people do deep muscle massage, some people go to spas. There are one million methods and nothing even comes close to this one. There’s nothing like standing under ice-cold water and making your body become hot. Can you believe a guy standing under a shower doing this for two hours? But that’s how they do it. Everywhere that the cold water hits, the blood will come. Everywhere you massage, rebuilding will occur and the psyche of each cell of the body will be reconstructed. THE TOOLS FOR HYDROTHERAPY IN EVERY HOUSE They didn’t know how to make a shower when they first did hydrotherapy. You are very lucky you have modern showers. In COLD SHOWERS ancient times there was nothing. They had to fill a tub that was about thirty to forty feet above the ground. It was huge and men had to fill it with water. It required about five hundred men to create enough water pressure for the hydrotherapy. Now we have showers in every house. but the art of hydrotherapy is lost. Now a little pill can help you. That is fine, but the difference between people today and people then is that today people want to be healthy, but they are not afraid of being sick. In those days, people were afraid of being sick. Allopathic medicine is very effective. The chemical goes right to the spot, and it takes care of you. But unfortunately it has its side effects. CONQUERING THE CHILLINESS OF LIFE Body cells recuperate themselves in seventy-two hours. Sometimes they get delayed. Recuperation becomes slower as you become older. But in hydrotherapy we believe youth is permanent, because we know how to be young. Sometimes you do not value your life. And then you cannot value it, because you are old. So play no such games with yourself; death will come, don’t bother. Richness will come, poverty will come, disease will come, no bother. Bother for nothing. But. if you have strong-built mind, body, and soul, all adversity will come. but it won’t touch you. Therefore, the saying in hydrotherapy is, “shield yourself. ” Hydrotherapy is based on water being a fatherly shield, paanee pitaa, and that anybody who can produce this shield that conquers the coldness of the water can conquer death. It’s a very simple thing. If I with my body can conquer the chilliness of the water. I can take away the chilliness of my life.

Yogi Bhtfian Talks about Drugs DRUGS HAVE RUINED NATIONS Drugs have not only done damage to human bodies, drugs have ruined nations. Drugs have ruined generations. I don’t pay the bills for your alcohol, your two or three martinis, so I don’t care what you do. But it will ruin you. Drugs, in some shape or form will ruin you. The Chinese were very intelligent before they started doing opium. They were totally ruined. The Indian culture was great. It was a land of diamonds, milk and honey. It became enslaved. They were virtually taken and sold. Marijuana. The Egyptians were perfect. So perfect were they that through these pyramids they changed the weather of that land area. But what became of that strength? Peyote got them. You all know about When you smoke marijuana, it stimulates the brain cells and it constricts the spinal fluid, creating a draught condition in the skull. the Roman Empire-you don’t need to hear it from me. Alcohol took it to the ground. And you have all four of them! When you drink or you take drugs, you are a living drag. Drugs are not being taken for any other reason than that people cannot face their reality, yet drugs take them to non-reality. At that moment give them survival, that’s all. Every stimulant, every drug, every love, every relationship is based on affirmation of non-reality. You are at an advantage if you are intelligent, and you are not living on heroin and cocaine, or any drugs. You are coming with a clean consciousness, with a unique personality, and from a tremendous strength. I don’t think any drug can make a person super. • 250 • KRI INTERNATIONAL TEACHER TRAINING MANUAL LEVEL I Student: How about the smoking of marijuana? Answer: Marijuana is the outcome of insanity. Marijuana has ruined one of the greatest civilizations of humanity-India. Marijuana grows in that country like a wild flower grows in the jungle. Smoking marijuana is the sickest thing on this planet. When you smoke it, it stimulates the brain cells and it constricts the spinal fluid, creating a drought condition in the skull. The only positive use of this marijuana is that it can be used as a remedy for severe digestive problems, and for pain. A juice is made from the green leaves mixed with almonds and milk. It takes away the pain. If you are a terminal cancer patient, and normal drugs cannot help you, you can get high on marijuana-you are dying anyway. If there is no cure, this is the only thing that takes away the pain. CLEARING THE EFFECTS OF DRUGS WITH SADHANA I know you may have taken LSD, you may have taken PCP, but you can get rid of the after-effects of these drugs if you are honest with sadhana. This is how it works. All of these drugs, stimulants, uppers, downers, (including sleeping You can get rid of pills), control the opening and closing capacthe after-effects of ity of the working of the brain’s metabolism. It is permissible to take a drug only under these drugs if you are honest with medical emergency. Otherwise. in any normal functioning brain, when you take drugs, you make it function abnormally. Many people who stick to sadhana have been found to be totally clear of the effects and abnormalities created by the use of drugs. An abnormality includes any physical, mental or spiritual abnormality. That is why sadhana has been designed to cover three areas: physical, mental, and spiritual. We want to dispense this every morning with the idealistic thought that the person may gradually benefit from it. sadhana. You are not a miracle; you are the product of sadhana.