Peaceful Pause

Hello, and welcome. When you're ready, go ahead and find a, comfortable seated meditation posture. So that could be sitting cross legged. If that's comfortable, I always like to put as much as I can underneath my sitting bones to kind of just feel like I'm sitting up on a throne. Sometimes medit meditation can seem a little bit punitive to to sit there and not do anything. So, the point of meditation, especially in Raja yoga, is to be able to sit up nice and tall in who we are comfortable.

And, today's focus is going to be on how we can break free from the claysia of ragas. Raga is about our attachment only to pleasure. And so pleasure is not or our desires aren't bad in the yoga practice. Everything in our lives, and as human beings, we're built to desire, and especially what's going to make us feel good. But it's this constant preoccupation And running after only what's going to make us feel good is what leads to suffering because it keeps us from being truly here in the present moment.

So, the antidote to that constant, constant grasping and the constant desire is called, and that's the third Iama. Which can be translated to non stealing. And so for me, when I want something, when I want to take something, it stems from a desire. And I think the desire is always that I'm not enough as I am, that I need this to feel better about who I am, or to feel better in my mind comes from all sorts of addictions to just want to feel good when in our lives, things pick up and, creates disturbance. So it's pretty, you know, it takes a lot of courage to be able to sit with things and ourselves as they are.

So, take, again, one more moment. We're going to take a breathing practice that's going to lead us into this place of wholeness. It's called Nadi Shodhana, and it's alternate nostril breathing, where we can begin to feel our the non duality within ourselves. Usually, it's either this grasping for pleasure and running away from pain So the more we can begin to find ourselves complete in who we are, the less we'll want to take, even if it's jealousy for things that we don't have, or thinking we should be someone we're not. The more we can be at peace with who we are. And so, you can take your thumb and index fingers together in this, mudra of union to our true self, and the three extended fingers actually symbolize the forces of nature or the goonas.

So within all of these different energies that pull us outwards, we stay yoked and connects it to who we are. And then for Nadi Shoden, I like to use old school peace fingers and then placing them to the third eye, and even lifting that point up, even as the chin slides down. And then you're gonna take your right thumb to your right nostril and your ring finger to your left nostril. It's kind of like playing an instrument. Through both sides of our nature, light and dark, and all of the different extremes that we can go through.

That we find ourselves in the space of non duality. So then, you're gonna take a deep breath in through both nostrils, maybe even pause at the height of the inhale. And then stay lifted as you exhale all the way to the depth of your exhale. And then inhale comfortably, gently block off your left nostril with your ring finger and exhale through the right. And inhale through the right nostril, pause, switch and exhale left.

Inhale left. Pause exhale, right? Inhale, right? Pause exhale left. Inhale left.

Exhale right. Inhale, right? Exhale left. Inhale left. Switch exhale right, and we'll finish by breathing in through the right, and exhaling left.

Your hands down. And even as your right hand touches down, see if you can gently touch the earth with your fingertips. This was the Buddha's gesture of touching down to the earth when he was being taunted by the demon Mara. He was trying to throw him off and come in all these different disguises to throw him off of his seat, but buddha gently touched down. It's saying the earth is my witness. Your left hand, you can turn it outward as we sit here for five minutes together.

Everything that we have already here, no need to run after this, not heat and cold. Pleasure and pain, in honor and disgrace. All these dualities. You don't need to add to who we are. It doesn't take away.

Become more at ease. We repattern our actions by simply staying seated. And creating new pathways through the breath. And see if you can even find little pauses between the inhale, where it meets the exhale. So we go from unconscious.

Behaviors to more aware. Sometimes the mind wanders back off wanting to attach itself. Something it wants, maybe even leaving the meditation, but we gently touch the earth. It can be back. To the moment as we are.

Knowing things to come and go unattached with the practice of vairagya. Kinky, rooting down into the earth, feeling the spine lengthen, want everything pour out of the left hand. Returning to the breath and the exhale. When you notice any shift in thought, And then you can begin to gently release your hands down, and both of them can rest open onto your knees. I can open your eyes to gaze down at the earth with all of the different things that pull us through our senses.

But in the midst of it, we're free. It's freedom of non grasping. I'll take another deep breath in. You can let go with an exhale. And thank you so much for joining me today.

I'll see you next time.