PARTNER YOGA PLAY WORKSHOP Pt2

PARTNER YOGA PLAY WORKSHOP Pt1

Prenatal Yoga(Article for Palmie Bistro magazine by Ifigeneia Pearl)

Γιόγκα σημαίνει ένωση. Χρησιμοποιώντας την,καταφέρνουμε να ενώσουμε τα κομμάτια της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης μας, (σώμα, νου, ψυχή και πνεύμα), να δημιουργήσουμε ισορροπία και αρμονία. Είναι ιδιαίτερα ωφέλιμη τις περιόδους της ζωής μας, που βιώνουμε πολλές αλλαγές στο σώμα μας, μια αβεβαιότητα στην ψυχοσύνθεση μας, άγχος. Ειναι ιδιαιτερα ωφελιμη  επισης στη περίοδο της εγκυμοσύνης.
Η πρακτική της γιόγκα κατά την περίοδο της εγκυμοσύνης, βοηθάει στην πέψη, βελτιώνει την κυκλοφορία και γυμνάζει την σπονδυλική στήλη.Αντιμετωπίζει τους πόνους και άλλες πιθανές ενοχλήσεις της εγκυμοσύνης (ναυτία, δυσκοιλιότητα, πρήξιμο, κράμπες, αϋπνίες,νευρα κλπ).Οι μητέρες συνήθως νιώθουν γαλήνη και ηρεμία κατά τη διάρκεια του μαθήματος και μετά από αυτό, κατάσταση η οποία μεταφέρεται στο έμβρυο και επηρεάζει θετικά τη σχέση μαμάς-μωρού.
Μια γυναικα σε ενδιαφερουσα χρειαζεται να μαθει τρόπους να απελευθερώνει τις εντάσεις που πιθανόν δημιουργεί η εγκυμοσύνη και η πρακτικη της γιογκα ειναι η ιδανικη για αυτο.
Μια μελλουσα μητερα μπορει να ξεκινησει ενα προγραμμα γιογκα από τον 3ο μήνα της κύησης μέχρι και τον 9ο  και μπορεί να εφαρμοσθεί ακόμα και από γυναίκες που δεν έχουν ασκηθεί ποτέ στην ζωή τους.
Η γιογκα για εγκυους αναζωογονεί την έγκυο δίνοντάς της μια αίσθηση υγείας και ευεξίας και την βοηθά να βρει το δικό της φυσικό ρυθμό και συγχρονισμό αναπνοής και κίνησης – πολύ χρήσιμο εργαλείο για τον τοκετό αλλά και για χαλάρωση και διαχείριση του πόνου.Βοηθά την μήτρα να δυναμώσει (λόγω σωστής αιμάτωσης) και το έμβρυο να πάρει σωστή θέση για τον τοκετό. Εκπαιδεύει την έγκυο να χαλαρώνει και να χρησιμοποιεί τις αναπνοές σωστά, γνώσεις σημαντικές για την έκβαση του τοκετού αλλά και για την μετέπειτα ζωή της. Με προσαρμοσμένες ασκήσεις ανάλογα με το τρίμηνο της εγκυμοσύνης που διανύει η κάθε ασκούμενη και σε συνδυασμό με την αναπνοή καλλιεργειται συνείδηση στο μυαλό, το σώμα, το πνεύμα αλλά και στο πνεύμα του μωρού που πρόκεiται να έρθει στον κόσμο. Το πρόγραμμα είναι ειδικά σχεδιασμένο για την ενδυνάμωση της μήτρας και των μυών της λεκάνης αλλα και για την ανακούφιση από τα δυσάρεστα συμπτώματα της εγκυμοσύνης.Οι άσανας βοηθούν στην καλύτερη κυκλοφορία του αίματος, στην τόνωση και ενδυνάμωση των μυών της μήτρας και του περινέου.Ιδανικη ασανα/ποζα ειναι η "γατα" cat - Cow οπου η αρχική στάση  ειναι γονατιστοί στα τέσσερα σημεία. Οι παλάμες είναι ακριβώς κάτω από τους ώμους, και τα γόνατα είναι ακριβώς κάτω από τους γοφούς.Με την εισπνοή  αφήστε την πλάτη να κάνει καμπύλη προς το πάτωμα ενώ το κεφάλι και ο κόκκυγας, κοιτάζουν ψηλά.Με την εκπνοή κυρτώστε την πλάτη, ανοίξτε τις ωμοπλάτες, ενώ παράλληλα τραβήχτε τους κοιλιακούς μύες προς τα μέσα και φέρτε το πηγούνι προς το στήθος.
Αλλες ασανες ιδανικες για την περιοδο της εγκυμοσυνης ειναι Baddha Konasana/Πεταλουδα και η Virabhadrasana 2 η' αλλιως σταση του πολεμιστη 2,ιδανικες για το ανοιγμα της λεκανης.
Σημαντικες επισης ειναι οι τεχνικές αναπνοής που  βοηθούν την μέλλουσα μητέρα και στον τοκετό.
Δύο είδη αναπνευστικών ασκήσεων είναι πολύ ωφέλιμα κατά τη διάρκεια της εγκυμοσύνης: η Ujjayi, μια βαθιά, ήρεμη αναπνοή και η Nadi Shodhana (εναλλαγή των ρουθουνιών), που σύμφωνα με τη γιογκική παράδοση, συμβάλλει στην εξισορρόπηση της ενέργειας του σώματος. Είναι καλύτερα να αποφεύγεται οποιαδήποτε pranayama που περιλαμβάνει κράτημα της αναπνοής ή υπεροξυγόνωση.
Και τέλος, ας μην ξεχνάμε αυτό που τονίζουν οι γιατροί ότι, μια καλή εγκυμοσύνη προετοιμάζει και έναν καλό τοκετό.
Μετά τον τοκετό, οι μαμάδες συνήθως συνεχίζουν την πρακτική γιόγκα, καθώς αυτός ο χρόνος που αφιερώνουν στη φροντίδα του εαυτού τους γίνεται αναπόσπαστο μέρος της ζωής τους .

Love and Meditation

How can people turn the human phenomenon of falling in love into a meditation? 

IT IS THE EASIEST WAY. In human life, love is the closest phenomenon to meditation. The moment you fall in love with someone, what actually happens? What transpires between those two who have fallen in love with each other? They drop their egos -- at least for each other. They drop their hypocrisies, their masks. They want to be together, almost one soul within two bodies. That's the desire of love.

And this is a beautiful moment to change it into a meditation. Just nobody has ever told them. In fact, just the opposite has been told to them: that love is against meditation, so people who are falling in love can never become meditators.
THE SAME PEOPLE who make celibacy spiritual make love unspiritual, something dirty, condemned. But to me things are totally different. Love helps you to relax, which is part of meditation. Love helps you to be joyous, which is part of meditation. Love helps you, for a few moments at least, to be silent, which is the essential part of meditation. And finally, making love, if you attain to an orgasmic experience, gives you a glimpse of what meditation is, but it is millions of times more than this.
So to me, love is a basic experience which can help you to become meditators. The old religions have been preventing it, and they have been preventing it for a certain reason. If people can transform their love into meditation, then the priests and the churches and the synagogues are no more needed, then people are totally free. No spiritual leadership is needed. And there are millions of priests around the world, like parasites on humanity. And naturally they will give you wrong ideas, against love, and they will give you ideas for meditation, but because you don't have the basic experience....
LOVE IS JUST LIKE when you enter into a swimming pool, step by step you are going into deeper water. Then the floor of the swimming pool is divided in two parts, one for those who cannot swim, so the water is up to your neck, and then the second part for those who can swim.
But those who want to learn swimming have to learn in the first part, which is not for swimmers. They have to learn it there. Once they have learned, then slowly they will gather courage and enter into deeper water, because for a swimmer it does not matter how deep the water is; the swimmer is always on the surface. The water may be a hundred feet deep, five hundred feet deep, or five miles deep, it makes no difference to the swimmer. It makes a difference only to the non-swimmer. Beyond five feet, everything is death. But the swimming pool is one -- shallow, deep -- it is one. And the boundary line is only a line until you learn to swim.
To me, love and meditation are just like that. Love is the shallow space in a swimming pool, for those who cannot meditate. But that is the place to learn meditation. And it is the same pool, it is the same water, it is the same kind of phenomenon. You are just unable to go deeper because you have been made afraid even to enter into it. The shallow part has been condemned, and you have been told to jump into the deeper part without knowing how to swim.
So they disturbed your love life by condemnation and they disturbed your meditative life by sheer strategy: because you don't know swimming, you cannot go so deep. And you don't have any experience of silence, peace, sheer joy, a little bit of ecstasy, something orgasmic -- these will give you the hints how meditation is not a myth. You have tasted it a little bit. It is the same energy field, just you have to go deeper into it.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS when one couple moves into the realm of orgasmic experience? What actually happens? Every point has to be understood. Time stops. For a moment the pendulum does not move, and that single moment seems to be almost eternity. The two persons are no more two -- for a moment. They have melted into each other. There is no thought in the mind, for a moment. It is all empty and silent, and these are the things which have to be deepened in meditation.
And once you have tasted them, you will be surprised that it does not depend on the other person. Something happens within you. Something happens within the other person. But it is not dependent. If you can sit silently, if you can manage, by watching your thoughts, to bring a gap, a stop, you will suddenly see time has stopped again. And now it is in your hands, not in the hands of biology. You can keep this time stopped as long as you want. And once you know the secret key....
The key is: no thoughts, no ego, no time -- you just are.
That's why I have never been against love. I have been much condemned for it, naturally, because I was cutting the very roots of the business of all the religions.
EVERY RELIGION IS against me. Their profession depends on condemning love and praising meditation. They know you cannot attain to meditation, and they know now your love is condemned, it is a sin. You will never experience any orgasmic phenomenon, so meditation will remain just a philosophy, and your life will remain loveless, angry, full of rage, ready to explode at any excuse. Because where will your energy go?
It could have become peace, silence, joy, blissfulness. You did not allow it to become that. That repressed energy turns into poison. That's why everybody is irritable, annoyed, worried, tense. The simple reason is that they have lost the natural source of relaxation.
No animal looks irritated, annoyed, angry, because they don't understand the language the priests speak.
They have never heard that celibacy is spiritual. Of course they cannot attain to meditation, but they are far better than those human beings who could have attained meditative heights, but have lost even the simple biological experience of orgasm.
THOSE ARE SIMPLY indications of your possibilities, potentialities. And it is easier to experiment with something natural in the beginning and then to try something which is supernatural, which belongs to higher nature.
And once you know how to be silent, how to be thoughtless, how to be in a state of no time, no mind, you experience such orgasmic joy, which has nothing to do with sex, it has such purity and such innocence.
A man who has attained to that purity and innocence has no need of sex, it is no longer a psychological problem for him. But there is no prohibition either. He can enjoy sex too, and he will enjoy it more than anybody else, because his orgasm will immediately become meditative.
Having experienced the meditative orgasm -- such a greater phenomenon -- his sexual orgasm will immediately trigger the bigger orgasm. He can play with sex. There is no harm in it. There is no need, but there is no prohibition either. It is up to him.
THE MEDITATIVE ORGASM absorbs your sexual energy, because you don't have any other energy. Your whole energy is sexual energy, and that vast explosion of joy simply absorbs all your energy. Hence, you need not become a pervert, you need not make an effort to remain celibate. It is just your choice.
If you want to play old games once in a while, it is perfectly good. In fact, perhaps it should be a part of every enlightened man's life to have sex once in a while, because that will change the attitude of the whole world about sex.
Without that, it is very difficult to change. Then they can see that even an enlightened person can enjoy sex. There is nothing sin-like in it. And it will join the enlightened man and unenlightened man in a bridge. At least on one point, both experience the same thing....
Love is a natural kind of meditation. And meditation is a supernatural kind of love.
Osho,The Last Testament, Volume 2, Discourse 21

  

Celebration.

Life is a moment to celebrate, to enjoy. Make it fun, a celebration, and then you will enter the temple. The temple is not for the long-faced, it has never been for them. Look at life--do you see sadness anywhere? Have you ever seen a tree depressed? Have you seen a bird anxiety-ridden? Have you seen an animal neurotic? No, life is not like that, not at all. Only man has gone wrong somewhere, and he has gone wrong somewhere because he thinks himself to be very wise, very clever. Your cleverness is your disease. Don't be too wise. Always remember to stop; don't go to the extreme. A little foolishness and a little wisdom is good, and the right combination makes you a buddha.

Today's pose/asana:Adho Mukha Svanasana.

It is one of the best poses to do when you are tired and there is utter lack of joyfulness in your life. 
This position may help you win back that lightness and dynamism which has been gone out all your life. 
To achieve this goal, regular practice of this asana with proper balance and knowledge would help you to be a happy and calm person.
yoga pearl

'Partner Yoga Play' workshop in Athens!