Benefits of Yoga in your body and life

As the time pass the students of yoga can feel and realize the benefits of this amazing practice blossoming in their life.
The people that are targeting just the physical aspects, find a countless of benefits with the consistent practice of yoga. The benefits you can first notice in your body are:
1- Digestion. 
When you start to notice the improvement of your digestion, your skin look better, hair, your mood changes for the best. Naturally and with time and self-study your body rejects or feel more attract for certain types of food. When you eat good, your practice is good, digestion is good...when you eat no healthy foods you will feel in your body. That is a great step! In this process of recognizing what is bad or good for your digestion you control what you eat with time your weight is balanced and healthy. Not too much or you feel to full to practice and have a slow digestion process and not too little because you need energy to maintain the practice and your life out off the mat.
2- Weight is balanced
In a yoga class you see all kinds of different shapes of bodies. They all move beutiful. Learning to observe other bodies types, we start to appreciate our own bodies. We are all different, and this make us special and unique. The concept of what is the right body type is something created to distract our minds, creating insecurity or ego. Nothing good come from that. Nobody need a six pack to look great or big boobs to look sexy. Start to feel good from inside and out.
3-Satisfaction
Oh yes, you slowly will become flexible. How is that? Its not like magic. One month of yoga is not going to make you super flexible. Its a slow humble process. Its take time and effort. Its painful, but its for the good. After time your body can go to places your mind never imagined before. You brake your own limitations. In this process you release toxins that are stored in your body for a long long time. Its a natural slow cleaning and detoxing process. Your joints get lubricated, muscles slowly being stretch renewing muscles fibres and getting stronger. The breath combines with movements is the gold key to release toxins, stress, tension and everything that do not serve our body out and away when we start to sweat. As we start to swear our blood gets hot, eliminating even more toxins out, cleaning the internal organs and at the same time keeping the joints warmer so you can go even deeper and get more flexible.
4-Flexibility
As you become more flexible, muscles slowly getting stronger, your body becomes clean and light you start to affect your mind in a different way that other physical activities did not provide this to you before.
Your mind becomes more calm, little easier to deal with. You find this interesting. You start to notice that this long term yoga students look very calm in their face and talk. You search about it...some point in your life.
5-Peace of mind- lower levels of stress
You discover that yoga is much more than a physical practice. It is a spiritual practice to find your path toward yourself, toward something much greater that us. You name it! Yoga is not a religion, but can be an excellent tool addition to your religion. Yoga is the union of the Divine.
6- Spiritual Practice
The point of the iceberg is the asana practice. What we can see. The rest submersed in the water is what we can not see. Its a internal practice. Some point we learn that yoga have 8 limbs or steps that we should dedicate ourselves with mind and heart.
Those are:

• Yama - the five restraints or the "don'ts"
  • Ahimsa - Non-violence
  • Satya - Truthfulness
  • Brahmacharya - Control of the senses and celibacy
  • Asteya - Non-stealing
  • Aparigraha - Non-covetousness and non-acceptance of gifts
• Niyama - the five observances or the "do's"
  • Saucha - Purity, cleanliness
  • Santosha - Contentment
  • Tapas - Austerity
  • Swadhyaya - Self-study, study of scriptures
  • Ishwara Pranidhana - Surrender to God's will
• Asana - Steady posture
• Pranayama - Control of prana or life force
• Pratyahara - Withdrawal of the senses
• Dharana - Concentration
• Dhyana - Meditation
• Samadhi - Super-conscious state

The practice of yoga is a purification of the mind. There is a purification of the body, but the purification of the mind is very difficult process. The 8 limbs of yoga ( 8 limbs of Patanjali ) its a beautiful gift left for us for a better, mindful and consciousness life.

 

7- Union

Is a everyday practice. Gratitude, compassion and love towards ourselves and others. No labels, no differences. Everything created by Divine energy pulsing life in the same soul.

Funny Ashtanga Yoga Cartoons

Surprising Moon Facts!!!

After I started practice Ashtanga every time the moon day is close I get curious to learn more about the moon and it's effects on earth. This Wednesday is full moon day!!! Take a rest and relax :) Here are some more surprising facts about the moon:

Our Cosmic neighbor!
1-The moon is Earth's nearest cosmic neighbor, but it is more than just a big pretty light in the sky.

When the moon was made?
2-The moon was created when a rock the size of Mars slammed into Earth, shortly after the solar system began forming about 4.5 billion years ago, according to the leading theory.

Apollo Moon Trees!
3-More than 400 trees on Earth came from the moon. Well, okay: They came from lunar orbit. Okay, the truth: In 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa took a bunch of seeds with him and, while Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell were busy sauntering around on the surface, Roosa guarded his seeds. Later, the seeds were germinated on Earth, planted at various sites around the country, and came to be called the moon trees. Most of them are doing just fine.

bye bye moon...!???
4-As you read this, the moon is moving away from us. Each year, the moon steals some of Earth's rotational energy, and uses it to propel itself about 3.8 centimeters higher in its orbit. Researchers say that when it formed, the moon was about 14,000 miles (22,530 kilometers) from Earth. It's now more than 280,000 miles, or 450,000 kilometers away.

Yoga method by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

The words of Guruji. Very simple and yet profound.

Creating energy for the new years

  The year of 2013 is leaving and a new year is coming to us. Like a new book, still empty, we turn the pages with curiosity and our mind travels on the waves of expectations for the new chapter. The new plans for 2014. We hope with the new year new good stuff will come.
  The fact is we are just sleeping and waking up like any other day. Its so powerful how much mental energy we put into thoughts and desires during this period. We want to achieve something. At the same time its pathetic how we do not use the power of our mind to evolve this felling. With time the energy created will diminish little by little...until get in our subconscious part of the mind.There is a lack of believe. But wait!

  Believe in yourself! If you believe in yourself, you open a door in your mind to create positive energy towards your dream.  Enjoy the process with all your love and no expectations. We can not make our future, only the present moment. The future we offer to God, with no anxiety, no insecurities.
 Share the light in you! The Divine energy is everywhere. Share a sincere smile, a hug, a word with someone that is in need. Share your patience. What goes around comes around. If you truly believe we are all connected through God any little act of kindness is a gift to God! Just imagine in this perspective: you are smiling at God, God smile back at you... You hug someone, you get divine energy back, you feed someone with love and kindness you make God happy... Such a beautiful thing. We heal as we receive, we heal as we give.
  The more you share, more healing and happiness is experienced. More energy is put into the right path. The path for your enlightenment is created towards the Divine within yourself. We see God as our light reflects in the others.

Hope this new years is just the beginning of a endless flow of consciousnesses peace. Its a everyday practice in searching  and discovering, learning and sharing, love and being loved by God.
Namaste

The Process VS The Results

  Everyone wants results right? In our jobs, our bosses want to see results. As citizens we want to see and have results. Society want results. We expect results in our relationships. We want the things done in our time. Our mind is trained by generations to think and act like that. We are attached to results and we totally rush in the process.
  As yoga is my primary teacher I learned that the process is the most important phase to be lived. The results is just the consequence that we have to face without expectation. In the process we learn, we fail, our ego is little by little destroyed, because the process is a slow transformation that must be accept with patience and love.Our mind is direct to accomplish the results but not in the process. When we start to train our mind to live the present and in the process, we are living fully.
  In Ashtanga Yoga method is a very slow process of learning. There are different series of poses to learn in a formal sequence. We can not skip one to practice the other( even if we know the other ) because this method train the mind to accept the challenge of the process.  I have notice in myself and lots of students the necessity of perfecting an asana. Asana is just a vehicle to experience the inner self. While performing the asana the focus should be in the breath, gaze and Divine. Letting the ego go with the expectations for results. Experience the present moment even if brings pain, insecurity or fear. Being out of our comfort zone we start to see and feels things with equanimity. We start to train our mind to be in balance in the mat when we are felling good or not. Taking the lesson out of our mat into our everyday lives.
  One of the beauty of Ashtanga yoga methods is that you have no choice...It is what it is.... I can not choose what I like and practice. Every asana was knowledgeably put in a sequence by Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois.
  You go to a yoga studio and the boom of the class is the crow pose, headstands and handstands :)" Yes I feel in power"....and when you can not do it you feeI bad...and sad, because you see everyone doing, you see that awesome handstand picture on instagram. The asana don't make you became a big yogi or yogini...The process of learning and accepting where you are is the yoga in a pure essence.
  In the physical aspects when you focus in the process you build more awareness and strength. You are preparing you body and mind in a slow process for the result that may or may not happen...But who cares? Live the experience of the present moment.
 This lessons I take out of the mat to my personal life slowly also. We all have dreams,goals and plans to accomplish. Nothing happen in the time we want. We do our part, living fully with love, respect and devotion and God take care of the rest. Giving the fruits of our actions to God, detaching of the results is live in yoga.

Facts about full moon

 When I first started to practice Ashtanga yoga I did not understand much why we can not practice during moon (New and Full moon) days. When is a full moon day, that means the practitioners will take a rest.

 The logic behind is very interesting and go back many many years back. Like the ocean and all things of watery nature we are affected by the phases of the moon( human beings are about 70% of water). Our energy changes as the cycles of the moon. The full moon is considered a holiday in the Ashtanga tradition. It is also a fact that during the full moon we have more energy and passion, resulting a more aggressive practice where we can go more " deeper " than we are suppose to and end up hurting ourselves and or having an injury. During the new moon days we rest to retain energy. It is the day of the month that is believed we have less energy in the body.

 Its is important to remember that is the rest of  ASANA practice only ( third limb of Ashtanga Yoga ). Yoga is not asana. Asana is just a piece of the Ashtanga system. The other limbs are to be planted in our beings to be practice and to be flourished every day, all the time. Specially the Yamas and Niyamas.

Curious facts of full moon days:

  

1-In a study of 1,000 tonsillectomy operations, 82 per cent of post-operative bleeding crises occurred nearer the full moon than the new moon, according to the Journal of the Florida Medical Association.

2-The Californian grunion only spawns on the three or four nights after the highest tide associated with each full moon. The fish come ashore to lay their eggs.

3-Siri Lankan government rule bans playing sport on a full moon. 

4-Wesak, the most important of the Buddhist festivals, is celebrated on the full moon in May. It celebrates the Buddha's birthday and, for some Buddhists, marks his birth and death.