Are You Absent-Minded?

Are You Absent-Minded?

Do you often catch yourself day-dreaming, forgetting about little things in your daily life? Is it easy to forget your car key, your wallet, or maybe even your kid at the mall?

Is it bothersome to be pragmatic and realistic at times? You don’t need to fit the description 100% of the time, but for sure, once in a while, we’re all like that.

The heart is the seat of the Jivatma (jiva/free, atma/soul) the one who uses this physical body to undergo experiences in the material world. This kind of decoupling from the physical reality usually happens when your Jivatma is in tune to other spiritual dimensions and realms.

Usually when you are in an absent-minded state, day-dreaming and philosophy is easier to the mind, than running everyday errands, for the Jivatma is roaming through the spiritual world, maybe looking for answers to your life.


So my advice is that you should not fight against your Jivatma's will, but rather cooperate. You are only his shadow on earth, and the master of the heart, knows what is better for you. The more you cooperate, the faster the Jivatma will solve his/her problems and you'll be back into your normal earthly state.

How about a vacation then, or a long trip?

Joy in the Heart (Video)

Desires of the Heart

Desires of the Heart

So you woke-up one day and you have discovered that some desires of your heart were not fulfilled to your heart’s content. You should learn to treat your heart, as an independent entity living under your chest. Desires and wishes are what feeds the heart, and if left un-nurtured, will cause pain and sorrow, mainly chronic sadness.

Some desires and wishes cannot simply be made true. You have got your social circumstances, family duties, emotional bonds, which go against fulfilling your desires. But this is naturally so, for life is full of contradictions, and it would rather be pale, if it were not so.

Eating well is one way of partially resolving your desire/wish-drenched heart. I meant, eating well, not eating a lot, indulging in high carbohydrate content and empty calories food.

I mean to eat like a gourmet, learning how to appreciate the delicate seasonings and the variety of spices and aromas. The palate is directly associated to quenching the thirst of the heart, mainly the raja (fire) qualities of it, which in turn is associated to desires and wishes.

Bon Appétit!

Guided Meditation 1 - The Heart Chakra

I Procrastinate and I Hate it!

I Procrastinate and I Hate it!

Procrastinating sometimes, could mean your genius at work. Newton had it, up until an apple fell on top of his head. Procrastination could mean sometimes that your mind is busy processing information at deeper levels, out of conscious reach.

Well then, you like your genius at work, but you've got a deadline to meet, and you don't have ten years like Einstein to come up with the Relativity Theory. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this inaptitude for things can be related to creativity, which in turn is linked to impulses to go for up for grabs.

The energy organ which is related to creativity is the pancreas. Pancreas, as you well know, also secretes insulin that supplies glucose to the cells. With more sugar available to the cells, your brain will work easier.

Pancreas in TCM is related to happiness and laugher. So one of the ways to stimulate your energy levels related to creativity, is to be in a in a state of happiness. If you can't concentrate on your procrastinating task, just forget about it for a while, and go watch some comedy movie. Go read some jokes in the Internet. Be around with funny people.

As your pancreas energy (earth element) picks-up again, facing your procrastinating task will be a lot easier.

Say you are in a ‘No’ mood

Say you are in a ‘No’ mood

Do you catch yourself procrastinating, being negligent about your responsibilities? Is it difficult for you to make yourself heard? People invite you for a party and you accept going, more as a scapegoat, rather than out of sheer pleasure? Or have you been turning down all invitations, because your mood doesn’t seem to fit?

If you fit the description above, you’re certainly in a ‘No’ mood. When you are like that, though it is hateful, don’t try to exceed yourself. Instead, focus on harnessing all your energies first, rather than forcing yourself to do things that you're not really fit.

In the Ancient Chinese Yin-Yang Taoist Theory, before every expansion, there is a need for contraction. And sure enough, the sage Chinese had a point. Visualize yourself a wave in formation. Before the crest of the wave, you'll see a trough forming. Before a frog leaps, it contracts its legs, before jumping out, expanding itself.

So is the same for your life-energy. Maybe you’re not lazy at all, but just experiencing a contraction period, observed by the wise Taoists in the nature. But if you have been procrastinating for more than a half-moon cycle (a fortnight), we'll talk about that further on over here, at Yoga for the Heart.

Are you in a ‘Yes’ mood or in a ‘No’ mood?

Are you in a ‘Yes’ mood or in a ‘No’ mood?

What is your first instinctive response, when someone invites you surprisingly for something? Do you first mentally respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’, before you utter an answer? What is you usual response, before any rational thought is processed?

If you first responded ‘yes’, then you’re in a ‘Yes’ mood. You’re more likely to be open to new things, changes in lifestyle is always welcome: you'll likely to have energy to spare, to try new emotions and things.

If you responded ‘no’, then, it doesn’t mean that you are a negative person. It means that energetically you are not presently so strong. So you're acting defensively, sparing your energies. You’ll more likely to be comfortable in the beaten track. You’ll not be up for changes, and you better not try.

So, we should be in tune to what our body is feeling energetically. If you are in a ‘Yes’ mood, go after things, go change the world. Make use of the positive energy you have. If you are in a ‘No’ mood, spare yourself and content yourself with the old tricks, until you build-up more energy.

Give a Smile, get Two Smiles back!

Give a Smile, get Two Smiles back!

Life is a kind of market place. For getting things for your daily life, you need money. But for getting things that your credit card can't buy, like happiness, the currency in use is called ‘Smile’.

The rules are simple: the more Smile currency you use, the more you get. You usually get Smiles back in double. Unlike money, that after you have spent, they just vanish, when you use the Smile credit, you are actually piling-up more happiness credits.

This could sound a little obvious. But the obvious things in life are the ones easier to forget. Say you have a day full of errands. Start doing your errands with a grim face, and all you’ll get will be grimace credits that will ruin your day, by the time you're through with your errands. Say you grimmed at the cashier, and you received back three time as much grimace from the cashier, plus a sloppy service. Everything will go wrong and you’ll wish you hadn’t left home.

Instead, although you have woken-up with a little headache, you choose to be on the sunny side up. You force a little smile that your aching head is denying you, and as you go through your chores, you will receive Smile credits back. This time you decided to smile to the cashier, and got twice as much smile back. Surprisingly, you had preferential service. And that energizes you. By the end of the day, you'll find yourself anew, and the headache, what headache? Everything will be accomplished smoothly and you’ll be ready for more Smiles!

Sourire, Smile, Egao, Sorriso, Sonrisa...

Who Wants Enlightment?

Who Wants Enlightment?

At Shaolin Temple, a neophyte asks his master:

- Master, how do I get enlightment?

- Grasshopper, you should make the right choices.

- Master, how to make the right choices?

- Grasshopper, you need a lot of experience.

- Master, how do I get the experiences?

- Grasshopper, it is rather easy. You get experience by making the wrong choices!!

unknown author

Good Memories Yoga

Good Memories Yoga

Sometimes it gets very hard to enjoy yourself. You are bored with your daily routines, your girl/wife, your guy/husband doesn’t seem to give you that kick anymore, your TV shows are repeating over and over again the same stuff, your most favorite food does not provoke you anymore…

In another words, it is hard to get some kick out of your life.

Although there are theoretical explanations to this kind of condition by Traditional Chinese Medicine, today, we are going to be more practical and teach you how to have some pleasant time, in situations like that.

Get yourself a nice cup of coffee, Java blend maybe. Go to your favorite place in your house and make yourself comfortable. Get a piece of paper, and jot down all joyful moments in your life. Make a list of it. You don’t need to force your memory.

Just jot those memories down, as they surface onto your mind. Do this for at least 15 minutes. You’ll surprisingly feel more joyful, as your endorphin, serotonin and dopamine levels get higher, as your go about your memories.

Studies show that parts of the brain do not know if an event is happening right now, or it is just a memory recall. Therefore your glands will secret endorphin, serotonin and dopamine as if the events were taken place right now.

Enjoy!

On Rainy Days, Thank You 1

On Rainy Days, Thank You

So it is raining outside, and so is your heart feeling. You are in a depressive mood, fit for nothing, wanting to disappear under your sheets. Let's say you ran out of Prozac, and you rather go natural, anyway.

Here’s a little trick to have your heart shining as a sun again, full of joy and contentment. It’s called the Gratitude Shuffle. The aim is to thank everyone you know, and get a swinging mood, in order to be able to seize the day. This exercise takes less than 15 minutes, to boost your system again.

It is very simple. But you need to thank everyone from the bottom of your heart. If you have any problem thanking someone, just skip her/him, and pass on to someone you appreciate. Just lay comfortably on your couch or bed, and call into your mind’s screen, the images of your friends and relatives. But there's a calling order. Let’s start from people related to your inner layers. First, thank your ancestors. They are related to the Shin (soul) layer, or the layer of the heart, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. Now let’s go on to the Jin (spirit, kidneys) layer. Thank all your blood kin, starting from your parents and siblings. Also include all your school days friends and teachers.

(continues on On Rainy Days, Thank You 2)

On Rainy Days, Thank You 2

On Rainy Days, Thank You 2

(Please read On Rainy Days, Thank You 1, first)

The next on the roll is the Gan (mind, liver) layer. Thank all your work associates and friends. To round it up, let's thank your outer Ren (you personal belongings, including pets) layer. It is a very important layer, for it guards all your inner layers against energy attacks. Although it may funny thanking your personal belongings, in fact you are thanking your own energy that you have imbued onto them.

You do not need to be strict about recalling your friends and associates just thank the ones that float easily in your mind screen. After you have thanked all the soul, spirit, mind and the outer defense layers, you will start receiving energy back from them. That is because you have given them positive energy, and therefore you get positive energy from them. In other words, a smile will always get you a smile in double, and a grim, will get you grimace in double.

Try to make this thanking cycle within 15 minutes. You will really feel energized and happy deep inside! And what do you always get on rainy days? Colorful rainbows!!

The Heart according to Confucius

The Heart according to Confucius

In a wise way, Confucius said that in order to have peace in the world, it is necessary that the countries be prosperous.

For countries to be prosperous, it is necessary to have understanding throughout society.

In order to have understanding throughout society, it is necessary to have union in the families.

And to have union in the families, it is necessary to have love in one’s heart.

Therefore, take good care of your heart.

Joy in the Heart

Joy in the Heart

What do people from all walks of life have in common? Among many things that might have popped-up in your mind, they all have an emotional heart, that senses, feels, responds to the world, gives comfort to the mind. The heart is a great friend when in joy, full of happiness, but when it is not taken properly care of, fills the world of any person with sorrows.

It is the beating and pounding of the emotions that allow us to be what we are, to do what we want. It is because of our heart that we are cherished by our loved ones, respected by our peers and provided with a sense of self-esteem. The most important thing for every human being is that when your heart is full of joy, all things transform, everything becomes meaningful. It is then a delight to live.

The food tastes better and even a tiniest thing can bring you joy. Nothing bothers you and no one can affect your mood.

Heart and Mind

Heart and Mind

One day you had to make a decision against your heart. Everything planned, logically arranged, agreed by all, but not satisfying to your heart. Well then, it is the rational and logical choice and you make it. Nevertheless, something stirs-up in your chest, you feel uncomfortable, uneasy and willing to undo that choice you have made. In the long run, it becomes evident that the commitment you have got yourself into, starts ruining your life, getting energy away from you, leading you into a depressive state.

The logical decision you have made could be a marriage, a new business partnership, a new job or any project you might consider. The heart is just not following the intellect and denies you strength to go on with the decision you have made.

Then you decide not to listen to your heart and emotions and go on with your project. You do not let your heart speak and fill your mind with down-to-earth reasons in order to contradict your emotions. However, the heart will find a way to make itself heard. It may make you feel anxious; it may cause you sleeping disorders and maybe lead you to stress and/or illness.

(continues on Heart Wants, Mind Will Not)

Heart Wants, Mind Will Not

Heart Wants, Mind Will Not

For example, a man works at a company as an accountant and he is the breadwinner of the family. He has two children and cannot quit the job, although he hates the dull daily routines of crunching numbers over and over, feeding meaningless data into a computer. He in fact, would like to be a counseling psychologist, but cannot afford to pay tuition in order to pay for the expenses of the family, and does not even have the time to dedicate himself to the studies. That is what his heart desires.

On the other hand, his logical mind tells him that he must be accountable for child rearing expenses and the house mortgage. All those concerns prevent him from quitting his present job in order to achieve his dreams. Therefore, he follows the logical mind, and keeps on with his unpleasant work. In the long run, his professional and personal dissatisfaction grows so much that he ends-up developing tendonitis.

He then seeks professional help of an acupuncturist and finds out that his deep dissatisfaction with his job is the cause of his ailments. The illness was a way for his emotional heart to tell the logical mind that something was missing. The heart was telling that he needed personal fulfillment through professional life.

(continues on Work to Live or Live to Work?)

Work to Live or Live to Work?

Work to Live or Live to Work?

A young fashion designer works in a very demanding environment that requires from her a lot of her energy and talent. Fashion career is what this young woman has always sought after as a professional fulfillment, and although financially well rewarded, her emotional heart yearns for more free time, in order to devote quality time to her husband who is becoming estranged because she is never home.

Logically, she was trailing what her career plan has traced for her, getting an above average financial compensation. However, she was not happy for the outcome of the detailed career planning she had set for herself, for she was losing her husband. Eventually her husband asks for a divorce and she gets into depression. She feels very weak and has hard time to keep up with the job's demands. One day she wakes-up with an incredible back pain and she is not able to go to work. Physicians run a thorough examination of her lower back and find no anomalies. Again, the emotional heart had found a way to make itself heard.

(continues on Including Yourself)

Including Yourself

Including Yourself

A woman in her fifties suffers severe fatigue, joint pains and sleep disorders. She describes herself as being disillusioned and embittered by life and often feeling unable to make positive changes.

She spent most of her life taking care of her family, raising children, looking after her husband. By following a role model dictated by her logical mind, she had found fulfillment as housewife and mother, however through denial of her own heart and self.

Although love giving and compassionate, she had through all those years of self-denial, systematically behaved to erase and to rebut every trace of her individuality. The loving and caring mother forewent taking care of herself, by replacing her husband’s and children’s individual fulfillment as being of her own.

She then becomes disillusioned and embittered as the family does not recognize enough her efforts and her loved ones do not behave as she has expected and dreamt of. This free behavior of her family members gets her desperate, for she had projected her self fulfillment in them. She starts to develop a negative view of life, often thinking that something bad might occur to her family members.

Her emotional heart complains by causing pains all over her body and thus becoming the center of attention of the family. This is the way her heart had found to recover her individuality from the family, by getting back all the loving and caring she had devoted to them.

(continues on Indulging Your Heart)

Indulging Your Heart

Indulging Your Heart

Although there is nothing wrong in pursuing one’s logical mind, there must be a balance between heart and mind. The most important thing is to be able to follow one’s commitments in family/working life with joy and fulfillment in the heart. A joyful heart will always enable further enjoyment in life and strength for more material and spiritual fulfillments.

Now let us suppose you follow only your heart's wishes. You wake-up one day and you feel like not going to work, or prepare your kids' breakfast. Let us say someone will do that for you. You will feel great one day, but if you keep on indulging yourself, doing everything as your heart pleases, you will create a murky load of laziness in your chest and not be able to do a thing.

Ancient Chinese Taoists called it humidity of the heart and the Hindi called a state predominated by tama, of inactivity. You will then start feeling lazy about doing anything and even not willing to feed yourself if you overindulge to the wishes of the heart.

(continues on Structure of the Emotional Heart)

Structure of the Emotional Heart

Structure of the Emotional Heart

Let us consider the emotional heart as an entity living under your chest, channeling all energies related to the body and working as a central harness to the conscious mind. It is a being that feeds and lives on life-energy, call it Shakti (according to Hinduism) or Chi (according to Taoism).

It supplies energy to the mind in the form of emotions and coordinates the life-energy distribution within the various parts of the body, especially the mind. It works in close relationship with decisions made at conscious levels, sending a lot of life-energy especially to decisions that are likely to feedback the emotional heart with life-energy. When the heart is devoid of energy, it will send stress signals throughout the body (illness), and not letting at the same time the mind focus on thinking processes or decisions that are harmful to the emotional heart. The emotional heart simply does not function properly when not appropriately fed with life-energy.

In sum, the emotional heart will be likely to work closely with the mind when it is full of life-energy, and abstaining from participation when bereft of energy.

(continues on Taoists Know It Better)

Taoists Know It Better

Taoists Know It Better

Taoists would call the logical mind, yang (active essence) and the not so-logical emotions, yin (passive essence). It is well known that a balance between yin and yang is necessary for the benefit of the body, so the same goes for the consciousness composed of mind and heart. Being opposites in essence, both the mind and the heart feed each other with their energies, being interdependent.

The question is how to feed each part of the mind/heart consciousness without overdrawing energy. Too many logical decisions of the mind leave the heart dry and weak whereas too much indulgence of the heart leaves the mind lazy. One must first understand with the mind how the heart feeds and nurtures itself. Then learn how to educate and discipline the heart to behave accordingly, in order to be able to supply life-energy to the mind.

The Horse, The Chariot and the Charioteer

The Horse, The Chariot and the Charioteer

In Katha Upanishad, an ancient Indian scripture, the body of a person is likened to a chariot, in which the mind is the reins directing the horses (heart). If the reins (the mind) are too tight, the horses (heart and emotions) will not get you far. If the reins are too loose, the horses will go astray, taking you anywhere. Who he guides the reins must know the horses and the horses must know what the guider of the reins want, in order to lead the chariot to the right direction.

(continued on The Joyful Ones)

The Joyful Ones

The Joyful Ones

Wouldn't it be great if you could live on logical choices and at the same time listen to your emotions to your heart's content? That is not impossible and many people in fact live like that. They are often joyful people, full of discernment and in harmony in their material and spiritual lives. These people can find joy in any environment, no matter what their jobs are, whatever their financial situation are, pressured to study, be in a family with problems, married to a troublesome husband/wife or raising difficult children.

They are mostly love giving and compassionate persons. They are full of self-love, first in love with themselves other than anything else. For a heart full of love-energy cannot be hurt, cannot be soiled nor be frustrated.

Understanding the workings of the heart, giving discipline to the emotions, there arises wisdom (prajña in Sanskrit), as much as discipline to the mind gives rise to intellect and knowledge (jñana in Sanskrit). With knowledge based on wisdom, one will be able to use the intellect to discern when to please the mind or the heart.

Gratitude

Gratitude

One of the aims of this yoga is keeping your heart full of joy. Joy is the panacea for all ailments of the heart. Gratitude will nurse and feed your heart, for it brings joy to the heart. It is a great tool to keep the light in your heart lit, when everything else seems to be lost. When you are extremely sad, bored, angry or full of negative emotions, and nothing seems to be able to change your mood, start feeling gratitude towards everything you possess. Your heart will begin to feel lighter.

You can start feeling gratitude for the very fact that you are alive. Be grateful to the very body that you possess, feel gratitude towards your parents for having sacrificed the best part of their lives so that you could grow. Be grateful to the house in which you live, the food you eat, the air you breathe. Show appreciation for your wife/husband, daughter/son, parents, relatives, friends, colleagues and associates.

When you feel gratitude towards someone, you become able to receive more love from the person you feel grateful. The channels of love between you and the person you feel gratitude are opened, enabling a more positive exchange of energy, making a stronger bond.

You can also feel gratitude for the objects you have. You will be simultaneously thanking the energy of everyone that helped in the process of making, acquiring and using the object. You can start by being grateful towards your personal belongings. Things and persons that are close to you are likely to affect your day-to-day energy.