Or if don’t meditate, you can ask yourself anytime during the day. As often as you can. Breathing slowly and deeply with your eyes closed. So you can get your answers. From deep inside.
How can I serve/help? Or in another words: What is my purpose in life?
Listen openly to all the answers without interfering. Let them flow. Take a mental notice of them. Go deeper. With no fear. Just an opened heart and mind.
By the way…
I got those questions from a book I am currently reading called The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga by Deepak Chopra and David Simon. (this is not an affiliate link.) Those are soul questions. And the deep, truthful answer to them are the key to shifting from the ego standing point to your spirit. It is the path to connect to your spiritual being and live your life honoring it. It is a way to be in touch with the fundamental essence of who you really are.
So, if you are wondering it, give it a shot.
For me, when I came across those questions in the book it was like wow! And it was because lately those are the questions I keep trying to get an answer for it. I am desperate to find my bliss, so I can follow it. And I think your bliss lives exactly where the answer for those 3 questions are.
If you don’t know what I am talking about when the subject is bliss, play the video. Joseph Campbell will answer for you.
I haven’t got the answers yet…
Actually, I probably have the answers, but I am still reluctant to pursue it because I still think I am no good at it. I guess my ego still dominates me. Sad but so true.
In any case, I will keep asking me those questions till I am fully convinced. Or until I start going with this blissful flow… regardless.
And how about you? Have you figure out what your bliss is?
Since 2015, thanks to the UN, Yoga has its international day: June 21st. And of course I celebrated it with tones of Yoga. Like 3 hours of Yoga, Mantras and Meditations. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to practice Yoga for 3 hours in a row. Or every day. Or any day. It keeps me in shape, sane, spiritual, flexible, inspired, rocking. It puts in in touch with me, myself and I. And the joy of it.
Because of it and much more, man, I love Yoga. And I am so grateful for it.🙏
And this is coming from a person who up to a few years ago thought Yoga wasn’t her thing.
At all.
So thank Goddess I gave Yoga a second chance.
I don’t even remember why I did, just felt myself willing to try Yoga again. And so I did. First with a very light kind: Restorative Yoga. It blowed my mind away. Cause it was so relaxing, calming experience that even helped me to sleep better. So I kept doing it.
Restorative Yoga made me rethink my whole idea of Yoga. So, because of it I decided to give it a try to other types of Yoga like Hatha, another kind I love. To be honest I only practice Hatha every now and then but it is one type of Yoga I wanna practice more. And I will.
I also tried Kundalini. My first go wasn’t very successful. I just didn’t like it. So I passed for a little while til I gave a second chance to it and guess what? I loooooved it. And this has been my Yoga. I practice it every single day now. By myself. And everytime I have a chance I go and practice in a class. Both experiences are great. Each one on its own. Totally recommend both.
Kundalini in particular brought to my life two important things: joy and a spiritual sense or experience. It has been, indeed, a journey of my self, to my self, through my self.
And so much healing came from and with it…
And again, I am so grateful for this journey, with its ups and downs, goodies, baddies and uglies. Imperfectly perfect. Just the way it is.🙏🌸
And if you were like me and thought Yoga wasn’t your thing, just give another shot. Just like me, you can change your mind. And you can only gain from it.😘
I just finished my 90 days routine with the Prosperity Kriya, the Subagh Kriya, which I highly recommend, by the way. It was an experience. And I am sure I will repeat it some other time. Because I do need to work on my Prosperity issues. Not only on earning money but mainly on being opened to new opportunities and be able to capitalize with them. I missed a lot of great opportunities in the past and I am not so sure if I overcome it just yet.
Anyways, now I am doing a 40 days routine with this new Kriya called the Sat Kriya. According to Yogi Bhajan, if you have to pick just one Kriya to do everyday from here to eternity, let it be the Sat Kriya. And it is because this Kriya works nearly everything you need to work, like your digestion system, your central nervous system, your sense of yourself, your creativity among other things. It is one exercise that is a complete Kriya. It makes the energy circulate, it energizes, strengths and heals the body. Plus your internal organs receive a gentle rhythmic massage. Which is a major plus, indeed.
My understanding by practicing this Kriya is that it works your Kundalini energy aka your sexual energy. It let it moves towards your spine. That is the benefit of it. And trust me, it is not a minor benefit. Au contraire. Especially (but not only) for us, menopausal women.
And it is not a hard Kriya to do. You can always begin with 3 minutes and then go up to 7 minutes and then 11 minutes and even 31 minutes. It is up to you. Just commit to it and do it for 40 days straight. Or even 90 days straight.
How to Practice:
Sit on the heels in Rock Pose, knees together. Breathe deep and relax for a few seconds, put your hands together in the Prayer pose and then open with the Adi Mantra Ong Namô Guru Dev Namô. 3 times. When you finish the intro, stretch the arms over the head with elbows straight, until the arms hug the sides of the head. Interlace all the fingers except the index fingers. Men cross the right thumb over the left. Women cross the left thumb over the right. Or as one of my teachers usually said: if you identify yourself with the female energy cross the left thumb over the right; if you identify yourself with the male energy, cross the right thumb over the left. In any case, the spine stays still and straight. Remain firmly seated on the heels throughout the motions of the Kriya.
Begin to chant Sat Naam with a constant rhythm of about 8 times per 10 seconds. As you pull the navel in and up toward the spine, chant Sat from the Navel Point. Feel it as a pressure from the Third Chakra. With the sound Naam, relax the belly.
As you continue in a steady rhythm, the root and diaphragm locks are automatically pulled.
Sat Nam means “I am truth”, “Truth is my identity.” We usually salute people with this mantra. And I love that.
To end it, inhale and gently squeeze the muscles from the buttocks all the way up along the spine. Hold it briefly as you concentrate on the area just above the top of the head. Exhale completely. Inhale, exhale totally and hold the breath out as you apply a firm mahabandh – contract the lower pelvis, lift the diaphragm, lock in the chin, and squeeze all the muscles from the buttocks up to the neck. Hold the breath out for 5 to 20 seconds according to your comfort and capacity. Inhale and relax.
You should ideally rest right after it the same amount of time you did this Kriya. If you do it for 3 minutes, rest for 3 minutes.
I must confess that I hardly rest as much as I should. 😊
To finish this Kriya, you can bring your hands together in the Prayer pose again and sing along the Longtime Sunshine song if you know it or just chant a long Sat and a short Nam.
If you need a visual guidance, take a look at this video below.
It has a very good visual explanation on how to practice it. And in the video below it has the practice with the proper beginning with the Adi Mantra and the rest at the end. I could not find a video with the proper ending with the LongTime Sunshine and the long Sat and short Nam. But you can have a look at the end of this Kriya to know it.
As you may know by now, I am an enthusiastic of Kundalini Yoga. And to keep on practicing it daily I decided to pick a Kriya and do it on my own for a number of days in a row. The one I am doing for the past months is this Kriya for Prosperity called Subagh (or Sobagh) Kriya. The benefit of this Kriya is to invoke the wealth of the Universe, it is meant to open the door of opportunity in your life and make you make the best of it.
In the video above you can learn on how to do it properly, step by step and you can actually do it every day with Tej. That is the way I have been doing it. So, follow the exact steps for the exact amount of time, every single day for the next 40 days, at least and open up yourself for Prosperity once for all.
This Kriya is not the hardest one and it is quite short (only 25 minutes). I find it a perfect Kriya to begin your Kundalini journey. Because it is doable and quiet-ish and at the end you feel rested and energized at the same time. I haven’t felt prosperity knocking on my door yet, but my experience with this Kriya has been amazing. It has opened a gate to self-awareness and it has helped me a lot to keep up, keep on going in this quite cloudy moment in my life. And I am very grateful for it.
I highly recommend it. So, give it at least a try.
As I said, I am doing this Kriya for 90 days in a row. My first idea was to do it for 40 days, but then I decided that would be better to do it for 90 days. And here I am. Almost there. I am strongly considering to extend it, not only because I need an extra help in this area but because I am kind of attached to it. I love waking up in the morning, meditating and then doing my Prosperity Kriya. Love this routine.
But maybe it is time to let it go. At least for a while… I always can go back and start another set of 40 or 90 days if I feel I need to. It is comforting to know that.
And yes, prosperity is an area in my life that I do need extra help. I feel as if I keep on sabotaging myself in this area. Constantly. It feels as if I do not allow myself to prosper. Plus my relationship with money is terrible. I almost feel embarrassed to earn it. Or multiply it. Which says a lot on this on its own. And I do have a serious problem in earning it as well. I am pretty good in having good ideas for business, but when I have to put myself out there to go and get it, man, I am a fiasco. It was like that with my Men’s Style blog. I had a great opportunity to capitalize with it and yet, I did not. I do regret it because it was something I really loved doing. Maybe that is why I sabotaged it in the finance field, cause I should have kept this thing I loved so much doing clean from all the “bad” money vibe. Or maybe because I didn’t feel I was worthy enough. Even knowing that I was pretty good at that and worked my ass off and therefore I deserved it.
Rationally I knew it but deep inside it didn’t feel quite like it. And still doesn’t.
So, yes, I need to change this pattern. I am aware of it. And I am very confident that this Kriya will help me to go through.
And if you give it a try, let me know how it goes.
For a very long time, I considered that any type of yoga was not for me. I tried a few times a class here and there but none spoke to me. None. So I gave up trying and I ended up falling in love with Qi-Gong, instead, something more aligned with me. And for years I forgot about yoga.
Photo: Medicina da Consciência. And I am on it.☺️
A few years ago, maybe 3 or 4, I decided to give yoga another try to see if there was any change on that. I don’t remember exactly why, though. Maybe a need to add extra exercise to my life? Anyways, I went for a Restorative Yoga with Reiki class because Reiki was something I have tried before and loved and guess what? I loved it. So much that I kept on practicing every week and even decided to try other types of Yoga to see if I like them as much as well. Yoga was for me, after all. And Kundalini was one of the types of yoga I decided to try.
However, the first class I attended I did not like it at all. And for 1 year I forgot about Kundalini. Until one day, when I was back to New York City I decided to try it again. And boom! I totally feel in love with. My instructor at Awakening in Greenpoint, Zita Harkaran had such an enthusiasm and a glow that I wanted to have that too. Plus, I felt so good… It was like something had lighted me up inside. So, I attended her class every week for the whole time I stayed in New York. When I returned to Rio de Janeiro, unfortunately I could not find any Kundalini classes and lost a bit the motivation to continue. But started reading about it.
At least that.
Because of my estrogen shortage and its side effects (vaginal dryness, low libido, underwhelming orgasms in particular) due to my menopausal state, in the back of my head, there was this voice whispering to me to pursue Kundalini because it could be a good addition to my recovery routine since Kundalini works with the Kundalini energy which is our holy sexual energy. A precious extra help to solve one of the remained things not yet solved, so I thought. And for that I should embrace it and practice more often to get the benefits.
Then last year, when I returned for my 3 months in New York City I decided to look for a place where I could practice more often. I would obviously keep attending Zita’s class cause she is such an inspiring teacher and I love her classes. And googling Kundalini near me I found a studio: Kundalini Yoga East. There they have this promo: you pay $39 and attend as many classes as you like for 30 days. Irresistible, right?
Photo: Kundalini Yoga East. How I miss the after class Yogi Tea chat…
Then I started my 30 Kundalini days. Okay, I did not attend a class every single day but at least 5 or 6 days a week, I did. And from the very first class I was in love. Although it was really hard. The postures, the practice and the fact that back then I was completely out of shape due to my knee injury… It was hard. And my body got all sore for maybe two weeks til I got used to exercising again. But it was a good pain.
Anyways, the experience was so powerful and insightful that I got hooked. In the best way. I don’t know if my experience was that strong due Kundalini itself or a combination of Kundalini and my level 2 Reiki (that I had completed the day before my first Kundalini day). In any case, it was amazing. I am so grateful for it…
So many good things happened to me after I started practicing it. To begin with, I got my very own Kundalini glow. During my first week, I felt as if my Crown Chakra had became wider with a brighter light. (I also got a headache that went away pretty soon, so it was not all good). At the end of the first week on a Friday class some of my estrogen shortage side effects went away. I am not overstating. It did. Just like that.
Okay, for years I have been working with my sexual energy or Kundalini energy as you rather call it due to my Qi-Gong practice since it is the same energy used. Maybe that is why was that fast for me. But my Kundalini practice also helped with other issues that I was trying to deal with, with no luck, such as: going back to the dating game (after a long time not being able to actually make it happen, I did and for my surprise all went pretty smooth), thawing my heart ( I even ended up falling in love after a long time), becoming more vocal after being way too monosyllabic… And the icing on the cake: for the first time I felt I belonged to and that I was a spiritual person. My whole life I practice spiritual things like Qi-Gong, Meditation, Tai Chi and even Yoga but had never felt myself as a spiritual being. With Kundalini, I did. I guess that is what it is called Kundalini Awakening.
After my 30 Kundalini days, I kept up attending classes as usual. I loved so much to just give up. I even went to a White Tantric Yoga event in NY where we have to hold a posture for 30 or 60 minutes throughout a whole day. And it was an amazing experience. And not as hard as I taught it would be. Right after it I felt lighter. They say you would feel the difference some days later, but for me, that was it. I will definitely attend another one when I have the chance.
Since then I have been practicing Kundalini in regular basis. Even now that I am back to Rio. I practice on my own (everyday, by the way) and when I can, I attend a local studio that I love very much, Medicina da Consciência. Yep, I finally found a place here. I still have a lot more to accomplish and overcome as a B12 deficient, poor Methylator, Menopausal and Messed Up Woman, but I am so grateful to have found a practice that I can feel it is helping me to go through all of those things…
Fab After 47 