How to Help the Spleen Perform to Its Best Ability

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Although most of us have spleens, we do not typically suppose the manner they perform as organs in our bodies. You’ve probably heard people use the phrase “venting spleen” – not relating the piece itself, however as the simplest way to explain lease out anger or frustration.
 
The word “spleen” has return to be used metaphorically as a equivalent word for “anger”. this is often as a result of in medieval times, the spleen was thought to be the literal, physical supply of a hot temper.
 
individuals thought that “venting” their spleens would take away excess anger. fortuitously, we’ve learned tons since then regarding the spleen’s purpose in our bodies.
 
Where is that the Spleen?
 
The spleen is found within the higher left region of the abdomen – behind your abdomen and beneath your diaphragm; it’s soft and purple, formed sort of a terribly tiny swish rounded catcher’s mitt with notches on its higher front edge.
 
Size and weight will vary greatly, however the typical healthy adult’s spleen is regarding 5 inches long, 3 inches wide, and one and a 0.5 inches thick.
 
A typical spleen weighs about six ounces when healthy. With some infections or different conditions, your spleen will become enlarged. once this happens, your spleen will balloon in weight to regarding four pounds.
 
This is as a result of your spleen is very vascular organ; it contains several vessels that carry and flow into fluids in your body. It works terribly closely along with your blood and humour, and might be tormented by infection, malignancies, disease, parasites, and different conditions.
 
What Does the Spleen Do?
 
As you’ve got seen, your spleen is commonly on the “front lines” of your body; in reality, your spleen could be a busy organ – particularly considering its tiny size.
 
Your spleen’s main perform is to act as a filter for your blood.
 
It acknowledges and removes recent, malformed, or broken red blood cells. once blood flows into your spleen, your spleen performs “quality control”; your red blood cells should suffer a maze of slim passages.
 
Healthy blood cells merely suffer the spleen and still flow into throughout your blood.
 
Blood cells that cannot pass the take a look at are going to be countermined in your spleen by macrophages.
 
Macrophages ar cabbage butterfly blood cells that focus on destroying these unhealthy red blood cells.
 
Always economical, your spleen saves any helpful elements from the recent cells, like iron.
It stores iron within the sort of protein or hematoidin, and eventually returns the iron to your bone marrow, wherever haemoprotein is created, haemoprotein is a very important supermolecule in your blood that transports chemical element from your lungs to any or all the elements of your body that require it.
 
Another helpful purpose of your spleen is storing blood.
 
The blood vessels in human spleens ar ready to get wider or narrower, betting on your body’s desires. once vessels ar swollen, your spleen will truly impediment to a cup of reserve blood.
 
If for any reason you would like some additional blood – as an example, if trauma causes you to lose blood – your spleen will respond by emotional that reserve blood into your system.
 
Your spleen conjointly plays a very important half in your system, that helps your body fight infection, even as it detects faulty red blood cells, your spleen will become aware of any unwelcome micro-organisms (like microorganism or viruses) in your blood.
 
When one in all these invaders is detected in your blood, your spleen, at the side of your humour nodes, jumps to action and creates a military of defender cells known as lymphocytes.
 
Lymphocytes ar a kind of white blood corpuscle that produces antibodies, special proteins that weaken or kill microorganism, viruses, and different organisms that cause infection.
 
Antibodies and white blood cells conjointly stop infections from spreading through the body by housing germs and destroying them.
 
Can I Live Without My Spleen?
 
As you’ve got seen, your spleen could be a terribly helpful organ, however it’s not very important.
 
Sometimes, a human spleen will ought to be surgically removed. this could be as a result of the spleen becomes hors de combat, or it’s going to be taken get in the course of transplantation different organs.
 
Other elements of your body, like your humour nodes and your liver, are ready to step in and take over several of your spleen’s functions. as a result of the spleen is therefore vital to your system, individuals while not spleens ar additional at risk of infections.
 
this is often why your doctor might tell you to require additional precautions, like obtaining vaccinations, once your spleen has been removed.
 
you may even be prescribed oral antibiotics to require daily; this is often in our own way to stop infection.
 
Still, it is not uncommon to be while not a spleen, and lots of individuals ar ready to fancy full lives while not one.

Detoxing. The Kundalini Yoga Perspective

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Detox

There is a modern fashion with ‘going on a detox’, which normally implies restricting certain foods, a mono diet or even fasting on water and herbal teas or juices.

It is counter-intuitive to think that if you have less you feel more – more energised and more light!

The protein myth, in particular, perpetuates the idea that we need lots of protein and the meat and dairy industry obviously have a vested interest in perpetuating this myth.

Actually, excess protein just pushes the cells of the body to work harder.

In the short term you feel energised but often, later on, more tired.

In the longer term it doesn’t seem so wise to push the body to work harder…

Withdrawl/Die-Off Reactions

So detoxing the body by allowing it to rest and for excesses to be expelled is good for you; (it is common during a detox to have nausea or headaches as a consequence of the death of yeasts/unfriendly bacteria).

These die off reactions are usually short lived and just show that the body is dropping a toxic load.

Some of you will also be familiar with stopping coffee and getting headaches and feel shaking as a consequence of detoxifying from caffeine.

The thing is a lot of people detox and then binge and then detox again and so on but if you don’t overeat and you don’t take alcohol, sugar, too much animal protein, caffeine or drugs the body doesn’t need to detox much in the first place.

Eating Light and Summary

So my suggestion would be eat light and if you want to detox late spring when the weather starts to warm is a good time to do it.

Yogi Bhajan wrote a book called ‘The Art of Self-Healing’ and in there are many fasts, mono diets and foods for specific conditions as well.

In summary, it is worth asking the question why we need to go on a detox in the first place.

Yoga and meditation cultivate in us an increased awareness of our actions and the result of our actions.

Once Kundalini Yoga becomes an everyday practice we are less inclined to overeat or reach for the wrong kinds of food because we have more presence in each moment to make decisions that support our best self, and if we fall of the wagon every now and then we won’t fall too far because Kundalini Yoga will be there the next day to remind us to keep up.

A new understanding of the mind-body connection

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All of us are experiencing the struggle that goes with transition and transformation.

In astrological terms we are on the cusp between the Piscean and Aquarian ages.

In our human evolution we have passed through the summer season, it is now late summer when the heat is being burnt out through the leaves, and the autumn winds are blowing the trees bare (the hope is what follows is a peaceful winter rather than a desolate nuclear wasteland!).

The stripping back that autumn brings is very helpful to a culture based in greed and excess.

The process of yoga is largely one of cleansing, and we are starting to realise that adding more (cars, houses, and relationships) to our lives does not help us to feel more prosperous in the long run.

The 5 Obstacles

If you’re reading this you may already sense that everyone has to burn their karma to find liberation.

The ancient Yogis maintained that there are only 5 true diseases:

  1. Lust
  2. Anger
  3. Pride
  4. Greed
  5. Attachment

These are known as the 5 passions or obstacles.

This is a huge claim and, if true, clearly points to the hold our mind and emotions have over our physical health.

We are here to get rid of all our attachments: our wilfulness, our greed, our anger, our pride – all our emotional dramas.

But something in us decides that it is too high a price to pay and we fall back under the sway of the ego-mind, forgetting that our spiritual discipline, our dharma, is our saving grace every time.

The Body

When we feel discomfort, we want to silence any cries from our bodies as quickly as possible.

Symptoms of dis-ease are commonly battled into submission by drug therapy, whether the distress is mental or physical.

This doesn’t consider the cause.

To view the body from a so called holistic perspective is to give life to the idea that whatever is manifesting is a result of karma.

That we have come here to learn lessons that we need to help us shed old skins and reach new ground.

In this we are all in a process of healing.

This means that the body is both a temporary container to maintain the soul on its journey to liberation and a sacred temple – as it is a container for the soul!

It is the only place in which alchemy can happen.

3 Levels of Health

Let us consider the 3 levels of health and how the 3 processes of yoga give us the tools to recapture the deep and lasting health that vitality brings.

Fitness: This is the correct use of the body. Each muscle, organ and thought has its own strength but at this level integration between them is limited.

For example, you may have good circulation and muscle tone but stress levels remain high and exercise only brings temporary relief, or it is done solely to look good and without much bodily awareness.

Health: Each instrument is synchronized with one another. There is a link between thoughts and emotions, actions and intentions.

Vitality. Something miraculous happens. Mind and soul work together. A strength is drawn on beyond the finite sense of body and mind.

We open the circuit to link more consciously to the abundant and universal life force.

Synchronicity is recognised as finding ourselves in the right place at the right time,

successfully engaged in the right activity. This is known as being in the zone in athletics.

All the preparation and training pay off in the moment (not ultimately, as is mistakenly assumed, by our own effort alone, but because we are met by grace; we are 40% responsible for the outcome; 60% is grace, sometimes thought of as luck, but it is actually the mark of the infinite).

The Yogic Process

There are 3 processes – Rejuvenate/Harmonise/Eliminate or Gather, Organise and Deliver/Destroy. (Yogi Bhajan takes the first letters of these words to make G.O.D.)

The gathering in process is the rejuvenating, strengthening, tonifying.

To harmonise is also the action of organising or balancing the energies.

To eliminate is to cleanse, to let go of something.

By eliminating, we bring about the change that comes about through the destruction of something else.

To the extent that we invest in one thing, something else is dying.

1. Rejuvenate/Tonify/Gather

This process provides 3 benefits:

  1. Bringing new energy in.
  2. Building up prana.
  3. Engaging the pingala (right side of the spine) & the raja guna (active).

Which come through:

  • Long Deep Breathing (LDB).
  • Inhalation and Retention of Inhale.
  • Breath of Fire (BOF) which is both rejuvenating and cleansing.

2. Balance/Harmonise

This is creating a balance between prana; drawing energy from the breath (also from food, sun, water etc) and apana (eliminative power).

This process provides 3 benefits:

  1. Creates a balance between prana and apana.
  2. When both prana and apana are strong they mix together at the navel to raise Kundalini through the Sushmana, the central channel which engages the sattvic guna (angelic realms).
  3. We build a bridge between our material and spiritual lives.

Which come through:

  • Practice of suspension at the top of the inhalation.
  • Practice of holding the breath out at the bottom of the exhale.

Cleansing/Elimination

 

Yoga helps cleansing our body and mind, especially the organs involved in the breakdown of toxins; our liver and our kidneys and those involved in moving wastes from the body; the large intestine and bladder.

This process provides 3 benefits:

  1. Engaging apana, the force that helps us to eliminate what we don’t need psychically and physically.
  2. Engages the ida (left side) and the tama guna (passive, inertia).
  3. By knowing what to say no to (the know-how of the no) we bring about the change that comes through the destruction of something else because to the extent that we invest in one thing something else is dying; Eliminate to Illuminate.

Which comes through:

  • Exhalation and holding the breath out.
  • BOF (breath of fire).

Regulating Food Intake

Overeating and eating too much protein has now been found to be a major contributor to the disease process.

Regulating our food intake is an important contributor to health and a serious consideration for those living in an affluent Western society, where there is easy access to unlimited amounts.

There are many approaches to detox or cleansing, the details of which are beyond the scope of this article, but we would like to propose 2 efficient fasting methods:

Alternate fasting and 2-day fasting.

Alternate fasting =eating 400 – 600 grams one day with eating normally on the next day or 2 days fasting = eating normally for 5 days and fasting for 2 days (eating 400 – 600 grams).

This helps to reduce IGF-1 which determines the speed at which cells divide.

Research shows that slower cell division means that other cells have time to be repaired and the body doesn’t age so quickly.

Protein intake pushes the cells into more activity and so the body has to work harder.

When fasting IGF 1 reduces and therefore glucose levels reduce as the body burns fat instead of glucose.

My own experience and that of many fellow yogis confirms that the natural tendency to regulate the appetite according to the bodies needs happens as a consequence of a regular yoga and meditation practice.

Certain practices, such as long deep breathing through the left nostril or camel pose are specific for managing our tendency to overeat.

N.B. Under eating and too many extended fasts can also be bad for your health.

Paradox and Turn Around

2 other important factors regarding our bodies; the interesting paradox about the body is that we need to look after it, not for vanity, or for its own sake, but ultimately so that we can transcend it.

The tenth spiritual body is called the Radiant Body and our radiance depends on sacrificing our bodies and minds in the name of something greater than us.

Another way to say this is the only choice we have is: ‘What is Our Master?’

We are all deciding to do one thing over another.

In doing so we give certain activities or actions more prominence than others.

Do we know how to measure the value of one activity or even one thought over another?

Without a reference beyond ourselves we can only resort to the ego as our measuring stick.

The other fascinating and slightly infuriating aspect of the body is whilst many suggestions can be made as to what to do to keep the body healthy it may not work!

For example there is a link between the virtue of faith and the lungs and in normal circumstances our inspiration (inspirare – to breathe into), our faith, our gratitude comes from our lungs.

By someone may have weak lungs and be full of faith.

So the body sacrifices itself to bring out the virtue that it represents and anyway by the time we reach the end of our lives, hopefully this is what has happened.

Intentional and Unintentional Illness

 

We can say that there are intentional and unintentional illnesses; if you are told that too much sugar is bad for you but you keep on eating lots of sugar and you get type two diabetes then the cause and effect is more obvious (unless you remain in denial!).

If a baby is born with a congenital disease or a mental handicap, the parents are healthy and there are no obvious factors causing it then it’s not so easy to make sense of it.

One way to think about it is that we all have constitutional and inherited tendencies when we consider our whole physical, psychological and emotional make up.

Beyond this if we can accept that we are spiritual beings having a human experience’, then we can start to appreciate karma as the only reasonable explanation.

The Mind

‘As you think so you are’ is a common refrain but at our deepest level do we really know what we are and therefore what to think about in directing our minds?

How much of our sense of what and who we are is a second hand version handed to us by our family, society and culture and moulded by the forces of politics and marketing.

Yogi Bhajan often talked about mental beaming; giving the mind a regular experience of an infinite horizon to maintain us at the level and calibre of a basic human being.

Then our perception is not clouded, we are not caught in our emotional dramas and we can live beyond certain parameters we are born into and the conditioning we are subject to.

Meditation is a process of cleansing the subconscious where much of our fearful conditioning lays hidden.

Otherwise the subconscious overflows into the conscious mind – this is the beginning of stress.

“Stress is; how much we indiscriminately let the physical, emotional and mental environment influence us, which equates with how much we let the external environment dictate what is important. Through a lack of a sense of what is important, we invest much of our energy on the unimportant. It is useful to develop the capacity to negate the unimportant and to affirm the important. This also means taking time to save time (meaning investment in training the mind and body)…. This requires regulation of lifestyle in things like diet, sleep and sexual activity. ” (SCS)

Mental beaming is only possible when we are not dominated by the ego mind which we usually are.

It’s not that the ego is without purpose but it will keep us attached to the more mundane aspects of our existence and will resist the suggestion that we have a soul and are connected to spirit.

We are reminded of this connection through meditation.

So inclined are we to forget that a daily reminder is needed, hence a daily practice of meditation is recommended.

The Connection Between Thoughts and Behaviour

First we have a thought, then a thought about the thought (a double thought), then a feeling, then an emotion, then a desire, acting on the desire we create (or clear) karma.

This chain reaction starts innocently enough and over time well-worn grooves become established.

So much so that going from a thought to acting on our desire can happen in a split second and frequently does.

We often assume we are making choices consciously, for example how much of the time are you taking into account what you really want to eat.

This is not just about what tastes good but also what your body intrinsically needs at that particular time.

More often we choose from a limited range of options on auto pilot.

When we take a moment to check in before reaching out it almost always ends up being more tasty, satisfying and nourishing.

In the same vein the ritual of saying grace to tune in before eating is not just to give thanks but also to make you calm so that you eat your food slowly and consciously.

The capacity to choose wisely is helped by an enhanced sensory awareness.

One of the many benefits of Kundalini yoga and meditation is sharpened hearing, eye sight and taste buds.

Your sense of smell and touch also heighten. At the same time our ability to shut out distracting influences increases our intuition and focus.

The Imposition of the Mind

 

If we consider disease as coming from the top down; an imposition of the mind on the body, then healing is a process to take us back through the desire to act, to the emotion behind the desire, to the feeling, to liberate the thought pattern that set the whole sequence in motion.

On the way we set up new cycles of positive reinforcement that make us feel good and establish more creative and life affirming ways of thinking and being.

If You Don’t Go Within, You Go Without

 

It doesn’t matter what your external life is like, if you don’t have access to the soul you are poor.

The teachings encourage us to; turn our attention inward by closing down the nine holes (sensory orifices) so that our inner light can shine.

Our self-illumination can then shine a light for others.

Meditation is very helpful for this.

Keeping the body as healthy as possible for as long as possible means that it’s aches and pains don’t become a burden that distract us from achieving our destiny.

Yoga is very helpful for this.

It is essential that we direct the mind by tuning into the destiny of our soul. Chanting is very helpful for this.

Kundalini Yoga brings together yoga, meditation and chanting.

Add to this healthy eating, herbal medicine, and interventions such as acupuncture and we have a formidable package for total health and healing.

Summary

 

Dis-ease can be seen as part of our karma rather than a battle to beat symptoms into submission which doesn’t consider the cause.

Karma takes into account constitutional strengths and weaknesses (7 generations before and after us), lifestyle and behaviour.

The opportunity is to see how our lifestyle is creating health or undermining it.

Yoga postures, meditations/holistic treatments can be given to work on inherent weaknesses within each element, organ and system.

We have understood that the body is a vehicle for the soul and that this is the reason it needs to be cared for.

Then it is not a drag on us and we can focus on what we are here to do.

There is intentional and unintentional illness; if we continue to repeat patterns that are unhealthy over time we will cause mental and physical dis-ease and the purpose of our life as a spiritual being will be obscured.

The Buddha gave us the four noble truths:

  1. Life means suffering
  2. The origin of suffering is attachment
  3. Cessation of suffering is attainable
  4. The path to the cessation of suffering is dharma

Dharma is the door (dhar) beyond death; the Mother (ma); we are born through the Mother and we die through the Mother – Kali is the Hindu goddess of death, the black hole that everything dies into.

To become deathless we need to live for the soul’s journey which, paradoxically means we need to go beyond the physical body to the radiant body, but to do that we need to keep the physical body as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

Kundalini Yoga gives us an awareness of our habits and the chance to see the consequences of our actions before we start the sequence, so that we don’t create more karma.

It gives us grit, endurance and an invincible spirit.

The Liver | The Teacher

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LIVER –Transmutation, Transformation, Change

“Hello” I ventured. “Who are you?”

“I am a warrior, my name is Hun I am part of a tribe, a vast tribe of millions and my voice must be heard. My word is law but it is not always heard. I can reach through time to the lands of my forefathers and all the records of creativity contained there.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

He continued “If you are a pianist and you want to play like Mozart I can help you. I am Spring; the endless stream of creativity bubbling over in the minds of all poets, philosophers and musicians.”

I could tell he had acknowledged me, but only just.

His eyes had looked my way but his head was fixed, like a tree trunk stuck in the earth. In fact where his neck would be looked gnarled.

Tendons and veins, hardened by time.

He opened his mouth and breathed out fire which would have burnt me had I not stepped back.

As I did I stepped off the entrance to the cave and stumbled backward into the blackness. I had to move my arms to float back level with the cave.

It seemed easy and I looked along the length of my left arm to see what looked like a cross between bird feathers and gills hanging down from it. It was the same with my right arm.

He/She was laughing at me, a loud, malicious laugh that made the cave vibrate. I fixed her gaze with a scornful stare and looked away ambivalently.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“None of your business” she thundered.

“Look I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I have been sent here, so can you please give me an idea of what’s happening and what to expect. What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is slavery, what’s going on is imprisonment.”

The voice was deep and impactful, I immediately shared her sense of injustice even though I didn’t know the reason for the complaint.

“There is nothing new being created, invention, imagination, creativity is dead.”

“Why’s that”, I asked.

“It’s been outlawed.”

“Outlawed by who?”

“By the leader.”

“Where is the leader?”

“In his walled chamber”, his eyes looked up. “ He determines what is and isn’t possible.”

The Liver is part of the tree/ether element and is the teacher.

Healing is through the word.

A bridge between the spiritual and material realms it is the capacity to bring the hignest ideals into existence. It is the force of our creativity,

Like the tree let us have strong roots to move past obstacles and reach for the sky.

Key themes; Regeneration, transformation, flexibility & embracing change.

Key thought; I am not a woman, I am not a man, I am not a person, I am a teacher.

The Liver holds the office of “general of the armed forces. Assessment of circumstances and conception of plans stem from it” (Nei Jing Ch 8)

The Liver is linked to the Tree element so I will use the analogy of a tree here:

Like a tree that is supple and can move with the wind we also need flexibility. It is important that we find the right environment and conditions for optimising learning.

This is the process of learning how we learn best which is called self-directed learning.

This is about having ‘both feet on the ground’ and yet being able to materialise a vision of something beyond us that is in service of others and the planet.

This requires an ability to sacrifice; at times to go beyond immediate needs, to drop ideas, revise plans and to be assertive when necessary.

Like the emerging plant pushing past or going around a rock there is direction and determination without the need to see too far ahead.

This requires flexibility, meaning we don’t get overly attached or upset if our original plans do not work out. Trust in another way is implied.

A trees rising sap and outward reaching branches is mirrored by us wanting to reach up and out. This gives us a sense of expansion and domain.

When we feel blocked, our energy stagnates, we lose our initial impetus and find it harder to initiate change.

Whether through yoga, meditation, herbal medicine, acupuncture or lifestyle change working with the energy of the Liver makes us adaptable and expansive even under challenging circumstances otherwise we feel sluggish and over- burdened with an impaired ability to detoxify.

The Liver is involved in stabilising blood sugar levels and removes toxins and waste from the blood so it has a profound effect on the clarity of our thought and our ability to react effectively.

You are not discovering yourself but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore not to find out who you are seek to determine who you want to be

Kidneys | The Wise Ones

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How are you charging and discharging?

Think of your Kidneys like the charge in a battery and you realise that your lifestyle is significant in how use choose to use this charge up during the course of a day and a life.

If we consider that stress is; ‘the extent to which we let our external environment dictate to us what is important’ we realise that where we focus our time and energy is under increased pressure by all the things that are vying for our attention.

Our external environment is not, of course, just our immediate environment but also the sort of environment we grew up in and how we have allowed certain messages we inherited from our family to become dictates that we still live under the tyranny of, and impose on others.

The discriminative wisdom required to know what is important for us to give our energies to comes from the kidneys and it is why we seek the counsel of elders and equally why as parents we feel compelled to give our teenage sons and daughters advice!

The power of discrimination is also needed as the day wears on and our concentration and our willpower can diminish. It is therefore a useful recommendation to get the most important things in first even if those are tasks we would rather avoid. However passion is a big determinant in what we can accomplish as the battery can of course be charged rather than depleted if we are spending most of our time doing what we love. We also need to be aware of what we deem worthy of our attention; how you do anything is how you do everything. Therefore why not choose to love it all! Our powers of concentration can, of course be weakened through poor quality sleep, stress and ill health.

 

Zhi the spirit of the Kidneys relates to will power. Power and weakness link to common everyday issues; money, power and sex. The Kidneys are depleted by too much sex and drugs and like the Liver are taxed by eating late at night. When we develop (our common passion is our sense of longing) our ability to discriminate, in particular knowing what not to do, we are mirroring what the kidneys are doing /on a physical level in filtering/cleaning the blood up to 60x per day! We can call this body-mind action, eliminate to illuminate or the know-how of the no.

Acknowledging that we are a drop in the ocean of life; let us merge again with the source of all so that we can relax and recieve

The Lungs | The Artist

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Spirare is the Latin for to breathe and inspirare is inspired. Many other cultures express the connection with the breath, elevation and upliftment. The connection between the body and spirit is made because not only are the Lungs the highest organs in the body but they also connect with the most rarefied of substances – air.

A lack of inspiration goes with being unmotivated. Great explorers, inventors and people who push boundaries do so because they were inspired to find another way. The complacency and stagnancy of maintaining the status quo can then be challenged or swept aside. Finding meaning and purpose in our lives depends on our ability to connect with a high ideal. For some the sensitivity required to bring the spiritual, artistic and more emotional aspects into their lives can be too confronting and they become a workaholic to avoid these area.

 

Love is not enough, intelligence is not enough, powerful strength is not enough. You may put everything on one side of the scale, but if you are missing gratitude you shall lose.’

Mantra, shabd and the yoga of sound

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Shabd Guru – the yoga of sound

Kundalini yoga uses mantras and shabds during meditations and they form an important part of Kundalini yoga classes and teacher training. They are used because shabd guru is a particularly powerful solution to the problems of the times. Sha = the ego. Bd = to cut. It is a special sound that cuts the ego and puts us in touch with the longing of our soul.

The sacred scripture known as the Siri Guru Granth Sahib which is Sikh in origin is where shabd is drawn from. Although all religious traditions have a practice of calling out. In Christianity; hallelujah. In Judaism; Yehovah. In Hinduism; Om Namah Shiva In Buddhism; Om Mani Padme Hum. and for Muslims, Allah. The common theme is chanting the name of god. It is this that awakens spiritual intelligence through vibration at a cellular level to create a feeling of ease/bliss (sahaj).

The anatomy of sound

Phonemes are the smallest unit of speech that distinguishes one word from another. Shabd Guru uses this atomic level of language.

There are two systems of grammer ~ one normal, the other ?nirukta? which means beyond the forms. When a sounds innate vibration corresponds to or in some way reproduces what it refers to, it is a sacred language.

If we take the word Wah He Guru. Wah sounds like wonderful. A eureka moment. Inspiration, opening, expansion. An energising sound. He is a sound of holding, containing. Gu a contraction, a concentration, consolidation and Ru, release, let go. So the mantra takes you on this journey.

The more you more away from the primary, earliest languages the less the connection of the word to the object (look at roots of words ? Ra – the sun; the ray, the realisation, the revelation. Ma – the moon; the mother, nourishment) So basic word units were put together according to the energy, emotion and awareness they create. Fundamental vibrations that resonate with universal energies within us.

Use of different sounds

Ordinary language although an efficent way to communicate is highly ineffective vibrationally in that it doesn?t correspond to anything .

Using affirmations is usually a temporary fix and assumes we know what we need. It is also difficult to maintain motivation if the behaviour we are trying to encourage or change does not resonate in the body and mind at a cellular level

Mantras cleanse subconscious.

Shabd awakens spiritual intelligence through vibration at cellular level this resonance creates ease / bliss (sahaj)

It has a neutral content that disassociate from personal. It is not indoctrinating ? trying to put something on you rather it is clearing, awakening. It is Primary information that taps into our spiritual DNA. The perfect weave of rhythm, sound, tone, focus and meaning. The raaga or mood it is played in conveys the feeling and the poetry and word convey the meaning. When a shabd is sung in the prescribed raag it gives the words an emotional charge and thereby creates a true understanding of the way the gurus intended the message to be conveyed.? Different shabds relate to different common themes. There are 34 different raags which convey the whole range of human emotion.

Know how not just know what. ?It gives procedural knowledge that is in your cells and subconscious, not just representational knowledge in your ideas. Informs our formative tendencies, to structure our structuring. It is the order behind the order.

2 voices

We have 2 voices inside the voice of the ego and the voice of the soul. We are often speaking to ourselves and others from the perspective of the ego mind. We need to establish a relationship between the mind (selfish and impatient side) and the soul (honest and sincere side).? We can then acknowledge both and get them to work together rather than against each other. We are all working through our patterns and processes, our karma to line up with our core intelligence, to find our integrity. The question is whether this this a joyful journey or a struggle. The teachings are compassionate. Time is brutal.

The technology of the yoga of sound

The ancient yogis considered that there were 2 caves; the bij (seed) gupha is the cave for bringing in new life, using the male & female sexual organs for procreation. The second cave is gian gupha which is the cave of wisdom; tongue and mouth are used as a merger with the divine where the tongue represents the penis and the mouth the vagina – you are making love to yourself! There are 84 points – 32 pairs of points on the hard palate nearer to the teeth and 20 pairs in a ‘U’ shape on the central part of the palate. When stimulated by the tongue these points are like a pressing the right keys on a keyword to access the computer. The computer is the hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus is connected to the pituitary which is the master endocrine gland and plays a key role in regulating hunger, thirst, sleep, moods, emotional behaviour and sexuality. So Shabd Guru stimulates the hypothalamus to change the chemistry of the brain so that it becomes a more highly receptive instrument. It also helps the mental, emotional and physical bodies to integrate more harmoniously. In fact there are;

4 areas affected by sound and breathe combination via neuro-endocrine link.

  • ‘the autonomic nerves, sympathetic and parasympathetic that control states of excitement, relaxation and high performance
  • the senses and c.n.s. through the neuro-chemical ocean of the body that connects all the cells
  • ?endocrine system that produces hormones and controls our moods and the feeling of vitality and energy
  • the immune system?

 

 

Presence and Power, Attitude and Energy

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Attitude and Energy

There are many claims made for healing at an energetic level and many claiming ?everything is just energy?

Thankfully most people don’t expect to be completely healed by visiting a health practitioner and often the most stubborn health issue/s (usually one or two) don’t ever completely resolve however long you have treatment for and however many practitioners you try.

Energy Improves

Despite this because the flow of energy improves so does your overall energy levels, some other symptoms and perhaps there is some shift, however small in the most stubborn complaint (that is manifesting at the soul/genetic level). So, for example you feel less tired, your digestion and sleep improve and you feel better, even though the original complaint, that bugs you the most, does not ever really resolve. These are often issues that run in a family, and so run deep in the genes. Some people therefore conclude that holistic medicine does not work. For others they are happy to enjoy the often unexpected benefits of other things improving.

Blocks to the healing process

When considering blocks to the healing process it is honest for the practitioner and liberating to the client to work towards a change of attitude as well as a change in energy. A change of attitude is a change of perspective and a change of thinking and this is more likely to last in the long run and usually has more chance of persisting to impact us at the deeper levels where the resistance and inherited karmic patterns are deeper.?

Energy and power, consciousness and presence

This corresponds to the elements of water; power. And air; presence. Blocks to healing can arise in relation to both. In this excerpt from his book ‘Let The Numbers Guide You’ Shiv Charan shows that it’s not just about energetic change; ???

‘Different religious and cultural communities tend to emphasize different pairs of numbers. The 2 and 8 are numbers (water element) that have been central too much in the oriental way of thinking. The association of the Tao with the element water, the study of the polarities of yin and yang, the eight trigrams of the I Ching, the eight spokes on the wheel of dharma in the Buddhist tradition…

Generally speaking it is harder, or just more challenging since it calls for more consciousness and responsibility, to negotiate a change of a person’s attitude as opposed to changing the energy flow, whether within the person or in their environment. Therefore, water power or energy flow has tended to become the popular concerns of practices such as Feng Shui since it does not call upon the responsibility of the people to influence their environment and their own lives. Rather it places all the emphasis on external factors in the na?ve hope that people will gain benefit from this without their own contribution of presence. (Note this is contrary to the original spirit of Feng Shui, which concerns itself with both the movement of the wind and the water powers)’ (Shiv Charan Singh p 181 & 144 ? 145 Let the Numbers Guide You)

Your organs are characters in the story of your life

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Healing from the inside out

Considering the story of your life; every organ is a character with a special role to play. Depending on health and lifestyle choices, organs can become friends or foes. Learn how to harmonize your inner supporting cast; achieving inner health, harmony and peace.

Your organs are people!

The 10 major organs of the body are alive in us! The liver is the teacher, the heart is the emperor and the lung is the artist, and also the warrior. By getting to know these teachers within and applying their teachings you can transform your health and your life.

The distinction between body and mind and the brain and the body are created but us. Medical science continues to reveal that the hormones made in our organs affect the brain as much or more than the brain affects the organs. For example, our white cells know how to adapt and engage the body to kill off foreign invaders. They have memory, make decisions and communicate.

Yin and Yang Organs

The yin organs resemble yin in being more dense, nourishing and static. They store vital and purified substances such as blood, qi, and body fluids. They connect us to our spirit and we can’t easily live without them. They are the Spleen and Pancreas, Kidney, Heart and Lung. The Liver operates as the bridge between our spiritual and material life.

The Heart and Lung can be seen as having hollow and dense aspects and so they are seen as the more yang of the yin organs. Also because they are in the upper (yang) part of the body. The Heart in particular is constantly beating and is mostly hollow, it moves and stores the blood. It is the most yang of the yin organs.

The yang organs connect us to our material life. They are active, digesting and transforming the substances that are moved along them. Yang corresponds to activity and so these organs are constantly filling and emptying. They change, separate and excrete the products of the food we eat in order to give us energy. They are also more in contact with the exterior of the body if we consider the mouth as an extension of the stomach, the bladder ending in the urethra and the intestines ending at the anus.

Extraordinary Organs

These are the brain, uterus, bone marrow and Gallbladder. These are organs that are hollow but filled with purified substances. They are then yang in structure but yin in function.

Click on the Organ Chart Summary below these 2 videos to read more about the associations between body, mind and spirit that come alive when we come to know that characters that live within us!

 

Organ Chart Summary

The eternal soul

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Despite all of our efforts to keep healthy the body is complex and paradoxical. After the loss of our premature baby boy at 15 hours old it was revealed that my wife had liver disease from an unknown cause and needed a new one. Life’s big challenges, and a regular kundalini yoga practice, remind us that we are not our body or our mind, or the emotional ups and downs of life. We are a soul with a destiny and our soul lives on after we die. Since you won’t be needing your body when you die carry a donor card to remind you of the unique opportunity you have to bring life back to those that our still living once your soul is ready to move on.

In the Sikh faith we use the expression ‘ Cherdi Kala’ which means always be in elevated spirits. Your soul is always elevated, undiminishable as it is. It cannot be improved upon or healed, or negatively effected by anything that happens to us. It is just waiting, calmly and patiently for us to return to it.