Most people think they have to do the same poses day after day to keep their body healthy and strong.  Actually, this sort of asana practice just uses yoga poses to numb our real issues.  In practicing this way, we are just treating symptoms rather than causes.  We are not dealing with psychological blockages but only massaging them long enough to make it appear that they have gone away.  When you bring Purna Yoga Meditation into asana practice, your poses will peacefully get better and better, and you won't need to do the same poses every day for physical upkeep.  You will find that once you release a blockage, the issue is gone.  Then, the next time you do a pose, it will have a different message for you, a different story to tell you.

 

-Mirra

When my mother was seven years old, she tumbled from an eight-foot cupboard, landed on her head, and fell into a coma.  Her father, a doctor, gave her up for dead.  A strange doctor who lived downstairs came up and massaged her with certain oils, and brought her back to life.  However, though her life was saved, after that incident, she'd get very severe migraine headaches regularly.  By the time she was in her twenties, her headaches became so bad that she would not be able to get out of bed for two or three days at a time.  She would lose her sight completely and become so nauseous that she would vomit all night.  One day, she felt a migraine coming on.  She sat down and connected with the Mother through her heart.  She felt the Mother teaching her how to move breath and prana into her head.  Since that time, she has practiced this whenever she felt a headache coming on and, as a result, she hasn't had a strong migraine since except for twice when she forgot to do the practice.  Just through doing a little bit of pranayama a couple of days every month, she has recovered a lot of her life.  

 

Many a time have I healed myself of severe pain in just a few seconds simply by the control and the proper channeling of the prana with the mind.  The healing power of the prana is so great and so vast that once you have learned to balance its droughts and floods, and learned to control its thunderous torrent which is, paradoxically, gentler than the pressure of an uncurling leaf bud, most other medicines and forms of healing become practically superfluous.  Prana is, as so many great yogic masters have claimed, the most powerful force in the world.  It is also the most evanescent, the most subtle, the most delicate, the most ethereal.

 

-Aadil

 

I have found an excellent way to gently change my life and steer myself toward my dharma, the path I want to be on.  Every night, after I have had my shower and get into bed, I start to move more slowly.  As my actions become slower, my mind becomes quieter and more reflective.  Then, when I go to bed, I lie down and reflect on the day gone by.  I start off with remembering how I woke up, and then gently fast forward through the day, observing myself with my mind's eye.  I reflect briefly on the decisions I made during the day.  I ask myself, "Did that decision move me closer or further away from my dharma (my individual life mission)?  Did it move me closer to or further away from my Spirit?"  I just observe and decide, not judge or chide myself.  This is critical.  It is not a self-beating or self-applauding session, simply time to reflect with kindness.  If I do this every single night for 21 days, my inner awareness slowly starts to observe my actions during the day, knowing that they are going to be lovingly reviewed that night.  I am cultivating the awareness that I am watching myself when no one else is.

 

-Aadil

 

Researchers have established a strong link between aluminum in cookware and Alzheimer's disease. When aluminum pans are heated, they give their aluminum very freely to the food. If you heat Teflon to high temperatures, it leaches a toxic chemical (PFOA) into whatever you are cooking and into the air around you. This is why pet birds die when Teflon is heated in the house. I suggest using nickel-free stainless steel, titanium, ceramic, or cast iron. Cast iron is the safest. 

 

-Aadil