Сострадание и внутреннее тело: асана как дорога к любви (2011, Нью-Йорк), занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
So the purpose of this three evening class, this is the final evening of the three evenings. We were talking about how nice it would be if we were capable of loving every person we saw on the street in New York, right? So this was our goal for this class.

Then we described a higher kind of love and an experience of love that comes when the heart chakra opens. And in that experience, something strange happens. Your mind is released to its full capacity.

And then you have the ability to see the faces of many people at the same time. And then I was trying to get you to appreciate how many faces, OK? So normally when I look at you, I have to look one by one.

If I want to see everyone's face, I have to scan my eyes across the room and then I can see people's faces one by one. If you are able to open up the heart chakra, then what we said is you would have an experience where you could see more than one person's face at the same time. And I don't mean in a crowd.

I mean each face is full headshot. And you see each of them as if they were stacked one behind the other, but you see them all at the same time, OK? You don't have to go through the stack one by one.

You see every face in the stack of papers at the same time. Your mind has the capacity to see the faces of many people at the same time. And then we said, actually, when it happens to you, when you're able to open the heart chakra, when you have that experience, you'll find that the number of faces is all the faces of the people in the world, OK?

So all the faces of all the people in the world you are able to see at the same moment, OK? In a single minute of time, you see all the faces of all the people in the world. And then we said, it was more than that.

You can see the faces of all the creatures also, from whales and birds and cows down to all the faces in each square inch of seawater in the entire ocean, OK? Tiny creatures, you can see all of their faces at the same time. So try to imagine a state of meditation in which you can see the faces of every single living creature in this world, and then multiply it times all the worlds there are in the universe, OK?

And they're countless. There is no end to the worlds, and there is no end to the beings who live on those worlds. So try to imagine, in a meditation, with your eyes closed, you're able to see the faces of every single living creature on every world at the same time.

Your mind has this capacity, OK? If you were able to open the heart chakra, you would have this experience, OK? We've been talking about that.

And not just see the faces, but love them. So have a deep love for each of them, a deep affection and love for each of the faces you see. Countless faces.

And then a feeling like a mother for their child. And at the moment that you see their faces, you have a feeling of profound love for each one of them, like the deepest love you've ever felt in this life for a single person. But during the opening of the heart chakra, you're able to feel this love for all of them equally.

And then there's a cool, what do you call it? Denuma. There's a happy ending to the experience.

Right after that, you are able to see the future. Because the heart chakra is open, then your perception of time is not limited. As long as the heart chakra is closed, you have to take life in little tenth-second chunks.

I call it living in a closet, you know? So you are forced right now to take your life in moments that follow each other like this, you know? When the heart chakra opens, you're not limited that way.

And you can be aware of the present moment, but at the same time, you can be aware of things that will happen many years from now, hundreds of years from now. And you see them directly, okay? So you're not limited in how many things you can see at the same time.

And you're also not limited in time itself. You can see at the same moment the faces of those people, and you can also see the day in which you will take care of each of them, okay? You will see a day in which you will have the capacity to take care of each of them personally, okay?

At the same time. And that's... So we were trying to get that to happen.

The purpose of these three days of classes was, can I give you some kind of practice that you can try and that would bring on that experience, that you would have that experience? I think you can imagine that if you had that experience once in your life, it would change everything about your life. You wouldn't be at all like you are now, okay, if you haven't had that experience.

So, if you just could bring on this experience for five minutes, right? Then it would change everything about your life. I don't think it would be possible to be very unhappy again, ever, because you've seen all the creatures of all the worlds, and you have seen the day that you will take care of each of them personally.

And taking care of one person makes you really happy, okay? Taking care of infinite numbers of beings at the same time is happiness. That is happiness, okay?

To do that, to see that I'm going to do that would change your life forever. You would never be the same. It would be very difficult to be unhappy.

I think you could manage it, but it would be difficult, okay? You just, your whole life would be fulfilled, and you wouldn't really need much more in your life. You would be contented and completely happy with the knowledge that you will care for countless beings directly, personally, each one.

And so the point of this class was, could we discuss ways of opening the heart chakra? How could we open the heart chakra, right? So towards that goal, we yesterday discussed what the heart chakra looks like, okay?

What the process, what the thing called the heart chakra looks like, you see? And all the parts of it, and what it looks like, how it came to be in the womb when you were no more than about half an inch big, okay? You were actually a tube of cells, okay?

In the first month of, in the womb. And then we said eight channels form within the first month inside the mother's womb, okay? And we said there's one main channel called Sushumna, right?

Starts here, goes under the skull, comes out from under the skull here, travels in front of the spine, comes down to the groin, little pieces split off down the legs. But the main Sushumna terminates at the end of the sexual organ in both a man and a woman. Then even in the first month in the womb you have a central channel.

It's about this long, okay? And it's very skinny, all right? Then even in that time you have a left and right channel, okay?

In an adult they terminate here which created your nostrils, which is why you don't go around with one big nostril. And it's good, right? I don't know why it's more attractive.

Okay. Probably if you all had one we would be happy. I don't know.

But then these two side channels come up. They cross over the central channel under the skull here, creating the Ajna chakra, right? The chakra at the forehead.

Then they continue under the skull alongside the central channel, the Sushumna. And they cross again, creating a knot at the tip of the head. And then they create a knot at the base of the neck.

By the way, the large bones of the body form around those knots. That's why this big bone is here, called your skull. And that's why you have a C7 there.

Is this C7, right? And, okay, and it creates the bones of your spine, your vertebrae. There's another knot crossover.

The two side channels cross over three times behind the heart, okay? They cross over and choke the central channel three times at the heart. In a fetus, in the womb, when the prana is blocked at the area that will be the heart by the two side channels, which do exist at that time, okay?

They create a buildup of prana in the area that will be the heart. And then we said four channels break out of the side horizontally, right? As if a garden hose was splitting open from the pressure of the water because prana cannot move because the ida and the pingava, the two side channels, are choking the heart channel.

Prana cannot pass up the central channel, it cannot pass down the central channel. So then prana builds up. Four channels break out, first to the east, right?

To the front of the body, then to the south, then to the west, then to the north. Four channels break out at the heart. So, so far we have seven channels in the fetus, of the fetus, at the heart.

And then we said there was a sort of an auxiliary channel that comes up the central channel, which is an attempt by the body to carry the prana which was blocked, okay? So then, that's called the Dujama in Tibetan. It's the demon woman who obstructs the body, something like that.

But it contributes to the blockage of prana at the heart. So, when you are in the fetus, when you are in the womb, then these eight channels form first. And then we said something cool last night.

We said, when, we kind of outlined what happened when prana travels through each of the channels, right? When prana is traveling through the middle channel, the Sushumna, then you feel contented, you feel happy, you have a high degree of knowledge and understanding, and you have a high degree of compassion, okay? When you can get any kind of prana into the central channel, then you have these elevated feelings and elevated perceptions, right?

And we said that in a normal person, we say in the scripture that normal person means non-yogi. They say in a non-yogi, in a person who doesn't understand yoga, the prana only moves through the central channel under two circumstances. One is death, at which time the knots are released by nature, by the nature of karma.

The knots around the heart and the other centers, they release and then prana enters the central channel. And you do have an experience of what we call clear light as you pass on to your next birth. You have a brief experience.

But you are too, it's too chaotic and you can't use it, okay? You can't use it to see every living being or something like that. You have a brief flash of insight and then you're on to your next body, okay?

And during the act of sex, so during orgasm, then some prana travels through the central channel and then the channel locks up again, maybe worse than before, okay? So in a normal person, prana travels through this channel of knowledge and contentment and love only rarely, okay? When you feel angry, upset, then prana is moving through the right hand channel, pingala.

And it expands that channel, it gets fatter and then that twist around the heart gets fatter and it chokes the heart worse. It chokes the central channel worse. The more angry you get, the more impossible it is to put prana into the central channel, you see?

Because you have a limited amount of prana, it's a closed system. If you get upset, prana flows out of the central channel into the right hand channel. Right hand channel gets fat like a balloon and then it chokes the central channel, you see?

If you... And then we said, I like to call it the Starbucks channel on the left side, the ida, okay? It's not bad to go to Starbucks and have something, but on your third hot chocolate, prana is flowing out of the central channel.

When you feel contented, you had a couple of sips of hot chocolate, it was a reasonable pleasure, the prana is flowing in the central channel, okay? When you get greedy and then you want more and more, then prana starts to leak out into the left hand channel, ida. Then that channel expands, the central channel shrinks, the knot gets bigger and then again you can't think straight when you're under the influence of your third hot chocolate or being mad at your boyfriend, you can't think straight.

Physically, there's a physical reason you can't think straight. Prana cannot travel through the sushumna at that time. So we said there are eight channels that form in the area that will be the heart, even in the womb.

And then you can get, you get some kind of appreciation for the problem, okay? The problem is as old as you are, okay? The heart chakra has been choked since the first days of your existence inside your mother's womb, okay?

And it's been that way ever since, all right? So what I, that's an introduction of what we've done before. Today we want to talk more about ways of opening the heart chakra, okay?

More methods of opening the heart chakra. We said, say, cinnam, tabla, sorbet. We said you can use inner methods or you can use outer methods.

Inner method would be the seven-step meditation on compassion, which you learned yesterday, long time ago. And then slowly chip away at the knot around your heart by doing this meditation, okay? Did you, who did you see last night on 86th street?

We saw Margie. We saw, we saw a friend. Who, who, who did you see?

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
We saw who? Go.

[Speaker 2]
I saw someone. I looked out after you. Yeah.

And I looked to the right and I saw the back of a man, you know? And so I, as politely as I could, followed.

[Speaker 1]
I have some people like that.

[Speaker 2]
I took a walk down 3rd Avenue and jaywalked. And I tried to jaywalk kind of like a back barter.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, good.

[Speaker 2]
And then we went into a store.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, oh good.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, and I got to see his face. And he got to the counter and he said, where's my sandwich? And he put it down and then I saw his happy face.

Okay, cool. And then I went out to the store, out of the store and waited at one of the exits and I got it.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
And next to me he'll come out this exit. And one of my friends probably gave me a flower at the end of class. So he came out that exit and I said, do you like flowers?

I gave it to him, he said, I'm gonna go play the lottery.

[Speaker 1]
So yesterday we were having a class on stalking. Now the idea yesterday was that in the course of the meditation you reflect on how if I've been here countless times then everyone has been everything to me, meaning everyone I ever meet has been my mother, has risked their life to give me life. And then last night we had a homework assignment which was to go out and the first person we ran into, we try to imagine, this person has been my mother countless times.

So she ran into that man. Ours was easier, we had Margie. But anyway, so try to do that meditation.

That works from the inside, right? That works on thought. It works on the principle in Tibetan called lung-sam jupa-jipa.

Say lung-sam, lung-sam jupa-jipa jupa-jipa which means that you have thoughts right on your prana. When the prana moves through the body, then thought moves. And this is the place where mind and body meet, ok?

Mind is ineffable. Mind cannot be weighed. You could blow up, you could ignite, what do you call it?

Set off a nuclear device right here where Andy is sitting, ok? And then nothing would happen to the minds in the room. Just the bodies would be incinerated.

But the minds cannot be affected by physical matter. They are ineffable. They have no weight.

But there is a place where mind and body meet which is sort of miraculous. And that's where prana provides the basis for the motion of thought. When prana moves, thought moves, ok?

So you can direct prana with your thoughts or you can direct your thoughts with your prana. And in this system you do both, ok? You try to do both.

You move prana to improve your thoughts. And then you use meditation to move your prana, ok? We do both.

So the meditation would be an inner method of moving prana, ok? Thinking about how people have been your mother countless times. And then on the outside you might do a specially designed yoga series.

And we'll talk about it today. We'll talk about a typical series that was designed to open the heart chakra, ok? So in this system, you would do both.

You would work with a meditation on the inside, from the inside to open the heart chakra. And then you would work with an asana yoga from the outside to open the heart chakra. And again the purpose of opening the heart chakra is to have that experience of love.

Which is really... I don't know if you want to call it love. I call it ultimate love in the reading because I couldn't think of another word to say.

It's kind of corny, right? It's not very helpful I think. But you understand what I mean.

Seeing the faces of countless beings. It involves so many other things. You see their faces, you love them, and you know you will take care of them.

And you see all those things directly, ok? That's a different kind of love. In Buddhism it's called bodhicitta, but I think you could call it ultimate love, as long as you're aware it has those three parts to it, right?

You see all of them, you love all of them, and you perceive how you will take care of each of them, ok? So today we're going to go further into the physical structure of the channels, which will help us understand how to open them, ok? So I'd like to go a little bit more into the structure of the heart chakra.

And then you can understand why you have those experiences when it opens, ok? We said there were four channels coming off the side of the heart chakra, even in the womb. What do those channels carry?

They carry prana, right? But what kind of prana? Yeah, relates to the elements, ok?

Sa-chu-me-lung, tu, shwe, ho, chi. The four, they're not really elements, right? They're more like energies, right?

Sa, earth element, is the fact that things can hold together and not fall apart. Very useful to have in your body. Otherwise your body would fall apart, ok?

Chu is fluidity, the principle, the mechanics that things can be liquid and flow. Me is the warmth, temperature of all things, whether they're cold or hot. Their temperature is the element of fire, ok?

It's necessary for life. Must be some heat in anything for there to be life. And then lung, chi, prana, vayu, wind, the fact that things move.

For example, your blood has to have wind elements. So, these are not some old-fashioned idea about dirt in your body or water in your body and like that. They are elemental forces which create the outer world around you.

They create the movement of the planets and they create the movement of blood within your own body, ok? Then we said that the heart, the four channels of the heart chakra split again, right? The one going to New York, we're standing in Kansas.

We're looking in the direct, we're facing New York, right? Traditionally in Asia, the front of the body is the east, right? So you're facing New York, you're standing in Kansas.

Then the eastern channel splits to the Florida. Southeast, right? That channel, another channel splits off like this, ok?

So that channel is going straight, but then another one splits off away from the heart chakra. It's not at the heart chakra. Away from the heart chakra, it splits off another one towards Florida, ok?

Then from the southern channel splits off another one to go to Arizona. Then California has one, right? The western channel, and it splits to Oregon or wherever.

And then the left-hand channel is Canada, north, and it splits off towards Maine, ok? So you have eight channels splitting off of the heart. They don't split at the heart.

They split a little bit away from the heart. Inside of those four channels of the ordinal direction, southeast, southwest, northwest, northeast, inside of there travels prana which facilitates your awareness of the objects of the world, ok? When you smell something, when you see something, when you feel something, it's transmitted through the prana of those four channels, ok?

So you can say even in a child in the womb, they are capable of perceiving the world because the four primary channels of the heart are carrying the very energies which cause all of creation for them. And then the channels which split off of them are transmitting your awareness of all of creation. Within the child's channels in the first month of the womb is contained the universe and the capacity to sense the universe, ok?

That's cool, right? That's where we left off, ok? Now we're going to talk about the prana itself, ok?

The prana itself. So there's prana moving throughout your body. It's a subtle energy.

It is physical. I've seen people say it's not physical. It is physical, ok?

It's a subtle physical energy. It's similar to light. You can't grab light.

There's light coming from the light bulb to my face but I can't grab it, right? It's a subtle physical force. And prana is like that, ok?

And it carries the mind. The mind rides on that subtle thoughts ride on that subtle physical force, ok? And the prana moves throughout the body in channels called nadis, right?

Then sometimes your body got to do something, ok? Like poo, ok? Or talk, like that, alright?

Like sometimes your body needs to function. Your body has to do something, right? And then through karma, because of your karma the random pranas moving throughout your body will gather together.

They'll team up to perform a function, ok? So like when you're in the bathroom, right? And you're like really concentrating and you go like that.

When you go like that then all the pranas collect down here. A lot of the prana of the body collects down in the lower half of the body and it pushes, ok? So that's called...

Well, let's do them in order, ok? When prana collects together to perform a function we give it a different name which is a vayu, ok? So vayu means a wind.

Vayu means wind in Sanskrit. But it's a collection of prana. It's a gathering of prana in a selected area of the body to perform a necessary function for the continued life of the body, ok?

And that's called a vayu. And there are five vayus. In Tibetan there's a problem.

Vayu is translated as lung. And prana is translated as lung. So you never know if they're talking about a prana or a vayu which is very frustrating and it's a problem with Tibetan.

You have to understand which one they're talking about, ok? So we're going to talk about the five vayus. The five functional gatherings of prana in the body.

And they develop in the body in the first five months of gestation, ok? So you can say that the stages of the growth of the fetus in the womb are in fact created by the appearance, the gradual appearance of the vayus one by one, ok? So for example, immediately after you cross over from your previous life into the womb, immediately after conception, immediately after the sperm meets the egg, then already we call prana vayu.

In Tibetan we say sotzin kilun somzin kilun In Sanskrit it's called prana vayu, which is already confusing because that prana doesn't mean the general prana, ok? Prana vayu doesn't mean prana, ok? Prana vayu means a wind which is located in the upper part of the body, the chest area, and it forms first.

Immediately after, there's a continuation of prana from your previous life. You never completely go mental between lives, ok? You lose your body, but you don't lose your subtle body, ok?

There's still a little prana flowing, even between lives. And then that flow of prana between lives manifests within the first few minutes of conception as the prana vayu, ok? somzin kilun In Tibet they say the function of prana vayu is to maintain life itself, ok?

Prana in Tibetan in that case is called sok, which means life, ok? You would say ayus in Sanskrit, like Ayurveda, ok? So, the function of that first collection of prana in the body is to maintain life itself.

It also helps to draw the other winds to the senses, to the sense organs, ok? And these are the two functions of prana vayu in the upper part of the body. In the second month, prana vayu triggers apana vayu, say apana vayu.

So, apana vayu means downward... Tibetans call it tursel kingdom, say tursel. Tur means downhill, sel means clears, clears it away, clears what?

Feces, urine, menses, semen during ejaculation, children during childbirth, ok? When you have to push something out down, the prana collects together. What brings the prana together?

Your desire to poop or whatever, ok? Mind moves the prana, you see? That's why you got to concentrate, ok?

I mean, somebody is banging on the door, you have a problem, right? It's hard to push. So, your mind...

You think, I want to poop, and then your mind has a wish, a desire, and then that desire gathers the prana together in the lower half of the body, and it pushes, and it eliminates things from the body, ok? And that's the second vayu to form in the body, during the second month. It is triggered by the first wind in the body, which is the life wind, the wind which holds life, ok?

Sustains life, ok? That's apana vayu. Third one is called samana vayu.

Say samana. And that means like an equal... It's called the equal wind, ok?

It has to do with digestion. It digests food, and it allows the body to separate... The function of digestion is to separate waste from what's called chud.

In Tibetan, they call it chud. They say if you eat a whole doughnut, for example, there would be a few drops of chud, ok? By the end of the process of chewing, swallowing, digesting, like 95% of the doughnut would be passed out of the body, as waste.

And then 5% is kept inside the body, as... They call it dangma in Tibetan. It means a clear, essential, nutritive essence of food which your body has to refine from gross food.

It has to chew, it has to swallow, it has to burn, it has to separate. And then finally it sends waste out and it brings... And this is accomplished by the samana vayu, ok?

Equal wind, ok? In the fourth month, that triggers, say, udana vayu. Udana means, in Tibetan it's called gen...

gen... Upward clearing, upward carrying wind. Gen gyur gyur, upward wind, ok?

Udana means upward, upward carrying wind, upward traveling wind, ok? This wind is necessary for breathing, for speaking, and for drinking and eating. It has to do with the upper part of the body, moving things through the upper part of the body, ok?

Udana vayu. In the fifth month, the udana vayu triggers the vyana vayu, say, vyana vayu. In Tibetan, vyana vayu is called khyab je gi lung, say, khyab je.

[Speaker 2]
Khyab je.

[Speaker 1]
Khyab, khyab means covers the whole body. This, this, this wind covers the whole body, right? And it enables, in Tibetan they say, enables the movement of the limbs, arms and hands.

It enables the body, it enables you to walk, for example, coordination of walking and the other functions of the body, ok? So these are the five major winds in the body. Two of them are important for a yogi.

The first two are very important for a yogi, ok? What are they called in Sanskrit? Prana vayu and Upana vayu, ok?

Prana vayu, which holds the life in the upper part of the body, and then Upana vayu, which is responsible for elimination, and also for retention, of when you retain urine or you retain semen, then that's also done with Upana vayu. And in some presentations of yoga, yoga is explained as a union, right? Yoga means union.

The word jugular came from yug, the root of the word yoga. And it means the vessel, the blood vessel which connects the head to the body, right? It's called the jugular vein.

So that came from... And the word yog, and the word union itself came from the same roots, yug, which means to join together. So some yogic texts in both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions say that the union of yoga refers to the union of the downward wind with the life wind.

The wind, the primary wind in the upper part of the body is joined or united with the wind of the lower part of the body. And it goes like this, they say that the downward wind is going down because it didn't have a choice, it didn't want to go down. Okay?

The downward clearing wind would have preferred to move up and down, but... it was blocked by the knot created by the two side channels. Like that vayu, that energy was meant to travel through the whole body.

And it was relegated to downward elimination of things by a problem in the body. Okay? The elimination of waste from the body and the existence of waste in the body was created by the blockage at the heart.

Okay? It doesn't allow the downward clearing wind free passage through the central channel. And so the downward wind got stuck being the garbage man.

Pranavayu got stuck with this job of like, okay, here's the waste of the body, you have to try... you have to take out the garbage every... all the...

a couple of times a day. That's your job. Okay?

And then Pranavayu got stuck in the upper part of the body. It would also rather pass freely up and down the central channel. Okay?

But it is blocked by the blockage at the heart channel. Okay? You have to distinguish between the knot at the heart channel and the chakra at the heart channel.

Okay? There's a granti which means a knot at the heart channel. And then there's a chakra.

Chakra results from the knot. Okay? First there's a knot which is created by the two side channels three times around the heart, right?

That is a knot. It tightens and then that creates the opening of the channels out to the side from the area of the heart which is the heart chakra. Okay?

The... the appearance of additional channels at the heart moving horizontally to New York, Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, Oregon, Canada and Maine is the heart chakra. Okay?

And it's called the chakra again because when you look down the central channel you see these spokes radiating out. And that... and so it was given the name of chakra.

Okay? So a chakra results from a knot.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And then the five winds have resulted from the same knot. And the... the job of the five winds is to take care of the functions of the body breathing, eating, swallowing, digesting, blood circulation, what do you call it?

Lymphatic. Lymphatic. It's another word.

Anyway. Lymphatic system. All of these functions are miraculously carried out by the virus because they were blocked.

Okay? Because they couldn't do what they were supposed to do. Alright?

And those things which you think oh, this is miraculous, my body is circulating blood, my body is breathing, my lymph is flowing, my body is digesting, my body is so smart to poop and pee-pee. You know what I mean? No, you're like, oh, this is a miracle of...

you know, of life. It's all a mistake. And it's all...

it's all deadly. And it makes your body mortal. And it will kill you.

Okay? The functions of the body necessitated by the... the knot at the heart will kill you.

Okay? The blood cannot circulate endlessly. It will stop.

It wears out. Okay? The elimination of feces will end.

And your own feces will kill you. The toxins in your own poop will kill you. Your body will lose its ability to eliminate the waste in the body.

All of these functions are not functions of life. They are functions of death. Okay?

The virus are killing you. You see? And they were created by the blockage at your heart.

All right? They were created by the knot at your heart. And that's created by what in the end?

What... what strengthens the side channels to choke your heart? Starbucks and traffic.

Right? Ida and Pingala. Really.

Okay? It's your emotions are killing you. Okay?

Your emotions are responsible for your mortality. Okay? It's a...

It's a sad thing. All right? All of the functions of the body which are carried out by the virus, which are functions of karma, are all being...

are all necessitated by the blockage at the heart of the central channel, which was... which itself is caused by your... by your negative emotions.

Every time you get angry, every time you want something that you don't really need, you are shortening your life. And you were born that way. You were born for that.

The structure of your heart chakra, you were hardwired to die. You see? You were hardwired to be mortal.

From... in the womb. Okay?

The structure of the heart chakra in the womb already made you mortal. You see? And the point of yoga is to reverse that situation.

Okay? The point of... The reason we're here and the reason we're talking and the reason we're studying is can you reverse the situation?

Can you open the heart chakra? You see? If you could open the heart chakra, then all of those virus would flow freely.

Okay? When they flow freely the way they were meant to in the first place, you have a perception of billions upon billions of people and you love them. You see?

You're reversing a whole process from Starbucks to traffic to choking at the heart to the urination and the feces and the coughing and the speaking and the blood circulation. All the mortal functions. The functions of mortality.

If you can release the side channels, if you can open the heart chakra, mentally, you return to your normal state which is omniscience. Okay? Mentally, you return to high state of compassion and the ability to serve all living beings at the same moment.

You see? That's your... That's your real nature.

And it's... And it's... It's...

You are prevented. You are held back from it by your heart chakra. By the knot at your heart.

Okay? So, the exercise of releasing the knot at the heart, as the Pingala and the Iddha are released, they actually... Then they...

Then it's what you call laya in the yogic tradition. They withdraw. The Pingala and the Iddha are withdraw into the central channel.

They go away. They wither. In Tibet, they say Tri-shin-kam or Tri-shin-jung.

It means the vines die and wither. And then you get avadhuti. See?

Avadhuti means throw off the two vines and destroy them. And it's a name for the central channel. Okay?

It's one of the names for the middle channel. And then you just become a middle channel. And there's no more five vayus because there's nothing more to eliminate.

You don't have feces. You don't need to breathe. Okay?

It's very beautiful. When the heart chakra is loosened, how do you know when you're getting close? Okay?

How will you know when you're getting close to the heart chakra loosening? You will no longer need the... For example, respiration.

It's no longer necessary. Okay? Then a pranavayu comes up against pranavayu in the heart chakra.

And there's a new kind of balance. There's a new kind of balance between the two forces. And then it's no longer necessary to breathe.

Okay? And then that has a name in the yogic tradition, right? Which is what?

Kevala kumbhaka. Say kevala. Kevala kumbhaka.

So kumbhaka means to hold your breath, right? Retain the breath. And you go...

You know, people go... You know, and then you say how long... How many heartbeats can I hold the breath?

It's a good way to get ahead. And it's a good way to get soklo, which is a prana disorder. And then you'll get like this, you know?

And you'll feel nervous and you'll be grumpy all the time. Okay? Slight retentions are very important.

Okay? Slight retentions. So when the pranavayu is able to rise the way it was meant to, and when the pranavayu is able to descend the way it is meant to, then at the heart there's a state of balance.

Inside a thing called the indestructible drop, which we'll get to after the break. Okay? Because I don't want to overload you.

But we only have like another hour. Okay? But when there's a balance then the breath stops.

Okay? Naturally. No effort.

Okay? Kevalam means effortlessly. Simple suspension of the breath.

And you don't need to breathe. See, breathing is a hassle. And breathing is a sign that you are mortal.

And it will kill you. The act of breathing will kill you. Your body cannot sustain breathing indefinitely.

It will wear out. Okay? It has a limited amount of energy.

There's only so many breaths you can take in life. Okay? We need to get to a place where breath is no longer necessary.

Okay? And that's when the heart chakra is open. So a lot of cool things are happening to you if you can open the heart chakra.

You have this experience of ultimate love. By the way, before that is a much more important experience which we haven't been talking about which is the direct perception of ultimate reality. But then also your body starts to change.

And your body goes back to its natural condition which is light. Then the body is no longer made of flesh. Okay?

And it's not, what do you call, subject to the vicissitudes of flesh. You see? You're no longer...

Your body no longer has to worry about pooping and urinating and eating and breathing. Okay? Then your body is in its natural condition.

I don't know. I think life would be kind of boring if I didn't have to eat. But...

I think you could still make... I'm working through Julia Child personally. I'm making my lama like one meal every couple of weeks from Julia Child.

I think I will still do it. And just serve it, you know? And they can look at it and then we can throw it away or something, you know?

But... you wouldn't have to eat anymore. You see?

You would be the... You would become a body of light which you need to have if you want to help a lot of people because only a body of light can be split at will into billions of bodies. Okay?

So to really be of service to people you have to stop the five vayas by opening the heart chakra and stopping all this mortal stuff. Okay? Mortality stuff.

It's a beautiful thing. Okay? To open the heart chakra is a beautiful thing.

Alright? So... that's how the prana and the vayu relates to opening the heart chakra.

Alright? I would like to leave it like that. Okay?

I'd like to part in this way. Alright? So we'll do a prayer, a formal prayer of offering this karma to this city, people of this city.

[Speaker 2]
Satsang with Mooji www.mooji.org