David Daniel's Blog, page 19

2019: Devil or Divine

A shift is occurring.  Many people are feeling it.  Time feels like it is speeding up and depending on a person's perspective either chaos is unfolding or divine opportunity is upon us.  Everything in this life is perspective and as we move into 2019 it is becoming increasingly clear that how we look at life undoubtably becomes a reality in our physical existence.  In short, what we think we become.  See the grace in all situations and grace shall be yours; see the chaos in the world and chaos will be yours.

Consult almost any astrologer or numerologist and you will hear that the year of 2019 is "Devil or Divine."  2019 will either be exceptionally challenging with many setbacks or it will be a time of fertile manifestation and growth where our wildest dreams can become a reality.  The way we can assure ourselves that our year will be a year of Divinity is by creating a spiritual practice that grounds us internally in our highest spirit which provides a pathway to grace and peace.  Many people ask me all the time, "What does a spiritual practice look like?"

For years I've kept my spiritual practices a secret for fear of judgment from those closest to me.  I would devote myself to my practice in secret and go about my day and not try to evangelize others to do the same.  I always felt it was best to allow people to come to a spiritual practice on their own.  However, now I can see that so many people are struggling.  So many people feel they have nowhere to turn and I have witnessed people feeling not only scared but somewhat hopeless.

To those people I say, the practice of Kundalini Yoga has the ability to give you the strength and resolve to weather even the most challenging storms by strengthening your central nervous system, glandular system, and by aligning your mind and spirit to work in harmony with one another to find your highest purpose.  Each morning that I awaken, I take the first hour and commit myself to my Kundalini Yoga practice.  Yes, this means I have to arise an hour before I traditionally would to get my day started.  Yes, it would be easier to stay in bed and sleep the extra hour and not take the time to do this.  Yes, most people don't want to do this.  Yes, the postures, mudras, and mantras may look strange, but as I tell my children all the time when they say, "It doesn't look normal."  I say to them:  Do you want to be "normal" or do you want to be exceptional?  I would say to anyone willing to listen:  Don't you deserve your very best life?  Who else is going to do it for you?  Give yourself this gift!

Yes, it is work.  I'm going to repeat that.  It is work.  You will want to quit.  Your mind will tell you that you don't need this.  Your ego will find every reason to tell you to stop because your ego does not want to let the light in because then your Spirit will be in charge and the beautiful secret that no one mentions is that when your Spirit becomes alive your destiny unfolds synchronistically before your eyes, heart, mind and soul.  You become in alignment with the Source of All Love and you become the highest version of yourself.

Kundalini Yoga is challenging.  It forces you to confront your shadow self and is oftentimes uncomfortable, however if you have the bravery to face the darkest aspects of yourself you will find that the things you feared the very most were never anything to truly fear to begin with.  When we have the capacity to shine the light of consciousness on the darkest aspects of ourselves we attain the ability to become in alignment with our Highest Purpose.  This is what we were intended to do.  This is how we make 2019 a "Divine Year."  Without facing ourselves we subject ourselves to the potential turmoil of the coming year.

There is an answer to facing our fears.  We are our own answer.  We have the ability to undertake a dedicated spiritual practice that will give us the tools to reshape our lives into the masterpiece it was meant to be.  I decided I could no longer keep my spiritual practice a secret.  It was my duty to share it with the world because Kundalini Yoga is such a beautiful and transformative practice and I know in my heart that these tools are exactly what are needed for those seeking their way through the darkness.  This was a gift given to me by my beloved, Adi Bachan Kaur, and it is a gift that we both are now sharing with the world.

To learn more about my personal journey into Kundalini Yoga consider reading my book, White Tantric Yoga:  40 Days to Divinity.  It is a deeply personal account of my daily spiritual practice, with Adi as my leading lady.  I hope in some small way this effort will help to make your 2019 the Divine Year it was meant to be.

Sat Nam!

2019: Devil or Divine?

A shift is occurring.  Many people are feeling it.  Time feels like it is speeding up and depending on a person’s perspective either chaos is unfolding or divine opportunity is upon us.  Everything in this life is perspective and as we move into 2019 it is becoming increasingly clear that how we look at life […]

Winter Solstice

As Winter Solstice descends upon us and the end of 2018 nears I am in a divinely contemplative state. The end of one thing and the beginning of another allows us to take stock in our current stage on our journey through life.  Solstice is a beautiful time of year, a time when old chapters close and new glorious chapters arise like a phoenix rising from the ashes of our past experiences. The fertile soil of possibility awaits the planting of the seeds that will sprout the dreams of new tomorrow.

For the first time in my life, I have shifted my focus from what I would like to receive for myself in the coming year and instead I am thinking about what I hope to give the world as my gift to humanity.  As I contemplate what I would give to each human being if I were given the power to bequeath the world with one gift, one prevalent hope comes to mind:  if I could give the world one thing I would choose the most glorious gift anyone could ever receive—inner peace.

Isn’t this what we all long for?  Isn’t this the purpose of all the “striving?”  We strive for ourselves, our family, our dearest love ones and even for our community at large so that we can feel a sense of security, a sense of peace and tranquility or generally a feeling that everything is going to be alright.  We all—every single one of us to the person—want only to belong.  Even those that appear to be the most hostile and aggressive want nothing more than to be part of the group collective.  Our hope, everyone’s hope, is to belong and contribute.

We have the erroneous notion that money will bring us peace, or fame, or stature in our community and the saddest amongst us feel that acquiring “power” might be the answer.  Unfortunately for everyone striving for these things, they are never the answer because what we learn is that the only way to achieve inner peace is to give it to ourselves.  This is our domain.

We are the peace that we seek, yet we search for it outside of ourselves.  We seek for peace in all of the places where it doesn’t reside.  We seek through romantic relationships, a job, a friend, religious institutions, political power structures, or our communities yet we never, not even once, find any true sense of peace in any of these things.  What we all will eventually discover is that this elusive treasure that we all seek is really not as elusive as we all think—every morsel of goodness that makes up inner peace resides beautifully in our own hearts.

Peace reside in the recognition of the beauty of a flower, peace lies in the tranquility of the setting sun, peace rests in each heartbeat that we so long ago quit listening to, but most importantly peace happens simply when we acknowledge ourselves. When we take the briefest of moments to recognize that we are nothing short of a miracle that was created by a God that loves us more than we could ever love ourselves and that Divine Source would do anything in Her majestic power to get us to understand just how perfect we all are.  For how couldn’t we be?  We are a piece of God.  We were all created in Her image and when She was done with the final brushstroke on the masterpiece that She called “My Perfect Child”, She stepped away and exalted Herself for Her own brilliance.  The Heavens lit up each time another of Her masterpieces was created, a choir of Angels sang, the Earth expanded welcoming each of us to Her playground and the Universe exalted each and every one of the children that the Divine Source created, celebrating the very fact that another child of God had the opportunity to understand inherently what it felt like to be a “God” in their own right.

This is what the Divine Source intended for each of us.  She wanted only for each of us to understand how incredibly powerful we all are.  She wanted nothing more than to say, “Go Child and be my prodigy—light up the world with your own special majesty.  You are Me, I am You, and We are the Universe.”

This is how we remember once again what inner peace feels like.  Inner peace comes from the knowledge that God has created us perfectly and there is absolutely nothing that we have to “achieve” because what can be achieved when we are already in a state of perfection?  We are in perfect harmony with a Universe that is aligned to bring us whatever we want, whenever we want it and with whomever best serves our spiritual evolution.  We are a masterpiece in the making on a constantly evolving canvas called “life.”  We are complete and incomplete at the same time.  Complete because there is nothing to achieve for we are perfect as we are—incomplete because we are always evolving, just like our ever-expanding Universe.  Each day we continue to expand into our own perfection with each new brushstroke that gives texture to our lives in the shades of light and darkness, for each is necessary.  We need shadows in our lives in order to show perspective because a painting with no shadows appears two-dimensional.   It’s the shadows, the darkness, that makes life come alive in this 3D reality and knowing this allows us to understand that everything is necessary—and from this understanding we can come to a place of peace.

This is where inner peace lies.  Every morsel of your life was necessary to bring you to the place you are now. Every detail was Divinely created by you in conjunction with the Source of All Love.  Every brushstroke on your canvas was necessary to create the painting that is the masterpiece of your life.  When we come to realize that we have chosen every bit of it, every trial and tribulation, every joy, every failure, every triumph—each of these we co-created with God in order to evolve our consciousness and to one day remember we are One with God.  We always will be.  Nothing separates us.  I am you. You are me.  We are love.  Love is us.

And from these realizations come the most important gift we can ever receive; it is the Divine Gift of the Universe, the ultimate present on this Winter Solstice—inner peace.  To each of you on this Winter Solstice I offer you the greatest gift I could ever give to anyone.  I offer you remembrance.  I offer you the remembrance that WE ARE ALL ONE.  We chose this.  We chose to come here together and remember that each and every one of us in One With God. And once remembered, we will all reside in a state of inner peace and this is how we heal the world.  This is how the struggle ends and harmony is restored.

Through the grace of inner peace, we can heal the world.  We can’t buy it, we can’t join a group to obtain it, we can’t achieve it, we can’t wield power in order to take it from another person—we must only give it to ourselves.  So, after all is said and done, inner peace is not a gift that I can give the world, it is a gift that each of us must give to ourselves and by doing so we show others the way towards living a life in grace.  My gift then becomes illustrating inner peace in action—to show inner peace.  This is the legacy we must show to those closest to us.  We live in peace so that our friends and loved ones can see what peace looks like and then they can find their own way to peace.  We show our children how to live in peace, our spouse, our friends, the people we work with, neighbors or the strangers we pass on the street and from our example peace spreads throughout the world.

We are the peace the world seeks.  We are the love that the world seeks.  We are the Teacher that was sent to show the world there is a better way to live.  You are love.  You are light.  You are the Savior that you have been seeking.  And once remembered, we all harmonize once again with the Source of All Love.

On this Winter Solstice I send each of you love and light today.  Thank you for taking this journey with me.  Without you, the ride would not be the same.  Without you, my canvas would be missing the necessary brushstrokes that make up my masterpiece called “David Daniel, A Life Well Lived.”  God bless each of you.  I give thanks for you.  Sat Nam and have a very blessed Winter Solstice Season.

Winter Solstice

As Winter Solstice descends upon us and the end of 2018 nears I am in a divinely contemplative state. The end of one thing and the beginning of another allows us to take stock in our current stage on our journey through life.  Solstice is a beautiful time of year, a time when old chapters close […]

Passing the Torch

Four years ago my father passed away.  Even though my father was 80 years old, it happened very suddenly.  It was Halloween and some trick or treaters decided to deposit some of the chocolate they had collected on the ground near my parent's home and my father became worried that his dog might eat some of the chocolate and die.  Instead, something far more ominous happened, it was my father who would perish from that fateful choice.  My father, 80 years old and not the least bit agile, decided he was just the person to pick up the candy off of his lawn.

At the time my parents lived on a large sloping hill that was challenging to navigate even for someone 40 years younger than my father, but he decided he was up to the task.  As he was picking up the candy, he lost his balance and he began tumbling down the hill and in a maneuver that would be impossible to recreate, he hit his head on the one 2 X 2 piece of concrete that rested at the bottom of the hill.  One care flight and a surgery later and my father was gone six days after his fall.

Getting the call that one of your parents is about to pass away is one of the most surreal moments anyone could go through.  Even though my father was 80 years old, it was still a shock to get this call.  One moment my father was here, and the next I was flying back to Iowa to determine how long we would keep him on life support.  The flight home was a blur and even the time at the hospital is only a vague memory.  I remember the doctor telling us that there was 0% chance my father would recover.  Even the most optimistic among us saw no wiggle room in this diagnosis.

I was always very close to my father and we had lengthy talks about what to do if my parents were ever in the situation that my father found himself at that moment.  He was crystal clear:  do NOT keep me alive.  I knew my mother could never say the words that would facilitate the end of my father's life, so I gathered everyone together and as a family we made the decision for my mother; we would take my father off of life support.  Because of my long talks with my father and his explicit wishes, I was completely at peace with the decision.  I knew he had reached the end of his life, and it was time for him to move on to an elevated state of being.

The family gathered around my father as the hospital staff prepared to unplug him from the machines that were keeping him alive.  I asked the doctor how long this would be and his response was vague.

"It could be twenty minutes or it could be several hours," he said, and then after surveying our horrified faces he added, "but most likely 20 minutes."

My father had his entire family surrounding him; his six children and my siblings were all there along with a few of their spouses, multiple grandchildren and his wife of 53 years huddled around his bedside.  In an macabre twist of fate, my brother-in-law was in a hospital bed two doors away from my father battling cancer who would die 5 short days after my father.  It was a strange time indeed.  We would lose two family members in less than a week.

After the hospital staff removed the tubes from my father, his breathing became very shallow quite quickly and I think we all knew it wouldn't be long before my father passed.  I remember holding on to my mother as she braced herself against me while I held my father's hand until the end.  When my father finally took what appeared to be his last breath I said very solemnly to the group assembled, "Well, he's gone."  In a instant, the moment sank in for me that I would never again speak with him.  There was a moment of deep sadness but then, the sadness was broken as my father, ever the perfect straight man and comic foil, proceeded to take a huge deep breath (known as the last gasp) and my comedy instincts kicked in.  I said, "He's back, everyone.  Just like Jesus!"

Laughter filled the room.  The tension of the moment was completely erased.  The laughter was so loud that the nursing staff, who had left the room to give us privacy, raced into the room wondering what had just happened.  Smiles were everywhere and as laughter filled his ears for the last time, my father passed away peacefully.  Every single person he loved the most stood by him while laughter and joy filled the room.  I know my father couldn't have hoped for a more beautiful death.

It's a surreal moment to lose a parent.  Suddenly, they are gone and each time I would reach for the phone to call my dad to catch up about some small thing going on in my life, I would have to remind myself that he was gone and I would put the phone down.  I didn't experience the sadness that some people have told me they experienced after their parents died for two reasons:  1) I had already told my father how much he meant to me in nearly every phone call we ever had.  2). I knew my father hadn't really died, he had simply transformed into his most beautiful and divine spiritual self.

Time passed and life moved on because no matter the impact a person makes on another's life, once they are gone we all must get back to living.  Two months after my father's passing, I sat down to begin the novel that I would dedicate to my father.  I wrote the novel in about a year and then I placed it in a drawer for nearly three years before I finally retrieved it.  For some reason, whether it be fear of rejection or just a general lack of faith, I allowed the novel to lie dormant with little real intention to ever release it.

That is, until lately.  I had moved to a new place in my life.  I finished my second book, White Tantric Yoga:  40 Day to Divinity and through the beautiful power of Kundalini Yoga I came to a divine place of peace and fulfillment in my life.  I met a beautiful woman who enriched my life (I have always known my father brought her to me from his new elevated state of consciousness) and I began to live more fearlessly.  My fear around the "failure" of my novel had dissipated and had been replaced by a new confidence that I was required to release this book.

I spent this last month proofing the manuscript and preparing the book for release.  December 7 my father would celebrate his 85 birthday.  It seems like he was here just a few days ago.  To honor his memory I feel the most fitting celebration would be to release the book that he inspired.

And with this, I announce the release of Blue Pearl on December 25, 2018, for Christmas symbolizes new beginnings. I do this in loving memory of my father.  He will always live on through this book because it was he that asked me, when I was 16 years old, to write and write well.  This one is for you, dad.  I hope it makes you proud.  Rest in peace, Beautiful Light, I will see you on the other side.

www.daviddanielbooks.com

Passing the Torch

Four years ago my father passed away.  Even though my father was 80 years old, it happened very suddenly.  It was Halloween and some trick or treaters decided to deposit some of the chocolate they had collected on the ground near my parent’s home and my father became worried that his dog might eat some […]

Through Gratitude We Can Change the Worldi

As Thanksgiving approaches and another year winds to a close, I find myself incredibly contemplative, pondering all that I have been given.  It is so easy to get wrapped up in what is “wrong” with our lives that oftentimes we fail to celebrate what is incredibly “right” with our lives.  For me, there are so many things that have aligned perfectly and I understand that all of these things that are bringing me so much love and joy are also former intentions of mine that have manifested into my material world.

Seven years ago, I vowed to change the my life and the way I thought about it as I embarked on a path to reclaim my destiny.  It wasn’t easy.  I was faced with major life decisions that were incredibly difficult to implement.  I struggled to end a marriage that wasn’t working for either of us.  We both knew our hopes and dreams were no longer in alignment and we worked very hard to separate in a way that was loving and kind to everyone involved and to make the transition as easy as possible on our two children.  One of the proudest achievements of my life is that we did this successfully and we now co-parent two children and we do it with almost no drama and very little disagreement.

My journey didn’t end there.  I still had an enormous amount of self-work to do as I embarked on a new life as a single man.  I did all of the things that newly single people do to try to matriculate back into the single scene.  I dated, drank wine, sat lazily around in the afternoons on my balcony overlooking the city with very little ambition to achieve anything, and generally reveled in this newfound freedom I had desired for so long.

It was all necessary.  I needed it.  I longed to find my true self again and part of that process was to disengage from many of the things I had been doing in my life and to carve a new path.  It literally took a couple of years.  I would rise in the mornings and go to have my morning coffee while I read every spiritual text I could get my hands on and I would write.  I wrote a novel while I would sip my morning cup of coffee and I people-watched and drank in the experience of feeding my soul.  After finishing my novel, I discreetly placed the novel in a drawer to sit for nearly four years (The Blue Pearl will be out Christmas 2018) as I contemplated my next steps.

I began practicing random acts of kindness through an initiative my daughter, son and I started called the Secret Blue Butterfly (www.secretbluebutterfly.com).  Once a day we would do a random act of kindness for someone and then leave a Secret Blue Butterfly card letting them know the Universe left them a special gift because “they are loved and admired by the Universe.”

We created a website and began showcasing our secret acts of kindness on social media channels and before we knew it people in more than 60 countries began writing in to receive their free butterfly cards so that they too could spread love and kindness.  By creating this initiative and moving into a place of gratitude and giving my life started to change.  An entire universe opened up to me as I had the honor of witnessing people from all over the globe participate in changing the world by doing random acts of kindness in their corner of the world.  And through it all I discovered that by doing kind acts for strangers it was I that began to heal.

I had the honor of traveling overseas to Europe and the Balkans to perform a USO Tour for the United States Military.  Seeing the sacrifice that these men and women make each day so that I could live my life in complete freedom was humbling.   I came to a clearer understanding that life was not about me, life was about “us.”  For the first time in my life I began to see the importance of serving others while at the same time giving myself everything I needed so that I had something to give.

This is where I think a lot of us misunderstand giving.  We have been told for a long time that we are supposed to give to others at the expense of ourselves when in fact, it's just the opposite.  We give first to ourselves and we feed our souls of all that we need SO THAT we can then give back to others.  I have always equated that giving is a lot like the oxygen mask speech flight attendants give before taking off before a flight.  “Place your mask on your face first and then help others with their mask.”  Why do they say this?  Because if we can’t breathe then we will pass out and not be able to help others.  Just like giving:  we give to ourselves first and be able to breathe BEFORE we can give back to others.

My heart began thawing after years of keeping my guard up and before I knew it divine synchronicities
began occurring.  I met my true twin flame, Adi Bachan Kaur, on a magical first date in Paris at the end of my USO Tour (soon to be told in my new book We’ll Always Have Paris).  Adi opened up my heart even more and not long after we met she encouraged me to begin practicing Kundalini Yoga, playing the gong, and eventually teaching yoga classes with her to give people the skills to claim their most beautiful life.

If anyone had told me any of this would happen even five years earlier I would have told them they were crazy, but it did happen.  And it happened because I began thinking about how I could make someone else’s day just a little bit brighter by being more loving and kind to them.  I began thinking about how one kind act could change someone’s world and by doing so I changed my world.  It’s not a stretch to see that this is how we can change the entire world.

The only thing that is necessary is that we take the first step.  We hold the door open for someone, smile at someone, buy someone a cup of coffee, give a compliment, or we do the most beautifully human thing anyone can do for another human—we LISTEN to someone when they need it.  We don’t listen to respond, we listen to truly hear them.

Through the people who loved me the most, oftentimes when I felt wasn’t completely deserving, my heart thawed, and I was exposed to a new way of looking at life:  How can I serve?  This one question, when truly investigated, is the gateway to a new way of living.  This one question is the liberation we seek.  By giving, we receive and usually the dividends are far greater than the initial investment.  This is a Universal Law.  I don’t understand it fully, but it is a reality that fuels our advancement.

I am thankful. Thankful for the journey—every morsel of it—the good, the bad, the indifferent.  Each stage was necessary, every person a beautiful co-star or featured extra in our movie called Life.  May each of you have a blessed Thanksgiving and may the light of love shine on the road to your destiny.

Sat Nam!

Through Gratitude We Will Change the World

As Thanksgiving approaches and another year winds to a close, I find myself incredibly contemplative, pondering all that I have been given.  It is so easy to get wrapped up in what is “wrong” with our lives that oftentimes we fail to celebrate what is incredibly “right” with our lives.  For me, there are so […]

The Art of Yoga Nidra

As the gentle winds blew in from the Sea of Cortez, Adi and I arose early for our first morning of Yoga Nidra training at Prana Del Mar in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  The sun had yet to creep up over the horizon as we started our day at 3:45 a.m. for our morning Sadhana and as we walked to the Sun Room for our morning yoga and meditation, one glance upward revealed a sky that was shimmering with stars.  A meteor shower was in the forecast so the chances of seeing a shooting star or meteor streak across the sky was a very likely possibility and I found myself staring intently skyward in the hopes of seeing one of these rogue stars make an appearance.

This is the very testament to looking to the stars in order to see magic.  Prana Del Mar has magic in every grain of the sand that blankets the ground around this beautiful property.  Prana Del Mar is a little hideaway in a remote part of Cabo that was created to give yoga practitioners the opportunity to recharge their batteries so that after a week of self-caring these same teachers could then return home and pour from the illustrious “cup of prayer.”

This is why Adi and I came here.  To recharge. We had been giving to others by hosting gong events, 5 a.m. Sadhana each week at Adi’s Yoga Studio and even giving free health talks at Tarrant Area Food Bank to help people on their way to a healthier lifestyle.  We were both tired from all that we had been doing and I knew that our ever so important “cup of prayer” was becoming dangerously low and we were running out of the necessary “juice” to share with the world.  This led us to Prana Del Mar.

The weeks leading up to this getaway kept me so busy that I had little time to even consider what the coming week would bring me.  I find that this is oftentimes the best way to approach a trip—expect nothing but be absolutely prepared for divine magic to occur.  As we entered the Sun Room that first morning for yoga I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the facilities at Prana Del Mar.  Eric, the owner, and his staff had done a remarkable job creating a space for practicing Yogis and Yoginis to escape from the hustle and bustle of the daily lives as teachers.  Every detail was tended to by Eric and his staff so that each of us had only one job—fill our “cup of prayer.”

Beautiful Buddha, Ganesh, Vishnu and Krishna artifacts decorate the elegantly created yoga rooms and each room is stocked with tealight candles to add ambiance to the room. For our trip, the Sun Room had the added bonus of having 12 gongs of various persuasions standing at attention and waiting to be activated with the power of sound to heal anyone near this powerful sound current.  These 12 gongs, provided by Master Kundalini Yoga and Gong Teachers Mehtab and Guru Karam, would provide the soundtrack for our upcoming week of Yoga Nidra training.

On our first morning and every morning thereafter, Adi and I began our morning Sadhana practice at   our traditional 4 a.m. time.  The serenity of the space made our practice each day extra special.  After a morning yoga Kriya, Adi and I played these 12 beautiful gongs as we listened to the Aquarian Mantras and chanted out to the ocean beyond that could easily be heard crashing to the shore.  For each gong crash we administered the ocean countered with its own pranic force that was easily as powerful, if not even more so.  The gong is a truly beautiful instrument in that it activates a healing sound current that can strengthen the central nervous system and purify our consciousness by revealing our shadow self—to be investigated and then healed—transforming our spirit and elevating us to live as our most pure and authentic Highest Self.

Sound too good to be true? I used to think so too—until I experienced it in my own life.  The power of the gong was the reason I came on this trip.  After coming to understand this divine power just a little bit more, I agreed to travel with Adi out of the country to study Yoga Nidra and to learn more about how to incorporate the gong into the practice.  If you had told me a year ago I would be doing this I would have had to resist laughing directly in your face.  But here I was, on a spiritual quest in a desert located right by the sea, loudly playing the gong each morning and chanting until the sun rose to start a new day.  A conundrum to say the least, but Kundalini Yoga and the gong have turned everything I used to believe to be true and turned it on its ear and in doing so presented me a new way of experiencing life—as a conscious participant.

This is the quest that Adi and I traveled thousands of miles to take part in—a quest of spiritual growth and divine partnership.  A quest that will most assuredly lead us around the world to future events, meeting like-minded people who long to spread joy and love in every corner of the globe.  You may wonder why we would do this.  Because if we don’t do it, who will?

These were the thoughts that were racing through my head while we played the gong on that first morning during the Amrit Vela hours.  As the Aquarian Mantras drew to a close, the sun began rising over the sea creating a majestic canvas to begin our first morning of training.  I had no idea what to expect with this training, but I would soon find out.

After a quick breakfast, Adi and I settled in for our orientation with Mehtab and Guru Karam, who would be leading this workshop.  Adi studied with both of these teachers during Level One Kundalini Teacher Training at Yoga Yoga in Austin.  I could see she felt right back at home as we settled in for would be three straight days of extensive training.

Yoga Nidra is a practice that allows the practitioner to be guided into deep relaxation, taming the overly active mind with a calming guided meditation.  The process allows for deep emotional healing and when coupled and powered by the sound of the gong it provides a pathway for the participants to release negative patterns and neurosis, liberating the self on the pathway for their intended destiny.  The requirement is that the entire process is a co-creative process where both the facilitator and the participant work together through a guided meditation. The facilitator guides the participant who agrees to stay awake while exploring the deepest recesses of his or her consciousness.

The process is more challenging than it sounds because it is very easy to get so lost in it.  Many people will find themselves drifting to sleep only to be awakened by their own cacophonous snore.  I know this because I was one of these unlucky saps that was betrayed in front of a room full of people by an unexpectant snore blaring through the walls of the Sun Room.  Less than ten minutes into Yoga Nidra and I was in La La Land, traipsing through the recesses of a dream state.  I eventually awakened by my own orchestral trumpet section and then sheepishly continued the practice in an awakened state.   I was only out for a moment before I regained consciousness and continued my journey.

Each morning before training, Adi and I would rise at 3:45 a.m. and practice our morning Sadhana, followed by breakfast with the entire congregation of Yoga Nidra aspirants.  We would have a wonderful breakfast, sharing conversations as we all overlooked the sea watching whales breech out of the sea making their way south for the winter.  The majesty of these divine specimens added to the already beautiful and divine week of spiritual growth.

For the first three mornings we engaged in many hours of training as we all formalized our techniques and in the evenings we were the recipients of Yoga Nidra led by Mehtab and Guru Karam.  On the fourth and fifth day everyone was required to perform a practicum for our fellow students to earn our advanced certificate in Yoga Nidra.  Adi and I led our practicum on the first day of training so that we could spend the rest of the week enjoying Cabo.

The final night turned out to be a magical night that would have seemed exceptionally cheesy had I heard about it secondhand, but because I was there to experience it I dove in head first and felt absolute joy pulsating through my body on the last night.  After our final session of Yoga Nidra led by Mehtab and Guru Karam, they told everyone to get on their feet as they began playing the Turtles’ “Happy Together” and then said, “Everyone dance.”

And dance we did. Twenty-five grown, responsible adults jumped to their feet and began dancing like it was a high school prom as the Mexican tequila sunrise decorated the evening sky with a tableau that was painted by God Herself.  To say it was divinely inspired would be an understatement.  If it were a movie the entire ending credit sequence would have rolled through the entire scene.  Even my most cynical side couldn’t find an objection to this beautiful moment that was like a scene from a John Hughes film.  It was, in a word—magical.

The entire week was magical. For a solid week we fed our bodies, our minds, and most importantly, our souls.  And why did we do this?  So that we can go back to our homes and begin to help people heal whatever it is that is ailing them in their lives.  We did it so that we can go spread love, hope and kindness to our communities and to bring a ray of loving light to a world that so desperately needs more love.

This is how we change the world.  This is our mission.  We feed our souls by doing the things that bring us that effervescent joy that is contagious and we illustrate to others that peace and joy are not only possible, but they are indeed our birthright—a birthright that we must claim by caring for ourselves, by loving ourselves and by realizing that we are the change we seek. Salvation lies in self-love and only we can claim it.  Only we can activate the portal to our Highest Self, which is waiting anxiously for us to remember what we have long since forgotten:  we are loved, we are protected and we are the perfect reflection of the divine.

This is conscious living. This is what love looks like. This is hope, salvation and grace all rolled up into one big yoga mat on the shores of the Sea of Cortez.  This is the legacy of Prana Del Mar 2018.

Sat Nam!

The Art of Yoga Nidra

As the gentle winds blew in from the Sea of Cortez, Adi and I arose early for our first morning of Yoga Nidra training at Prana Del Mar in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  The sun had yet to creep up over the horizon as we started our day at 3:45 a.m. for our morning Sadhana […]