FROM CHAKRA TO ETERNITY

SEXYOGA

After 3 initial OMs, dedicate the day’s sexual meditation or practice and honor that yogi part of you that strives for union & love. Relax your jaw & lips. Visualize pushing down & feeling the energy of the earth coming up through you. Feel the flow of ‘rasa,’ of your inner juice, in your body, bringing you unqualified joy, devotion, & flexibility.
The observation of breath, body alignment, & gazing point during sex serves to cleanse & calm down the nervous system (breath), the body (asanas), & the mind (drishti gaze). Exhale & release the intake of the day, let go in your exhale of the detritus of daily life, of any negative feelings that accumulated during the day or the week. Breathe louder than your thoughts. Breathe into the open space of your lungs, of your own eternal spirit. Think about nothing; just keep moving with your breathing. Breathe yourself into new life, freedom. This breath is the breath of God coursing through you, that’s why it’s so loud & powerful. Give into it. Ride the God in you & through you, & then ride God in & through your sexual partner. Feel the Shakti gyrating her hips from your sacrum up your spine spiraling out through your crown, opening up your crown chakra to divine guidance & union. Your shakti is your divine energy.

If you have practiced regular yoga before, try treating your sexual practice as if it were your yoga practice. All yoga (sex) is ‘Brahmacharya’ which means moving with God. Yoga (Sex) is a meditation. Lose yourself in the breath, forget yourself in your practice. Link your sexual movements together in an effortless flow. Patanjali, the father of yoga, says: “Asana should be effortless.” Give into the flow. If at the end of your practice you have no memory of any of it, of anything but a grin in your face, you did (“fucked”) well. “Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuation of the mind,” writes Patanjali in The Yoga Sutras.

Strong emotions, fear, anger, shock, tax the nervous system. Sex (or yoga) helps the central nervous system generate new neurons & modulate the brain’s responses to crises. You are as young as your spine is flexible. If your spine is strong, you can undertake life & sex with confidence & ease, with a strong backbone. Use sex &/or yoga to awaken your kundalini energy, your spine’s life. Buddha means the Awakened One. Awaken the dormant serpent, your body, & it will lift your spirit up & beyond the body to the realm where everything is possible. Spinal consciousness is prosperity. Spinal abundance is like an explosion. Tap into your ‘amrit,’ the nectar of immortality. Just one moment of awakening, a kundalini experience, can alter your life, like a near-death experience. 

Sexyoga fosters union; union with the self & the world & every moment of experience as it occurs; without attachment, without expectation, without fear of loss; that is the union of yoga. Union is the balance of opposites: left & right, male & female, yin & yang, Shiva & Shakti. Lift yourself up & fold yourself inward in reverence & listen within to the celebration of being alive. Relish the relaxed bliss of being fully present in every moment; being not full of yourself, but full of life, brimming with life, expectant & happy in each moment. You are life. You are desire. You are harmony. The ultimate goal of life is to be in continuous union & harmony with all life. The idea of life is not life. The word love is not love. What ultimately matters is becoming one with the universal energy.
At the end of your sexual practice, after your chosen climax, exhale, lie down on your back, along with your partner. Open your hands & feet out, open chest & hips, shoulders down, close your eyes, lift your tongue off the roof of your mouth, & completely relax. This is when the healing takes place. Release all your locks & muscles. Allow your breath to scan your body freely. Focus on the front of your brain, your third eye. Absorb the revitalizing benefits of your practice: restore your nervous system, release old traumas & tensions, unlock the infinity within you, & return to stillness, to the place, deep within, that is a sanctuary of tranquility. Float like a leaf down the river. You’re on a sacred journey to inner union & union with the cosmos. Let go. The point of your entire sexyoga practice is to facilitate your merging with the cosmos. Enjoy for 10 to 30 minutes. When you’re ready to come back, wiggle your fingers & toes, your wrists & ankles, hug your knees to the chest & roll to the right in a fetal position, as if you were entering a new birth. A renewal of energy & spirit has taken place & you have been cleansed by your own breath & sweat & inner divinity. You can now carry the benefits of your practice to the rest of your day.

Before the last 3 Oms, thank all the sages, yogis, & seekers through the millennia who have helped bring us this knowledge. As you lie in rest & peace, think of someone you love or someone you are having problems with, & send them your happy energy. Visualize them happy. Spread the benefits of your practice to others who aren’t fortunate enough to experience this peace. You’re now born again. Blessed.

I want to quote here a lifelong teacher of mine, whom I discovered as a preteen in my rigid Greek school system & whose insights changed my life & continue to light the flow of my days. Herakleitus. He lived & wrote around 600BC, & he is famous for lines like, “You can’t step into the same river twice,” & for developing a philosophical system based on the balance of opposites & the notion that everything contains its opposite, & yet nothing ever remains the same. My favorite all-time quote is two words, Panta Rein, in Greek, which means ‘Everything Flows.’ Everything is in infinite flow. The pure light inside me honors & recognizes the pure light inside you. Namaste. 

 

ENERGETIC ANATOMY I: LEARN THE CHAKRAS

LOWER CHAKRAS

1st Chakra: Root (Muladhara):

            Color it Represents: Red. Element it Represents: Earth. Body Aspect it Rules: Physical. Organs Affected: Dense, solid parts of the body; teeth, nails, legs, lowest organs, intestines, prostate. Gland Controlled: Adrenal. Mantra to Chant: LAM. Lotus Petals on Chakra Lotus Symbol: 4 (& four directions). Yoga Asanas & Bandhas to Support & Strengthen it: Standing poses, squats, one legged poses, lower mulabandha thigh lock. 
Effects: Survival issues (food, shelter), security; groundedness & connection to the earth & the physical world. Root relationships: parents, siblings, tribal bonds. Deeply held beliefs, prejudices, fears; fear of death. Connection to natural laws & trust in nature. Most life issues are first root chakra psychological issues. A strong first root chakra means the universe is looking out for you; you can trust in it & let go of fears. Solid earth.

2nd Chakra: Lower Abdomen (Svadhisthana)

            Color: Orange. Element: Water. Body: Emotional. Organs Affected: Reproductive organs: kidney, bladder. All liquids & fluids. Gland: Testes & Ovaries. Mantra: VAM. Lotus Petals: 6. Asanas & Bandhas: Supported bridge, pigeon, hip openers, upper mulabandha perineum lock (PC muscles or Kegels). 

            Effects: Sexual issues. Creativity. Male/female balance; pure emotions, powerful feelings, flow; to give & receive freely, to be open to emotions; ambition; passion; sexual desire; kundalini. By doing Kegel exercises, you redirect the sexual fluids up to the spine & unleash creativity (rather than ejaculate) & resolve emotional or psychosexual issues. This is the creative chakra, it also controls childbirth, all reproduction, real or symbolic. The juices your body makes have a bearing on your creativity, output in life, healing power, & spiritual awakening. If you ejaculate too often, you waste your creative potential. Sexual continence, control of fluids is recommended. If you understand who you are sexually, you're healthy. If you're sexually ambivalent or weak or guilt-ridden, you have a weak 2nd chakra. During headstand, with an engaged (tight) mulabandha, sexual energy trickles down to the heart & the brain, so you aren't manipulated by sex, instead you're fluid.

3rd Chakra: Solar Plexus (Manipuraka)

            Color: Yellow. Element: Fire. Body: Mental. Organs Affected: Abdomen, lower back, digestive system, nervous system, stomachs. Gland: Pancreas. Mantra: RAM. Lotus Petals: 10 (& 10 planets). Asanas & Bandhas: Abs, Navasana, leg lifts, waistline stretches, psoas, uddiyama bandha stomach lock. 

            Effects: Trust, gut instinct, security in life; will power; manifestations of desire & projections in the physical world & work; will to live. Center: balance between upper & lower chakras, between material & spiritual self, between feeling & being. A strong 3rd chakra helps you manifest your desire into the world by vibration, to establish what you want in life, set your intention in the physical world through your gut. Work on your stomach, cultivate the fire in the belly. Build this center of the body, so you're free of ambivalence & indecision, so you don't blow with the wind nor get stuck in a rut. Do navasana every day & you'll get your manifestation. A strong gut projects powerfully & dominates (with detachment).
HIGHER CHAKRAS

(Eventually the 3 lower chakras, the human aspects, get integrated into the higher chakras)

4th Chakra: Heart (Anahata)

            Color: Green. Element: Air. Body: Astral ("out of body"). Organs Affected: Heart, blood, cardiovascular & respiratory systems, chest & ribcage. Gland: Thymus. Mantra: YAM. Lotus Petals: 12. Asanas & Bandhas: Shoulder openers, arms behind the back, all backbends, twists, fish, chest rolls.

            Effects: Love freely; give & receive; love of humanity; universal ample love; forgiveness, acceptance, gratitude, patience, positive attitude in life; no negativity, no territoriality.

5th Chakra: Throat (Visuddha)

            Color: Blue. Element: Ether. Body: Etheric. Organs Affected: Throat, vocal chords, jaw, neck, voice, module oblongata. Gland: Thyroid. Mantra: HAM. Lotus Petals: 16. Asanas & Bandhas: Fish, neck rolls, shoulderstand, plow, jalandara bandha neck lock. 

            Effects: Promotes communication, use of sound, expressions of truth, of laughter or crying, & the balance between silence & speech; chanting; helps you speak your truth & teach.

6th Chakra: 3rd Eye (Ajna)

            Color: Purple. Element: Light (Photon). Body: Celestial. Organs Affected: Face, eyes, nose, sinus, cerebellum, lower brain, nervous system, electromagnetic activity among brain cells, absorption of oxygen. Gland: Pituitary. Mantra: OM. Lotus Petals: 2. Asanas & Bandhas: All inversions, all poses with forehead on the floor, all meditation at browpoint, child's pose.

            Effects: Promotes intuition, psychic knowingness, inner guidance, spiritual essence, imagination; helps us see our path clearly & be aligned with the divine will.

7th Chakra: Crown (Sahasrara)

            Color: Blinding light. White. Element: Absolute. Body: Beyond Body. Organs Affected: Upper brain, top of skull. Gland: Pineal. Mantra: Silence. Lotus Petals: 1000. Asanas & Bandhas: Inversions (esp. sirsasana) when the head is below the heart, padmasana meditation. 

            Effects: Union with All that is. Divine Connection. Bliss. Anananda. Knowing the self beyond words or intellect or body as it reflects the Divine. Samadhi. Ultimate Universal Consciousness.

            Practice breathing through the charkas. Inhale deeply into your lower belly and chest, until it swells out like a blissed Buddha. Inhale through your mouth and exhale. Make all the connections from coccyx to crown.

 

ENERGETIC ANATOMY II: LEARN USING THE PRANA, THE BREATH

TRANSFORMATIONAL BREATHING

            Lie on your back, breathing only through your mouth, in fast strong breaths, for 30 minutes continuously. Put your hand on your abdomen & feel your belly rise & extend. Without pausing, exhale quickly like a silent sigh. Relax on the exhale, & emphasize the inhale. Let the exhale go without any effort at all. When your breath is strong enough, bring the inhale into your upper chest, filling up your lungs to the groove of your throat. Take an extra beat on the inhale. Keep the inhale stronger than the exhale, & keep them coming in an uninterrupted continuous flow. Close your eyes & focus on your third eye. Visualize an intention for this session of breathing practice, & focus on what you want. Allow sounds or tears to surface. Pause if you need to. Stomp your feet & shake your arms. Breathe fully.

ECSTATIC BREATHING

            Lie on your back with your knees up, & inhale long, slow breaths through the mouth, counting to 5, expanding the abdomen & creating an arch under the small of your back. Exhale to the count of 5, bringing your back to the floor & tilting your pelvis upward. Let the air open your throat & chest. Repeat rhythmically, creating a wavelike motion in your body. Release any tightness in any part of your body by purposefully tightening & then releasing your muscles in that area. Allow sounds, tears, or emotions to emerge freely on the exhale. This is also known as cobra breath.

CIRCULAR BREATHING

Inhale & imagine the energy rising up from your sex center (chakra) through your body (passing through all the charkas) to the top of your head, then, on the exhale, back down again to your genitals & the base of your spine. Picture tracing a loop inside yourself & then out to & through your partner. This is also known as the golden circle or the microcosmic orbit breath. Another variation involves inhaling through your left leg & exhaling through your right leg, for grounding; followed by inhaling through your heart (or sex organs) & exhaling through your crown, then tracing a circle back to your heart or sex organs. If you are sitting with a partner, bring your faces close, & inhale as your partner exhales, then exhale as your partner inhales. This is circular reciprocal breathing.

 

ENERGETIC ANATOMY III: NADIS, KUNDALINI, & THE SUBTLE BODIES

            Kundalini is the coiled energy at the base of our spine; dormant, it's waiting to uncoil & rise up. Kundalini is a mystical energy of spinal awareness, felt as heat rising up the body, & then as a pulsation at the brow point (the third eye). This fiery serpent can eat up your sense of self & break through the fears of the present self. That's the ultimate goal of yoga: to burn through our fears & obstacles. Kundalini power helps us handle anything in life. The Kundalini can be overpowering as a psychic breakthrough for some people; for most of us, it's a gradual subtle awakening in life: our will becomes empowered, our heart opens, our psychic connection opens, & our union with the divine takes place through the years of practice.

            The three nadis are: The central silver cord that goes up & down the spine is the shushumna nadi. The left (ida) & right (pingala) are interwined nadis, like serpents, & go in & out, left to right, around the spine.