Richard Rosen is a contributing editor at Yoga Journal, for which he writes two regular columns and occasional book reviews and articles. His work has also appeared in Yoga International, Ascent, and Shambhala Sun. He's the author of The Yoga of Breath (Shambhala, 2002), a beginners' guide to pranayama, and Yoga for 50+ (Ulysses, 2004), an instructional manual for older beginners. Currently he's working on another pranayama book/CD for Shambhala. Richard has been teaching yoga since 1987. He is the director of the Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, California and trains students and teachers nationally and internationally.]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3772 en-us Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:18:11 EDT Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:44:11 EST Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:18:11 EDT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Bluewallllc.com Content Management System peter@bluewallllc.com, sara@bluewallllc.com 180 yoga, pranayama, richard rosen, yoga journal, piedmont yoga studio, yoga of breath richard richard http://www.ihanuman.com/pdsFiles/richard_06_11_07_-_11_11_58.jpg http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=14421
In Sanskrit "study" is usually referred to as svadhyaya (svahd-yah-yah), which literally means "to recite or repeat or rehearse to oneself (sva)." This literal translation might seem odd to those of you who are familiar with this word, because typically it's rendered into English as "self-study." But this is a modern, popular interpretation designed to make the practice more appealing to a Western mass audience with all of its interest in self-help and self-improvement. Technically though svadhyaya means the "recitation, repetition, or rehearsal" of the content of Hindu sacred texts, such as the Mother of all Hindu holy literature, the Rig Veda.

The Sanskrit word "veda" derives from the verb root "vid," which literally means "to know" or "to see," in the sense of "knowing" or "seeing" the truth of things, and "ric" (pronounced "rich," with a hard "ch" as in "church") is a hymn of praise (the "c" of "ric" is shifted to a "g" for euphonic purposes; also note that technically the "hymns," called mantras, aren't like Western Christian hymns sung during a church service by all in attendance, but are the special domain of priests. We'll use "hymn" as a convenience). So then the Rig Veda is literally a "collection of hymns praising the Truth-with-a-capital T." This book and the ones associated with it are known as shruti (shroo-tee), literally "what's been heard," meaning that the hymns were "heard" and then memorized by ancient sages in direct conversation with their deity. This sets the Vedic corpus off from all other Hindu sacred literature, which is considered "smirti" (smirt-tee), "what's been remembered" from the experience of strictly human authors, though all orthodox Hindu spirituality traces its roots (at least in theory) back to the Veda.

I don't have the space to go into great detail about the Rig and its associated texts, though it's a fascinating story. Suffice it to say it consists of 1028 hymns divided into 10 chapters (called mandalas, "cycles") that originally were memorized by the priests and passed along for countless generations orally. Stop to consider this for a moment. My translation runs to 654 pages of minuscule print, and ALL of this was transmitted by word of mouth for hundreds of years before being written down. What's more remarkable-as far as the experts can determine-it was accomplished with little or no variation through all those centuries. Think about that the next time you can't remember where you left your car keys 10 minutes earlier.

The modern rendition of svadhyaya as self-study, however, isn't entirely inaccurate. By the study of books like the Rig-or the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras, the Vedanta Sutras, or the Tao Te Ching or Torah for that matter-the truth embodied in these texts always brings us back to ourselves. We can say that the study of these texts then is a form of self-study.
]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=14421 ihanuman, richard rosen, advanced studies, svadyaya, piedmont yoga studio, california Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:10:09 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=13820
In 1919 Mani, who by this time was calling himself Swami Yogananda (four years later he switched to Yogendra to avoid confusion with another Yogananda), traveled to the US to promote yoga. He put on some spectacular exhibitions of yogic expertise for skeptical physicians-he expanded one lung to three times the size of the other-and opened a medical clinic in upstate New York . But Yogendra never really liked this country, he thought Americans were too materialistic and superficial-imagine that!-and when called back to India in 1923 to tend to his ailing father, he never to set foot in America again.

In 1927 Yogendra married Sita Devi, a woman-or maybe we should say "girl"-half his age. In those days Indian women didn't have many opportunities for working outside the home or to study yoga. But Yogendra was something of a rebel and, in current lingo, a feminist. Women, he wrote, were traditionally "subjected to cultural insults and injustices," and that in his mind, the "study of practical Yoga can be undertaken successfully by one and all," which definitely included women and I suppose, despite evidence to the contrary, Americans. So Yogendra trained Sita Devi in yoga and eventually handed her the reins of the medical clinic he'd established in 1918. Sita Devi took to yoga like, well, a swan to water, and in 1934 she wrote the very first book of yoga directed specifically to women, Yoga Physical Ed ucation, which you can still find today. All of you folks of the female persuasion might keep a warm spot in your heart for her, since she faced and triumphed over the usual prejudice and criticism faced by many pioneers and ground breakers...and hey, you non-females might want to thank Mr Yogendra for standing up to tradition and showing us the way.

So what would a yoga class with Sita Devi be like? Here's a session modified from Yoga Physical Ed ucation that should take about 25 minutes (the number in brackets [] following the pose references the same pose in Light on Yoga): Tadasana with hands in Anjali Mudra [1] (30 seconds) > Vrkshasana [2] (30 seconds each side) > Utthita Hasta Padangushtasana [11] (1 minute each side) > Trikonasana [4] (1 minute each side) > Garudasana [23] (1 minute each side) > Padmasana [45] (1 minute each side) > Parvatasana [47] (2 minutes each side) > Yashtikasana (Stick Pose, like Shavasana [200] with the arms stretched overhead) (1 minute) > Bhujangasana [31] > Matsyasana [51] > Halasana [91] > Paryankasana [42] > Ushtrasana [16] > Makarasana (each of these poses 1 minute each) [26] > Shavasana [200] (3 minutes). ]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=13820 ihanuman, sri yogendra, richard rosen, piedmont yoga studio, sita devi, yoga asana Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:19:44 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=12613
But wait, there's more. The idea that yoga is a "science" is accepted without question in the yoga community. As far as I can tell, this idea originated with Swami Vivekananda in the early 1890s. Born Naren Dutta to an upper-middle class family in 1863, and educated at British-run schools, Vivekananda was a disciple of the Hindu sage Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna was given to fall- down, pass-out episodes from a very early age, and his rather extravagant behavior at first disturbed the college-educated Naren. But when Ramakrishna died in 1886, Naren assumed the leadership of the small group of mostly Western educated Indian males that had congregated around the saint, and eventually appointed himself a "swami." He came to this country in 1893, to speak (and hopefully raise money for his social improvement projects) at the World Parliament of Religion, an event staged in conjunction with that year's World's Fair in Chicago (which gave us the first Ferris Wheel, Cracker Jacks, and Little Egypt dancing the hootchie-kootchie ... "I went a bought myself a ticket and I sat down in the very first row, oh, oh ..."). He was only 30 years old, his first time out of India, but Vivekananda was no hayseed. He knew in order for his message to hit home with his Western audience he'd have to make certain "adjustments" to the traditional teachings of Hinduism and yoga, which were generally considered to be "mystical" and "irrational," not appealing to the skeptical Western "rational" consciousness. And so he presented yoga as the "practical result" of thousands of years of methodical observation and experimentation, which he then equated with a "science."

Is yoga a "science?" My dictionary defines "science" as a "methodological activity, discipline, or study," and an "activity that appears to require study and method." In this loose sense I suppose we could say it is, but I think it's important to ask why we want yoga to be a "science" in the first place. Is it just our overly rational Western mind clamoring for some assurance that our "yoga experiments," if properly conducted, will bring us "results" and not be a waste of time and energy, or is it simply that we fear the non-scientific "mystical" and "irrational"? Why do we want results, and what's wrong with questions we can't answer or don't seem to make rational sense? At least we can now revise our introductory sentence to read: "Yoga is a spiritual practice of great but indeterminate age, estimates of which are usually wildly exaggerated, but which in its modern incarnation is about 80 years old, that may, if it makes you feel more comfortable, be loosely compared to a science." ]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=12613 ihanuman, shri yogendra, upanishads, hatha yoga, richard rosen, piedmont yoga studio Thu, 22 May 2008 14:10:05 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=9890
Unlike the famous eight-limb practice of Patanjali's Classical Yoga, which begins with 10 behavioral injunctions-such as don't tell lies, don't commit acts of violence, and be content-Hatha Yoga dives right into asana. Nowadays there are literally hundreds of these exercises (BKS Iyengar's Light on Yoga illustrates 200, and I have an encyclopedia from an Indian institute that lists 900), but most of these were added to the Yoga repertoire less than a hundred years ago (that's a story for another time). Hatha tradition holds there are 840,000 asanas, though only 84 of these are suitable for humans (different schools have different lists of 84). Of these, Svatmarama briefly describes just 15, the four most "essential" of which-Siddha, Padma, Simha and Bhadra- are all sitting poses.

Have you ever wondered why we do asanas at all? You may be vague on why, but the old yogins had very specific reasons. They strongly believed asanas have a salutary effect on the physical body, and would help ward off disease-and even death!-stoke the "fire in the belly" to improve digestion and elimination, and to strengthen (or as they said, "bake") the body in preparation for pranayama and meditation. But that's not all. As you may know, the old yogins believed that our physical body is like the tip of an iceberg, supported by a vast hidden subtle body that's invisible to the human eye but readily apparent to the "eye of wisdom" (jnana cakshus), better known as the "third eye." This body is criss-crossed by a network of thousands of energy channels (nadi) that transport vital energy (prana) to every nook and cranny. In the average person these channels gradually "silt up," due to poor posture, ill health, and stress, preventing prana from flowing freely. Asanas, so the yogins say, will dredge out these blocked channels, so the prana can be used in the services of Yoga. We'll come back to these teachings later.

But by now you're dying (figuratively I hope, in a good way) to try an asana practice based on the Pradipika. With only 15 asanas, this will be short session (I'll soon be posting other practice sessions drawn from a variety of sources on my new website www.homagetothesource.com. I invite you to try them out). Here then is your Practice with Svatmarama. The more advanced poses are marked *, which beginners should modify or skip entirely. All the poses but two (Svatmarama's versions of KURMASANA and VIRASANA) are described in Light on Yoga.

KURMASANA* (in Svatmarama's version, sit in VIRASANA with feet everted, ie., feet turned out, inner feet on floor; beginners sit on heels) > SIMHASANA > BHADRASANA (today called baddha konasana) > MAYURASANA* > GOMUKHASANA > PASHCHIMATANASANA > DHANURASANA (today called akarna dhanurasana) > MATSYENDRASANA (today called ardha matsyendrasana I) > VIRASANA* > (in Svatmarama's version, one leg is in Half Hero, the other in Half Lotus) > PADMASANA* (Svatmarama actually describes three slightly different versions, the one most commonly performed is today called baddha padmasana) > KUKKUTASANA* > UTTANA KURMASANA* (today called garbha pindasana) > MATSYENDRASANA > SIDDHASANA > SHAVASANA.

Wasn't that fun? We'll come back to this again next month. ]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=9890 ihanuman, richard rosen, piedmont yoga studio, hatha yoga pradipika, Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:19:34 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/pdsFiles/Introduction_to_the_History_of_Hatha_Yoga.mp3 http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=6453 Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:31:51 EST http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=5253
What's happened here? It seems that modern Hatha Yoga has a different emphasis than its traditional predecessor. In Svatmarama's time Hatha Yoga was essentially pranayama. All the other practices were ancillary, asana for the most part retaining its original role as a "seat" (asana derives from the Sanskrit as, "to sit") or steady physical "platform" for the practitioner's breathing exercises, the seals and related bonds generally serving as regulatory "valves" designed to "seal" and/or channel the body's subtle energy (prana). The intended goal was to first purify, then intensify (in the "pressure cooker" of the sealed torso) this energy as a means of "waking" and then consummating the practitioner's unrealized spiritual identity.

But nowadays asana is the name of the game, while to a greater or lesser degree (depending on the teacher and school) pranayama and the seals have taken a back seat. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do believe we somehow need lessen the disparity between asana and pranayama.

I think of the practice as progressing in three stages, which I call conscious breathing, formal breathing, and spontaneous breathing. The goal of stage 1 is to recover what I call our "authentic breath," the breath we're born with untrammeled by the slings and arrows-the stresses and strains-of outrageous daily life. This is a critical step that's often skipped or ignored in beginning pranayama, but which I feel is absolutely necessary as a foundation for the entire breathing edifice. Stage 2 is what most students think of as pranayama proper. This practice is considerably more powerful, both as a transformative vehicle and as an agent of psychic and physical disequilibrium, than it may appear at first glance, and that it's best to proceed with a measure of caution when practicing without the guidance of a flesh-and-blood teacher.

By its very nature spontaneous breathing can't be taught, it's more like a gift the breath itself bestows on the deserving, or at least the very lucky. I imagine it as akin to the elevated breath Patanjali calls the "fourth" (chaturtha), by which he means the breath that transcends the three everyday phases of inhale, exhale, and pause, when the "veil lifts from the mind's luminosity." It's that moment often illustrated by the story of crossing a river in a boat: when the other shore, the ultimate completion of the practice, is reached, the boat of all our techniques is left behind and off we go, totally free and unburdened.

For upcoming classes and workshops visit the Piedmont Yoga Studio Website.]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=5253 ihanuman, richard rosen, piedmont yoga studio, newsletter, yoga, hatha yoga pradipika, pranayama, asana Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:23:16 EST http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=4151
You might expect that nothing and no one can survive the end of the universe, but you'd be mistaken. Meet the crow Bushunda (who's actually a human that's assumed a crow's form and identity), who nests on a branch of the Kalpa Tree (kalpa taru), also known as the Wishing Tree, which grows the northern slope of Mount Meru. Meru is the Hindu's mythic holy mountain, located at the exact center of the universe, with an estimated elevation 84,000 yojanas, or about 350,000 miles. Many eons ago, the Wishing Tree grew on earth. Nobody then had any property or possessions, or did any hard work for that matter, because whenever someone wanted something, anything, all she had to do was find the Wishing Tree-easy enough, since it has gold and silver leaves and jewels for flowers-and wish for what she wanted. Unfortunately, as people became more ambitious and acquisitive, the Tree was taken away and planted on Meru, where now only the gods and their closest allies have access to it.

As you might have guessed, Bushunda isn't your ordinary crow. It's reported that he's achieved supreme peace and wisdom and lives in a perpetual state of samadhi. He's one of the very few chira jivas, which means-believe it or not-that he's lived through several kalpas! Because of this he's also what's called a "knower of three times" (trikala jnani), because knows everything there is to know about the past, present, and future. How has he accomplished all this? Well, through the practice of pranayama, or as he says, by always contemplating the natural and effortless movement of the life-force.

Bushunda he spends his days resting happily in his nest, luxuriating in the bliss of his own true self. He only leaves his nest when Brahma's night arrives. While everything and everyone in existence is being wiped out, he survives because he knows an esoteric pranayama practice called the Five Concentration Seals (pancha dharana mudra). Each seal is dedicated to one of the traditional elements (bhuta)-Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether or Space-that make up the world. So, for example, when the dozen sons of the First Goddess, called Unbounded (aditi), scorch the earth with their burning rays, Bhushunda protects himself by bathing in the Water Concentration Seal. When hurricane winds uproot even the mountains and blow them away like dust, Bhushunda is steady as a rock in the Earth Concentration Seal. When the universal flood submerges everything, Bhushunda floats lightly on the surface of the water with the Air Concentration Seal. And when Brahma finally closes his eyes and the world winks out, Bhushunda falls into dreamless sleep at the foot of the god's bed.

In the morning, Brahma awakes and begins fashioning the universe anew. Bhushunda too stirs, stretches, and yawns, and using only his amazing will power, re-creates his nest on the branch of the Kalpa Tree, then he returns home until it's time to leave again when the next Brahma night falls, in four billion, three hundred and twenty million years.

Would you like to live forever, or at least a very long time? I thought so. So here's how to do the first Concentration Seal, the Earth Concentration Seal (parthivi dharana mudra). Sit in a comfortable position and for a few minutes imagine a yellow square at the base of your spine. Breathe slowly and smoothly and repeat silently to yourself the seed syllable of this seal, LAM. According to the old books this practice brings about "steadiness and conquers death." Easy, huh? ]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=4151 ihanuman, richard rosen, brahma, earth concentration seal, mount meru, parthivi dharana mudra Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:52:23 EST http://www.ihanuman.com/ http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3869 Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:49:10 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/pdsFiles/introduction_to_the_groins.mp3 http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3860 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:03:33 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/pdsFiles/intro_pranayama.mp3 http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3858 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:00:25 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/pdsFiles/asana_practice_and_pranayama.mp3 http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3856 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:55:45 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/pdsFiles/richard_rosen_teacher_09_10_07_-_09_10_19.jpg richard_rosen_teacher_09_10_07_-_09_10_19.jpg ]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3796 Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:16:19 EDT http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3784 All of this static sitting, combined with our inhuman chairs and slumped posture, can lead to chronic pain in the neck, shoulders and arms, legs and feet, and last but not least, the lower back. How about you: What’s your sitting like? Naturally this question is difficult to answer right away, unless you’re already an experienced yoga student or meditator, or are engaged in some other body-awareness practice–in which case you’re more likely to be aware of your sitting behavior. Most people though are pretty unconscious about the way they hold themselves in just about any position.

Take a look around the next time you’re somewhere where lots of people are sitting, like a restaurant. You’ll notice that, first of all, the typically pelvis tends to drop backward. Ideally the lower back is slightly concave; but a drooping pelvis stressfully rounds the lower back outward, convexly. Then the spine tends to collapse, which increases the convexity of the upper back, leading to the familiar Hunchback-of- Notre-Dame appearance. This in turn hollows the chest and shoulders, narrowing the space across the collar bones (clavicles)–which interferes with easy breathing–and bows the head forward, shortening the back of the neck (nape). This latter position can lead to all sorts of problems, such as chronic headaches and jaw problems.

In the first part of this article we’ll run through a few simple asana-based exercises that should help counteract some of the deleterious effects of protracted sitting. Of course no amount of exercising will have a significant effect if you continue your faulty sitting behavior. So in part two, we’ll learn a few basic tricks that will help us to sit more consciously and gracefully.
Download Richard Rosen's complete article here.]]> http://www.ihanuman.com/index.php?pageId=3784 ihanuman, richard rosen, sitting, asana, poses for strengthening the back, Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:35:30 EDT