Pose to help treat shoulder, neck and back strain

Here are a few stretches you can do while at work to help loosen up those tight areas.

Neck Rolls
Sit with a straight but relaxed spine. Adjust the head so that you feel like it is sitting on top of the spine by slightly moving the head back and bringing the chin down slightly. Roll the neck slowly in one direction and then in the other. Let the weight of the head move the head around. Do this very methodically so that you go slowing through tight spots and work out areas of tension.


At least one minute in each direction.

To end: After this exercise, sit quietly and be with the sensations in your body and spine.

Benefits: This exercise removes tension in the neck and stimulates the thyroid.

Side Twists
Sit on the heels. Place the hands on the shoulders, fingers in front and thumbs in back. Inhale, twist to the left. Exhale, twist to the right. Twist your head to each side as well. Gradually feel an increased rotation in your spine. Keep elbows parallel to the ground, allowing the arms to swing freely with the body. This exercise can be done standing up,

Continue 1-2 minutes or 26 times.

To end: Inhale center, hold the breath, apply rootlock, exhale, relax and feel the energy circulate, especially at the level of the heart.

Benefits: This exercise opens up the heart center and stimulates the upper spine.


Side Bends
In Easy Pose, clasp hands behind neck in Venus Lock (fingers interlaced) and bend straight sideways at the waist, aiming the elbow toward the floor beside the hip. Inhale as you bend left, exhale right. Don’t arch or contract the back. Bend sideways only. This exercise can be done standing.

1-2 minutes or 26 times.

Benefits: Side bends stimulate the liver and colon and increase spinal flexibility.


Shoulder Shrugs
Still on the heels or in easy pose, shrug both shoulders up on the inhale and down on the exhale.

1- 2 minutes.

To End: Inhale up, hold, apply rootlock, and relax.

Benefits: This exercise loosens up the tension in the shoulders and relaxes upper back
These poses are not from your Bikram Dialogue but, when done properly, are exrtremly beneficial as well.

A Dynamic Yoga

1. It is due to the veil of ignorance that you have forgotten your real essential nature, the Sat-Chit-Ananda state. It is not at all necessary for you to renounce the world and run to some Himalayan cave to regain your lost divinity. Here is an easy Sadhana by which you can definitely attain God-consciousness, even while living in the world amidst multifarious activities.

2. You need not necessarily have a separate Meditation Room or fix some time for meditation. Close your eyes for a minute or two once in every two hours and think of God and His various Divine qualities such as mercy, love, joy, knowledge, purity, perfection, and so forth during work, and mentally repeat: “Hari Om,” or “Sri Ram,” or “Ram Ram,” or any other Mantra

according to your taste.

3. This should be done even during night whenever you happen to get up from bed to micturate or on any other account. Though you are not in the habit of getting up from sleep, you should do this practice at least occasionally when you slightly change your posture during sleep. This sort of habit will come only by repeated practice.

4. Feel all along that the body is a moving temple of God, your office or business house is a big temple or Vrindavan, and all activities such as walking, eating, breathing, seeing, hearing, reading, etc., are offerings unto the Lord. Work is worship. Work is meditation, when done in the right spirit.

5. Work for work’s sake without any motive without the idea of agency (I am the doer, I am the enjoyer), and without expectation of fruits. Feel that you are an instrument in the hands of God and that He works through your organs. Feel also that this world is a manifestation of the Lord or Visva Vrindavan and your children, wife, father, mother and other relations are the images or children of the Lord. See God in every face and in every object. If you develop this changed angle of vision and Divine Bhava by protracted and constant practice, all actions will become Puja or worship of the Lord. This is quite sufficient. You will have God-realisation soon. This is a dynamic Yoga. This is an easy Sadhana. Hereafter do not bring your old lame excuse: “Swamiji, I have no time to do spiritual practices.” Even if you practise this dynamic Yoga for three months, you will become an entirely changed being altogether. Realise right now your identity and intimate

relationship with all beings, with ants and dogs, elephants and tigers, Muslims and Hindus, Jews and Christians. There is only a degree of difference in manifestation or expression. All forms belong to God or Saguna Brahman. When you look at a tree or a shrub, a Sikh or a Muslim, endeavour to behold behind the veil of form, the real hidden Consciousness. If you do this for some time, you will feel inexpressible Joy. All hatred will cease. You will develop Cosmic Love or unity

of consciousness. This will be a magnanimous experience.

6. Write daily for half an hour in a notebook your Ishta Mantra observing Mouna and

without turning to this side or that. Write down in bold types on slips of paper:

• SPEAK THE TRUTH
• OM COURAGE
• OM PURITY
• I MUST REALISE GOD NOW
• TIME IS MOST PRECIOUS
• I WILL BE A TRUE BRAHMACHARI BRAHMACHARYA IS DIVINE LIFE
• I AM AN EMBODIMENT OF COURAGE,PURITY, MERCY, LOVE AND PATIENCE

and fix them in the bed room, dining hall, front room and verandahs. Keep some slips in your pocket and diary also. This is an easy way for developing virtuous divine qualities.

7. Here are some Mantras, formulae, for effecting ungrudging and total self-surrender.Repeat them mentally several times daily with Bhava: “O Lord, I am Thine, All is Thine. Thy Will be done. Thou art everything. Thou doest everything.” This practice will remove egoism and mineness and the idea of agency also.

Yoga practice:Helpful Hints

1. Listen to your body. Only through your own internal awareness will you come to understand when to work harder or deeper and when to move more slowly.

2. The breath should always be louder than your internal dialogue.

3. Never force yourself into a pose, no posture is worth injury.

4. Take the ambition out of it. You are competing with no one.

5. Less is more with yoga. Take your time and build your practice slowly, there is nowhere to "get" to.

6. Set up a regular practice for yourself. Practice is the key to the entire science of yoga.

7. Enjoy your practice. Acknowledge and receive the gift you are giving yourself.

Create a sacred space

Choose A Spot That Draws You Inward This is a time of focus. You acknowledge the space around you on which you are about to work. It should be quiet, with no interruptions. You pick a place for the feet and plant them, one by one, deliberately connecting with the earth beneath. Participation at this level is important, if the link between your body and the ground is formed there is a centered calmness.

Making a time and place for your yoga is essential for maintaining a regular practice. Choose a place which is warm and where there is enough room for you to move freely. It is helpful to practice at the same time each day, the optimal times being sunrise and sunset. Choose a spot that draws you inward.

Regular practice is the key to yoga. It is through practice that these seemingly impossible postures are mastered with comfort and ease within a reasonable time period. It is through practice that yoga becomes integrated in your life.

Practice
Decide how much time you have to practice each day (be realistic) and how many times a week. Begin all sessions with naulis, sun salutations, standing postures, sitting postures, meditation and finish with corpse.

What is important for my Yoga practice?

Breathing

Inhale you inspire, exhale you relax. Balancing the breath is balancing the mind. Yoga without breath is simply exercise, unconscious but beneficial. Breath is the single most transformative element of Yoga. Listen, watch, monitor and focus on this alone and there will be an incredible change in your life. Always breathe through the nose, the mouth is for eating.

In keeping with many traditional schools of Yoga, we believe that the single most important element of Yoga asana is breath. Breath links body and mind. Every movement of the body can be linked to the breath and every breath to a state of mind. This flow, the connection between body and mind consciousness, is one of the most beneficial elements of Yoga practice. This is the essence of asana and the preparation for deeper practice.

Breath affects strength, stretch, endurance and balance. Breathing techniques are critical in the development of whole lung breathing instead of the typical half breath or shallow breath we develop through our unconscious lifestyle. Breath is the fuel of life. Ninety per cent of our physical energy comes from breath, our mental state is influenced by breath and, as Yogis believe, the length of our life is determined by the length of our breath.

By using the breath, and not the mind, to guide us through asana we are able to surrender, soften, strengthen and develop awareness more easily.

A full breath is a full life.

Posture

Your body is unique, you know it better than anyone. Approaching the physical practice of Yoga should be done mindfully. Knowing your body and it's particular traits gives you the opportunity to focus on specific areas to strengthen, clean, break down and in some instances protect. You will enjoy the physical experience of Ashtanga Yoga, especially the very cleansing body heat developed through special breathing and movement combinations.

There is an edge, a fine but distinctive edge, between pain and intensity. The body has its feedback systems and to ignore them is insensitivity. These feedback systems are both psychological and physiological. Which is functioning to create the specific sensation of pain is rarely discernible. The edge between pain and intensity is therefore the edge on which to play in a Yoga asana.

Yoga asana is a mirror: a reflection of the process we use to live our lives. Some people will ignore the feedback of pain in the interests of ambition, and in doing so will break through their barriers. Others will ignore the pains and break the body. Either way these attitudes reflect an insensitivity associated with the asana practice.

The edge is the border which a point of questioning and a point of respect for truth. Moving to that edge is the constancy of growth. In asana the questions that arise as a result of that edge are the food from which we grow.

The edge is the playful point of the asana practice. It is an exploration of the mind and the body through which deeper insight can be attained. Force and will are functions of the mind dominating over the body; retreat and avoidance are the functions of the body dominating over the mind.

Most importantly, go slowly. There are as many Yoga postures as there are stars. Slowly you will develop awareness as well as flexibility and strength. Slowly progress and make it yours.

Dristi

Eye positions are called Dristi. Every posture and every movement between the postures has a specific Dristi. To focus the eye is to focus the mind. Dristi focus deepens the meditation, concentration and mind control aspects of the Ashtanga Yoga practice.

Where does the mind begin and the body end. Changing our posture changes our mind, changing our mind changes our body posture. Change confronts and because emotions are stored in the body there is resistance to change both physically and mentally. Tension in the body is usually tension in the mind.

Know these factors and it becomes obvious that one of the major challenges to performing a Yoga asana is mental. To move certain body parts and to open and stretch certain areas is to confront, sometimes years of blockage in the mind.

Resistance is simply a desire to stay. It is a reflection of an infatuation about where we are. We may fear the unknown in letting go, we may feel a lack of security, or perhaps have a past remembered emotion about certain movements or mind states.

Confronting these through body, mind and breath is a gradual process. A sequenced asana practice will help us to face and move through the blockages faster that an asana practice in which we are free to choose the poses.

Relaxation

At the end of your asana practice relax in the most difficult Yoga pose of all, the corps pose. Lie still, no movement at all, still your mind and allow your whole body metabolism to bask in the transformations you have created through the practice. Allow the mind to be still