Yoga Report

I have experimented with a 10:40:20:20 rhythm when doing my regular sadhana. Holding the breath out for 20 seconds as I do the plow pose and then keeping it in for 40 seconds. I can notice how much of a struggle it is in the first few rounds and how it slowly gets easier.

I do the first 5 rounds of Nadi Shodana with Bandhas and the next 5 without.

Picked up the Prana Pranayama Prana Vidya book by Swami Niranjananda Saraswati again.

I have decided to go for a relatively low counting and the advanced practic of the Nadi Shodhana Pranayama. Stage number 15 have a ratio of 1:4:2:2. With 10 as a base this becomes 10:40:20:20 seconds. I will use a metronome to get this numbers right. I have decided to got for 10 rounds.  The following  Bandhas will be used:

- Jalandhara and moola bandha during the retention of the breath

- Maha bandha (Jalandhara , uddiyana and mool bandhas) with external retention

The thought have been in my head for a long time. When I participated in the 3-months course, at Håå course Center back in 2000 I did not really know what to expect. I had been to evening courses with the Scandinavian school of yoga and I knew from the bottom of my heart that this was something I wanted to do.

On the surface level I know what I am getting into , but on a more deep level I do not have a clue.

After 3 weeks on the MSc in Digital media Engineering I can notice several things. It feels like I am on the right track. As expected the tempo is high and planning is an essential tool for survival. Planning meetings both inside and outside of school. Planning and splitting up the workload. Planning recreational activities such us cycling and running. Successful points:

• I was able to set up the school calendar to collaborate with the Google calendar, which is forwarding this to my Nokia phone. I see where I should be in each day and since I more strictly plan my time now there is less confusion in my life.
• I add things to my to-do-list much more frequent now
• I add meetings in my calendar as I speak to people
• bought a netbook for taking notes in class
• applied and got a study room at school, since I really work better in silence.
• through my active participation I know have two friends who I train with regularly

Writing down what went well in the past few weeks feels like an excellent way to reinforce good behaviour, thanks to Judy for the Idea.

The only thing we can be sure about in life is change and that seems to apply to our brain as well. According to a study in 2008 there seems to be a correlation between a certain brain game, dual n-back and our problem solving ability. If we get better at the game we also score higher on IQ tests, in some cases the increase was as much as 40 % ! When it comes to IQ tests the general notion is that IQ is something static but you can get better at IQ tests to a certain degree. With the latest findings on the brain and it’s plasticity it is tempting to believe that IQ can be increased but this is a debated topic.

The IQ tests who are supposed to be culturally unbiased usually consist of  progressive matrices. Find the next logical step in picture sequence.  If you are familiar with boolean operations you will notice a few similarities here and there.

I decided to give this game, dual n-back a try. I noticed how my thinking speeds up right after gaming. In the mentioned test they used it for 19 days and that is what I am going to do as well.  The game is available as freeware for android devices, I-phone etc.

Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory - Susanne M. Jaeggi,
Martin Buschkuehl, John Jonides and Walter J. Perrig

Meditation/Yoga/Pranayama is the planning phase for physical results. Everything starts with a thought which is then materialised. As long as there is suffering in the world there is work to do. That is the reason I am going to study digital media engineering at the Danish University of Technology.  A lot of suffering in the world could be avoided if knowledge was available. The only way to democratise information is to build digital bridges between nations. Wikileaks, Wikipedia, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox, Android et c are all important tools to share information and there is more to come.

It struck me as simple and yet so perfect, May you reach love, happiness and truth. The words uttered silently in my head when I meet an animal, a plant, a stone  or a person. In silence the words came to me and after more than a week of running, yoga, physical work and talking they surfaced with ease. 11 years ago I met a Buddhist monk in the Indira Gandhi International airport and his smile really made me curious. How could he be smiling with this natural smile all the way into the centre of Delhi, surrounded as we were with poverty and suffering ? Now I realise how you can choose happiness as an attitude towards life. All the time we have thoughts in our head and some of them cause suffering and some of them causes a good mood. If we truly love a person we really want them all the best and with no expectation we give them freedom. As soon as we expect something in return we are caught in suffering. I can say to you that suffering is avoidable but if you do not have that experience it is just words for you. Of course there is suffering in life and we are forced to make decisions. The only thing we can be sure about in life is change. Our body is getting older, friends disappear to foreign countries, love turns into hate, summer turns into winter. Some times in meditation and life we reach a feeling of emptiness and this can be both a terrifying feeling and a liberating state. From emptiness something new can be born and you can always chose to be the light from which love and compassion is flowing.

My running track

I feel in great shape and I lost a few kilos in the last two months. Running on the sandy beach  6 times a week really gives me clarity.

I had quite a powerful experience yesterday. Around 18:00 a close friend of mine said she did not want to follow me to Sweden this summer and I know I am going to miss her laughter and smile on this journey. I felt an urge to give in for old patterns and go for a pizza but I decided to try a new way. Some weeks ago I went past a restaurant and rather surprisingly considering the name, Crazy Chicken they had an enormous salad buffet.  I went to this place and had a plate with humus, broccoli, olives etc.  The BEST salad I have eaten in a long time.

A crazy chicken salad

When I teach yoga it is so easy to get dragged into peoples dramas and problems. 90 % of the teaching takes place when I am running on the beach, planning the lecture, learning Danish. When I enter the room there is not so much I can do about it, I am there vulnerable.

I feel confident in teaching a form of yoga which is scientific/agnostic in the approach. I have chosen to leave out god/goddesses/mantra/chakra in the lectures and there is a reason for this.  We live in dualism and we label things good/evil, warm/cold and meditation is to go beyond that dualism for a short while.  Yoga has the simple purpose of releasing muscle tension and prepare the body for meditation/flow/samadhi/nirvana/contemplation/heaven. Your cultural background will dictate the labels you put on the state.

Something which I hear a lot is this statement ” I am working really hard in this project “. then a saying comes to my mind  “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Not that meditation is a contradiction to working hard but you could be cutting the branch you are sitting on. Where do you spend your energy ? Do you choose the right battles ? Here is where I think meditation have a function. To help you with the overall directions in life.

I am happy to point you to people who teach about chakras, kundalini yoga etc. if that is what you are after.