The Ten Bodies | Yogic Anatomy | The Fourth Body ~ The Neutral Mind

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acceptance, decision making, decisions, intuition, meditate, meditative, meditative mind, neutral mind, service, wisdom

Name: The Neutral or Meditative Mind.

Key Word(s): Service, Compassion, Integration.

Key Saying(s): Cup of Prayer.

Guru: Guru Ram Das – Mastered the heart, service, and compassion.

Question(s): Do I allow myself to perceive and act upon inner wisdom?

“The meditative mind makes you a good listener. It allows you to interact. If you get around somebody with a meditative mind, they’ll put you in their state right away. If you find someone who has that characteristic, it’s wonderful to be around that person. You almost don’t even have to say nothing. They’ll take you to that state with them. Their mental/emotional condition spreads out. That’s the idea of cup of prayer. Share this cup, have a drink out of this cup and you’ll be fine.” – “The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness by Nivair Singh Khalsa

 Have a strong neutral mind allows you to intake the information from both the positive and negative minds to make a well grounded and wise decision about whatever is occuring. It evaluates everything from an intuitive and neutral point of view, allowing you to objectively respond from your soul.

In this state of mind you have an expansive point of view that allows you to see more than the micro views of life. This is the ideal state for a yogi (or anyone) to be in.

The neutral mind cannot be swayed. It has made a decision and it knows that the decision is the correct one for itself.

A special attribute with this mind is that when it is strong and balanced, this mind allows you to be “comfortable with the uncomfortable” (Guru Raj in class). It allows you to come into the true reality of the Grace of God. This mind is non-reactive, innocent, calm, stable, observing, and non-attached. It can accept the impermanence of All That Is.

One of the big things about this mind is that when it is active and balanced we are in service to others effortlessly. Have you ever tried to help someone and it just didn’t work? With this mind balanced we find that no matter what we do, we are able to truly help others. It allows us to know when and how to help another person without fault. Our actions are always uplifting the people around us and the environments we are in.

How to Balance: Regular meditation practice. Sodarshan Kriya. Shabd Kriya.

Resources: From my understanding, Yogi Bhajan taught about the ten bodies sporadically over many years of teaching. He didn’t teach a class on the Ten Bodies. Various students of his have collected the information I will be presenting to you here, namely from the The Aquarian Teacher Instructor Manual Level One and The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness by Nivair Singh Khalsa.

Practicum | Overwhelm | Changes

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crystal infused, crystals, graduating, practicum, yoga

Hey there,

This past week was my practicum on Friday. I was so scared and nervous but when I tuned in and began teaching it felt really good. It was a very small class – only three people. It was small, intimate, and at first I was concerned that a lack of music would be a problem, but it wasn’t.

I felt my body relax when I came into the meditation and deep relaxation portion of the class. Here, holding the energies in that space, I felt at home in. I didn’t feel at home yet wearing a turban, and teaching strict according to the rules. And its not to say that I don’t follow the rules…

I just want to teach with crystals, and grid peoples mats. I want to walk around if I wish. I want to dance in my classes. I want to teach people how to paint crystal infused yoga mats (this is my newest art project I’m working on and super stoked for!). I didn’t feel like who I was at the practicum was close to who I am as a teacher and Being.

But it went well. My feedback was good, and now that the practicum is over I can relax. I also have already completed the take home exam which took me a long time to do! I wanted to have everything complete by May 1st just because I know how busy life can get.

Now I’m looking for a new home so I can get into a routine of doing yoga again everyday. I miss its soft grounding center. I miss the softness of having your own space really and truly.

I just wanted to send you guys an update ~ I’ve been busy working hard. I have a few more chapters to read in my text book as of yet. The class is ending and I have many mixed feelings coming up.

OH oh oh! I’ve been booked for my first few yoga classes! I have to start planning for them! Two are going to be crystal infused yoga classes. I’m SO excited! One is on the Full Moon in Scorpio so its going to be infused with the full moon things and scorpio things and crystal things! Lol. I’m not sure yet what of each but you can be sure that it will be a great crystal infused kundalini yoga class. If your in the Vancouver area come check it out!

Much love,
Many blessings,
Serafina

The Ten Bodies | Yogic Anatomy | The Third Body ~ The Positive Mind

Tags

devil or divine, expansive mind, humour, positive mind, positivity, projection, rebirthing, sense of humour, uplifting

Name: The Positive or Expansive Mind

Key Word(s): Equality, Positivity.

Key Saying(s): Devil or Divine.

Guru: Guru Amar Das – Known for his devotion, love, promoting equal rights and dignity.

Question(s): Am I open to all possibilities life has to offer? Do I let these into my life?

Lets continue our example from last week’s post on the Negative Mind. In continuance with Nivair Singh Khalsa’s example of crossing the street used in his book “The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness” we are trying to cross the street. With the Negative Mind we ended up being camped out because it was too much for us to cross the street. Now here comes a person with a overly strengthened Positive mind.

Whoa! Did you see that? They just bounded across the street, without looking! They didn’t even acknowledge they were on the road!

If we are operating from an overly strong positive mind we are not able to see the dangers that may be around us. We don’t even care when they are brought up to us. “How can anything bad ever happen to me? If it does, I have lots of money to take care of it anyways!”. They may seem careless and over enthusiastic because their positive mind is seeing just a tad bit too much good and not allowing the Negative mind to have a say. We may have unrealistic expectations, or the inability to say no.

 

The Positive Mind can see all the great things in all situations and people. It allows you to use your power easily, humbly, and gives you a strong will. Naturally it will make you playful and optimistic with a sense of humour. You will be very uplifting for others to be around.

If it is weak you could find yourself depressed or paralysed. You may be angry, hesitant to use and own your power due to a fear of responsibility it may bring or of abusing your power.

This body is so important for those in healing processes because it does allow you to access the power of your will which can be used in healing yourself. It also provides hope for those who need it, and hope is one of the greatest things we can give a person who is healing themselves for, if not used blindly, it can help them find and create the healing that they need.

This is the body where we project into the world what we want. It is a strong projection – for those  with a strong positive mind are often like a candle in the dark for those who need the positivity.

“Everything is sold through projection.” – Nivair Singh Khalsa

I thought that was a very interesting statement. In his book, “The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness”, Khalsa goes into more depth about this, however, what I took from it was that every time someone tries to sell us something they are selling us all the Positive mind stuff. They are not saying: Here’s the pro’s and con’s to buying this car. Sometimes they don’t even say “Are you sure you can afford this car?”. They just give it to you because you need the sale!

When someone sells you something they usually are giving you all the Positives. They are telling you how great it will be to experience this, how it will make your life just this much better, how you will feel totally fulfilled with this. It doesn’t matter what the consequences are. Just ignore them for now.

Is the experience worth the consequences? That’s something the Negative mind would bring up to balance the Positive mind. Thank God we have both minds!

If you have a weak positive mind the best things you can do for it is remove negativity from your life – removing the news will be helpful as most of it is fear based, or negative people can be helpful. I had to do both of those things in my own life a while back and I’m so grateful that I did! If you still want to be informed about global going on’s look into alternative news sources.

Another way to develop the Positive mind is to develop a sense of humor. AKA stop taking everything so seriously! So much of life is hilarious if we choose to see it – like the time I was teaching my friends yoga and someone farted. My ex started making fart jokes and had the entire class laughing, including me. Or the time I was teaching a thirteen year old boy yoga in a class with him cracking jokes the entire time about how out of shape he is even though he was the youngest person in the class.

These people could be looked at as the Class Clown or they could be viewed as bringing humour to my class. Neither of them were disruptive but rather had people smiling as they did Stretch Pose and Cobra!

How to Balance: Strengthen the Navel Point, increase self-esteem, use positive affirmations. Ego Eliminator (heart and throat). Rebirthing meditation. Develop a sense of humour.

Resources: From my understanding, Yogi Bhajan taught about the ten bodies sporadically over many years of teaching. He didn’t teach a class on the Ten Bodies. Various students of his have collected the information I will be presenting to you here, namely from the The Aquarian Teacher Instructor Manual Level One and The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness by Nivair Singh Khalsa.

The Ten Bodies | Yogic Anatomy | The Second Body ~ The Protective Mind

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belonging, boundaries, creativity, healthy relationships, longing to belong, negative mind, protection, protective mind, second body, the ten bodies, yogic anatomy

Name: The Protective or Negative Mind

Key Word(s): Protection, containment, obedience.

Key Saying(s): Longing to Belong.

Guru: Guru Angad – Known for his obedience, discipline, and endurance.

Question(s): Can I determine if there is danger in a situation? What do I need to consider? “In my urge to merge, in my need for completion, can I calculate the danger in a given situation?” as per Nivair Singh Kahlsa.

In “The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness” by Nivair Singh Kahlsa he gives a brilliant example so one can truly understand this body and the next two. Usually taught in a bundle are the three mental bodies: the Negative or Protective Mind, the Positive or Expansive Mind and the Neutral or Meditative Mind. They all work together.

If all your Minds are acting in balance, what will happen is first the negative mind kicks in. It’s trying to tell you some useful information about what is going on and what you might want to look at before making a decisions. Then the Positive mind will kick in with all the good stuff that we can get enthusiastic about and hope for. It will tell us what might be, the greatest possibility. After that the neutral or meditative mind will move into action. When it comes into action we are able to make a wise decision based on the information from both the positive and negative minds. This entire process will last less than 8 seconds inside your mind.

When the minds are not in balance then we can get stuck in either the negative or positive minds, which will influence our lives accordingly. Here’s the example of how it might look according to Navair Singh Khalsa.

You are trying to cross the street. If you were to attempt the crossing of the street but you can’t do it because your Negative mind takes over you might have fear come up attached to the thoughts: “Well, if I cross the street, this might happen, or this might happen. I might die. My mother said to never cross the street because this might happen or that. It’s really not a good idea to cross the street.” So you set up camp there, constantly overprotecting yourself, fearful of the risks that are inherent to life. You do need to cross the street – and its not nearly as big of a deal as your Negative mind likes to make it out to be.

This is the body where boundaries are looked at as well. Boundaries in relationships to others. This is the body where the longing to belong each of us has resides. This longing can cause us to rush into relationships, or to stay in unhealthy relationships without setting boundaries. In the highest expression this “longing to belong” will drive us to connect with Source (or Universe, or God, or whatever it is you want to call that big nameless thing most of us acknowledge in some way).

The second body will help manifest your creativity stemming from the Soul body into the physical. It helps do this by giving us patience to create, discernment in the creation process and the ability to create our ideas into reality.

The Negative mind is a very helpful body in the way that it gives us very important information we need to protect ourselves. It helps us look at how we could be effected in harmful ways and defend ourselves from a space of wisdom. It can overtake us though, and leave us camped out on the side of the road, never crossing the street.

It can also be under functioning in which case you can become overly influenced by others, can’t seem to stay centred, and can enter self-destructive relationships.

How to Balance: Value discipline. Develop conscious relationships. Strengthen the positive mind. Meditation for negating false identity.

Resources: From my understanding, Yogi Bhajan taught about the ten bodies sporadically over many years of teaching. He didn’t teach a class on the Ten Bodies. Various students of his have collected the information I will be presenting to you here, namely from the The Aquarian Teacher Instructor Manual Level One and The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness by Nivair Singh Khalsa.

The Ten Bodies | Yogic Anatomy | First Body ~ The Soul Body

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balance, bliss, body, creativity, ego, first body, heart, humble, humility, soul, soul body

Name: Soul Body

Key Word(s): Humility, Creativity. Balance.

Key Saying(s): Heart over Head.

Guru: Guru Nanak – Guru Nanak is the first Sikh guru and was noted for his humility. He was the creative force of the Sikh Dharma. When you bow you are bringing your head below your heart.

Question(s): Is my life a creative flow from my soul’s purpose? Do I come from the heart? Does this feel like my soul’s purpose?

This first body is the one that connects you to your own intuition, soul, infinity, whatever word you want to use. It is the body that allows you to experience the flow and grace of life. This body looks at wether it is your heart running the show or your ego?

When your ego is too strong you often come from your head, may feel stuck and may not feel like you can be creative and access flow.

When your heart is running the show you can become a doormat, and over-give.

When this body is in balance your heart and ego are in balance with each other, and you are very intuitive. You are able to give without expending yourself or your resources. You are able to live by your heart which allows your creativity to flow. You come from a place of humility and express from your heart. You are in a place of where you are an expression of your Soul.

This body is about finding the balance of the mind and the heart and not loosing either. We need the mind to help us create the desires of the heart, and we need the heart to bring life to the mind. They work together in a beautiful and seamless way when they are in balance with each other. The heart will guide us to our bliss, and our mind will make it happen in this world of ours when used as a tool to navigate.

This body will never collapse (some of the bodies like the physical body will collapse in death).

The body is connected to your heart. Often your soul will speak to you by giving signals within your body to be noticed such as a pain here, or a locked joint there. What is your body trying to tell you? Your body is like a radio – constantly receiving information from the bodies and translating it for you. It will tell you what your soul feels good with doing and what it doesn’t feel good doing.

When you are looking at an aspect of your life, does your heart sing when you think about it? Or does your heart sink?

How to Balance: Raise the Kundalini, open the heart. Sat Kar Meditation, Pulse Meditation, Heart Center Meditation.

Resources: From my understanding, Yogi Bhajan taught about the ten bodies sporadically over many years of teaching. He didn’t teach a class on the Ten Bodies. Various students of his have collected the information I will be presenting to you here, namely from the The Aquarian Teacher Instructor Manual Level One and The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness by Nivair Singh Khalsa.

Practicums! ~ Invite to the Yoga Thon I’m Teaching At ~

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completion, graduating, knowledge, opportunities, practicum, teach, teachers, teaching, trust, Yoga West

Scroll to the end of the post for the invite deets!

Well, its coming to an end, my course! We only have two more weekends before we are heading out into the world with sweet innocent fresh yoga teacher eyes. I’m excited and have already started sussing out teaching opportunities (oh, how much fun it will be!).

I feel ready to teach personally. I’ve been teaching small, often impromptu, kundalini classes for the last year to great success. My confidence has grown throughout the course because I feel like I am so well informed. I also trust myself. I trust that my teachers know what they are doing. I trust that when I’m in a class I will have the right information ingrained into me.

I also see that this is going to be an ongoing training for me. Great, I’ve completed this first level. But I want to go deeper. And deeper. And deeper.

I don’t want to go deeper into Sikhism, nor do I want to go deeper into cult-like kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga has been a huge tool of inner exploration and healing for myself, and that’s where I want to go deeper. I already  have a list of courses I’d like to take to enhance my practice and what I can gift to my students.

Despite all of this confidence I am nervous for Practicums! See, I have myself, and I know who I am fairly well. I am nervous for Practicums because I have to dress like a “teacher”! Strange I  know. And the whole grading part. I can’t recall if I wrote about this, but for the first few months of the course, I had this huge fear that I wouldn’t graduate for some strange reason.

I almost didn’t graduate though.

In the midst of a series of melt downs in February brought on by Sodarshan Kriya I believe and the stress of not having a consistent home now for 8 months I almost just took off to Hawaii leaving the course incomplete.

But that’s a pattern for me.

I used to live with the idea that opportunities only come once, but I’ve learned that opportunities that are right for you will wait for you to be ready for it. I’ve learned that I don’t have to run away from my internal challenges. They will follow me anyways.

So will the opportunities.

I am sticking it out here, and man, am I ever glad that I am. I don’t know why. But I can see so many opportunities here if I stay here long-term, making Vancouver my base, before I head out elsewhere. I do not see myself raising children here and I do see myself raising children in the future. For now though, for my business, my creativity, my yoga practice, this is the mecca for me to learn, incorporate and connect with others.

On that note, this post was supposed to be an invitation to you lovely local Vancouver readers!

On April 25th to April 28th at Yoga West there is a Yoga-Thon where all the new teachers graduating from this years course, like myself, will be teaching! You should come by and check it out. Classes are only $5 and an hour long. I’ll keep you updated as to which day and time I’m teaching. 🙂

 

The Ten Bodies | Yogic Anatomy | Introduction

Tags

aura, energy fields, tantric numerology, the ten bodies, yogic anatomy

Note: From my understanding, Yogi Bhajan taught about the ten bodies sporadically over many years of teaching. He didn’t teach a class on the Ten Bodies. Various students of his have collected the information I will be presenting to you here, namely from the The Aquarian Teacher Instructor Manual Level One and The Ten Light Bodies of Consciousness by Nivair Singh Khalsa.

“If you understand that you are Ten Bodies, and you are aware of those Ten Bodies, and you keep them in balance, the whole universe will be in balance with you.” – Yogi Bhajan

Inside the our training we were introduced to the concept of the Ten Bodies. Essentially this idea is that we are not just a physical body. Our physical body is one of the ten bodies that make us up. It is actually our fifth body!

You can think of our bodies fitting on the previous one(s) like a coat fits onto our physical body. Sometimes though a body will reside in a certain part of our auric field which will be mentioned when we go through the bodies.

Also, one more note, Yogi Bhajan did specifically state that these bodies do NOT correspond to the chakras.

We have one physical body, three mental bodies, and six energy bodies. The bodies are:

• First Body – Soul Body
• Second Body – Negative Mind
• Third Body – Positive Mind
• Fourth Body – Neutral Mind
• Fifth Body – Physical Body
• Sixth Body – Arcline
• Seventh Body – Aura
• Eighth Body – Pranic Body
• Ninth Body – Subtle Body
• Tenth Body – Radiant Body

Each one has a different function and can be strengthened or brought into balance with particular soul work. This soul work can be inner work, meditations, yoga, or other various self-healing techniques. The soul work required will depend on you as a person and how the body you are desiring to work on needs to come into balance.

Why would you want to strengthen or bring a body into balance?

When they are strong or in balance they help us by bringing gifts into our lives (or making us into a gift for the people who surround us like with the Neutral Mind!). When in balance we will be able to deal with disease before it manifests in the physical realms as well!

Having all of our bodies in balance and under our conscious control will help us attain a state of enlightenment.

This is going to be a weekly series, every Wednesday, we will take a look at one of the energy bodies. Each one will have a question or two for reflection, some basic facts about that body, and what you can do to strengthen or balance that energy body.

Tantric Numerology

One of the most effective ways for you to work with your energy bodies is to get your Tantric Numerology done here (its free or by donation). It is Yogi Bhajans way of doing numerology, and it will give you a good starting point when looking at which of the ten bodies you’d like to start playing with. They even tell you which bodies you may want to look at!

Here’s another free Tantric Numerology site! It gives a different yet similar view (more info) on each aspect of you.

So get your Tantric Numerology done, save it, and get ready for next week! 😉

In the mean time you can get started with the Kriya for Awakening Your Ten Bodies if you want.