Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What my mother told you What she did not say The system of Lord Shiva
ISBN: 978-1-4092-9089-6
Bibliography
I have written the following 42 books. Each and every word in all the books came directly from God, Shri Krishna. But the books are often unpalatable to the prejudiced modern western mind. Sometimes what has been said seems humorous. Sometimes absurd. But each and every sentence can be re-examined carefully with a meditative mind to garner snippets of truth which will help you in your life. For example, with my book Perfecting Your Emotional Energy Sphere, merely looking at my cover painting for 3 minutes will enable your disturbed emotional energy (after an upset, rudeness, anger and so forth) to be cured. I do not believe that I have made any mistakes in transcribing for you what my Lord has said. What is western nowadays? The whole world is western now. Hence when I say prejudiced western mind, I risk alienating the whole world. Such is my inner nature or that of God. He seems to be doing a good job at this project though.
The books can be purchased from most book sellers. The books are available in English and are becoming available in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese Mandarin, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Many of my paintings can be viewed on my web site page: www.lovingheartcentre.net/MyPaintings.htm
Preface
Back in the late 1980s, my mother wrote the main text for Yoga: The Iyengar Way, on one plane journey (eight hours work) to India. But, it was a family venture: I earned the money so my mother, sister and I could each year afford to go to India and study yoga with Mr Iyengar, our then (now ex) guru. I was adept at the yoga postures but did not have time to do much to the text other than look over it and make suggestions for improvement which my mother then thought about and incorporated. The philosophy section was contributed by my sister and the pictures in the book were again a co-operative venture. Although they were only of me and my sister, my mother had a sharp eye for what was good and bad posture and made numerous suggestions as did my sister and I. Now my mother is no more and my sister suffers from mental ill-health. Hence I am the only author of this book! Yoga: The Iyengar Way was immensely popular amongst all yoga students across the world. It was the first book to in an attractive way set out how to do the yoga asanas in a considered and reflective fashion, with enormous attention to detail that the postures warrant. Indeed, later photographs from the book were sent to the Indian Postal Service for a competition as to what would be the best yoga-related art work for stamps and my and my sisters photographs won. So, one year, all 2.50, 4.00, 6.50 and 8.00 rupee stamps made in India carried photographs of me and my sister performing yoga asanas. But, my ex-guru Mr Iyengar became jealous and all the yoga teachers from other sects of yoga practice also did not like to promote the best book when their own teachings in asana practice were so deficient. Hence sales of Yoga: The Iyengar Way fell off. This is one of the side effects of incorrect yoga practice: the development of pride. I discuss many of the other often truly tragic side effects of yoga practice in my other books, including my book Yoga. Well, Yoga: The Iyengar Way remains the best book in terms of what my mother wrote about: the detailed reflective and accurate way of doing the yoga postures that Lord Shiva has given to mankind.
The nature of Lord Shiva needs to be studied carefully before practising yoga postures. If you disturb His yoga practice in any way you get hurt. In extreme cases, He opens one eye and you get spiritually burnt for all time. Even His own son, He chopped His head off (the story of Lord Ganesh). What will Lord Shiva do to you if you misuse His sacred asanas, disclosed to mankind for their religious progress towards loving Him, only? Misuse consists of: Doing asanas for your health or for any purpose other than to develop your love for God Teaching asanas for monetary gain or to make disciples or to gain pride and students: any purpose other than to develop your love for God which of course includes developing the love for God that your students have.
Well in the coming years, many will have this desire to love God. Hence I write this book. Shyam Mehta The Loving Heart Centre www.lovingheartcentre.net 5 July 2009
Contents
Bibliography ........................................................................................... 3 Preface..................................................................................................... 7 Contents .................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 1: Standing Poses .................................................................... 11 Chapter 2: Sitting Poses ........................................................................ 13 Chapter 3: Sirsasana.............................................................................. 15 Chapter 4: Sons of Sirsasana................................................................. 17 Chapter 5: Sarvangasana....................................................................... 19 Chapter 6: My Experiences with Twists............................................... 21 Chapter 7: Jumpings ............................................................................. 23 Chapter 8: Rope work ........................................................................... 25 Chapter 9: Arm Balances ...................................................................... 27 Chapter 10: Savasana............................................................................ 29 Chapter 11: Net Beneficial Effect Zero? .............................................. 31 Chapter 12: Pranayama ......................................................................... 33 Chapter 13: Yogic Meditation .............................................................. 35 Recommended reading list.................................................................... 37
10
The Loving Heart Centre, www.lovingheartcentre.net Another issue with standing postures is the tension they cause in the brain. Again, as a beginner you may not notice it. Instead of tennis elbow the repetitive strain is to your brain. The brain becomes inflamed, you get easily upset and angry. Becoming angry one tends to lose self control and memory. A permanent cycle of mental ill health sets in.
12
13
14
Chapter 3: Sirsasana
This is known as the king of all postures: standing on your head. It has enormous benefits as we all know, and as discussed in Yoga: The Iyengar Way. I need not describe these more. Your whole body is toned. But, for every benefit in yoga there is an equal and opposite harm. Your arms get toned but your brain gets strained. And so forth. Good blood flushes the brain but so does bad blood. The negative effects take time to build up into disability. For example, if you do 10 minutes per day for 30 years, it will cause you to become insane. In the mean time you get some benefit. Which do you want more?
15
16
17
18
Chapter 5: Sarvangasana
This posture is also known as neck or shoulder balance. It is the queen of all yoga postures. There are two varieties, one with a support under the shoulders but not the head and the other with effectively no support. In Iyengar Yoga, we always use a support and then the posture has similar effects to Sirsasana. But not as intense. With other systems there is no support. There is more pressure in the head and hence the blood flows less to the head and there is less beneficial effects and bad effects also. Overall, the net bad/good effect as with all yoga postures is zero. With the lack of support, the chest is caved in and hence has less strain. But the other parts of the body do not get toned much.
19
20
21
22
Chapter 7: Jumpings
There are advantages to a sedentary life which the jumpings help you overcome. God gave 20th century mankind a sedentary life style (with washing machines, cars and so forth) for a reason. This is so that one can sit and think, specifically about right and wrong, about ones direction in life and so forth. Before that one was always too busy with work related activities or with sex. With so much sex on TV and in magazines etc., interest in sex has died out a lot. Sedentary life style also makes performance poor. So, doing jumpings makes you unable to sit and think. It makes you hyper for 24 hours. But your performance improves (unlike with doing all the other postures).
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40