Downward Facing Blog

(it’s gotten ridiculous)
Although we cringed when that one American model coined the term yoga butt, it probably did more good than bad in that it probably was good marketing to get people in the door to yoga studios. I’ve heard Bikram yoga aficionados declare similarly when confronted with the facts that it’s a fairly soulless exercise routine: “well, at least it gets people in the door!”

True enough. I’m on a mission myself. An evangelist of sorts even. Like many zealots throughout history I have this notion that the more people do yoga, well, it may just make the world better. Or lead to more divorces? Apparently there is this odd modern trend of women getting into yoga, and finding their husbands lagging behind on the upward evolutionary track and then leaving him in the dust. Or maybe we should all just do ecstasy, peak at the same time, and hug each other? Either way, yoga butt or no yoga butt, the world continues in it’s multicolored variety of complete odd contrasts- and with all the good vibes I’ve sent out, there’s still no shortage of suffering. 

What probably comes to mind first when you think of suffering would be humans, right? It’s true of course, and as Ken Wilbur would agree, in relative importance - we would deem our own race more worthy of saving than others. Naturally. That said however, we could perhaps extend the idea that our animal neighbors are feeling creatures as well. While we could argue the sentience-level birds with low IQ have, I doubt they find living in a chicken house pleasant. In fact, it looks like hell. I know- I actually worked in one on an Israeli kibbutz a lifetime ago. Compound hell X mass scale and you get the particularly gnarly hen houses used to fuel the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) machine:

Looks like a concentration camp doesn’t it?

Reasonably sentient human beings know about the sub humane treatment of animals grown for food. After all, PETA organization among others have done some clever eye catching protests such as this one: ( I feel like looking, don’t you?)

The irony

Today I was fortunate to capture these ridiculous pictures on the Bangkok skytrain. Yup, that’s a guy doing marichasana A, eating a drumstick. The same pose dedicated to one of the Vedic rishis, son of Brahma. Uh. Well I was complaining that ad firms are getting incredibly dull when always using “SEXY” to sell everything- I hadn’t really figured they’d stoop this low. It’s pretty stupid. Does this work on anyone??

“Let’s think- healthy is trendy now- so we have to make people think KFC is healthy… hmmm… how??”

“I know: YOGA!”

Sigh. I’ve been on a mission, like I said, to spread “the real thing” for the past eight years here. It looks like I didn’t quite get my point out. It is good to get the yoga butt and find yourself getting the yoga mind along the way. It isn’t good however to link crap poison food based on cruelty to YOGA.  In any case, I’ve come around to the “whatever gets them in the door” policy. My door would be nice, but I’m also generally altruistic… I want you ALL to start doing yoga!
(and avoid the chicken)

I have no peace in Bangkok lately. The advertising is getting so in-your-face that it’s becoming impossible not to ignore. Sometimes I’m thankful my Thai language skills are deteriorating , at least I don’t have to fully process all garbage.

Being on the Bangkok skytrain is the worst. I PAY to get on the train and every square inch of space visually is plastered by advertisements. There are two tv monitors installed in each section, playing the same ads over and over and over again, LOUDLY. When I plug in my headphones it’s still too loud for my already loud music to block out.

It’s amazing to watch people, in a total passive trance, uncritically watching these powerful messages. I’m afraid that within a decade of this, any vague sense of art, creativity, or counter culture, hey, even REAL culture is going to be gone… wiped out.

Look into my eyes…

As a clinical hypnotherapist and yogi, I have studied the mind and the brain and know a bit how it works in relation to being open to suggestion. We, you, and I are way more impressionable than we may like to think. The study of hypnosis has in fact, taught me that what we think of as being “free will” is in large part, a myth.

One of the theories of suggestibility holds that a person is suggestible proportionate to the amount of disaggregation of the psyche. Or to quote Boris Sidis, a Ukrane-born American psychotherapist who formulated the law; “Suggestibility varies as the amount of disaggregation, and inversely as the unification of consciousness”. What does that mean? Well look at it like this:

When you are conscious, it’s more difficult to be manipulated or influenced, but, when you get confused, shocked, or passive (disaggregated) , it’s more likely an outside message compelling you to think some way or do something will be accepted uncritically.

If you want a perfect example of this watch NLP master Derren Brown at work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

My friend Todd, who is Bangkok’s resident IPhone guru tells how to crack the operating system so it can be used outside it’s originally designated networks in “authorized” countries: “A website with malicious code causes a buffer overrun in the browser. The browser crashes and the new code is written into the computer.” Well the mind is the same way. Distract the conscious mind, and when it’s not looking, slip in the malicious code underneath. We’re all social creatures, susceptible and open to influence. That’s good when the code is benign or positive. Buuuuuut… advertisers aren’t exactly batting high on the scale.

The commercials here use sex to sell everything from dried chicken noodles, to car lubricants. Are the people working in ad firms bored yet? It’s boring for me and I like looking at pretty girls, probably like a lot of people. Eventually this shit must desensitize us, right? Maybe? Like yeah yeah, another pretty girl falling in love with some guy because he was qualified for a low interest home loan. Yawn.

Let’s aim higher

Any psychology 101 class will consider Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a model of psychological development. (which, is not unlike the chakra system.) As a pyramid, it shows that in order to reach higher levels of development, we must have basic needs taken care of. So obviously, we can’t really entertain spiritual development if we’re hungry. Everyone ultimately aims for self-actualization; another way of saying that we are all deeply aimed at finding out who we are, and why we are here.

Why is it that advertisers relentlessly use the bottom rungs of this pyramid? Can we aim higher? What about advertising that appeals to our innate sense of wanting a better life for ourselves and the planet?

The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority is morally bankrupt . They are selling the soul of this country for a profit. Maybe that’s ok, nobody seems to mind? This constant barrage of messages will change society beyond recognition. It makes greed look normal, and most of what is advertised are physically unhealthy products. I’d rather not have the sound and visual aspect, I’d prefer it to be blank so I can get some peace somewhere. That said, if they had to have televisions, why not play educational bits? Like, why not teach the public better geography, mathematics, or environmental ecology?

ok ok, if you know me at all you’d know that I’m really the last person to address yoga for weight loss, buuuuut when my editor at Bangkok Post suggested this title I figured I would make a go at it. After all, it’s a legitimate and worthy goal. This should probably appear in the next week or two (on Thursday’s MyLife supplement.

Oh, and in case you did catch my foot arches article in the post, the pictures are WRONG! I’m embarrassed actually. The photo for what is incorrect is listed as correct and vice versa. Also, that’s not virasana… sigh. I’ll live. What is it they say? Say good or bad, doesn’t matter, just as long as they spell your name right. So where we go, and even if weight loss isn’t your concern, read to the end as there’s some good info about breathing and eating. Mucho love. Adrian Cox

The yoga butt

A question I hear all the time is: “will yoga help me to lose weight?” For certain reasons I hesitate to answer with an immediate yes, although nobody really sees many fat yogis running around. Weight loss sells though, in fact, when pressed for business, studios and gyms make yoga advertisements using hot, sexed up girls to prey upon insecurities. They even promise losing X number of kilos per week or to sculpt you a “yoga butt”; what is now a somewhat infamous quote made years ago by an American fashion model.

Personally, the only weight problem I’ve struggled with was keeping it on, although there does seem to be a growing, mysterious relationship between age and weight persisting longer than it used to. Regardless of age, physical activity, or diets however, there are only two known factors in weight control: how much you move, and how much you eat.

Before I launch into the mechanics of weight loss through yoga, you should know that the aim and benefits of yoga are much more profound than simply a sexy, fit body. Yoga can give you a new perspective in life, and a sense of wellbeing, happiness, and self-actualization. Ultimately, to attain yoga is a radical shifting of awareness in which we identify with what is transcendent, beautiful, and unlimited and free ourselves in the process. To that end, many yogic paths have developed, only one of which involves bodily contortion. The postures which people now associate as “yoga” itself are really a small aspect of the whole practice. Nonetheless, an excellent entry point into higher states of consciousness is through the body. Yoga is a mind body discipline which aims at unity, harmony, and balance, the objective of yoga is never simply to loose weight. It’s to balance your weight. If you have big bones, no matter what you do, you’ll never look like Kate Moss. You do however stand privy to a whole litany of positive side effects, maybe even becoming unreasonably happy.

How you can balance your weight

To reach your higher potential, and slimmer figure , you obviously must manage both your expression and also your intake. That means, how much you do yoga, and what you eat- both in terms of food, and impressions.

When we are breaking up the sloth of inactivity, getting moving is the hard part. Just how bad do you want to change? As I like to say, the hardest yoga pose is the “getting on the mat posture”. Simply do that four times a week, and in a month you will not only be more fit, firm, you’ll feel amazing inside and out. You might also get addicted to yoga and in the process, find that you’ve generated new, positive habits. An amazing side effect of conscious yoga practice is that with time, you will find yourself craving healthier foods. Addictions may drop away, I’ve even experienced this myself. An explanation I use for this phenomenon is that in yoga you will cultivate more awareness for the sensations inside your body. This in turn results in your ability to hear the body’s own language and what it actually needs for food.

 In the science of yogic medicine- Ayurveda;  excess weight is a problem of excess water and earth elements. There are five elements: space, air, fire, water, and earth. To get earth and water to reduce, we must move up the scale to increase fire and air. Foods also move along this scale, sweets for example are considered to be composed of the elements of water and earth, whereas raw vegetables and fruits have more of the air element. Yoga too is conceived of as a kind of fire which heats the mind  through sacrifice or penance. Simply put, just get yourself to the yoga mat!

In class you will practice standing postures such as triangle, reversed triangle, and side stretch which reduce the earth element,  and in turn help with weight loss. However it’s the attitude that you take inside the yoga which makes the most difference. If you carry around a few extra, simply think of putting stronger effort in to the practice– increasing the element of fire. Fire transforms one thing into another, and through the mental fire, you too can transform yourself into a new shape, and even a new life.

A secret to eating less

A secret to how you practice, is the way you breathe when you do yoga. Contrary to the way most yoga is taught, the breathing should be slow, and minimized as much as possible. Here’s a tip, if you finish practice and you feel very tired and hungry, then it’s highly likely you were gasping in lots of air. What is going on here? When you take a lot of oxygen into the body, it turns the blood alkaline, which manifests as a craving for acids, ie; FOOD. However, if breathing is minimized, the blood stays more acid, and the result is a light body, less need for rest, and less appetite. Minimized breathing is not the same as holding the breath however, conscious breathing is the central aspect to all practices of yoga, just slow, and minimized.

For me, yoga is the most significant work we can do in our lives. Physically, no matter how much yoga we do, we will still get old and die. Mentally and spiritually however, a regular practice of yoga and meditation can create such radical wellbeing that when we do finally achieve the illustrious yoga butt, we ultimately look less in the mirror and more inside ourselves, where the real happiness is.

Hello again, sorry for the long absence… was in Europe teaching yoga for a month! I think I forgot how to write in the absence

In case you’re around, I am doing a meditation on Sundays at 1PM, material I have not taught previously.Since the Sunday afternoon mantra meditations are only thirty minutes, and there is so much background material to discuss, I want to fill in the blanks about this.

Firstly, a student just came to me and said she was hesitating to come because she doesn’t know how to manage a block inside her energy body, that something feels stuck around the heart.

This terminology may be familiar to those who do pranayama and meditation, with the goal of pulling energy up the spine. I too used to feel a block along the central channel that I couldn’t seem to resolve through any amount of meditation or mantras. Finally one significant  day in my life about two years ago, when I got to heal a relationship with my mother, I felt the energy start to flow upwards with ease. So, the chakras and the energy body also hold obstructions in them which mirror those in the mind.

I also believe that the opportunity to meet my Mom and go through that process may have only come about through the work I had made on myself in the years prior. So, in other words, meditating in this way may have elevated me to the point that my psyche was ready to have the experience.

So when that student complained of a block in the energy body, I just told her to come, and chant, as this process itself shakes up the held patterns of energy and reshapes them to their higher possibility.

Each of the seven chakras locations, and their basic attributes of color, element, and psychological  associations should be memorized by every yoga practitioner. There are a lot of books on that subject so I won’t go into that here.

The chakras are visualized and struck with the sound of the bija mantra in order from the base of the tailbone upwards to the top of the head.

1. Root chakra - mantra “KREEM” - this mantra is the sound which creates electricity and transformation. It is the seed sound for the goddess Kal

i, who is the personification of Kundalini, hence placing this mantra at the tailbone stimulates this higher, transformative prana to activate. Kali is TIME and rules over the dissolution of matter back to energy (death) as well as the destruction of illusion. When chanted at the root chakra, this mantra also helps us to understand what true security is- inside the Self!
OM KREEM KALIKAYE NAMAHA!

2. Sex chakra - mantra “KLEEM” - this mantra is sticky, in that it holds things in it’s place, and attracts to itself.  It is the energy of attraction, beauty, creativity, and love. Connected with the Goddess Tripura Sundari who, symbolizing a pacified crown chakra grants us the experience of beauty and truth from within. It can also be used for Lord Krishna, and any deity or thing we wish to pull towards us. As the sex chakra is concerned with creativity and love, awakening the higher side of this chakra with this mantra, we become a source of love and creativity, without the need to manipulate others to satisfy us. OM KLEEM SUNDARYE NAMAHA!

3. Navel chakra - mantra “HOOM” or “DOOM” as you can hear, these two mantras both employ the long U sound, which has a similar effect of protection. Chant HOOM, with a short U sound, emphasizing the exhale and you will feel the navel contract, this is where the navel chakra is. HOOM is specific for Agni, or FIRE. DOOM is specific for the goddess Durga who is sought for protection. These mantras increase intensity and heat, which is a good thing especially for the digestive strength. The higher notion of this chakras meaning of power is the expression of a quiet power that does not need violence to attain it’s ends. Instead, true power is when all things are given freely to us without request or struggle.
OM HOOM AGNIYE SWAHA!

4. Heart chakra - mantra “HREEM” - This mantra is like OM but for the Goddess, and connects you magically at a heart level  to the Supreme, or, any other deity or thing we wish to get closer to. This is one of the most important mantras and has positive effects upon the physical heart as well as the energetic heart. The higher aspect of the heart chakra is to let the expression of love become unconditional and the direct perception of the air element.

OM HREEM MAHADEVYE NAMAHA!

5.  Throat chakra - mantra “AYM” (like AIIIIM) - chant this mantra for wisdom, higher learning, teaching ability, and the gift of convincing speech. Connected with the Goddess Saraswati, this mantra is the most important mantra after OM.

OM AYM SARASWATYE  NAMAHA!

6. Third eye - mantra “SHREEM” - I never tire lately of talking about SOMA, and the soma chakra at the back of the head. The mantra SHREEM brings about beauty, devotion, abundance, softness, and can be used to take refuge in whatever deity we choose. SHREEM is connected to the goddess Lakshmi, who’s two lower arms dispense tangible wealth, and who’s two upper arms hold lotuses, the abundance in spirit, the SOMA we yogis are seeking. 
OM SHREEM MAHALAKSHMIYE NAMAHA!

7. Crown chakra - mantra “OM” - liberation, going beyond all form. When you chant OM, bring your mind to stillness after the sound has finished, which takes your mind to the pure stillness within.

Chant each of these in order, drawing your mind to each chakra, striking the chakra with the mantra:

KREEM
KLEEM
HUM
HREEM
AYM
SHREEM
OM!

As your concentration gets better, think of each goddess at each chakra and dissolve the chakras into each other until they dissolve at the crown. So, you can dissolve earth into water (root chakra to sex chakra), water into fire, fire into air, air into space, space into mind, and mind into the cosmic.

I love this meditation, and find it very powerful. Come join me to practice each Sunday in May at 1PM!

Much love, Adrian

Do you have collapsed arches? Adrian Cox tells you what to do about it.

(Bangkok Post article)

Rumor has it that the first thing yoga celebrity Richard Freeman noticed about his wife was her wonderfully spread open toes. One of my own teachers enjoyed referring to this story, “Go on, spread your toes, it might bring you love!” -apparently addressing the tight toed, single students. Leonardo da Vinci called the foot “a work of art and a masterpiece of engineering”, and Greek philosopher Socrates observed accurately that “we hurt all over when our feet hurt”.

Some say that there are chakras (energy centers) in your feet, and that enlightened beings transmit energy out of their feet. Many Nepalese and Indian temples have carvings in stone which represent the lotus footprints of Vishnu, or the Buddha. In yoga practice, we begin with a Sanskrit chant that begins declaring; “I bow to the lotus feet of the guru” –a voluntary turning of the mind towards the antiquity and lineage of this practice.

Even for the unenlightened, the foot is indeed a masterpiece of engineering, containing 26 small bones, and more than 150 ligaments. Your feet are complex structures, and usually ignored. How little we pay attention to our feet shows in how it’s almost impossible for most people to feel and articulate the third and fourth toes. Can you?

What I observe clearly though are that a majority of people walk around with painful, collapsed arches.

Weak arches may result in lower back pain, sagging energy, and postural problems that move all the way up the body. As Ida Rolf, the founder of the body work method of ‘Rolfing’ observed; “If one foot is consistently everted (a collapsed arch), the ankle, the knee, or perhaps more likely, the entire pelvic basin is rotated” There can also be high arches, and flat feet, but these are in the minority. The common, unnecessary, sagging inner arch is due to a weak (and trainable) tibialis anterior muscle. This muscle starts on the outside of your shin and moves across the shin near your feet and connects near the big toe. In other words, it’s the muscle that pulls up the arch in your foot like a saddle.

The solution is to build good posture from the feet up; widen the feet and toes, and press down the weight in three places, like a pyramid. Press into the mound under the small toe, the mound under the big toe, and at the front of your heel. When your anterior tibialis muscle gets strong, you can keep the middle three toes lifted as well. This in turn affects a subtle channel of energy up the legs into the pelvic floor. I teach this in lift of the middle toes and weigh balancing in all the standing postures, including simply standing up.

You might have trouble lifting the arch and toes directly at first. It’s likely you have been torturing your feet, compressing them inside tight shoes or high heels for many years already. A good way to start is to head for a foot massage to build up foot-consciousness. Or, use these simple yoga postures:

Virasana with tucked toes

This provides an uncomplicated and valuable stretch for the toes and connective tissues across the sole of your foot.

Virasana

This helps to stretch the ankles and top of the foot, and helps to establish the arch in the foot

If you practice yoga, good foot alignment will likely take care of a majority of the other alignment issues in your legs. Nearly all yoga postures are created from the feet up, and these principles can be applied in each and every posture. Notice these two postures with the right way of doing the posture and the incorrect (usual) way.

Downward dog correct version

Observe how the line of the ankle is in a straight line with the heel

Downward dog incorrect version

See the collapsed ankles here. If your feet look like this, bend and roll the knees outward while taking the weight to the outside edges of the feet. Align the heels straight and only straighten the legs to the point that the arches do not collapse. If the arches flatten when you push the legs straight, then the peroneal muscles on the outside of your shin are complaining out of tightness. The solution is more stretching, more yoga.

If you have lower back pain, or postural problems, consider your feet first. You may want to ditch the tight shoes or high heels for a while. Train your body to have an arch on the inside of the foot; it will be worth the effort in how tall you walk, and with how much energy. And who knows, your newly spread toes may even attract your future lover!

A yoga perspective on one wonderful little neck bone

(Bangkok Post article)

I had been teaching yoga for years before I found out about it. None of my earlier teachers had even said the word. After I discovered my own hyoid bone, it was like a light turned on inside me. It’s a gem of an anatomical discovery, one small revelation that proceeded to change the way I did any posture, yoga or otherwise.

The hyoid is a U-shaped bone in your neck, which holds the distinction of floating – that is, it is the only bone in your body which does not directly articulate with other bones. Instead, it is held in place by ten muscles one of which is the tongue. By connecting to the tongue, it helps you to swallow, and gives you the ability to produce complex tones. This gives rise to another, odd hyoid fact; this bone is only present in modern humans. The Neanderthals apparently had one, but it was less developed. Perhaps they did more grunting than speaking, but who knows, it’s hard to remember.

Reader, meet your hyoid bone.
Wrap your fingers around your throat right under your chin and take a swallow. The hyoid is the one that does a little jump. Didn’t even know it was there, did you? What you are about to read will make you happy that the two of you just met, especially if you like to stretch.

Knowing how to use your hyoid will easily give you superior backbends, added energy, and improved posture.

The first step is to pull the hyoid back and upwards for good postural alignment. I like visualizing a giant puppeteer standing above and behind me, holding strings which attach to either side of the U-shape bone. When the master pulls back and up on your reigns, observe how your neck lifts, and the chest expands slightly. For me, it also gives a liberating sense of openness in the back of my mouth.

In yoga, the use of the hyoid is even more important, without which, sloppy teaching and practicing often leads to lower back and neck injury. Most average people coming to yoga as a beginner have poor body IQ. Some may have trouble articulating the difference between the lower, middle, and upper spine. So a simple instruction to “move the lower back first then the head” may be difficult for some bodies to understand. What happens is people move the torso as if it was a single block, but really you need to treat each part of your spine differently. A common instruction to bend backwards gets translated to ‘look backwards’, i.e.; crank the neck back and push the belly forward. Because the lower back is relatively flexible, and most abdomens in need of toning, people tend to collapse into their lower backs and then under stretch the upper spine. If you ever hurt your lower back or neck in yoga, it may have been due to not using the hyoid properly. Learning this simple function of hyoid awareness will grant you pain-free backbends which stretch further.

Feel for yourself:

Slouch your body a bit, going soft in the belly and round your shoulders a touch. Lift your chin up as high as possible towards the sky, then, attempt to lift your chest and pull the navel inwards. What you’ll notice is that the belly sags and it is impossible to lift the chest completely.

(Lame cobra)

Notice the general way the energy collapses forwards towards the belly. The same girl, with an equal level of experience could do a much better backbend, if she knows how to use the hyoid. 

The reason why sticking the chin up in a slouch makes it impossible to extend the chest is that connecting the bottom of your hyoid to the sternum is the sterno-hyoid muscle. When contracted, it depresses the hyoid downward. If you raise the chin high before lifting the chest, the hyoid is already moving maximally downward and the sterno-hyoid muscle has no leverage to lift the sternum. The solution is to first lift the sternum while moving the hyoid up and backwards, like the puppeteer standing behind you. You may decide to look downwards towards the floor instead of looking up, and still you will get a deeper backbend.

Try it this way:

Lift your sternum (chest) upwards; expanding the space between each rib so the chest not only lifts, it pulls back inwards a touch. Once the extension is as high as possible, THEN lift your head back. Notice how free your neck feels and how engaged your abdomen feels.

Additionally, pull your hyoid back and up, which creates length in the neck and freedom in the back of the mouth. Be careful to distinguish between the hyoid and the jaw, the jaw stays relatively in the same position and relaxed.

I’m fond of instructing my students to move the head last, always. So as you roll into backward bends like cobra or upward dog, or even standing and dropping into a backbend, look downwards with your hyoid back until you know you have lifted the chest as much as possible first.

-Adrian Cox

How to find your personal balance using the hidden energetics of yoga

(Bangkok Post article March 27 2008)

Behind the scenes in a really good yoga teachers mind is rationale about how to sequence postures and breathing together. How hard to push, how long to hold, even which nostril you breathe out of, all play their role in how you feel leaving the studio.

The effect of yoga practice can be cooling or heating, an effect of the teachers’ sequence, and most importantly, your attitude while you practice.

Cooling postures are done slowly, encouraging a sense of release. This in-turn nurtures the body and nervous system. This is useful if you are overworked and stressed out. Heating on the other hand is reducing, and detoxifying, which can be good if you are not already depleted. The test is to feel into your own nature. There will be times when it is in harmony with your natural rhythm to nurture yourself and go slowly, and then times to push a bit, to break up your stagnation. Heating and cooling extend off the yoga mat and into the way you live your life as well. Simply by becoming aware of these two principles of what heats and what cools, are the keys to finding your balance.

Which one are you?

Career driven, intense and focused people have heat and the principle of fire in abundance. The slackers in life are ‘cool’. Being too hot and focused, or cool and defocused comes with its unique advantages or problems in life. Intense focus brings high levels of achievement, but it also may bring hypertension and heart problems. Being a slacker probably doesn’t do wonders for your bank account, and may lead to a slothful, overweight body. The fiery types often reach personal crisis, realizing that they MUST slow down and the chill ones may struggle to muster up necessary courage and determination.

It’s fascinating to see how a lot of the world’s characters are divided along these lines. How you practice yoga is reflected in this as well; in terms of your consistency, focus, effort, and detachment. When I have the good fortune of working privately with individuals, I always assess my students along these lines before teaching. One of the first things I do is simply look in your eyes. Do they move around a lot? If so, holding you in a posture longer might be a good idea. Do the eyes look intense and focused? Then we’ll focus on relaxation and an attitude of detachment.

One of my students looks at me with focused, intense eyes, telling me she has specially booked time out of her day to relax NOW. She opens her office at 7AM daily and gets more work done than the all the staff combined. She and I do a lot of cooling down. Another student of mine with eyes like a monkey can’t seem to focus for more than a few seconds. I make him work hard, holding postures longer or even shouting at him to bring his attention back to one point. She gets a lot of stuff done in life, and feels stressed out. He’s an underachiever but mostly relaxed. Two different people, with different life track records, and both of them require different approaches.

Effort and surrender in yoga

Aside from sequencing and obvious dialogue or attitudes, there are two yoga techniques used to create and release heat. For heat, you keep the eyes focused on a single point (drishti). For cooling, you can yogic-ly smile in a special way (shambhavi).

Drishti is done in postures so in a forward bend, you steadily look at the tip of the nose, or when you are in a backward bend you gaze towards the third eye. In the system of yoga I teach there are nine such advised places to look, each posture having its own focal point. With good focus powers comes something palpable in your energy, and you begin to glow in this indescribable way.

Special ‘yogic’ smiling is the antidote to the heat of focusing, which is done simultaneously with the eye focus. Your lips come into a faint smile while releasing the back of the mouth and the roof of your mouth lifts up and feels hollow. It’s just like tasting delicious food and saying, “hmmmm”! Your whole physiology smiles as your mind temporarily goes into a blissful trance. It’s the release on the pressure cooker so your pot doesn’t explode. When practicing yoga, the idea is to use both eye focus and smiling simultaneously. It steadies the mind, prevents injury, and produces a blissful condition of mind.

I am a kind of intense person, and for me to find balance, I practice this yogic smiling throughout the day. It gives me an instant release as my mind pulls inwards for a refreshing shower of awareness. On the yoga mat or off of it, you can use these two techniques at anytime or in any location. Simply observe your own nature and either heat up (focus) or cool down (detach) until you find your perfect balance.

 I got a few requests re: my last post about aliens and the year 2012 and our imminent destruction.

The following is a piece out of a blog post I made on myspace a while back… it is %100 true, and has little or nothing to do with yoga, the normal theme of the blog. Hope you don’t mind as I veer off…

Just a side note, three separate trips were made after this eventful night, and they were all disappointing.  I don’t know what happened. The economy in the area picked up, and the destroyed a lot of the trees and made way for planting of red cabbage everywhere. If you know of another UFO spot, please share with me… I’m ready to be beamed up… not heaven’s gate style though

Meeting extraterrestrials on ET mountain, Thailand

We drive into this remote Karen village of about 40 people, which is situated in the mountain range about five hours outside of Chiang Mai. The area is called the ‘a-manut’, which means, the “non-human region” - an eerie indicator of what we are here to experience! At the top of the mountain is an abandoned stupa and and monks quarters - the original monks apparently left due to this odd phenomenon in this area.

First order of business is to prepare a whole array of offerings for the spirits in the area, among which includes fruit, sweets, and cows blood . As we were told, if we don’t make the proper offerings, the strong spirits in that area might pick a bone with us at night. In particular to watch out for are a race of half-invisible things that live by eating smell!

Since it’s almost dark by the time we arrive, we set up sleeping bags and boiling water for our thermoses… while the villagers tell us stories of the “jan fai” (plates of light) that comes over their heads almost every night.

We set up our chairs on the edge of the mountain like we’re preparing for a movie. We can see a valley down in front of us, which extends as far as the eye can see with nothing… no buildings, one small dirt road, and no other villages. Shortly after the moon starts to rise, a couple red lights appear in the valley but we’re not sure what it could be. They appear then disappear, nothing too dramatic. Could it be a single motorcycle on that one road? But no, there is no road where the lights are appearing. The light show continues like this on both sides of the valley for the next several hours, appearing and disappearing, and changing colors from red to white to orange. Were they cars? No… the lights would move across huge distances very fast and then hover… and in areas where it would only be a mountain. Mind you… it’s completely pitch black.

Next day I check and indeed there are no roads in the area that we saw the lights. This is interesting but not necessarily worth camping out for. Night two rolls around though and is MUCH more interesting.

This time, lights appear clearly on both sides of the valley and we use our huge portable lamps to signal to ‘them’. We tried to use these lamps like morse code flashing them on and off, hoping that we can form some kind of communication. The lights flash brighter, red, then orange in color, then disappear. We wait some time and they reappear, but coming up our side of the valley towards our small camping area. In addition to the numerous lights starting to manifest in the valley, they started to come closer. There was this distinct feeling like the lights are like little eyeballs, peering at us… there was some consciousness there is all I can say.

At one point, we noticed a red light moving towards us, not from the valley but in the trees just about 20 feet away. It couldn’t have been a human, it was in the tree level. It couldn’t have been a plane, there was no sound! It was creepy,  and it was quite close to us.

I’m a fairly sceptical person and did my best to dismiss the phenomenon as a house, a motorcycle, a person with a flashlight… but couldn’t. They moved too fast, changed colors and appeared in places that wouldn’t be possible for something terrestrial as far as I know of.

So we’re sitting there and want more of the lightshow so the monk we are with advises us to psychically call them to us. I beamed a mental request, a telepathic communique to say hello. Frankly, I just thought that would beckon them to come closer in the light vehicles. However a moment later, I feel this intense energy go through my body. It’s like my whole body got placed in a microwave oven. I’ve never felt anything like that before. My hair stands up on end, my face starts to feel a weird pressure and inside my body is this strong heat. I maintain this for a minute not sure if I’m imagining, and ask everyone sitting next to me, “are you feeling this?” There was a resounding “YES!”, the kind of voice timber that says they are scared out of their pants. “They” were moving through our bodies, scanning us and seeing who and what we are. It’s not a good or bad feeling, just intense. My friend sounds like she’s hyperventilating, gasping “oh my god, om namah shivaya, oh jesus…”

Their presence strengthens and diminishes in relation to how much I keep the mental channel open. Eventually it fades and we all go to sleep. Later, around 1AM I wake up, walk outside to go pee and survey once again. The little red and orange lights are still there, but just over the roof of the building is an eerie orange light. So I hoist myself up on top of the parked car so I can get a better view. Whoa! What I see is the far ridge is completely lit up by five huge orange spherical lights that are stacked on top of each other in a worm-like or caterpillar formation inching up from the other side of the mountain. Remember, there is NOTHING in this area, no electricity, one road, a few candle lit villages. What we are looking at looks like the amount of light you would use for an airport, or a sports stadium. These lights are HUGE. They are morphing and pulsing in a way that almost looks organic, like it is alive or conscious. Looking through infared binoculars we cannot distinguish borders of the object, no frame around it or supporting structure… just orange spheres of very bright light.  I scream to wake up my friends. This one, they cannot miss!

If we had to guess it would be the mother ship?  The monk starts chanting, ostensibly to invite them closer. It seems to become conscious of us and starts moving back down the other side of the mountain, like it was shy, taking about twenty minutes to become a faint orange glow on the other side of the ridge.

There were more pulsing lights all over the area, but eventually, we get tired again and go back to sleep. Through the night though, we keep hearing sounds, seeing lights both inside the building we are staying and outside. The pulses of magnetic energy continued as well completely filling my body from head to toe, making my hair stand on end.

 I do feel different, if nothing else because my mind was blown wide open. It’s so strange that something like this exists, I mean, I heard of it all before, but now I know it’s not fiction. For about a week afterwards I was very psychic, that is, until I drank a beer. Something about that energy blast raised my own vibration for awhile.

So there u have it… but it seems to be gone now, that place is no longer what it was from what I know…

Anyways, that event really did open my eyes, we are not alone.  The idea going around in that area is that the borders between this realm (3rd dimension) and the next dimensions were a touch more porous than usual. It seems like the world is losing these mysterious places though.  Mucho magnetic super power psychic love beams, Adrian Cox

Why Buddhists, Mayans, Astronomers, and Yogis agree, NOW is the time for live from the heart

Somewhere in this universe there is a place where New Age meshes with Aliens and UFOS, yoga, crystals, feng shui, tarot cards and witchcraft. Perhaps it’s just the bookstore? For me, I tend to bristle when people carelessly mesh “spiritual” subjects together in a superficial way. I’m a bit more orthodox. Fundamentalist yogi? Something like that anyways.

About a year ago, it was with a skeptics mind that I agreed to go on a strange camping trip to a distant mountain outside of Chiang Mai. This remote location known only among a small group of friends and the local Karen hilltribe has regular UFO phenomenon. I’ll never forget what the hilltribe there called their area; “a-manut”. This means, the “non-human area”. They also had a number of stories about big plates of light floating over their heads at different times. To them, the lights were just angels. It was true, in what was the weirdest night of my life, I too saw and had contact with alien entities.

The daytime conversation that flowed around our small group of humans who I was camping with centered a lot on the coming collapse of the third dimension in the year 2012. There have been a number of predictions from all over the world and from different times that earth is about to go through a major shift. Soon. Specifically floods, fires and famine will spread across the earth and the earth will become like a hell.

The predictions coincide time wise with the end of the Mayan calendar set at December 20, 2012. According to many, this date spells the demise of the third dimension and the opening of fourth dimensional consciousness. If you are spiritually ready for your consciousness to transcend upwards, as I was told, amidst the fires, screaming, and mayhem you would be able to perceive the gateway between this dimension and the next alternate level and take a nice step into an alternate reality. In dimension 3.5, which overlaps this one, we apparently live longer, communicate telepathically and live at a higher vibration… whatever that means.

Who gets to go to 3.5 and who gets to suffer? Apparently its based on your own spiritual development. If you live ethically and act from a place of love then your personal vibration makes a match with the higher frequency and you can become a part of it.

Is it true? Is it hype? At age 35 I have already lived through a few things people said would be the “end of the world” or a major cosmic shift on XDATE.

Remember the 1997 Hale-Bopp “heaven’s gate” cult? From Wikipedia:

“In preparing to kill themselves, members of the group drank citrus juices to ritually cleanse their bodies of impurities. The suicide was accomplished by ingestion of phenobarbital mixed with vodka, along with plastic bags secured around their heads to induce asphyxiation. They were found lying neatly in their own bunk beds, with their faces and torsos covered by a square, purple cloth. Each member carried five dollars in quarters in their pockets. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike tennis shoes, and armband patches reading “Heaven’s Gate Away Team.” The suicides were conducted in shifts, and the remaining members of the group cleaned up after each prior group’s death”

All because they were getting ready for the end of the world! I confess, I love it. Talk about dedication! So really anything can happen, maybe nothing will. Still however, doing more living from the heart and serving humanity is a good idea. More yoga!

Check this guy out, this is one of four videos on youtube: David Wilcock

His website suggests that global warming is not due to our abuse of the environment, that it is rather due to a general coninciding of events in preparation for this global shift. Read this:

From his website at www.divinecosmos.com:

“SUN: The Sun’s magnetic field is over 230 percent stronger now than it was at the beginning of the 1900s, and its overall energetic activity has sizably increased, creating a frenzy of activity that continues to embarrass NASA’s official predictions.

VENUS: Venus is now glowing in the dark, as is Jupiter’s moon Io.

EARTH: In the last 30 years, Earth’s icecaps have thinned out by as much as 40 percent. Quite inexplicably, just since 1997 the structure of the Earth has shifted from being slightly more egg-shaped, or elongated at the poles, to more pumpkin-shaped, or flattened at the poles. No one at NASA has even bothered to try to explain this yet. Link to full article at NASA.

MARS: The icecaps of Mars noticeably melted just within one year, causing 50-percent changes in surface features. Atmospheric density had risen by 200 percent above previous observations as of 1997.

JUPITER: Jupiter has become so highly energized that it is now surrounded by a visibly glowing donut tube of energy in the path of the moon Io. The size of Jupiter’s magnetic field has more than doubled since 1992.

SATURN: Saturn’s polar regions have been noticeably brightening, and its magnetic field strength increasing.

URANUS: According to NASA’s Voyager II space probe, Uranus and Neptune both appear to have had recent magnetic pole shifts – 60 degrees for Uranus and 50 for Neptune.

NEPTUNE: Neptune has become 40 percent brighter in infrared since 1996, and is fully 100-percent brighter in certain areas. Also, Neptune’s moon Triton has had a “very large percentage increase” in atmospheric pressure and temperature, comparable to a 22-degree Fahrenheit increase on Earth.

PLUTO: As of September 2002, Pluto has experienced a 300-percent increase in its atmospheric pressure in the last 14 years, while also becoming noticeably darker in color. “

There are Vedic predictions as well, but I’ll save that for another post. In the meantime, it’s time for more realness, more karma yoga!
Love, Adrian Cox