Meaning of OM

We hindus believe in ‘’Gods’’ – yes not one God. Some believe in Shiva , some in Vishnu, some in Maa Durga and so on. For each God there is aarti and chalisa. Have you ever noticed that majority of these prayers begin with Om. But what is OM? Have you ever thought about it? Why it is used so often? Today in this post I put some light on the significance of OM.

Om sustains entire universe; not only physical universe but also the experience of it. The experiencer, the experience and the experienced, all three of them are OM. The physical body, the physical world and the thought world is OM. Thus, the sleeper and the sleep experience, the dreamer and the dream experience and the waker and the waking experience all these constitute what we call everything that is here. All these together represent ‘Om’.

It is written as OM, but if we chant it slowly syllable by syllable we can observe there are three sounds – a, u, m. If we close our eyes and sit in meditation position and chant only ‘a’, what we observe is that there is vibration in the genitals. After this if we chant only ‘u’, then there is vibration in our chest. Finally if we chant only ‘m’, then we can feel vibration in our head. So if we chant all the three syllables in continuation i.e. we chant OM, then vibrations travel from our genitals to our head.  So what we are doing is channelizing all our energy. We are extracting the energy which is not being utilized or used in some other activity. Basically we are trying to concentrate and giving our brain all the power we have. 

bhūtaü bhavad-bhaviùyad-iti sarvam Omkāra eva

What had happened before, what is now and what will be later

– Everything is just Om. (Māõóukyopaniùad)

Credits- Vinayak Kaushik, Art of Living 

Sun Gazing

We all know about the Sun, it is the center of our solar system and all planets revolve around it. In Hindu mythology Sun is one of the three chief gods of Vedas and in Greek mythology the Sun is personified as a Titan named Helios, who wore a shining crown and rode a chariot across the sky. Not only this, the solar energy is responsible for the starting of food cycle of which we all are part of. Interestingly, with the help of the sun it is possible to solve our emotional, physical and spiritual problems.

We get energy from the sun by either eating plants or vegetables or from chicken and meat. Through both these forms we are indirectly absorbing sun’s energy. But there is also another possibility that we bypass these plants and animals and directly absorb energy from sun. This is known as HRM –phenomenon. Hira Rattan Manek hasn’t used any solid food since 1995. This fact has been examined and confirmed by an international team of doctors and scientists and the NASA. This said, purpose of this method is not to stop eating but to live a mentally, physically and spiritual healthy life.

Sungazing is simply looking at sun and deriving all the energy required for survival. This method has been practiced for centuries and it was rediscovered by HRM recently.

THE METHOD

1.        Walk barefoot on bare earth for 45 minutes, every day, for the rest of your life. This connection with nature is necessary to enjoy the full benefits of sungazing. Do it whenever you can.

2.        Find out the times of sunrise and sunset. They change every day a few minutes.

3.        Calculate the safe hours for sungazing:  from sunrise until one hour later is safe and also the last hour before sunset. Beginners should never watch outside of these times. Others can consider the fact that sungazing is safe whenever the UV-index is below 2.

4.       If possible, stand on the naked earth with bare feet. This protects the eyes. Warm earth is better than cold. If you cannot find any naked earth, then try mud, stone or concrete. The further in the list, the less protection the surface offers. Avoid standing on grass or in water. If you cannot stand, then sit. Standing straight with a straight back is the best. Sand is better than heavy earth. Dry, sandy beaches are perfect.

5.        It is important to look relaxed at the sun. Blink your eyes as you normally do. Don’t pay much attention to this. Watch the sun as you would watch TV. Don’t use any glasses. Lenses are fine because they are part of the eye.

6.        Start with 10 seconds at the most. Heighten this amount every day with maximum 10 seconds. On a partly clouded day, you can repeat the time of the last sunny day. For example: yesterday was a Sunny day and you’ve watched for 2 minutes. Today there are some clouds, so you go for 2 minutes again. Tomorrow is sunny so you add 10 seconds and watch 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

7.        If you have practiced this method for 3 months without interruption (or 90 days), then you are sungazing 15 minutes. This solves all mental problems. If you continue to 30 minutes (180 days), then your physical complaints will disappear. And if you continue to 45 minutes (270 days), you will solve all spiritual questions and then you will become completely healthy. After this, you need to stabilize the results by walking barefoot or further sungazing.

TIPS:-

û     When following the HRM-method you can have excellent results in improving your health and feeling of well-being. But whenever you try to make shortcuts by going too fast, not walking barefoot, not standing on bare earth or other tricks, then most certainly the benefits will be less. HRM says: ”The benefits are delayed, but not denied’.

û      Splitting of or catching up on the time: it is OK to, for example, look the half of the time in the morning and the other half in the evening. If you want to look that day ten seconds more than the day before, then you might add five seconds in the morning and five in the evening. It is also possible to watch two times on a day when you haven’t been able to sungaze the day before. In that case, you watch the sun in the morning for as much time as you would have done yesterday and in the evening you add maximum ten seconds. Whenever you cannot watch the sun on a particular day, nothing really bad happens, but the benefits will be delayed. It is not necessary to add 10 seconds every day, you can decide to go slower and add less seconds (5 or so). It is better not to go faster and add more than 10 seconds to give your brain and eyes the time to adapt. Pregnant women and children should not look into the sun longer than five minutes.

û     Palming you can do whenever or where you like. Rub the palms of your hands upon each other for a few seconds to make them warm and then bring the warmth to your eyes.

û     Sunglasses cannot be used for sungazing. They block away the life-necessary UV-light.

û     Drinking water before or after sungazing helps in detoxifying.

û     When it is too cold to get outside, then watch the sun from inside through the window (open or closed). You can be barefooted if you want, but keep yourself warm. Sungazing from inside is not as effective as from outside, but it gives benefits.

û     It is also possible to watch the sun in the reflection in clear water or glass. This does not damage the eye. People living between high mountains or houses might find this handy. The midday sun is the most suitable to watch the reflection in water. You can put a bucket of water outside in such way that you see the sun in it. Don’t use the reflections in snow, dirty water or seawater. These are not healthy. Most clear glass windows are fine.

û     In winter it is sometimes safe to sungaze during the whole day. There is no danger when the UV-index is below 2, but you should always check if the light is not too strong for you.

û      There are methods to make sungazing easier if the sun is too bright for you. You can use pinhole spectacles or look through a white piece of textile, the clouds, the leaves or branches of trees, and so on. You can also look with half-open eyes. But don’t do any of these things when the UV-index is more than two. Even clouds do not filter the UV-rays enough to be safe. Looking with closed eyes is always safe. All these methods slow down the benefits, but sometimes it is better to go slow than to take a risk and hurt yourself.

û     The inner images that you see after sungazing are perfectly normal. It is the best to close the eyes and observe them until they are gone. Mostly, they are gone within a few minutes. Sometimes they stay longer, even for one or two days.

û      If you experience things like a glowing face, tears, prickling eyes, sneezing, the eyes closing automatically, tension round the eyes, or other things, this is not a serious problem, but you should be careful. Check the UV-index and your experiences. Ask HRM for advice whenever necessary.

û     When you have reached 44 minutes, then stop sungazing. You have reached the second phase of the technique. Now, for one year you have to walk barefoot on bare earth for 45 minutes every day. This is to stabilize the energy. You change your body into a ‘solar chip’. Your feet might hurt a little in the beginning, but they will get used to it. As HRM says:  ‘When the mind accepts, the body adapts’. And if the body adapts, then the mind accepts. An alternative technique is to start counting down: every day you watch the sun one minute less: 43,42, 41, … minutes. Proceed until 15 minutes. This method is for people who cannot walk barefoot on bare earth every day. Ask HRM’s advice.

û     When you stop sungazing, the body gets uncharged within six days. Barefoot walking stops this. The best time to walk is when the earth is warm en there is sunlight on the body.

û      After the first phase of the technique it is advisable to contact HRM and ask if there are some other things you might do. Sometimes additional methods or information is needed to preserve the results.

û      People having fear of practicing these methods, better not do it (immediately). It is possible to have an opposite effect. The first step towards sungazing is opening oneself for the sun’s radiation. If you cannot do this spontaneously, it is possible to get used to the sunlight by sungazing in the safe hours with eyes closed. Do this for ten minutes every day or as long as you like it. Once you are accustomed to the sunlight and your fear has gone away, you can start with ten seconds with open eyes.

û     It is possible to stop sungazing before you reach 44 minutes and still have benefits that last. But therefore you definitely have to stabilize the energy by watching the sun for one year longer (every day the same length of time as to where you’ve come) or walk barefooted on bare earth for 45 minutes every day. Without such grounding, the benefits will slowly go away. When the grounding is strong enough, the benefits can be kept up by coming in the sunlight for a few minutes every day, but the need for a systematic approach then is gone. The HRM-method, when practiced properly, only needs to be done once in a lifetime!

SPECIFIC PROBLEMS AND TECHNIQUES:-

Weight problems

Obesity can be cured with this technique. People who don’t have enough weight or hunger, have to carefully investigate whether their feeling of hunger disappears because the food has become unnecessary for them or because they refuse themselves the food mentally. If the body needs the food, than one needs to eat. The purpose of the HRM-method is not to stop eating, but to obtain optimum health. Everyone who practices the technique correctly till the end, will not need any food anymore, but it is not sure that everybody can attain to this. It is only realistic to think that one doesn't need any food anymore when the body is entirely nourished by the cosmic energy from the sun. This comes by itself, as a side-effect of health. In ancient times, many people didn't need any food or just a little bit of it. 

Eye Diseases

People with serious eye problems (muscular degeneration, retinopathy, cataract, or other) usually cannot directly start with the HRM method. They have to do preparative exercises. HRM advises to go sit or stand in the sun for ten minutes with closed eyes, every day within the safe hours, for two months. The sun warms the eyes and the disorder will improve. Drinking sun charged water, putting it on the eyes and palming also helps. When the problem has been cured enough, it is possible to start with the regular method. It is wise to consult a doctor regularly to measure the effect on the eyes.

Every man or woman is unique. So the HRM-method also is unique for everyone. Some people might even add more seconds every day, or some should add less. Every method, which is accepted by the body, is OK. Progress shows the way. When there is no sign of progress or there is doubt, then one should not experiment further. To be careful and very attentive are the best advices. It is possible to have a temporary fall-back. Positive thinking also has its effect and can accelerate the benefits. Generally, the standard HRM-method is the best for all and offers the time for the body to adapt to a new way of life.

Credits : Dhanesh Malhotra , Vinayak Kaushik

Correct way of breathing while exercising

We all know that we can live without food and water for several days but we cannot live without breathing for even 1 minute. Thus, oxygen is most important for survival. Role of breathing becomes even more important when we are exercising or doing some arduous physical work. This is not a new concept; the importance of breathing was well established by Patanjali in 400 BC by introducing yoga. In yoga, the major focus is on breathing pattern i.e. how we inhale and exhale air, how many times we have to inhale and exhale and how quickly or slowly we have to inhale and exhale.

When we exercise our muscles demand a greater than usual amount of oxygen to work efficiently. So we breathe faster than usual and this hyperventilating reduces the effectiveness of our routine by making us tired quickly and we are unable to get the desire result. In weightlifting, holding the breath is known as the Valsalva Maneuver. It limits oxygen delivery to the muscles and brain leading to fainting, dizziness, painful exercise-induced headaches, and sometimes a stroke.

So what is the correct way of breathing? Ideally we should do “belly” or diaphragmatic breathing. To do it, we should simply breathe in deeply enough so that our belly (not your chest) rises, then falls as we exhale. Belly breathing keeps your blood pressure low and allows for better oxygen delivery to your muscles. We should exhale while we are doing the movement which requires maximum effort, and inhale as we come back to the original position. For example, when we do crunches while we are crunching forward we should exhale because this will require effort and while we are going down we should inhale because going down is easy and gravity helps us in going down.  Similarly, we should exhale as we lower to the ground during a squat and inhale when we return to the starting position.                                             

While this said, it is not possible that every time we do a movement we can employ a diaphragmatic breathing. This is because, in diaphragmatic breathing we have to take deep breathes and this deep breathing takes more than usual time than normal breathing. This can be frustrating. Thus, the judgement of how deep one should breathe during a single movement should be left to individual himself but the movements should be slow and steady for proper execution and for proper breathing to achieve the progress we want. 

To understand the importance of breathing you can also watch never back down, and please don’t end up watching this movie by seeing only amber heard. Man she is hot.