Autobiography:
Yoga

Yoga has played a huge role in my life on earth so far.

When I think of what most people outside of perhaps India think about when they relate to the concept of yoga my experience with that is they think about going to a yoga class. About bending and stretching. Physical exercise.

Which is yoga asana. Which is one of the stages of yoga practice. Yoga meaning the final complete achievement the one success that brings all other success. Nirvana. The end of the journey.

Yoga means you got it all!

Yoga practice is a science and art that as I understand it emerged in the last 6000 years from people sitting. Just sitting.

Now it is passed down that there are stages of yoga which start with something like the ten commandments or guidelines for living and with the physical exercises which are the yoga postures and the practice of getting into and out of them. And then there is the breathing.

After that it is all about mental concentration. Yes. Mental concentration.

For me I was initiated into formal yoga practice in the living room of someones apartment. This led to meeting the yoga guru Amrit Desai and lots of involvement with that group for a while.

I remember however that first living room floor experience the woman leading the small class in her home bringing out B.K. S. Iyengar's book with all the pictures of him doing so many different poses. Light on Yoga.

I looked at a lot of yoga books. I loved the one that Bikram Choudhury made and I learned to do his series and I did it for 6 weeks solid as he prescribed he said that would change your life.

I had experiences with Paramahansa Yogananda spiritually that led me and guided me in my life. The more I account for all the various yoga influences the more it mesmerizes me. So mysterious it seems to me my link to all these yoga men and their lives and their miracles of healing and living.

I practiced yoga asana most of my life since I learned it when I was about 20 years old.

It saved my life on many occasions. Literally. And countless other times I used yoga asana to heal my body. So amazing.

I feel mystified by my experience with all the yoga practitioners that would be called masters most of which are on the other side. It feels so real, so strong, and yet so distant.

I got to the place where I would go into a form of bliss and excstasy each time I would complete my asana practice. That was outdoors. Then I moved it indoors and it was harder to achieve the bliss and now I am achieving that.

I spent about 5 years just sitting more than ever to get to that. Sitting for hours and day for five years. Why do I do this?

I am fascinated by yoga. The Life Transformation System A-Z, and especially ClearTalk is a yoga practice I designed to share with people. Can you believe that?

I used to teach physical asana classes because I am certified Kripalu yoga teacher but it all seemed meaningless to do that when I could give so much more sharing the mind practice of ClearTalk and its whole life benefits.

ClearTalk will lead a person to whatever physical practice they need for their body anyways.

I tried dance, weights, sports, martial arts, so many things for my body. It always comes back to yoga asana for me. I wrote my honors thesis in University on the topic of Alternate Nostril Breathing. They barely allowed me that topic but they did.

It was so important to me that technique. I once tried to do 80 rounds 4 times a day for several months which is supposed to according to some very old texts which I cannot remember to completely clear all the Nadis. I thought WOW if I could do that it would be amazing.

I worked at it for months and i was surprised how far I got. Even maybe for one or two days I actually did it! I wonder what that text is and how many months it was supposed to be to get the full effect.

I remember him saying if overweight it was best to clear that up first so I think I stopped my attempt at all that Alternate Nostril Breathing until I cleared up all the extra emotional issues that represent the extra fat layers.

During that time in one of my breathing sessions I had an inspiration that I would IMAGINE just imagine not physically to do the yoga postures I most fantasized that I would like to accomplish. That was the idea that flashed into me when I was sitting there with my back against the wall in my apartment doing that breathing one day.

So I tried it. When I was breathing I would imagine myself doing what amounts to a form of back walk over in gymnastics but a yoga version of it. Starting from standing then all the way back to hands on the ground and then a handstand from what amounts to a wheel pose. You know back over, wheel pose, and then up into the handstand and then from there back to standing.

I started to imagine I was doing that. I felt if I could do that I would be in perfect health. Just do one or two of those a day and I would remain in health all my life.

Then I added that would do the full splits pose whatever that is called in Sanskrit.

Just imagining all that without attempting to do it I started to feel compelled forcefully to do it. But how? I started to do handstands on the wall. I started to work the full splits which as it turns out is helpful for the walk over. I started to walk down the wall you know in a back bend walk with my hands down the wall to the floor into a wheel pose like that.

As I got into the physical practice of it I let go of the breathing and the imagining and then eventually the physical practice transformed into a more basic set of maintenance postures and I went into a 7 year experiment with sun gazing. The first 5 years was very preparatory and then I launched into it full force.

Now almost complete with the sun gazing practice it is coming back around to the alternate nostril breathing and the back walk over thing. Getting back to attempting that.

So much time, so many years. Just do to those things. And all the while sitting, sitting, and so much happening in the sitting to radically change my life.

Integrating all that with daily life. Not feeling like I am following any master or teacher or religion or path but my own and yet loving and being loved by so many of them.

Integrating this with my experiences of Higher Self, and the most wonderful of all yoga which to me is the natural flowing being together in sexual lovemaking with a lover.

Which is however very much not only about the body but about the force of nature that is tapped into through making love sexual. Not tantra. I said no religion or formal practice. Just finding our way together in the flow. In the love with our bodies.

It leads to amazing experiences and the desire to attract and be with partner(s) who merge our lives together mentally, physically, find our yoga bliss together in every way.

Such is my yoga experience so far, some of it.

With Love and Peace and Fun and Joy and Playful Contentment.

JoreJj Z.