Guru Purnima - Aad Guray Nameh, Jugad Guray Nameh, Sat Guray Nameh, Siri Guru Dayvay Nameh

In the age of digitalisation, the word Guru is used frivolously and looses its meaning. It is used to address teachers, guides, coaches, subject matter experts, people with mastery over certain skill-set - anyone with a following is called a Guru in this day and age (Wikipedia and Google will attest to this); either we christian them with the title or they themselves declare that they are a Guru.
However, the ancient Vedic scriptures in India used the word Guru with a very specific connotation. Guru was someone who advanced the ‘shishya’ (disciple) spiritually!

Gu=darkness, Ru=dispeller of; Guru is that particular figure in one’s life that dispels the darkness, in other words, the entanglement of mind and unites the individual with the universal consciousness. It is very serious job with a very heavy ‘karmic’ implication.

We are all conditioned to shop around these days; we shop for yoga and spiritual Gurus like we shop for clothes and groceries. I do feel some people in our life bring us lessons, sometimes painful lessons that catapult us spiritually and in that instance, they become the Guru. When the Guru within awakens, one finds the Guru outside of themselves. However, in this shopaholic world, people project the Guru within onto yoga teachers, art teachers, life-coaches, priests, pastors and others. The ancient Indians were wise enough to realise this tendency of the human mind. Hence, Shiva! The ancient Indians projected the Guru within onto larger than life (or beyond life and death) beings like Shiva, Ganesha, Krishna amongst others.

On this day, Guru Purnima, Adi (=first) Yogi Shiva became the Adi Guru to Sapta(=7) Rishis after testing their patience for 74 years. Only after all 7 of the sages (not just 1 or 2 of them) were in a state of a consciousness to receive his teachings did he take them on as disciples. The sapta rishis did not give up in those 74 years and shop around for other Gurus and Shiva took them on as disciples only after years of waiting to see if all of them were ready. That’s the serious implication of being a Guru and a Disciple! It is a very serious spiritual job.

Not all of us will stumble upon a Guru in this lifetime. But for those who do - it is the highest blessing. Being in a Guru-shishiya relationship doesn’t mean that life will suddenly be all easy and glorious. In fact it is just the opposite.

My wish is that every soul that traverses this planet experience the light of the Guru.

Happy Guru Purnima!

#gurupurnima #shiva #adiyogi #adiguru #saptarishi#guru #disciple #spiritual #krishna

Chakras for Dummies

Chakras are major energy points in the human body and it is well known that we have 7 chakras (Figure 1): Root Chakra (1^st Chakra, Muladhara), Sacral Chakra (2^nd Chakra, Svadhisthana), Solar Plexus (3^rd Chakra, Manipura), Heart Chakra (4^th Chakra, Anahata), Throat Chakra (5^th Chakra, Vishuddha), Third Eye (6^th Chakra, Ajna) and Crown Chakra (7^th Chakra, Sahasrasa).

Figure 1: Seven Chakras: Locations and colors associated with them.

Chakras are often talked about in a metaphysical connotation or as extra-dimensional energy body. Most people have some kind of vague idea about chakras because of contemporary yoga movement and do not really understand what they are. But the 'metaphysical' chakras can very much be traced back to a physiologic phenomenon that can be explained in linear, logical and modern physics & biology terms.  

To understand chakras one needs to first understand how neurons and nerve cells function. Neurons are cells in the body that constantly carry information from one part of the body to the other. The information in the neurons is carried in the form an electric signal called ‘synapse’. So in lay man’s terms neurons communicate with each other and the rest of the body using electricity; electricity is merely electrons flowing from one point to another through a conducting tube. In this case, neurons act as the conducting tube that facilitates the flow of electricity.

From our grade school lessons in physics, we know that when electricity flows through a conducting tube, it creates a magnetic field around the conducting tube called ‘electromagnetic field’ (Figure 2). Extrapolating the same concept, when electrons flow through a neuron it creates an electromagnetic field around the neurons.

Figure 2: Electromagnetic field generated when electric current or electrons flow through a conducting material.

Nadis are neuronal network junctions in the body that receive and redirect electrons (information in synapses) from and to various parts of the body. There are 72,000 nadis in the body. The 72,000 nadis are classified as 3 main nerve types: Ida (Sympathetic Nervous System), Pingala (Parasympathetic Nervous System) and Sushumana (Central Nervous System). Anatomically, sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves branch out from the spinal cord. The networks from these 72,000 nadis (including ida, pingala and sushuman) in turn converge, cross and redistribute into 7 major nerve junctions that we call ‘chakras’. Therefore chakras are nerve plexuses where bundles of nerves come together to form a network and then redistribute (Figure 3). The nerve bundles crossing at the top of the spinal cord form the Throat chakra and the one at the bottom of the spinal cord form the Root chakra (Figures 1 and 3).

Figure 3. Chakras and Nerve Plexus: Red = Chakras, Right side blue = spinal cord ganglion (nerve cell bodies from which arise nerve endings), left blue = major nerve plexus (bundes/networks). Adapted from C.W.Leadbeater - The book "The Chakras", 1927.

These nerve bundles that carry electric information and form plexus at the 7 major junctions give rise to an electromagnetic field at the 7 junctions of significant magnitude that can be experienced during yoga. The extra-dimensional aspect of the 7 chakras is partly due to the electromagnetic energy field created by the electron-carrying-dense-network of nerves. It is also important to remember that the chakras run along the spine - center of the body. Therefore one’s ‘heart center’ is the center of the chest and not to the left of chest where the pumping heart is located. The pumping heart and the ‘heart center’ are not the same thing.

Note on the Heart Chakra: The heart chakra is unique because it converges energies coming from the bottom 3 chakras that govern survival on the planet (Root Chakra, Sacral Chakra and Solar Plexus) and top 3 chakras that govern spiritual and other worldly aspects of life (Throat Chakra, Third Eye and Crown Chakra). This makes the heart chakra very powerful. In yoga many mudras are held at the heart center; even Namaste (joining 2 palms to show reverence) is done at the heart center. In Indian classical performing arts like Bharatanatyam the heart chakra has been given special emphasis as many movements arise from the heart chakra (also known as heart center or hridaya sthanam) to have a powerful projection and communication through the movement.