Announcer (00:00:04) - This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector. Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:00:13) - Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, certified dream life coach Debbie Spector Weisman. This is a place that we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams. Now, you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. Just like with dream work, I came late to yoga, making it a part of my weekly practice only about a decade or so ago. The stretches are helpful for keeping me limber as I age, and Savasana, that five-minute period or so at the end of the session is stress easing. It helps keep me grounded.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:12) - Here are a couple of fun facts for you. That kind of yoga. The kind of focuses on postures and physical movement, the kind that most of us here in the United States know, is not the yoga that was first introduced to America back in 1893 by a teacher from India named Swami Vivekananda. He stressed the philosophy behind yoga, and it had nothing to do with the warrior position. His teachings didn't catch on, though. Hatha yoga, which involves the postures, slowly took over until it exploded into the mainstream in the 1980s and 90s. Today we're going to go back and explore the spiritual side of yoga, this time with another type of yoga called Awake Yoga, and to discuss it is Swami Nityananda, the Spiritual teacher at Awake Yoga Meditation. She's the author of the book Awake: The Yoga of Pure Awareness and will explain how awake yoga helps us live our fullest lives with abundance, joy, and freedom. Welcome to Dream Power Radio, Swami Nityananda.
Swami Nityananda (00:01:59) - It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for your warmth. And you're welcome.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:02:03) - Oh, thank you for being here. So let's talk about this type of yoga. Because it's not the yoga that most people think of when they think about yoga. So why is this called Awake Yoga?
Swami Nityananda (00:02:14) - So yoga, if you look at the roots of it, means living in union continually.
Swami Nityananda (00:02:21) - Like every breath, every moment, every heartbeat in our relationships, in our lives and our work and all of our humanity and the fullness of light within ourselves. And so that means it can't be confined to a yoga mat. And actually, it also means it can't be confined to a meditation posture as well. So Awake Yoga, meditation, geographically, we are in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, but we welcome listeners from all over and you're welcome to join us online. Everyone is welcome. So we emphasize seated practice in order that then after we get up from that meditation posture and from diving deep into that stillness, then we're moving in that current of divine union continually for all of our lives.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:09) - And it is about awareness. And you say the people already have awareness inside of them, but it's covered by what's called kleshas. So what are they? How do we get rid of them?
Swami Nityananda (00:03:22) - So one of the things that yogis say, and these are teachings that are consonant and resonant with teachings from the Buddha as well, they say that each of us has light within ourselves.
Swami Nityananda (00:03:34) - That's a word that yogis often use. And the Buddha uses the word awakening. So the Buddha says, we all have this a weakness. And for every listener, if you sort of think about the curious open, dynamic, good-humored, good-hearted aspect of yourself. If you think about yourself, if you are relieved of all pressure. You were mentioning in savasana at the end of a physical yoga practice, there's this moment where you're just relieved of all pressure and you can feel energy flowing through you, and often you can sort of feel like the boundaries of separateness melt. And so that's the awareness that is present actually within every human. And what happens is we in time and space, we have painful experiences, and we have pleasureful experiences, and we can sort of contract our awareness and start to identify with our experiences and time and space and identify sometimes with the challenges that we and others have faced. And that can sort of limit our awareness of how the awake ness is always present. It's always with us and also can sort of limit the light is always with us.
Swami Nityananda (00:04:46) - We're actually all connected all the time. So what happens is when we meditate, the Buddhist teachings and the yogic teachings tell us we gradually begin to melt away the obstructions, so we're melting away anything that blocks our natural, curious, joy filled, wonder filled exploration of all of life and allowing ourselves to do this. For example, like in an adult human body, is amazing because it means we keep our adult wisdom, but we also recapture. I met a seven-week-old baby a couple of days ago. That baby was just delighted, taking in absolutely everything and everything was beautiful. Everything was glorious. And so we give ourselves that freshness and that ability to look at life with full wonder, with full magic, if you want to use that word. Keeping our adult wisdom, I love that.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:05:48) - I love that description of it because it's true. We are just pure energy. We are just open to everything. We're confident. We're curious for all those kinds of things that we like to associate with a wonderful, perfect person. And all the stuff gets laid on us as we wish. So the way you phrased it that way, I think it's very well put.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:06:03) - Oh, so there's meditation that's involved with yoga. Is it more important to do this as a group, or do you get as much benefit if you can do it alone?
Swami Nityananda (00:06:21) - So I actually have even after all of these years, I've been serving as the swami at Awaken Meditation since 2014, and I still practice meditation. So my teacher, he taught these teachings for almost 40 years. He practiced meditation up until the time that he left the body. And so what he taught was that there's always a benefit to meditate. So even after one is continually living in this flow of light, living in this flow of awakening, you just close your eyes, and you melt into light. You melt into a weakness. So why would we stop doing that? And so individually, there's always a benefit in the morning, in the evening, even for many of us, there's like a 20-minute meditation practice in the morning and in the evening.
Swami Nityananda (00:07:04) - If our lives allow us to practice that, we also gain immensely, immeasurably by practicing in community. And so I really do wholeheartedly recommend, if you have a meditation practice, hop online. Join us. If you're new, hop online, join us! What meditators from all backgrounds report is that meditating in community amplifies the peace, the joy, the quiet, the freedom, the beauty that we gain, and then we also gain. I would just say there's a huge boost that we gain by looking at humans from all nationalities, all backgrounds, all races, all ethnicities, all languages, practicing and benefiting in a human body with all of our different backgrounds, with all of our different family configurations, all of our different talents and skill sets. And what we gain is very simply the ability to be our calm, cheerful, wise, good humored best selves. And then as we gain that naturally, then in the midst of our daily lives that silently is sharing wherever we are and we can't help it, we're just silently, as we are integrated and aware of our own wholeness. Silently. We're also inviting everyone else to be integrated and aware of their own wholeness. And so it's just living in joy, living in sunshine always. Even if the outside weather isn't sunny. It's like living in this inner sunshine continually, and it just naturally brings smiles to everyone's faces.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:08:41) - And this meditation, the group also amplify the belief that we are all one and just so that.
Swami Nityananda (00:08:50) - That is a really, really beautiful question. And I would say that there's such a responsiveness. So I can give a very concrete example. A couple of days ago, I was on my way to give a meditation talk and was focusing on sharing a story that was about a very angry large cat that had been rescued from a zoo and was now in an animal sanctuary, but because of having been confined and abused in the zoo, was filled with rage and was terrified and was very violent in terms of interacting with humans. Hadn't left its night shelter for six months, and then an animal communicator came and demonstrated that this cat, which just didn't understand and was wanting to know, what are these humans wanting from me? And by the way, I don't like this name that you have given me because it's associated with the diabolical.
Swami Nityananda (00:09:51) - And the cat was saying, that's not what I am, that's how you see me, but that's not what I am. And so after learning this, the humans who had been interacting with a cat said, we agree you are not diabolical. And they gave the cat this amazing name associated with joy and freedom. The cat came out of the night shelter for the first time in six months and began interacting peacefully and calmly. And the humans said, you are free to be yourself. We're not asking anything of you. And then the cat's natural curiosity came into play. So I was walking on the way to give this talk, and this cat in my neighborhood came up to me purring so loudly that its body was taking. And it started just meowing with this energy of greeting and such a way that I had to bend down and greet this cat. And so we are all continually helping to energize what we are going to experience and time and space. We don't have absolute control. We're not absolutely in charge because there's all of these other billions of wonderful humans on the planet as well.
Swami Nityananda (00:11:04) - But as we energize this curiosity, this awareness, this connectedness, this responsiveness, we begin to notice that the whole world is part of this interconnected awareness. Animals will respond to us, kids will respond to us, adults will respond to us. The natural world will respond to us. We will move in this energy of connected awareness. And so, yes, when we meditate in community, we become aware of the light and the quiet within ourselves, and we become aware of the light and the quiet that is equally within every other human we become aware of, almost like each human is this dynamic, radiant expression of light. And if we are interacting with our families with the full awareness, they are dynamic, radiant expressions of light. Our relationships will transform the interchanges that we are able to have with the people we live with, the people we work with, with ourselves. They transform. And I'm noticing this beautiful rainbow behind you as I'm speaking to you. And it's like that rainbow is in view continually, always.
Swami Nityananda (00:12:20) - And we just live in that energy of connectedness, the way that all of time and space is connected, and there is a field of support that is present and available for all of us, always.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:12:33) - Well, I just want to say, as an aside, there must be something wonderful about Awake Yoga because the people who are listening to us on the podcast, can't see you, but you were just radiating joy and happiness and love, and I can feel it through on the other side of this screen. And I totally see that's all possible. But would you say, though, that when we do see that light within us that does radiate out into positivity and love and all those positive things we're talking about before.
Swami Nityananda (00:13:09) - Yes, absolutely. So what happens is it's almost like the heart of each of us. And so I'm just inviting everyone who's listening to tune in. The heart of each of us is like a chalice or a flower. And if we allow our flower to bloom and we allow it to open, and we allow the sun to just fill our flower to overflowing, the same way that you see bees just naturally buzz to a flower that's in bloom.
Swami Nityananda (00:13:36) - We can't help it. There's like a fragrance and there's a sweetness, there's a radiance, there's a glow that just broadcast through us. And I can give an example. So I just saw that seven-week-old baby and the seven-week-old baby was held by her dad and her mom, who just love her so much. And their whole family unit was like just this radiant field of love and joy. And so this is something that humans can do. And I would say they're probably not meditators, but they are in this field of love right now because they've just had their baby. They're in love with each other. They're in love with their baby. It's just like this radiant shield of love. And so meditation is something that we can consciously do because I'll also acknowledge in human bodies with human experiences, it doesn't always feel like that honeymoon period. But for the moments when humanly you're not feeling like you have that honeymoon, you can still go within in meditation and fill yourself up independent of what's going on in time and space, and then just be like that flower in bloom.
Swami Nityananda (00:14:45) - And there is a fragrance, there is a joy. There is just a glow, like a beauty that comes into life, into the simplest things. Like, I've got this glass of water right here, and you can just taste like every drop of water, how fresh it is and how beautiful it is. And so just to interact with life in that way, to be in contact with the freshness and the beauty, it's such a gift.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:11) - On that note of joy, we do have to take a short break now. We're speaking all about Awake Yoga with Swami Nityananda, and we'll be right back.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:16:05) - Yes. Welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Weisman, and we're talking all about Awake Yoga with Swami Nityananda. Well, Swami, why is it important to live in the now? And how does Awake Yoga help us do this?
Swami Nityananda (00:16:22) - Oh. Fabulous question. Thank you. One of the things that we notice when we meditate, and I'll just say that this is available, whether we have our eyes closed and are in seated meditation or whether we are in the midst of our day, we can take a single breath. And so I'm just inviting a listener: Take a single breath, breathe into your heart. Allow yourself to just breathe deeply into your heart and allow yourself to be fully present in the now. In the now, there is pure possibility. There is potentiality for absolute wholeness and joy to flow into our body, our heart, our mind, and our life.
Swami Nityananda (00:17:04) - And this means that in the now we can always pivot to healing. So if we have any pain and I'm talking physical pain, but I'm also talking emotional pain, or just like those kinds of loops that human thinking can get us into, we can take a breath into our heart in the now and just in the now. There is spaciousness, there is freedom, there is wholeness. And we can allow that now awareness, being fully present and peaceful and poised to melt away anything except what we would love to create. And so scientists have counted how many thoughts humans think a day. It's ranged. I've seen reports that it's like 40,000. I've seen reports that it's like 60,000. So if a lot of our human thinking has been focused on painful experiences from the past, what that means is from the now, we're actually feeling those experiences now as we think about them. So the moment we can shift to this fullness of joy and peace and potentiality and possibility, those gradually start leaving our awareness. They gradually start leaving that thought stream that we are creating.
Swami Nityananda (00:18:18) - And so then they will gradually start leaving our bodies. They will gradually start leaving our immune systems. They will gradually start leaving the patterns that we are energizing in our own brain. And so this is something scientists now are able to verify what yogis have taught for millennia, which is that our thoughts actually help create pathways through our brain. And so functional magnetic resonance imaging can show that we can heal our own pain pathways, and we can create these pathways that are peace, that are presents, that are joy, that are based on love, that are based on wisdom and forgiveness and caring and compassion. And so we, each of us within ourselves, it's like we have this all-healing potential within ourselves. And the primary access point to it is in the now. So every time we meditate, we're strengthening our ability to be steady and established and connected in that.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:19:18) - The number that I usually referred to when I'm talking about the thoughts that we have in our head is something like 75% of them are negative.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:19:26) - So it's very important to have a methodology and shift that away. So you're not in an ocean of negativity all the time. There's another thing a lot of people struggle and that is not being able to forgive. Can you be awake without forgiveness? And how can you use Awake Yoga to help get that spirit of forgiveness in you?
Swami Nityananda (00:19:48) - That's a really fantastic question. So one of the things that I would say is that the teachings from the yogis are that light is always within us, no matter what it is that we are feeling humanly light is always there. And the Buddha said, A weakness is always there. So what we are giving ourselves the gift of is realizing that I can free myself from being bound to past pain. So I would say that we're honoring and acknowledging our experience. We are saying that happened in time and space, that that was an aspect of my experience and in the now. What would I love to create? How would I love to feel in the now, and what would I love to let go of easily, as gracefully and cheerfully and calmly as possible? What would I love to help energize as I move forward? So one of the things that my teacher taught and my teacher was Swami Vivekananda, who was just a being of radiance and just absolute kindness.
Swami Nityananda (00:20:52) - He taught that what we're really forgiving is we're forgiving ourselves for having been seemingly affected adversely by another. And what that does is it puts the agency back within us. It means that. If you're comfortable with this language, I'll use the word the divine for any listener who's not comfortable with that. You could substitute light, or you could substitute the universe higher good. Whatever your word for it is, the divine is the foundation of my existence. You're saying something like this to yourself. Every single human experience that I have ever had, the divine has been the foundation of my existence. And what that means is that all of my human experiences, the divine, was right there with me. The ground beneath my feet. The divine has always been right there with me. So when I have that awareness, I won't like some of the human experiences that I have had. Humanly, you can still keep not preferring some of the very painful human experiences you can have, but you can say, yes, my human selves had this painful experience.
Swami Nityananda (00:22:09) - The divine is still the foundation of my existence, and I am going to choose what wisdom to keep from that experience and how to free myself as I move forward. And then you are back choosing you. You have agency. You get to choose. How would I like to free myself in relation to this experience? It doesn't mean you have to have contact with that other human if there was another human involved in your painful experience, but it means that you can have awareness that your strength is not diminished by any human experience that you have had. And so this is really like this is bringing this is healing, it's rejoicing because sort of all of a sudden now we are not at the mercy of any other human. No other human gets to have control over how we experience our own experiences. And so then we are in the driver's seat, and we can decide what I like to give myself the gift of feeling peace and freedom and release and relief from that. And how is it natural for me and true to me, and what is the right timing and the right expression of that for me and for each individual listener? I would just say that's going to be a very individual process.
Swami Nityananda (00:23:36) - It's always self-healing. It's always self-transforming, so no one can make us forgive another. But what we're doing is giving ourselves the gift of freedom and wholeness and peace. And so there is a time, my teacher said, when we love ourselves so much that we are willing to lay down the burdens we have been carrying.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:59) - And amazingly well put. And love that you said choice because so many people don't believe or don't understand they have the choice.
Swami Nityananda (00:24:08) - We are the chooser. I mean, that's the amazing thing. We don't always have choice in terms of the events of the past or the things that happen in time, in space, but we always get to choose, can I keep my heart open? Can I trust that stronger than anything in time and space is the light within me more deep and pure and potent than any human experience is the love that is stronger than any human lifetime. And so can each of us be in connection with that continually. And then we choose. We decide. No one chooses and no one decides for us.
Swami Nityananda (00:24:48) - We actually are choosing and deciding continually how we respond to the circumstances that we encounter in time and space.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:24:56) - You just mentioned the heart and what is heart energy and does that promote joy?
Swami Nityananda (00:25:02) - Oh, so heart energy is just that absolute love that each of us is in our true nature, in our essence and our being, in our joy. And so for every human, this expresses perfectly. Like this is if you've ever seen animals frolicking together. Like sometimes you see little puppies. Or I once saw three fox puppies frolicking together. It's that energy that is just flowing in. It's beautiful and it's playful and it's delightful and it's that energy. I saw a couple. They've been married for 52 years, and they greet each other in the morning as if they're meeting for the first time. How incredible is that? Just that energy of freshness. And each of us has access to that. So each of us has access to if we give ourselves permission to look at what is deeper than any human experience. What is deeper than any name that any human has ever called me? What is deeper than any role that I've ever played in my lifetime? Like, what am I when I am completely my beautiful, free, joy filled self? That energy and it's different for every one of us.
Swami Nityananda (00:26:18) - So this is like the energy that sings through the amazing singer. This is the energy that is smiling through you right now. This is the energy that listens and questions and asks and dreams and wonders and imagines and creates and explores. And so it is the life energy that is here as each of us. And so if we just give ourselves this gift of connecting with our own true, pure heart energy, that energy is wise. It is kind, it is noble, it is generous. It has a sense of humor. It's incredibly hopeful. It is very balanced. It's very calming and centering and grounding and would also say it's incredibly fun. So it helps us live in the light. Even this is independent of age. So we have meditators who are in their 10th decade who meditate with us, and they are filled with this energy of delight, delighted by life, loving their life and what a beautiful teaching that is. So they are teaching all the rest of us that this is possible into the 10th decade of our lives, to live with this absolute, learning something continually, and being present and just loving every moment that there is to love while we are here in time and space.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:40) - You said some were in their 10th decade, so does Awake Yoga promote longevity?
Swami Nityananda (00:27:44) - That's a very good question. I mean, I have a sense of humility and respect because I sort of have this sense that the divine or the soul is in charge of each one of us, and we're each here for a tour of service. That's what I call it. It's we're here on a service posting, wherever we are. It is so the divine can share light and be joy wherever we are. And the divine, I think, helps us be here. The exact length of time that it's right for us to be here and mean. I would say we have had one of the people who's meditated with us for a very long time. They lived, I think, till 104, and they were of service like into their hundreds. So they were volunteering to be of service into their hundreds. And so that I would say as well, like when you have that sense of connectedness, when you when you have that sense of purpose and you have that sense of like, I am making a meaningful contribution through this volunteering that I am doing, it gives me great joy.
Swami Nityananda (00:28:42) - It definitely helps you be here and helps you be here in a way that just is meaningful and just filled with beauty and awe.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:28:54) - Oh well that's wonderful Swami, I have so many questions to ask you, but we're just about out of time. My final one is. So how can people find out more about you or your work?
Swami Nityananda (00:29:04) - Debbie, it's a joy to talk with you. Awake Yoga meditation. We are geographically in Baltimore, Maryland, so you're welcome to come meditate in person if you're in this area or the DC or Philly area. We are online as well, so you're welcome to meditate. And people from all backgrounds, longtime meditators, people who've never meditated at all, are fully welcome. And you'll receive support and invitations to meditate. It's open to all backgrounds. So awakeyogameditation.org is our website and you can join us on zoom. You can join us on YouTube. We share teachings on YouTube. Please like and share and subscribe. And also for Debbie, please like, share and subscribe as well. It's a real joy to talk with you.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:29:47) - Oh thank you. Definitely mine as well. And thank you again for being on Dream Power Radio today.
Swami Nityananda (00:29:55) - It's a joy to be with you.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:29:57) - We've been speaking about Awake Yoga with Swami Nityananda. I hope you enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weisman saying, sweet dreams everybody.
Announcer (00:30:15) - You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host. Debbie Spector Weisman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to DreamPowerRadio.com. This has been Dream Power Radio.