Why meditation seems so difficult to do?

Meditation helps calm the mind and reduce chatter. There are different meditation techniques, but in the most common ones, you focus on one object or hold a thought or observe the flow of thoughts. The idea is that over time, your thoughts will slow down, and your mind will become still. But often that doesn’t seem to work.

To understand the problem with this approach, let us take an analogy. Think of your mind as a tub with water with an open tap. The falling water representing the flow of breath. The falling water into the tub creates ripples in the tub, leading to bubbles, which are like your thoughts. Like bubbles, these thoughts are short-lived and pop. Paying attention to the bubbles will not slow or stop them. Because the bubbles are an outcome of the ripples that is caused by the flowing water from the tap.

In Vasi Yoga, unlike common methods, practitioners focus on controlling the very source of this mental noise. Through pranayama techniques, they gain control of the tap and are able to regulate the flow of breath. This automatically calms the ripples and stops the bubbles.

Inner Transformation Yoga breathing techniques, prepares the body for Vasi Yoga.

Positive Mindset: A Holistic Approach

Positive thinking plays a significant role in shaping the quality of our thoughts. It's the result of an intricate interplay between psychology and biology, the inner chemistry of our bodies. Many individuals attempt to improve their thoughts and ideas through psychological methods, such as affirmations.

The challenge arises because psychological ways of changing the quality of our thoughts is a bit like saying one thought sets the stage for all the thoughts that follow. While the lifespan of a thought is exceedingly short in the ever-fluctuating terrain of the mind. No wonder they often encounter a common challenge - maintaining lasting positive mindset.

Inner Transformation Yoga practice, on the other hand, takes a comprehensive approach. It works through altering the biology of the body through breath, prana and meditation to create inner awareness. This holistic approach brings a natural and enduring transformation by targeting the very source of our thoughts.

Deconstructing how miracles happen in life.

Desires that materialize with minimal or no effort, unexpectedly, we call it a miracle.

Why does effort have a role in miracles?
Effort (as we know) = Resistance. When we actively pursue a desire, our conscious mind is always assessing and playing the gatekeeper for every opportunity and situation that is aligned to manifest a desire. The conscious mind wants to get there faster, it is restless with limited foreseeing capabilities. While a desire can manifest in many different ways and time is not a factor.

Does no effort mean to just sit idle and do nothing?

.The mind is never sitting idle. It is always occupied with situations aligned from desires that are already forgotten.

We can understand the role of effort with the analogy of magic: In magic, the magician keeps the audience distracted from what is happening behind the scenes to perform the magic. Watching the magician prepare for the show, you will never let the magic happen. Distraction is the key for magic or miracle to happen. The difference here is, you can either be distracted through ignorance or through awareness. Ignorance comes with disappointments and awareness makes the journey enjoyable. Almost like watching the performance from the backstage. You begin to appreciate and awe how meticulously and flawlessly the magic was planned and performed.

Your only EFFORT to more miracles happening in life is to desire and stay distracted from the desire with full awareness. Distracted = Allowing. Now your are allowing the Law Of Attraction to perform its magic.

Why Law Of Attraction never works for me?

Vibrationally aligning to our desire is key to its fruition. Some craft vision boards or create a desire list. Revisiting it often, our mind unknowingly weaves different narratives on how the desire should manifest.

Example: You desire a house, when you revisit that desire, you might add a view or change the view from that house. You might add a nice car parked or garden in front…..

This constantly shifts our vibration to match the new ‘How to’. Similar to GPS, re-routing when new stops are added.

Desires can take time or partially manifest due to our attachments to how and when in should manifest. The secret is to focus on breath or direct the conscious mind to get on with other activities and let go of the ‘how and when’. This will allow the Law of Attraction do its work of vibrationally aligning you with your desire. It works the same way for everyone. It is the Law.

The journey to inner-awareness takes long time. Why?

The journey to inner-awareness, enlightenment, or self-realization - regardless of the term - can be complex. It takes considerable effort and time to accomplish. Because we rely on others' teachings, philosophies, and theories. Which will only help us grow intellectually and not experientially. But think of the first enlightened person who attained this state alone - proving it is possible.

The start and end point of this journey are the same. Your body is the laboratory. All the physics, biology, and chemistry you need is within you. The more teachings we read, gurus we consult, philosophies we scour, and theories we mull over, the further away we get from our authentic inner selves.

The Big Bang question?

Ego is the root cause of karma. 'Action and reaction' often describes karma; In reality, 'The Big Bang' was the sole action that initiated it all. Since then, the universe, solar system, planetary system, and lifeforms have only been reacting. In perspective, our ego is just a teeny tiny dot within the entire phenomena. Dissolving this damn ego is one Big Bang question?

Everything is an illusion - a Maya. What does this mean?

The concept of 'Everything is Maya' is rooted in Hinduism; it literally means 'illusion’.

Many misunderstand the concept of Maya; asking, “If I can touch and feel my car, house, self and people around me, how is this an illusion?”. The answer: all these things are real, but the idea (memory) of "my-ness” nurtured by our brain to them is unreal. If that memory (even our name) is wiped out, any attachment or identity associated with it is gone.

Maya is anything that can be erased.

Is the emotion of fear real?

Fear is a powerful emotion that traps us in powerlessness. It is our mind’s ability to envision negative outcomes in future scenarios. If we pay attention, we only fear what hasn’t happened. Facing the situation, we cease fearing and focus on coping.

Detachment without conflict is true detachment

Spiritual teachers often share teachings that attachment causes suffering. Its modern interpretation misses its original intent. Forceful detachment or resisting desires for the sake of spiritual ego only creates inner conflict and more misery.

When yogis mention detachment, they mean to outgrow it. Just like how you outgrew and parted with your childhood toys, without any distress or conflict within.

Detachment is not a forced state or concept, but a natural outcome as inner awareness increases.

Relationship between thoughts and emotions

Do thoughts trigger emotions, or vice versa?

Let’s look at an example that we all commonly experience. We often ponder how long forgotten memories suddenly come to mind. We then contemplate the emotions that come with those memories. Consequentially, we attribute that memory and the thought around it as the root cause of our emotional state. While, in fact it is quite the opposite! Our emotional states activate memories that closely align with them. How? We can understand this causality from the analogy of a computer.

A memory is simply data stored inside neurons connected by neural pathways in our brain along with some metadata (emotions), much like a file on a computer. It takes a trigger (double click) to open a file on a computer. Similarly, it takes an electrical signal to pass through the neuron’s pathway in which that memory is stored for it to surface. 

Our emotional state acts as a trigger for the electrical impulse to pass through a certain pathway.

Understanding this sequential flow of emotions and thoughts, will lead us to the next question… What triggers our emotional state?