Name: Yoga The Art of Transformation

Museum: Sackler Gallery

Location: Sublevel 1

Description: Through masterpieces of Indian sculpture and paintings, this exhibition explores yoga’s goals; its Hindu, as well as Buddhist, Jain, and Sufi manifestations; its means of transforming body and consciousness; and its profound philosophical foundations. It is the first exhibition to present this leitmotif of Indian visual culture and examines the roles of yogis and yoginis played in Indian society over two thousand years.

More than 120 works, from the 3rd century to the early 20th century, illuminate yoga’s central tenets as well as its obscured histories. Temple sculptures, devotional icons, illustrated manuscripts, court paintings, photographs, books, and films are on view. Borrowed from 25 museums and private collections in India, Europe, and the United States, its highlights include an installation that reunites for the first time three monumental stone yogini goddesses from a 10th-century Chola temple; 10 folios from the first illustrated compilation of asanas (yogic postures), which was made for a Mughal emperor in 1602 and has never been exhibited in the United States; and a Thomas Edison film, Hindoo Fakir (1906), the first movie ever produced about India.

Lucid Practice is growing by the day. We want to really thank everyone who has visited our site and hope that you will come back. Thank you!!

We hope to inspire people and have a website that is 100% positive, all the time. Our goal was to affect one person’s life positively and and based off of your feedback, we have done that and much more! It’s humbling to have any type of impact on this world by sharing and writing positive, inspiring pieces on yoga, travel, wellness, art and more.

We would love for the Lucid Practice Community to continue to grow and affect people. In addition, we would love to see members of our community start their own blogs and websites and dig deeper into themselves. We’re happy to help you with this process.

With that, I think it very important that we share our outreach with people with a “transparency income report.” This marks the end of the first six months working on LP and it will be fun to include everyone on the month to month journey of growth (whether that be positive or negative!).

Summary: 

AWStats Traffic: Traffic has continued to grow since inception in April. We want to first promote our statistics from our web host’s, Blue Host, traffic program AWStats. People argue which program presents the most accurate look at traffic. It’s interesting to see our outreach through AWStats.

In April, we started this blog for ourselves as a medium for journaling and posting interesting material. In May, we decided to share the blog with a few friends and family members. On May 24,  we decided to stream our posts on Twitter which opened up the process of “sharing our blog.” We are very excited to say that in September we reached nearly 4k unique IP addresses (3,955) whether that be people’s computers, tablets or mobile devices.

To see that our readers have come back over 12k times (12,393) in the month of September alone is very inspiring. We believe that we are sharing great content, and we hope that people feel some of the positive vibes we are feeling when reading some of the material shared.

Google Analytics Traffic: We just finally set up our Google Analytics code correctly last month (we are new to this). We had previously been using a GA plugin that was not working efficiently. Their is definitely a disparity in statistics between AWstats data and Google Analytics Data. There are many arguments on the internet which traffic counter gets the best data. We only think its fair that we go with the two most popular sites for traffic. Even with the disparity, we would be very happy with September bringing 2,321 unique visitors to our site.

Social Media: 

Twitter has been the main driver of traffic to our website. We are very happy to have over 4,500 twitter accounts “following” us on twitter. We felt in May when we started the Twitter feed that people may be interested in reading about travel, wellness, and yoga among many other topics. We love interacting and connecting with many of our readers through Twitter and hope to do lots more in the future. Please, if you have not, reach out to us. We want to learn from you.

Facebook Likes on the Lucid Practice Facebook page have been harder to come by. We have not promoted our Facebook page and I’m not exactly sure when we will begin. Facebook has 1.2 billion users. We would certainly love to connect and share positive, inspiring messages with some of those users!

I have not maintained a personal Facebook page for 2 years so the functionality is a bit foreign to me. With a blinding total of 6 likes we would love if you clicked the like button (click here!) on our Facebook page. We have also started Google Plus and Pinterest pages but have not managed them as much as we would like to.

Advertising: We’re not currently doing any advertising though we have been approached and we are starting to get interest from advertisers in preliminary discussions. We are in a blog consultation program and learning everyday about how to make this a full-time job. Being location independent is something we believe is a true Lucid Practice. Hopefully, with time and practice, we can develop a strategy that stays true to our values and promotes links, products, activities, trip information on our site that we feel will benefit our readers.

Total Revenue: $0

Google Page Rank: (0/10) Google has not updated PageRank since February 4, 2013. LP commenced in April 2013. We are looking forward to the next updated ranking!

Domain Authority: 14 (Via OpenSite Explorer)

Page Authority: 19 (Via OpenSite Explorer)

Alexa Ranking: 10,601,728 (Via Alexa)

Sites Linking In: 27 (Via Ahrefs)

One of the keys to the growth of Lucid Practice has been our readers encouraging and sharing our blog. We can’t thank you enough for each positive message thanking us for what we’re doing. We also appreciate you sharing our blog (via email, Twitter, etc.) with your friends, family, and network. This is how we’ve been able to spread our positive, uplifting messages at a rate that has immensely surprised us.  We are honored and humbled to have so many readers and such a loyal community in such a short period of time. Thank you and remember that by sharing an uplifting, informative message, you have created a positive ripple in the universe. Where that ripple stops? No one knows….

“Dogs are minor angels, and I don’t mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy, etcetera. If we attributed some of those qualities to a person we would say they are special. If they had all of them, we would call them angelic. But because it’s ‘only’ a dog, we dismiss them as sweet or funny but little more. However when you think about it, what are the things that we most like in another human being? Many times those qualities are seen in our dogs every single day — we’re just so used to them that we pay no attention,” – Jonathan Carroll.

This story from 1969 is crazy. John Fairfax decided to paddle across the Atlantic Ocean in a trip that took 180 days.

Most people picturing a solo row across the Atlantic think of loneliness as the most daunting obstacles to overcome. But John was estranged from that emotion. He’d always been happy alone, and he truly believed he could find contentment if he were the last man on earth. Besides, many an expedition had failed due to interpersonal conflicts. Adventurers, by definition, are individuals, and it can be hard for them to work as a team.

Read the full long read — here. 

7) Let Love Fuel Everything That You Do

To experience Love you must be Love. Let love be the primary force behind everything that you do and you will find out what it feels like to truly live.  Once you experience true love, it can never leave you despite changes in external circumstances. If you mix love into everything that you do, you will find that you have a new energy and creativity which will allow you bring your highest visions to reality. Pursue your passions and you will be rewarded.

10) Surround Yourself With the Strongest Leaders & Mentors

As your leadership strengthens you will find yourself surrounded by people that share similar qualities. Reach out to the ”heroes” that you admire and listen to their advice. With the ability to reach out to anyone in the World, there is no limit to who you can include in your inner circle. Offer to help others in any capacity that you can and take part in creating an interdependent community of creators.

Check out the rest — here.

We profiled a Tim Miller Lecture video two weeks ago.

Today,  I wanted to highlight Tim’s weekly blog post, Tuesdays with Timji. I thought that it was a real post, and to see that Tim Miller, a yoga teacher who knows a lot more than a lot of us about the practice, even struggles to get people to class from time to time is real. I look forward to practicing at his studio one day.

For the past 25 years I have been teaching an Introduction to Ashtanga Yoga class every Monday at 5:30pm.  This class began when we opened the North County Yoga Center in 1988 as my attempt to initiate beginners into a practice that is very challenging on many levels simultaneously.  Over the years I have attempted to present the practice in a user- friendly format, but if the practice is watered down too much it loses its primal potency.  When I took my first ashtanga yoga class in 1978 I knew that I had found the way home—the way back to my own Soul.  There was something so deeply resonant and familiar about the practice—it was like rediscovering a long lost friend.  That first yoga class changed the course of my life and the same practice continues to keep me sane to this very day.  I had the good fortune to meet K. Pattabhi Jois, Guruji, in 1978.  Over the next 30 years we developed a close relationship and he taught me many helpful and liberating things.  Guruji learned from the great master T. Krishnamacharya, who had been taught by the legendary yogi in the cave in the Himalayas, Sri Rama Mohan Brahmachari.  These three gurus collectively form a brain trust of some of the most learned and insightful yogis of the past century.  They have been extremely instrumental in regards to creating the current trends of practice.  Krishnamacharya said that the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali is the single most important yogic text, and the one that most influenced his methodology of practice.  In the Monday night class I always introduce a couple of yoga sutras and try to connect the philosophy of Patanjali with the methodology of ashtanga yoga.  A common theme in the class is the breath, because breathing is the core of the practice.  I teach simple techniques for making the breath audible (ujjayi) to help us become more mindful of the act of breathing and begin to quiet the mind.  Once the students become mindful of their breath, we explore the connection between breath and movement with simple movements that are initiated and guided by the breath.  Gradually the level of vinyasa (breath with movement) is built up as a preparation for Suryanamaskara.  Now the students are ready to be cooked in the fire of Tapas—the Sacred Fire.  Patanjali says:  “Kaya indriya siddhi ashudhi kshayat tapasah”–The sacred fire removes impurities and brings mastery to the body and the sense organs.”  Tapas brings us back to our senses, and ashtanga yoga kindles the Sacred Fire like nothing else I’ve ever done.  Many people say that this practice is inappropriate for beginners.  They may be right.

Over the years the Monday night class has waxed and waned in terms of popularity, from as many as 50 students to the all time low of 2 students that I’ve had the past two Mondays.  I try not to take this personally, but everyone wants to feel appreciated, so my self-esteem has suffered a bit.  Desperate situations require desperate solutions.  My wife, Carol, and I have decided that beginning on Monday October 7^th, we will offer the Monday Night Class to the community on a donation basis, resurrecting the sacred box that served me so well over many years of operation on the honor system.  When I first started practicing, a yoga class cost two dollars.  Over the years classes have gotten pricey, which has excluded part of the population.  Money no longer needs to be an issue.  Perhaps the practice itself is the issue—yes, it’s challenging, but also very rewarding.  Maybe it’s me—heaven forbid.  I know there are people all over San Diego County that shake in their boots at the mention of my name, and think it takes great courage just to set foot in the Ashtanga Yoga Center.  Let me set the record straight on that—I’m a pussycat.   

Kara Leigh-Grant explains how The Five Koshas Impact our yoga practice — here.

The yogis define our body as having five layers or sheaths, each one contained within the other, like Russian Dolls.

Called Koshas, these sheaths cover every aspect of our being, from the most gross to the most subtle.

Kosha #1 is Annamaya kosha – the outside layer of the body, and roughly translates at the food body.

This is our physical body – our muscles and our bones, our ligaments and our tendons. This is the kosha most people are concerned about when they begin a yoga practice. They want increased flexibility, they want to tone up their muscles, they want to learn to relax their bodies, they’re looking to gain strength, improve their balance and find stress relief.

The primary way to impact this kosha is through asana.

The practice of asana will also impact Kosha #2, Pranamaya kosha – the energy body.

Like the Chinese have chi, the yogis have Prana – or life force. Prana moves around the body via channels, or nadis. Some 72,000 apparently, although who counted them, nobody knows. When we practice asana and pranayama, we are impacting Pranamaya kosha.

Any blockages in those nadis (and believe me, you’ll have blockages) are worked through, bit by bit. And your improved flow of energy in the body can then affect the Annamaya kosha and also impact any health issues you may be having.

Prana comes into the body via food and water, but it also comes into the body via breath. One of the major benefits of yoga is that we become conscious of our breathing, and – sometimes for the first time as adults – we learn to take proper deep breaths.

This increase of prana into our system literally makes us feel more alive and it invigorates and powers Pranamaya kosha.

#3 on our tour of the Koshas is Manomaya kosha, the mental body.

People usually come to yoga for the physical benefits and stay because of how yoga impacts Manomaya kosha. Put bluntly, you feel bloody great after class – mentally clear and emotionally up-beat. That’s what keeps you coming back, time after time.

Manomaya kosha is that aspect of Self which takes care of our instinctual needs, plus it also helps us obtain our individual desires. On a practical level that means it’s about safety, security, obtaining love and taking care of loved ones.

If you’re experienced underlying anxiety because you’ve lost your job and you don’t know how you’re going to pay rent, you’re experiencing that in Manomaya kosha. A calming yoga practice like Alternate Nostril Breathing can alleviate those feelings and thoughts.

Most of us have a tendency to ‘live’ in one kosha more than the others. Some people are body-orientated, Westerners tend to be mind-orientated. However, the practice of yoga helps us to balance out our awareness of all the layers of Self and shift us out of being primarily just in Manomayakosha.

This can mean that our anxiety fades somewhat. It will still be there, but we may be more grounded in Annamayakosha or kosha #4 – Vijnanamaya kosha, the wisdom body.

That grounding in the Wisdom body gives us a broader perspective on our life experience, and we’re able to see that we’ll get another job, or that we have plenty of resources to call on. The anxiety fades.

Cultivating Kosha # 4 – Vijnanamaya kosha is an unexpected benefit of yoga for most people.

You turn up expecting an exercise class and wanting to touch your toes. But you find yourself connecting to a deeper level of intuition, greater internal wisdom and a sense of higher knowledge.

Granted, deepening into an awareness of Vijnanamaya kosha may take more a class once a week, but if you continue to practice, it will come.

It’s at this more subtle level of our Self that we begin to shift from a primary I-ness orientation – I am a separate being – to a primary One-ness orientation. We feel, and understand, on a deep level that there is no real difference or separation from Me and You.

We move beyond feelings and concern based on survival and security, and into feelings that encompass and include all – like compassion, love, and joy. Our relationships change, and become more fulfilling, and more joyous. Life simply becomes good. We’re well along the path of yoga and that journey from ego/mind or small self to Atman or Big Self.

Shifting into Vijnanamaya kosha is mostly about doing the work that removes the blockages in the three lower koshas. We find comfort and harmony in our physical body, we release blockages in our energy body, and we heal and release fears from our mental body.

Shifting more and more into Vijnanamaya kosha is like watching life upon up before you, into an expansive landscape where you love everyone. Truly love everyone.

Now that’s a pretty cool benefit of doing a few sun salutations every day huh?

Finally, there’s Kosha #5. Anandamaya kosha, or the Bliss Body.

Exactly as it sounds, it’s all about the Bliss Baby. No longer separate, you’re bathing in One-ness with All that Is. You and God, you’re One and the Same. And that’s about all I’m going to say about kosha #5, because if you’re getting there, you don’t need me to tell you about it. And if you’re not there, I can’t tell you about it, because I’m not there either.

Yet.

Read more — here.