By Guest Contributor

Running a Yoga studio gives me a great deal of insight into the benefits of group yoga practice. From these observations, I have compiled below the top 5 benefits I see from doing group yoga Practice. This is by no means disparaging a home practice. I am, as everyone knows, a huge fan of having a daily personal practice. In fact, for serious practitioners a daily home meditation and yoga practice is a must. In this article I am simply pointing out the best of what I find in doing a group yoga practice.

BENEFIT 1: ENERGY!!

Without a doubt a group kundalini yoga class a has different level of Energy. It is palpable and easily noticeable. This energy serves to uplift and inspire all that are participating. This is most common feedback I get from students after a class. This energy not only helps all the yogis during the class, but, persists even after the class to keep your level of being raised. In fact, there are some classes where this energy is so high and so good that afterwards I can feel the after glow that it creates in everyone present. It is quite common that you enter the class feeling lethargic and down and leave the class fully charged and vitalized.

Interestingly, recently after a Gentle Yoga and Meditation class, a new student approached me and confessed that during the period of meditation, which we do after finishing our Kundalini Yoga practice, he saw fields of blue energy approaching him from all directions. If you have not participated in a group Kundalini Yoga class, I suggest you find one in your area and get ready for a memorable experience.

BENEFIT 2: More Consistency & Intensity

As I have said many times, one of the hardest things about a yoga and meditation practice is consistency. Many people know the well documented benefits of these giants of spiritual sciences, but, still not a significant percentage establish a strong regular practice. This is where group yoga practice can be especially helpful. Just get yourself to class. That’s all. Don’t allow the mind to deter you with its endless excuses.

The mind and body are probably going to resist your practice, because they are loosing their grip over you as a consequence of it. By practicing Yoga and Meditation you are allowing your spirit to emerge, which will then govern your life and usurp the strangle hold that the mind and body have been asserting on you. So just make it to class. Once you are there, you will be surprised how much you will be able to do. In a class atmosphere you will not only do your practice, but, you will do it with greater intensity. This will go a long way in helping you integrate yoga and meditation into your lifestyle and helping you to create a consistent deep daily spiritual practice.

BENEFIT 3: Learn from Each Other’s Experiences

After each Kundalini Yoga & Meditation class we have a question answer period. During this time students get to ask and discuss common issues and problems they are running into. In addition to this, the students also often discuss amongst themselves their experiences and thoughts on Kundalini Yoga, Meditation, Living a spiritual life etc. This is a great way to make progress on the spiritual path. One can learn much from the knowledge another has acquired and a group class really facilitates this.

BENEFIT 4: Share Resources

Music, books, DVDs etc. are all valuable components for your yoga and meditation practice and practicing in a group allows you share these resources with each other. Give, give and then give some more. That should be your attitude in life and you tend to find more of that in those who have discovered their spiritual dimension. Thus, I find a group yoga class a great collection of fantastic people always willing to give and share their resources with others.

BENEFIT 5: Make Friends With Like Minded People

Yoga and meditation practice not only give you great benefits, but, in exchange require that you live up to a higher standard. This often means making changes to your social life and people you associate it. It all happens quite naturally actually. In the extreme case it can even lead to changes to your life partner or just changes to your friends and acquaintances.

What a group yoga class provides is an opportunity to befriend and share your life with those who are living at a similar wave length as you. Generally, you and your fellow yogis will have a similar high value system and will gravitate towards wholesome, holistic living. These important commonalities often lay down the foundation for great friendships to emerge.

Recently reported in indiatoday.intoday.in, Indian Soap Star Ekta Kapoor has taken to astrology, leading her to rename her new movie “Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai” – adding an extra ‘a’ to Mumbai. Her astrologrer Kangana Ranaut can be credited with the suggestion of renaming the movie.

Kangana has no qualms about admitting that she is a staunch believer of astrology. And she reveals that she consults an astrologer on a regular basis.

Just like Ekta, who has complete faith in friend and tarot card reader Sunita Menon, Kangana consults astrologer Pallavi Shinde, who also happens to be her close pal.

“I do believe in astrology and there is no harm in that. I also tell people to try it out but only if you find someone good. There are too many fakes these days,” Kangana says.

It was chats on astrology which got Kangawna and Ekta together. And that’s why she could muster enough courage to suggest to Ekta that she respell the title of her next film.

“Since Ekta is a close friend, I told her to add an extra ‘ a’ in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai and she agreed,” Kangna says.

“I usually don’t do this,” she adds. Ekta, of course, was glad to get some advice. Let’s hope the extra ‘ a’ works wonders for the film at the box office.

Ekta Kapoor is a popular Indian TV and film producer. She is also the daughter of famous Hindi film actors Jeetendra and Shobha Kapoor.

By Guest Contributor

“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.” – Emily Bronte, English novelist and poet.

Dreams have the tremendous power to transform our lives in so many ways. Taking the time to explore and understand our dreams can help us improve relationships, solve difficult problems, diagnose illnesses, inspire creativity, fresh ideas and new inventions, and teach leadership and right conduct. Sometimes, even a single dream can help shape our life purpose.

We spend up to 7 years of our lives dreaming

We all average about five to seven dreams a night (even if we don’t remember them) and will spend approximately five to seven full years of our lifetime dreaming.

Dreams are the language of the soul

Dreams are the language of the soul. They are spirit informing mind with the purpose of bringing wholeness and healing in our lives. Dreams serve two main functions: 1). To help us work through our issues or karma, and 2). To help us fulfill our destiny, purpose, or dharma. Most dreams will fall under these two broad pillars.

Everyone can understand their dreams

We all have the potential to self-interpret or at least understand our dreams to help enrich our lives.

Dreams come in many shapes and sizes

Precognitive or predictive dreams help us prepare for a future event that comes to pass. Clairvoyant or clear seeing dreams can often help us better perceive what’s happening in the present. And retro-cognitive dreams can help uncover something hidden in the past. Past, present, and future are one fluid continuum that dreams draw from.

There are visitation dreams where angels, mentors, and loved ones visit us to provide guidance. Lucid dreams occur when we become aware that we are dreaming – allowing us some conscious influence on the outcome of the dream. Telepathic dreams involve mind-to-mind communication with other people.

We often will dream experiential testing dreams (especially during a transition) where our soul is trying out different scenarios to help us make better choices or help prepare us for an arduous undertaking.

For example, a high school student transitioning over to college might have recurring dreams about participating in various on campus activities to better prepare him for the actual event. Or a recently laid off person who’s thinking of jumping into a business full-time might have a dream where she’s running her business but is wearing disheveled clothing, feeling exhausted, and swimming in a sea of paperwork. This dream could be warning the dreamer to transition over part-time or choose another business deal.

Dreams can have many layers of meaning

More complex dreams with several scenes will often involve multiple layers of meaning. Some dreams will require a long period of incubation involving several months or years because they are working on complex problems.

Some of these complex dreams might not make any sense at the moment of interpretation but will make sense after an appropriate gestation period has elapsed. It is well worth the effort to journal your dreams in as much detail as you can and make a conscious effort to explore all aspects and meanings of your dreams. Some dreams, like a good book, will bring new flashes of insight and meaning with each reading.

Dream Recall Tips

* Start with the belief that you can and will remember your dreams.

* Place a pad, pencil and pen by your bedside. (Pencil tips can break while pens can run out of ink).

* Try a light pen so you can write your dreams in the dark without having to switch on a lamp.

* You may wish to have a tape-recorder to speak your dream upon waking.

* Reading a good book on dreams 20 minutes before going to bed can help stimulate dream recall.

* Repeat a dream recall affirmation often such as: “I am easily remembering and recording my dreams.”

* Write down your dream as soon as you awake. 80 percent of a dream can be lost in as little as 10 minutes.

* Visualize yourself immediately writing down your dream on waking.

* Be as still as possible. Shifting positions in bed is known to reduce dream recall.

* Tell a partner or trusted friend in advance that you will share your dream with them tomorrow.

* Meditating and praying for guidance will put you in the alpha dream state and help increase recall.

* Get a good night’s sleep. Dreams get progressively longer peaking in the 6th, 7th, and 8th hours of sleep.

* You will establish the habit of remembering your dreams by journaling them for the next 30 days.

Dream Interpretation Tips

* Start with a sincere intent to learn from your dreams to better yourself and live purposefully.

* What emotional feeling are you left with? Feelings are more accurate and truthful than words in dreams.

* You are made up of 80 percent water. The state of water in your dreams often reflects your emotional state.

* Write a simple story line. Summarize your dream in one sentence and express the main theme.

* Ask: “Why did my soul have this experience? What do I need to understand? What issues need working?”

* Be aware of the events occurring in your life at the time of your dream; especially the day before.

* Remember that dream symbols often have dual opposite meanings. Good dream dictionaries will have both.

* There are three main types of symbols: archetypal symbols, cultural symbols, and personal symbols.

* Review all your dreams at least once a year. You will notice common themes and motifs to help guide you.

* Act on your dreams: call or visit someone, pick up a book, watch a movie, wear clothing from your dreams.

* Dream application leads to dream interpretation. By applying your dreams the full meaning reveals itself.

We now live in a world where the village Shaman that brought healing and hope to people is all but killed off. Under the veil of science and technological progress, the world weeps silently. It is time to bring back the lost art of dreaming…

We use our eyes more than we do any of our other physical senses. We usually feel that our active consciousness is more connected with visual sight than with anything else. The sight-centers in the brain are used more than any of the others, and this fact is proven by our own dreams, in which we “see” figures, but very seldom hear any spoken words. Again our memory consists mostly of visual symbols and stimuli. When we think of a person, we call up their image before our minds eye, this being a “memory image.” Now, as these parts of the mind and brain are so active, it is only an extension of this natural faculty of inducing memory-images, which enables us to see objects and figures in our practice of clairvoyance.

We only have to encourage this mental ability a little more than usual to carry it beyond the limitations of the physical senses; whereas, with the other senses, much less used, we might have to do a great deal more of this cultivation or forcing-process, in order to develop the corresponding spiritual abilities. Clairvoyance and similar faculties usually depend on the partial liberation or freeing of the spirit from the body, and the stimulation of the corresponding psychic sense-organs into a higher degree of activity, to permit their use. The following are a few exercises which will be helpful in developing this faculty of clairvoyance.

PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT EXERCISES
1. Sit in a comfortable chair in a semi-darkened room. Mentally construct (i.e., visualize) before you a tube, open at both ends. One end of this tube fits over your eyes, and the other end extends indefinitely out into space. Imagine that this tube is hollow and that you can see through it perfectly. Turn this tube in the direction of the house of a friend of yours; mentally go into a room and see if you can discover in it anyone present,and if so, who they are and what they look like. Note what you see carefully… including clothing or colors, or anything that stands out for you. You will be able to verify the next day how far your vision is correct. And remember to be playfull with this exercise, the more playful and open minded you are, the less stress will interfere with your progress.

2. Next, Construct the tube as before. At the other end of this tube, which you can imagine to be about one hundred yards long, you must endeavour to see clairvoyantly the face of a friend. Try to distinguish the features of their face, making them clearer and clearer. When you have done this, gradually pull it toward you by an effort of will, until it is only about two or three feet from you. It should then be perfectly clear and every feature distinguishable. When you have succeeded in visualizing this face so clearly that you see it as distinctly as you would as if that individual stood before you in life, your progress as a clairvoyant will have made great advances and you may then begin experiments in influencing this person at a distance, or sending messages back and forth while seeing his face before you, as explained. Use your power of WILL – so that he should do a certain thing, to think of you at a certain time or see your face float before him as he is busy with his daily activities. If you practice this persistently, you will ultimately achieve success, being able to communicate

By Marnia Robinson

Marnia is the author of ‘Cupids Poisoned Arrow: From habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships’

Want to use your relationship to de-stress? Try something playful and totally unfamiliar: three weeks of brief, daily bonding behaviors.

Humans are pair bonders. That means an ancient region of our brain is wired slightly differently from the 97 percent of mammal species who don’t pair bond. We’re built to register regular, affectionate touch and close, trusted companionship with a mate as especially soothing and rewarding. (If you’re single, you can get a lot of the same benefits from friendly interaction with your pals. Remember the hugs!)

If you have a mate, let mutual affection ease your stress. For example, research shows that cohabiting couples who first engaged in hugging and handholding had lower heart rates and blood pressure when subsequently facing intense stress (spontaneous speaking before an audience).

Often couples make climax the primary goal of their intimacy, in part because it feels like orgasm is a stress-reducer. It’s true that it briefly lowers sexual tension. What’s really happening, though, is that dopamine, the “gotta get it” neurochemical, rises during arousal and then drops at climax, offering fleeting relief.

Orgasm reduces cravings, but not necessarily stress. Warm affection, however, measurably reduces stress. Social support, such as smiling at each other or offering a reassuring hug, reduces the prime stress neurochemical: cortisol . In contrast, lab tests show virtually no drop in cortisol after climax. The difference probably comes down to the “cuddle chemical,” oxytocin. Couples who exchanged more warm touch showed rises in oxytocin and greater improvements in multiple stress-sensitive body systems. The husbands, for example, had significantly lowered blood pressure.

Daily affection with a trusted mate can also improve your outlook. How? Oxytocin turns down defensiveness and fear in your brain’s primitive amygdala. Bingo! Your mate looks better and more loving–at least to you.

In short, your relationship is a goldmine of anti-stress “meds”–if you know how to work it. So, even if you don’t have time or energy for sex, make sure you exchange daily affection!

What are these behaviors that de-stress couples? It looks like they’re the same ones that strengthen their emotional bonds. Talk about convenient…

They’re surprisingly powerful–yet far more effortless than vigorous lovemaking. Evolutionarily, these “bonding behaviors” are closely related to the cues that bond mammal infants with their caregivers before weaning. In couples they look different, of course. And the good news is that we adult pair bonders can use them to sustain bonds for life.

The key point is that all mammals are deeply wired to respond to these signals, whether male or female. Our sensitivity to them evolved long before language or logic, so these signals bypass our rational brains and operate subconsciously.

Bonding behaviors rely on actions to work–and quantity matters. For example, dads who have lots of contact with their kids during a play session produce more soothing oxytocin than those who have little contact. This suggests that couples, too, benefit from frequent affectionate touch. Loving each other isn’t enough. Nor will occasional passionate sex do the trick.

Typical bonding behaviors between couples include skin-to-skin contact, gazing into each other’s eyes, wordless sounds of pleasure and contentment (“mmmmm….”), occasional gentle intercourse (orgasm optional), warm hugs, providing a treat or favor, gentle stroking, synchronized breathing, kissing and so forth.

Want to experiment with using a few weeks of daily affection to de-stress? Try this collection of playful activities for couples, all of which incorporate bonding behaviors. Most take just a few minutes, but can be extended if desired. Here’s a sample:

Have your partner lie face down on the bed and gently relax your partner by stroking up the spine from the sacrum to the neck for several minutes. Switch roles.

Keep in mind that bonding behaviors are not foreplay. Foreplay increases sexual tension. Bonding behaviors work because they help relax the brain. So do them just for their own sake, purely to de-stress. See what you experience. Again, to gain their full benefit, do them daily (or almost daily), even if only for a few minutes.

Bonding behaviors can be great news if you have been over-stimulating yourselves with particularly exciting foreplay techniques or viewing today’s extreme porn. Paradoxically, too much of a good thing can temporarily dampen the pleasure response of the brain. A few weeks of bonding behaviors help return the brain to its natural sensitivity and simple pleasures once again become fulfilling. It’s then easier for you and your partner to make each other purr with contentment.

Why not find out how enjoyable and relaxed life can be after a few short weeks of generous, affectionate exchanges?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

A short and informative interview on developing your psychic abilities, and the author who is helping to spread these ideas and techniques. The author covers thoughts, clairvoyant healings, spirits in readings, guides and more.

Many of us have heard about Soul Retrieval, which is the return of lost soul fragments (or lost parts) of ourselves. Soul Retrieval is a classical shamanic practice, and in some communities it was the primary method of maintaining health or power. The word soul equates to our life-force, and in shamanic terms we are a composite of ‘souls’, or life-force, and this explains why we can become fragmented. The Shipibo – Conibio Indians of the Upper Amazon Rainforest, for example regard every part of our body as having a soul; arms, hands, organs, glands, bones and so on, and part of their healing practise is to journey to retrieve the soul or life force of a particular part of the body, as a pre-requisite for the healing on the physical level to take place.

In the shamanic worldview, power and maintaining health go hand in hand, if the body is power-full, there is no room for illness or disease which are regarded as an invasive force. Power in the English language has a number of connotations which can make us feel uncomfortable. The meaning of power in the shamanic worldview, equates to power over ourselves, not power over others. The more power we have over ourselves, means that we are truly able to live our lives, without being knocked off centre, without having the need to react when our ‘buttons’ are pushed, we become less needy of other people’s power, and the more power we have over ourselves even makes it difficult to lie or dissemble, simply because we have no need to.

Soul Retrieval is one way to restore and maintain our life force, and power, and this is an act where we receive our own life-force. Another way to maintain our life-force is not to hold on to anybody else. In our lives we take and sometimes hold onto the energy of others. This is known as Soul Theft, which I know for many may be an emotive word and concept, but this is something we all do, it is common, and it should be looked at in a non-judgmental way. In some respects it is the other side of Soul Retrieval.

Soul-theft can be a learned generational behaviour, and often occurs in relationships and within families, it is an unconscious act, and in fact if the person knew what they were doing they may well be very upset.

We steal or take peoples life force in many ways, as these examples illustrate:

• When we are jealous of another persons power or status.
• Someone has a power / energy which another wants
• When another wants a persons identity, “I want to be like him/her!” This also could be when we ‘hero worship’ a person or idolise them.
• A very common way to take another persons power is to judge them.
• When we ‘over’ care for someone causing them to become too dependent on us. Which can result in the person losing their own strength and will to support them.

There are a number of problems that soul-theft causes:

• The person who’s life-force has been taken is diminished in some way
• Relationships can be ‘hung’ on to, causing difficult, ragged, and unsatisfactory completions.
• The person who has taken another’s life-force, can not use it in any way whatsoever, it becomes a burden. To illustrate this, participants on workshops who do the Soul-release exercise, have expressed it in a number of ways, “the taken soul parts felt like I had ‘barnacles on the hull of a ship’, which were holding me back, weighing me down”; another said “it felt like I was covered in clinging seeds, and leaves”.
• Sometimes we may even take on someone else’s ‘shadow’, and find ourselves working with another’s feelings, which may be an uncomfortable experience.

There are many benefits to all parties and to all-that-there-is when we return another persons life-force to them. This act can be most profound and healing, and works on many levels. I get a lot of feedback from people who do this work, and many times I am told of relationships, between partners, parents, children, changing and improving. As a simple analogy, I see this as a ‘tug-of war’, where both parties are pulling on the rope, and when the person who returns the others life-force, which is effectively ‘letting go of the rope’, the other person responds, there is no more rope to pull, or exert pressure on.

Participants on workshops and clients often tell me, that as soon as they did this work, they went home and cleared all the clutter and junk from their home. To me this is a way of making an immediate physical manifestation and grounding of the act of release. They are making space available for new things to come into their life, which is exactly what happens in our own soul bodies, we make more space for our own life-force, more space for our own power.

Even though we may know this, and would like to reflect, and where possible return the other persons life-force, it may however be difficult to recall or remember people’s names or their faces because the act was carried out on an unconscious basis. This is the clear problem.

Working with shamanism, using the tools, methods and techniques can be very supportive to us in this act of releasing. It is because the unconscious memories are difficult to access, that contact with the Spirit people, Spirit animals, and teachers can be helpful. The Spirit teachers and animals, know us perfectly, they know our personal history, our strengths, our qualities, our foibles, the symbols we work with, and they can help us in this.

Interesting Astrology Predictions into 2010 by Astrologer Barbara Goldsmith, from her site:

[Barbara] has been a practicing astrologer for over 30 years. She has a wealth of experience in both teaching astrology from beginners to advanced levels and also giving personal astrology readings.
She has worked in the USA, the UK and Germany and has appeared on BBC TV discussing the benefits of astrological counselling.

She is an accomplished speaker and presenter and has hosted her own local radio show. She has written numerous articles for various publications about astrology and has also had her own astrology column in the local press.

“An Astrologer proved a star turn when she made her TV debut on Saturday. Barbara impressed viewers when she won a competition to guess celebrities’ star signs. She has been teaching and practising astrology for over 15 years and travels the country hosting workshops.”
Daily Express, UK Oct 2000.

Don’t Kiss Them Good-bye

“Death is a funny thing. It brings out the best and worst in people. It casts light on the truth and makes life blindingly clear.” Her visions have helped solve crimes; her instincts have helped find missing people; she can predict future events and sense your thoughts. These are some of the extraordinary gifts that define the remarkable Allison DuBois, the real-life medium, wife, and mother whose life is the inspiration for the hit NBC television series Medium.

When she was six years old, Allison’s deceased great-grandfather came to her with a message for her mother: “I am okay, I am still with you. Tell your mom there’s no more pain.” Allison shared his comforting words with her mother and thus began a lifetime of creating connections between loved ones and those they have lost. The purpose of her gifts became clearer when Allison worked as an intern in the homicide bureau of the district attorney’s office and found that she visualized the crime as she handled the evidence. Allison now works as a profiler on criminal investigations.

In this stunning book, Allison shares fascinating stories of her encounters with people who have passed and her adventures as a profiler for various law enforcement organizations. With wit and compassion, Allison shows us what it is like to live with these special gifts and talents and also tells about her struggle to live a normal life as a devoted wife and mother. She shows how learning to accept her own gifts has helped her accept the unique gifts of others and how her compelling desire to relieve the pain of others has helped define her own life, a life committed to the search for ultimate truth.

If you have ever questioned whether there is an afterlife, this book will help you see that there is a living energy beyond death.

If you are interested in purchasing any Allison DuBois books you can find them all here: http://www.amazon.com/

Secrets of the Monarch: What the Dead Can Teach Us About Living a Better Life

In SECRETS OF THE MONARCH, Allison explains that if you want to understand life, you must understand death. She shows readers how communicating with the dead has taught her important lessons about life and how people can apply these principles to their own lives.

Allison stresses that every person’s life is part of a bigger story, stretching past family and friends to neighbors, community members and society as a whole. By making the most of your life now, she says you can positively affect that story. After all, if you already know the story will end, why not make the content a true masterpiece?

If you are interested in purchasing any Allison DuBois books you can find them all here: http://www.amazon.com/