Shakta Kaur - Yoga Teacher

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Relieving Your Elementary Stress

(Level 2 ‘Vitality & Stress’ Manual, pp. 21-22)


Sit in Easy Pose. Begin clapping your hands in the following sequence:

a. Slap the thighs

b. Clap the hands in front of the chest

c. Open the hands in a V

d. Clap the hands in front of the chest again

e. Slap the thighs.


Repeat the cycle. (As you repeat the cycle, you will slap the thighs twice in a row.) Create a rhythm. 3 minutes.


To end: Inhale deeply and hold the breath for 15 seconds. Close the eyes and have no thought. Exhale. Repeat holding the breath for 10 seconds. Inhale and hold for 10 seconds, inhale more and hold for another 10 seconds. Exhale.


You will be stress free in exactly three minutes. There is nothing you have to do. One, two three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. That’s it: it’s musical. Your body will start releasing the elementary stress.


Begin clapping again in the same sequence and rhythm as Exercise 1. 1 minute.


To end: Inhale deeply and hold for 10 seconds. Exhale and relax.


Clasp the hands in front of the Heart Center. Fingers of each hand are together and thumbs crossed over each other. Bounce the elbows against the sides of the ribcage. Strike the ribs hard and fast. 3 minutes.


To end: Inhale deeply and hold for 10 seconds and press your ribcage tightly with your elbows. Exhale. Inhale deeply and hold for 10 seconds, hold and tighten the elbows against the ribcage. Exhale. Inhale deeply, hold up to 30 seconds; exhale.


Sit with your elbows relaxed, fingers spread wide and hands in front of the shoulders, palms facing forward. Criss-cross your hands in front of your face as if you were a child saying, ‘No, no.’ Create your own rhythm. 2 ½ minutes.


To end: Inhale deeply, hold for 10 seconds, exhale. Repeat twice more and then shake your hands out.


Sit in Easy Pose. Bring your hands to the ground in front of you, allowing the spine to bend gently. Beat the ground with your hands in time with the music. Close your eyes and move rhythmically. 3 ½ minutes.


Music: Punjabi Drums was played during class.


Relax: Let the body move with the rhythm.


Immediately begin to dance the body in a seated posture. Play with the rhythm. Dance the shoulders. 7-10 minutes.


To end: Inhale deeply, hold and exhale. Repeat twice more.

Get rid of arthritis ... you have to move the ribcage to create the calcium-magnesium balance … let your body change the chemistry, relax itself. Free yourself of tension. Dance it away! Give yourself a chance.


Place your hands on your Heart Center, right over left parallel to the ground, one hand resting on the other. Close the eyes and nap while seated as gong is played. 8 ½ minutes.


Rhythmically sit straight and hypnotically go to sleep.


Listen and chant with Chattr Chakkr Varti.. 1 minute.


If you don’t know the mantra, just copy the sounds.

Chattr chakkr vartee, chattr chakkr bhugatay

Suyumbhav subhang sarab daa sarab jugtay

Dukaalang pranaasee dayaalang saroopay

Sadaa ang sangay abhangang bibhootay

Thou art pervading in all the four directions,

The Enjoyer in all the four directions.

Thou art self-illumined and united with all.

Destroyer of bad times, embodiment of mercy.

Thou art ever within us, the everlasting giver of undestroyable power.

(Last four lines of Guru Gobind Singh’s Jaap Sahib.)


COMMENTS: You have no enemy, you have no poverty, you have no disgrace, you have nothing wrong with you. It is the elementary stress that causes a zone of horror in you and you become the victim of it…


…The idea of religion, of meditation, of higher consciousness—call it anything—is that there should be no discontentment in a person. A stabilized, mentally enlightened person is the one who enjoys the spirit, the life. If you want to say you are not corrupt, you are corrupt just in saying it.


It’s not only a corruption that you wrong somebody; it’s not only a corruption that you take away something from somebody; it is a corruption that God gave you the gift of life and you cannot even feel it. … Life is a gift. We waste it on our own inner conflicts. We complain to the whole world and whole world complains to us, but we’ve got to become our own friends.