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Part 1: Gentle Level Five: Forward Bends and Backbends Let’s begin with some gentle level five postures this afternoon—nice, gentle forward bends and backbends. Start in a meditation posture. Feel your body, feeling refreshed now after your yoga nidrā. Come to a quiet space with the eyes closed. Feel the condition of your body this afternoon. Notice how the day’s activities and āsanas have affected you. Some of us might feel soreness or tension in different parts. Tune in to the needs of your body this afternoon. We will try to practice in such a way that you are working in tune with your body. In that spirit, dedicate your practice to your higher self. We have an opportunity to discover something about our body. Take a couple more breaths in this position. Then, bow your chin down towards your chest. Open the eyes and relax your hands. The first āsana from level five is Paścimottānāsana. Stretch your legs out. Position yourself on the edge of a support or a blanket. A key secret to enjoying this posture is in how you fold your blanket. It should be at the right height for your hips, so when you sit on it, it’s not a lumpy, unstable thing. It should give you firm support. Sit on the very edge so it tilts your pelvis forward. Extend your legs out, hip-width apart, not together. Try to open up through your hips and feel your hip bones in contact with the floor. Here, our legs are our anchor. Root down through the thighs. Extend your heels away and point your toes straight up. This creates a strong, firm foundation for our legs. Bring your arms up. This is the foundation for the posture. We are creating length through the sides of the body, creating space between the ribs, and keeping the legs strong. Start to go forward slowly, ribs down, feet hip-width apart. Sit down and take hold of your legs or feet, then relax your gaze and look down. Take some breaths on your own in the practice. Let your shoulders relax. Inhaling, stretch your arms back out again, reaching all the way out. Open through the chest, then relax your legs and arms. Practice again just with the breathing. Keep the legs strong. Lift the arms up, stretch through the fingers, and imagine someone is pulling on your fingers, reaching your body out further. Relax your shoulders and your gaze, looking down. Take some breaths. Relax your tummy. Inhaling, reach your arms forward and come up again. Broaden through your chest and upper back, then relax. Relax your legs. For the last round, hold it a little longer. Having your feet a little wider apart helps us access and open up further around the pelvis. Lift your arms, breathing in, and enjoy this journey down to the forehead. Find some comfort in your position. Remember, this is about your own practice, not anyone else’s. Now is the time we can feel more intimately our body, especially at this level with our hamstrings. See how you can work with your body this afternoon with your hamstrings. Feel how this stretch begins at your buttocks and extends along the back of your legs to your heels. With every exhalation, we have an opportunity to soften. Feel your inhalation. As you breathe out, see if you can find the corners of this posture. If it feels too strong or your body is tired, lift up a little bit. Begin to press down through the legs, activating them. See if you can lift your elbows higher than your heart, activating your arms. Lift your elbows and try to draw your abdomen towards your legs. Bring your head down, keep your back long and straight, then come up. Inhale, stretch the arms up above your head, open up through the chest, and relax. Let’s try something similar with a forward bend, legs apart. From where you are, you might need to turn on your mat to use its length. Open the legs wide for Bandha Paścimottānāsana. We’ll start with Prasāra Paścimottānāsana, a forward bend straight down. First, find the position of your legs. They should be wide enough for a great stretch on the inside of your thighs, but not hurting your knees. Press down through the thighs again, making your body tall. Slightly externally rotate the legs, rolling them out a fraction, toes up. Keep your legs strong and firm. From here, stretch your arms up above your head. Reach up through the fingers and open through the chest. Now, the fun part. Go slow and focus on your body. Lean your abdomen forward first. Keep reaching your abdomen forward and bring your arms out toward your feet. Relax your head down. Feel your breath and let your body familiarize. Inhale, lift your hands with your body, coming all the way up again. Relax the arms back down. For another round, inhale, make the legs ready, heels out. Exhale, bending forward. Inhale, lengthen the spine, lift yourselves, raise the arms up above your head, open through the chest, then relax your legs. For the final round, hold it a little longer in this position. Concentrate just in front of your body for a moment. Feel your legs again. Are they in the correct spot? If they could be wider, open them, then energize them again. Press down, toes up. Look tall through your spine. Raise your arms up above the head and stretch into the fingers. Try to keep length through your side body, create space between the ribs, and come forward. Reach the arms out and look down. Come straight away to your breathing. Feel your inhalations and exhalations. Try to relax your mind in the posture. If you’d be more comfortable with your hands on the floor, put them there. If you are more comfortable with your hands in front of you, feel free to put them on the floor, even your elbows. Feel that you have a desire to understand this position a little better. This means you are developing your concentration. Find the space where you can just breathe and realize something about the posture. If you discover your muscles are becoming softer, move yourself into that space. Try to extend yourself further than you might normally in the practice. Take one more breath. Inhale, raise your arms, coming up. Stretch them up above the head, open your chest. Then relax, bring your arms down. The posture that naturally follows is Bandha Paścimottānāsana. Take the left wrist behind the back and hold your wrist, pulling it down and away from your body. You’re opening up through your chest. From here, turn to face along your right leg. Twist yourself so your abdomen and shoulders face along your right leg. Inhale. As you exhale, hold your body down along your leg, bringing your head to your knee. Deep inhale, lift your head and body, and exhale back to the middle. Breathe in, hold the right wrist, and turn to face along the left leg. Exhale coming down. Feel your breath in, lifting your body, coming up, and face the middle. Adjust so you’re still sitting on the edge of your support. Breathe in. Turn your face along the right leg, holding the right wrist. Then fold down along your leg, absolutely first. Inhale, lifting yourselves, coming up, and exhale into the middle. Breathing in, hold the left wrist and turn, facing the left leg. Exhale, coming down. Breathing in, lift your head and body, and back to the middle. Let’s go just once more. Breathing in, turn to face the right. Lift your toes up, extend your heels away, press down through your legs, then fold down over your right leg. Take a deep inhale, lift your head, let the body follow, and come to the middle. Here’s our last one. Turn to the left side, breathing in, legs strong, then come down. Deep inhale, lifting the head and your body, and come back to the center. Relax your hands, then take your hands, bend your knees, and bring your legs together. Well done. Next, move your blanket away. The next āsanas are some backbends. The first one is Bhujaṅgāsana. Come onto your stomach. The energy of the backbends is different from the forward bends, which are more introverted. Place your hands under your shoulders. Start by sliding your legs together so they’re touching. Feel that your inner thighs are together, your legs are together, but just relax. Touch your heels for now and feel the position. Keep your buttocks relaxed, keep your bottom relaxed, and bring your heels back to touch. Your heels come in, but your bottom is relaxed. Your lower back is relaxed. Then, the hands come under the shoulders. Bring your shoulders back, then press lightly on the ground with your hands and curl your upper body up. Keep your legs as they are, heels together. Your lower back is relaxed, so the curve is all in your thoracic spine. Wind down, feel your breath. The inner legs are together, heels together, but your buttocks are soft. With the hands under the shoulders, inhale and curl the upper body off the floor, bringing the shoulders back and lifting up. The shoulders are down and back. Wind slowly down. We’ll try one more. Fingers are spread apart. Inhale and curl the body up. Bend your body back, raising the upper part of your body, slowly, slowly. Then, turn your head to the other side. The next asana is Śalabhāsana. We’ll do this one leg at a time. The position for Śalabhāsana from where you are: the hands are going to be underneath your body, palms on the floor. If you feel your chest is in the way or this is uncomfortable, your hands can be beside your body. Some teachers practice with their hands like this. If that works for you, practice like that. But let’s try the starting position: bring your hands underneath your body. Lie on them and give it a go. Try to feel comfortable. Put your hands underneath your body, finding the inside of your hip bones. Start to breathe in the practice. From here, we’ll try just one leg at a time. Inhale and lift the left leg up behind you. Exhale, relax it down. Consciously, breathe in and lift your right leg up, trying to extend out through to your right big toe. Exhale, relax the leg down. Deep inhale, pressing into your hands and lift. Exhale, bring the leg down. One more with the right side: breathing in, lifting your right leg, and relax. Make some adjustments to your hands because we’ll try both legs. Feel that your fingers are spread wide apart and they’re supporting you under your body. Think about the front side of your body being soft and the back side being strong and contracting. Keeping the front side soft, inhale and lift the legs. If they come apart, that’s okay. You’re contracting through your back but soft through the front. Relax down. Bring your legs down. That was good. We’ll try it once more. Hands ready. Inhale and lift the legs. Exhale, relax them down. Remove your hands away. Move your hands out. Put your hands under your shoulders. Lift your body up. Come back and relax with the knees open. Sit on your toes, open the knees, and come down to relax in a forward bend. Relax your back. Stretch your arms out. Śalabhāsana is a powerful posture for the back of the body and the kidneys. It’s also good for depression and increases our spiritual development. Feel how the energy of the postures changes again with the head down. You have that chance to connect with your inner practice once more. Feel the influence on your body from the postures. Slowly come up. Begin to walk your hands in towards your hips and bring the legs back together again. The next asana is Dhanurāsana, the bow. This is another stronger backbend where we’re lying on our tummies. There are a couple of variations we can try. Come down again onto your abdomen. Feet are about hip-width apart, then bend the knees. Reach around to take hold of your feet. For some, this can already be strong enough. If you want, you can just stay here if this is enough for your body. We’re going to try to lift up a little bit. Focus on the grip on your feet, then try to bring your feet in line with your buttocks—not out or in, but parallel. Part 2: Refined Yoga Practice Transcript With a contraction of the back muscles, inhale and lift your toes as high as you wish to go today. Exhale, coming down. Let’s try again. Inhale, coming up. Roll your shoulders back and exhale, coming down. Once more: inhale, coming up. Exhale, then take a little break and relax your legs and hands. A variation of this āsana is to practice some rocking forwards and backwards, and side to side. Side to side might cause us to fall into each other, so we can go forward. You can try forward to backwards if you wish. If it is too strong, you can do another variation. So, let’s hold the feet again, this thing, roll the shoulders back behind your body, then we inhale, and then we exhale. Breathe, pausing in the middle. And relax. Turn your head to the side and feel the energy in your body. Let’s use our hands to help our body come up. With the help of the hand, we go back to the āsana position again. The opposite position from this is Sumeru Āsana. Spreading our fingers in the hand, we come in front of ourselves as if we were in a cat pose. Just take some deep breaths here and try to relax through your back. Feel that you are pressing your palms and your fingers actively into the floor. We are opening up through the chest, stretching out through the sides of the body, pushing back through your inner thighs. Encourage your heels down, and then slowly go to your knees back down to the floor and sit back. From this posture, let’s come to stand for a balancing pose: Ek Pāda Padmāsana. The feet are about hip-width apart. Just check in with your inner space, and feel how your forward and backward bends are strong, but they make you feel calm. To balance, just let your gaze rest upon a point in front of you. Discover your breathing again. See if you can find the center of your feet, so you are not leaning on your heels or too far over your toes. Then, we’ll transfer our weight onto our right leg. You are leaning on your right leg without slouching. We are still lifting up through our hips. Looking at a point, let’s bring this left leg up and press the foot onto the inside of your thigh. Then bring your hands to the center of your chest. If this feels too strong, you can put your foot near your knee or just on top of your other foot. If you are standing on one leg, you are already balancing. Now, let’s actively use the right leg and press against the sole of your foot, so you are working both sides, both legs, to hold your body. It is not just by chance that you can balance; there is some skill or application of your muscles. Then we relax the leg down and relax the arms. Now we work the other lobe of our brain. We try the other side. Feel the weight through your left leg and spread the toes apart. Looking at a point on the ground, lift your right leg up. If your clothes are too slippery, or it is not going to happen today, you can put your foot on top of your other foot. Then, hands coming into praṇāma mudrā. Begin to build upon your posture, so you are working your legs toward one another. Feel that your spine is becoming longer, up through the top of your head. Your elbows are active and out. Your shoulders are relaxed. Allow your gaze to just rest on that point. Then we’ll relax and relax the foot down. Let’s take a step now towards the front of our mat. We’ll do just a couple of different postures from Kaṭhūpraṇām. Let’s work more intuitively with how we feel in our body today. Just stay focused on our inner space, on ourselves. Feel your breathing, and if you want, you can say your mantra. Remember that how we move our body is like an offering, making the mind more quiet. We’ll stretch our arms up above our head and lengthen up through the fingers. Notice where your gaze is, and just hold a point with your gaze to feel your effort and integrity in your body. Your legs are strong like pillars, and the sides of your body are long as well. Open your palms to the front of the room. Stay connected with this inner space as you bend forward. Holding forward from your hips, coming down into a forward bend. We are just standing at the front of our mat in this forward bend with the neck relaxed. Like you did before, find the center of your feet and stand through the center of your feet, so you are not leaning back or forward. Notice how all these weeks’ meditations and satsaṅgs have influenced what you feel in your legs. Use this āsana now as therapy for your body. Let’s bend our knees and put our hands on the outer edges of the feet. Imagine that you are holding a soccer ball in between your knees. Try to keep some tension and tone between your knees. Keep your back straight and push your pelvis away from you. Now, take a long step back with your right leg to the beginning of your lunge, but do not bring your back knee to the floor yet. Keep your right leg strong and active, and try to lift up through your back thigh, so keep working your back leg. Then, bring your chest forward, and then relax your back knee down. Feel your chest open; it is like a backflip. Keeping the legs in this position, let’s just come to sit up in a posture and raise the arms up above the head. Now, find your point of concentration again. Look at a point, and soften your mind and your body into the posture. Feel your legs supporting you, and your effort to lift your arms up, open your heart. Then return your hands back down and make your hands ready for Sumeru Āsana. So, fingers are spread apart, your middle finger facing forward. Then lift your right leg and step back into the space. Begin to press back through to your hips. Let’s all lift up onto our toes. Try to really push your hips up to touch the roof. Then begin to guide your heels back down toward the floor. Try to lift your toes now off the ground. Lift your toes and activate your legs. Slowly guide your knees back fully onto the floor. Let’s step our left leg forward into our arms. So, opposite foot forward. This is the opposite. This is good. Is it the right leg? Same leg? So, switch sides, the other side, sorry, and just try to relax your body. Begin to open up through your chest. Then from here, coming to sit up in the pose, bring your arms up above the head, and again, reaching through to our fingers. Let your gaze rest on a point, and then slowly return your hands back down. Then, let’s use our back leg and press forward to the front of our mat again into our standing forward bend. Find your breathing and the center of your feet. From this position, let’s bend the knees and roll up, coming to stand, raising the arms up above the head, stretching up through to the fingers. Then slowly bending forward again. From this position, bend the knees and step the right leg back, bringing the back knee to the ground, opening through the chest. And, coming to lift our body, arms up above the head. Then, guiding the arms back down, placing them for the Sumeru Āsana. Let’s lift the back leg and step back. Just catching your breath here, find your breathing, relax your tummy. Begin to press back through your inner thighs, and then guide your weight forward, stepping your right leg out to the front. And just once more. And one more time, left foot to the right, bend forward, fingers in touch with the floor. Inhale, let’s raise our arms up above our head, opening through the chest, and then relax your arms back down. We are going to start to wind down now. Let’s step into the middle of our mat and have your feet hip-width apart. We are going to do just a slight variation of Maṇḍūkī Āsana, frog. So from this posture, opening up through your chest, let’s breathe in and lift the arms up above the head, and then exhale, forward bend, and slide your fingers underneath your feet. Then, begin to bend your knees and bring your bottom down toward the floor. Begin to press your knees apart and lift your head up. So your back is like a frog, and then straighten your legs. Inhale, lift your arms up above your head, coming up, opening through the chest, and exhale, fold your hands, folding down. Slide your hands under your feet so your thumbs are on the top, and begin to bend your knees so your buttocks come down to point towards the floor. Begin to press your knees apart, lift your head up, look up to the roof, and then pull your back forward again. Begin to straighten your legs, inhale as your arms come up, open through your chest, and exhale into a bend. Hands coming under the feet, begin to bend your knees, coming down and press apart your legs. Lifting your gaze, looking up. Last one: straighten the legs. Breathing in, let’s lift our arms up above our head, open through your chest, and exhale, forward bend. Just hang in your forward bend, and we’ll start to bend our knees and slowly make our way to lie back down onto our mat, so coming to sit down. Let’s come to lie down on our backs for just a couple of twists. Stretching out along the floor. Notice how your buttocks and your legs are more soft and open. The postures in level five are usually more introverted positions. They require our attention. From here, let’s just bring our legs together and stretch your arms out at shoulder height. Now, bend your right knee and put the sole of your foot on the ground. Pick up your bottom and move it over to the right side and put it down again. Move your hips to the right, then put your right foot on the other side of your left knee. Bring your left hand onto your right knee, and then guide your right leg down towards the floor into a twist, and just stay here if you need to make some adjustment. Try to make your bottom at right angles to the ground, so it is perpendicular to the floor. Feel that your back is broad and open, and your abdomen is relaxed. This is a fine art: to bring both the right shoulder to the ground. This is a fine art: to bring your left knee to the floor and to have both of your shoulders on the floor. Try to keep your jaw relaxed. Relax your face. We go slowly to change sides. Slowly guide your leg back to the middle. Use your feet to make your bottom level on the ground. Stretch your right leg out along the floor, so your left knee is bent. Then move your hips over to the left. Bring your left foot on the outside of your right knee. Use your hand to guide your body down into the twist. In the beginning, just breathe. Just let your body familiarize with the position. You have the chance to discover what the difference is between the sides. Then we have the chance to try to soften ourselves. Feel with your exhalations that you would like to increase your flexibility here. Can you feel what the difference is between your left and right side? Trying to understand the body more and more. Just give ourselves one more breath, and then coming all the way back into the middle and stretching out along your body. So, create some space and lift your arms up above your head. Stretch down through to your feet, and then bring the hands down. We are going to come up into meditation posture now, so let’s roll over. Find that comfortable support again underneath your buttocks. Feel how much softer it is around your pelvis and legs. Without too much doing things or talking, let’s just find our comfortable position. When you feel ready, we’ll just close our eyes and check that your base is balanced and comfortable. Feel your legs supporting you here. Relax your elbows, relax your abdomen so that it is soft, relax your eyes so that they are not moving. Begin to feel your gentle breath. We are going to practice Prāṇāyāma, Nāḍī Śodhana Level 1. From here, let’s bring our hands to Prāṇāyāma Mudrā. Closing the Piṅgalā Nāḍī, the right side. Just start taking your breaths through the left side. Check that your body is relaxed, and think about the qualities of Iḍā Nāḍī, balancing the moon system of our body. Science regulates our emotions, and all the more passive processes in the body. Feel that you could follow the pathway of the Iḍā Nāḍī with your mind. From the left nostril, you move up towards the Ājñā Cakra, and then this nāḍī turns down and begins to weave along the spine, the base of the spine, and the nāḍī turns up again, coming to the Maṇipūra Cakra. Imagine that your breathing is purifying and liberating your emotions. Our next exhalation. Release the right nostril and close Iḍā Nāḍī, and begin to breathe through Piṅgalā. The sun system; this nāḍī regulates the more active processes in our body, our ability to manage stress, our thoughts and our consciousness. A few more breaths on this side. Just a few more inhales and exhales on this side, and with the next exhale, finish. Relax your right arm, but stay as still as a statue. Feel the breath gently enter under both nostrils. Feel that your body is completely still; that if you move one little thing, your mind will also follow. Feel the prāṇa of your body. Try to perceive what your energy or your vibration is. Feel that you can connect with your heart center to make your vibration more loving. Just for a few moments, regardless of any sounds that you hear. Just for a few moments, regardless of the sounds around you, keep your body calm and keep your attention inside. Now, find your mantra and say the words of your mantra slowly for our practice. Conscious that all these external sounds will always be there, so we have to make this effort to touch the deepest parts of ourselves. Feel the blessing of being around Swamijī. All together, we will chant OM three times to close our practice. Deep inhale. If you are ready to move forward. Thank you. Hari Om.