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This morning we had another program; many brothers and sisters received a mantra, so it took some time. But did you have a nice practice this morning? Who was the teacher? Kiran? Very good. Thank you. This book on backache problems needs to be reprinted. Before Christmas comes, nobody should have a backache. It also makes a nice Christmas present for your colleagues, your boss, and so on. Yesterday we spoke about Rudrākṣa. Everyone can read about it; a lot is written on the subject. You will find information on computers, even in your own language. If you do not wear it on your body, you can also keep it at home. However, that Rudrākṣa which you wear around your neck, if you keep it at home, should be kept in a place where, within 24 hours, some living human being is present—not a cat or dog. There may be many mosquitoes and ants inside, but a human presence is required. Otherwise, the energy turns in the other direction. If possible, once a week or once a month on the full moon day, give this Rudrākṣa ghee to drink. This means you melt butter and then place the Rudrākṣa inside. This will purify all negative energies collected in your body and draw them out. It purifies and neutralizes again. Every Monday, perform the water washing, Abhiṣeka. If you have real sandalwood paste or sandalwood oil, wet your finger with a little of the oil and apply it like a tilak on the Rudrākṣa. Then observe the effect or miracle of the Rudrākṣa. There are different kinds of Rudrākṣas. Mostly, people wear the Gaṇeśa Rudrākṣa, or the five-faced (pañca-mukhī), which keeps the five elements in balance. The one-faced (eka-mukhī) is Śiva himself; it is very difficult to obtain. Or there is Gaurī Śaṅkar, Śiva and Śakti together, which is good for husband and wife. These are certain things that help us, which we can do. But do not leave it somewhere in a closed room alone for more than 24 hours. It can disappear. You may say, "Stolen, stolen," but you never know. Or the energy goes away. It needs the presence of a living being—a human being. Yesterday I spoke and mentioned our dear doctor Āratī. Early this year, at the Brno conference—a scientific conference on yoga, especially research work on Yoga in Daily Life—we had much to discuss regarding health: things to know and to practice. For the sake of health, we are ready to do anything. Mostly, what we do is prevention, and prevention is much better than treatment. Yoga is practiced as prevention. Āyurvedic medicine is also taken as prevention. And this Rudrākṣa and all these stones are a form of prevention. If there is some illness, they will help to cure it, but we cannot set conditions. We cannot tell God, "If you don’t heal me, then I will not believe in you," or "If you heal my illness, I will believe you." God will say, "It’s your choice. I lose nothing." So then, if you say, "God, I go away," God says, "Okay, go." If you say, "Lord, I am coming, I am here," God says, "Welcome." It is always our individual matter. Your development, spiritual development, your practice—all of it is for your own benefit. If you come to me, you are coming for your own benefit. Years and years you come, and now if you say, "I will go away," I will not say no. I cannot lock you in a room, but consider that the years of work you did are for nothing, and those years will not come back in your life. So, prevention is better than treatment. And if it is too late, we have some treatments too. There, we must take all kinds of opportunities: allopathic medicine, naturopathic medicine, Āyurvedic medicine, or other holistic medicine. We should remain healthy. A healthy life is a life you can enjoy. An ill life is not a life; it is just enduring suffering. Now Dr. Āratī, I think she disappeared. Yes, Dr. Āratī will come, and she will give some very, very useful, practical instructions. Also, her friend will come and give a demonstration. So, Āratī, you can sit here, please. We welcome our dear Dr. Āratī. Whom will you choose? Some demonstrator? Any boy or girl? Do you need a young one, an old one, a retired one? No, it’s okay. This is fine. Thank you. So you will practice here. We don’t need your yoga mat; just move the wires. Is up better, or down better? Up is better, okay? Āratī, you can sit. Okay, this side perhaps. Do you see more space? Can this microphone come to this side? Is this your chocolate that fell down? It’s a ring. Little thumb. Look to this side. A little. No, no, a little here. Close here, close to the table. Go far out. Yes, now people can see you. A little bit more to the left. Can you put the microphone a little higher? She has to go like that. Dear brothers and sisters, I will demonstrate... I will show you a few exercises for females. Swāmījī sort of guided me or instructed me to prepare something like this for women. Just a couple of words about all the organs, the female organs, and how they function. A woman's life is influenced by her menstruation cycle, by her period, and it influences all her hormones. The cycles start, or her periods start, at the age of 12 or 13, at the age of puberty. Can you keep the microphone a little farther, please? Thank you. Because in the webcast there is too much echo. When there are great changes in a female body—great changes in the female organism, but also in her psyche—these great changes, which take one or two years, she has to cope with them. She finds them difficult to understand. It is the time when the ovaries start to function and begin to produce the hormone estrogen. This hormone, estrogen, influences her entire life. It is the main hormone. There are many other hormones, but this is one of the most important. At this stage of life, a woman or young woman can help herself thanks to yoga. She can understand the changes going on in her body, mainly thanks to the fact that while she practices Yoga in Daily Life, she goes deeper inside herself, and through this, she can learn to understand the changes. This is the period of her life when the cycle is not regular, and very often it is accompanied by pain. Yoga in Daily Life can help very much. The āsanas which are really useful, really suitable for this time, are, for example, Marjārī, Vyāgrāsana, Meruakaraṇāsana. So you can demonstrate Marjārī. With exhalation, we open the spine from the hips. We stretch our back, hips bend, chest, spine, and then the head first, look up to the ceiling. With exhalation, we return from the pelvis, so we lift the hips, chest, spine, and finally the head, look at the belly. In this movement, we continue in the rhythm of our breath. Beautifully, this āsana compresses the area of the small pelvis, so it is really useful for the position of the ovaries and uterus, and also releases pain in the lower abdomen and pelvis. This first position, when you engage your thigh muscles and your buttock muscles, is very useful because you are working with your pelvis as well. Similar to Marjārī is Vyāgrāsana. Inhaling, you engage your thigh muscles. You should really engage the muscles on the back of your thigh and your buttock muscles. The pelvis should always be parallel to the floor; it shouldn’t tilt to the sides. It should always remain so. You should try to keep your pelvis parallel to the floor. Somebody said that it shouldn’t be the posture of a dog who is being... This āsana, apart from the fact that it improves or stimulates the organs in the lower abdomen, influences the joint, because very often there are blockages in this area. Then Meruakaraṇāsana, which is suitable for young women. It is an āsana from the second level. You lie down on your side, so align your legs. If you lean on your shoulder, try to lean down. If you lean on your palm, you can feel the stretching of the muscles on the side of your trunk. You can play with this āsana a little bit in the positions. Exhaling, lean on your palm, your head on your palm. Align the whole body so they are in one line. It is a really controlled movement; it is the yogic way of doing the movement. Lift your leg and hold on to either your toes or your foot, as far as you can reach, so that your leg is straight. It improves the position of your uterus and ovaries, and also, the deep yogic breathing in the area of the abdomen improves the movement. It presses the area of the kidneys. The kidneys are organs which produce hormones that have a metabolic function, and this āsana influences this function or these hormones as well. It presses against them. In this position, the kidneys are pressed like a mushroom or a sponge. So it’s like a sponge, and then when you release or relax the position, the blood is released. But of course, it doesn’t concern only blood, but also prāṇa and energy. These three āsanas are very useful, especially in the phase of life when the young girl is growing up, at the age of 12, 13—puberty or adolescence—apart from Yoga Nidrā and meditation. It is the stage of female life when her cycle starts to become regular, and she just gets used to the regular menstrual periods. Then comes the time of reproduction, the time of pregnancy, then labor, and the time after labor. It is a time when again a woman goes through very significant changes. I would call it a hormone storm. In our languages, we say that it is a different state when a woman is pregnant. A woman changes not only inside her physical body, but she also changes her mind and emotions. So again, she can understand this period of her life much more easily thanks to Yoga in Daily Life, and she can go through this phase much more smoothly. There are certain āsanas which are really recommended for the time of pregnancy. For example, Māṇḍūkī āsana, the frog posture: you squat, making a squat with your legs wide apart. Inhaling, you spread your legs apart; exhaling, you bend forward, and while exhaling, you press the knees against your arms. It helps your hip joints and your pelvic floor. It is an āsana which is really a kind of preparation for labor. We start from the standing position, the feet are wide apart. Interlock your fingers. Exhaling, bend your knees a little bit, as if you were sitting on a bar chair, the back is straight. Exhaling, go a little bit lower and try to push the pelvis a little bit forward. The weight of the body should be placed on the heels, not on the toes. The third repetition goes straight down to the ankles. You can hold the positions or stay in these gradual positions for a little longer; it depends on your condition. This āsana strengthens the muscles of the legs, relaxes the pelvis, and relaxes the pelvic floor. It enables the baby in the uterus to go a little bit lower in the pelvic floor. Then there are several āsanas which strengthen the pelvic floor. The first one is Setu Āsana. First, engage the buttock muscles. Try to feel the whole legs. So, try to engage all the muscles along the legs. Also, come back from the position gradually: first the calf muscles, the calves, the knees, and finally the thighs and buttocks, and the last one is the head. This āsana is recommended for women whose babies are turned in the opposite direction, like with their buttocks down. So if a woman practices this āsana regularly every day, the baby can turn with the head down. Six weeks after labor is the time which should be dedicated to the āsanas for strengthening the pelvic floor, and I will mention them a little bit later when I mention some āsanas for it. It is the time when the ovarian hormones stop being produced, at the age of around... and this phase is accompanied by symptoms such as tiredness, insomnia, depression, heat, and hot flashes. It is the time of dramatic changes in her life, something she has to cope with. Yoga can help again, thanks to the fact that it helps on all levels—physical, mental, emotional, social—on all levels. All the āsanas that you have seen are suitable for this period of life. Very good or useful is Yoga Mudrā. So the fists are pressing against the lower abdomen. Deep abdominal breath massages all the organs in the lower abdomen, pelvic floor, and ovaries. Viparīta Karanī Mudrā improves the hormonal functions. So place your hands on the area of your kidneys and lean with your buttocks against your palms. The pelvis should be relaxed, relaxing and resting on the palms. This mudrā improves the blood circulation in the brain and the glands which are in the brain. These glands influence other glands in the rest of the body. For example, the thyroid gland, which is influenced by this āsana or mudrā, because in this āsana it is suppressed, and the hands are pressing against the kidneys. So this āsana influences or affects all the glands in the body. Then comes the time of menopause, which takes about five years. It is the time of old age when the function of the ovaries is over or finished. The lack of estrogen is accompanied by civilization diseases or illnesses: osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, a higher risk of heart attack. New wrinkles appear, and all the tissues... So the pelvic floor becomes weaker and weaker. There are problems with urinating; when you sneeze or cough, there is incontinence. So very useful are the āsanas which strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor. These are the āsanas that a woman should practice straight after labor, because the muscles of the pelvic floor start to be damaged or are damaged during labor. So she should start practicing them after labor and carry on through all of life. So Uṣṭrāsana and Skandarāsana. Skandarāsana is probably the most effective. So hold to your ankles. If you want this āsana to be effective, you should do it really slowly. First, press the lower back against the floor. We tighten the area of the trapezius and the cervical organs, and then the ribs to each other. And so we tighten and tighten the whole pelvic floor. Slowly, we turn and move away from the ground. When we get to the shoulder blades, we can put the shoulder blades together, as long as the position allows us to. So you should first try to engage all the muscles around your anus and genitals, and inhaling, lift first your pelvis, then your lower back, chest. Try to push the shoulder blades as close together as possible. If it is possible, it is a good idea to stay in the... Hold the āsana for as long as you feel comfortable. And again, slowly come back from the āsana: first the area of the chest, then the lower back, and finally the buttocks. This āsana engages all three layers, or levels, of the muscles of the pelvic floor. There is one muscle which is very deep in the pelvic floor, and this āsana works with this muscle as well. It’s got the shape of a sink. Then, Uṣṭrāsana, which improves or strengthens the muscles of the pelvic floor. Similar to Setu Āsana, which we have already seen. We start from Vajrāsana. First, tilt your pelvis a little bit forward. With the right hand, hold on to your right heel and look at the left leg. Inhaling, come up. Exhaling, hold on to your left heel with the left hand, and look at the other hand. Push the pelvis a little bit forward, engage your buttock muscles. Inhaling, come up, and exhaling, come back on your heels. This āsana strengthens the thigh muscles. It can be quite demanding for the area of the lower back. I think that I managed to go through all the life of a woman. I apologize for keeping you longer than 25 minutes. Thank you very much for the demonstration. And thank you, Swāmījī, for the time that I got. Thank you, Āratī. Very nice. Very interesting. Very useful and practical. So she will design a few levels of programs. Next year, in 2014, it will be implemented in our classes, in every center, and two or three other programs. So, thank you. Many people have a bus or train to catch, and the long way from here to Prague is a long way. To go to Pilsen, you can come to Kyiv in Ukraine. Czechoslovakia is a long... thank you, organizers. And wish you all the best. Thank you. Adiós.