Life in Balance: Amit Chaudhary’s Blog
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Excerpt from Coming Up to Headstand Alone by Tias Little

By toning the legs and abdomen, you will gradually gain the stability to bring the lower half of your body over the upper half.

When you come into Headstand by yourself, you won’t actually “kick up,” you will draw your legs over your head by drawing in and up on the navel center, thus engaging the abdominal muscles.

Asanas to which help in getting to Head stand:
1. Navasana (Boat Pose) for greater abdominal tone.
If you can’t straighten your legs, then keep the knees slightly bent. Hold for 10 to 20 breaths
2. Hip up.
Another way to gain abdominal strength is to lie on your back with your legs extended up into the air, your pelvis on the floor and your heels directly over your hips. As you exhale, draw the navel into the spine and lift the hips off the floor. Your legs should move straight up toward the ceiling as you roll the hips up. Inhale to release. Do this for 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose)
Especially beneficial because it requires strength and balance along the
inner seam of the leg. I also encourage you to hone the strength and tone in your legs. This will give you the power to get up and to remain stable in the pose without compressing your neck. Practice other standing poses that bring energy into your legs.

Description of Salamba Sirsasana (Supported Headstand) at Yoga Journal:

Excerpt:

As a beginning practitioner stay for 10 seconds. Gradually add 5 to 10 seconds onto your stay every day or so until you can comfortably hold the pose for 3 minutes.

Balance in this pose is difficult at first. Perform Sirsasana against a wall. Bring the knuckles of the clasped hands to the wall. If possible, do the pose in the corner of a room, so that the right-angled walls touch your shoulders, hips, and outer heels.

Beginners Tip

Beginners tend to take too much weight onto the neck and head when coming into and exiting this pose, a potentially harmful situation. Prepare to do this pose as described above against a wall. To come up, set your arms in place and lift your head slightly off the floor. Move into the wall-supported position with the head off the floor, then lower it lightly onto the floor. Support 90 to 95 percent of your weight on your shoulders and arms, even if it means staying for only a few seconds. Gradually, over time, take more and more weight onto your head, but proceed slowly. Similarly, when you exit this pose, first lift your head off the floor, then bring your feet down. Eventually you will be able to keep your head on the floor when going up and coming down.

From Sayings of a Paramahamsa: Swami Satyananda Saraswati

In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, it is said that the most important thing is peace of mind. When you think badly about others your mind is not at peace, and if you don’t have peace of mind, then you can’t have good meditation. You may have good concentration in meditation, but at the bottom the tempest is blowing, and it can blow out the light at any moment.
In order to attain peace of mind you must have the attitude of friendship for people who are happy and you must have compassion for those who are unhappy. You must be pleased with people who are virtuous and you should ignore those who are vicious. These are the four attitudes you should try to develop when you are dealing with the four different types of people.

Story:
Once a very good-natured person was taking a bath in the Ganges when he noticed a scorpion being swept along by the water. In order to save the scorpion, the man picked it up and held it in his hand. The scorpion bit the man, but he still continued to hold it. Again it bit him. A man who was witnessing this whole game asked the good man, “Why don’t you leave that scorpion to die?” Do you know what his reply was? “When a scorpion does not give up his nature, why should I give up mine?”

Satsang and Kusang:
if you want to eliminate negative thoughts, your whole nature must be changed. By attending satsangs you can transform your nature greatly, and this is most important. Satsang means association with people where positive things are being practised. You may be singing together or studying yoga together. You may be reading the scriptures or discussing the problems of day to day life. This is called satsang, and after it you start thinking very positively.
The opposite of satsang is kusang. Ku means bad, evil, negative or devilish, and sang means association. When you are in association with negative people or ideas, that is called kusang. So, in order to purify the human nature, the most important sadhana is satsang. If we cannot hold a satsang ourselves, then we can read a positive and inspiring book. When I was a student I frequently read a marvellous book called Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’ Kempis. Every time I read it I obtained some new light.

From Sayings of a Paramahamsa: Swami Satyananda Saraswati

When you meditate, let your thoughts come out. Do not try to concentrate very hard. In this way, if you go on in the path of meditation, scientifically and systematically, there is no danger. Of course there are people who try to practise meditation and give up the practice after some time because they find that the more they meditate the more they express their negative tendencies.

In the same way, when you sit for meditation you are closer to your entire self. Then you can listen to the tumult and vagaries of your mind, then you can perceive the behaviour, character and personality of your mind. When you are not in meditation you are extrovert, you are aware of the sense objects. You are far from yourself, and since you are far from yourself you do not see yourself, you do not know what is inside.

In the same way as a snake sheds its skin, we also shed our skin, but for that the proper time has to come.

There is no danger in meditation. If you can’t concentrate, it doesn’t matter. You can practise hatha yoga and develop the capacity to sit in one yogic posture for one hour, two hours, three hours. Padmasana (lotus posture) and siddhasana (adept’s posture) are the two postures best suited to meditation. In the morning or at night sit down in the corner in your lotus posture, with the hands in either jnana mudra or chin mudra. Close your eyes. Fix the gaze at the nose tip, mid-eyebrow centre, heart centre, navel centre or anywhere. Sit upright and straight.

Practise your mantra or concentrate on the inner sound – nada yoga, or concentrate on your breath, or sing a song for one hour. Allow the mind to do what it likes. Let it keep on thinking, building castles in the air, exposing fear. If you want to think of a man or a girl, go on. If you want to think about how to earn money, millions, billions, trillions, do it! If you want to become the prime minister of Australia or the secretary of the United Nations, if you want to destroy Russia or America, if you want to make the whole world Protestant or Catholic, or if you want to break into houses or banks and take all the money, go ahead and think about it. Sit for one hour, try for two hours, and weekly, monthly or periodically try to extend the time so that eventually you can sit for three hours.

Then one fine day all these energies will unite with the central energy and suddenly, like Buddha, like Christ, like any other sage, you will find things are melting and everything is happening by itself. You will not know what to do. You will not be required to know what to do, you won’t have to think, “Now what am I to do?” It is as if you have been thrown into the upper portion of Niagara Falls and you don’t know what will happen next. You are just moving along with the flow of consciousness, you can do nothing else, you have to become a part of that event. Therefore, there is no danger in meditation. Sit down properly – Om Namah Shivaya … Om Namah Shivaya … Om Namah Shivaya … You begin to think about your job … Om Namah Shivaya … Oh my mind is so restless, I’d better do some pranayama. No, I am too tired … Okay. My God, Thou art in heaven.

You are slapping yourself, you are kicking yourself, you are suiciding yourself. Therefore, from today, whenever you sit for meditation say to yourself, “Mind, do what you like, I’m not going to stir for one hour.” This is called regularity in meditation. Such a person will not come across any danger. But if you keep on fighting with the mind in meditation, some of you might have some mental problems.