Moon Sun Fire
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RODE NT-USB & MajorTom Camera: Hello and welcome back to this episode of the Gentle Revolution Podcast where we seek to explore nuance. The subtle mysteries of yoga practice, meditation, breath work, cosmic understanding. Ultimately, the purpose of this podcast is to bring each of us into alignment with our noble truth, with our dharmic quest.
Supporting us with practices, ancient practices, and perhaps new innovations through science and practice experimentation that continues to evolve through the generations supporting us to become the best version of ourselves. This podcast is supported as always through the Yogic Meditation Institute, which is an educational institute.
We run courses, retreats, teach training programs also one-to-one coaching. If you're interested in working with me personally, please do reach out. [00:01:00] Yogic meditation.net. We are here to help. So the theme, the subject of today's podcast is Moon, sun, and Fire. Essentially, that is a description which.
Is a beautiful synopsis. Tantric Hatha. Yoga. And so what is tantric? Hatha Yoga. Look, first up, all Hatha. Yoga is tantric. There's no such thing as non tantric Hatha yoga.
What happened though with Hatha yoga as it moved into the west, and certainly as it began to develop popularity in India. Through Poon, through the lineage of Krishnamacharya and his students. BKS Iyengar particularly was a proponent of what I would describe as physiotherapy, haga, where the focus was very much on the body.
The focus was very much on alignment, on moving in a precise way, bringing the [00:02:00] body what we describe as Anamaya Kosha into alignment, but there wasn't a huge focus on the tradition of tantra, of the tantric practice. The reasoning for that is somewhat complex, but tantra traditionally, and perhaps even in the modern day, has somewhat of a dubious reputation in certain parts of the world, including India, where it was seen to be.
A practice suitable for, yeah, perhaps more edgy members of society because of the sexuality component.
Because there were NGA Bubbles living and praying in graveyards, cremation grounds. Ttra was a fairly edgy practice. So the idea of ha a yoga coming into popularity again needed, it needed to be sanitized, it needed to be. Created and put together in a way that was acceptable for a modern Population in India had been strongly influenced by the [00:03:00] English.
Victorian England was very much anti-sex in so many ways and in denial of the body in so many ways. So ha Yoga as it came into the west and developed popularity again in India, was presented as essentially system of physiotherapy and exercise. To Hatha. Yoga was never supposed to be a system of physiotherapy and exercise.
Maybe that's part of it having a balanced, healthy body, but the focus of Hatha yoga is about balancing. It's about balancing the polarities, the moon and the sun, or the ha, which is the sun and the ta, which is the moon. We are talking here about Ida and Pingala nadi. So you'll see in many graphics this idea of two intersecting channels running from the center of the pelvis, running up through the body often.
Presented as to perhaps [00:04:00] snakes to serpents that are intersecting, curving gently up, and at each point they intersect. That is a chakra point. And so this system of understanding energy presents an idea that we have dual forces, ADA and Pala, EDA being the lunar, chandra energy, which is considered to be feminine, and penola, which is the solar energy, considered to be masculine.
And so each of the energies has. Different qualities prescribed to them. I'm reluctant to call them male and female because look, in each man there is an eater and Pangolin, and the job of every man is to balance those energies, balance the masculine and feminine energy. And indeed, the quest of every woman is the same.
And what I've seen and what I've observed through myself and my own practice and through my students, is that. Dedicated [00:05:00] yogis who commit to this practice become very balanced. So this idea of polarized men and polarized women, it's not very yogic. What Hatha yoga prescribes And certainly there is a difference.
And Vila, Deran . Hooray for the difference between the sexes, but we. A lot more similar perhaps than we give ourselves credit for. And yoga seeks to ultimately bring us into balance within ourselves. But so we can have balanced relations with members of the opposite sex and society at whole, but it's very much a personal practice working on our energy.
My polarity first, that's where it starts. So the idea of moon, sun, and fire. It's a beautiful idea, and Rod Striker did a wonderful job, and he described it initially as tantric Hatha yoga. As I said before, there's no such thing as non tantric Hatha yoga, but he needed to do that to really [00:06:00] differentiate from the very physically focused Hatha yoga practices that were being taught in the West at that time.
And so Tantric Hatha Yoga implies that there is this underlying methodology of working with prana in a very intentional way. And what moons Sun and Fire does, it sets up a pathway. Ultimately, moon is the er, Nadi. It's talking about the mind. It's talking about seeking a quality of balance, of calm, of the capacity to self-reflect before we.
Move into the solar practices, which are focused more on building energy, building power, and ultimately what we talk about raising the moon or brightening the moon before we raise the sun. It's cultivating a quiet mind, cultivating a refined mind that is capable. [00:07:00] Of dealing with the increase in power that is to come and through brightening the moon before raising the sun.
Once we've got these two aspects in harmony, it is then that the fire can truly begin to burn the fire refers to Sushumna, the central channel, running up through the spinal column. So through balancing eda, balancing pula, we allow the flow of Kundalini Shakti through the Sushumna nadi.
So the idea of moon, sun, and fire ultimately sets up the pathway for practice. And so just reflecting a little bit on what those practices could look like, firstly the moon. Chandra, the Eder quality, it's receptive, it's cooling, very much referring to the mind, the qualities of calmness, nurturance, stability, balancing out our parasympathetic nervous system, the capacity [00:08:00] to remain grounded, self-reflective meditation is a really fundamental part of this, but there's other practices that would certainly support the.
Qualities of the moon and what we talk about is moon focused practice. It's more inward. It's calming us down. So it could be yin yoga, slow flow yoga, just anything that's aligning breath and movement and allowing us to come into a deep parasympathetic state. But particularly the focus is on reflective meditation here, where we're improving the quality of the mind.
And so I often talk about to my students about the idea of balancing Ajna chakra, which is the third eye chakra. Ajna is the command center and we, it's at the top of the ari. So through this practice of balancing the mind, ultimately we're developing a more powerful, better organized command center so that when we begin to raise [00:09:00] the sun.
We have better control over that power. The meditational aspects come first, balancing the mind before we start to increase the power. Once we move into the solar practices, we are talking more about activation practice, so that could be dynamic, physical, dynamic, physical practice. It could be.
Particularly heart opening, back bending, things that are really empowering. Strengthening practices, heating is a big part of that. We're talking about dynamic heating practices, cultivating willpower, strength transformation. These are the qualities of pula activating and balancing out our sympathetic nervous system here and cultivating prana, so practices that would support that.
Dynamic bus streaker is a really big one, so I often teach in the breath work methodology. [00:10:00] The moon practices of Kapalbhati, focusing on the third eye there, Nadi Bray, all of which focus on just balancing out the mind before we move into bus Rika, which is very much about building fire, introducing cca, and then ultimately the career yoga practices, which are really powerful practices to cultivate Penola.
And as such, they should be explored and taught with awareness, with perhaps a degree of caution. I do see out in the world today a lot of people practicing really dynamic breath work who haven't explored the moon practices first. You don't have to go too far out into the breathwork circles to experience that.
I talk about that if you've ever done my short, which is actually free, a breathwork course available on yogic meditation.net. If you wanna do that, check it out. But it's really simple. Ultimately, [00:11:00] we are looking to balance the moon before we raise the sun, particularly when it comes to the system of work and crea yoga.
And with the sun comes a lot of emotion, a lot of feelings. So we need to have the mind. Balance before we are ready to really deal with that increase in feeling and emotion. And ultimately, as I mentioned before, an increase in power. If you look out into the world, on the world stage, you see a lot of leaders out there who don't have balanced minds.
They have incredible amounts of power, but they have never done the work to balance the mind. And what do we get from that? We get chaos. It's not great for the world, it's not great for ultimately the people involved. So from our individual perspective, and certainly within the prescribed journey of yoga, the idea of brightening the moon, working with the mind before we raise the sun, and then from that point, [00:12:00] the fire will burn and you will.
Develop increased capacity in your life. If you haven't brightened the moon and you've developed all of this extra power, you're just gonna increase burnout. And there's probably thousands of people out there and many millions of people, half the western world, who have huge amounts of power and are doing a lot, but it's not directed.
It's not focused in a specific way. So people just burn out all that energy. What we are seeking to do here through our practice is. Learning how to direct that energy so you in fact don't need to expend as much energy. If the energy is focused in a specific direction upon a cul or a specific goal or set of goals, you don't need to do as much.
If you are just developing a huge amount of energy, you're probably potentially running out in a lot of different directions, burning that energy off. It's not great for you. It's not great for the world. So the practices of yoga and tantric Hatha yoga, which very much [00:13:00] incorporates a system of meditation, Hatha yoga, and meditation, traditional Hatha yoga, are certainly not separate.
There's a beautiful quote, in fact, from the Haie Yoga Prada Pika.
When the moon is strong and the sun is balanced, the fire of Kundalini rises through Sushumna and the mind is absorbed in the infinite. So what that looks like in a practice, for me, when I design a practice, I'm very much about bringing ballads to the body. The body is really important. I'm not one of those meditation teachers who's, I just skip the body.
Tantra is very much about. Beginning in the body. We're working with the system of Koss that we need to bring balance to our physical body, but doing it in an intentional way, the moon practices are really supportive of the body. Yin yoga's fantastic restorative yoga, learning [00:14:00] how to move in a calm, collected, intentional way so that at that point we can get access to the mind and the meditation practice.
Look, it begins there a practice of. Well-balanced Hatha. Yoga is very meditative. Ultimately, we can work with the mind in a more specific, intentional way through. I love the practice of Antar Mouna, which I've described in previous podcasts where we learn to see perhaps a slightly different viewpoint on the nature of our mind.
Cultivating what we talk about as vairagya, which is this capacity to detach from the thoughts, become the witness of the thoughts. That's a really important skill to have, which. I would love to gift to the world, but it's not something you can just give away. We need to earn that through practice. So we talk about vairagya as a really fundamental quality for the yogi to have.
And from that [00:15:00] point, bringing in just steadily, slowly over time, more dynamic pranar, more dynamic breath work, . Look, I love this stuff. The practices just sizzle when you start to introduce dynamic. Tummo breath, dynamic Bhastrika practicing breath holds and holding onto that breath for periods of time.
Adding in buns three BUN or Maha bun is just a superpower practice working with the Kriyas. There is almost an unbelievable amount of energy available to us when we start to explore those practices. But we need to be ready. So on one hand, I extoll people to take the journey. I'm like, yes, jump in kriya yoga.
Wow, what an amazing thing to do. On the other hand, I warn people don't go into the practices without. Guidance without consideration, without support, and without patience. Be patient. [00:16:00] Start with the simple stuff. Start with observing the breath learning, and this is what we do in our teacher training programs.
Guide people through ultimately the full system. So I hope that helps. There's so much more I can say on the matter. It's a big topic and it's a beautiful topic. I love to talk about it. So I might have a couple of guests onto the podcast in a little while and we'll dive into it perhaps a little bit further.
But for now, I think that just sets up. A basic understanding of moon, sun, and fire and what it means and what it looks like. If you do have any questions, please do reach out and ask. I'm happy to discuss. Happy to share. I'm also running a course in Kundalini, tantra in Bali this year, in July. So if you're interested, check out the bamboo yoga.com website.
All the details are there. Again, just reach out. So that's it for now. Please, [00:17:00] as I said, reach out with any questions. You can leave comments or email me. Fairly available via the social media space. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, share it with your friends, follow and leave a rating. It's really helpful to get this podcast out to the people.
Hari Aum Tat Sat.
