Shakti Naam and the Ultimate Posture of Health, Fitness and Longevity

September 07, 2013

Scientific evidence has emerged linking cardiovascular disease, obesity, and even early death to long periods of time spent in a seated position. Indeed, sitting stops the electrical activity of the muscles, and slows the metabolism. Keep in mind that your metabolism engine is fueled by constant little movements. Therefore, when we do not shift our position every 2 minutes or so, the result is weight gain because our plasma and arteries become filled with plaque and fatty matter. The standing style of Shakti Naam Yoga helps prevent, and assist in healing obesity and its many resulting health issues. Through our standing postures, the muscles that support our body weight release an enzyme that resides in the blood vessels of our muscles and works to burn fat. This enzyme is called lipoprotein lipase. During the Shakti Naam Yoga warm up, we are continuously changing postures to prevent the fat from staying in the arteries. We are constantly moving while vibrating Naam so as to charge our metabolism. Even exercising for 90 minutes a day cannot counteract the effects of sitting all day.

Indeed, according to research conducted by the American Cancer Society, the biggest difference between people of a healthy weight and people who are obese is not how much they eat or exercise, but how much they sit. Researchers have found that men and women who spent six hours a day sitting had a 18 and 37 percent increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, as well as other health related problems, respectively, as opposed to those who spent less than three hours a day seated. Also, death rates from cardiovascular disease were 2.7 times higher in women who sat six or more hours a day, regardless of how much they exercised or weighed. Another study conducted over a 3 year period in Australia found that men and women who sat for more than 11 hours a day had a 40 percent increased risk of dying from any cause compared with those who sat for less than four hours a day. Therefore, those who happen to have a job in which they sit most of the day should avoid exercises or yoga classes that put them into a seated position for a long period of time.

Standing burns 15 percent more energy than sitting. Standing also helps to alleviate back pain. Understand that your powerful abdominal, pelvic and leg muscles evolved to do the work of supporting your 100-plus pounds of organs and bones. But when you sit, you're placing most of your weight directly on the spine and pelvis. Sitting not only causes a tremendous slowing down of the biochemical reactions of our body, but also, it can adversely affect your back. Compared to standing, sitting can place up to 10 times more pressure on your lower back. One of the most powerful standing postures in Shakti Naam Yoga is the T-Posture, where we greet the Sun with outstretched arms and head held high. During the T-Posture, the arms are out to the side, parallel to the ground. The elbows and neck are straight. This forms a receptive, horizontal line, while from the head to the feet we form an active, parallel line. When these forms combine, a third force, idea or entity is created. The T-posture is mystically called the World Axis - the joining of heaven and Earth. The T-posture and part one of the Naam Star Kriya activate all the Golden Ratios of the body, and enhance all the Divine proportions for healing benefit and spiritual growth. These healing postures are both Divine and magical, because the lines of the Naam Star Kriya and the T-Posture automatically align the body into segments according to the Divine proportion. All the ratios of line segments in these postures equal PHI, making this posture symbolically the ultimate expression of the Golden Ratio.

The T-Posture works on the thymus gland/heart area, creating a feeling of openness and compassion where the vertical and horizontal shafts meet. As we stand in the T-Posture, we look like an Egyptian Ankh, the symbol of fertility, power and life. Indeed, as a symbol of life and eternal life, the Ankh was associated with water, the sustainer of life. Therefore, with the T-Posture, we are embracing all of creation and turning ourselves into spiritual channels for Cosmic Wisdom, Universal Love and Creative Power to manifest in our lives and the world. By performing the T-Posture we are acknowledging, accepting, invoking and applying Cosmic Wisdom, Universal Love, and connecting the two through the power of the Holy Creative Spirit, so that we may personally know our Christ Within. For many, the Ankh is also a symbol of humanity’s resurrection. Understand, the T-Posture is a symbol of Divine Power and Presence, representing the defeat of death and ignorance. By working with it, we are embracing all of creation, and creating the condition within ourselves that supports mystical experience and expanded awareness.

Shakti Naam is the path to the higher science of yoga. Shakti is the force that is known in Kabbalah as Ruach Elohim and in Christianity as the Holy Spirit. Naam is the combination and permutation of sacred words vibrated in order to direct and redirect the energy in the body for self-healing and self-realization. By standing upright like a candle, as we do in the beginning of a Shakti Naam Yoga practice, the Sun becomes our center. With the feet together, and the inner thighs and legs touching, we are giving energy to the kidney, liver and spleen meridians because they are located on the inner thighs and inner feet. This dynamic standing sequence requires all energy channels to be opened up at the beginning of this powerful and beautiful practice, so that we may immediately move our spiritual practice to a higher level. Alignment to the Divine through the Shakti Naam Yoga standing postures rejuvenates the heart, mind and soul. As you practice the Shakti Naam Yoga standing postures, including the T-Posture, your love and light grows, and as it reaches and touches many more, many more still will flow and flock to this great source of nourishment and strength. The more we heal and guide and teach, the more we will discover those who need further healing, further guidance and further teaching.

It is important to note here, that by stretching the way we do in Shakti Naam Yoga, we are opening all the energy channels throughout our body. Every joint and bone is mobilized and the entire spinal column is aligned. The Shakti Naam Yoga exercises are designed to clear debris and stagnant air from the lungs and abdomen to feed the entire body with fresh life. We are breaking through all the areas where our energy is blocked, to enable the energy to circulate freely and smoothly throughout our body. Furthermore, these dynamic standing postures harmonize the metabolism, enabling us to achieve optimum weight while building long, lean muscle. Shakti Naam Yoga employs a unique strategy, different from other forms of exercises, that moves and stimulates joints that are typically less mobile in the sternum, shoulder girdle, pelvic girdle and cranium thus increasing flexibility and strength and radically increasing circulation. Those anatomical regions are important regions to stimulate for preventing and treating heart and lung disease, reproductive and digestive disorders and pathologies of the brain. This unique fusion of movement, breath, acupressure, stretching and vocal vibration, physically strengthen spiritual connectedness by activating and strengthening the middle of the brain and cranial nerves which are powerful bridges between the physical and spiritual dimensions – the bridge between heavenly and earthly realms. The great spiritual teachers of old described this effect to their students as bringing stillness to the mind, standing comfortably in the present moment, because energetic blocks are dissolved and the life force within is allowed to flow.

During Shakti Naam Yoga, every time we stretch by lifting our arms up, we do so in order to make contact with the healing energy of the Sun. By moving our arms and fingers the way we do, we develop a good relationship with the physical world. By stretching our hands up, we are connecting with the beneficial influences of all the seven planetary forces, and connecting them through our spine to our heart center. In Shakti Naam Yoga we are absorbing a great amount of energy from the universe, and increasing the prana within our self and especially under our skin, so that we may circulate it vigorously in our body. Our skin is embedded with millions of sensory receptors. In fact, almost 80% of our entire sympathetic nervous system is located just under our skin, creating a vast electrical network that is organized into specific pathways called meridians. Shakti Naam Yoga opens up the gates and meridian channels of energy in the body, helps relax the muscles and ligaments, and regulates the circulation of the blood. It allows us to make contact with the vital forces of nature as we become a sponge for extracting the vital life force from the air around us. We are making contact with the forces of the Sun, as well as those of the Earth, in order to generate, channel, conserve, store and direct the energy into the body, so as to completely rejuvenate ourselves, and achieve optimum health.

This powerful practice is a highway to the Divine World. It activates and develops in us the power, the force that is found in all things, all around us at all times within the basic cellular structure of our being, within the beauty of a flower, within the air that we breathe, within the water that we drink, and which is part of the makeup of our energetic body, part of our physical body, the light of our mind, the warmth of our heart, the beauty of our soul and the strength of our Spirit, part of the nature of the reality of love that keeps the universe together. This energy is infinite and boundless, sustained by the godly power that it contains within it until that power is used. Shakti Naam Yoga is for healing disease and maintaining optimum health. Shakti Naam Yoga causes us to connect with the soul force, to acknowledge its presence, so that the presence and the Light of the Divine, that is inside our own heart, may illuminate our lives, allowing us to live within the nucleus of our compassionate nature for the good of all of mankind. Shakti Naam Yoga transforms you into a constant source of light that uplifts others from the heart. 

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