Latest / Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman / Keith Lowenstein – Kriya Yoga For Self-Discovery
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice.
- 0:09Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science and
- 0:15Speaker 1: the crossroads at which they meet. Join me now and
- 0:18Speaker 1: we will explore these topics and so much more with
- 0:22Speaker 1: fascinating guests, authors and experts who will guide us to
- 0:28Speaker 1: Destination Unlimited. Korea Yoga is an ancient meditation technique that
- 0:41Speaker 1: focuses on breathing and the spine to unlock deep states
- 0:45Speaker 1: of awareness, self realization, and spiritual growth. Korea can provide
- 0:52Speaker 1: a fast path to awakening, yet its practice has been
- 0:55Speaker 1: shrouded in secrecy, passed only from master to initiate for millennia.
- 1:01Speaker 1: How may we learn more about this sacred practice and
- 1:04Speaker 1: know if it is right for us? My guest this
- 1:08Speaker 1: week on Destination Unlimited, Keith Lowenstein is a physician, holistic coach,
- 1:14Speaker 1: and yogic meditation instructor. In nineteen eighty he began his
- 1:19Speaker 1: training in Crea Yoga with Ganesh Baba. He is board
- 1:23Speaker 1: certified in integrative medicine, psychiatry and obesity medicine. He also
- 1:30Speaker 1: integrates medical acupuncture into his work. Keith has a Masters
- 1:35Speaker 1: of Divinity with an interfaith focus. Is an ordained interfaith
- 1:39Speaker 1: minister and is a yoga charia in Korea Raja Yoga lineage.
- 1:44Speaker 1: His websites are Humanholistics dot com and Koreabreath dot com
- 1:50Speaker 1: and he joins me this week to share his path
- 1:53Speaker 1: and book Crea Yoga for Self Discovery Practices for Deep
- 1:58Speaker 1: States of Meditation. Please join me in welcoming to Destination Unlimited,
- 2:04Speaker 1: Keith Lowenstein. Welcome, Keith.
- 2:07Speaker 2: It's so nice to be here, Victor. Thank you so
- 2:10Speaker 2: much for inviting me.
- 2:11Speaker 1: Keith, please share with our listeners your early path and
- 2:16Speaker 1: how it led to your interest in meditation and ultimately yoga.
- 2:21Speaker 2: Well, well, yoga really is meditation, which is something many
- 2:26Speaker 2: people don't quite understand. But yoga is a spiritual path
- 2:29Speaker 2: period here in the West, it's become something on every
- 2:34Speaker 2: street corner that people think of as more of an
- 2:38Speaker 2: exercise and fitness program, but so they're kind of one
- 2:42Speaker 2: and the same. Although I didn't really understand that either
- 2:45Speaker 2: when I first got into it, but it was really
- 2:48Speaker 2: my childhood. I got interested in meditation through through dreams
- 2:53Speaker 2: and then in hindsight, you know, kind of playing with
- 2:58Speaker 2: different techniques that I learned again later from my teacher
- 3:03Speaker 2: that reinforced what I was playing with as a child,
- 3:08Speaker 2: and then my nature just grabbed me early on. Even
- 3:13Speaker 2: though I grew up in New York City. New York
- 3:16Speaker 2: City is filled with nature all around, and I was
- 3:18Speaker 2: really lucky to live near where there were woods or
- 3:21Speaker 2: water almost all the time. And I had an early
- 3:26Speaker 2: exposure to religious Renaissance art, and that really grabbed me
- 3:33Speaker 2: in a way I didn't understand quite as a child.
- 3:36Speaker 2: But those pictures of the energy and spiritual transformations and really,
- 3:43Speaker 2: you know, just seemed like part of the natural world
- 3:46Speaker 2: to me, and so they weren't didn't seem otherworldly at all.
- 3:49Speaker 2: So I just kind of at home with all of that.
- 3:52Speaker 1: And your initial degree was in fine arts, is that correct?
- 3:56Speaker 2: Yes, My initial degree was in fine arts, absolutely, and
- 4:00Speaker 2: and that is actually kind of how I ended up
- 4:03Speaker 2: meeting my teacher, and so I enjoy the arts, the
- 4:05Speaker 2: visual arts very much.
- 4:07Speaker 1: So tell us about your introduction to Korea yoga, your teacher,
- 4:10Speaker 1: Ganesh Baba, and how this dramatically changed your life.
- 4:14Speaker 2: Well, I really didn't know what Korea yoga was, even
- 4:18Speaker 2: though the book by Parmahansa Yoga Nanda, Autobiography of Yogi
- 4:22Speaker 2: is a very popular book, probably more with people a
- 4:27Speaker 2: decade older than me or so, but it's always been
- 4:31Speaker 2: around and is on the I guess top spiritual list
- 4:34Speaker 2: of books that most people get exposed to if they're
- 4:37Speaker 2: in that pursuit. But I was introduced to ghanish Baba.
- 4:41Speaker 2: A good friend had some of my artwork is how
- 4:44Speaker 2: I understood it, and ghanish Baba saw some of it
- 4:48Speaker 2: and said that he was interested in meeting me.
- 4:50Speaker 3: And at the.
- 4:52Speaker 2: Time I was well read in Indian and Buddhist philosophy,
- 4:56Speaker 2: and rash Nishem Mukdananda were very popular in this untrue
- 5:00Speaker 2: with throngs of people headed to see them and an
- 5:03Speaker 2: invitation to go see another yogi. You know, it just
- 5:06Speaker 2: didn't really grab me. I was like, I really just
- 5:11Speaker 2: wasn't attracted to that the scene that I had seen
- 5:14Speaker 2: in kind of the popular press and stuff. So I declined,
- 5:18Speaker 2: and shortly thereafter I had a huge life transformation. I
- 5:23Speaker 2: lost a job, I got very very sick, I had
- 5:25Speaker 2: to move or relationship ended, and so after all of that,
- 5:29Speaker 2: and I was kind of like, okay, now which way
- 5:31Speaker 2: to turn? I got called again. He was in upstate
- 5:34Speaker 2: New York at the time, and I went up to
- 5:36Speaker 2: meet him, and yeah, we kind of tested each other
- 5:39Speaker 2: out a little bit, I think, and it was a
- 5:41Speaker 2: very small situation, you know, just a couple people around,
- 5:44Speaker 2: and he had a small group of you know, maybe
- 5:48Speaker 2: ten fifteen twenty max people around who kind of helped
- 5:52Speaker 2: take care of him and knew him. I was twenty
- 5:54Speaker 2: two at the time, he was eighty seven, and over
- 5:58Speaker 2: a three four months period of some kind of reproachment
- 6:01Speaker 2: going back and forth, I ended up really kind of
- 6:05Speaker 2: dedicating myself to studying with him. What he taught me
- 6:10Speaker 2: just really really worked. It was just like, Wow, this
- 6:13Speaker 2: is really something, and that's how we started to work together.
- 6:17Speaker 1: In retrospect, do you see that initial call by him
- 6:22Speaker 1: because of your art as a synchronicity, Oh?
- 6:27Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know, well, you know, synchronicity, I think is
- 6:34Speaker 2: I think this was a little more.
- 6:37Speaker 3: Somehow.
- 6:38Speaker 2: I think there was more of a connection, and I
- 6:41Speaker 2: guess you could look at it as synchronicity, but I'm
- 6:43Speaker 2: not so sure that it was. I mean, I guess
- 6:46Speaker 2: there's an a causal connection, which is kind of what
- 6:49Speaker 2: synchronicity talks about. But synchronicity is certainly something that you
- 6:54Speaker 2: know runs through my life. I have a good friend
- 6:59Speaker 2: who says he's never known anybody else with so much
- 7:03Speaker 2: ongoing synchronicity in their life. And a friend of mine
- 7:06Speaker 2: recently wrote something. Actually, another woman who studied very closely
- 7:11Speaker 2: with the Ganesh Baba, my teacher during those years, and
- 7:15Speaker 2: she she had a blog post the other day, I'm
- 7:20Speaker 2: prone to synchronicity, it said, and I thought, Wow, that's
- 7:24Speaker 2: really just great. I just I just loved that phrase.
- 7:28Speaker 2: Eve Newhouse is her name.
- 7:30Speaker 1: Now, ganesh Baba was the one who recommended that you
- 7:33Speaker 1: pursue the study of medicine. How did this manifest for you?
- 7:37Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was, I mean I started teaching
- 7:42Speaker 2: very early on. You know, he had me teaching Korea
- 7:46Speaker 2: with him within you know, months of meeting him. And
- 7:51Speaker 2: I remember within six months I signed up for anatomy
- 7:56Speaker 2: and physiology class at the local community college to help
- 8:00Speaker 2: me teach career better because it's a very physiologically based
- 8:06Speaker 2: meditation technique. And and at the end of that year,
- 8:13Speaker 2: and I think I at the end of that year,
- 8:15Speaker 2: he kind of you know, turned to me and was like, well,
- 8:17Speaker 2: now it's and I was thinking about different graduate programs
- 8:21Speaker 2: or different types of integrative health to pursue, but he said, no,
- 8:27Speaker 2: you now you have to go to medical school, allopathic
- 8:30Speaker 2: medical school. You have to get an MD, and and so,
- 8:35Speaker 2: you know, so I did. Initially I would say that,
- 8:38Speaker 2: you know, it was I didn't always listen to everything
- 8:41Speaker 2: he said, for sure, but over time it was like, hmm, yeah,
- 8:47Speaker 2: I probably should have listened to that one or this
- 8:49Speaker 2: one and so so.
- 8:52Speaker 3: So.
- 8:53Speaker 2: Yeah, so I looked around and you know, on how
- 8:57Speaker 2: to do it because my degree was in art and
- 9:00Speaker 2: I needed a you know, some prerequisites for medical school
- 9:05Speaker 2: and take the MCATs and this and that, and Columbia
- 9:08Speaker 2: and New York had had a program if you had
- 9:10Speaker 2: a bachelor's degree, you could join it, and it was
- 9:14Speaker 2: they kind of had a little structured and.
- 9:17Speaker 3: To go through it, and so I did. I joined that.
- 9:20Speaker 2: I moved to New York and started that and I
- 9:24Speaker 2: remember him saying to me, you know, you know you
- 9:26Speaker 2: can't go, Yeah, you're not ready, and I was like, well,
- 9:28Speaker 2: classes are starting. I mean so I felt like I was, well,
- 9:31Speaker 2: you said to do this, and classes are starting. And
- 9:34Speaker 2: so anyway, he ended up coming with me and then
- 9:36Speaker 2: we lived and taught together in New York City for
- 9:38Speaker 2: three years. After spending about a year and a half
- 9:43Speaker 2: up in the up in the up in a rural
- 9:46Speaker 2: area in the Finger Lakes region.
- 9:48Speaker 1: What is integrative medicine and how did this become part
- 9:51Speaker 1: of your practice?
- 9:53Speaker 2: You know, I grew up in the sixties and early seventies,
- 9:56Speaker 2: was my you know, childhood and adolescence, and I was
- 10:01Speaker 2: exposed to alternative medicine it was called then. I was
- 10:06Speaker 2: very nutrition conscious, I was very environmentally aware. In fact,
- 10:12Speaker 2: some of the artwork onish Baba Saw was about the
- 10:16Speaker 2: destruction that seemed like was happening to the planet with
- 10:20Speaker 2: a disregard of natural resources and pollution, and so that
- 10:25Speaker 2: was really just all always an interest of mine. I
- 10:28Speaker 2: had read about acupuncture, nutrition hands on work, and I
- 10:34Speaker 2: just always incorporated that from when I was young. Really,
- 10:38Speaker 2: I think even my grandparents had some My grandfather, my
- 10:42Speaker 2: maternal grandfather, was sick and so there were some alternative
- 10:46Speaker 2: therapies they were trying back then in the sixties, and
- 10:50Speaker 2: I was kind of comfortable with that, and I intended
- 10:53Speaker 2: to become an integrative a medicine primary care doctor when
- 10:57Speaker 2: I first went to medical school. Although I ended up
- 11:01Speaker 2: in a integrative I ended up in psychiatry for a
- 11:05Speaker 2: variety of reasons. Was influenced there actually a little bit
- 11:09Speaker 2: by Herbert Benson, who wrote the Relaxation Response, and when
- 11:13Speaker 2: I was studying with him a little bit during medical school,
- 11:16Speaker 2: he he kind of encouraged me to do a little
- 11:19Speaker 2: bit more of a traditional route than I was intending,
- 11:21Speaker 2: and you know, it was absolutely correct and the right
- 11:25Speaker 2: thing to do. And I've actually had a fascinating career
- 11:30Speaker 2: in psychiatry. I incorporate always incorporated nutrition. Everyone comes in
- 11:36Speaker 2: first as a they come in with a week's diary
- 11:40Speaker 2: of what they eat, and I incorporate acupuncture into what
- 11:43Speaker 2: I do, and exercise and meditation and different types of psychotherapy.
- 11:49Speaker 2: So yeah, so that's how I got interested. So I
- 11:53Speaker 2: guess integrated medicine is really taking the best of everything
- 11:56Speaker 2: and really trying to put it together from a scientific standpoint,
- 12:00Speaker 2: not seeing different things as markedly different, and techniques that
- 12:06Speaker 2: don't necessarily complement one another, which can be often very effective.
- 12:13Speaker 1: What inspired your book Crea Yoga for Self Discovery?
- 12:17Speaker 2: Well, you could say, in a sense it was a
- 12:19Speaker 2: homework assignment. You know. Part of the way he taught
- 12:23Speaker 2: was having.
- 12:24Speaker 3: Us rewrite things, and.
- 12:28Speaker 2: He was hoping for, you know, a book about spiritual practice,
- 12:34Speaker 2: and you know, I certainly had hoped to do it
- 12:39Speaker 2: decades earlier, but it was it was the moment to
- 12:43Speaker 2: do it, and it was a very synchronistic affair. I
- 12:48Speaker 2: realized as I was getting older that I had to.
- 12:51Speaker 2: Although I always taught for forty five years, I've been
- 12:53Speaker 2: teaching this, you know, not so much publicly. But I
- 12:58Speaker 2: realized ten fifteen years ago, probably not fifteen years ago,
- 13:02Speaker 2: that you know, it was time to begin to make
- 13:05Speaker 2: myself a little more available in a public way, and
- 13:10Speaker 2: the book was part of that.
- 13:12Speaker 1: So in essence, the book was part of it, and
- 13:14Speaker 1: you were sharing your experiences in this practice.
- 13:18Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean I was hoping that the book
- 13:21Speaker 2: would The other real I guess inspiration for the book
- 13:26Speaker 2: is there were a number of books written on crea
- 13:29Speaker 2: yoga out there, and I thought that they were unnecessarily
- 13:35Speaker 2: complex and really didn't give the essence of the practice
- 13:41Speaker 2: and certainly didn't pull it together in a more holistic
- 13:45Speaker 2: and integrative way as I was taught it and how
- 13:48Speaker 2: I teach it, you know, after medical training, which you know,
- 13:53Speaker 2: in hindsight, I think that was probably the project that
- 13:58Speaker 2: was probably my mas and overall, you know, practice this
- 14:02Speaker 2: deeply because I was with him for a better part
- 14:05Speaker 2: of five years pretty much just sitting next to him
- 14:08Speaker 2: and doing meditation and so taking that going into medicine, practicing,
- 14:15Speaker 2: and then pulling it all together for the West. In fact,
- 14:18Speaker 2: he wanted everything in English. So even some of some
- 14:23Speaker 2: some Sanskrit words he still used when I wrote the book,
- 14:25Speaker 2: I was, you know, I moved them into English. And
- 14:28Speaker 2: so that was his goal to have it all in English.
- 14:32Speaker 2: And so there was no kind of getting lost and
- 14:35Speaker 2: what does this word mean or that word mean? You
- 14:37Speaker 2: could really just go forward with the practice.
- 14:41Speaker 1: Please tell us about your co author, Andrew J.
- 14:44Speaker 3: Lett.
- 14:45Speaker 2: Oh well, Andrea, So I was, I was trying to
- 14:49Speaker 2: find the time to write. And I had a few
- 14:52Speaker 2: physician friends who were authors who wrote a number of books,
- 14:56Speaker 2: and you know, they would they're like, oh, you know,
- 15:00Speaker 2: get help. You know, we don't write our own book.
- 15:01Speaker 2: You know, here's here's here's some names. And so over
- 15:05Speaker 2: about seven years, actually I interviewed seven different kind of
- 15:09Speaker 2: co writers and then, you know, none of it really clicked.
- 15:13Speaker 2: And so here's a synchronicity story for you. So one
- 15:17Speaker 2: day I got on Indeed, and I was like, wow,
- 15:20Speaker 2: do people who write advertise on here? And yeah, and
- 15:24Speaker 2: there were a couple people and they were local. I
- 15:26Speaker 2: wanted to do something local, not long distance. And I
- 15:29Speaker 2: thought okay, And so I wasn't quite ready. Six months
- 15:34Speaker 2: later I got a postcard in the mail from Indeed.
- 15:36Speaker 2: I thought it must be time to look, and boom,
- 15:39Speaker 2: I looked and there was Andrea, you know, a little
- 15:43Speaker 2: advertisement in her picture and her CV and I didn't
- 15:49Speaker 2: have to really deeply sign into it into that program
- 15:53Speaker 2: because I could see her email like it was showing.
- 15:56Speaker 2: So I emailed her and we met for coffee and
- 16:01Speaker 2: really that was it, you know, I think we met
- 16:03Speaker 2: for coffee and three hours later she was like, wow,
- 16:06Speaker 2: I better go, you know, check on my daughter. So
- 16:09Speaker 2: it was a good meeting to begin with. And we
- 16:12Speaker 2: worked together for and so she she had a degree
- 16:16Speaker 2: in neuroscience and studied nutrition and she taught yoga for
- 16:21Speaker 2: twenty years, Hata yoga. So it was a very good combination.
- 16:24Speaker 2: And she had some writing awards. So I worked with
- 16:28Speaker 2: her trying to teach her creat you know, for a
- 16:30Speaker 2: number of months, and then you know, she would write
- 16:33Speaker 2: the book and then one day, she just said to me,
- 16:34Speaker 2: you know, Keith, I'm not going to be able to
- 16:38Speaker 2: write this book. You know, You're going to have to
- 16:40Speaker 2: write it. And so I was like, okay. So then
- 16:43Speaker 2: I spent like about you know, two weekends, two three
- 16:46Speaker 2: day weekends, and wrote three hundred pages just boom, and
- 16:49Speaker 2: all kind of came right out. And then I gave
- 16:52Speaker 2: her that and said, well, can you kind of organize
- 16:56Speaker 2: this a little bit? And you know, she worked on
- 16:58Speaker 2: it for a number of months and it back to
- 17:00Speaker 2: me and that turned out to be probably the first
- 17:02Speaker 2: fifty to sixty percent of the book, and and it
- 17:05Speaker 2: went like that. So she was very instrumental in that.
- 17:08Speaker 2: And and we even taught together a couple of times,
- 17:11Speaker 2: and she had great energy and it was very easy
- 17:14Speaker 2: to work with her. When we taught together, we complemented
- 17:17Speaker 2: each other well. So so she also teaches sometimes And yeah,
- 17:22Speaker 2: so that's that's that's a little bit about about about
- 17:26Speaker 2: Andrea wonderful.
- 17:28Speaker 1: As in all yoga practices, there's a lineage of master teachers.
- 17:33Speaker 1: What is the lineage of Korea yoga.
- 17:36Speaker 2: Crea Yoga is really basic Indian meditation. You could think
- 17:43Speaker 2: of it as the art and science of yoga meditation,
- 17:47Speaker 2: and and there's many lineages and they all have slightly
- 17:53Speaker 2: different names. But there's there's something called Patanjoli's Yoga Sutras
- 17:58Speaker 2: pulled together about two thousand years ago, fifteen hundred years ago,
- 18:02Speaker 2: somewhere in there. Dating it's a little challenging, but it
- 18:06Speaker 2: was the first kind of written compilation of the practices
- 18:10Speaker 2: that were being handed down with oral tradition for many years.
- 18:14Speaker 2: And Raja yoga is really a a is reelly potently
- 18:18Speaker 2: yoga sutras, and so is Crea yoga. It's one of those,
- 18:24Speaker 2: one of one of the one of the lineages from
- 18:26Speaker 2: that tradition. Yoga kind of has four main traditions. There's
- 18:30Speaker 2: Raja yoga, which is as psychophysiological type of practice that
- 18:36Speaker 2: that's Korea. Crea is one of those. It's got Bacha yoga,
- 18:40Speaker 2: which is a very devotional form of yoga, much like
- 18:44Speaker 2: Christianity is practiced. It's got karma yoga. A good example
- 18:50Speaker 2: of that is Mother Teresa, who many people you know
- 18:52Speaker 2: know about. It has a Yana yoga, which is more
- 18:54Speaker 2: study of scripture, maybe a little bit more like the
- 18:57Speaker 2: Hebrews do with de Torah. But those are kind of
- 19:01Speaker 2: broad comparisons, and Hatha yoga really is part of potentially's
- 19:05Speaker 2: yoga sutras that has eight parts to it. And so
- 19:09Speaker 2: the first two parts of kind of like the Ten Commandments,
- 19:12Speaker 2: and then the third part is the Ten Commandments or
- 19:17Speaker 2: the eightfold Noble Path, and the next part is the
- 19:22Speaker 2: physical body or asanas and uh, and then it kind
- 19:25Speaker 2: of you know, goes from there the different stages, so
- 19:29Speaker 2: in that and and I think we're going to come
- 19:31Speaker 2: to that in a little bit. And so the lineage
- 19:33Speaker 2: here starts with someone named Babajee, which you know, maybe
- 19:37Speaker 2: a specific individual or may really represent and maybe a
- 19:41Speaker 2: specific individual, but really represents kind of yogi's in the Himalayas,
- 19:47Speaker 2: who this this is really what they do. You know,
- 19:49Speaker 2: they're they're they're devoted to practicing meditation all the time,
- 19:54Speaker 2: and and they've kept these practices. The hamalias have been
- 19:57Speaker 2: pretty protected over the centuries, even though there's been you know,
- 20:02Speaker 2: various changes and various wars of this and that and
- 20:06Speaker 2: conquering of different cultures. But these these techniques seem to
- 20:10Speaker 2: go back thousands of years and are ubiquitous, in my opinion,
- 20:15Speaker 2: across all the major religions east and West. So it's
- 20:19Speaker 2: not that it's it's all that if you really look
- 20:22Speaker 2: deeply at physiologically what people are doing, there's there's great similarities.
- 20:26Speaker 2: So this man, Lahiri Mahasayah had a calling to go
- 20:32Speaker 2: to the Himalias and met his teacher there, Babajee, and
- 20:34Speaker 2: he came back and you know, lived a license as
- 20:38Speaker 2: a householder. It's also practice for householders. It's not meant
- 20:41Speaker 2: for well. It certainly can be used for monks, but
- 20:44Speaker 2: that's not a prerequisite, right. This is something to use
- 20:47Speaker 2: for people who you know, go to school, have a family,
- 20:50Speaker 2: have a job, but to practice and develop their spiritual
- 20:53Speaker 2: site at the same time. And so Lahiri Mahasaiah had
- 20:57Speaker 2: a variety of students, you know, some are well known,
- 21:00Speaker 2: some are not. And it's kind of continued from there.
- 21:04Speaker 2: I have actually training from four of the different lines
- 21:08Speaker 2: in various ways. And ghanish Babo's parents were followers of
- 21:15Speaker 2: Lahiri Mahasaya and so as a baby, his his as
- 21:18Speaker 2: an infant, his life was saved by Lahiri. The originator
- 21:22Speaker 2: of these techniques are the person who brought them, you know,
- 21:25Speaker 2: into the householder tradition and started to share them, and
- 21:29Speaker 2: then he worked with someone named Sanya Mahasaya, who was
- 21:33Speaker 2: one of Lahiri's a youngest and last students, but very
- 21:38Speaker 2: senior from a spiritual standpoint. And then he had other
- 21:43Speaker 2: teachers as well, and he was first became a swami
- 21:47Speaker 2: by Swami Shivnanda, who practiced very similar techniques but from
- 21:51Speaker 2: a slightly different tradition. And so from from my standpoint,
- 21:55Speaker 2: I have just absorbed a lot. I've been just very
- 21:57Speaker 2: lucky and had all these different teachers that had connections
- 22:00Speaker 2: to this lineage that I didn't really even realize initially.
- 22:04Speaker 2: There's also ghanish Baba received training from Shri Riktashwar, who
- 22:09Speaker 2: was the teacher of Yoga Nanda. So there's a lot
- 22:12Speaker 2: of cross fertilization. It's a little complicated, and that the
- 22:15Speaker 2: names are not ones that people hear frequently, but I've
- 22:22Speaker 2: written a book and it's a little clear in there.
- 22:24Speaker 2: In fact, ghanish Baba's full name is Shri Mahant swamming
- 22:28Speaker 2: ganishan On Saraswatigiri.
- 22:31Speaker 1: You come from a rich tradition. My guest Keith Lowenstein,
- 22:36Speaker 1: his book Create a Yoga for Self Discovery, Practices for
- 22:40Speaker 1: Deep States of Meditation. Keith, please share with our listeners
- 22:43Speaker 1: where they can get your book and find out more
- 22:45Speaker 1: about you and your wonderful work.
- 22:48Speaker 2: Yes, well, thank you. Yeah, well, the book is published
- 22:51Speaker 2: by Inner Traditions and you could go to their website.
- 22:53Speaker 2: It's also available all the major booksellers you know online,
- 22:59Speaker 2: and I have a website www dot Korea k r
- 23:04Speaker 2: I y a Breath dot com, Korea Breath dot com,
- 23:09Speaker 2: and there you can see I offer I offer online
- 23:12Speaker 2: classes four times a year. In fact, the next class
- 23:16Speaker 2: starts October eleventh, on a Saturday, so they are noon
- 23:22Speaker 2: Eastern time and nine am Pacific time. They run about
- 23:27Speaker 2: an hour an hour and a half. There's a free
- 23:29Speaker 2: introductory lecture the first one, and then it's followed by
- 23:33Speaker 2: six very structured classes after that. And once you take that,
- 23:38Speaker 2: you're welcome to come to other You're invited to other things,
- 23:41Speaker 2: including monthly meditations where group gets together and talks about,
- 23:46Speaker 2: you know, how things are going for them. And there's practice, practice, practice, practice,
- 23:50Speaker 2: always practice.
- 23:52Speaker 3: So yes, and.
- 23:54Speaker 1: We'll be back with more of Keith after these words.
- 23:57Speaker 1: On the Old Times Radio.
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- 24:32Speaker 5: This is Kathy Biele, host of Celestial Compass, featuring astrology.
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- 25:35Speaker 1: Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week, Keith Lowenstein.
- 25:39Speaker 1: We're talking about his book Crea Yoga for Self Discovery
- 25:43Speaker 1: Practices for Deep States of Meditation. Keith, before we go
- 25:47Speaker 1: on with the book, you had also told me you
- 25:50Speaker 1: have a master website that has all of these things
- 25:53Speaker 1: on it. What's that website?
- 25:55Speaker 2: Yes, I have another website. It is called human Holistics
- 25:58Speaker 2: with an S at the end, humanholistics dot com. Because
- 26:04Speaker 2: I also have a master's in Interfaith Divinity and so
- 26:09Speaker 2: I do spiritual counseling there, and I do coaching. I
- 26:14Speaker 2: work with physicians and burnout and do really a holistic
- 26:20Speaker 2: form of coaching for anybody, and can work on nutrition, lifestyle.
- 26:26Speaker 2: I'm not there as a physician, but given my decades
- 26:31Speaker 2: of work as a physician with multiple board certifications and
- 26:35Speaker 2: all kinds of specialties, it really has informed that coaching
- 26:39Speaker 2: practice and really can help people get back on track.
- 26:43Speaker 2: And so those three things are there if you look,
- 26:46Speaker 2: and there's a link there to the Korea site as well.
- 26:49Speaker 1: Wonderful. Now, what does Korea mean and how does the
- 26:53Speaker 1: meaning sort of work into what we're talking about today.
- 26:57Speaker 2: Well, create kind of means work and y'ah can refer
- 27:03Speaker 2: to breath or spirit, and yoga is is kind of
- 27:07Speaker 2: yoking things together, like the mind, body and spirit. So
- 27:11Speaker 2: it's the integration of mind, body and spirit. So in
- 27:14Speaker 2: Korea we're really using the breath as well as other things,
- 27:18Speaker 2: but it's the work of the breath to really integrate
- 27:21Speaker 2: the mind, body and spirit and to have a more
- 27:24Speaker 2: integrated life.
- 27:27Speaker 1: What is the importance of spinal alignment in Korea yoga?
- 27:32Speaker 2: Well know, many meditation techniques talk about sitting up, but
- 27:36Speaker 2: that's about all they do. And I think it's really
- 27:40Speaker 2: just kind of faded over the centuries or over the millennia, really,
- 27:46Speaker 2: But breath is so it's intricately related to the nervous system.
- 27:51Speaker 2: And the nervous system has different parts to it. Right,
- 27:55Speaker 2: we have the voluntary part, like we can move our arms,
- 27:58Speaker 2: we can think, but there's a whole nother part called
- 28:01Speaker 2: the autonomic nervous system or automatic nervous system that is
- 28:05Speaker 2: digesting our food, making our urine, pumping our heart. You know,
- 28:10Speaker 2: thank goodness, we don't have to remember to do all
- 28:12Speaker 2: of that stuff right, So and breathe for us. But
- 28:16Speaker 2: the breath and so this all happens in the brain
- 28:19Speaker 2: stem kind of a very old, kind of ancient part
- 28:21Speaker 2: of the brain, goes back to reptiles. But the breath,
- 28:26Speaker 2: we can reach right into that center and modulate it
- 28:31Speaker 2: through the breath. So one of the things that happens
- 28:34Speaker 2: in that center is the fight or flight response can
- 28:38Speaker 2: get activated, which many people are aware of when we're
- 28:40Speaker 2: stressed or this or that. And so the breath really
- 28:44Speaker 2: helps build up the other side of that nervous system,
- 28:47Speaker 2: the more restorative and relaxing side of that nervous system.
- 28:52Speaker 2: So the sympathetic speeds things up. The pair sympathetic kind
- 28:55Speaker 2: of slows it down. And we have nothing in the culture,
- 28:58Speaker 2: our culture that helps us with the pair of sympathetic side.
- 29:01Speaker 2: Everything's go, go, go, go, go go go. So by
- 29:04Speaker 2: sitting straight, it allows us to breathe fully because if
- 29:09Speaker 2: we're hunched over, our lungs, which come all the way
- 29:13Speaker 2: up to above our clavicles, can't really fill up. So
- 29:19Speaker 2: the practice is very breath focused, and you learn these
- 29:23Speaker 2: breathing techniques to just help you just learn to deliciously
- 29:28Speaker 2: love your breath and play with it in just you know,
- 29:31Speaker 2: wonderful and creative ways. And that's just really makes a
- 29:36Speaker 2: huge change for people. And it's something that they can,
- 29:39Speaker 2: you know, grab onto fairly quickly, and it's regardless and
- 29:45Speaker 2: anyone in a similar state of health will experience similar
- 29:50Speaker 2: changes from the techniques. So and it's only you know,
- 29:54Speaker 2: one of one of the techniques, but breath is just
- 29:57Speaker 2: so so so powerful and and the diaphragm is also
- 30:01Speaker 2: negatively affected by poor posture, and that's our main muscle
- 30:05Speaker 2: for breathing, and it connects actually to the lower ribs,
- 30:09Speaker 2: but also connects to our low spine. And so if
- 30:12Speaker 2: our lumbar spine isn't right and we're hunched over and
- 30:16Speaker 2: our rib cage is collapsed and our balloons, these two big,
- 30:20Speaker 2: beautiful living lungs like that want to like fill up
- 30:24Speaker 2: fully just can't. And all that leads to kind of
- 30:28Speaker 2: stress and dysfunction in the nervous system. And so by
- 30:33Speaker 2: sitting up while you're really opening things up and then
- 30:36Speaker 2: you start to practice you know, breath work and it
- 30:39Speaker 2: really opens up a whole other world.
- 30:42Speaker 1: If someone has back issues, will this practice help them?
- 30:48Speaker 2: You know, depending on their back issue, right, they'll need
- 30:51Speaker 2: to work with whoever they're connected with. So you know,
- 30:55Speaker 2: sometimes the physical therapist can be very helpful. Sometimes all
- 30:59Speaker 2: you need is massage. Sometimes you need more than that.
- 31:03Speaker 2: You need a you know, an osteopath or or even
- 31:07Speaker 2: more intensive work, depending but physical therapy is a good
- 31:09Speaker 2: way to start. But you have to build up the
- 31:12Speaker 2: muscle slowly in your back. But regardless, I mean, you know,
- 31:16Speaker 2: as the years go on. So a healthy, uninjured twenty
- 31:21Speaker 2: year old should be able to like handle this with
- 31:23Speaker 2: a little discomfort. But you know, a sixty year old
- 31:27Speaker 2: who has some degenerative change and maybe he's had an
- 31:29Speaker 2: injury or some genetic you know, contributions, it's a little
- 31:34Speaker 2: bit harder. And you know, having some support and not
- 31:36Speaker 2: pushing things because you don't want to hurt yourself is
- 31:39Speaker 2: very important. But any change that increases your ability to
- 31:46Speaker 2: rest for respiration and helps your posture because also your
- 31:50Speaker 2: nervous system clearly functions better. When you're in these states
- 31:54Speaker 2: and in deep states of spiritual engagement, your posture can
- 31:59Speaker 2: really significant change.
- 32:00Speaker 3: Just by itself.
- 32:02Speaker 2: But even if you're you know, someone with bad osteoporosis
- 32:05Speaker 2: who's maybe eighty two, right, if they if they you know,
- 32:09Speaker 2: have a little bit of support and they start to
- 32:11Speaker 2: breathe and they get just a little bit more movement, Wow,
- 32:14Speaker 2: they do get a great sense of relief. Now, are
- 32:17Speaker 2: they going to be a great krea yogi? You know,
- 32:21Speaker 2: we do have some physical limitations here, but crea yoga
- 32:25Speaker 2: isn't the only technique for these things. But what Korea
- 32:29Speaker 2: does is it is it really kind of takes the
- 32:33Speaker 2: natural kind of physiological changes that occur in spontaneous spiritual experiences,
- 32:39Speaker 2: and we teach ourselves how to get us how to
- 32:42Speaker 2: get ourselves into that state of receptivity through our body
- 32:47Speaker 2: and mind and then and then we can experience it
- 32:50Speaker 2: that way. So and then there's all kinds of practices
- 32:54Speaker 2: and they're you know, they're all valid in their own right.
- 32:57Speaker 2: And you know, different practices work with different work well
- 33:00Speaker 2: for different people. Even in Korea, there's four main practices
- 33:04Speaker 2: that we focus on to begin with, and you know,
- 33:08Speaker 2: people are gonna have different resonance with different ones. They
- 33:12Speaker 2: can play a little bit more with one, and that's
- 33:15Speaker 2: the other thing, it's not a very rigid, rigid, rigid routine.
- 33:18Speaker 2: You know, there's there's flexibility in play. It's a it's
- 33:22Speaker 2: a creative process of integration. So it's it's like learning
- 33:27Speaker 2: a sport. You know, you learn kind of these different
- 33:31Speaker 2: practices and you practice them, you know, drills like you
- 33:34Speaker 2: were gonna do if you're gonna learn baseball, you'd learn
- 33:37Speaker 2: to throw and catch and run and the rules and
- 33:41Speaker 2: then you sit down and then you then then you
- 33:43Speaker 2: can play the game. And boy, playing the game of
- 33:47Speaker 2: meditation is really just wonderful and it just gets.
- 33:50Speaker 3: More and more and more.
- 33:54Speaker 2: Interesting as the years pass. I mean, it's just a
- 34:00Speaker 2: you just kind of open up to like the collective
- 34:03Speaker 2: unconscious and just more and more. There's just so much
- 34:07Speaker 2: and of course compassion and opening your heart and so.
- 34:14Speaker 1: What are some of the pranayama the breathing techniques employed
- 34:18Speaker 1: in Korea yoga.
- 34:20Speaker 2: So you know, they're pretty basic, basic techniques. So we
- 34:25Speaker 2: teach something called full yogic breath or and we refer
- 34:29Speaker 2: to it as our four for regular relaxed rhythmic respiration.
- 34:33Speaker 2: And we're kind of teaching how to take a full breath,
- 34:36Speaker 2: how to fill up the whole the whole body from
- 34:40Speaker 2: the pelvis all the way up to the throat with breath,
- 34:42Speaker 2: really like experiencing that, learning about how the ribs move
- 34:48Speaker 2: holding it. So there's inspiration, there's retention, and then there's
- 34:52Speaker 2: slow exhalation and then so that there's retention on with
- 34:55Speaker 2: full breath, there's retention with empty breath. Retention isn't really
- 35:00Speaker 2: rest in the long run, but it is helpful to
- 35:03Speaker 2: re educate the respiratory system. So that's a lot of
- 35:07Speaker 2: what we're doing here is re educating the nervous the
- 35:10Speaker 2: respiratory system. So the names that they've been assigned to
- 35:15Speaker 2: keep it in English is jet breath, ocean breath, and
- 35:19Speaker 2: vacuum breath. And what are those For people who have
- 35:23Speaker 2: some pranayama experience. Pranayama is the name of breathing exercises.
- 35:27Speaker 2: That's what that means, right, breathing exercises. So jet breath
- 35:31Speaker 2: is capola batti and it's a it's a rapidly it's
- 35:36Speaker 2: a rapid breath, kind of like breath of fire. Shining
- 35:38Speaker 2: skull breath are similar. Ujaya breath is ocean breath, and
- 35:44Speaker 2: that's when you're you know, working with kind of vibrations
- 35:46Speaker 2: in the back of your throat and your nasal cavity.
- 35:50Speaker 2: Vacuum breath is a modified Udiana banda, which is again
- 35:54Speaker 2: you know, using using abdominal muscles and using using them
- 35:59Speaker 2: in a different way with some retention with empty lungs,
- 36:02Speaker 2: and you know, you kind of practice those other ones
- 36:05Speaker 2: to help you get into deeper states and really for
- 36:07Speaker 2: your lungs to get accustomed to being more expansive. You know,
- 36:11Speaker 2: after some work with that, wow, you breathe completely different
- 36:16Speaker 2: and you're in this just beautiful flow and it very
- 36:20Speaker 2: quickly changes how you feel and your ability to concentrate
- 36:25Speaker 2: in your presence. And really the only thing that we
- 36:30Speaker 2: can control to any great degree is our attention, and
- 36:34Speaker 2: this breath work really helps us, you know, learn how
- 36:37Speaker 2: to do that.
- 36:38Speaker 1: Or are there mantras in this practice?
- 36:41Speaker 2: You know, there are specific mantras with everything, but they're
- 36:45Speaker 2: a mantra or using vibration. Vibration sound chanting is one
- 36:53Speaker 2: of the pieces one of the practices. And OHM is
- 36:57Speaker 2: really you know, what's what we use as as the
- 37:01Speaker 2: most basic and it's thought to be really the most universal.
- 37:05Speaker 2: So you can think of ome as I mean the
- 37:08Speaker 2: Bible says, in the beginning was the word? What was
- 37:11Speaker 2: the word? What is the word? And so I think
- 37:14Speaker 2: of it as a vibration. In the beginning, there was
- 37:17Speaker 2: an initial vibration, something happened, right, something started to vibrate,
- 37:22Speaker 2: And so, so, what are we getting at here? What
- 37:25Speaker 2: is God? What is God? What is you know, ultimate
- 37:29Speaker 2: universal unity, as ghanash Baba liked to call it, or
- 37:32Speaker 2: the divine? What are we touching? People touch it? People
- 37:36Speaker 2: experience deep love when they touch it?
- 37:38Speaker 3: What is that? How is it?
- 37:40Speaker 2: You know? The way you know, from a scientific viewpoint,
- 37:43Speaker 2: the way I think of it is it's when we
- 37:46Speaker 2: just can get so still, as Yogananda puts it, when
- 37:50Speaker 2: the when the search lights of our five external senses
- 37:54Speaker 2: are turned inward, the nervous system then starts to work
- 37:59Speaker 2: completely differently. All the parts start to communicate differently. We
- 38:03Speaker 2: get very still, and we perceive, we get close to
- 38:06Speaker 2: perceiving that stillness, that that initial vibration, that oh the word,
- 38:12Speaker 2: you know, that that kind of sense, and it's so
- 38:15Speaker 2: familiar to us. It's like, oh, oh my god. You know,
- 38:19Speaker 2: it's like there's such a deep recognition. It's like, oh,
- 38:22Speaker 2: I'm home, Like this is really this is really the place,
- 38:27Speaker 2: and that's where all the love just pours in because
- 38:30Speaker 2: you know they're just the unity of everything just is
- 38:34Speaker 2: so clear. Oh, Ohm is a way, one way.
- 38:40Speaker 1: Absolutely. How does meditation in Crea practice differ from other practices?
- 38:47Speaker 2: I think the way gennesh Baba talkt Korea is very
- 38:50Speaker 2: creative and leads let let's lets you really play. So
- 38:55Speaker 2: the way I like to teach it is, you know,
- 38:57Speaker 2: a master of the basics or as best you can,
- 39:00Speaker 2: which is posture, breath, you know, third eye, concentration and
- 39:05Speaker 2: playing with vibration. Master the basics and we refer to
- 39:10Speaker 2: them as the four v's verticalization, ventilation, visualization, and vibrationalization.
- 39:18Speaker 2: Master the four v's, and play with the edges, you know,
- 39:21Speaker 2: and start to start to see kind of where you go.
- 39:25Speaker 2: Every practice is a little bit different in every every tradition,
- 39:30Speaker 2: or not even the traditions, because every tradition has multiple lineages, right,
- 39:34Speaker 2: and they all kind of focus on one little piece
- 39:37Speaker 2: or another. But you know, everybody for for meditation, you know,
- 39:43Speaker 2: most people sit, I mean the Sufi's dance. You know,
- 39:47Speaker 2: in chigong there is movement. Chigong is like Korea in motion.
- 39:52Speaker 2: It's you know, beautiful, but it's just it's a it's
- 39:55Speaker 2: a sitting practice and it's and it's yeah, I see
- 40:00Speaker 2: it as a foundational practice that no matter what you do, actually,
- 40:06Speaker 2: if you learn this and put your practice on top
- 40:09Speaker 2: of it, you will really accelerate. And that's how it
- 40:17Speaker 2: was first explained to me that this is kind of
- 40:19Speaker 2: an accelerated process, and for me it was, I mean,
- 40:23Speaker 2: it was a way to really learn to connect kind
- 40:29Speaker 2: of on demand, so to speak, and then you know,
- 40:31Speaker 2: with to be able to do that more and more
- 40:33Speaker 2: over time, as opposed to waiting for synchronicity to kind
- 40:37Speaker 2: of happen for those moments. So it's a way to
- 40:40Speaker 2: kind of flow with synchronicity and to bring more of
- 40:43Speaker 2: that in your life because you're a little more in
- 40:46Speaker 2: tune with the energies that we don't necessarily pay attention
- 40:50Speaker 2: to because they're not as much in the physical realm,
- 40:56Speaker 2: the space time continuum, so to speak.
- 40:59Speaker 1: My guest is Keith Lowenstein his book Crea Yoga for
- 41:03Speaker 1: Self Discovery, Practices for Deep States of Meditation. Will be
- 41:08Speaker 1: back with more after these words on the Old Times
- 41:11Speaker 1: Radio Network.
- 41:13Speaker 8: Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
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- 41:30Speaker 8: but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone
- 41:33Speaker 8: and that someone cares. To learn more, Please visit Humanityhealing
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- 41:43Speaker 1: Imagine yourself being transported to India, to the banks of
- 41:48Speaker 1: the Ganga and an ashram in Rishikesh. Visualize that you
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- 43:01Speaker 11: at ARP dot org slash caregiving. That's AARP dot org
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- 43:08Speaker 11: AARP and the Ed Council.
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- 44:12Speaker 13: More than twenty four million Americans have an autoimmune disorder,
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- 44:43Speaker 1: Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week, Keith Lowenstein.
- 44:48Speaker 1: We're talking about his book Crea Yoga for Self Discovery
- 44:52Speaker 1: Practices for Deep States of Meditation. Keith, your book refers
- 44:57Speaker 1: to Korea as spirit in fa used science. Please explain.
- 45:04Speaker 2: Well, as I mentioned, Korea and Raja yoga, are use
- 45:08Speaker 2: physiological and psychological techniques to help shift your state of awareness.
- 45:16Speaker 2: So you're the state of awareness of your nervous system,
- 45:20Speaker 2: just like sleep is a different state of awareness, or
- 45:23Speaker 2: some people refer to it as a different state of consciousness.
- 45:26Speaker 2: But you know, we are still alive. There's consciousness really there,
- 45:30Speaker 2: and we have a very challenging time just defining consciousness.
- 45:36Speaker 2: But we work with the science from like I was explaining,
- 45:41Speaker 2: from the physiological standpoint, but you know, it's and we
- 45:45Speaker 2: kind of move up and so we have practices for
- 45:47Speaker 2: the physical body, for our biology, our physiology, for our mind,
- 45:52Speaker 2: and for the spiritual side, and we are learning to
- 45:56Speaker 2: kind of we're kind of it's an inner technology. It's
- 46:00Speaker 2: like a software that we just we install slowly and
- 46:05Speaker 2: well it's even just there, but we start to use
- 46:08Speaker 2: it and it shifts the way our hardware functions. So
- 46:11Speaker 2: just like if you put a new program into your computer,
- 46:15Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you can do things on it
- 46:16Speaker 2: that you couldn't before. So everything's still the same, all
- 46:20Speaker 2: the hardware, but the software. So we're kind of playing
- 46:22Speaker 2: with the software and science actually has plenty. You know,
- 46:26Speaker 2: there's a brand new book that came out just recently.
- 46:32Speaker 2: I Am a part of Infinity, the Spiritual Journey of
- 46:35Speaker 2: Albert Einstein, And when I teach, I love to use
- 46:40Speaker 2: this one quote of his and it's that particular quote
- 46:44Speaker 2: is the front piece of the book, and the quote
- 46:48Speaker 2: is I'm going to read it because it's just so powerful.
- 46:52Speaker 2: A human being is a part of the whole called
- 46:57Speaker 2: by us universe, a part limited in space and time.
- 47:03Speaker 2: It's like I was talking about before. You know, this
- 47:06Speaker 2: helps you experience energies that are beyond space and time.
- 47:10Speaker 2: Einstein continues, we experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as
- 47:15Speaker 2: something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion
- 47:20Speaker 2: of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
- 47:24Speaker 2: restricting us to our personal desires and to the affection
- 47:28Speaker 2: for a few persons nearest to us. So it's really
- 47:32Speaker 2: he's talking about our delusion lost in just this reality,
- 47:36Speaker 2: the space time continuum. And he finally says, our task
- 47:39Speaker 2: must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening
- 47:43Speaker 2: our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and
- 47:47Speaker 2: the whole of nature in its beauty, and he goes
- 47:51Speaker 2: on after that and even talks about that it's the
- 47:53Speaker 2: task is important in itself, and the striving of the
- 47:57Speaker 2: task helps with inner secure and and and liberation to
- 48:02Speaker 2: a degree because because of the devotion there. So yeah,
- 48:07Speaker 2: so scientists are not are clearly also connected to with
- 48:11Speaker 2: spirit and and and that's that's that's the goal here.
- 48:17Speaker 1: You share that Ganesh Baba found that the practice of
- 48:20Speaker 1: Korea yoga automatically brought out interpersonal restraints and observances in
- 48:26Speaker 1: the practitioner. Please share these with us and why they're
- 48:29Speaker 1: so important, so.
- 48:31Speaker 2: That that refers to the first two practices in potentially's
- 48:35Speaker 2: yoga sutras. They're called the Yamas and niyamas. But again,
- 48:38Speaker 2: like I said, they're like the Ten Commandments or the
- 48:42Speaker 2: eightfold Noble path. And but by by these practices so
- 48:47Speaker 2: many traditions have you kind of change your behaviors first,
- 48:50Speaker 2: which is quite a challenge. But but but this, these
- 48:55Speaker 2: practices kind of change you from the inside out and
- 48:58Speaker 2: you kind of don't it happens automatically. You become more compassionate,
- 49:04Speaker 2: which is really kind of the root of almost all
- 49:07Speaker 2: of it, you know, and those things really really just
- 49:12Speaker 2: melt away. He would always say, you know, no worries
- 49:16Speaker 2: about that. It will come practice, practice, practice, And it's
- 49:21Speaker 2: the compassion that you develop and touching that ultimate universal
- 49:26Speaker 2: unity that just you know, changes your nervous system. It
- 49:32Speaker 2: causes deep neuroplastic change in your nervous system. And once
- 49:36Speaker 2: you have experienced that change, it is very difficult to
- 49:41Speaker 2: go back and forget about it. You might have a
- 49:44Speaker 2: difficult time staying there, and that's where the practices come
- 49:47Speaker 2: in to help you stay there more often. But it's
- 49:49Speaker 2: not something you can forget.
- 49:52Speaker 1: How may this practice open our third eye?
- 49:56Speaker 3: Well, that's one of the practices.
- 49:58Speaker 2: So learning learning, so calming that nervous system down, getting
- 50:02Speaker 2: in a place of constant calmness, you know, working on
- 50:06Speaker 2: your autonomic nervous system, and then taking that concentration and
- 50:14Speaker 2: utilizing it in a way to focus your attention in
- 50:20Speaker 2: various areas in a deeply relaxed state that allows that
- 50:25Speaker 2: to develop over time. I mean, it's not something you
- 50:27Speaker 2: know you do in five minutes, right, it's just it's
- 50:30Speaker 2: it's another one of the practices. Right, You're no longer
- 50:33Speaker 2: your eyes are no longer busy looking all around, They're inside, right,
- 50:37Speaker 2: they're quieted down, and it's it's and that's part of
- 50:42Speaker 2: the process. But you know, knowing how to look and
- 50:44Speaker 2: where to look and all that, it just comes with
- 50:46Speaker 2: time and practice.
- 50:49Speaker 1: What would you like readers to take away from creat
- 50:52Speaker 1: yoga for self discovery.
- 50:54Speaker 2: That they need to practice? Yeah, yeah, that that It's
- 51:01Speaker 2: not the only way, you know, but it is a
- 51:04Speaker 2: a way that can be you know, an accelerated path
- 51:07Speaker 2: under other than kind of the spontaneous spiritual experiences. That
- 51:11Speaker 2: the deep connection, deep connection with the source or divinity
- 51:18Speaker 2: or you know, the infinite is there. I mean, it
- 51:23Speaker 2: is just there and and and.
- 51:27Speaker 3: It's a guide.
- 51:27Speaker 2: It will introduce you and it also teaches you a
- 51:30Speaker 2: little bit about the nervous system. And there's a variety
- 51:33Speaker 2: of different things in there, you know, a universal theory
- 51:37Speaker 2: of human experience, how it relates to the electromagnetic spectrum.
- 51:42Speaker 2: I mean, there's all kinds of other little tidbits in there.
- 51:45Speaker 2: But I mean the goal is to have some faith
- 51:48Speaker 2: in yourself practice and just you know, and and wherever
- 51:54Speaker 2: you are, you know, if you are really have the
- 51:57Speaker 2: intention of moving into this these other dimensions, your teacher
- 52:02Speaker 2: will show up.
- 52:04Speaker 1: Absolutely. We had the synchronicity talking about synchronicities of meeting
- 52:09Speaker 1: through All Faith Seminary International. What drew you to that
- 52:13Speaker 1: organization and led to your ordination as an interfaith minister
- 52:16Speaker 1: and Masters of Divinity?
- 52:19Speaker 2: You know, I think it was, Yeah, in in nineteen
- 52:23Speaker 2: eighty three, I was living in New York with Ginnesh
- 52:26Speaker 2: Baba and I was at Columbia and we got an
- 52:29Speaker 2: invitation on Easter Sunday to go to an interfaith service
- 52:33Speaker 2: at Christ Church on Park Avenue and to have him participate.
- 52:38Speaker 2: And so, you know, we walked in and there's you know,
- 52:43Speaker 2: Swami sach Adnanda, peer of eliak Khan, Rabbi Gelberman and
- 52:54Speaker 2: Stendal Rast and Ghanesh Baba you know, participated in the
- 53:00Speaker 2: service with them. So I spent the day with all
- 53:02Speaker 2: of them. And it was also my birthday that year,
- 53:06Speaker 2: which was you know kind of you know, a a
- 53:09Speaker 2: a wonderful thing. And so I met Rabbi Gelberman. Rabbi
- 53:12Speaker 2: Gelberman UH would have regular discussions with Swami Sachi Dinanda.
- 53:19Speaker 2: They broadcast regular meetings where they would talk about interfaith discussions,
- 53:24Speaker 2: and Rabbi Gelberman was started a number of interfaith UH
- 53:30Speaker 2: seminaries over the years, and I remember at the time thinking, wow,
- 53:34Speaker 2: I would really like to kind of pursue that interfaith studies,
- 53:39Speaker 2: but yeah, to be in New York, and you know,
- 53:42Speaker 2: during my pre med time, I didn't have time to
- 53:44Speaker 2: do that, and then I was gone from New York.
- 53:48Speaker 3: But then COVID happened.
- 53:49Speaker 2: Then it went online and I was like wow, so
- 53:52Speaker 2: I I reconnected with them and was able to pursue that.
- 53:57Speaker 2: So that's that is how that that is how that
- 54:01Speaker 2: came about.
- 54:03Speaker 1: And we have the pleasure of being trained and ordained
- 54:07Speaker 1: through that same lineage, for which I am so grateful.
- 54:11Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, it's really just a beautiful program that
- 54:15Speaker 2: still goes on. And I'm now actively involved there and
- 54:20Speaker 2: teach there and initiated spearheaded the start of a new
- 54:24Speaker 2: program that has this also this wonderful part of it
- 54:27Speaker 2: called the Seekers Compass, a program that focuses on mysticism.
- 54:31Speaker 2: They have programs that focus on a course in miracles.
- 54:33Speaker 2: There's a rabbinical track, there's an interfaith track, and now
- 54:37Speaker 2: there's this mysticism track where you can become a minister,
- 54:41Speaker 2: pursue a master as a doctorate in all these fields
- 54:44Speaker 2: and I work there with on the on the Mysticism
- 54:47Speaker 2: program with Reverend Bud James, who's you know, wonderful and
- 54:52Speaker 2: it's a very interesting, interesting program.
- 54:55Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it's through that organization that you and I
- 54:58Speaker 1: had the synchronicity of meeting and having this blessed connection
- 55:02Speaker 1: for which I'm so, so so grateful. My guest, Keith
- 55:05Speaker 1: Lowenstein his book Korea Yoga for Self Discovery Practices for
- 55:09Speaker 1: Deep States of Meditation. Keith, once again, please share with
- 55:13Speaker 1: listeners where they can get your book and find out
- 55:15Speaker 1: more about you and your amazing work.
- 55:18Speaker 2: Yes, so Careerbreath dot com or Humanholistics dot com you
- 55:23Speaker 2: can you can look up.
- 55:24Speaker 3: Both of those.
- 55:25Speaker 2: My book is available at the publisher and Traditions or
- 55:28Speaker 2: wherever you enjoy buying books online or at your local bookstore.
- 55:34Speaker 2: And if you're interested, please don't hesitate to reach out.
- 55:39Speaker 2: You can reach me through either of those websites. And
- 55:43Speaker 2: I wish you all the best in your travels, your
- 55:46Speaker 2: and your pursuits.
- 55:47Speaker 1: Keith, thank you so much for joining us and sharing
- 55:50Speaker 1: this wonderful journey that you've taken and all of the
- 55:54Speaker 1: blessings and teachings that you've received and continue to pass
- 55:57Speaker 1: on today.
- 55:58Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for for having me, this was
- 56:01Speaker 2: really an honor.
- 56:02Speaker 1: And thank you for joining us on Destination Unlimited. I'm
- 56:06Speaker 1: Victor the Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week.