Sacred Retreats For Energy Regeneration Theology Religion Essay

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

<Fig 171 Please find an image that conveys sacred retreat or use images from bonfire in Costa Rica shoot>

Like a bee seeking nectar from all kinds of flowers—seek teachings everywhere.

Like a deer seeking a quiet place to graze, seek seclusion to digest all that you have gathered.

—Dzogchen Tantra

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die

a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

—Ecclesiastes

<H1> Time outside of Time and the Ritual Art of Retreat

Our explorations of the many rhythms found in our bodies, our planet, and the cosmos bring us to the art of retreat – the power of the inward pull, the time in between. Life is a ritual from sunrise to sunset everyday throughout the day, time outside of time, within the pure presence of one cycle of breath. We can experience the essence of ritual this way, following the nature of our own bodies. Human culture has developed around these timeless cycles, and the festival and retreats we have created back through time have always reflected these rhythms of nature. It is natural to honor these rhythms by pausing from time to time to regenerate, and all of nature does this—the tiger at rest on the savannah conserves her energy instinctually.

Just as we waste more energy than we actually use in the United States – we often "waste" the most precious times for experiencing heightened energy. This chapter is for the retrieval of the power of retreat – no matter who you are or what your life circumstance is. In Part Four, we will journey around an entire yearly cycle to follow the seasonal rhythms and the ritual holidays that are synched with the Solstices, equinox and new and full moon cycles. These sandhyas have been retreat periods as far back as human history and beyond.

<H2 Five Rhythms of Retreat

In my life and leading of global retreats for the past twenty years, I focus on five aspects of retreat whether it is creating a group offering or in my own daily life. These retreat

elements are sacred time, space, ritual, practice, and sacred activism – the power of something positively being generated through that retreat time. Just the act of "unplugging", taking time off the technological grid everyday has postivie repercussions to our energy future.

Five Flows of Retreat

Sacred time—setting an intention and setting time aside within the flow of life

Sacred space—awakening to the space around you, tending your inner and outer altar

Natural Ritual – ways of connecting to the natural process of change

Spirit of Sadhana - ways of integrating practice into your retreat

Sacred Activism— Energy Sabbaths – unplugging as a way of energy activism.

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<H1>Sacred Rhythm

* Fig 172 Please find a image you like of ocean ripples in the sand with either me or any image you like.

The oscillating rhythm of the heart knows there is

a time for activation and a time for regeneration

a time for quiet and time for ecstasy

a time for clearing and a time for celebrating

a time for receiving and a time for giving

a time for igniting the fire

and a time for letting go into the fire

The natural waxing and waning of life offers all kinds of opportunities to create personal retreat time and allow yourself to move into harmony with whatever may be arising within you. You can create a sacred retreat at any given moment you choose by honoring the breath, daily at sunrise or sunset, or during the cross-cultural holy days that are tied to the movements of the sun and moon through the wheel of the year. You can answer the call for retreat whenever you see auspicious signs that the time is right, or when you sense a warning that you need some regenerative time. This listening creates your intention, or your dedication, for your cycle.

There are three natural cycles within the pulse of life that we can emphasize during our retreat times:

<H2>Cycles of Initiating—Rhythms for Beginning Anew

Optimal times: On an inhale; at sunrise; during the new moon; during the wheel-of-the-year festivals of Winter Solstice, New Year’s Day, Imbolc or Spring Equinox; any time you are initiating a new phase in your life—such as a project, or a relationship.

<H2>Cycles of Sustaining the Peak—Honoring and Celebrating Fullness

Optimal time: On an inhale retention; at noon and sunset; during the full moon; at Summer Solstice; during waxing solar sandhyas (Spring Equinox or Beltane); any time you are sustaining a challenging project in your life

<H2>Cycles of Letting Go—Honoring Completion, Death, and Shadow Work

Optimal times: On an exhale; at sunset and nighttime; during the waning period three days before the new moon; at Samhain (the last six weeks of the year); any time you are completing a process or working with shadow healing, death, or letting go

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<H1>Sacred Space—Tending Your Home Altar

<Fig. 172 Find an image of an sacred altar or look in our altar folder illustrate the different elements.>

Tending your inner fire is an important aspect of cultivating the sacred space of your retreat, and this process is reflected in your home altar. Your personal altar is a great nexus—a navel that connects your inner and outer worlds—a conduit for your prayers, and a reflection of your inner space and what is stirring within your heart.

Every altar has a central focus—a primary symbol—which can take any form: an image, a sculpture, a natural object such as a stone or feather, or anything else that you find meaningful. Throughout our lifetimes, various symbols come to us; sometimes they are given to us, sometimes we find them, and sometimes we must search for them. Often, they come our way before we are fully ready to understand their meaning. So remain open to the possibilities.

Beneath this central symbol we may place an altar cloth made of any natural material of any color. We can have several of these and change them with the seasons, with the lunar cycles, or whenever it feels appropriate. ****Examples

Also on the altar we often include symbols of the elements. Earth can be represented by fruit, a rice bowl, living plants, or flowers. Water can be placed in a separate bowl and changed daily, or it can serve the purpose of keeping flowers fresh in a vase. Incense is the most universal way we invoke the elements of air or feathers can be used. Space can be represented as a container or a vessel in which intentions or symbolic objects can be placed. Fire can take the form of candles or lamps—you can let your spiritual tradition be your guide.

<H2>Purify Your Sacred Space

Honor the sacred space of your altar by regularly cleaning and refreshing it. Before your dedicated retreat time, clear away any objects that may have served their purpose. Remove dust, wilted flowers, or ashes or wax left from burning. You may bathe sacred objects in water or dust them with special cloth that you only use for your altar. You can do this daily or weekly, and each time invoke the new beginning that is connected to this symbolic ritual for revival.

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<H2>Invoke the Mandala of the Elements and Directions

Invoking the elements and directions is a way to create a mandala or sacred circle for your retreat time – a universal sense of creating a sacred container that can be integrated at the beginning of your daily meditations. This ritual is found cross-culturally and in different spiritual systems, and you can do this according to your own spiritual tradition.

Various traditions associate colors with the elements and directions, and you can incorporate these into your altar. In our year-long living yoga sadhana program, we go into depth on the changing art of your sacred space. Below is an invocation of the sacred directions and elements that you can adapt as you wish for your own unique ritual.

<Fig. 173 Chart of the elements and directions from different traditions >

<H3>Invoking the Mandala of Element and Directions

<Fig. 174 picture of Stonehenge in meditation>

To begin, upon the threshold of your invocation, face toward the east and affirm your intention to call upon the elements and directions.

Stand or sit and connect to your heart center. ****Instructions on Turning Now gaze as far as you can in each direction, embracing all as you turn and emanating from your heart. You can honor the four cardinal directions, all eight directions, or all of these and the directions of above and below as well.

For a simple invocation, you can also sprinkle water or light sacred herbs such as sage, copal, or incense and wither silently turn and honor each direction. You can also offer the mantra, "Om Phar Hum Phal" from the Hindu tradition in each direction or invoke the prayer from the Celtic traditions, "May there be peace in the East" turning then to the south "May there be peace in the south." Make your invocation for each direction and the element that is connected to that direction, using any words, prayers, sounds, or thoughts you like, to welcome that direction and element into your mandala. Continue to the South, North and finally above and below. As you are turning in each direction allow your gaze to extend as far as you can envision, encompassing the all of creation, people, nature,.

Now, with the directions and elements encircling and permeating your space, engage in any practice of your choosing feeling the power of ritual space.

<Figure 175 Small pic – Find or create Mandala of eight directions, names and elements from the (Hindu-Vedic )>

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<Text Box>My First Gourd Altar

* Fig. Gourd Altar image

One evening I was driving home from teaching yoga, singing along with some lively kirtan that I had playing on the stereo. I entered an intersection where the light had just turned green and—BAM!—something smashed into the driver’s side of my little Honda. The next thing I knew, blood was pouring down my face and my legs were pinned to the center console by the crumpled door. I hadn’t seen the other car coming, so I had no fear hormones swirling in my body; it was simply that one moment I was singing and the next I was covered in blood. Time unwound as people came to help me. Everyone around me seemed like bodhisattvas or angels—I especially remember the fireman who helped me get loose and onto a stretcher.

After three days in the hospital unable to move, I was sent home to heal my broken pelvis. Myself. By being still. There is no way, it turns out, to put a pelvis in a cast. If your pelvis is broken, you may not walk for a week, and your return to full movement will take months.

At the time this happened, I was twenty-seven and a third-series Ashtanga yoga practitioner, doing intensive asana practice two hours a day, six days a week. Now, suddenly, I could move only my toes and my upper body.

This is how I learned the power of mudra vinyasa.

I found that despite my immobility, I could support the reknitting of my bones through positive and benevolent coaxing, using my breath and the immense circulatory energy of the Heart Fire. Drawing on the power of the subtle, loving movement of breath and pulse, day after day—and with the help of my husband’s herbs—I made the transition from feeling great pain and weakness with even the tiniest of movements to enjoying a full range of motion and a stable base.

This intuitive awakening of prana yoga gave birth to the movement art form I now teach, as I literally embodied the rebirth that follows a death or an initiation. In this case, it was my muladhara chakra that was being reborn.

While I recovered, I was drawn to placing on my altar beautiful gourds that people brought to me from the farmer’s market. These were primordial, voluptuous Great Mother shapes, wombs holding the space for my rebirth. With so much time spent in stillness—I moved very little for a month—I went deep into the fertility of soul healing, creating not only a new body but a new life. I felt a vastly more subtle connection to my own living energy, and found the emergence of new forms within the limitless creativity of yoga. And I experienced a transformation from pain and immobility to the flowering of a new body.

Gourds—with their feminine shapes and in their array of bold and subtle colors—became the anchors of my altar, symbols of an organic connection to my reemerging life force and a new life.

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<H1>The Spirit of Offering: Puja—Natural Rituals to Integrate into Your Retreat

I am the ritual, I am the sacrifice, the oblation, and the herb. I am the Prayer and the melted butter, the fire and its offering. Whoever offers to me with devotion and purity of heart, lead, flower, fruit or water – that offering of love I accept with you. Whatever you do, whatever your heart, whatever your offering, whatever your alms or your tapas, do all as a offering to the Source. – Bhagavad Gita (Tompkins)

<Fig. 176 Find a Pic of Puja Offering>

A puja is a heartfelt offering. There is probably an infinite number of ways to make a puja, and even if you always follow the same steps, it will have a different quality or feeling each time. The following twelve-step puja is a method of altar-care that can be practiced in the flow of yoga based upon the guidance of Sree Devi Bringi and includes many beautiful elements. You can choose to complete all twelve steps or do a shorter form that stops after Step Five where you can begin meditation or another practice.

<H2 Stages of a Puja Offering

Krama One—Renew yourself and sacred space—Atma shuddhi – Purification of the Soul

Before you begin your puja, take a bath or splash water on your face and change into fresh clothes. Clean and refresh your altar space so that everything is vital and alive. Chant Om three rounds and offer a prostration to become connected to your heart. Then offer this mantra, sipping water from your right palm after each repetition:

Chant Om Three Rounds and then

Om achutaya namaha, Om anantaya namaha, Om govindaya namaha

I honor the Divine, the Infinite Divine, and the Source of the Senses

Krama Two—Balance and purify your energy field through your breath—nadi shodhana pranayama

Do 3 or 7 rounds of alternate nostril breathing (nadi shodhana pranayama) See page from part two)

Krama Three—Invoke your puja

You can invoke your puja and connect to your outer and inner altars using any of the meditation practices from Part Two, such as the invocation of om with mudra or the use of a mantra or the mandala inovcation. Across yoga traditions, the auspicious current embodied in the energy of Ganesha is often the focus of the invocation step; he is revered as the remover of all vibrational dissonance and obstacles on the path.

Recite Om gam ganapataye namaha to invoke the auspicious current

Krama Four—Offer your intention or samkalpa

Every time you enter into ritual space is an opportunity to declare and affirm your intention for this sacred time. This can be a simple connection to the living sacred or a specific dedication or samkalpa for a ritual period.

Bring your hands together with your left palm placed on top of the right for samkalpa mudra

Krama Five—Ignite your altar

<Fig. 177 Find a pic of lighting the lamp or take a pic in India>

Offer a prayer as you light your candle (use a nonpolluting kind such as soy or beeswax) or oil lamp (containing pure oils or ghee), with reverence for the fire element and the fiery flow of consciousness. You can:

offer the mantra om dipayai namaha as you light the flame or your own prayer.

You can end your puja ritual here if you like and move directly to mantra japa or meditation, or to your closing prayer. If you choose to continue, the following stages of the puja will allow a deepening connection to the Heart Fire. [1] 

Krama Six—Honor the Divine Self within: Atmapuja

Embody the art of nyasa (touch with awarenss and mantra). You can use your touch by itself or with healing herbal powders such as sandalwood, sacred ash from a ritual fire (vibhuti), red turmeric powder (kumkum) or essential oils. You can touch your heart, throat, third eye and then crown of the head accompanied by your own prayer or with the mantras that follow. Pause and connect to each part of the body with the mantra, meaning and intention of deep communion. For the last nyasa, you can also offer a flower with reverence for the Supreme Self within you:

Designer Note: I think the below is really beautiful is there is a way to highlight…it is like a quote in itself.

Om atmane namaha (touch heart): I honor/bow to/realize the Divine Self (atma)

Om antaratmane namaha (touch throat): I honor/bow to/realize the Divine Self (atma) existing within all (antar)

Om jnanatmane namaha (touch third eye): I honor/bow to/realize the Wisdom (jnana) Self (atma) within

Om paramatmane namaha (touch top of head): I honor/bow to/realize the Self (atma) beyond all conceptions (para)

Om atmapuja samarpayami (Place a flower on top of your head): I worship and love with devotion the Divine Self within

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<H1 The Spriti of Offering in Puja

Fig. 178 image of offering flowers or water with Shiva Kumar

Krama Seven—Offer water (achamaniyam)

In this practice, you offer a spoonful of water to your central altar image or just to the heavens and then while sipping the water recite the mantra and visualizing yourself being nourished by the sublime flow of love.

Offer the mantra Om namaha achamaniyam samarpayami while sipping water.

Krama Eight— offer flower (pushpanjali)

The offering of flowers or leaves or any living substance is an intrinsic conduit of the heart. You can change the flowers you offer with the season. I often use fresh wildflowers from the nearby hillside. It is the heart exchange that matters which can also be just within one’s mind with the most extraordinary flowers reffered to as the highest offering from one’s heartmind (manaspuja).

Offer flowers or flower petals from your heart with a prayer or a mantra of your chosen ishta devata.

Krama Nine—Offer food (naivedyam)

Sprinkle water upon your food offering (Prasad) of fruit, rice grains, or a prepared dish, and chant the following mantras, honoring the movement of life (prana) that is manifested from food. This is a wonderful mantra to say before a meal as well, while visualizing the movement of prana through your body.

Chant the movements of life as you offer fruit or food:

Om prana swaha: I honor the in-drawing, rising energy within all creation

Om apana swaha: I honor the downward, rooting flow within all creation

Om samana swaha: I honor the energy that contracts to the core within all creation

Om vyana swaha: I honor the energy that expands omnidirectionally from the core within all creation

Om udana swaha: I honor the energy that rises and moves outward within all creation

Krama Ten—Awaken heart consciousness ( hridaya nyasa)

Place your right hand in tattwa mudra (touching the thumb to base of ring finger) and place it over your heart. Gaze into your heart and combine mantra and touch as a form of hridaya nyasa.

offer the mantra Om aim hrdayaya namaha: I bow to the sacred Self in the heart chakra.

Krama Eleven—Make offerings through meditation or mantra japa

Now, here within the sacred ritual rhythm and space of the puja, you can enter meditation including mantra connected to your seasonal sadhana and what is arising upon your heart or dedicated practices. You may also offer something from your altar to your heart—a flower or some rice—with each repetition of the mantra; if you have an image on your altar that symbolizes a deity, a teacher, or an ancestor that you wish to honor, you may offer flowers or rice to this symbol instead. Remember that offerings can come in all forms, from the pure vibrational substance of feelings and intentions to the universal altar materials of flowers, rice, incense, fruit, and nectars (holy water, milk, or honey). Also remember that all outer offerings are also inner offerings.

You can release difficulties as offerings as well. Offer challenging states of being, thoughts, emotions, objects symbolizing life challenges, sour-hot fruits such as lemons or chili peppers, or written prayers for letting go. These are also equally beautiful offerings because they represent the full spectrum of life.

Rest in meditation or offer the mantra of your choosing for 9, 18, 27, 54, or 108 rounds in full connection to your heart.

Krama Twelve—Offer light, or arati, with mantra, kirtan, or prayers

<Fig. 179 waving the aarati lamp – pic with Pujya Swami or with Shiva Kumar

There are many ways to end your puja. One firekeeping way within yoga and many spiritual traditions is to wave your candle or lamp above and around your altar in an offering of light—a ritual called arati. Chant a mantra, sing or make joyful music (kirtan), or pray. All of these are ways to celebrate the time you have dedicated to communion with your Heart Fire as you draw your puja to a close.

Offer the light or arati with Om or a mantra, kirtan or prayer such as lokha samastaha sukihinoh bhavantu or Om shantih, shantih, shantihi—Om peace, peace, peace

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<H6 Text Box: The Power of 108

The number 108 has long been considered sacred in yoga and many other spiritual traditions around the world. Renowned mathematicians of Vedic culture viewed 108 as a number describing the wholeness of existence. This number also connects the Sun, Moon, and Earth: the average distance of the Sun and the Moon to Earth is 108 times their respective diameters. Such phenomena have given rise to many examples of ritual significance:

108 chapters of the Rg Veda, 108 Upanishads, and 108 primary Tantras.; 108 marma points, or sacred places of the body; 108 classic dance postures; even 108, seen in the number of steps leading to the Devi Chamundi Hill in Mysore.

In 2007, the Global Mala Project was started as a way to bring people around the world to work with the collective heart field by syncopating breath, intention, and global awareness together in yoga practice that is connected to 108 (from surya namaskar to mantra japa) to raise consciousness and funds for good causes. It has since travelled around the world in over 50 countries and continues every year on UN International Peace Day also connected to Fall Equinox and at any time ritual activation is needed.

<H2>Practice Offering a Yoga Mala: 108 Surya Namaskar or Sun Salutations

The Source of Love shines in the heart of all

Seeing one in all creatures

the wise forget themselves in the service of all.

The world is their joy, the One is their refuge;

such as they are lovers of the One.

- Mundaka Upanishad

<Fig. 180 Pic of Yoga Mala Offering Fig. 181 Another global mala picture>

Offering a Yoga Mala Practice in Individual or Collective Practice is a powerful practice of heart entrainment as people move together for 18 – 108 rounds of collective movement around the breath pulse we all share. Empower yourself in your own practice first on ritual holidays before leading a group.

Krama One—Create a sacred space for your practice bringing everyone if possible in a mandala circle to practice around a community altar. The circle empowers the community and is symbolic of a mala, but not all spaces lend themselves to a circle so if yours does not don’t let this deter you.

Krama Two—Create mala counters

Create two bowls to count from. In Bowl One, place 27 seeds and leave Bowl Two empty. Every time you go into a forward bend, put one seed into the empty bowl. If you choose to do the full 108 rounds, then reverse, taking seeds from Bowl Two and placing them into Bowl One. After four cycles you will have reached 108.

Krama Three—Introduce the yoga mala

Unify the group by chanting an invocation of om or by chanting a mantra. Some communities may want to include a talking circle in which everyone has the opportunity to offer a dedication before you begin. Allow the first three rounds of the mala to be getting everyone in synch around the power of their breath. Then move into collective entrainment throught

Step Four—Offer dedications and rounds of the mala

This step is done during the first position of the namaskar when the hands are placed in front of the heart in anjali mudra. Open your inner ears and listen to your heart teacher—an offering of a dedication will emerge spontaneously as a revelation. Meditate on this dedication as you move with your breath in heart-brain synchronization. Circulate this dedication through the whole round of the namaskar until your hands return back to your heart for the next round.

You can offer the complete mala of 108 namaskars in 4 rounds of 27 or 6 rounds of 18. Over the past twenty years, I have adapted a four-round process that moves from the microcosm within outward to the Source.

Round One—Dedications for personal transformation and realization. This round is for you: prayers for your own personal activation, healing, and fertilization, and for the manifestation of the potency of your life.

Round Two—Dedications for family, friends, and "precious jewels" (anyone you have unresolved conflict with)

Round Three—Dedications for the world. This is the bodhisattva round in which we pray for what we care about in the world and actively participate in transforming the world, whether we want to end war or global warming, to focus on healing of a disease, or to serve your own community’s local needs. This is a very powerful round.

Round Four—Dedications to the Source. This is a moving prayer, which can be filled with non-verbal praise, gratitude, and joy for your feeling connection to the Source.

When all four rounds are complete, move into shavasana (relaxation) and meditation. Read sacred texts or poetry aloud if you wish. Complete your yoga mala with closing heart mandala dedication and the mantra Om shanti, shanti, shanti and bathe in the radiance and empowerment of this practice.

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<H1 Energy Sabbaths – Unplugging as Sacred Activism

Sacred Activism is a term, teaching, and approach coined by Andrew Harvey and refers to how we can align our actions with our heart particularly in addressing any issues of the times. Global Warming is one issue that has no borders as everyone is "downwind" from someonelse and toxic energy effects the soil, water, air and ozone layer of all beings on planet earth. The positive impact og becoming conscious of your energy use and transforming toxic and unconscious energy usage in your home, workplace and beyond is one of the simplest and most important actions that everybody on the planet.

Energy Sabbath – Doing Nothing to Do Something

It is possible that our ancestors understood that "doing nothing can be doing something" – the universal teaching that being is a form of acting, that repose and reflection are often the best course of action. As our last section offers the "mandala of the year" – the 26 new moon, full moons, 8 solar festivals and sunrise-sunset daily and weekly rhythms are potent times to unplug, tend your energy and listen deeply to your heart.

These "sandhyas" are the rhythmic legacy of our ancestors that often involve returning to natural light outdoors, bonfires, special lighting of candles, letting go of work life and interruptions from the outside world. This rhythm of retreat – reffered to as the Sabbath in western spiritual culture – offers a new form of sacred activism – a kind of energy activism that can be offered to our the transformation of our energy future that must happen within our lifetime where we waste more energy than we create and the toxic form of the energy we create is destroying our environment and hurling as into the throes of climate change.

Even though our ancestors used carbon-releasing fuel to tend a living fire, it is nothing compared to the waste of energy we have today. Note to designer: please highlight this text. We are actually wasting 54% of the energy we create = throwing away more than we use. This is perhaps the price of the ease of electricity –we are no longer gathering the wood and valuing our resources. We must stop wasting our outer energy just as we must learn to cultivate and honor our own life-energy. This loss is a disconnection to the rhythms of nature and a split between our brain and heart, our being and nature that we can all feel and observe within ourselves and in the world.

The Power of Unplugging

Central to an energy Sabbath or energy activism is unplugging – turning off electronics for a set- period to create a ritual container free of distractions. This is an offering not only to saving and being more conscious of our energy intake – in the way the fasting attunes us to being more conscious of our food choices – but also towards restoring our own inner energy which is constantly pulled in many ojas depleting directions.

One can commit to taking an energy Sabbath for three hours to 24 hours (sunrise to sunrise or sundown to sundown, or sundown to sunrise) or longer periods any day or in synch with the special retreat days already aligned with the solar/lunar rhythms that Part Four honors. In addition, one can take care of one’s waste and be conscous of water use not as an austerity but as a waking up and a reclaiming of our home as an the foundation for our firekeeping – the essence of living our energetic heart by caring for the energy we circulate.

Here are some encouragements:

Turn off and unplug all electronics and appliances (except the refrigerator)

Take a technology fast – let your family-friends no in advance

Take time for yourself or gather with your loved ones, family and friends in creative and rejuvenative ways.

Use ghee lamps, soy or beeswax candles or solar charged lamps for necessary light* Create light from natural sources

Creating meals that use less processing and fuel to cook

Go for zero or as little waste as possible

Reducing packaging – cook with whole, organic foods

Keep your car parked - ride your bike or walk

Reduce water consumption: flush one less time / cut 2-6 minutes off your shower

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