Yoga, the Presence and Being

Yoga is interested at its core in the merging, the union, of the individual presence with the universal oneness. That union, or surrender to that appreciation, is enlightenment, and is the ultimate goal of Yoga. Yoga is firstly a spiritual practice, and with the Astanga Vinyassa Sequence becomes a physical practice as well.

Everything is yoga really because everything in the universe is an expression of the divine and yoga is in all it’s manifestations the union with that divine presence. Really it is closer to the realization that we are already unified with the divine as the vision becomes clearer that you can not separate the created from the creator.

And so it is hear seen that Yoga is the practice of experiencing higher consciousness and health and this is practiced on many fronts, particularly in daily life. One of my favorites sayings during my yoga classes is “The yoga doesn’t really begin until you leave,” and it is precisely at this point in daily life that the practice of Presence and Being and living with compassion and love that is unconditional begins. And this is expressed in your relationship with every being in the world. Firstly with yourself in respect to living in harmony with your biology. This treats yourself with compassion and leads to the treating with compassion of all sentient beings as the use of animals as food has become unnecessary. As you live more compassionately with all beings you begin to pervade with peace and contentment and this allows for the treating of all people you meet and have relationship with, with a sense of love and respect and appreciation for life. It is life itself that is sacred. And that is preceisely the point to directing your attention inside the body because you bring your attention right to the core of the living being itself. This is one of the most spiritually powerful possibilities and is no wonder why it is said that, “The body is the Temple.”

If you have any questions about Vegetarian Food, Vegan Food, Raw Food, Meditation, or Power Yoga, you can email me for questions at fredb@miamiyoga.com; or visit me at my Miami Beach Power Yoga Studio on South Beach. For questions and inquiries, you may visit Miami yogashala's official site, www.miamiyoga.com. I do intensive Teacher Trainings and also run 5-Day detox programs at the following Miami Yogashala locations: Brickell Yoga, Sunny Isles Yoga, and South Beach Yoga studios.

Nature and the Divine

I sat in still and stunned awe when I realized that the two practices, raw food and Astanga yoga positive feed each other, that Raw Food eating strengthens the Yoga Asana Practice, which in turn strengthens the mental will power, and that they are both spiritual practices and both aligning to Nature. The vision I had of the Raw Food Yogi is that of a Natural Yogi, one with the planet, the universe of Nature’s Laws. Yoga means “Union” in Sanskrit, and The Natural Yogi lives in union with nature. When we align to nature, we are satisfied, and the only way one can ever live in tune with nature is to align to the human’s natural diet.

I actually see the words Nature and Spirituality as the same. To me, God and Nature are interchangeable words. In this case, the God of the Eagle becomes “God as the Eagle” or “God as the Trees.” In this way, Nature is the expression of divine presence on the planet. It is an understanding that all living beings are expressions of the divine.

For questions and inquiries, you may visit Miami yogashala's official site, www.miamiyoga.com. I do intensive Teacher Trainings, run 5-Day detox programs at the following Miami Yogashala locations: Brickell Yoga, Sunny Isles Yoga, and South Beach Yoga studios. If you have any questions about Vegetarian Food, Vegan Food, Raw Food, Meditation, or Power Yoga, you can email me for questions at fredb@miamiyoga.com; or visit me at my Miami Beach Power Yoga Studio on South Beach.

Blood flow and Flow in General

In analogies that describe health, almost all are directing the student to a visualization of energetic flow of some sort. There are many ways which energy flow can be expressed on the planet. The most common and easiest to visualize is the water down a stream visual. If the stream is blocked or damned, it will stagnate. The flow of air is the same and in fact all energy flow behaves exactly the same way and this is crucial to consider as if for the first time. Health is the free flow of energy in the body. Disease processes always first begin with stagnation.

Many words have just been used to describe a way of visualizing the energetic flow. But we must for at least a moment try to move beyond words to a space free of thought forms. Once there visualize and equate all the different ways energy flows in relationship on the planet. It is always the same characteristic. Health comes in any relationship where the energy freely flows. You can verify for yourself. Once you can see the oneness of all energetic behavior you can consider the nature of stagnation on energetic systems. Stagnation is the result of blocks in the energetic system. Stagnation leads to disease.

The arteries leave your heart and travel away into the vessels of your bodies and then become the capillaries which are only one cell wide and then the capillaries turn into the veins which return the blood to the lungs and heart, and all this is a closed energetic system. Just like any other.

What is important to do is to consider this model of energy flow in your understandings of human health and society. People need to get moving and get their blood flowing and clear their systems of stagnation. All disease begins with stagnation probably form toxic sources of food.

And as always it all comes to blood flow. The muscles and glands and organs all are kept in a healthy state proper blood flow. Energy flow.

If you have any questions about Vegetarian Food, Vegan Food, Raw Food, Meditation, or Power Yoga, please visit me at my Miami Beach Power Yoga Studio on South Beach. I run 5-Day detox programs and intensive Teacher Trainings also out of all three Miami Yogashala locations. Brickell Yoga, Sunny Isles Yoga, and South Beach Yoga studios. I can be reached for questions at fredb@miamiyoga.com
www.miamiyoga.com is Miami yogashala's official site!

Namaste

Only the present exists

Staying in the present moment is a Yoga practice. We are staying in the present moment as the means to success, looking at the next step is staying in the present moment, by grounding yourself from where you are now, you can leap forward to the first and most important step. For a situation like that the only next future thought would be that it is very likely that the next meal that I eat, if God wills, will be a RAW meal. I can speak for the next meal probably, but not for the rest of my life. There is no reason to speak about the future. Only the present exists.

Only the next step matters, there is so much wasted energy looking at the “ultimate goal” which from the place that the person is standing seems unreachable, totally unreachable, because it is so far away, and that leads to frustration and a negative attitude, to a sense of inevitable failure because it is as if it is just too far away of a place. So that is a huge energy drain that happens when you look exclusively to the final goal as a means to gauge progress.
But what is actually the case is that where you really want to go is the closest place to where you are right now that leads you in the direction of where you are going, because the closest place to where you are right now is the place where you are actually gonna go, the next step is the closest place. It is good to see that as a vision, not a concept.

See yourself on a long long journey with an extremely far off goal and many visible obstacles in your way. Now visualize that no matter how far off that goal is, it is only completely dependent on the very next step that you take because if you trip and fall now, you will have to spend energy getting up and that may impede your chances of arrival.

If you have any questions about Vegetarian Food, Vegan Food, Raw Food, Meditation, or Power Yoga, please visit me at my Miami Beach Power Yoga Studio on South Beach. I run 5-Day detox programs and intensive Teacher Trainings also out of all three Miami Yogashala locations. Brickell Yoga, Sunny Isles Yoga, and South Beach Yoga studios. I can be reached for questions at fredb@miamiyoga.com
is Miami yogashala's official site!

Namaste

The Role of Exercise

Eating well is not enough. You have GOT to exercise. Eating well is half the picture, it is precisely half, it is very important, but the other half is exercise. We are, all animals are, designed to express our bodies physically daily. We are designed to have to earn our food. So it is worked into our physiology that we are going to function better, we are going to heal faster, by exercising daily.

There are all sorts of exercises out there, you can do whichever ones you want, but the best ones are the ones that are daily, are systematic, and are as vigorous as you feel is appropriate for you and then always moving up. Starting slow and always moving up, from where ever you start, it does NOT matter. I am a yoga teacher so I say do yoga.

Because this style of yoga is cardio-vascular, it is opening up the muscles, it is benefiting the endocrine systems, it does everything. If you have other exercise fine, just make sure that they are not hurting you. If you are running, make sure that your knees are not going bad. If you are lifting weights, make sure that you don’t have shoulder injuries. Make sure that whatever you are doing that is in the effort of benefiting you is really benefiting you.

So vigorous exercise! Do something everyday. Vigorous walking do it, if it is Yoga do it, what ever you are going to do do it. Just do something! Otherwise you can eat well all you want but it isn’t the whole story, it isn’t the whole picture. You got to move your body.

If you have any questions about Vegetarian Food, Vegan Food, Raw Food, Meditation, or Power Yoga, please visit me at my Miami Beach Power Yoga Studio on South Beach. I run 5-Day detox programs and intensive Teacher Trainings also out of all three Miami Yogashala locations. Brickell Yoga, Sunny Isles Yoga, and South Beach Yoga studios. I can be reached for questions at fredb@miamiyoga.com
www.miamiyoga.com is Miami yogashala's official site!

Namaste

Yoga and consciousness

As yoga is primarily concerned with the lifting of consciousness in ones daily life, the selection of Raw food for each meal becomes an expression of the highest level of consciousness. And as yoga is in the union of that which is seemingly dual, the awareness of the fact that “we are what we eat” is a Yoga practice in and of itself. Many people new to Yoga consider that it is basically a physical practice. These people have gone to yoga classes and experienced the Asana limb of yoga. The Asana limb of the great Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, one of the sacred yoga texts, involves physical postures and strengthening of the body. As we know this is essential to maintain health in the body, but for our purpose here we will make clearly state that this is not the main goal of yoga, which is enlightenment, or union with the divine. It is no coincidence then to find that union with the divine comes in hand with maintaining a healthy body, a healthy temple.

If you have any questions about Vegetarian Food, Vegan Food, Raw Food, Meditation, or Power Yoga, please visit me at my Miami Beach Power Yoga Studio on South Beach. I run 5-Day detox programs and intensive Teacher Trainings also out of all three Miami Yogashala locations. Brickell Yoga, Sunny Isles Yoga, and South Beach Yoga studios. I can be reached for questions at fredb@miamiyoga.com
www.miamiyoga.com is Miami yogashala's official site!

Namaste

My Birthday is Today!

Today is my Birthday! We are celebrating tonight at Lotus Restaurant at 9pm! Come and celebrate with me! 17070 Collins Ave in Sunny Isles! Can't wait to see you there.

Fred's Story!

When I was 23, I was traveling in Africa and contracted a blood parasite. I was misdiagnosed and mistreated and at times, pretty sure I was going to die. Sick and sweaty in a dirty hotel bed, I dreamed about feeling healthy. I dreamed about running and feeling strong. I thought about all of the Cokes and chips and fast foods I had eaten. I thought about all of the televisions I had watched from sofas smoking cigarettes.

Hospitals add certain poignancy to your day-to-day thoughts and one afternoon in the Dar es Salaam Public Clinic, I decided, ‘If I ever get out of this (or whatever this is gets out of me) I’m going to cherish my body. I’ll never smoke again; I’ll exercise every day; I’m going to be as healthy as possible.

Whatever was in me did finally get vanquished and when I returned to life in South Beach, I started it fresh. I started doing Yoga several days a week and made some changes to my diet: no more fast food or red meat or junk food. A few weeks into my new routine, I noticed a difference in the way that I felt physically and emotionally.

At the beginning, Yoga was a struggle. I was far from flexible and most of the poses seemed very foreign to me. I stuck with it though and started to become comfortable with a particular Yoga series that moves you from one pose to the next in a way that sustains a high heart rate while working every part of the body. As I became more flexible and familiar with the poses I was able to do them deeper and hold them longer. The practice actually got more challenging as I improved. I would feel so worked, so pleasantly exhausted I rarely felt the need for other types of exercise. I upped my practice to six days a week and felt so great I would just as soon stick myself in the eye as eat junky food. I started to become very aware of what foods made me feel good and what foods made me feel bad and what foods made me feel horrible.

A friend of mine told me about a lecture by Dr. Douglas Graham about a Raw Food Diet. So, no cooked food. I assure you that I was at least as skeptical of the idea as you are now. Despite my doubts, I sat and listened to the lecture with an open mind and really it made a lot of sense. The premise is simple:,when you heat something, chemical bonds are broken, molecular changes occur, things are released and destroyed. It is the same when you cook your food. In its natural state, food has more nutrients, more complete protein structures, more enzymes. When it is cooked, a lot of what you need is destroyed and you ar left with something far less nutritious and in a lot of cases detrimental to your body.

So I tried it. I wasn’t able to go all raw immediately, but I began to limit the amount of cooked food I ate and replace it with raw nuts and fruits, especially avocados. A few weeks into the routine and I was shocked at how great I felt. It was unbelievable. My entire disposition changed. Meanwhile, my Yoga practice exploded. I was doing the poses that seemed impossible just weeks ago. I began to realize a whole realm of mental benefits to a deep regular practice that rivaled the physical benefits I had already been enjoying.

Soon I didn’t even recognize cooked food as edible. It seemed so crazy to me to eat something with all of the nutrients cooked out of it. Eating an animal seemed absolutely outrageous.

Raw food and Yoga transformed me. I noticed a completely different person waking up every morning. A person who was for the first time, truly healthy: positive, energetic and absolutely delighted with life. That’s the way I woke up this morning.

Read my book. Whether or not you stop eating cooked food or start doing Yoga every day, I am sure it will – in some way improve your life. Enjoy the pages that follow. Adopt the practices in this book at a pace that feels right to you and see how you feel. And it is never too late, regardless of your age and current physical conditioning, because practicing what you will learn in this book is certain to make a difference in your life.

Every adult is lactose intolerant by nature

That’s why every single human being whose an adult is lactose intolerant, everybody. The definition of being an adult, you are lactose intolerant. Some people are more so that others. Notice that is those called lactose intolerant, but everybody is, and everybody was to let go of dairy off will observe unbelievable change in their digestive abilities and everything else in their life. Everybody gets irritated with that. Just so you know how weird it is, imagine taking someone whose breastfeeding their child, telling the child to move off of the nipple because you want a sip. That’s the same thing as drinking milk. In fact I will be better, because it’s human milk. What you’re doing by drinking cow’s milk is you’re taking the tit of a freaking bovine, which a small-brained mammal has, hooves, and you’re feeding that to yourself or to your kid. It’s retarded. First of all because you’re an adult, so if you’re an adult, why are you suckling on your mother? If you’re an adult you would stop suckling, why would you suckle up the woman next to you? It’s just unaccepted. It would just never happen. It would never happen just to suckle up any other animal, because why would you, you’re an adult. That’s the logic.

Colds, Flus, Healing, Mucus and Food

Mucus is what’s coming out of your nose. Mucus is what blocks your system. Mucus is basically what you want least of in your life. I got mucus right now it’s from my body deciding that I’ve eaten enough bread over the last four to five weeks and now it’s ready to send it all out. It’s not a cold I got from somebody else nor can I give it to somebody else. Everyone who has colds, they ate their own cost, and your body is saying, “I’ve had enough of that shit, its enough for it now altogether.” You can only have cold if you’re healthy enough to have one. You only have this event if you have the vitality to allow it to happen. Old people do not get colds. They don’t have the vitality left to generate the healing event that is the cold. The cold is the mucus and the mucus is a transportation factor. Mucus is a carrier for toxicity. Mucus is what your body makes in order to carry toxic stuff out of your body. Mucus is like a train.
So in a way it’s good? If it’s carrying the toxics out…
In a way it is good, so long as you didn’t cause it. When you drink milk and then have mucus, there’s nothing good about that. Yeah, it’s good that it’s happening at some degree but it’s bad because it’s going to congest you and create all kind of issues. Mucus is not just what you see, it just can be everywhere. Mucus is bad stuff, but it’s good when you’re having a cold. I would never take anything to suppress anything, ever. Symptoms cannot be suppressed. It must be allowed to express them, always. Colds and flu’s is ninety-nine percent not contagious. They’re simply a function of you-ate-a-lot-of-crap.