Abyhāsa

Over the next two weeks, our meditation practice will be centred around Maṇipūra (solar plexus) c̣akra. This a third c̣akra located above the navel and below the diaphragm, along the spine.

It relates to our mental world. It is a place of ego, intellect, personal power, and strong sense of self.

Maṇipūra c̣akra governs our digestion, metabolism, and pancreas.

It is said to be “The Place of Shining Gem. The Place of Fire.” The place of new beginnings and re-birth.

Maṇipūra c̣akra plays an important role - it spreads the fire element in the body bringing energy, warmth and light. Not surprisingly, it is associated with the element of fire and the yellow colour.

This c̣akra is represented by 10-petal yellow lotus and inverted triangle. The seed sound (Bīja) is Raṁ.

With balanced Maṇipūra c̣akra one can feel empowered, confident, self-motivated, and have a sense of clarity, purpose, strength, and resilience.

When imbalanced, one can experience anger, aggression, low self-esteem, apathy, lack of will, burnout, perfectionism, and a heightened sense of criticism.

Magda has been practicing with us right from the beginning, here's what she shares about her experience:

“Guided meditation with dilber has been a wonderful addition to my wellness routine. With clear instructions and soothing narration, it's perfect for beginners and those looking for structured sessions. The guidance helps maintain focus and provides a sense of direction, making it easier to relax and stay present.

I've found guided meditations with dilber to be particularly effective for stress relief and improving mental clarity. Overall, it is an excellent way to enhance mindfulness and well-being with minimal effort. Highly recommended!”

Hello community🧡

Today we are closing the first week centered on the Svādhiṣṭhāna (sacral) c̣akra and we are going to step into the second week tomorrow.

We are gathering today at 8pm and tomorrow at 6.30am UK time for those who would like to come together, practice and share in our little community 🧘🏽‍♂️🧘🏽‍♀️🧘🏽

This week has been very interesting. Each time I work with a specific c̣akra, I witness shifts and changes taking place within me. I know I should no longer be surprised by the gifts meditation practice provides, but I always am :). The more I practice, the more I see the patterns of thinking, the patterns of emotions, and the patterns of conditioning. To me, it is in those moments that new understandings unfold and healing can take place. To me, it is in those moments when I learn that I hold the power to choose how to be with that pain and what actions and words to choose. It takes time to get to such a place, but through daily practice, we can access it.

Earlier this week, the situation in my personal life brought up emotional pain. In the past, such pain would trigger a very strong emotional reaction, which would be expressed in unkind words and thoughts towards myself and/or another person. When we act from a place of pain and are not aware of it, we are bound to hurt ourselves or others around us. However, I am no longer in that space. In that moment when I felt the pain, I allowed it to be seen; I gave it space, I gave it time, and I gave it my undivided attention. From this place, I saw so clearly this old pain for what it is - it is a heartbreak that a little child experienced from being abandoned, primarily by their father. I saw the variety of feelings and emotions that were attached to this pain and how the patterns of self-protection had been unconsciously developed as a coping mechanism. At that moment, for the first time in my life, I turned towards this child. I put my hand on my heart and said to them: "I am here, I will always be here. I've got your back. My love for you is unconditional". My voice was unshakable, strong, powerful, compassionate and loving. And so, this was a profound moment of healing.

In my experience, when I heal, it doesn't mean that I won't have difficult moments or that my wounds won't be sore at times. Those difficult moments will come, but the way I am with those moments profoundly changes once healing takes place.

Visit our website https://www.abyhasa.co.uk/schedule-1 where you can check our weekly schedule based on your time zone, access the link to practice together online and donate

Sources:
"Ayurveda, the Science of Self-Healing : A Practical Guide" by Vasant Lad
"Mudras for Awakening Your Energy Body" by Alison Denicola
"Arhanta Yoga"

Friends and community, taking care of our minds is always crucial. Especially in the current climate of events. Therefore, it is more important than ever to look after your mental well-being. Meditation can be a great addition to your daily self-care routine. Today, we are coming to the end of the two-week practice centered around the mūlādhārā (root) cakra, which carries the qualities of grounding, security, safety, and stability. Join our practice today at 7 pm UK time. Check out your local time on our website (link in bio), where you will also find a place to donate and a link to access our online practice.

And remember, this is your practice. You get to decide if you want to participate with your cameras on or off. You always hold full autonomy to decide which parts of the offered practice you would like to engage with.

This post made by Susanna Barkataki who comes from the wisdom tradition brings an important message to us all. It is a reminder what yoga is.

This post resonates so deeply with my inner voice and my own truth. When is stripped from its essence, we embrace the practice of spiritual bypassing. Practising yoga is not about living in a superficial state of ‘love and light’, hiding in the shadows or being in the state of inaction which in returns continues to fuel existing systems of oppressions, disconnects us fellow humans from each other and all that is alive, disconnects us from our growth as a community and from our joy.

To me, practising yoga and as part of yoga is a journey to dissolve delusions that have shaped us and our societies for many yeas. It is about coming home to the truth. And from that place of truth, from that place of knowing with compassion, ancient love and strength doing my part - end violence when I see it, speak the truth to power, transmute my grief and anger into action such as protests, pickets, marches, signing petitions, educating others, challenging others, etc. We can do all of these actions from the place of unconditional love that transcends beyond the superficial flavours that we tend to ascribe to the word ‘love. When we centre the life of others (be it human or other beings) around our thoughts, words and actions we take active steps to self and collective liberation. And liberation is the object of yoga and meditation as part of yoga.

to all oppressed people and everybody else that would take a long list to list.

You can find our schedule based on your time zone, a link to access our live online practice and a page to donate 👉🏽https://www.abyhasa.co.uk/schedule-1

You can find our schedule based on your time zone, a link to access our live practice and a page to donate 👉🏽https://www.abyhasa.co.uk/schedule-1

Let's meditate this Friday!

Find our schedule based on your time zone, a link to access our live practice and a page to donate is 👉🏽 https://www.abyhasa.co.uk/schedule-1

Our practice for the upcoming two weeks will be centered around the Mūlādhāra c̣akra, the first c̣akra that carries the qualities of grounding, stability and security. Join us 🧡 Our schedule, links to the practice and to donate can be found 👉🏽 https://www.abyhasa.co.uk/schedule-1

Abyhāsa is finally coming to life! It has taken a bit longer than expected, but I am finally launching my website - https://www.abyhasa.co.uk/

If you have ever had a chance to speak to me, you know how passionate I am about decolonising wellness! I believe that healing is essential for us as humanity—it is essential if we want to bring about profound change. I believe healing should encompass intersectional equity and compassion. Anything less than that is a façade, an illusion. The launch of my website is a tiny step forward in a much bigger movement I am embarking on building.

For now, I am inviting you to join me on a journey of meditation. When I joined an advanced yoga teacher training with Radical Darshan back in September 2022, I did not join with the intention of ever leading any type of yoga practice. I joined the training because it is centred on intersectional equity, the decolonisation of yoga, and anti-oppression. I wanted to understand, learn, and join a much bigger movement of change.

Our learning during the training was profound. I finally found the language to express my feelings towards the yoga and wellness industry.

Meditation, to me, is a practice that supports my personal and collective liberation. I am not bringing anything new here. All that you are invited to explore during the practices offered has actually existed for thousands of years in the South Asia region. I am simply sharing some of those practices with you in a way that I hope is more accessible, inviting you to come to a space that welcomes everybody regardless of your caste, race, gender, sexual orientation, body, age, or any other labels imposed on us by society. I am creating a genuine space for us to practice with our minds, which are the source of our problems in humanity.

This is a journey we are embarking on together. I will be learning from you and inviting you to always share your feedback on how I can make the practices more accessible to our communities!

Deepest gratitude to these amazing human beings who have helped to bring my website to life:

- My friend Jen Fearnley, who created two videos about the practice we offer here

- My friend Mindaugas Arlinskas who helped add subtitles to both videos Jen created

- My partner in crime Macca Xinlei Lee, who took picutres and created a text and image guide for lying and sitting positions for meditation, and proofread all the text on this website

- My soulmate Jamie Perera, who helped clean the sound recordings for the audio guide to lying and sitting positions for meditation

- My friend Sunil Parekh, who used his coding skills to customize some parts of this website

- My sister Nargiza Nurdinova, who provided valuable feedback about the website

Abyhāsa Daily meditation for everybody South Asian meditation practices to cultivate a calm, concentrated, and harmonious mind The Story Meditation is part of Yoga. Also known as Rāja Yoga. It is a practice that centres the mind - the one that is considered to be a source of human problems. Daily meditatio...

When I read this post, I could relate to it so much, although not because of the fear of speaking out. My voice has been loud. My energy and focus were dedicated to learning: reading, watching video material, researching, and listening. Then I began to march, sign petitions, write to my MP, share, talk, further learn, boycott, and each day there is something new I find I can do.

Although I can fall asleep at night, I struggle to get restful sleep. I toss and turn, wake up with my body feeling completely tense, and my jaws clenched, unable to relax. My body is in a constant state of anxiety and stress, and the flight mode is constantly on. My muscles are no longer able to relax; how could they? I make myself watch, read, and listen all that I can in a day about the genocide in Palestine, despite how unbearable it can be. I need to witness, I need to know and understand. It has become difficult to carry on with my own personal meditation and yoga āsana practices that have served me so well in the last year.

I cried uncontrollably so many times. At times, my legs did not hold me, and I would drop on the floor in the living room or in the bath under the shower, curled into a ball, feeling the pain, the suffering, the injustice—feeling for my fellow humans in Palestine. Feeling useless, not powerful enough to make a change, also knowing that this is an illusion—my efforts combined with others can make a change. Participating in Saturday's marches in London really helped me to feel that I hold power; we hold a collective power.

A few days ago, one of the dearest people to me reminded me what Palestine represents, and then the same reminder I also heard during last Saturday's Hackney Borough march in silence for Palestine. What is happening in Palestine feels so relevant to way too many. The men power is, in my personal opinion, the cause of most systems of oppression as we know them today. It's a parasite with its deep roots in Europe, created and infested all systems that underpin our day-to-day life: the economy, social contracts, legal and policing systems, finance, education, healthcare, government, to name a few.

The masks have been created to continuously uphold the power, to give just enough to 'regular' people to feel that our lives are good, they matter, we have rights, we are free, we are safe, we have opportunities, that our governments are pro-democracy, that 'never again' means something... but this is an illusion and only for those who are privileged to uphold such illusions.

The Cold War has never ended; empires and colonisers have never stopped playing their games. Countries are being exploited in the name of businesses and consumerism, people (of all ages) are being exploited, people are being killed, starved, r***d, discriminated, deprived, kicked out from their homes because of their , , , orientation, body, religion, ethnicity, among many others. All of which, by the way, are social constructs, not real—created by 'dominant power' to divide us, to create hatred, to manipulate, to create obedient citizens, and to continue to support the maintenance of systems.

Except the brutality of it all has been masked, presented in some nice packaging, blinding us from reality. Modern slavery and modern colonialism have never 'left the room.' We know it today through tourism, conservation, property development, exploitative labor, stealing of precious minerals and resources, police + legal + prison system. From , through food to , none of the sectors are immune. But the internet has started to break that mask; bit by bit, the veil has been lifting itself more and more with each horrible consequence of the toxic system we are part of; we are consciously and unconsciously complicit.

That mask is now off. I see , the , and the in their full glory. Not only because of the in but because of everything we have seen unfolding in those countries over many years but especially the last several years: a ban on abortion, attacks on + through legal and systemic tools of oppression, privatisation of the NHS, immigration policies, Brexit, Trump, ridiculous increase in living costs, rising homelessness, racist speeches out in the open on news, media, in government buildings, etc. France and the Netherlands are not far from the game with their hatred towards the Muslim community. And the list of countries can go on.

The mass scale of Western-infused propaganda is covered with the glaze of democracy and the glory of capitalism. And of course, there is plenty of non-western propaganda: Russian, China, local regimes in countries that have been destroyed by colonisers, to name a few.

Nobody is liberated; nobody truly lives a happy, content life. People live from paycheck to paycheck or from holiday to holiday, living on the streets, drowning in over-consumption of food, shiny things, unconsciously believing that owning things and materials brings some kind of happiness; people are drowning in various addictions (alcohol, drugs, work, excessive sport, etc.), experiencing mental health issues, suffering from various body health issues, insecurities, abusive relationships, not having a space to breathe and stop as life situations make them move fast, feeling lonely in a world that has billions of people, working in extreme conditions.

It does not matter who you are or where you come from; one way or another, you are oppressed even if you think you are not. But when you start really looking into what you have truly lost and who you could truly be if you would have ever had a chance to be who you are, tap into your natural abilities, grow up in a loving community, feeling safe both on your land and outside your land. Ufff... who could you be? If you have been taken care of, nurtured, and loved at home, accepted for who you are at home, at school, at work in your country, by your neighbouring countries... How would you relate and coexist with others?

I see and feel the interconnections between all of us, and I see that our individual struggles are collective struggles. I see the source of this struggle coming from the same place: white supremacist men power (with some exceptions, of course). My individual horrors that I went through in my life since I was a child and even last year when I was r***d and having to deal with a disappointment of policing and legal systems, they have the same perpetrator, and it is the same perpetrator that keeps the modern slavery and colonialism going. So I fight, I fight for Palestine, I fight for BLM, for anti-caste oppression, for people in Congo and South Asia who are being exploited, for my sibling Uyghur people who are going through a version of the genocide in China, for Indigenous Peoples in North and South America, Africa, South Asia, Australia, NZ, and many more; there are too many to name. Because their liberation is connected to my liberation. I see this moment as a critical moment of solidarity, unity, and cutting through the BS. This is the moment where anybody can take at least one action, one action that can make a significant impact. This is the moment to find inner strength, to look very openly at who we are, with compassion, honesty, and sincerity. It is the moment to gather the strength needed to move from being immobile, disconnected, and afraid, and to face and take the step — the step of reshaping your own and our collective future.

I can't sleep I can't sleep. I'm lying in bed every night, and images of Gaza are running through my head. Fathers holding their babies, dead, caked in dust. Bombs dropped on homes [1], on hospitals [2], on schools [3]. Tens of thousands of dead [4] in indiscriminate bombings [5]. Children crying, pulling

Hello fellow humans, the festive season is a wonderful time to give and share with those in need. If you are interested in sharing and giving, Masterchef UK's Raheel Mirza is organising the largest-ever online fundraising event for humanitarian aid for Palestine. During the cookalong Raheel will be teaching how to make authentic homestyle curry (all vegan, veggie and meat options will be available).

Join the worldwide community to cook and donate. All your donations will go directly to the people in Palestine in collaboration with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Medical Aid for Palestinians.

The event is free and it is taking place online on the 29th of December from 5.30pmGMT. You can register via Eventbrite

Special Cookalong Fundraising Event for Palestine - Homestyle Classic Curry Special Cookalong Fundraising Live Event - Authentic Homestyle Curry with Masterchef contestant Raheel Mirza