How To Have Fun Working Out and Achieve Nirvana

Have you ever wondered if there was a way to capture the supreme experience of Nirvana while working out?

For many years… I was not able to “understand” meditation, because sitting still for hours at a time while in isolation is not my thing. I love sports. Especially, outdoor workouts… being in the open, relishing the kaleidoscope of sights, scents and sounds. This is how I meditate. This is how I experience nirvana.

If you share the same view… then you may be the ideal candidate for an active approach to meditation and Self-realization.

In India, for example, fundamental forms of yoga are offered for different temperaments. Most people immediately think of yoga (in general), as a form of contemplation. However, there are many yoga practices. Like hatha and raja yoga are mostly physical type of practice that opens you up to an experience of nirvana at the end. You will also find jnana yoga, which uses the intellect to overcome the intellect. However, most popular are karma yoga (the yoga of action and service), and bhakti yoga (the yoga of devotion).

For millennia, people in India have felt you can never have one-size fits all approach in order to experience bliss. You just have to pick what works for you!​

A Powerful Tip For Your Work Out… and Life

As Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: “Give unto me the fruit of your action.”

When you do something extrinsically, focused solely on the reward, you are a slave. When you do something intrinsically, for its own sake, you are free.

This is deep.

Let me explain… by telling you a story about Michael Murphy, the man who found Esalen, the world’s premier spa and conference center for growth and awakening in Northern California.

He started out his journey while at Stanford University, where he literally stumbled into a course on comparative religion, taught by Frederic Spiegelberg, who espoused a religion without religion, where God is celebrated (and can be experienced) in the forest or on the beach.​

A pre-med student, Michael Murphy dropped his professional aspirations, majored in psychology and decided to head to Auroville, India for intense study with the disciples of Sri Aurobindo. Unlike other gurus, Aurobindo had high regard for the body and felt that it could eventually be perfected to the point of immortality. Hmmm… interesting.

On the way to India, young Michael did a detour in Scotland where he discovered an enchanted golf course called “Shiva’s Irons.” Michael spent a magical 24 hours there without a wink of sleep learning to play golf in the very country that had invented the sport.

The pros he met there had a very mystical approach to the golf ball, and encouraged him to breathe deeply, become one with the club, and let it strike the ball of its own accord, allowing the ball to reach the hole in its own good time, in its own good way.

Michael was encouraged to become one with the ball, the club, the hole and the entire course. AHA! He quickly found that when he gave it his entire being without attachment, the ball began to do magical things.

Strong intention + no attachment to the end result = you have fun!​

Michael then proceeded to learn a whole new approach to a conscious life. Throughout his many years, Michael has again and again come back to that revelatory day on the heath when everything opened up to him.

Do you see now… how Michael got in touch with his inner power? This concept changes the entire game of sports, workouts and beyond. You entire focus (during any activity) is on your inner game while being in the present moment.

Take a quick look at how Tiger Woods connects with his inner body and mind while gazing at the golf ball. This short clip shows his swing in slow motion…​

Experience Nirvana on the Court

You will find, if you journey 100 or so miles south of San Francisco, the magical land of Monterey, Carmel-by-the-Sea and Big Sur, where Michael Murphy grew up. There, both locals and tourists are immersed in nature, playing golf at the famous Pebble Beach Course, hiking, picnicking, swimming, touring art galleries and conferencing around philosophy and spirituality. It is a resort area tailor-made to take you into another dimension. It all depends what playground you choose to play in.

What’s your absolute favorite form of exercise? Many kinds of sports are helpful in achieving this form of awareness and realization, including golf, tennis, basketball, running and aikido, as well as simply working out. Each sport can offer its own twist on awakening.

• Golf offers unique pleasures and challenges, being both simple and exasperatingly difficult, making a tiny little ball go where you want it to go, gently falling into a tiny hole many yards away. People often get all hung up on the various clubs and irons they must buy, as well as appropriate postures and swings. However, a kind of satori, or feeling of oneness with everything, is required to arrive at a hole-in-one. Here, you must both DO AND BE.
• Tennis offers comparable delights to golf, but is much faster in pace. Years ago, Tim Galway wrote, The Inner Game of Tennis, which fast became a best seller. Any coach can help you with the mechanics of the game, including the various rules and standards of sportsmanship. It takes a master to get you to focus on the inner game, where everything seems to flow, as if the ball could go back and forth forever.
• Basketball demands a high level of energy and is far more than just a monopoly for tall people. The Michael Jordan’s of the world spend many hours popping the ball into baskets from various positions around the court. In the pitch of a game, when everyone is attempting to steal or intercept your ball, close coordination with teammates is required to get it over to the winning position where your wingman or woman can dunk it into the hoop. You may have experienced a moment when time, itself, seemed to stop, and everything ran in slow motion.
• Running is perfect for realizing the second wind, when you give a race everything you’ve got lap after lap only to run out of breath before you have come even close to the finishing line. Occasionally, a second wind takes hold of you. Suddenly, you find yourself having all the energy you need to burst across the ribbon. Many people have had peak experiences, moments of transcendence where there was only the running…no runner and no pavement. You then experience Who you really are, Pure Being. At that time, you experience no pain or lack of breath… just pure nirvana.

• Aikido is the sport that Michael Murphy’s late partner, George Leonard, mastered. You might think of it as a dancing form of martial art, which turns an aggressor’s energy against him or her. It is practiced with gentle compassion, designed, not to hurt your opponent, but to neutralize his advances and turn him into an ally. Michael and George created a path, Integral Transformative Practice, based on this sport to realize satori, or sudden enlightenment.

Focus on Your Inner Game

While you may not yet be an accomplished athlete, you can get started down the path to enlightenment as play. It is more a question of how you do it than what you do. The challenge is to capture the spirit of it.

When working out on a nautilus or other such device, you can push yourself just a little past your comfort zone without tearing any muscles or joints. You want to keep the weight and reps manageable, but not too easy. You may find yourself flowing with the routine, where one set comes after another in a delightful dance.

When doing hatha yoga, you can challenge yourself with a new asana, or hold a posture slightly longer than comfortable. Focus on your breath (with each inhale and exhale) traveling through your body and relieving the tension.

As you go through the routine, be conscious of your actual experience. You will begin to experience a gradual cessation in thought where you find that you are just there. You may find yourself, as in vinyassa yoga, with a delightful flow where each movement melts into the next. When you lie down, you can treat yourself to a brief meditation where you connect with your heart (chakra) and let go of your mind. You may find that you have become Total Presence.

When walking outside, you can push yourself a bit, while connecting your inner and outer worlds and smelling the fragrances, watching the sparking water, and the rustling trees along the way. You may find yourself again a part of creation, part of the ONE.

Whatever you decide to do, you might get started right now. Break away from the computer, and give your body what it needs – a fun workout! Help your body to stay physically, mentally, and emotionally balanced.​

How To Have Fun Working Out and Achieve Nirvana appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.