ॐ

The focus of the moth is jump backs and jump throughs, the fear of any ashtangi over 90 lbs. You have to lift your body so high almost into a hand stand, then hug the legs in and jump through to seat with straight legs, on your way back, you lift off your seat so high that you can swing like a pangolin, and fly back in the air. There are many merits to this practice, but I think that the real advantage of mastering these jumps is to keep the practice in motion, smooth, as one unit.

We tend to chop our life into segments; for example into separate time periods, like when I say: “I used to get drunk all the time, but I was young and foolish” as if it was not those experiences (and others) which made me who I am today. Or sometimes we chop up our present, “Asaf of work,” the 9 to 9 hard working finance guy, and “Asaf out of work,” the free spirit yogi at all other times. Sometimes we even segment parts of our personality, and forgive me for not sharing here. It seems like it just makes our lives easier to manage when they are segmented, as if one does not have to affect the other.

ॐ, AUM, is the sound of the infinite, the sounds from where the world was created and where we will go, my teacher says: “focus on ॐ!!!” when we start asking questions that are beyond our level of understanding. Just go back to ॐ. Listen to the sound of ॐ, is starts all the way in the back of the throat, almost in the belly, and travels through the mouth to the lips where it seems to end. Many students and teachers neglect the last part of the ॐ, ending it abruptly. When you do that, you are focusing at the past and the present, but not the future. When you chant ॐ, elongate the vibration at the end, these vibrations will carry us into the future.

We have a nice practice when we sing Kirtan at The Shala to sing a rolling ॐ, you just start your next ॐ before the group finished the one before, and it goes on. This is something to do even when you are singing by yourself. Try to make your ॐ be a rolling ॐ to go on into the universe.



If we learn how to have a smooth, unfragmented practice on the mat, if we learn how to carry our ॐ so it has no beginning and no end, we will learn how to live our lives as a unit.

For some practical advice on jump backs and jump throughs you might like this tutorial from Mysore Musings

And this is a good short article on AUM