Personal Experience with Rounding

Speaker 1 0:54

my question was that I guess it's been noticing my own daily routine that like doing around first thing in the morning versus just doing like pranayama and meditation regularly , um , having had a like much better day , like I just like . I don't know exactly why , I can't explain it , but things work out a lot better than anticipated when I do around first thing in the morning . I don't know why , it's like just randomly , things come together a lot faster and things sync up . I don't know it's weird , but this is an observation , I guess , not really a question . I guess my question for that would be what's the difference in doing a round for us versus just doing regular meditation ?

Speaker 2 1:41

So , for those of you who are not aware , a round constitutes a 15-minute-ish yoga asana practice that's hatha-based but it's not practiced as if it's hatha . All the asana are done very gently , just to the point where we feel the bite of the nerves in the different parts of the body that send a signal to the brain that it's safe to let go . So it's a very specific , elegant sequence of asana that builds the foundations for transcendence . And then we do two to three minutes of pranayama . For those of you who don't know , that's just a fancy way of saying alternate nostril

Explaining the Rounding Process

Speaker 2 2:30

breathing . And prana is the Sanskrit word for the primary constituent of the universe , the life force that is in everything , everywhere . Yama , or yam in this instance , means to administer . So pranayama is a method of which we administer prana , life force , into the brain . Through breath , we know we can draw in prana , that's in the atmosphere , the life force that's animating everything . We can draw it in through our nostrils into our brain , specifically in the direction of our pineal gland or the Ajna Chakra . And when we stimulate the motion of the chakra , cha means spinning , ra means wheel Chakra , not chakra , chakra , it's the sound of the wheel spinning . When we do pranayama , administering life force up into the ajna chakra , we get it moving . Once the ajna chakra starts moving , insight about the deeper nature of reality starts to emerge very spontaneously . About the deeper nature of reality starts to emerge very spontaneously . And so we've done the asana which is settled the whole nervous system . And by the time you've done this 15 minutes of asana you're already kind of like I just want to close my eyes and go .

Speaker 2 4:11

But then before we go , before we introduce the mantra , we do the pranayama , enliven the frontal cortex with prana , with life force that prepares it even more deeply . And then we introduce the mantra and we go into meditation . We do the 20-minute meditation and then after 20 minutes normally we take two minutes to come out

Benefits of Consecutive Rounds

Speaker 2 4:40

slowly . In this instance we lie down in Shavasana for 10 minutes , a deeply restful state . Why ? Because we've gone through this process of triggering the de-excitation function within the nervous system . Rest and repair happens much more quickly and the process of purification or unstressing the nervous system happens more deeply in that 20-minute meditation . And so when we take an extra 10 minutes to lie on our back in the most restful pose of them all , shavasana , the nervous system is able to recover in a very unique way and we experience a significantly more powerful result of our meditation practice , and that's doing one round .

Speaker 2 5:31

Rounding was designed actually to be done consecutively and this is actually why we call it rounding . You go , thank you , you go round and round and round and round , and we do that on what is referred to as a rounding retreat . So a rounding retreat is something that I recommend . It might be a really nice time to plug ours . It's happening in india in november . I recommend all of you come . It's seven days of rounding and it's something that everybody should do at least once a year if you want to really get ahead of the game how many rounds

Rounding vs. Regular Meditation

Speaker 2 6:23

would you do in a day ?

Speaker 2 6:24

up to 10 rounds . Yeah , some of the more experienced rounders might get up a little higher . Um , it's , yeah , it's truly an extraordinary process of purification and expansion and you know , a seven-day rounding retreat is the equivalent of two years of morning and evening meditation in terms of the advancement that you make . So you asked the question is rounding better than meditation ? It is more impactful . I wouldn't necessarily say that it's better . Yeah , because your daily practice is integratable and it's achievable and we're making incredible gains by just meditating 20 minutes twice a day , once in the morning , once in the evening . There's wonderful gains there . If you can add a round into your daily program , then you're seriously going to turn up the volume .

Speaker 2 7:27

But that may cause significant unstressing in some people . Strong purification where the experience of the day might be a little more rough . So it's not always better because we don't want to walk around rough , a little grumpy . Yeah , I'm the meditation guy . You know , not very relatable and it's not a very good billboard for for taking taking on meditation . Yeah , it always sounds like at least one of us some part of the day , sometime . All right , we can all relate to that . So , yeah , it's , it's

Finding Balance in Practice

Speaker 2 8:02

learning how to administer the rounding practice when and when to you know , turn the heat up and when to when to turn it down .