April Theme - Svadhyaya - Self-Study

One of the five Niyamas of the 8 Limbs, Svadhyaya encourages us to get to know ourselves through meditation, dispassionate self-inquiry or conscious awareness of our thoughts, words and actions.

We eventually learn through life experience that the work to change the world for the better begins with ourselves. Yoga infers the same, although yoga's goal has never been about changing the world. One amazing side effect of self inquiry: the deeper we go into self study, the greater the potential for healing.

For meditation, a great place to focus on for self study is the second chakra, the place where we connect with our true feelings about anything, without the filter of ego-based fear. It is located between the hip bones, or roughly 3 fingers above the root chakra.

VAM is the bija mantra associated with this area and a perfect silent mantra that can accompany this meditation.