I BEGGED HIM NOT TO DO IT

James came to me with an idea for his latest book. He said, "I don't care if I make money on this book or even lose money on it. I want people to get the message. I want to pay people back who buy my book and can prove to me they read it."

"Are you crazy? I said, "pay back? prove they read it? Why did you even think of this?"

13' Talk of James on why it is important to Choose Yourself right now!

He said, "Well, Tucker Max was the first one to suggest it."

I said: "You mean the guy who wrote, 'Assholes Finish First'?"

(and although there was sarcasm in my tone, I confess that I've since met Tucker. He's a great person and incredibly intelligent.)

James went on: "We know that if people get something for free they won't value it. And we also know that if someone buys a book, chances are they won't read it."

"Okaaay..?" I said.

"So I know the ideas in this book helped me. Saved me. Even freed me from the chains. I tell my story. I tell other stories. I give the methods. I WANT people to read this."

"Hmmm... but it's too gimmicky," I said. "It feels desperate."

"It's OK. Don't worry. I just want people to prove to me they got the message from the book. Then I'm happy. "   -

You can read the "offer" below in this very blog-post.

James's book is out today. He wrote it. Then  Dick Costolo, (the CEO of Twitter), wrote the foreword and it's funny.

If you click on the cover below it will take you to the Amazon page. And below that is the first page of the book that outlines the offer James is making. I know he worked hard on this book and I'm proud of him.  

("Choose Yourself! - be happy, make millions, live the dream" by James Altucher. Foreword by Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter)

Here is the link to the book.

From the first page of the book:

HERE'S THE DEAL

I don't need to make a dime off of this book. The ideas in the book have already made me wealthy in many ways. What I really care about is that as many people as possible read this book and understand this message, even if it puts my own personal investment at risk.

Here's how I'm going to try and create a situation where as many people as possible get this message: I know nobody values books—or anything—that are given away for free. So, I’m not going to do that.

This isn't one of those ineffectual self-help books designed to look good on your shelf. You either read the book and use these ideas, or you shouldn't bother. That’s why you have to front the purchase price.

But, if you can prove to me that you have actually read the book, I will give you your money back. It's an investment that's all upside on your part.

How do you prove to me you've read the book? Do the following: Within the first three months of the official publication date, do these two things:

1) Send me a copy of the receipt to IReadChooseYourself@gmail.com. There is a kindle version, a paperback, and an audio version and they all cost different amounts. I need to know what you paid.

2) Then chose one of the following to send together with the receipt: - You can write an honest review anywhere you want. - You can take a photograph of yourself reading the book. - You can write me a testimonial or an email asking me questions that show you've read the book. If you can think of other ways, that's fine too.

The point is: prove to me you read the book, and get your money back. Or, you can tell me to give it to a charity. This is the charity I will give it to: WomenForWomen International I'm a man of my word. If every single person who buys the book takes advantage of this opportunity, then I will make lose money on it (since Amazon takes their cut). But I'll be just as happy because it means the message will spread and you, the people who read the book, will be helped.



I know I was helped. This book has worked for me. I chose myself!

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Ashtanga Yoga Institute To Start Teaching "In Monthly Batches" Starting the 6th of each month

The Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute has a new  policy in effect by which Sharath will no longer accept students coming in at any day of the month as has been the case since its inception.  Rather, students will be allowed to start only on the 6 of each month.  This particular season, for 2013, classes with Sharath will start in October.

"It was a matter of time" said Zoe, an authorized Ashtanga teacher, in Facebook, as she shared the news.

Saraswatti seems to continue with the old ways and she will be ready to start teaching in June.

Here is the whole announcement:

PLEASE NOTE from October 6th, Sharath will begin to teach in month-long batches. This means that all students will begin on the 6th of every month. We will no longer allow students to start any day of the month. Online registration must still be submitted 2-4 months before arriving, and enrollment in Mysore will begin 2-3 days prior to the first day of class.

Students coming to practice with Sharath are expected to stay for a minimum of 1 month and for not longer than 3 months of study per trip. There will be no exceptions to this rule.
We will open online registration for Sharath’s October batch some time in June 2013.

Saraswathi’s registration will proceed as usual, and students will be allowed to start any day of the month and should stay to practice for at least 2 weeks, though a minimum of 1 month is preferable. Her class will resume again from Monday, June 3rd.

Here is a screenshot with the news, you can click on it to go to the shala's page.

How will this play out?  I wonder.  But as the saying goes, change is always good!

For more on the Mysore experience see MysorePedia.com

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My 5-Week "Masters" In Self-Publishing Done Right

Thanks to those of you who wrote me to see where I've been.  I've been helping James with his latest project which is a self-published book: Choose Yourself! only, unlike the ones we did before, this one is being done right.

Still self-published, just with a team of people who help us, and believe me, the learning curve of  all the things and details we had to learn was HUGE.

Below is the cover of the book.  James was lucky enough to get Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter to write a forward for him, that is why the little bird is flying in the lower right corner.

The design of the cover was a beautiful process in which we got to see four different ideas and then choose one, then a very talented graphic designer helped us with details, colors, etc.  There is a whole team helping with the interior design of the book as well.

EDITING

Having a professional, excellent editor, was one of the most rewarding experiences of the process.  I had no idea that editors could be THAT good and helpful.  More of that when James writes his post.

AUDIO

I learned quite a bit about audio-recording books so that they can be distributed through Audible (another company that Amazon -smartly- bought).  I went with James to the studio for both days in which he was scheduled and it was very interesting to see how it's done.

The studio itself has recorded famous books like Freakonomics, and has had celebrities like Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep read novels.

It all sounds fabulous but it comes down to a small enclosed space with a mic and an engieneer outside who checks your pronounciation of every word and the tone, weather to repeat a line or not, etc.

For James it was exhausting.  Talking for 4.5 hours for two days is kind of like going through primary and second series all together.

Here is the cover for the audiobook, it had to be a square so the design changes.

James will be writing a big post with all the details which I will probably re-print here when we finish with the whole process because it can help anyone thinking of self-publishing.  It felt almost like an MBA, or an MSP (Masters in Self Publishing).

Throughout the process James became the first best-seller author to sell his book (before the official release day) only with BITCOIN.   Here is that page 

If you have not heard of Bitcoin yet, it is a paralel currency of sorts, something like a system of barter. I still don't understand it very well, but here is the article that Business Insider ran where James talks about why he is selling the book on this alternative currency, which he calls the: "Choose Yourself Currency".

The hardcover, kindle, and audio book will be released in Amazon on June 3rd.

More to come.  Enjoy your practice!

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How Can I Practice Yoga If My Family Does Not Respect My Time For This?

There was once an artist who painted daily in her sunny New Mexico studio. Whenever she set out to paint she hang a sign on the front door that said: "Do not come in, I am working, and yes, that means YOU who is reading this, even if you are the mailman, or a neighbor that needs something, or even if you think it does not apply to you, IT DOES"

She also said that if someone did not respect her sign she would show her incisors.

The image stuck with me. I like showing incisors now too. But showing them can be done in a loving way, it does not need to be violent.

As women, or men, or artists, or aspiring yogis, our time in practice is critically important, and changing behavior around family members so that they respect it might be difficult at first but VITAL.

If anything this means you really want to go deeper into your practice and for that you need silence, solitude and no interruptions.  You can do it!

How about sitting the family and clearly telling them that the 20/30/90 minutes that you you use are very important to you, it is your  sacred time, and it is also necessary for you so that you can be more present for them later on during the day.  Make them understand that it benefits them too. A happy you makes a happy them.

Then, you can also tell them that you will put a sign on the door to remind them, and lock the door.

If they understand they might be more likely to help, AND OF COURSE at first they will/might not respect the sign.  They will try to test the limits.  That is why locking the door comes in handy.

If that should happen it is important that even if your session is ruined, that you do not, under any circumstances open the door or give in or respond.  This is the work of creating a boundary.

It might happen that they still interrupt you once, twice, six, 20 times, but they will eventually be trained in respecting you provided that you do NOT respond.  

We humans are creatures of habit and if we do not get the response we expect eventually we re-train our brains to not go seeking for reward where we are sure NOT to get it.  

Within a month or so you will be able to enjoy the time you need for the practice you cherish.   

And speaking of which, time to hang up my sign, afternoon inversions are up!

Question was asked of me in Quora, you can follow me on Quora!

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Yoga Adjustment's DVD Winner Announced

And so the time has come to find out who is the winner for David Keil's fantastic two-set DVD on Yoga Adjustments.  In case you have not read the article from a few weeks ago here are the first paragraphs of the post, and then.... the winner:


David Keil has a fantastic 2-DVD set on "Adjustments" that is great for any serious practitioner as well as teachers.  I had never seen anything of this quality!  (Don't miss the end of the post for give-away!)

Not only does David show useful adjustments for a huge array of poses. He does so in different bodies so that you can see the nuances of what a good teacher would go through, need to think about, and navigate as he or she is helping.

In a way it is a much better product than any book out there that may show adjustments because of how interactive it is and the ample variety of examples for different circumstances.  READ MORE HERE

Lots of people Twitted, shared on Facebook and commented, it was nice to talk to all of you guys, so glad you participated, and the winner is Mark, who in a comment on the blog-post said:

I'm always looking for quality material on adjustments and love David's articles...should be a great one!

It is a great one indeed Mark, congratulations, and keep an eye on your inbox as I will be emailing you personally to deliver your prize!

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Maehle's New Book on Meditation Spills ALL Yoga Secrets

You know how people say that yoga used to be "secret" with its techniques kept safely away from the eyes of common people like me?

And you know how, in contrast, today people say that this is no longer the case?  Well, I call B/S on that!

YOGA IS TODAY AS MUCH A SECRET AS IT HAS EVER BEEN

I just finished reading Gregor Maehele's last book Yoga Meditation.  In it, he spills ALL the secrets of meditation as intended by Patanjali and his eight limbs, all the way to how exactly you can access the mystical states of samadhi. One by one,  They are all there.

BUT to learn about it we would need to read the book, and further, to understand it we would need to read his previous book as well: Pranayama The Breath Of Yoga (as he refers to it often and directs to it for techniques), and even further back, we would also need to look into his first two books in which he talks about asanas (describing the poses of the first and second series of Ashtanga Yoga as well as the Yoga Sutras and the yamas and niyamas, etc).

But even beyond all of that! Yoga is a living science that needs to be practiced not just read about. Therein lies the secret!   

The techniques maybe accessible and in book form giving the illusion that the secret is out, but the gatekeeper is still present, it lives in our distracted minds and dispositions.

That being said, if there is one book that FINALLY comes together for us modern-aspiring-yogis explaining Patanjali's yoga in a practical and attainable way, with a clear plan towards the goal of the mystical states,  this is it!

Take this for example: from page 178:

"This is a scientifically precise engineering manual for meditation. Using this method with precision, predictable outcomes can be achieved. Do not leave meditation to chance. Like asana and pranayama, yoga meditation is an exact science!"

Maehle has done his research by looking at hundreds of ancients texts,  he goes on to correlate each one of his findings to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and he has burned through the fire of his own intense practices as he has visited a great number of living sages of our times and learned under them.

This book is, for those who are ready for it,  nothing short of the greatest gift a yogi could ever hope for.

TWO THINGS I LEARNED JUST BY LOOKING AT THE COVER:

1- Lotus Flowers of Each Chakra Are Facing Up:

Every drawing of the chakras out there has one thing wrong and that is that the petals of the lotuses associated with each center of energy are never facing upwards.  You may have seen plenty of two dimensional representations, and it is actually quite rare to even see the petals in the drawings (try a Google image search).  But, Gregor says, visualizing the petals facing upwards helps with directing the energy in the direction in which it has to go for success.

Just by looking at the cover you will see that this is perhaps the first graph to have the depiction done right, so that whomever looks at it can start visualizing the chakras in a more conducive way.

Kundalini raising, a nice visual

2- The Popular Colors We Associate with the Chakras are Wrong:

In the same way, every drawing of the chakras out there has been heavily influenced by artistic liberties. For example, the third chakra (navel)  has petals that are blue in color, not yellow, and the fourth chakra (heart) has red petals, not green.  From page 160:

"...The correct colours of the petals have been described in the yoga shastra called the Shat Chakra Nirupana, which the great Swami Kuvalayananda has declared to be the authority on chakras.  Respected scholars such as Sir John Woodroffe ... have confirmed these are the correct colours"

YOGA MEDITATION IS DIVIDED INTO 3 PARTS:

And within each of the three parts there are "laws" that grow in level of refinement, and enchantment.  I could not help but get more and more inspired as the pages kept turning.

Part One contains The Laws of the Physical Dimension of Meditation.

And it feels like a recap of previous works. For example:  (a) meditation is made possible by raising kundalini, (b) right conditions for meditation (pose, position of hands) (c) prana and apana understanding (d) oceanic breathing (e) alternate nostril breathing (f) extending the time in your inversions, etc.

There is talk about having the right attitude, the right intention, the right motivation as well.

Part one is the ground fertilization, the first part o yoga, the getting healthy so to speak.

Part Two contains The Laws of the Mental Dimensions of Meditation


This part clearly explains  how to  go about pratyahara, the fifth limb of yoga where the senses go within, and it does so sense by sense.

For example Chapter 11 is called: "Pratyahara is the simultaneous binding of the audio visual, kinesthetic tactile, olfactory and gustatory components of the mind to their respective places"

Gregor then goes on to show how exactly to send each sense into their "respective places". Take for instance the gustatory sense, how to send it in? Jhiva Mudra (bending the tongue upwards, eventually swallowing it as the yogi becomes more advanced) and , more inversions, very long stays in shoulder stand and headstand.

Then there is the mantras for each of the six chakras (bija mantras) which are:  Lam-Vam-Ram-Ham-Yam-Om and the brilliant explanation of what happens as you a) visualize them b) repeat them in increasing amounts decreasing your respiratory rate (for which pranayama helps) and well, you really need to read the rest as I cannot possibly do it justice

Part Three contains the Spiritual Dimensions of Meditation and has one of the best explanations of the chakras I have read.

Gregor rightly feels that the chakras as overdue for a new interpretation. He says:

"I am offering here a new map of the chakras. The reason for creating this new map is that the existing descriptions do not satisfactorily explain the evolution of human society up to this point in history"

Yes, true that!

This is then followed by the most profound description of exactly what happens in meditation, how it is done, how the prana (life force) is invited to flow up the shushumna nadi (central channel of energy responsible for mystical states).  How samadhi (or what some call enlightenment) is reached, etc.

Why Only Six Chakras?

The six chakras mentioned in the book are accessed through the breath, says Gregor, but not the other ones, the seventh on for example, the Thousand petaled lotus is accessed "outside of the breathing cycle".

The chakra does make an appearance in the book, in fact it has its own chapter dedicated to it towards the end.

Let me leave you with this from page 247:

WHEN THE WARNING READS LIKE THIS...

"You will soon notice that if you follow all of these instructions properly it is hard not to enter very quickly into a spiritually exulted state. It is important, however, that you do not jump ahead but master each component of this most powerful meditation technique one step at a time. Otherwise its fruit will not reveal itself"

WILL THIS BOOK GO ONTO THE BOOK CLUB?

Some of you have been following the book club on which we have been reading his previous book, Pranayama Breath Of Yoga.

I thought that this could be a good follow up, but as I read and re-read I realize that it would be more appropriate for me to practice.  I feel inspired, and I want to work with it, re-read, observe, try, practice.

Perhaps that is where the secrecy part kicks in, whenever an aspiring yogi/student like me gets inspired to just roll out that mat and practice!

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Are the Effects Of Yoga Proven? And How Did the Inventors of Asanas Know Their Benefits?

Someone in Quora asked, and is a two part question:  (follow me on Quora!)

1-   Are the effects of yoga scientifically proven?

Perhaps the biggest institute doing research in yoga these days is the Kayvalyadhama institute in India, which has done studies on the effect of asanas and pranayama, nauli, etc in many settings you can see kdham dot com slash research slash scientific.  They have been documenting the effects of yoga since the beginning of last century.

There is also Dr Dean Ornish, whom since the 90's, has been publishing studies  showing that a low fat diet and yoga can stabilize and even reverse arterial blockages in heart disease (from the book White Lama).  That is among other benefits of yoga.

So, yes, there are lots of studies out there, I would just be careful, because as the saying goes, the eye of the observer changes that which is observed depending on what the observant wants to say.

For me the best scientific research is to try things and see how they works for me.  Yoga has done wonders in my life, but, granted, I deviate.

2.- How did the inventors create the asanas and know their benefits?

The asanas are as old as you can imagine, since men moved he was stretching in some form or another.   The tradition indicates that in another time, when things were quieter and there was more time for reflection the world produced people of high intelligence, capable of "downloading" information.  This is how the asanas came to us, through these enlightened beings, if you want to believe that.

Then practitioners who used the technology (asanas, pranayama) for 70 years or more learned about the benefits and told us students.  For example Krishnamacharya (a man that practiced yoga for about 90 years) in his book Yoga Makaranda  tells you that a pose like the sited forward bend reduces fat around the stomach, calms the mind and massages the internal organs.  He should know, he practiced it for 90 years! or so...  He also does mention you should keep this pose for a long time (10 minutes or more).

Yoga is like a rabbit hole, there is a LOT to it.  

You start scratching the surface with questions like this, but when you get into the practice and start noticing the benefits in your own body (health, lustrous body, radiant eyes), then suddenly you wander if there is more, and there is.  Perhaps then pranayama (extension of breath and containment of life force) peaks your curiosity.

Then you learn more about cleansings (so you can do pranayama properly), about keeping your intestines clean, your inflammation levels low, your food intake to only what is necessary, etc.

You learn to set the odds in your favour of success.  You also get tempted to use your new powers of observation and concentration for material gain...

Slowly yoga changes you and you feel better, and if you are lucky you are able to get even more interested, and start learning of the mystical states...

It is said that if you imagined the best thing that could happen to you, (win an Oscar, marry your sweetheart, have all the wealth and power in the world, or whatever rocks your world), the mystical state is billions of times more satisfying than that.

Suddenly scientific studies are no longer necessary because now YOU are the scientist.

See you on the path.

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