The Yoga Revolution: "Bridging the Gap Between Spiritualism and Materialism"

By Rohan James

We live in a fast paced material world but this need not detract from you achieving inner peace nor should following a spiritual practice hinder you in being successful in the world. In this ground breaking book, International Yoga Instructor Rohan James has catapulted the practice of Yoga into the 21st century by showing us how to apply the principles of Yoga into a modern lifestyle.

You’ll will also learn how you can:

Make money easily and effortlessly
Eliminate stress, anxiety and depression forever!
Look younger longer!
Attract and keep passionate and loving relationships
Massively increase your energy with three simple exercises
Destroy limiting beliefs with two powerful techniques
Discover the life you were born to live

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rohan James
• Release date: Jun 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311774217

Rohan James

I became fascinated with the psychology of Human Performance and Potential more than twenty five years ago, while looking for “an edge” when I was competing as a professional sports person...This obsession with Human Potential has continued ever since and over the years I have studied, trialed and documented methods from several hundred success, health and happiness books...I have applied these principles into my own life and I have been fortunate to have had many rich fulfilling experiences such as; competing on the pro golf tour, building and running my own successful businesses as well as managing others in the corporate arena...I also know that no research into Human Performance and Potential would be complete without a thorough understanding of what many people call our “spiritual” aspect...With this in mind, over the past twenty years I have also studied our “spiritual” existence and potential from the perspective of several different “schools” that include, Quantum Mechanics, Sacred Geometry, World Religions, various Shamanic Cultures, Indian and Chinese Philosophies, Cosmology, as well as various forms of Yoga and Qi Gong...All this study and “real world” experience has allowed to me to practice, observe and refine what works and doesn’t work for me and for thousands of others to achieve outstanding success, health, fulfilment and happiness...I love waking up in the morning, happy, knowing that I have the privilege of working with people from all walks of life who trust me to be able to empower and guide them towards their own vision of success...I am so passionate about helping others to become all that they really want be, that I have written and produced four books so far!I have written them to help share some of this knowledge to those who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it.These titles are:Pain Free Success - The 4 Steps Successful People Know That the Others Don'tThe Yoga Revolution – “Bridging the Gap Between Spiritualism and Materialism”I Just Want To Be Happy! – “How to Be Happy By Understanding the World and Finding Your Place in it”5 Steps To Looking Younger – “A Practical Step-by-Step Guide To Anti-Aging”.“Sometimes, I have to pinch myself to see if my life is real...”I am doing work that I absolutely love doing and I live and work in a beautiful environment overlooking the beach less than five minutes from Gold Coast Airport, Australia...When I am not helping others to achieve their unique version of success, you will find me socializing with my friends and family or catching a wave at one of the world-class surf breaks available on my doorstep.

Book preview

Testimonials

The key delight for me of Rohan James' THE YOGA REVOLUTION is its wholeness. It's a total approach to life which not only gives context, philosophical insight, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual guidance as well as clarity of purpose, but it is willing to transcend itself to set readers free to listen to their own inner advice beyond all else. James' voice has the ring of authentic personal experience. This is a fun, deep and effective handbook for what Carolyn Myss calls passionate intent and unconflicted behavior. Have a good stretch. Take a deep breath. Open this book and transform your life!

Foster Gamble, Creator of the movie THRIVE

As a teacher – messenger of the Hawaiian Spirituality rooted in the Aloha Spirit, I am thrilled by the spiritually-pragmatic messages, experiences, and thought-provoking information presented in this book that are rich enough to fill up many aha moments!"  And it happens, from the first page to the very last page, you are "involved and become evolved" by this book.  It’s the book that healing practitioners, students, teachers, and all others should not be without."

Kumu Aunty Mahealani Kaiwikuamo’okekuaokalani – Henry,  Kumu ‘Elele  O Na Kupuna, teacher-messenger  for the ancestors,  Puna, Hawaii     

"WOW Rohan! Seriously what a book!

I love the way you write from the heart, with honesty and sharing your experiences. What an inspiration you are.
Please keep writing, you are shining the light so brightly, keep it coming the Universe needs your voice".- Jo Hanks, Yoga Ambassador, UK

ROHAN JAMES

Bridging the gap between spiritualism and materialism

DISCLAIMER

All the information, techniques, skills and concepts contained within this publication are of the nature of general comment only and are not in any way recommended as individual advice. The intent is to offer a variety of information to provide a wider range of choices now and in the future, recognising that we all have widely diverse circumstances and viewpoints. Should any reader choose to make use of the information contained herein, this is their decision, and the contributors (and their companies), authors and publishers do not assume any responsibilities whatsoever under any condition or circumstances. It is recommended that the reader obtain their own independent advice.

The Yoga Revolution

Rohan James

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Rohan James.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

James, Rohan
The yoga revolution : bridging the gap between spiritualism and materialism / Rohan James

ISBN: 9781311774217

Yoga. Life skills.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those brave souls actively pursuing the highest ideal of themselves they
can imagine.

Acknowledgements

To many people writing appears to be a one person and oftentimes a narcissistic endeavor, however to be able to write something of value to many, it requires an enormous passion to be of service to others. In order to be able to express this passion effectively, it takes years of being an open minded student, it then takes years to assimilate and process the learning’s and then a huge amount of time and effort to be able to express those ideas clearly in a way that can be understood by most. Once this process is complete it requires a team of like-minded motivated people to be able to consolidate the knowledge into an easy to understand resource that is non-offensive and engaging. To this team of beautiful souls who have assisted me in bringing this work to fruition, I wish to now express my sincere thanks and gratitude...

To my parents who have always supported me in my endeavors regardless of what direction my life was taking. I would like to thank Yoga and all those teachers who have walked the Yogic path before me passing on what they have learnt in their own unique manner.

I would like to thank my own teachers from many different fields of personal and spiritual development and to also thank and acknowledge all my students and clients over the years who have taught me at least as much if not more than I may have passed on to them.

I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to my proofreaders Ingrid and Reanna, who selflessly gave up their precious time to help fine-tune this work to what it is today. Also I wish to thank Arterium from Arterium Creations, Melbourne, Australia for taking the images from my head and transferring those concepts into the colorful, playful, informative illustrations that are contained within this book.

A special thanks to Aunty Mahealani-Henry (and her Ancestors) for the specific guidance some years ago that launched me into the field of writing. To my publisher Darren Stephens and his company Global Publishing a sincere thank you for recognizing the need for this message to be spread to a worldwide audience.

And last but by no means least, I also wish to thank the infinite universal energy for choosing me to pass on this timeless wisdom in the format that it is and I humbly bow down before the universal laws and knowledge contained within these pages.

Your servant in the propagation of peace and prosperity...

Rohan James

www.findhappinessandpurpose.com

Contents

Introduction

PART ONE Building the Foundation

CHAPTER 1 Getting Real

CHAPTER 2 Who and What Are We?

CHAPTER 3 How Did We Get Here?

CHAPTER 4 Where Are We Going?

PART II Tuning Up Your Energetic Fields

CHAPTER 5 Tuning Up Your Physical Body

CHAPTER 6 Tuning Up Your Vital Energetic Field

CHAPTER 7 Tuning Up Your Mental Energetic Field

CHAPTER 8 Tuning Up Intellectual & Bliss Energetic Fields

PART III Bridging the Gap Between Spiritualism & Materialism

CHAPTER 9 Living the Life You Were Born to Live

CHAPTER 10 Acting Successfully in the World

CHAPTER 11 The Transition

About the Author

Introduction

Regardless of the descriptive name that may be attached to it such as Hatha, Kundalini, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Power, Vinyasa, Hot and hundreds of others, the word Yoga means to yoke, to make whole or complete. It is a practice that helps individuals to find inner peace and there has never been a time in history when the practice of Yoga has been needed by humanity more than now.

As I write this there is a ten-year-old war in Afghanistan, continued unrest in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Israel and Palestine, not to mention the starvation, health epidemics and atrocities happening in some other African countries such as Somalia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Tension is continuing to mount between North and South Korea with a very real possibility of nuclear weapons being used. The United Nations was recently bombing Tripoli and assisted the Libyan rebels to murder Colonel Gadhafi and now what started out in Syria as protests by people seeking freedom from the repression of a dictator has now spiralled out of control into a civil war. Governments in some of these countries are firing live ammunition upon protesters, killing innocent people who are simply voicing their need for freedom after years and in some cases decades of inhumane rule. (At the time of writing this book it has been reported that over 4000 people have been killed during protests in Syria alone in the last few months, forcing the Arab League to suspend Syria from its League of Nations).

The current events in the Middle East are similar to those of India when Mahatma Ghandi and the Indian people stood firm against the English occupation of India before the Second World War. Ghandi demonstrated the power of peaceful resistance until Indian industry was virtually brought to a standstill making it impossible for the English to continue to rule and independence was finally handed over to the Indian people in 1947. Since writing the first draft of this introduction (and prior to the murder of Colonel Gadhafi in Libya), Osama Bin Laden was captured and murdered by American forces in Pakistan fuelling scenes of jubilation outside the White House in Washington DC. What kind of world are we living in, when we celebrate the hunting down and execution of a fellow human being?

Our politicians tell us that we are currently living in times of peace unheralded in human history, but are we? Since the end of the Second World War there have been at least 110 wars fought and almost exclusively in third world countries. Ironic isn’t it that as soon as the Second World War finished with the deaths of about 60 million people, we began wars on many fronts in third world countries which means we are already experiencing the Third World War, yet we choose to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is okay. Our planet is in a sick and sorry state because we continually allow certain groups and movements of the human race to commit atrocities against its own. There is no other species on this planet that is as violent and callous as the unconscious human being. The only people who benefit from wars are the manufacturers of the weapons used and the companies consigned to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure. I agree that sometimes action needs to be taken against selfish inhumane dictators but surely with the technology and intelligence available to us today this action could be accomplished in a much more clinical and precise way than murdering thousands and thousands of innocent freedom seeking people and destroying a country’s infrastructure in the process. After all wasn’t this accomplished with the capture and murder of Osama Bin Laden? Isn’t it time we woke up to what is really the motivation for most wars?

In addition to the military conflicts going on, we have recently experienced massive riots involving some 40,000 people in London; Greece has just been bailed out of bankruptcy causing nervousness within the European Union and to add to this nervousness it appears that Italy is also heading the same way with their debt now equalling their GDP and some financial experts are saying that the Euro will not last any more than another month or two. The United States, the most affluent of countries, is suffering financially because of greed in the financial sector and the ridiculous amounts of money being spent fighting wars on several fronts. I have met many highly educated Americans who have moved overseas to look for work who call themselves financial refugees. At the time of writing this book the estimated cost of wars fought by the United States since 2001 was $1,286,629,786,268 and increasing by $3.6 billion per month. That’s a lot of rice and vegetables!

Bringing the state of our world to a more personal level, how many of us are running around constantly under stress and strain just trying to make ends meet while the powerful become more powerful, taxes become higher and the ever increasing cost of healthy nutritious food is pushing it into luxury item status? What have we created when diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety and depression have become accepted as a normal part of modern life? There is nothing normal about being obese, sick and incapacitated. It is time for a change. It is time for a revolution!

This revolution has nothing to do with trying to overthrow governments and fit everyone into neat little square boxes so that they behave like good little citizens as we have tried to do for the past two thousand years. It’s time for inner transformation, a personal revolution! It’s time for the people of the world to wake up and realise that we have given our political and religious leaders far too much power for far too long and that this trust has been abused over and over again. The time has come to take that power back. It is time to take responsibility for one’s own happiness and success in the world, to become so self-sufficient that big brother can no longer have any effect on our inner peace or on our worldly success.

As more and more people participate in revolutionising themselves and taking their power back from the powers that be the more peaceful and liveable our world will become. Mahatma Ghandi showed the world the power of a single peaceful person. He stood firm knowing exactly who he was; anchored in the truth that non-violence will ultimately win over violent behaviour. Violent behaviour is not the natural state of mankind and is only used out of greed, fear, lust and ignorance. Violence and heavy-handed tactics require enormous amounts of energy and because of this will eventually tire. Peace, true peace, requires very little effort and is therefore tireless.

Peaceful people make for a peaceful world. As the people of the world become more peaceful we will see less natural disasters and we will also find that the conflicts going on in various countries will fizzle out. Most people are aware of the hundredth monkey effect. Whether this story is fact or fiction is not important however the story illustrates a very real universal principle that exists in our world, the process by which we could create a peaceful happy world.

The story was popularised by Ken Keyes, Jr. in his book, The Hundredth Monkey. The story is about the Japanese Monkey Macaca Fuscata that had been observed in the wild for about thirty years. In 1952 scientists began feeding the monkeys sweet potatoes by dropping them in the sand and leaving them for the monkeys to collect. Apparently the monkeys liked the taste of the sweet potatoes but the dirt was annoying them and one day a young female monkey solved the problem by washing the sweet potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother and scientists observed that while more and more monkeys began to wash the sweet potatoes before eating them, the only adults who were washing them had learnt this procedure from their children. All the other adults were still eating dirty sweet potatoes.

In 1958 a certain number of monkeys were washing their sweet potatoes before eating them and as the story goes, let’s say it was 99 monkeys, it was observed by the scientists that when one more monkey, the 100th monkey, began to wash their sweet potatoes before eating them, every monkey in the colony automatically began to wash them before eating. What was even more surprising for the scientists was that the phenomena of washing sweet potatoes jumped across the sea to other colonies of monkeys on other islands. This study brings to our awareness a very real phenomenon that takes place in our world. When a certain critical number of people achieve an awareness this new awareness can be communicated from mind to mind. This Hundredth Monkey effect means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain only with those people, but there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, this awareness is picked up by almost everyone! We need look no further than the current demands for freedom by people in the Middle East to verify this fact.

What you are holding in your hands is a guidebook for developing personal inner peace and therefore ultimately world peace. This may seem like a big claim but the only way we will create a peaceful world is to take responsibility for our own inner contentment and happiness first and then act in the world in a manner that is in complete alignment with our individual nature. As more and more people habituate taking responsibility for their own personal happiness, eventually the Hundredth Monkey effect will take place throughout humanity and a new dawn of personal power, inner contentment and outer success will emerge. This is the world I dream of.

How did this book come about?

Being involved with the age-old practise of Yoga for twenty years I was shocked when I heard the words:

We want to try it because we heard it is a new fitness craze that’s come from America!

This was the answer I received from two young women who arrived at a Yoga studio in the CBD when I asked them what inspired them to want to begin Yoga. A week or so later I walked into another studio about an hour before I was due to teach there for the first time and to my surprise I heard Def Leppard (a heavy metal band) blaring from an iPod as a group of people grunted and sweated their way through a Power Yoga class in 40 degree (Celsius) heat (104 degrees Fahrenheit). I was stunned, even shocked at these events because I had always followed a very traditional path of Yoga.

The physical style of Yoga I was teaching at the time was a reasonably strong Hatha Yoga style and over time, sensing what the people in my classes wanted, I began to make these classes stronger and then through a natural progression these classes developed into a strong Vinyasa (flowing) style of practise. To my surprise the harder physically I worked the class the more they enjoyed it and greater was the inner peace experienced by the people in the room when we came to our final relaxation. Soon rather than just having a good consistent turn out to my classes as I always had enjoyed, I was now filling every inch of the room and on occasion having to turn people away.

As most of us already know, we in this modern world suffer from