Yogi Charu ~ Meditation, Fasting, and Kriyas: The Hidden Practices of Himalayan Yogis

Yogi Charu is an esteemed yoga teacher with a rich lineage tracing back to India. Originating from Belize, Charu embarked on an inspiring journey through the realms of Bhakti and Hatha Yoga, studying under esteemed gurus who cultivated his unique approach to spirituality and wellness. Today, he is known for his deeply integrative teachings that merge age-old yoga practices with modern-day mindfulness, authoring the book "A Practical Guide to Mental Hygiene," and offering transformative year-long yoga trainings that emphasize mental and spiritual growth.

Visit Yogi Charu here: https://yogicharu.com/

Key Takeaways:

• Life Transformation through Yoga: Yogi Charu's transition from aspiring doctor to dedicated yogi illustrates the power of yoga to profoundly change one's life direction and purpose.
• Spiritual Growth through Disciplinary Practices: Charu emphasizes the importance of kriyas and sustained meditation as a means to clear mental clutter and advance spiritual growth.
• The Significance of Guru-Student Relationships: Cultivating humility and finding a guru play pivotal roles in Charu's spiritual development and the depth of his yoga practice.
• Balancing Material and Spiritual Lives: Charu shares insights on navigating spiritual journeys while living within the material world, especially within the context of marriage and teaching.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Finding Spiritual Guidance Through Diverse Yoga Gurus
• 0:01 A Teen's Journey from Belize to Yoga Enlightenment
• 6:56 A Journey of Faith and Friendship from Belize to India
• 14:50 Exploring the Spiritual Significance of Mayapur and Vrindavan
• 16:17 Yogi Charu's Journey from LA to India and Spiritual Growth
• 24:52 Spiritual Awakening Through the Gita and Finding a Guru
• 27:50 Escaping Violence to Seek Compassion and Wisdom
• 37:46 Yogic Cleansing Practices and Their Impact on Meditation
• 41:46 Yogi Charu's Journey From Mendicant Life to Spiritual Teacher
• 44:39 Telepathic Communication Through Silence and Mental Connection
• 46:54 Overcoming Doubts and Fears Through Yoga and Self-Discovery
• 50:12 Balancing Spirituality and Marriage in Modern Life
• 55:44 Yogi Charu's Guide to Mental and Spiritual Growth
• 1:00:43 Excitement and Connection Through a Mutual Friend
• 1:02:11 The Spiritual Journey of Connection and Humility in Yoga

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. Today, my special guest is Yogi Charu. He has a book. You gotta buy it. It's called A Practical Guide to Mental Hygiene. Also visit him on his website, yogicharu.com and the links are in the description, super easy to find. He also has a one year long mystic training, which, as you listen to Yogi Charu, get ready, because, oh man, this is incredible. Haha. He has the best vibes and the best stories. Just just sit back and soak this one in and maybe even listen to it again and reach out to him, let him know if you have any questions. And he's extremely personable and approachable and All right, let's go ahead and start. I'm so honored to have the chance to have Yogi Charu here with me today. How are you feeling? I'm doing well. I'm in beautiful Florida. It's pleasant weather. It's nice this time of year, it's not too hot yet. And just grateful to be able to be here and meet you as well. Thanks for having me. Todd. Thank you so much. I got introduced to you via Kate Hall, who has been practicing here with us, and she spoke very highly of you, and so I'm honored to have this chance. Can you tell me how, how did you find yoga? What was your journey to getting started in the yoga world and yoga practice? So I had just, I'm from Belize, originally, Central America, and just moved to a new school. I was 15 and a half, and I met this one friend, and he was different from all of all the other kids at school. You know, he was always in kind of like meditation, with his eyes closed. And so I was intrigued, and over a couple of months in the new class, me and him became good friends, and we used to we would wrestle, and we would do natural stretches before, right? We didn't know it was yoga plus or anything, but then he introduced me to the the breathing exercise. We used to swim as well. So all this was like before. I just how to hold the breath and things like that. And then at some phase, our consciousness cannot evolve. And then they say, when you're ready, the teacher manifests. So the all of a sudden, books started to manifest as well. And he he had this friend of he had a Bhagavad Gita, and he had another science of self realization. So I remember he gave me the Bhagavad Gita, and I had the science of self and he took the science of self realization. So I'm reading the Bhagavad Gita, and I'm like, this book is far out, but I can't live. There's no way. And as he's reading the science of self realization in it, Srila Prabhupada is always quoting the Bhagavad Gita. So as he's reading, he said, What's the book that I gave you? I said, it's called Bhagavad something. I think I want that book back. I was like, Yeah, you can have it. And then so we exchanged and he gave me the science of self realization. And as I read the science upset the Gita started to make more sense the philosophy of yoga. And as I was doing, I was like, hey, I need the Gita back, back and forth. And after, like, maybe about three months of this, I mean, he came from a. Class, part of this country society. So he had wealth, whereas I grew up in the inner city. So we were like two different pools, but I was good in school, and so we met at this one school, and I remember, so we started to practice a lot of meditation, and we were doing meditation and stuff before, but never in a structured way. And we never did mantra meditation or stuff before. We only used um before. And so started to chant Maha Mantra added to our um and anything we would get our hands on, anything, right, any books. I remember another friend in school. He said, I think you guys are into meditation. I said, Yes. So he gifted us another two books. He had Bhagavad Gita as well. And I think chant and be happy. I say, Yeah, okay, so he only know us too. We're into it. Remember, Belize is a Christian country, so it's not easy to and this is 1990 93 so no internet No. So there's no you can't have gone internet and find so it was, it was rare books like that exist in the country. So we started to and have, and I'm reading, and it just started to make so much sense. And I thought, wow, ah himself. Non violence. I told my friend, and because I didn't grow up with my parents, and my aunt, who kind of raised me, had passed away. So I read, ah him. Some non violence. No meat eating. I was like, I went to my friend and tell her, tell him, I'm becoming a vegetarian, and he but he's with his he lives with his mom. He can't tell his mom he's gonna be i i became a vegetarian, and then it took him maybe about two weeks or a month later before he could convince his mom that he's not going to eat her cooking anymore. That was kind of for me, it's different, because, again, I was already kind of a freebie, like I didn't had that was my karma, right? And then I remember I was in school, and I was before I found yoga, I wanted to be a doctor, so I was taking biology, chemistry and, and, and I remember I was in the lab one day, and we have a dissect a frog, and I'm already a vegetarian. And I remember picking up the tweezer and the scissors and the knife, and I haven't seen the heart of the frog beaten, and I'm like, I can't do this. I cannot take this life. I put down my tweezer. I walked out of school. Never went back. Wow. So now, now, what time? How much time it elapsed from the moment you guys first met and started practicing and studying together to to this moment, are you still 15? Are you like 16? Now? 16 now, yeah, and yeah. And I put down and my and I was one of the top students in school, so my teachers were trying to get me to come back. We'll cook for you, because they understood my situation. I didn't had like a structure at home. I was moving from home to home, like cousins, aunts, you know, like that, and so they offered so much, but the Ahimsa, the non violence, the living with compassion, was so part of my psyche now, and I was like, Nah, I want to go on this journey. So we were thinking, we want to go to India now to get a ticket from Belize to India. The we we did the and we asked, we went to a travel agent. How much does the ticket cost? The ticket costs about 5700 Belize dollars. That was like 2000 almost 2400 US. Whoa, well, from Belize to India. And this is 1993 9293 a lot of money when you're 16. Yeah. So I, I worked at a gas station. And at as a gas station, you know, you have to do the austerities. When you have a goal set, we always call it sankalpa. You have to go through the austerities. And I worked at a gas station that was paying me 30 US dollars a week, and out of that $30 I have to give $15 to my cousin, who I'm living with, right? Because I'm sharing space. So, so that would take us, like, four or five years for me to save that kind of finance and living simple. And but my friend, he wanted to go, so we started to communicate. And his father lived in LA, so we started to communicate with the the Krishna temple in LA, and it's called and they had the book, the BBT, the bhaktividanta Book Trust, because my friend started to order more books from them. So he added more book from like the printing company, so we had more books now, Easy Journey to Other Planets, and we just wanted to evolve, evolve. And the Krishna Center said they sent us if we want to, because they knew we want to go to India, but they said, if you want to stop by and spend time in the ashram in LA, we can do that. We didn't know we could stay in the ashram, but they said, Yes. So we thought, okay, go to his father is in LA, and that was also another reason. So we'll go to LA first, and then we'll transition to India. So maybe, about, maybe, about a year later, I had enough finance to get a ticket from Belize to LA and then I got help from one of the ministers of Belize who helped me to get a visa for America. And then, because my, again, my friend came from a political family, so he kind of knew all the people and the politic politician, the lot of the politicians, even our our airport in Belize is named off this one politician. So he is my friends, my friend. He had his grandfather and this first politician, our best friend. Ah, yeah, I say that's a good point. I like that you're putting emphasis on how much logistics were required to make, to make this first part of the journey, I'm already fascinated. I can't wait to see how, how you get to India from California, but keep going, please. Yeah, because, because I was so naive, my friend, he has a political diplomatic passport because of the family, so he has, what, a visa, unlimited visa, tourist visa for America. So he been back and forth to America many times, and I had only been to America once, but my tourist visa expired, so I needed a new visa. So I remember when I So, I so convinced, right of the philosophy of yoga, the wisdom of the Gita. I'm living this pure life. I don't eat meat, I don't intoxicate I don't, you know, I'm living the the life of a yogi. So with my naive enthusiasm, I walked into the US Embassy and asked them for a visa, and they rejected it. No entry, so set back right, and that's when my friend went home. We can ask my grandfather's friend for help. So his grandfather, friend the the politician, Mister Golson, he wrote the letter, Reverend, amazing letter he wrote today US Embassy and humbling, in a very humble mood, and had faith in us. And this time he was blind too, so he only he could. When I went to speak to him, he just heard my enthusiasm, my sincerity. Yes, he's nice. So he does, he doesn't. He know who my friend is, but he doesn't know who I am, but he's here in my sincerity about living the life of yoga and like that. And so he wrote a humble letter to the US embassy, and I went back to the US. That's how I was gifted the visa to get back to make the travel Nice. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. On Madison, my friend stopped school as well. So both of us dropped out of school, and we flew to LA, and then in LA, we stayed in the LA ashram. I was there for I think maybe we were there. We had six months on the visa. So my friend, we want to go to India. So my friend only stayed in Ashram with me for, I think, three weeks, because his father will sponsor his ticket, but he has to live with his father. He goes to live with his father. And I'm in the ashram, you know, and I've made new friends now, right? And it's so beautiful living in an ashram where you're getting up at four o'clock in the morning and taking cold showers and. Meditating from 430 to 730 every morning, then hearing the philosophy in the philosophy for another hour, and then going out doing seva or Karma Yoga right to serve society. And so I did that, and my friend left for India, I think, in like four months. So he went to India. First, he took off without you. He was like, he because, remember, his father was not a vegetarian. His father, you know, was taking alcohol, yeah, so he didn't want to stay wrong. His body too long, yeah, but he had to do it. So he went first. He went to India. Did you guys both have the intention of going to Vrindavan? Oh, or did you have, like, your eyes, like, because India is a big country, so where, yeah, yeah, we wanted to go to a place called Mayapur. So Mayapur is the birthplace of Lord chetanya, who is so everyone wants to go to either once you are in bhakti yoga, there are three main holy cities you want to go to. You mentioned Brindavan. That's where Krishna is born. Then there's, that's in Madhya Pradesh. Then there is Jagannath Puri on the east of India, near Orissa. And then there is Mayapur, where West Bengal, where like well. So Mayapur is considered as equal as Brindavan, just on the east side. So when you go into Vaishnavism, you'll see all the vaishnavas, or the devotees bhaktas, yogis who live in Vrindavan, they all travel to Mayapur for festivals. And then those who live in Maya, they all travel to Vrindavan for festivals. So yeah, so and Mayapur, the one of the most common practice of yoga is mantra yoga, or curtain, right? Congregational chanting. So where did congregational chanting started? In Mayapur. That's the home that's that's where the root of curtain started. Wow. So you go, yeah, you go to any yoga studios around the world, you'll see they might have a invite, Krishna Das or Jai ut or the mayapuris or the curtain world, right number, Dangan the harmonium. So where curtain started is Mayapur. So we wanted to Mayapur, and then eventually, where did we end that up? Brindavan Orissa Himalayas, right? That was, that was the Wow. Well, I have to have to back you up to find out how long did it take you? So your friend stayed four months. He goes over. You're still in LA. You have two months left on your visa. How did you make the jump from LA to India. So the the the because I was, I was dedicated, I was I wasn't the authorities of the temple authorities, the ashram authorities, could see I was sincere. So once my visa was finishing, they they had their lawyers who helped to extend my visa, and they extended it as a religious working visa. So I think I got, like, three years, and I could within that time, then I could apply for a US green card as well. So the authorities there did that for me. And then, as I was doing my save off, save off, after about nine months, I was able to get a parole from the US those days, you get a parole once you already signed up to get a US green card, you get a parole to leave, and you can stay out, I think, for one month, or something like that. So that that's how I got to go to India. Wow, did the temple help finance your ability to go. Because, if you're living as a true devotee, no money, yeah, no money, yeah, yeah. The because those days, also, one of the service that you do for the temple was to distribute Bhagavad Gita, distribute different books. Serve society by giving knowledge transit transcendental knowledge, to distribute it around the country. So one of the service I did was also to distribute books, and it helped, you know, and people give donations for the books. So. So the way, you know, we're trained to, you know, tell them, like, if I say I'm selling a bag of Akita, the bag of agita would cost the temple like, I think,$10 or $8 those $8 those days. So we just tell people, the cost of the book is $8 I'm a monk. I'm a yogi. Whatever extra you give goes for my survival So, and that's how you make the donations to help you to go to the from my plane ticket to India. So instead of five years, a year and a half, so I was able to get nice, nice. And so can you tell me what your feeling was when you first arrived in India? So when I first got to India, I felt like, remember, I'm already from a similar climate, Belize, and also, I'm a I'm a mix, right? I'm half African, half Indian. My mother is Indian, my father is African. So I grew up with my father's culture, the African culture in Belize. And I never grew up with my mom, so I didn't understood, and even my mom doesn't know the Indian culture, because it's been about three or four generations of slavery. Indian slaves came to the west, right, West Indies, so, but something I was attracted to yoga. So when I landed in India in Calcutta, I was like, Wow, this feels good. And then we, you know, remember, I grew up in humble situations, humble, uh, lifestyle in Belize, and once the yoga, once you get in the yoga, ashrams, oh, we sleep on the floor. I'm like, hello. I grew up with, like, this is home. I found my home. Yeah, there is no hot water. Hello. So because a lot of people, when they come from the west to India, it's culture shocking, because of the comfort of growing up in a developed country to landing in a in it's a lot of India is challenging for a lot of people. It's austere, especially in the 90s, when I got there. Right now, it's much better, like now you can get hotels or with or even some ashrams. They have Western bathrooms. When I got the houses, I think in the floor. Okay, you learned my last son perfectly, right? Okay, so, yeah, so I felt like I felt at home in India. I just, you know, and then I got, of course, remember me and my friend, we didn't know to cook in Belize. So when we became vegetarians, we were just basically living on fruits and nuts and berries and juices, right? So we never, until we got to the ashram in LA, and then when we got to India, it was like, Wait, oh, this is vegetarian. All this we you know, rasmalai rascal. I got addicted to Indian sweets in Calcutta and Maya floor and then the feast. Ever, ever. In Indian culture, in the yoga culture, you watch the calendar, there's a festival basically every day, Parents Day, this deity appearance, day this and every day, like, literally, there's a feast. So coming from, not from being didn't know it was like, wow. And then I go back to LA then back to India. La India. La India. And then, once my green card was sorted out properly. Then I went. And then I stayed a longer now I can stay more than a month. I can stay a longer time in India. So every time, every time I went to India, I would go to Mayapur, then go to bring the home of Kirtan, then I'll go to Brindavan, and then I go up into the Himalayas. Now, most doctors don't go up into the Himalayas, right? But remember, I was attracted to yoga, so me and my friend would go up into the mountains, and we, you know, Rishikesh, then up in then there are done ganganani, then up to gomuk. And you know, we would go to the where Gangotri, where they the Temple of mother Ganga. And then it's from Gangotri to gomuk is like a day and a half hike in. You can the cars won't go, so you have to hike into the we. The candies come out of the glacier so and so between Gangotri temple and gomok, that's where we found these amazing yogis, right? And started to live, learn some of the yogic stuff like that. So once I my visa, once I could stay a longer time out of the US, then I would spend more times out there, and then come down and go to those were, like, those are, like, my three main places I would be in India, Mayapur, Brindavan, Himalayas, wow. Wow. Yogi Charu, that's incredible. I so all these time you're traveling, you're still remaining on the level of a mendicant, in the sense of, you have a bowl, you have a bowl, and you show up and somebody says, Here, I share food. And so you're not thinking about attracting material wealth at all. It sounds like you were very focused on spiritual wealth. What type of spiritual or self realization experiences did you encounter, either in the world of doing bhakti and Kirtan, say, in my poor or, you know, in the other three, two cities that are the home, you know, the home of the Chaitanya movement. But what about in the Himalayas? Were you, were you having incredible meditation practice? Or what type of experiences and what type of realizations were you starting or coming in contact with them? So curious. So once I read the once I read the Gita in Belize and I read the science of self realization that took me on a intense track, like my life was going like this. I'll become a doctor. I like change this. Change, right? So and the, the, the, I think what really moved me was when I read the science of self real. That was what triggered it deeply, where Prad writes, who are you? Are you? Your brain? Are you your mind? Are you your body? Are you your name, or are you something else? And for the first time, I pause and question, and then Sheila probably explains, using the Gita Krishna teaches that we are a spiritual being. We have this material body, which we it's our vehicle, but We falsely identify with it, and probably it's beautiful. Acknowledges the right you see a car and a driver. The car is only moving because that driver is in it. If the driver gets out of the car, that car cannot move. So the real spiritual being that's animating this body is not the body, it's a so the journey to try and find who that spiritual person is, that's what pushed me. And then also in the Gita Krishna teaches you need to find a mentor, a guru, a teacher. And it made sense to me, right? If you want to learn piano, you need a piano teacher. If you want to play violin, you need a violin teacher. If you want to do you I wanted to be a doctor. I needed the doctors who were going to teach me the the knowledge of becoming a PhD. So once I read, oh, you're coming on this path, you need to sign up guru, someone who can show you the path, right? So it just kind of made sense. So one of those that pushed me was all, yes, I wanted to meet someone who was spiritually evolved, and Krishna gives those qualities of Evolve being in the Gita, right, Hey, someone who is knowledgeable, simultaneously humble and Those are hard to find if you meet someone, ah, sadhana, someone who's spiritual practice getting up every day, do their practice in the morning, in the day, in the evening, someone who is compassionate, empathetic. So these were the qualities that I wanted to develop. These were what drove me from Belize. I wanted to meet people who were kind, compassionate, because at the same time, right when I was growing up in Belize, I had two sets of friends. I had friends from my school. I. Who came from structured household, mom, dad, family. Then I had friends from my soccer pitch who were like me, No Mom, no dad. So these kids dropped out of school, but I stayed in school because I was good in school, so I was like, in the middle. Now, once I got to like 15, these my friends who played soccer, they our hormones change, right? The false egoed our you know. And lot of them got into gangs and drugs, became drug dealers, and they started to die, unfortunately. And one of my cousins, younger cousin, got into a gang. And I remember one morning there I had to go. The police showed up and said, Who are you as a so and so you as I'm visiting. I had to go clean my cousin's body. He had got shot by, you know, because of so there's this level of seeing what my karma has. Oh, Charu, she was stay here. This is this. And a lot of my friends from the soccer pitch were dying as well, young too. So much so that when I returned to Belize, I think the team had 21 or 23 players. When I returned to Belize, maybe about seven of us were still alive. Wow, that's literally just got rough in that there was square mile in the city, and that's where I live, where I grew up. It was tough. The other once you leave that part the country is beautiful. A lot of tourists, everything. But, you know, I grew up in that so I had to wait. I had to live the philosophy, the soul is eternal. That's the body charuba And then the Philip put the philosopher into practice, turn it from knowledge into realized knowledge. That you know, the bullet, the fire. Krishna says, The soul cannot be killed by by cannot be burnt by fire, withered by the wind, drunk by water. So the soul is beyond it. So I said, Who? Who was my cousin, who was in that body? And then when my friends decided to pass away on the soccer pitch, I was like, I need to get out of and that's what triggered, triggered me to leave the country. I wanted to leave. I get it, I see I thank you for painting the picture so clearly, yeah, yeah. And so with when you when you come, when you see that, then the wisdom came at the scene. Like, if I didn't get introduced to this wisdom, and I can be untruthful, I don't know if I would see 20 years old. It's just the karma of my my karma, not for the whole because, like I said, there were kids who came from a structure of mom and dad. I didn't have that structure. I could leave. I can stay all night if I want. And if kids stay up all night, what they're going to do, nonsense, get into the wrong things, false ego. So the wisdom was resonating with me, because I could see the philosophy living right out in my eyes. I didn't have to go far to see a dead body. I didn't have to go far to see false ego and anger. And so I started to rip Okay, let's turn this into a positive. Turn this negative into a positive. So as I started to evolve, I wanted to develop these qualities of compassion, empathy, and the emotion that triggered me the most was if I needed to find a teacher or teachers who walk this planet with humility. And humility is different from low self esteem. Remember, I came from low self esteem, one not being able to do things that other kids did in school, like I couldn't throw a birthday party or stuff like that, but with knowledge humble enough to respect every living entity. So once I got to India, then in the back it's i, then I got this beautiful, clear picture, because I knew I was attracted to curtain and mantra and bhakti yoga simultaneously. I knew I was attracted to the yogic part, the Ashtanga Yoga, because you read in the Bhagavatam right, the post graduate of the Krishna teaches it in the sixth chapter of the Gita. Yoga is who suspend the breath, incoming, outgoing breath, going into trance. As you read the Bhagavatam, which is the post graduate of the Gita, you read about Lada devotees bhakti, who were also deep yogas. So I understood, OH. Oh, there's nothing wrong with me following, you know, going into the Himalayas and doing the austere practices, because I was attracted to it. I was already brought up with austerity. It's not for everyone. So then I got the honest like this realization came when I was at school. I had a chemistry teacher, a chemistry guru. I had a biology guru. I had a physics guru. They were all different gurus. So then I understood, okay, for my back to yoga to I need a bhakti yoga guru for me to evolve in my ASAN and Hatha Yoga, Anita hatha yoga guru, right? So, and my bhakti yoga guru was so evolved, he had no problems with me going after the Himalayas to learn. Because a lot of times gurus in India, they want you to just be like this, right? Just solo to them, but my backyard was very evolved. It was like, Oh, he could see my samskaras, right? The seeds that I have and empowered it. Oh, go study. Go deep. Yeah, wow, go deep in it. So that's why I have my hatha yoga guru. I have my my bhakti yoga guru, right? So the different teachers that helped me to make me who I am today. Charu, how did you find your hatha yoga guru? Because if you're leaving, you're going into the Himalayas, I'm guessing you met person after person. What was the moment that you realize the person well, I guess my first question is, who is your hatha yoga guru? Who are who are they? Do they have a name? And then, how did you know he was your guru? How did you did you have to was it like in the presence of him? Right away, you just know in your intuition that you that this was the person you wanted to study and practice with or was it he came to you and said, I see you are a student, and I think you should come practice with me. Or was it you coming down and bowing and slowly making your way and bringing an offering? What was that situation like for you? The way you describe it, make it sound like out of Hollywood, out of Hollywood, right? The Hollywood yoga ideal. I know, you know, you read something like Paramahansa. Yogananda is like Autobiography of a Yogi and you, and you, you know, you have these visions in your mind of, like, illustrious gurus and this glorious path. And you're probably saying, Look, man, it was cold showers, and it was like, you know, sleeping on the floor. And yeah, so in the ashrams, there is where you meet. Normally, you meet the students of the Guru first, right? And so by associating with their friends, then you hear who their guru is, and then they introduce me. And you know, his name is Vijay. I mean, they don't have any they're very detached. They don't have computer phones. There's no There's no certificates. There's no and that's why, when I teach, I always share with people in the West, people want certificates. But if you read the yogic text, especially Hatha Yoga, any of the yogic text, hatha yoga, pradebika yoga, sutras, you always hear, they say you should learn these practices from a qualified teacher, not a certified teacher. So the quality, what makes them qualified is their sadhana and their practices, and they can show you. So when I was introduced to Vijay, he was this amazing yogi, you know, simple doesn't have any like, no material assets, right? And just sit cross legged in the morning, and we would go into meditation and seldom talked. You know, practice. He practiced a lot of Mona, a lot of silence and going within. And then he would come out around after we finish our meditation, around seven o'clock, because, remember, we meditate from four to seven. Then he would teach the kriyas, right? The cleansing kriya there are different types of kriyas, but the cleansing kriyas like how to swallow the four feet cloth, pull it out, just like we do. Anyways, everyone is familiar with netted the water, netted gel netted with the water pot. So we would do those, but then we'd also do sutra net assembly, tube through the nose, pull it through the mouth, flush the nasal channel, just like you floss the teeth. I'm trying to flush. We're trying to flush the nostrils. We would wash the colon out right in the West people, they do colonics, I think. And but when. I was we do enema, right? The yogic enema, where we can, we have to learn the bandas and the mudra is very good. You have to master uddiyan banda. You have to master Noli moving in the abdominal muscles around. And then once you can master that, then you master Ashvini Mudra, and then when you master the bandhas and the mudras, then you can do the yogic enema, where we would go into the river, and I would go into squat, in a squatting and train my muscles were so trained, the spinster muscles, we suck the water up the rectum and then come out and then go to the loo and flush out. Right in the West, they do the enema, where they insert the tube into the rectum, because most people in the West don't have this Finster muscle strain. So the so if you go to the doctors, they do, they insert their tuber. If you do alcoholics, they insert the tube in the rectum, and they let the water up the colon and then flush out. So the yogis can do that as well, but we can do it without any of the gadgets, just by the training the muscle. So, so those are the Yeah. And then we do Shankar, Shankar prakshala, right where we drink a gallon and a half of lukewarm salt water. And this was once every four months we did that. That's where you drink two glasses. And there are six poses, two glasses, six poses, two and then after like 45 minutes, solid come out, then semi solid. Then clear water here, clear water there, so washed out, and when once you flushed out that, then we would go on fasting. So a big part of the training the Hatha Yoga is still learn to fast. So we would fast for days first then the next time, two weeks, then next time 30 days, the next time. So I got, I learned, I got a I got attracted to the cleanses, because when you fast, you're cleaning the nadis, cleaning the channels and the practicing the mind enters the mode of Satva gun, the mode of goodness much easier, because the there's no no food to digest, no rajas, your mind becomes very peaceful the longer you fast. Then you go deeper and deeper into the meditation. And then when you start eating again, those high states you've got stays with you. So even though you're eating, you're still evolving. So basically, that was a lot of the and as you fast, my body, I'm genetically stalking. I have cousins who are Mr. Belize, Mr. Caribbean. When I was fast, I got so skinny, and we attain what my we call it ASAN city. It took me, like, three years, basically my body contour. It's like a contortion. I can do all you name any Asan. My body did that. It just became very, very evolved with it. And then after a while, my teacher said, okay, to Allah, we are yoga. Yoga is not contortionism. We should use your yoga now to go into your deeper and deeper meditation. Wow, yeah. Whoa, chario, whoa, dude, you did it. You went, you went all the way into that world. Yeah, that is amazing, man, yeah, and, and, literally, those days I didn't thought I would be a teacher. I was just living the life of a mendicant, just right, no shoes. So much so that I remember one of my friends I needed to come back to America, and one of my friends, sister, worked for United Airlines. Just even the thought of United Airlines after all those stories, I just got us. She got some butter passes,$200 to fly from India to LA and back. And I remember, I didn't had a I didn't have shoes. I'm living without shoes, so I need to, so I just Okay, wow, I got it. I need to fly, but so I got, like, a little slippers, little sandals looking thing, you know, maybe 50 rupees I paid, or whatever. And I remember we showed up, and with the body pass, we could actually fly business class, but the host says, look up. Yeah, there's no way you're sitting there. So yeah. And then yeah. So, yeah, those were, you know, when you're young, you learn certain things and then, well, char, I have to ask you, did you ever have a moment? Because I'm sure those cleansing practices were pretty intense. They had to be a little bit intense, like, I, I mean, you're making it sound the way you're explaining it. It sounds quite lovely and and exciting and and like you're laughing, and you've have so much joy. It doesn't sound but, I mean, for most of us attempting to go that intense into it. Now, obviously I understand, like, it's a gradual, like, I like to you say, like, Hey, I started with a week, and then we did two weeks, and then we do a month, and then, you know, so it's not like you just come in and go for a month, you know what? I mean, there's a training there's a training process to get to that level. Did you ever have any doubts when you were doing it. Did you ever have a moment you thought, Whoa, I'm getting so thin. I wonder if I'm just going to drift out of my body and and maybe not come back in. Did you have any you know, in the meditating for that long? And did you, did you leave your body? Did you have out of body experience also, did your Do you feel like your teacher was teaching and communicating with you telepathically as well in that process. Oh, yeah, definitely, that's part of the because we practice a lot of Mona silence. So in silence, you start to connect to each other telepathically. Even in the Western world, we do it right, mother, or in yoga, we call it mudras. Gestures, right? The parents look at the kid just the way that they make these ripple in information traveling to the kid, Oh, mommy, that is upset, just from your mudras, right? So in the West, we also communicate telepathically, but we it's a way of communicating without speaking. So now, when you are able to quiet the mind, and then you can send thought patterns to each other, which you've been with your wife for so many your wife knows what you're thinking. She can finish some of your sentences. Because you're connecting telephonically, and you're connecting on the astral body. The the astral bodies are. So once like that, then as I would do some practices, and I'm kind of lost in some of the practice, I would hear my teacher's voice comment, oh, this is and the practice will and then I would go deeper into the practices, wow, wow, because you're living with the humans for so long, our mental body start to mix and connect with each other. So I guess, I guess, then in question, back to the one I had earlier, that, did you what? How did how did you deal with doubt? Did or fear? How do you deal with doubt and fear? Did you? Yeah, so my doubts initially, remember, I came from a Christian culture. So in the Christian culture, I'm brought up, thou shall not bow down to false idols. So when I got to calcula, I'm seeing people bowing down to a half man, half elephant, like, What the hell is this half man, half fish, half man, half snake. So those were, those were my doubts, like, why? And I didn't bow down to them until I got the knowledge then, because understood there were a lot of stuff I didn't know about the yoga culture and so, but I was getting a lot of benefits from the yoga culture. So I didn't want to throw it's like, you don't throw the baby out with the bat. So what I didn't understood my doubts. I kept them at bay. Okay, I'm not going to do this because I don't understand it. So as I started to practice more and more, the doubts started to fade away slowly. So as I got the Gan, the knowledge, and then I remember one time I almost like loss last the conviction of the process. I was in the mountains, and I was like, it's needed. I should go back to school. And I was like, should I go? Why am I doing it? Oh, man, should I go back then go back to the Caribbean, go back to school? So those little things come in and and challenge. They're like little steps of challenges, right? And I remember I was saying, Yeah, I'll leave, because the himala sometimes, depending on. The seasons, and I think when it was cold, right? The Caribbean, warm weather, and then it's freezing, and then you have to take bath in that Ganges River, and they got, it's covered in that cold mist. It's, I mean, just going in it freezing, right? So the mind develops, this is not for me, right? Yeah. But then I was seeing other humans immersing themselves in the Ganga without so I was like, how did they develop that mental part? So simultaneously, as the doubts were there, I was seeing abilities which I can achieve if I work to it. So those were what kind of and then as I would get a certain state or achieve a certain the doubts went away gradually, gradually. Great answer. Great answer, oh my gosh. I don't even know what to say, chariot. I just love these stories. I just, I just want to hear more. I just want to hear more. So okay, so that's a long time ago, and now, are you, well, I don't know. It's not that long ago. Is you're, you're married. Are you married? Yes, I'm married. So how have you transition so you you lived the life of a monk, yeah and yeah, and then there's a phase, right? So remember, so from, from 20 from when I got from yoga, 15 to I remember like 24 right? And I can truthfully say this, I didn't had any sex desire, and I was my teacher, was a lifelong celibate. Both my bhakti yoga guru and my hatha yoga guru both lifelong celibate. So in the back of my mind, I'll be a lifelong celibate, right? That's because. And then I see many yogas like that. And then remember, like I was like 23 or 24 I know Martin was meditating out of nowhere. A lot of sex desires came out of nowhere, just, I don't know, right? Because I later understood, I understood there were seeds, like seeds samskaras, yogis call it their inner subconscious mind. They just need time to fly. And so all these sex desires came and, you know, I for like, two months, I tried to fight it. I didn't want to tell my teacher. And after, like, two months, I read up, I reread the Gita, and then the Gita Krishna says, I do not like pretenders. So it's like, you know, you open the Gita and that same page is exactly what you need so I went to my girl said, Guruji, I'm having all these sex desires the last couple months here. I'm thinking he's going to be upset, right? He just cracked up and laughed. He said, Oh, you're a human two months I tortured myself because I'm not in there, you know, he just cracked up. And then that's when he started to share with me some of the yogic careers, uh, vajrali saholi, and how to contain move the prana up the spine. So I was like, Oh, wow, yes. Then, and then I left as a as a way of transmuting the sexual energy, turning it into more of a Kundalini. Or so, he started to share with me the some advanced careers of how the youngest moved the prana up and about out of about 30, maybe 35 of us learning at the time, about 28 of us eventually got married so on. Yeah, handful, and I still know them who are still celibate, but my group made it clear to me, said, Who's the most spiritual person in the Bhagavad Gita, besides Krishna, I said Arjun. He said, Is Arjun celibate? Or is he married? He's married. Okay, good. So he he said, spirituality doesn't equal celibacy, because sometimes, lot of people think celibacy leads you to spirituality. Yes, it does, but doesn't also equal, he said. And he said, Who's the top and Hatha Yoga paddipka, who's teaching you in Hatha Yoga? Pad? I said, Shiva, who's Shiva teaching Parvati? Okay, good. So Shiva has this concept. So he showed my so, because before, remember, my mind taught so. Sees the way to go. So he's just started to show me in the yoga culture, a lot of the advanced yogis and yoginis, they, you know, they were, they were couples, yeah. So Brahma had Savitri, Parvati and Shiva. So he, he lists out all the different couples, amazing couples through the yogic lineage. I was like, oh, okay, so yeah, wow, that's so cool. I think that's such a great story. Oh my gosh, great way of explaining it. And so now you, how do you navigate now? How do you when you wake up? Are you like, because, I mean, obviously, you're, you know, you're, you're in Florida. I didn't know that. I'm so excited. I want to drive up and visit you tomorrow. But I'm curious. I'm curious. Like, so now, you know, we live in the world we live in, yeah, and you're like, Yeah, I'm, how do you navigate? How are you navigating, you know, living that life, and then maybe you're still living that life every day. Here now i You're You're laughing and smiling, and I feel your joy and I feel your enthusiasm. I don't think anything has changed or shifted. I mean, so, yeah, so now it's just living with a life partner, who, who you evolve with together? Yeah. And so, you know, I do all the like, as I get up in the morning, I'm trained so much that it's second nature before I even get out of my, you know, my bed, I check my swara, which nostril is more open, whichever nostril is open, that's the foot I'm trying to put on the earth, because that's how prana is flowing through the body from this for our practices. So right from there, then I still do all the, I don't do the all the kriyas. I do some of them. But every four months, I still wash out the colon. I still once a year. I still do 30 days of fasting. I still incorporate it into my into my lifestyle, yeah, and you know, my sitting every day for meditation and curtain and studying the philosophy still, because I teach it every day and every day as I practice and I teach, I still keep learning Santa San. I'm a student of life. Yeah, yeah. My teachers always say my bhakti yoga guru, he used to always say Bhakti chariswami. Used to say when I would come from the Himalayas and I'd land and I'd go back to Maya for to do kirtan. And then he said, Oh, you're back. And then he said, Yeah. He said, It is very good that you have that mentality, that that seed, that you can live like that. And he said, we have a amazing yoga in our culture called pralad Maharaj, and it's in the Bhagavatam. And Palan Maharaj said it is good to live in the Himalayas, but in the Himalayas, no one challenges you to evolve with anger and frustration, because everyone is in a mode of goodness. So palat Maharaj says it is better to live in cities, because that's where you grow. In the Himalayas, you grow like this in the cities. You grow like this because you put yes into the knowledge into practice. So, being compassionate, being empathetic, not you know, limit teaching out of compassion. So, yeah, so that's what, what I do. I I still go back to India once a year, and then I when I'm in the west or wherever I am, I'm always teaching, Yeah, amazing. And you wrote a book. What is the title of your book? Yes, the title of my book is A Practical Guide to mental hygiene. Nice. There it is. For those of you listening, you can go to the YouTube channel and and check it out. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy a copy. Soon as we're finished, I can't wait to read it. And it's a practical because in today's day, everyone does dental hygiene, everyone brushes but no one does Mental Hygiene. So the practices helps you to train your mind and understand how each of the five senses affect your mind and how to purify each of the five senses so you develop a daily mental hygiene as well. Nice. And can you talk about your training that you offer? I think it's a year long training. Yeah. So before I used to do like one month training intensive, then I'd train another to take a break, do another training for meditation, meditation to prana, Vidya, yoga. Then I just thought like the way I was trained was. Over a long period of time. So instead of just being intensive for one month, I decided to do a training for people for over one year, where we meet for once a week. We meet every Saturday morning. You get a practice. You practice it for that week. You come up with you get new practices, because that's how I'm trained. You practice it that way, you get a new practice. And that's the and that's in that way I people, we I introduce people to lot of the yogic practices which many people just read about them in books, right? Prana, Vidya, Krishna, kriya, you know, pranayama, the Kos chakras, working with all the the vials and moving prana and healing the body and mind. So it's a beautiful training, and it's once a week, anyone can find once a week for a hour and a half, and then it the goal is to help people to develop a daily mental hygiene practice where you sit, you brush your teeth, you sit to clean the mind regularly. What a great idea. And obviously that's on Zoom, so people can, I can join in wherever. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Wow. Yogi chatu, what a, what a, what a great thank you, Kate. Kate was so excited. I mean, she just lit up when she started talking about you. And I said, Do you think you could help me introduce, you know, could you introduce me? And she's like, Oh, definitely. You know, he's busy. He's got stuff going on. So, you know, we don't know if he'll write you back or whatever. So I just, you know, and then today I saw her said, today's the day. And she was like, what time? And I was like, 330 she's like, Oh, I know you're gonna publish it, right? And I said, Yeah, of course. And because I think she just wanted to listen right now, you know, like she was so excited, so her enthusiasm, like the way she lit up about about you. And I just, you know, I just really appreciate this opportunity. I'm so excited to meet you, and I hope, well, I mean, I can't believe you're only, like, two hours away. I really do. I really want to come visit so, but um, these days, visit, visit your space. Thank you. Yeah, that would be, that would be amazing. We'd love to have you here if you want to come down. Yeah, we kind of planned it, yeah, cool man. Thank you. Yeah. Kate has been a good friend student for at least, maybe about 15 years, I think I met her, or even maybe 13 years, or about we've been good friends, and yeah, I'm so glad she made the intro. Introduction to you, Todd, thank you so much. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I really appreciate it. Is there anything you would like to leave us with Charlie, any final thought and or encouragement for all of us that are striving on the path of yoga, one of the Beautiful things I've learned in the process is we are all evolving together. So every human we meet, the human form is very rare. So when we meet a fellow human, we know that soul has done a lot of work in their past to get the human form. There are many forms out there is the Vedas explained, 8,400,000 different types of species. So when you get the human form, that's rare. So whenever I meet a fellow human and just the strand, we connect to them, not just on the physical plane, but connect to them on this spiritual plane. And the spiritual plane means a a force coming out of the heart space. And we put a word on it, l, o, v, e, but it's a force. And the word yoga really means love, because when you love someone, you come together. So yoga is supposed to bring mind body together, but also express it to the planet. So when people, when you meet a fellow human being, walk around, oh, it's like an old friend you're meeting right? Like, when I'm with you today, I was like, Oh, you're another soul who I just reconnected this life. But we've been on this journey for many lives. So let's inspire each other. Let's help each other to evolve. Right? Some days I might be strong, and our friends will help me, or I can help us friend. Then some days I might be weak, my friends are there to pull me up. And if we live like this, then we don't we won't be living with each other thinking I am superior to anyone. As knowledge comes, we must develop humility, and with humility, with our knowledge, we can inspire each other, serve each other, and that's the one of the goals of life. We want to serve God, but we have to also serve God's children, serve the planet. Yes, oh, man, perfect. Thank you so much. Yogi chato, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Rest of the day, thank you. Yeah. Native yoga Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com, and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time you for you.