kundalini – Jamila Starwater

Kundalini Mantra Boxes : A step by step guide

Playing kundalini mantras in your living environment is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to upgrade your life. Through yogic wisdom and modern science, we know that reality is created by sound – every physical object, everything we see, touch, taste, smell and hear is created by sound waves. When you intentionally play mantras in your living environment on repeat it helps shape the space in a powerful way because it’s re arranging the patterns that make up our energetic world. If you are inquisitive and open minded you can do the research .. or just experience it for yourself. In my personal life, using this technology has helped me tremendously so my mission is to inspire others.

Here is a step by step guide to playing non stop mantras in your home ( or office!)

You have two choices. The easiest thing is to use old mobile devices. Take your old phone and plug it in a corner and play a mantra or playlist on repeat.

Your other option is to make a mantra box. This is a little bit of a project but it’s worthwhile. This is what you need :

Small Speaker with Micro Sd Card $8 – $20 : like this or this
Micro SD Card with Adapter (small memory is fine) $8 : like this
USB plug $10 for 2 : like this

You’ll need a SD card reader for your computer, some computers have this built in, but if you don’t you can buy one that fits in to a USB plug ( like this ) .

Time to pick the mantra ! Check out some ideas on this post. It’s nice to pick a mantra that works on a particular issue and a version that you love. Check out ‘kundalini mantras’ on youtube and spotify to get a sense of whats out there! A great place to start is any album by White Sun, especially their White Sun II (which they won a Grammy for) and White Sun III. Check out this wonderful interview with the lead singer Gurujas that explains how mantras work and why we use them. Another great option is to use the sound of a properly played Gong. We recommend this one.

Time to assemble :

Insert the Adapter with Micro SD Card in to your computer.
Go to the Music folder and pick your track/s
Make sure your song is in MP3 format. If its MP4 you will need to convert it so it will play in your new device.
To convert an MP4 to MP3 – Use a free online service like this
Drag your MP3 file to the card and eject
Insert Mini SD Card in to your new player and you’re done !
Choose a good place for your mantra box – If you only have one, the bedroom is a great choice because listening to mantras while sleeping is one of the most powerful things you can do for healing your mind.

We have mantra boxes in every room in our home, because we are super in to the benefits we have noticed over the last 10 years of doing this. In some rooms, like the bedroom, we have up to 6 mantras going at the same time. This is an acquired taste however ! Start with one and add from there 🙂

A few added notes :

If your partner doesn’t like the mantras, they can be played at extremely low volume and in out of the way rooms, and still be beneficial. You can also play the sound through a set of earphones and it still works ! If you or your partner are too distracted by mantras in the bedroom try the gong. This is a very soothing “white noise” type of sound that most people find very relaxing.

DESIGN

The Creative Process

“Magical Buck” Digital Collage by Jamila Tazewell – Available in many forms on 11:11

Artists don’t have a monopoly on creativity! Everyone is creative every single day by virtue of being a human on the earth.We have co-created everything we are and everything we see, touch, taste, feel and think. It is a creative universe and we are a part of it! Each unit of the hologram contains the whole hologram. We are all creative beings whether we know it or not. Being an artist involves one thing – deciding to be an artist. ANYONE can be an artist. If you need proof of this just google Jeff Koons or Richard Prince. Creativity is a mindset.. making art work is a decision. Plus no one said it has to be good. I think it is more important to be having fun with it than to be making a living or being recognized. In fact, those 2 things can be deadly for the creative spark unless you are clever and fierce in your desire to keep it real. What is real is your flow state. You, being in your game.. losing track of time as you bang away at whatever it is you do. This applies to all mediums. The flow state is better than any drug.. you are the drug. The art is all you need to elevate your whole perspective. It is a means and an end. You just have to do it.

HOW TO TAP IN?

Meditate. This can be any practice that gets you in the zone. I obviously think Kundalini yoga is the most potent and effective form available today. It is a technology to open the energy of your Soul through the body. It is something to experience, instead of just read about or “believe in”. For great online Kundalini Yoga check out RA MA TV.
Start something. Just pick something and start it. You don’t need to know what it is going to be. You don’t need to know how it is going to turn out. You do need to just start. Start today.
Do it everyday. And then just.. keep going. Really thats it. The work will unfold itself through you. But you have to show up. If the inspiration just stays inside your head.. you will never really understand what it could become. You will be fulfilled in direct proportion to the effort you put in. And if you don’t feel inspired anymore.. go back to step one.

Thats all there is to it. The world needs what you are carrying inside you and now is the time.

GO FOR IT !!!!!!

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“The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.”

Steven Pressfield The War of Art

FOOD

The Amrit: My Mom’s Vegetarian Restaurant

Anne Eichelberger serving lunch at the Amrit, 1976

My mom, Anne Eichelberger Tazewell, opened the first vegetarian restaurant in Norfolk ,Virginia in 1976 with 3 friends when she was 21 years old. She is an amazing cook and I had always heard about these times when I was growing up – the story was a foundational legend of our family. Anne’s first experience working in a natural foods kitchen was at The Golden Temple Conscious Cookery in Washington DC. She also did kundalini yoga at the 3HO ashram there! She never talked about kundalini yoga while I was growing up but I think it is so cool that she did it before I was even born. Another interesting thread is in the very name she chose for the restaurant– the word amrit has a deep meaning within the kundalini / Sikh path as well.

I am so excited to feature an interview I did with her about the experience of running a vegetarian natural foods cafe in 1970’s Virginia. One of my dreams is to follow in her footsteps and open a conscious vegetarian restaurant some day. This is the first in a series of interviews I am doing with all kinds of inspirational people I know and want to know. For so many reasons, my mom’s story of the Amrit is the most fitting way I can think of to kick things off.

Article from the Virginia Pilot – Click to image to enlarge

Can you tell me what you remember about your first job working at the Golden Temple restaurant in Washington DC? What year was it and what did you do there? How did you get the job?

It wasn’t a job, I actually was a volunteer in the restaurant’s kitchen. I am thinking it must have been the summer of 11th, maybe 12th grade so 1971 or 2. I found out about the Golden Temple restaurant from the kundalini yoga classes I was taking nearby. The restaurant was on Connecticut Ave, near Dupont Circle. The yoga classes were in a house near Dupont that was an ashram.

Are there any dishes you remember specifically from the Golden Temple?

What I remember is the lemon tahini salad dressing. The Golden Temple is where I learned how to make this dressing, which went on to be one of the most popular items at my own restaurant, the Amrit. The other delicious thing I remember are the the lassi drinks- lemon juice, yogurt and honey smoothies. We called them Krishna shakes at the Amrit. Maybe that’s what they called them at the Golden Temple.

When did you decide you wanted to open your own natural foods restaurant? Can you tell us a bit about your inspiration for the name ?

I decided that I wanted to open a natural foods restaurant when my boyfriend Bill and I were in CA for at a month long retreat with Swami Muktananda at Humboldt State University. The idea struck me sitting at the small cafe at Muktananda’s ashram in Oakland. The ashram’s cafe was called the Amrit, ‘nectar of the Gods’. That’s where the inspiration for the name of our restaurant came from. This was the summer of 1975

The Amrit crew – from left to right, Vernon Herbert, my mom Anne Tazewell, Molly, Janice Herbert, Suzie Meredith Boykin and Bill Boykin

How long did you plan it and how much money did you have to invest?

Friends of Bill’s from NYC- Janice and Vernon- were married by Baba at the retreat. They wanted to join us in starting the restaurant so after the retreat we went our respective ways for a few months. Then in Spring 1976 we had opened the Amrit in Norfolk, VA, in a old building that had sat vacant for a few years. For decades the brick building on the corner of Princess Anne Rd and Colley Ave had been Master’s Drug Store, the place where your grandfather and father went for ice cream cones. Your grandfather lived right next door to Master’s when he was growing up and your Dad went to the soda fountain after his piano lessons. Of course I didn’t know any of that at the time.

Each of the 4 partners invested $2,500. We split the rent for the building with the Norfolk Food Coop who had renovated 1/2 the space, moving out of the basement of a nearby house to join us.

How long did it take to turn a profit?

Not sure what you mean by profit. We did not take out any loans to open the business and lived very simply. For a time your dad and I actually lived upstairs at the restaurant in what must have been originally a store room. The ” profit” is what we paid ourselves and as I recall it could vary from week to week. Some months it was pretty slim.

Article from the Virginia Pilot – Click to image to enlarge

What was the most challenging things about running the Amrit?

Personnel problems! Vernon ended up giving his partnership ( 1/4 share) to Stew, a recovering alcoholic, who had started with us as a dishwasher. This was OK until Stew fell off the wagon and I would get to the restaurant in the morning to prep for lunch and Stew would be passed out on the floor. The other vivid but troubling memory was another homeless guy (we offered free meals to homeless folks) – an older man who looked just like Baba’s guru – Nityananda. Sometimes we had ” Nityananda” do dishes for us and one day I walked in him to find him drinking the salad dressing from the gallon container in the kitchen that we stored in in.

What were the best parts about the experience?

The best part was meeting your dad. The Amrit had a policy of giving free food to musicians. He, as you know, is a musician and offered us an upright piano that we put in the dining area for different musicians to play in exchange for a free meal and tips. The rest is, as they say, history. I also loved bringing a few friends in after a late night out dancing and raiding the kitchen for left overs. We also had a few great parties at the restaurant with the Winged Heart band, the group your dad was playing in with your “Uncles” Steve Pague and Quint Lange. The Amrit was the the hub of a community. I met my closest, lifelong friends at the Amrit. One was Gazelle, Quint’s then girlfriend, your Godmother, the midwife that delivered you and also married you.

(left to right, click image to enlarge) Amrit ‘after hours’ – Anne and my dad’s cousin Tom Gardner // Amrit musician Woody Allen, employee Brian Rayner, and partner Bill Boykin

Do you have any specific memories of what it was like to introduce people to natural, vegetarian foods in the early 70s !?

I loved our customers, especially people that I didn’t expect would know about or like natural foods. Customers like Navy men, office secretaries, auctioneers and attorneys. All different kinds of people were interested and curious about what we were doing at the Amrit.

What were your favorite dishes on the menu?

I loved the Toastie and Eggplant Parmigiana. I also really loved the ice cream we sold. It was honey goats milk ice cream that we got in amazing flavors in 3 gallon tubs. Of course the Eichelberger (our veggie burger) was also a favorite. It was renamed the Tazberger when we got married.

Do you have any advice for wannabe natural foods restauranteurs? Like me for example?!

Know your partners really well! Start simple, build a following and then expand as demand grows.

Also be a good manager- have a good team you trust and then delegate so that you don’t burn out.

I would love to talk with you about this further… You and Jai Gopal would make excellent restaurant owners

YES! Great advice. Thanks so much Mom!

The Amrit Menu handwritten by my mom – check out those prices!!

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YOGA

Vital Warrior: Healing PTSD w/ Kundalini Yoga

I just watched this video of our friend Mikal Vega accepting a humanitarian award for his work in creating Vital Warrior – a non profit program for veterans. Vital Warrior’s mission is to educate and facilitate the healing of PTSD through non pharmaceutical methods. We first met Mikal a year and a half ago, just a few months after he retired from a 22 year career as a Navy Seal and Chief petty officer. He had gone to my husband Jai Gopal’s Kundalini Yoga class at Yoga West, and they had a lot in common (my husband is a West Point grad and former Army officer). I met Mikal a few months later in Grass Valley, CA at the Conscious Communication level two Kundalini Yoga course. He had jumped into the deep end of the Kundalini pool with that one. That course blew all our heads off.. in a very very good way. Anyhow, we all ended up staying at this uber cute house in the woods filled with teddy bears (for example : random detail – me and my husband’s room had a cartoon skunk and daisy theme) and would come back after doing the most intense self induced energetic surgery (only way I can think to describe it..) to make dinners and eat together. Mikal told us his story over the course of those meals that week. As the granddaughter of a career Navy officer (my dad’s dad) and CIA operative (my mom’s dad) , and my husband being a former military officer himself, it was refreshing for me to see Kundalini yoga and this intense training we were doing through his eyes a little bit. I feel like yoga as a whole is so diluted and mis understood, so when I see it being appreciated and utilized by the kind of folks that REALLY need it – our veterans – it is so exciting and inspiring. Plus Mikal is a genuinely nice person with a wonderful and noble vision that he is actively manifesting. Mikal went on to complete the Level 1 Kundalini training with Harijiwan and Tej in Santa Monica last year. He now regularly teaches Kundalini yoga to fellow veterans while also fulfilling his life long acting dream here in Los Angeles, which in turn supports his work with Vital Warrior.

Visit the Vital Warriors website (and facebook page!) for all the details on the 8 modalities used in the healing of post traumatic stress syndrome. Also check out Mikal’s IMDB and facebook page to be inspired and in touch with him.

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YOGA

Religion is a Vehicle

My teacher shared this concept and it struck me as a intelligent way to view the real purpose of any religion. By “real purpose” I mean the non-inverted original purpose the way it’s founders intended. I think a lot of religions have gotten pretty twisted over the centuries and have caused a lot of ‘religious poisoning’ .. I don’t even like to use the word God in my yoga classes for this reason, even though to me God is G.O.D. – the generating, organizing and delivering ( or destroying) force of the universe. I didn’t make that up either, that’s straight from Yogi Bhajan, and it really makes a lot of sense to me. Way better than the “old man with a beard in the sky looking down judging everyone” concept.

But back to the idea of religion as a vehicle . My notes from class say this:

It’s a direction you point your consciousness in and a means to get there. The rules and restrictions of a religion are similar to the rules and restrictions of each transportation device – car vs plane vs walking, etc.

This really resonated with me. I am not very religious but my husband is. We respect each others point of view. It works. When I married him he was not a baptized Sikh. He became Khalsa a few years into our marriage and with that commitment came a bunch of rules. It works for him. I see how the decision to live a certain way has brought him into a whole other dimension of his being. He went from driving a car to riding in a space ship. The change in vehicles was that dramatic and it has effected me by proxy. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I can see the evidence with my own eyes. It’s wild. When I think of other “serious” religious paths I imagine those people go through other versions of this when they commit fully to their path.

I am not sure who said it but this is true– “There are as many paths to the One as there are human beings.” We are all on our own journey. Where are we going? Who cares. I am enjoying the ride.