Roots and Wings

GM: Nirvata, you developed your own work called Nirvata Spinal ChiGong coming out of your 37 years of experience
while working with other people’s spines. Can you give us a short insight in this work?

Nirvata: As we are all well aware, the spine usually only comes under our focus when we have a problem. Therefore my interest is in prevention rather than cure. As a teenager I was introduced to spinal adjustments as part of my Karate training. It was suggested if the spine was out of alignment when moving very fast, as in kicking and punching, then the student ran the risk of an electrical short circuit. This would feel like a sharp shooting pain in the neck, for example. So my learning that to have the spine in one harmonious flow would eliminate this problem, and give rise to a higher state of energy, which all athletes enjoy.

As to my own Spinal ChiGong, this is an approach towards the spine which does not involve adjusting the spine at all. Many years before, my teacher of Osho Tibetan Pulsing Healing Dheeraj asked me if I could do something for his girlfriend’s neck problem. So at once I felt her miss-alignment in her neck vertebras and corrected the neck by way of an adjustment. This resulted in her neck feeling free and she reported no resistance to receiving a bodywork session that evening from Dheeraj.

The next morning over breakfast Dheeraj was congratulating me on a job well done. His girlfriend’s neck had never been so relaxed and he invited me to develop a system, where by I could teach the family members to achieve the same results, without actually adjusting the spine. Therefore began the collaboration of Osho Tibetan Pulsing Healing and my spinal adjustments. This was to become the beginning of a new approach to the care and maintenance of a healthy spine.

All back care can be an effort to prevent difficulties from occurring if we are prepared to un-learn some old habits. My approach has been to create bodywork positions, which are easy to practice, based in my understanding of how to adjust the vertebras. The spine’s internal wisdom is always seeking a relaxed vertical alignment within gravity, it just needs to be set free. There then opens the need for all of us to listen to the messages coming from our own spine-organ relationship.

Improved posture is essential for the future of humanity and therefore for all family members. As prevention rather than cure must become the guideline for a more enlightened society. The joy which arises from within us, as we sit and stand tall, is a gift bestowed upon us, as we allow the posture which is royal. Nirvata Spinal ChiGong is an effort to align the spine within gravity, by eliminating unconscious resistance, and promoting electrical grounding. Thus providing a free electrical flow between the brain, spine and the internal organs.

GM: And you also show to the person what he or she can do for themselves, in order to maintain the health of their own spine…?

Nirvata: Yes this is very important so as to uplift the self esteem of the individual. We can all rise out of our self imposed suffering, of always having a stiff neck or back pain. A little correction within the posture is worth millions in the course of prevention. To sit for example only upon the sit bones has become absolutely essential, and it is simply natural. We are conditioned to sit on the coccyx sacrum and this has had negative effects on the rest of the spine.

In all the dictionaries around the world we have the same terminology for the sit bones, these are the bones for sitting. If you look gently at the collective unconscious operating in the world, you can see clearly individuals not sitting on their sit bones but sitting or shall we say slumping onto the spinal base. And this is where the real problem is ignited as we do not feel electrically grounded. All commercial electricity must be earthed to make its use safe, and therefore the same is true within our own bio-electrical energy flow.

This bio-electricity runs along our bones and also needs to be earthed, grounded to make its use safe. Hence if you break a bone, the doctor says try and move your fingers or toes, and if you cannot do this, it is because the electricity is not able to flow over the broken area. A few weeks in plaster and the fingers or toes begin to move again, as the bridge is repaired. Once the bone is knitted the electrical current can flow freely and the plaster is removed.

Nirvata Spinal ChiGong is working upon points on the skeleton, and by plugging into this already existing electrical current flow one is able to enhance it. Our personal electrical energy must be maintained in an earthed fashion, grounded, as this will improve respiration, digestion, assimilation and elimination, all of those processes which we usually take for granted.

GM: The sitting on the coccyx-sacrum, why is it so destructive, how does it effect us, not only with our health, but also with how we feel?

Nirvata: Sitting on the coccyx sacrum is only possible when we collapse in our energy. We feel depleted, tired, and as a result we slump when sitting and this effects our vitality. This slumping is destructive for one reason that the nerves which service the testes-ovaries run through the sacrum and to sit upon the sacrum is essentially to negate and sedate our vitality.

We sedated our selves unawares and we continue slumping as part pf the collective mould. Our parents slump and their parents also, so we need a fresh start now. When we sit erect on the sit bones with our pelvis a little higher than the knees, we then sit with our feet connected with the ground, this will result in feeling easier with relaxation arising from the base of our spine.

Our coccyx sacrum has space when using the sit bones and the bio-electrical energy rising along the bones, up lifts us naturally. And to feel depressed is to deny this sunrise in the posture and the sunset is inevitable. A little effort is required in the beginning as you will be working against the collective unconscious habit of poor posture dominating on this planet.

To learn a more relaxed posture is very important now that we have entered the computer age. Now we have computer posture etc, this is sitting on the base of the spine, slumping over, sitting like a banana, and we enter into sunset. All sunset attitudes are a product of low self esteem, and we need to accept and celebrate ourselves.

GM: You often mention that the sunset posture is the most spread disease in our society. How can we develop a support system which puts an end to this vicious circle?

Nirvata: Our development within the body of course started within the womb. The coccyx sacrum curve and the middle and upper back thoracic curve are formed while within the womb. Once we are born we watch others as to how they move about as well as observing their ways of sitting and standing etc. Then very early around four moths of age we learn to hold the head up. This establishes the neck’s cervical curve. And after many more months we develop power to stand and walk. This establishes the lower back lumbar curve. So therefore our responsibility towards the children, is as early as the first few months outside the womb.

The way others sit and stand and walk are all imprinted within these formative years, the child learns through watching, and then the die is cast for their future. We have now entered as mentioned before the computer age, and therefore our sunrise posture is clearly important to demonstrate. When we feel low vitality our moods effect how we stand or sit and as a result tensions gather because of our position within the pull of gravity.

Gravity pulls us down only if we do not feel grounded, stable upon the earth. Just like a tree is only able to rise higher towards the sky if it has secure foundations, deep roots. To eliminate the vicious circle of sunset, it will be really important to learn the sunrise posture from the Grandparents. In my vision it is clearly the responsibility of all the Grandparents to build solidity within the posture of the children, as this will ensure a great leap in the general vitality of all who reside upon this earth.

If it were not for the Grandparent’s making love in the first place, the children would not be an issue of great importance. The children are the future of this blue planet and we owe it to them to give them a truly fantastic start. So we each have our role to play in making our earth safe from the collective disease, of sunset in the posture.

GM: So you want to involve the whole family?

Nirvata: Yes the whole family needs to slow down in relation to one other, as we are intimately effecting each other all of the time. The Grandmother and Grandfather are the senior participants in the family, and to respect their view, is essentially to give them the job to teach sunrise in the posture, from which we will all benefit, globally.

GM: You have now a new website called forestsuniversity.com, what is the deeper meaning behind it?

Nirvata: This website is an effort to rekindle an old flame, based in the natural hierarchy of existence. One example of the Forestsuniversity is the Grandparents, and their role in this natural process of living. The Forestsuniversity was and is a sacred place, where the children would come to learn all about nature and her many vast mysteries.

The teachers in the Forestsuniversity were the Grandparents, and their job was to guide the children for the first 25 years of their life. Guiding them would also include their becoming simply aware of the sunrise in their posture. Hence translated into present day terms, my approach is to resurrect the ancient practice of the Grandparents taking responsibility for the beginning of life, of the children.

The posture once given a chance to develop naturally will provide meditative states of awareness which are natural to a healthy spine. The Grandparents function as a natural guiding force, one which comes to flower as the children practice living and sharing out of their own sunrise experience. Soon the children will be the grown ups, and now we all can put them on firm ground, as solid as the trees, we just need to start!.

GM: What have the trees to do with the spine?

Nirvata: The trees are our natural teachers of grounding, they have roots. The fact is, that they give us our natural shade and provide us all with oxygen. We breathe from this sharing and for this it seems we are not grateful. To pull out the trees shows such violence towards nature that the global warming, disease and drought come as a message, that we must again look at our actions.

Therefore our spine is like the trunk of a tree, with the legs we are capable of entering into the earth, hence grounding our flight into the sky. We all want to fly high, but to fly high without the feet secure and rooted, we all get blown over by the first psychological wind blowing.

Our spine is the connection with the earth and the sky, and all of our collective sunset habits result in feeling disconnected from our environment, this is uprooting and provokes a feeling of separation. We feel disconnected with our environment, the same as when we slump in our sitting or slouch while standing. We remain unaware that it is our responsibility to enhance our world, and sunrise in the posture will correct this old habit of defeat.

It is better to stand firm upon the earth and take our position as bio-electrical trees, flowering. Sunrise is essentially natural in the posture the same as the trees give us our natural shade. Global warming is brought about by pulling the trees out in the first place, hence eliminating our natural shade. And to do this to nature it was possible only because we have not felt electrically grounded, like living without roots. We as a human race must accept responsibility to care for ourselves and our environment.

GM: One last question to your person, you have completed 8 apprenticeships, can you give us a short overview?

Nirvata: My introduction into spinal adjustments started when I was sixteen as a student of Karate. At this time I became an apprentice to a Chiropractic doctor and he guided me in how to align the spine both for myself and others. Then it was time to travel and I came into contact with the head instructors of Osho/Rajneesh Rebalancing which is a system of deep soft tissue bodywork.

My journey brought me into contact with Japanese instructors who taught me barefoot Shiatsu, and introduced me into Zen meditation. At one point it was time to learn all about opening the breathing through touch, and guidance and training came from a very prominent American psychologist.

I have trained in bio-energetics and neo-reichian gestalt deep bodywork, as well as psychic massage. Having lived and worked for three years with a Sydney based psychic surgeon my ability to function in the psychic realm was secured thus producing bio-electrical grounding.

Training extensively with Chinese doctors from Shanghai in ChiGong, I was guided in directing the Chi. In India while deepening my meditation with Osho, my apprenticeship began in Osho's Tibetan Pulsing Healing Institute, of which I am now the lineage holder.

My own spinal ChiGong is the flowering of my life’s effort to discover or uncover that which works. My vision is clear, that all children must be guided in sunrise in their posture and therefore the Grandparents are the natural care takers. We all must demonstrate a healthy upright posture for the children to be inspired by, see you there!

GM: Thank you for your time.

Interview with Nirvata in „Good Morning“ Magazin, Chiemgau/ Germany