October 13, 2024 • 33 mins
In this episode, I am again taking you to the South of India, to Kanha Shanti Vanam (or Kanha for short), the world headquarters of the Heartfulness Institute.
I was lucky to have a brief chance to speak with Dr. Veronique Nicolai, also known as Dolly. Dolly is a paediatrician originally from France who started practising Heartfulness meditation over 30 years ago to manage the stressors in her early days as a medical student. Dolly's journey led her to teach yoga and to be the Director of the Heartfulness Yoga Academy based at Kanha.
I loved hearing about Dolly's story and her insight into Heartfulness and passion for Yoga.
I apologise for the sound quality of this episode, there were some intense weather conditions.I have done my best to improve the quality and hope you can still enjoy the conversation!
If you have any feedback about the episode, would love to hear your thoughts!
Also, check out the previous episode if you want to hear more about Heartfulness meditation and Kanha where I spoke to Dr. Elizabeth Denley.
Heartfulness Yoga Academy:
https://learning.heartfulness.org/pages/heartfulness-international-yoga-academy….
Yoga4Unity:
Find a Heartfulness Trainer or local group session:
https://heartspots.heartfulness.org/
More information about Khana Shanti Vanam:
Video: https://youtu.be/cDF1glqFVjw?si=JjGhIiPn7YZi9POSKanha Shanti Vanam Hyderabad | India | Heartfulness
Website: https://heartfulness.org/kanha/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello world family, welcome to Ripples with Humanity.
(00:05):
I'm Rachel Thompson and through this podcast I'm sharing interesting stories along my travels,
people, projects and initiatives I discover that are contributing to positive ripples
throughout humanity.
This episode again I am taking you to South India to Karnashanti Vanam or Karnah for short
and it's the world headquarters of the Heartfulness Institute.
(00:27):
In the previous episode I spoke to Elizabeth Denley who introduced Karnah and heartfulness
meditation so feel free to listen to that episode if you haven't already.
In my time at Karnah I was lucky enough to have a brief chance to speak with Dr Veronique
Nicolet also known as Dolly.
So Dolly is a pediatrician from France who started practicing heartfulness meditation
(00:50):
over 30 years ago.
This was to manage the stresses in her early days as a medical student.
Over time this grew deeper for her and she became a heartfulness meditation trainer and
then used the method a lot in the medical settings.
As Dolly will explain her journey led her into teaching yoga and to where she is now
(01:11):
as the director of the Heartfulness Yoga Academy at Karnah.
The yoga academy offers free yoga classes which include all layers of yoga which is
the postures, the breathing exercises and meditation.
They also offer retreats, teacher trainings and workshops.
I really loved hearing about Dolly's story and her insights into heartfulness and her
(01:34):
passion for yoga.
I really apologize for the sound quality of this episode.
There were some really intense weather conditions but I've done my best to improve the quality
and I hope you can still enjoy the conversation from Dolly.
And just to note that at the beginning Dolly will guide a short heartfulness practice so
if for whatever reason you're not able to sit and enjoy this for a few minutes then
(01:55):
you can skip forward to about six and a half minutes into the podcast and hopefully you
can come back and enjoy it another time.
Thank you so much for joining me Dolly.
I'm really excited to speak to you today about the heartfulness way.
I thought it might be really beautiful to start off with a nice grounding practice to
bring us into our hearts if you're open to that.
(02:17):
Let's do that.
So a very simple way and it's a nice way to start any session.
You close your eyes where you're seated.
Just be comfortable.
Don't lie down.
Spine erect but relaxed.
You become aware of your surroundings.
(02:40):
The noise outside the room where you are, maybe the birds, maybe the rain like here
today.
Slowly you become aware of the noise inside the room.
(03:02):
Keeping your eyes closed, become aware of the people around you.
You furniture the space.
Slowly become aware of yourself, your body sitting on the chair.
Maybe your feet are on the ground or you're sitting cross legged.
(03:29):
Be aware of your legs, your spine erect, shoulders relaxed, your hands on your thighs, your
neck, chin slightly down.
(03:58):
Now become aware of your breath.
Normal breathing.
Like the waves coming and going on the shore.
Just be aware of your inhale and your exhale.
(04:26):
Now become aware of your thoughts.
The state of your mind right now, wherever you've been doing before, slowly settling
into this practice.
(04:47):
Take a little deeper and become aware of how you see right now.
Your emotions.
Maybe you can still work on how you feel, maybe you can't.
Just see it.
(05:11):
Slowly bring your attention to the heart, where your heart beats.
Be aware that there is a source of light in your heart already present.
(05:35):
This light is radiating all over your body.
(05:59):
Just slowly, with your reverse process, becoming aware of your body on the chair and on the
space around you.
Keeping in touch with the source of light in your heart.
(06:28):
When you feel ready, you can slowly, with a few blinks, open your eyes and come back
to the present moment.
Thank you, that was beautiful.
(06:50):
Now I would like to introduce you to the Heart Speaks, which is the base of Heartfulness.
I'd love to start today with just going into the fundamentals of what the Heartfulness
Way is.
I know it's a very potentially broad and long topic to go into, but if we just go to basic
(07:11):
level, that would be great.
The most important element which we've just gotten into is the Heart Speaks.
Being aware that even in the philosophy of yoga, we have koshas, which we just went through
layers of the being with different functions, but at the core there's something called the
(07:36):
heart, that is the seat of the soul, the seat of the being, and the seat of prana.
That is where our entire possibility is, but also where the human qualities lie.
In Heartfulness, everything we do is collapsing into the heart.
(07:57):
The practice is based on the heart, and we use a very specific element, which is called
Transmission, or Pranahuti, yogic transmission, that allows to kindle that flame that is there
in everybody's heart, kind of flow over the amber that was there that might not be burning,
(08:20):
so that that flame ignites and then starts to guide your life.
So the entire idea of Heartfulness is to live your life through the heart.
The mind being a tool, the heart being more the wisdom, the clarity, the decision maker,
according to who you are truly fundamentally, and also how absolutely you connect through the heart.
(08:48):
So it has so many dimensions, they all collapse into the heart.
So Heartfulness takes, they are different kind of meditation, Heartfulness is a meditation path essentially,
and you have meditation on something else side, on the flame, on the image, you can meditate on the thought,
you can meditate on the Ajna Chakra, the point between your eyebrows, which is very common,
(09:10):
it's a power point, and Heartfulness we meditate on the heart, because we want the human being to bloom
in all its capacity, what you have come to realize actually comes from that.
And when you say we meditate on the heart, do you mean the energetic heart or the physical heart?
(09:35):
So we talk about the energy essentially, because we go to the feeling, but we start with the physical heart.
It's a bit difficult for some people to feel the energy, so it's easier to just say like where you feel the heartbeat.
It's also the first point in the, so there are different chakras in this journey, spiritual journey,
(10:04):
and this first chakra is on the physical heart. So it's absolutely proper to talk about the physical heart,
but then it becomes much more like that, and that's the entire journey, the entire exploration.
Yes, beautiful. And when you talk about the yogic transmission, could you explain a little bit about that?
(10:25):
What it is. So it's when I got to know about Heartfulness, I didn't know what it was,
and I tried to meditate on my own, and I was trying to meditate on the heart, and it's very difficult because your mind is very busy,
and I didn't do it with a trainer. So what happens in training in Heartfulness is that you sit with someone face to face,
(10:56):
and then that person is actually channelizing this energy that comes from the source of Pranayama,
that goes through the heart into your heart, and then nourishes that. So it sounds something like completely crazy,
I'm a Westerner, I'm a doctor, I have never been exposed to that, so I did not really believe in it,
(11:19):
and the only thing where I thought okay, I can see these people, they look pretty amazing,
I better try after a few years sitting around the bush, I finally sat and tried with a trainer,
and I was just blown away with the effect. So it's something that you can actually feel, you can't really explain it.
(11:41):
But what happens is really this energy is a catalyst. So I would say to relate to it,
what is, when we talk about energy, what are we talking about? In a very simple way,
even if you're not at all familiar with all this, when you enter a place and you feel very much at home,
(12:07):
very comfortable, that's the energy of that place that gives you that feeling.
And sometimes you can even sit next to someone and you really feel you have a bad vibe, that's the energy we're talking about.
So transmission is actually the sat plus so we call it, prana se prana, which means life of life.
So it's what sustains the life energy. When you talk about prana in yoga, you talk about what circulates in your body
(12:36):
that takes different shapes and different phenomena, okay? But here we talk about what sustains this.
That's closer to transmission.
And what would you say to people who might be hesitant and think that it's then giving power to someone else to give you the power,
(12:58):
to give you that flame, that spark?
So it's a mantra. So it's like any things that you learn, you need support at the beginning.
What's been fantastic for me is that it's completely up to you. You get only what you put into this practice.
So if you want to meditate, so once you've done it one to one after that, you do it on your own and you develop your own practice
(13:27):
to be able to do that without being face to face. But still after 30 years I've been doing this practice,
when you sit face to face with someone, that person actually just takes you deeper into your meditation.
And that's been absolutely amazing. And I'm not someone who is very good at keeping good resolutions.
(13:49):
So I've been practicing it for 30 years just because it's effective.
And I find that there's always something to, yeah, it takes me always to new depths or new heights.
So that's where, you know, for anything that is something I don't know at all, obviously I need someone to take me further.
(14:12):
But then the entire practice, the daily practice that we do, it's like yoga, it's on you.
You take a teacher so that helps you to achieve new goals, but then the practice is on you.
Nobody's going to practice for you. So it's pretty much in your hands.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And with how you came to heartfulness, could you explain a little bit about that discovery 30 years ago?
(14:37):
Yeah, sure. So I was actually, I got to know about heartfulness when I was doing my last year of high school.
I just had one of my friends in high school, her parents were doing this.
And I got to know about it. But like I was telling you, being French and this being an Indian system,
I was just not for me. I'm French and born.
(15:00):
But I was very, very much always interested in understanding the cells.
And that's why I did medical studies.
And then after a few years, I think my resistance just vanished.
And I decided like, I can try and if I don't like it, I won't do it.
(15:22):
So I sat and really what I felt during that first meditation session, I just felt like this is so amazing.
I just want everybody to wake up.
You know, I went back to my home and I just said like, we need to wake up everyone.
Because there's no language, there's no tool, there's no fees, there's nothing.
(15:43):
You just sit, you want it, you take it. That's it.
I was really blown away and it's still kind of, you know, the fire that is burning in me right now.
So I'm a volunteer at Hapfulness for past 25 years.
It's because of what I benefit, you know, I feel that's a benefit.
(16:04):
But then where I, it just did not happen also immediately because, you know, I was 23 at the time.
And to wake up in the morning to do a meditation practice and then there is a, there are three pillars.
So there's a morning meditation, there's an evening cleaning session and there's a night connection before you both get there.
(16:25):
I was not doing all this at the beginning. It took me two years to settle into it.
And I started with the cleaning part.
And the cleaning part is something we do in the evening for 20 minutes where we use also, you know,
it's Raja Yoga base, the power of thoughts to get rid of whatever impressions have come
(16:47):
and kind of wait on you, you know, at the end of the day.
And we remove the emotional part and keep only the clear experience of what has happened so that you learn from it.
And for me as a medical student, because I was doing night duties,
I found it so efficient that I would feel fresh even if I had one hour, three hours, zero hours of sleep.
(17:14):
So it was a must. So I actually did my cleaning every day to get through the night
and be able to make decisions with clarity of mind without being fogged by the fatigue, you know,
and the emotional things of, you know, your first line in handling emergencies, sometimes life and death decision.
(17:36):
And it's super stressful. So that was so efficient that I actually did something good for myself
and very slowly went into something much deeper. But first it was very practical.
And so you worked as a pediatrician, is that right?
And you were practicing heartfulness as well during that time.
Did you transition from being a pediatrician to yoga?
(18:00):
And do you think heartfulness had something to do with that?
Of course.
How did that process go?
So I was working in a school where they were hustlers.
So I was taking care of the health room and admitting kids to the hospital,
sending them to for consultations or whatever.
And then what happened is I actually broke my shoulder and I thought that's it.
(18:30):
Now I'm going to get old and that's never going to recover properly.
And that's the beginning of going down in life.
And one of my friends was a yoga teacher, Jitamanda. She was also a heartfulness trainer.
She said, let's do yoga together. It will be good for your shoulder.
And I was also advised by my doctor, you should move now.
(18:52):
Stop thinking that you can't move that arm. Just use it.
So I went and discovered yoga. And I just said it was so the asana part and pranayama part.
And I knew only the meditation part, which is also part of yoga.
And I discovered that it was helping me so much and it was so in line with my meditation
(19:13):
that I wanted to explore that.
So we decided with this friend to offer heartfulness,
starting with asana and pranayama leading into meditation, because it's just the natural flow.
And asana being the physical postures and pranayama being the breathing exercises,
just in case anyone doesn't know.
So these are actually the steps of Ashtanga Yoga from Patanjali.
(19:39):
And it's a good preparation for meditation.
Now in heartfulness, you can directly do meditation because there is this transmission.
Because that is the support. It calms your mind.
All the other paths, you need to do a little bit of asana to settle your body and allow the prana to flow better.
Cleanse your nightness with pranayama, so with breathing exercise,
(20:05):
so that this also allows your mind to settle before you can really do a serious meditation session.
But they're still going very well together.
So heartfulness takes a shortcut. You can directly do meditation.
But as a doctor, don't miss the other steps.
Your body is also full of these emotions, these blockages.
(20:27):
And it's a nice tool to work with.
So if you want to get clarity, lightness, and you have a more joyous approach to life,
you need to get rid of anything that is stopping you to do that.
And those blockages, they've been here because of who we are, everything we've been through.
(20:50):
And I love that we use the body for it, we use the breath for it, we use transmission for it.
And it's a fantastic package.
And this is how it evolved into what we now offer as heartfulness yoga.
So when we talk about heartfulness yoga, we talk about asana, pranayama, so the physical practices,
the postures, the breath work, very light.
(21:12):
We do not do heavy retention, for example.
It's a very natural breathing without contraindication.
Because there are contraindications in advanced pranayama, so we do not do advanced pranayama.
And then agmeditation.
So we are very complete from day one on the night.
(21:33):
Any beginner comes, they'll have a beginner, they'll have the full potential of what yoga offers.
Because yoga offers all this, not just asana.
I resonated when you said that about being able to, with heartfulness,
being able to come straight into that meditative space.
That was one thing that I was quite amazed about in the practice, to be able to go straight there.
(21:55):
Whereas other meditations, maybe a little bit more time to really get into the practice.
But this just takes you right there.
It's a catalyst.
That's what we call the catalyst.
It just allows you to immediately go deeper.
After that, it's your journey.
So when you were saying, is it not intrusive, not at all, it's just like...
(22:16):
There was a very nice image.
If you want to climb a wall and there's a rope, okay?
You can catch the rope and go up.
Or you can catch the rope and be...
Someone is pulling the rope somehow.
This is what it is.
It's nice because it still is an inward journey.
(22:37):
But we're all interconnected and we all need support as well and guidance.
So that is the effect that you realize once you practice.
I was quite amazed that when we...
So we were bringing the practice of heartiness to hospitals because I was feeling that for my peers,
(22:59):
doctors, it would be very relevant and they needed it more than anybody else to unburden themselves from all the tension.
It's very stressful as a job, I'm sure you can imagine.
Doctors put a nice front and they actually separate themselves from their emotions.
And that's not good at all for their own health.
(23:20):
But being able to get there, once we were giving heartfulness in hospitals,
I realized that the nurse and the HOD and the surgeon and the admin person,
they were all sitting together without hierarchy at all.
(23:42):
That was for me because the hospital is pretty heavy on hierarchy.
The doctors, the boss and the nurse were two.
And then they were all sitting together and the atmosphere was completely different from the time of meditation.
Now you open the door, go back to the ward and then the second...
Yeah, the nurse.
(24:05):
That would be nice.
That would be powerful to see.
Connecting through the heart, it's connecting to the essence of the individual.
We are different, but we recognize the human being.
Without even being conscious.
I wanted to ask you about any doubts you might have had with the process and the way, the path.
(24:31):
And when you've asked questions either internally or externally to get guidance on the process when you've had doubts,
what's been the best question you've asked?
So at the beginning, when you start, you feel the benefit on a day to day.
It's very practical. That's what I like.
(24:53):
That I have benefits immediately.
And then it takes you into a deep spiritual journey.
And on the spiritual path, it's not easy.
And so there are very strong moments of doubts.
And it's really important.
I always tell people that I introduce that you will have those and it's absolutely okay.
(25:18):
It's actually showing that you grow.
It's part of the process to have some even points in chakras where you just feel like, what am I doing?
Even feeling that I was better before I started this practice.
And have the incentive to get rid of doubt.
And I would say that here, first to be aware that this happens.
(25:41):
And that you would have those posts.
And we as trainers are trained to support people at that time.
And to give space because it needs to be digested.
And also actually when you come from one state to another state,
(26:02):
you will always have that state where you wonder what you're doing here.
So to know that it's actually a sign of progress sounds, you would not know that when it happens to you.
But when the trainer sees that, then for us it's just like, wow, great.
You've come to that space where you just feel like, what am I doing here?
(26:25):
Which shows you progress.
So at that moment to give the time to give the space is very important and to be here.
And so the second thing for me that was important in this process of continuing staying on with Heartfulness was to have a community.
And when I talk about community at the beginning for me, it was like, I don't want a community.
I don't like groups.
(26:48):
I'm very individual and I don't like it.
But I found the benefit of it.
And I also like sometimes I like to be in the community.
Sometimes I like to be away and that's perfectly, you know, it's what you make it.
But to have people who would just be there.
And maybe walk the path before you and they're still here.
(27:13):
And at that moment, I would say you don't meditate because your mind would be grooding instead of meditating.
So it's really important to stop meditating and to continue to take one to one sessions with a trainer will help you to get over this period of time.
(27:35):
And was there a time of a specific thing that you had the most doubt about that you can remember?
I have had several times.
A lot of them.
And I would say that for me, what kept me on track and I was whenever it was.
Sometimes you look at people who have been meditative for a long time and you just don't like their behavior.
(28:01):
And you feel like people who are not doing happiness actually better human beings.
So that is also very important learning because we judge on the tools we have.
We don't know actually who is what does it mean good and bad.
So it's it's it's really important now.
(28:22):
I mean, with the years, I know that I don't know.
But still, there's there are some difficult moment.
You just wonder. Yeah, thank you.
I feel like we could go so much deeper into so many things.
We have to wrap it up soon.
But I wanted to know what's your current you're so you're living here in India and you have been for quite a long time.
But what's your current role now and what project are you working on?
(28:45):
So I am handling the department of Asana, Pralayama and training programs.
So the more physical part of heartfulness.
We do teacher training. We do retreats all around what we as Westerners call yoga,
knowing that meditation is very much part of yoga.
But we approach people through the body part and introduce heartfulness meditation.
(29:10):
So I have a team of 12 employees here in India, all yoga teachers.
We make programs together and it's extremely creative.
And I love this job.
It's just fascinating. And we our goal is to have more and more people realize that if you include a little practice of yoga in your life,
(29:33):
you actually can make a lot of difference at so many levels.
So I was sharing a few days ago to a group of youth who had come.
That's very often people asking, oh, you are a doctor, but now you have come down to becoming a yoga teacher.
And I really feel I've elevated my understanding of the being, the human being,
(29:57):
because the science of yoga is amazing.
And instead of being a bit too deep, like the anatomy and physiology,
we actually add the dimension of life, which is completely yogic.
So that what we call holistic, which is a big bag with too many things for my taste,
(30:20):
is actually what yoga is. It really takes care of the entire being,
of yourself, not only all your body, mind and soul, but also in your season, country, life, you know, in the universe.
So it's pretty amazing for me to have shifted from being a doctor to directing yoga programs at the Heartfulness Yoga Academy.
(30:46):
Thank you. And then just one more thing. Is there something that sticks out as the proudest moment
of something that you've brought through a program or initiative?
Well, I'm pretty much in the deep. I find that when people are, I think as a yoga teacher,
(31:08):
when you come out of a class and people, you kind of, yoga does something fantastic
that it really brings people to joy, you know, within, because joy is inside ourselves.
So I find that when people realize that and they tell you, you know, oh, I just feel so good,
(31:29):
and you can see in their eyes that joy is, that's my proudest moment.
And I think we touch many people, all the teachers here, I think, I'm very proud of that and the team.
That's so nice. Thank you.
Well, hopefully I get to come back to Kana and talk to you more about all this and go deeper. Thanks, Dolly.
(31:50):
I really hope you enjoyed this conversation with Dolly. I just wish I had more time to go in deeper into some of the topics
and areas we touched on and deeper into her story, but we were so time limited.
While I was staying at Kana, I really loved practicing Heartfulness Yoga each day that was offered freely there.
(32:12):
I found it a really accessible form of yoga that beginners to advanced could enjoy.
You can also have a look online in the Heartfulness Yoga part of the website.
And there's a free introduction to Heartfulness Yoga course, which I'll share in the episode notes.
I also found it really nice that Heartfulness has initiated what's called the Yoga for Unity program
(32:36):
in collaboration with some of the largest yoga institutions in India and the world.
And they've also got a YouTube channel, which has a lot of free classes.
While I was at Kana, there was actually a conference happening called the Rising with Kindness Youth Conference.
And yoga was a big part of the program being offered in the morning for people.
So there's thousands of people from all over India.
(32:58):
And in the morning, there were about seven different yoga schools coming together to give people a taste for different styles of yoga being offered.
And it was really nice to see this unity of the yoga schools.
After all, the definition of yoga is to join or unite. So that was really special and nice to see.
If you're interested in learning more about Heartfulness or seeing if there's an individual trainer or group session in your part of the world,
(33:25):
you can look at the Heartfulness website, which I'll link to in the episode notes.
But thank you very much for taking the time to listen.
Please feel free to rate and share the podcast with any friends who this may interest.
Hello world family, welcome to Ripples with Humanity.
(00:05):
I'm Rachel Thompson and through this podcast I'm sharing interesting stories along my travels,
people, projects and initiatives I discover that are contributing to positive ripples
throughout humanity.
This episode again I am taking you to South India to Karnashanti Vanam or Karnah for short
and it's the world headquarters of the Heartfulness Institute.
(00:27):
In the previous episode I spoke to Elizabeth Denley who introduced Karnah and heartfulness
meditation so feel free to listen to that episode if you haven't already.
In my time at Karnah I was lucky enough to have a brief chance to speak with Dr Veronique
Nicolet also known as Dolly.
So Dolly is a pediatrician from France who started practicing heartfulness meditation
(00:50):
over 30 years ago.
This was to manage the stresses in her early days as a medical student.
Over time this grew deeper for her and she became a heartfulness meditation trainer and
then used the method a lot in the medical settings.
As Dolly will explain her journey led her into teaching yoga and to where she is now
(01:11):
as the director of the Heartfulness Yoga Academy at Karnah.
The yoga academy offers free yoga classes which include all layers of yoga which is
the postures, the breathing exercises and meditation.
They also offer retreats, teacher trainings and workshops.
I really loved hearing about Dolly's story and her insights into heartfulness and her
(01:34):
passion for yoga.
I really apologize for the sound quality of this episode.
There were some really intense weather conditions but I've done my best to improve the quality
and I hope you can still enjoy the conversation from Dolly.
And just to note that at the beginning Dolly will guide a short heartfulness practice so
if for whatever reason you're not able to sit and enjoy this for a few minutes then
(01:55):
you can skip forward to about six and a half minutes into the podcast and hopefully you
can come back and enjoy it another time.
Thank you so much for joining me Dolly.
I'm really excited to speak to you today about the heartfulness way.
I thought it might be really beautiful to start off with a nice grounding practice to
bring us into our hearts if you're open to that.
(02:17):
Let's do that.
So a very simple way and it's a nice way to start any session.
You close your eyes where you're seated.
Just be comfortable.
Don't lie down.
Spine erect but relaxed.
You become aware of your surroundings.
(02:40):
The noise outside the room where you are, maybe the birds, maybe the rain like here
today.
Slowly you become aware of the noise inside the room.
(03:02):
Keeping your eyes closed, become aware of the people around you.
You furniture the space.
Slowly become aware of yourself, your body sitting on the chair.
Maybe your feet are on the ground or you're sitting cross legged.
(03:29):
Be aware of your legs, your spine erect, shoulders relaxed, your hands on your thighs, your
neck, chin slightly down.
(03:58):
Now become aware of your breath.
Normal breathing.
Like the waves coming and going on the shore.
Just be aware of your inhale and your exhale.
(04:26):
Now become aware of your thoughts.
The state of your mind right now, wherever you've been doing before, slowly settling
into this practice.
(04:47):
Take a little deeper and become aware of how you see right now.
Your emotions.
Maybe you can still work on how you feel, maybe you can't.
Just see it.
(05:11):
Slowly bring your attention to the heart, where your heart beats.
Be aware that there is a source of light in your heart already present.
(05:35):
This light is radiating all over your body.
(05:59):
Just slowly, with your reverse process, becoming aware of your body on the chair and on the
space around you.
Keeping in touch with the source of light in your heart.
(06:28):
When you feel ready, you can slowly, with a few blinks, open your eyes and come back
to the present moment.
Thank you, that was beautiful.
(06:50):
Now I would like to introduce you to the Heart Speaks, which is the base of Heartfulness.
I'd love to start today with just going into the fundamentals of what the Heartfulness
Way is.
I know it's a very potentially broad and long topic to go into, but if we just go to basic
(07:11):
level, that would be great.
The most important element which we've just gotten into is the Heart Speaks.
Being aware that even in the philosophy of yoga, we have koshas, which we just went through
layers of the being with different functions, but at the core there's something called the
(07:36):
heart, that is the seat of the soul, the seat of the being, and the seat of prana.
That is where our entire possibility is, but also where the human qualities lie.
In Heartfulness, everything we do is collapsing into the heart.
(07:57):
The practice is based on the heart, and we use a very specific element, which is called
Transmission, or Pranahuti, yogic transmission, that allows to kindle that flame that is there
in everybody's heart, kind of flow over the amber that was there that might not be burning,
(08:20):
so that that flame ignites and then starts to guide your life.
So the entire idea of Heartfulness is to live your life through the heart.
The mind being a tool, the heart being more the wisdom, the clarity, the decision maker,
according to who you are truly fundamentally, and also how absolutely you connect through the heart.
(08:48):
So it has so many dimensions, they all collapse into the heart.
So Heartfulness takes, they are different kind of meditation, Heartfulness is a meditation path essentially,
and you have meditation on something else side, on the flame, on the image, you can meditate on the thought,
you can meditate on the Ajna Chakra, the point between your eyebrows, which is very common,
(09:10):
it's a power point, and Heartfulness we meditate on the heart, because we want the human being to bloom
in all its capacity, what you have come to realize actually comes from that.
And when you say we meditate on the heart, do you mean the energetic heart or the physical heart?
(09:35):
So we talk about the energy essentially, because we go to the feeling, but we start with the physical heart.
It's a bit difficult for some people to feel the energy, so it's easier to just say like where you feel the heartbeat.
It's also the first point in the, so there are different chakras in this journey, spiritual journey,
(10:04):
and this first chakra is on the physical heart. So it's absolutely proper to talk about the physical heart,
but then it becomes much more like that, and that's the entire journey, the entire exploration.
Yes, beautiful. And when you talk about the yogic transmission, could you explain a little bit about that?
(10:25):
What it is. So it's when I got to know about Heartfulness, I didn't know what it was,
and I tried to meditate on my own, and I was trying to meditate on the heart, and it's very difficult because your mind is very busy,
and I didn't do it with a trainer. So what happens in training in Heartfulness is that you sit with someone face to face,
(10:56):
and then that person is actually channelizing this energy that comes from the source of Pranayama,
that goes through the heart into your heart, and then nourishes that. So it sounds something like completely crazy,
I'm a Westerner, I'm a doctor, I have never been exposed to that, so I did not really believe in it,
(11:19):
and the only thing where I thought okay, I can see these people, they look pretty amazing,
I better try after a few years sitting around the bush, I finally sat and tried with a trainer,
and I was just blown away with the effect. So it's something that you can actually feel, you can't really explain it.
(11:41):
But what happens is really this energy is a catalyst. So I would say to relate to it,
what is, when we talk about energy, what are we talking about? In a very simple way,
even if you're not at all familiar with all this, when you enter a place and you feel very much at home,
(12:07):
very comfortable, that's the energy of that place that gives you that feeling.
And sometimes you can even sit next to someone and you really feel you have a bad vibe, that's the energy we're talking about.
So transmission is actually the sat plus so we call it, prana se prana, which means life of life.
So it's what sustains the life energy. When you talk about prana in yoga, you talk about what circulates in your body
(12:36):
that takes different shapes and different phenomena, okay? But here we talk about what sustains this.
That's closer to transmission.
And what would you say to people who might be hesitant and think that it's then giving power to someone else to give you the power,
(12:58):
to give you that flame, that spark?
So it's a mantra. So it's like any things that you learn, you need support at the beginning.
What's been fantastic for me is that it's completely up to you. You get only what you put into this practice.
So if you want to meditate, so once you've done it one to one after that, you do it on your own and you develop your own practice
(13:27):
to be able to do that without being face to face. But still after 30 years I've been doing this practice,
when you sit face to face with someone, that person actually just takes you deeper into your meditation.
And that's been absolutely amazing. And I'm not someone who is very good at keeping good resolutions.
(13:49):
So I've been practicing it for 30 years just because it's effective.
And I find that there's always something to, yeah, it takes me always to new depths or new heights.
So that's where, you know, for anything that is something I don't know at all, obviously I need someone to take me further.
(14:12):
But then the entire practice, the daily practice that we do, it's like yoga, it's on you.
You take a teacher so that helps you to achieve new goals, but then the practice is on you.
Nobody's going to practice for you. So it's pretty much in your hands.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And with how you came to heartfulness, could you explain a little bit about that discovery 30 years ago?
(14:37):
Yeah, sure. So I was actually, I got to know about heartfulness when I was doing my last year of high school.
I just had one of my friends in high school, her parents were doing this.
And I got to know about it. But like I was telling you, being French and this being an Indian system,
I was just not for me. I'm French and born.
(15:00):
But I was very, very much always interested in understanding the cells.
And that's why I did medical studies.
And then after a few years, I think my resistance just vanished.
And I decided like, I can try and if I don't like it, I won't do it.
(15:22):
So I sat and really what I felt during that first meditation session, I just felt like this is so amazing.
I just want everybody to wake up.
You know, I went back to my home and I just said like, we need to wake up everyone.
Because there's no language, there's no tool, there's no fees, there's nothing.
(15:43):
You just sit, you want it, you take it. That's it.
I was really blown away and it's still kind of, you know, the fire that is burning in me right now.
So I'm a volunteer at Hapfulness for past 25 years.
It's because of what I benefit, you know, I feel that's a benefit.
(16:04):
But then where I, it just did not happen also immediately because, you know, I was 23 at the time.
And to wake up in the morning to do a meditation practice and then there is a, there are three pillars.
So there's a morning meditation, there's an evening cleaning session and there's a night connection before you both get there.
(16:25):
I was not doing all this at the beginning. It took me two years to settle into it.
And I started with the cleaning part.
And the cleaning part is something we do in the evening for 20 minutes where we use also, you know,
it's Raja Yoga base, the power of thoughts to get rid of whatever impressions have come
(16:47):
and kind of wait on you, you know, at the end of the day.
And we remove the emotional part and keep only the clear experience of what has happened so that you learn from it.
And for me as a medical student, because I was doing night duties,
I found it so efficient that I would feel fresh even if I had one hour, three hours, zero hours of sleep.
(17:14):
So it was a must. So I actually did my cleaning every day to get through the night
and be able to make decisions with clarity of mind without being fogged by the fatigue, you know,
and the emotional things of, you know, your first line in handling emergencies, sometimes life and death decision.
(17:36):
And it's super stressful. So that was so efficient that I actually did something good for myself
and very slowly went into something much deeper. But first it was very practical.
And so you worked as a pediatrician, is that right?
And you were practicing heartfulness as well during that time.
Did you transition from being a pediatrician to yoga?
(18:00):
And do you think heartfulness had something to do with that?
Of course.
How did that process go?
So I was working in a school where they were hustlers.
So I was taking care of the health room and admitting kids to the hospital,
sending them to for consultations or whatever.
And then what happened is I actually broke my shoulder and I thought that's it.
(18:30):
Now I'm going to get old and that's never going to recover properly.
And that's the beginning of going down in life.
And one of my friends was a yoga teacher, Jitamanda. She was also a heartfulness trainer.
She said, let's do yoga together. It will be good for your shoulder.
And I was also advised by my doctor, you should move now.
(18:52):
Stop thinking that you can't move that arm. Just use it.
So I went and discovered yoga. And I just said it was so the asana part and pranayama part.
And I knew only the meditation part, which is also part of yoga.
And I discovered that it was helping me so much and it was so in line with my meditation
(19:13):
that I wanted to explore that.
So we decided with this friend to offer heartfulness,
starting with asana and pranayama leading into meditation, because it's just the natural flow.
And asana being the physical postures and pranayama being the breathing exercises,
just in case anyone doesn't know.
So these are actually the steps of Ashtanga Yoga from Patanjali.
(19:39):
And it's a good preparation for meditation.
Now in heartfulness, you can directly do meditation because there is this transmission.
Because that is the support. It calms your mind.
All the other paths, you need to do a little bit of asana to settle your body and allow the prana to flow better.
Cleanse your nightness with pranayama, so with breathing exercise,
(20:05):
so that this also allows your mind to settle before you can really do a serious meditation session.
But they're still going very well together.
So heartfulness takes a shortcut. You can directly do meditation.
But as a doctor, don't miss the other steps.
Your body is also full of these emotions, these blockages.
(20:27):
And it's a nice tool to work with.
So if you want to get clarity, lightness, and you have a more joyous approach to life,
you need to get rid of anything that is stopping you to do that.
And those blockages, they've been here because of who we are, everything we've been through.
(20:50):
And I love that we use the body for it, we use the breath for it, we use transmission for it.
And it's a fantastic package.
And this is how it evolved into what we now offer as heartfulness yoga.
So when we talk about heartfulness yoga, we talk about asana, pranayama, so the physical practices,
the postures, the breath work, very light.
(21:12):
We do not do heavy retention, for example.
It's a very natural breathing without contraindication.
Because there are contraindications in advanced pranayama, so we do not do advanced pranayama.
And then agmeditation.
So we are very complete from day one on the night.
(21:33):
Any beginner comes, they'll have a beginner, they'll have the full potential of what yoga offers.
Because yoga offers all this, not just asana.
I resonated when you said that about being able to, with heartfulness,
being able to come straight into that meditative space.
That was one thing that I was quite amazed about in the practice, to be able to go straight there.
(21:55):
Whereas other meditations, maybe a little bit more time to really get into the practice.
But this just takes you right there.
It's a catalyst.
That's what we call the catalyst.
It just allows you to immediately go deeper.
After that, it's your journey.
So when you were saying, is it not intrusive, not at all, it's just like...
(22:16):
There was a very nice image.
If you want to climb a wall and there's a rope, okay?
You can catch the rope and go up.
Or you can catch the rope and be...
Someone is pulling the rope somehow.
This is what it is.
It's nice because it still is an inward journey.
(22:37):
But we're all interconnected and we all need support as well and guidance.
So that is the effect that you realize once you practice.
I was quite amazed that when we...
So we were bringing the practice of heartiness to hospitals because I was feeling that for my peers,
(22:59):
doctors, it would be very relevant and they needed it more than anybody else to unburden themselves from all the tension.
It's very stressful as a job, I'm sure you can imagine.
Doctors put a nice front and they actually separate themselves from their emotions.
And that's not good at all for their own health.
(23:20):
But being able to get there, once we were giving heartfulness in hospitals,
I realized that the nurse and the HOD and the surgeon and the admin person,
they were all sitting together without hierarchy at all.
(23:42):
That was for me because the hospital is pretty heavy on hierarchy.
The doctors, the boss and the nurse were two.
And then they were all sitting together and the atmosphere was completely different from the time of meditation.
Now you open the door, go back to the ward and then the second...
Yeah, the nurse.
(24:05):
That would be nice.
That would be powerful to see.
Connecting through the heart, it's connecting to the essence of the individual.
We are different, but we recognize the human being.
Without even being conscious.
I wanted to ask you about any doubts you might have had with the process and the way, the path.
(24:31):
And when you've asked questions either internally or externally to get guidance on the process when you've had doubts,
what's been the best question you've asked?
So at the beginning, when you start, you feel the benefit on a day to day.
It's very practical. That's what I like.
(24:53):
That I have benefits immediately.
And then it takes you into a deep spiritual journey.
And on the spiritual path, it's not easy.
And so there are very strong moments of doubts.
And it's really important.
I always tell people that I introduce that you will have those and it's absolutely okay.
(25:18):
It's actually showing that you grow.
It's part of the process to have some even points in chakras where you just feel like, what am I doing?
Even feeling that I was better before I started this practice.
And have the incentive to get rid of doubt.
And I would say that here, first to be aware that this happens.
(25:41):
And that you would have those posts.
And we as trainers are trained to support people at that time.
And to give space because it needs to be digested.
And also actually when you come from one state to another state,
(26:02):
you will always have that state where you wonder what you're doing here.
So to know that it's actually a sign of progress sounds, you would not know that when it happens to you.
But when the trainer sees that, then for us it's just like, wow, great.
You've come to that space where you just feel like, what am I doing here?
(26:25):
Which shows you progress.
So at that moment to give the time to give the space is very important and to be here.
And so the second thing for me that was important in this process of continuing staying on with Heartfulness was to have a community.
And when I talk about community at the beginning for me, it was like, I don't want a community.
I don't like groups.
(26:48):
I'm very individual and I don't like it.
But I found the benefit of it.
And I also like sometimes I like to be in the community.
Sometimes I like to be away and that's perfectly, you know, it's what you make it.
But to have people who would just be there.
And maybe walk the path before you and they're still here.
(27:13):
And at that moment, I would say you don't meditate because your mind would be grooding instead of meditating.
So it's really important to stop meditating and to continue to take one to one sessions with a trainer will help you to get over this period of time.
(27:35):
And was there a time of a specific thing that you had the most doubt about that you can remember?
I have had several times.
A lot of them.
And I would say that for me, what kept me on track and I was whenever it was.
Sometimes you look at people who have been meditative for a long time and you just don't like their behavior.
(28:01):
And you feel like people who are not doing happiness actually better human beings.
So that is also very important learning because we judge on the tools we have.
We don't know actually who is what does it mean good and bad.
So it's it's it's really important now.
(28:22):
I mean, with the years, I know that I don't know.
But still, there's there are some difficult moment.
You just wonder. Yeah, thank you.
I feel like we could go so much deeper into so many things.
We have to wrap it up soon.
But I wanted to know what's your current you're so you're living here in India and you have been for quite a long time.
But what's your current role now and what project are you working on?
(28:45):
So I am handling the department of Asana, Pralayama and training programs.
So the more physical part of heartfulness.
We do teacher training. We do retreats all around what we as Westerners call yoga,
knowing that meditation is very much part of yoga.
But we approach people through the body part and introduce heartfulness meditation.
(29:10):
So I have a team of 12 employees here in India, all yoga teachers.
We make programs together and it's extremely creative.
And I love this job.
It's just fascinating. And we our goal is to have more and more people realize that if you include a little practice of yoga in your life,
(29:33):
you actually can make a lot of difference at so many levels.
So I was sharing a few days ago to a group of youth who had come.
That's very often people asking, oh, you are a doctor, but now you have come down to becoming a yoga teacher.
And I really feel I've elevated my understanding of the being, the human being,
(29:57):
because the science of yoga is amazing.
And instead of being a bit too deep, like the anatomy and physiology,
we actually add the dimension of life, which is completely yogic.
So that what we call holistic, which is a big bag with too many things for my taste,
(30:20):
is actually what yoga is. It really takes care of the entire being,
of yourself, not only all your body, mind and soul, but also in your season, country, life, you know, in the universe.
So it's pretty amazing for me to have shifted from being a doctor to directing yoga programs at the Heartfulness Yoga Academy.
(30:46):
Thank you. And then just one more thing. Is there something that sticks out as the proudest moment
of something that you've brought through a program or initiative?
Well, I'm pretty much in the deep. I find that when people are, I think as a yoga teacher,
(31:08):
when you come out of a class and people, you kind of, yoga does something fantastic
that it really brings people to joy, you know, within, because joy is inside ourselves.
So I find that when people realize that and they tell you, you know, oh, I just feel so good,
(31:29):
and you can see in their eyes that joy is, that's my proudest moment.
And I think we touch many people, all the teachers here, I think, I'm very proud of that and the team.
That's so nice. Thank you.
Well, hopefully I get to come back to Kana and talk to you more about all this and go deeper. Thanks, Dolly.
(31:50):
I really hope you enjoyed this conversation with Dolly. I just wish I had more time to go in deeper into some of the topics
and areas we touched on and deeper into her story, but we were so time limited.
While I was staying at Kana, I really loved practicing Heartfulness Yoga each day that was offered freely there.
(32:12):
I found it a really accessible form of yoga that beginners to advanced could enjoy.
You can also have a look online in the Heartfulness Yoga part of the website.
And there's a free introduction to Heartfulness Yoga course, which I'll share in the episode notes.
I also found it really nice that Heartfulness has initiated what's called the Yoga for Unity program
(32:36):
in collaboration with some of the largest yoga institutions in India and the world.
And they've also got a YouTube channel, which has a lot of free classes.
While I was at Kana, there was actually a conference happening called the Rising with Kindness Youth Conference.
And yoga was a big part of the program being offered in the morning for people.
So there's thousands of people from all over India.
(32:58):
And in the morning, there were about seven different yoga schools coming together to give people a taste for different styles of yoga being offered.
And it was really nice to see this unity of the yoga schools.
After all, the definition of yoga is to join or unite. So that was really special and nice to see.
If you're interested in learning more about Heartfulness or seeing if there's an individual trainer or group session in your part of the world,
(33:25):
you can look at the Heartfulness website, which I'll link to in the episode notes.
But thank you very much for taking the time to listen.
Please feel free to rate and share the podcast with any friends who this may interest.
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