Pregnancy and Navel

As I said in my introductory blog, the navel draws cosmic energy from the universe. This energy is directly fed to the foetus through the umbilical cord. This flow of inward energy is essential to form the baby's life force. It is also essential to form the baby's character.
For the healthy grwoth of the baby, it is very essential that the woman draws healthy navel attention from the universe. For the 9 month tenure, Naabhi-Shodha becomes all the more important. It helps in an all-round healthy development of the baby, as well as facilitates an easy labor.
Now both positive and negative energies are drawn in by the woman's navel and fed inside.
While both positive and negative qualities constitute a person, we should try our best to block as much.
The techniques mentioned here aim at 2 things - increasing Naabhi Shodha during pregnancy.
And while doing so, looking out for negative energy and blocking it.

Enhancing the life force for the baby
It is important for cosmic energy to be supplied to the baby to develop well. All principles of Naabhi-Shodha apply as usual. Attention and love and admiration from the universe is essential.
As such pregnant women are encouraged to expose their navel.
Sensual Admiration from partner:
The primary naabhi shodha comes from the husband or the partner and a set of close friends or relatives. This is where the admiration sparks a feeling of warmth or pseudo- arousal in the woman. The partners should clearly show more attention to her navel.
All navel loving practices mentioned earlier - stroking, fingering and kissing of the navel - should be followed with a sense of affection and sensualism.
Sensual Admiration from close friends and relatives:
Apart from the partner, close friends or special friends and relatives also play a role in enhancing sensual love. Most pregnant woman feel a sense of being aroused and would like friends and colleagues to sort of see and touch their bellies. I know some who have felt guilty that they allowed some male friends to touch the bare belly or the bellybutton and guilt that they actually felt nice being touched. This is normal and nothing to feel guilty about. This sort of sensual love craved around the navel and belly region is totally temporary and is only for the duration of pregnancy.
Allow friends, relatives and colleagues to see and touch your navel. Some friendships are special and very platonic. You may be OK with them kissing your navel too. Let the love flow in as long it is pure admiration and affection.
Non-sensual admiration:
Admiration also flows in from people that you dont know or just know at the level of acquaintance. The source of navel admiration can be from anywhere. Typically in ancient days women would show a small amount of navel at least till the first 4 - 5 months. This would have the effect of "heads to turn". You will find guys turning around and giving a second look towards ur exposed part of belly. There is not much affection there, but the admiration is certainly there.
You will find a lot of such naabhi-shodha flowing in when you go for shopping, visit malls, where there are a of people who look at your exposed part of belly.
Women with navel piercing can take an even more advantage of this and exploit it till about 4 -5 months, when the belly is still showing major signs of pregnancy.
In one of the case studies I took up, a woman found such attention coming from her husband's sub-ordinate. Whenever he was around, he would stare at her belly. She thought he was pervert, but we educated her about naabhi-shodha and she stopped blocking the energy.

The importance of outie:
There is a reason why the navel becomes an outie when you are pregnant. Yes, physically, the belly stretches and the navel sort of is rises up. But it doesnt stop at becoming flat - most women find it popping out immensely.The reason for this is that when a navel is an outie more surface area is of this chakra is exposed to the universe, facilitating it to draw more life, which becomes increasingly necessary for the growing baby.
Exposing an outie navel when pregnant is a whole lot more effective and having a healthy baby and a healthy labor. But for many women this may be uncomfortable depending on the type of society they live in.
So the sensual admiration part can be performed on the navel by partners or friends. Again rubbing or kissing the outie to shower love can be done.

Blocking negative energy from affecting the baby
The positive energy comes from feelings such as joy, peace, love, admiration, enthusiasm etc.
However sometimes one may experience negative energies from feelings or vibrations of depression, sadness, anger, jealousy, guilt etc. It is important to block such energies so that the baby is not fed this energy to as much extent as possible.

Detecting the negative emotions:
Generally you can easily observe someone emitting these negative emotions. You can also feel the vibes.
When you find someone who is excessively depressed or sad, you should try and stay away from them. This may be difficult in case the person happens to be someone very close like a family member or even the partner. Stay away from people who have suicidal or self destructive thoughts - you may already know some people, so you can consciously distance yourself from them.
Another negative emotion is anger. You may already know people are short tempered and yell at others. Distancing from angry people has to happen. Also if 2 or more people are having an argument, and even if you are no way involved, stay away from it. This emotion is also sometimes directed straight at you. Typically it would be someone close like the partner or the mother-in-law. Most teenage pregnant moms undergo this as they usually live with immature guys who has no reverence to the fact that the woman is nurturing a new life. I know guys who use abusive language and treat their wives or girl friends with violence and anger. Such women go ahead and give birth to babies who may grow up to be drug addicts, or criminals.
Another negative emotion is jealousy. This has a direct impact as all the negative wishful thinking is deliberately directed straight at your navel - it is not an accident.
Jealousy may come out of other women who hated you for some reason, or who are unable to conceive themselves. Jealousy could also be out of other generic reasons - you may be richer, happier, prettier, popular etc. And your navel may end up sucking in that destructive energy.
The strongest detector for all these vibes is the navel itself. You may feel a sharp pain around the navel - especially when it is an outie. At that time you can stop and observe what negative energy is floating around.

Blocking the negative energy:
As a general rule, pregnant women should be in the company of happy and content people. Laugh as much as possible - for this watch a lot of comedy, attend fun parties etc. Be among people who genuinly love you and care for you.
As I indicated earlier, in ancient days women would expose their outie navel. The moment a negative was detected they would cup their outie with their palm. This outie cupping is effective for sometime and one must distance away from the vibes soon.
Cupping is very handy when you cant immediately avoid the negative vibes. Like when you are part of the emotion - Eg: If your immature or teenage boy friend is acting violently with you.
(I keep picking the example of teenage pregnancies, as 90% of the negative vibes I have seen are seen in teen pregnancies).
Cupping can be made more effective by using an alluminium foil - the one used to wrap food.
Metal shields cosmic rays by absorbing it. the foil should NOT touch the belly. Place the foil over your clothes covering the navel and cup your hand on it.

I hope that this article helps pregnant women in being aware of the immense cosmic energy that is at their disposal and that they will selectively suck in the life-energy into their navel.
Happy pregnancy!

Fertility and Navel

As I said in my introductory blog, the navel draws cosmic energy from the universe.
More the flow of inward energy, more the fertility.
People some time refer to this energy as baby dust. Baby dust enters through the navel.

Improving Fertility
A soft and supple navel is more receptive and thus one should observe how soft one's navel is.
Soaking the navel - Lie down and fill up your navel with olive oil or coconut oil. Let it soak for 15 minutes and then wash it off. This can be done once a day. In about a week's time, you would already feel more energetic.

Revering the navel
This is the core concept of Naabhi Shodha. Loving and showing affection to the navel is showering positive cosmic energy to it. In my workshops most of the couples seemed to lack affection. They were simply "doing it". The common advice was to include the navel as a major part of the foreplay. The husband (or the male partner) should kiss it passionately.

Unblocking
Let me first define blocking. Some women grow up to feel icky about their navel. So they feel very uneasy to show their navel. They cover it up. Or they feel sick when their navel is touched. This is a mental blockage. Blockage could be conscious and visible or subconscious and subtle. Unconscious blocking is when the woman doesnt realize that she is carrying some past negative mental baggage, and the very stress from the past blocks the navel portal.
To start unblocking, one needs to take small steps in the direction of revering their navel and allowing others to rever the navel. This involves starting to display the navel to draw more attention. Attention is a form of reverence and is especially strong from men. So just let more and more men see your navel and admire it. A navel piercing helps a lot as it draws more men's attention and/or affection. Then start to enjoy the process - every time someone looks or touches your navel, try and feel immensely good in your mind. Visualize rays of baby dust entering your navel.

Stimulate the navel
The navel has a big bunch of nerve endings, which makes the navel a sensitive spot. Stimulate the navel with touch, kiss or whatever means necessary. From the ancient book of Kamasutra (the art of love), it is evident that the navel is the most important erogenous zone and has to be stimulated a lot.
Your partner can gently circled his fingers around and inside the navel. Let the navel massage persist deliberately longer. A finger or 2 can be inserted as deep in the navel as possible and stimulated.
As you begin to unblock, you will be more comfortable. You can then have your partner kiss, and lick the navel. Kamasutra has one citing where honey is poured inside the woman's navel and is licked off. We see this even in our modern days - we call it bellybutton shots, where wine or champagne is licked of the navel.
All these forms of stimulation help the navel feel immensely revered.

Tailor-made Navel Yoga
This is a combination of simple breath exercises and navel stretching exercises, specific to an individual. This requires a Naabhi Shodha teacher or expert to study the navel and then design special navel massages and "affection patterns". When the correct navel massage for that woman's navel is applied, the results are noticeably stronger.
When I help a TTC couple, I give them a tailor made program which they should execute for a while. I would monitor progress by observing the navel.

Eat right
Some food are clearly a barrier for cosmic energy and some food help the cosmic energy.
Generally juicy fruits and leafy vegetables are good for fertility.
Fat (especially unsaturated fat) is bad.
Generally, vegetarian food is not good as it blocks the navel portal.
Spicy food is bad as well.
Drink plenty of water.

Fertlizing the Egg
Once we have taken necessary measures to ensure better fertilty, we have to concentrate on the right techniques for fertlizing the egg.
Timing
Almost every one knows that sex should be had when a woman in is ovulating.
A woman typically would know the dates when she is ovulating. It is depends on the last of the her previous period and the usual length of a cycle. The ovulation days are usually 3 - 5 days.
But with an expert's study of navel (using the 4 senses), one can pin point the hour of the day when the chances are the highest. At this hour, even a low sperm count, low motility semen will also fertilize the egg.

Position:
It helps to ensure that the navel is lower than the vagina when the man ejaculates. Thus we take the benefit of gravity. If a line is drawn from the navel to the genitals, this line should be about 30 degrees inclined.

Also after the man ejculates, the woman should continue to stay in that inclination for 10 more minutes.

Sperm Conservation
An average man's sperms gets generated over a period of 3 days. So it is advisable for a man to not have had sex or even masturbated for at least 3 days and not more than 6 days.
That is when the very next ejaculation will have new healthy sperms. Also try and ejaculate prematurely. At least a 20 minute of active intercourse should precede the ejaculation.
Tip for the man: Every time you feel the pressure building up, just stop and take a few quick short breaths, stop, take a few deep breaths and then continue. By doing this you can postpone the ejaculation by upto 2 to 5 minutes.
So after the woman's uteral line is completely softened up and is not blocking, the man may let go of the semen.

State of mind (Most Important):
It is said that when enjoy the journey without getting too attached to the destination, we get there faster. Similarly try and not think of conceiving while having the intercourse. It is like trying not to think of money when you do the job. You do the job, and money is incidental.
Let your state of mind be that of pure passionate lust. For a woman this state of mind is spiritual.
When a woman is completely turned on, she enters a trance-like world and becomes one with the universe. At the point of time, she becomes the sacred supreme Goddess of creation. She will have no ego, no jealousy, no anger, no fear, no sadness. She will be in a state of PURE joy, ecstacy and peace. Divine qualities such as gratitude, forgiveness, harmony and compassion will manifest in her. At this point she is highly receptive to the seed of creation (sperm).
Stay in the present and relish the moments - do not worry about either the past or the future outcome. Use suitable music, lighting and aroma, to help the woman reach her trance.
In other words, allow the intercourse to have sufficient foreplay, so that the divinity in the woman is manisfested, before sowing the seed. Again, this is where the tip for the man comes in handy, to postpone the ejaculation.

I trust that with the generic knowledge of the above, most people will be able to conceive without any external medication or pills. Many couples I worked with were perfectly normal as far as fertility and sperm count was concerned. The only thing that blocked the energy was the mind.
And the navel is the key to unblock your mind.

Naabhi Shodha - Introduction

This blog is dedicated to the ancient science of navel reverence to keep the positive cosmic energy flowing in and to balance the elements in life.
This article is an introduction to the concept.

What is Naabhi Shodha?
Naabhi means Navel (Bellybutton). Shodha means reverence in broad strokes.
There is no direct translation to the word Shodha in this context.It also mean "discovery", "research", "exploration", "showering love", "giving attention".
So all of the following constitute Naabhi Shodha:
1) Being intensely aware of the navel and its existence in the epicentre of our body.
2) Revering and respecting the navel for its hidden powers.
3) Studying one's navel by means of 4 senses (vision, touch, smell and taste).
4) Giving deliberate attention to one's navel by means of showering love and affection to it.

What is the relevance?
Navel is the centre of human body - both spiritually and physically. More details about it being the physical center is discussed in a later article.
Spritually speaking, the navel is the portal to cosmic energy. We constantly tap in to the universe for pure potential energy - both positive and negative. The navel is where we got our life from. Most people think that it is just a scar left from the severing-off of the umbilical cord. But the navel stays for life, and it does have a deep functional value - in fact far more functional value than what we have imagined.

Functions:
- Helps maintains balance of the mind and the cosmic energy.
- Acts as an antenna to receive the cosmic energy.
- Is an indicator of the general state of body and soul.
- For women, it plays a significant role in procreation.
Naabhi Shodha is sort of more relevant to women, as it is very closely linked with fertility, pregnancy and feminity.

Fertility
As the navel is the source of "Praana" or "Life Energy", it is also the source of creation or manifestation. A woman's navel is a great indicator of her fertility and also a stimulation point to improve fertility. For instance, a deep large navel indicates high fertility generally. A navel set very high (closer to the chest) indicates that the woman's womb nourishes the foetus very well. A navel set very low (closer to the gentials) indicates that the woman's womb may be a little hostile to the foetus.

Pregnancy
As I said earlier, the navel is an antenna for cosmic energy. In ancient India, women were encouraged to wear clothes that revealed the navel. The idea was to allow the woman to tap in to as much energy as possible. When pregnant, the woman would bare it further more.
It is known that the navel generally turns into an outie for most women. While the logical explanation is just that the skin stretches, it again has a functional aspect.An outie navel means that the antenna is raised, It is now more sensitive to pick up cosmic energy. The baby is directly fed the cosmic energy or information received by the outie. In fact pregnant women were advised to flaunt their navel to the world. And if they picked up a negative vibe, like being in the company of evil people, they had to cup their outie, to save the baby from receiving negative vibes.
The outie was also revered or "tended to" by the husband so that the baby's growth is good and the baby is happy and content in there.

Summary
The navel has sort of lost its importance in the modern days. It gets into some limelight when it is pierced or deliberately exposed or when it is part of foreplay. There are many people who have a navel fetish. They are people who have somehow figured out about the portal (navel) to eternal joy and peace, but dont know how to tap it in the right way and keep it in balance.
As a kundalini yoga and meditation practioner, I hope to help people attain joy and peace through Naabhi Shodha.