Follow the weight with your eyes throughout the movement. Alternate Yoga poses you can do in bed 4 times to each side. Keep your hips steadily aligned, knees directly in line with Yoga poses you can do in bed your hips, ankles below knees, with your weight evenly distributed between your heels and toes. This will stretch and strengthen the deep layers of your core. 42 ADVANCED Seated Front and Lateral Bicep Curls, One Leg Raised BENEFITS: Strengthens and tones the front of your upper arms while flatting your abdominal muscles. Sit on top of the ball, elbows bent even with your hips, holding a weight in each hand, and one foot lifted a few inches off the floor. Bend your elbows into a bicep curl. Lower the weights through a full range motion down to the ball.
Siddhas were originally semi-gods, which had their origin in nature such as mountains or remote fields. Here there emerged Siddha cults worshipping these awe-inspiring natural sites (White 1996). These sites were perceived as supernatural and were called siddhi’: the realised or perfected one. Over time it was believed that some of the worshippers of the Siddhas had become semi-gods themselves – a sadhaka. The sadhaka was a person who through his practice had reached a level of semi-divinity with super human powers. He was seen as a free man who was not subject to or restricted by caste rules and taboos (Davidson 2002). After death, he was seen as having gone to heaven and was celebrated like a European saint. The sadhaka maintained that he had reached a level of immortality due to his special skills and know-how. These could be alchemical skills, body techniques or sexual rituals. His cult members would strive after the same semi-divine status by using his skills.
This veneration of the tribal religious leader would spill into the Great Tradition strengthening the social position and power of the religious professionals like the gurus. The Tantric guru was no longer just a teacher, he became super human; a semi-god or siddhi. Within Saivism the guru was thought to become one with Siva when dead.
