#85 My awesome guest this week is Niraj Naik, an ex-pharmacist turned holistic health and breathwork expert.
Breathwork has become a big part of my practice, and I was excited to get Niraj on the show to discuss his SOMA breathwork techniques. Also known as the Renegade Pharmacist, he has been on quite a journey and had to overcome some serious health conditions. Today we dive into his journey, how he overcame his challenges and how the breath helped him along the way. Enjoy!
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About Niraj: Niraj Naik is a qualified pharmacist who comes from a background of working long hours for several years as a community pharmacist. Becoming a certified “legal drug dealer” at the ripe age of 24, he got to witness first-hand, many clients going home with shopping bags full of drugs each month, rarely getting better and usually going on to suffer from other diseases. He also learnt of the debilitating side effects of the prescription medication which drove many of the patients to have to take more and more drugs to ease the side effects.
Curious to find ways to improve his own health he attended several health seminars and discovered an in-depth approach on how to reach optimum health and vitality by understanding the true origin of disease and how to prevent it. After experiencing great benefits with his own health, Niraj was motivated to devise a scheme to see if he could also help his suffering patients. He incorporate a lifestyle plan called his “healthy shopping lists’ that includes simple food swaps, tools and websites to support their specific condition.
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TRANSCRIPT
Guy: Hi, I’m Guy Lawrence and you are listening to the Guy Lawrence podcast. If you’re enjoying this content and you want to find out more and join me and come further down the rabbit hole, make sure you head back to the guylawrence.com.au. Awesome guys. Enjoy the show.
Guy: Niraj, welcome to the podcast.
Niraj: A pleasure to be here.
Guy: I ask everyone on the show if a complete stranger stops you on the street and I see what you did for a living, what would you say?
Niraj: That’s a very, very cool question. Um, well it depends on who you know. Um, maybe stop soon in the street cause there’s many different ways you could describe what, what I do. But I would say now through the evolution of where I’m at, um, I help people to really find out what it is that their inner calling is that they’ve been too scared to go after, that they’re passion in life, um, kind of has meaning behind. I help people discover that meaning again for what it is I really want to do in that life and give them the tools and the alignment and the container to be able to, to go after it. Um, that’s that in a nutshell as a result of what I do. But, uh but we also have a very powerful community and online school we have over 108 instructors on the around the world all around this breathing technique. That really is what delivers that result. So, um, yeah. So that, that’s kind of in a nutshell.
Guy: Yeah, that’s awesome. And I’m trying to connect, I think for a lot of people, breathing and finding and having the courage to follow your core purpose, like that can feel
Niraj: Strange. Right?
Guy: Totally. Totally. You know, so, so And how did you make that connection in the first place?
Niraj: Okay, that’s a good question. So I little bit about my story then. So, I actually, um, was a community pharmacist in the UK and embark, share, sorry, where I used to live here, you know, all these different places I used to work in the community and it was the most solid destroying thing I ever did. Uh, but it also gave me a great perspective on, you know, the kind of normal way of life and of the status quo in England and working in the community, meeting with different types of people from different light levels of income and, and background and education and noticing that there’s so much, um, misinformation and confusion about what it means to be healthy. And, uh, I had also help, the healthcare professional, I realized is just not serving people at all. And it’s been extremely biased towards he use of prescription medication as treatments, which has just been numbing people down for, you know decades.
Niraj: So I, um, just became more and more disillusion and that kind of, uh, disillusion and depression I went into. I really wanted to obviously do something about it. I had no idea what. And a friend of mine told me kicking and screaming into a what this event. And, and that was actually a huge, I mean I was very skeptical though, but it happened to be like a huge turning point. The first time I heard anyone ever talk about how diet and nutrition and breath and all these things relate to your health in a very, very, very concise and well-structured way. So I was like, well, if this is true, then I should be able to use this information in the pharmacy and even myself to get people off medications because I just couldn’t understand the system where, uh, it was we’re trying to get people onto drugs, um, which are causing side effects and definitely don’t fix anything. And um, I was like, well why or why is that the case? So, I put it onto me to get people off the drugs cause I thought that would be a and onto more like actual good lifestyles to the health and I decided to write the struggling lists and had amazing results with these healthy shoppinglists of changing people’s diets around. It’s their lives around to the diets and, um, they’ve got me promoted eventually. Uh, I got me into a little bit of trouble in the beginning, but it got me promoted to the head office of, of uh, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK. And I was coming up with this healthy shopping service for them, um, which after about six months got shelves, uh, for various reasons and you know, who knows the ups and the truth, but you know, it was a controversial project telling people not to drink. Coca Cola wouldn’t eat, um, ready meals and things like that all day long.
Niraj: And um, I was like, well why or why is that the case? So I put it onto me to get people off the drugs cause I thought that would be a better and onto more like actual good lifestyles to the health and I decided to write the struggling lists and had amazing results with these healthy shoppinglists of changing people’s diets around. It’s their lives around to the diets and, um, they’ve got me promoted eventually. Uh, I got me into a little bit of trouble in the beginning, but it got me promoted to the head office of, of uh, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK. And I was coming up with this healthy shopping service for them, um, hich after about six months got shelves, uh, for various reasons and you know, who knows the ups and the truth, but you know, it was a controversial project telling people not to drink. Coca Cola wouldn’t eat, um, ready meals and things like that all day long.
Niraj: And Anyway, they bought me then like I buy even more the solution as I thought I was trying to help few money here. And, And I actually thought I was really healthy actually at this point. I thought I’d gone on, I remember at this point I’d got on this very, very vegetarian that considered like what was considered health super healthy back then. Um, you know, this kind of, uh, Vegan, vegetarian, uh, war foodie sort of diet, um, uh, lots of salads and things. And actually I remember at the time thing in, actually this isn’t really working for me, uh, even though it seems to be this acid alkaline balance thing was an, it was the whole rage at the time in 2011 and I actually got here, like with this corner killing is the left me housebound for a year called all sorts of gliders where I was literally shocked, shamed blood poisons times a day, a really nasty 2 condition.
Niraj: And I was just ready to give up hope. I was like, well, it’s going on. So I tried it at this time or every single diet like, you know, that was considered healthy at the time. Um, nothing was helping me. It was making it worse. Uh, and the doctors even told me that stress by at all these things have no impact on flyers and just to shut up and stuff and, and keep taking the drugs. So I was, I was about to get my colon removed or I was going to be, um, uh, well actually, uh, on a pill that had never, ever been tested for it as a Guinea pig. So I was like desperate. And they say that God stance would gift the desperation. And initially at that time came to the rescue of a very dear friend of our family, now saw me on commando.
Niraj: He taught me the foundations of [inaudible] and yoga with the aim to get me back to normal. And she said, you can kill yourself, you’ll be a great role model. And she was completely right. It was like a prophecy that became true. And I’m in a few months actually heal myself. And this is when I really understood what it means to be healthy because, um, you know, every day when I was like starting to get sick, I was, I was waking up, like regretting my decision to go and work for this company and getting to work was a chore and I felt Super Scared as well about going back to my even worse job as a pharmacist. And they say, and I vetted that, that your disease is a spiritual disturbance and what a spiritual mean. Uh, it’s really, it’s energy, Spirit, Prada, energy, breath. They want the same meaning.
Niraj: And actually spiritual comes in the word Latin word, word for the, um, reword for the, uh, term to breathe. So spirit means breath, spirituality means to breathe. And this was really interesting because in Pranayama and even I bet they talk about as a prescription, they also get prescriptions for your lifestyle based on your energy types. That is certain breathing patterns that invoke different states in the body and quickly changed the physiological state. And I saw him, he at taught me this one breathing technique, um, which it, it brings you back into balance and when you bring your energy back into balance, you change the physiology in your body when you change the physiology and the body. Okay. Cause that’s the instant way to change your physiology is through your breath, right? You actually can create a balance between your sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system, which means you can control your emotions and your emotions really is just energy and motion.
Niraj: So through breathing techniques you can actually create like a homeostasis through that state that you can go into kind of emerge like your real truth. You know, because if you’re good, imagine most of us are going through life with a big garden, a big a masculine based on all the conditionings that’s happened over the years and you know, setbacks or things that happen in childhood, the first seven years of super conditioning to be who you are and you’ll have, it’s an incidence. And uh, so quite often we’re very switched on, uh, sympathetically and looking out for danger and that can actually make us closed office people. It can make us really closed off to connecting, to, um, exploring to doing things outside of the box. And it can keep people confined into a structured kind of ordered way of life, which is very robotic and not necessarily who they are, which was who I had become.
Niraj: And soon as I started to get into this breeding practices, as I started to wake up to who I really am and start to actually, um, take the blinkers off, you know, changed the frequency, those unions and you know, obviously it’s a form of meditation as well. So reading practices, parenting, Yammer and meditation are hand in hand. And, and that was it. That was the, that was for me the fastest way to, um, to get back in meditation and really practice to get back into who I really am. I can then have the gravery encouraged to go after what I wanted.
Niraj: And that’s the staff. Right. And it’s was getting to know that myself. I can, I can certainly relate to that journey of yours. Um, yeah. Question for you then that triggered because you, you spoke about the breath, you know, um, connecting to our purpose and you also mentioned that the breaths like connection to spirituality to primer, to source energy, whatever you want to call it. Do you think that’s a crucial component if we are to live in alignment of who we really are and allow the essence of us to flow through us and on her own purpose, whatever that might look like, you think without that spiritual connection component that you speak of and I can relate, certainly relate to it too. Without that it becomes very difficult.
Niraj: Yeah. So the breath can, um, be unconscious. I operate unconsciously but also consciously says the one thing that we have conscious control over but also have worked on all say pilot. Now the autopilot part is run by the reptilian or the most primitive part of the brain. The brainstem and the brain stem issue that Walla cares about is your survival, right? That’s all your subconscious mind is trying to do is to get you to survive. All right at all costs. So in this crazy world that required, um, this part of the brain is always on high alert. And if you [inaudible] you’re not conscious of how you’re breathing, you’re going to breathe like somebody who’s scared, right? You’re going to breathe by somebody who’s anxious or who’s, um, under stress. And if that carries on all day long, that changes your whole physiology towards a stressed out person.
Niraj: And that chronic stress has a filler school problem with the body. It paralyzes you, is, slows you down, it puts you in highlight. It might make you instinctively say things that you wouldn’t normally say and react to or get into fights and arguments and conflicts. Now conscious, we can consciously control this, but we don’t do it because we’re not taught how to do it from a young age. And we’re not given any kind of manual and breathing and more conscious breathing meats. When you consciously control your breath, even just for a few minutes a day in create balance back in the body and you can switch off the reptilian brain and become more open. And there’s this really good book, the surrender experiment by Michael Singer who I recommend everyone reads and he’s, he became like a billionaire just by becoming more consciously aware of, you know, things that were affecting his progress in life.
Niraj: And he just became much more open as a person, open to opportunity and not closing down and not trying to control everything. And I end up somebody who’s very sympathetic dominant. They tend to, um, poured things, they tend to be protective, possessive, greedy. They tend to be jealous, they get angry easily. They get, they want to control everything. And these are the extreme levels, right? And then there’s other people who are a lot more open, adventurous, curious, and they tend to attract positive things into their life a lot more by being more saying, we’re open and you can actually change that state. You can actually do that just through controlling the breath just by becoming relaxed instantly through the change, conscious change with your breath. These are the practices I learned and these rhythms like breathing in extend your exhalation like your exhalation is what controls your Vegas, so when you breathe out longer than you believe in, okay.
Niraj: If you can breathe, if you can do a rhythm of that, like where I tend to date as two four rhythm or four eight rhythm, you breathe in four out for eight there is a rhythm. You quickly within a minute, switch off the similar nervous system and by doing this and using various techniques over time of really going even on you actually will become much more of a balanced person where you aren’t lazy. You’re not like apathetic or lazy or really super parasympathetic where you don’t do anything and you’re not like super aggressive and sympathetic. You become more balanced. And I think the natural way to be the more zen Jenaie way to be is to be in control of that, those two sides of your autonomic nervous system and be more in balance and flow.
Niraj: Yeah. Beautiful. Would you, would you recommend people to start with that bread breath in for two out for four without that, that extra exhale. We actually have made a,
Niraj: a routine that you can do every day that just gets you into that state. And um, it’s based on Pranayama technique of rhythmic breathing with breath retention. Okay. So this is actually a system of getting a, that somehow the yogis figured out a thousand years ago of getting oxygen into the cells, um, in the, in the most efficient way. All right? So when you breathe in, breathe in oxygen. When you breathe out, you breathe out carbon dioxide. Okay? So we know that basic kind of respiratory system and what happens is, um, when you breathe in fast, okay? Like, so somebody is stressed, they tend to breathe in more oxygen and breathe out more carbon dioxide than normal. Well that does, as it starts to change the Ph slightly and over time, it can lead something called with spiritual alkalosis at which is associated with panic attacks. Okay? And you get contraction.
Niraj: Oxygen actually causes vasoconstriction, not dilation. Carbon dioxide causes dilation expansion, nitric oxide. Okay. Lowers a blood pressure. All right? So what happens is when people are very stressed, very, um, uh, talk on it a lot as well, all day long talking, talking, talking, talking, like I’m talking my, now you get lightheaded after awhile of talking a lot. But the reason is, is because you breathe out all the carbon dioxide and you, you is it very easy to become saturated with oxygen, oxygen’s very abundant, right? And, but when you’re talking a lot, you’re breathing out very quickly. You tend to breathe out carbon dioxide. And if you’re, um, stressed, you actually, uh, trigger the same response in the body as if you’re preparing for battle, fight or flight. This one. So you start to breathe more because you’re, you think that you need more to burn more energy.
Niraj: So, which is all this is all in the unconscious. Well, it’s not consciously, you know, that you don’t, you’re not going to find something. But emotionally you may be that the way, and it’s a kind of translate in the body is a, as they are about to prepare for fight, but actually it may be that there’s a boss that’s been bullying you or putting deadlines that are on reasonable or you may have just forgotten to do something and you’re going against all this future stress. And then there’s the negative stress or to guilt and shame from the past. And who’s was that? That holds people back into the state of stress. So, um, so with this rhythmic breathing, um, you know, you, you can consciously control it in your favor. So if you leave it on his own, you could be breathing and erratic rate as fast that actually breathe out carbon dioxide.
Niraj: And it’s causes incoherent heart rhythms. Cause your rhythm of breath is also related to your, the rhythm of your heart. So when you breathe in a perfect with them, you actually create a stable coherence where you, cause when you breathe in, you stimulates sympathetic and you breathe out, you stimulate parasympathetic. So he breathe in a perfect rhythm. You actually create a harmony between your heart and your brain. And every function in your body is actually subservient to the rhythm of the breath. So, or they are, that’s your circadian rhythm and frayed him with an Autralian rhythm. It deals with all of these rhythms at bio rhythms in your body. That is your, your, your how your you exist, they rule function. They, they always function who dependent on the rhythm of your breath. So when your rhythm of breath goes erotic, it causes irregular in all the other functions, even down to sleep.
Niraj: So the yoga is knew that by rhythmic conscious, with me breathing, we can actually harmonize the nervous system. So the way I do, I’ve created this special technique is you do rhythmic breathing at slightly faster rate than normal. What that does is it breeds out a little bit extra of the carbon dioxide and you [inaudible] breathe more oxygen. But you don’t do this for extremely long periods of time. You just do it for five minutes. What that does is it fully saturates your stream of oxygen. So if you have a pulse oximeter, your oxygen levels will go to 98 to 100. Okay. Um, but that what that also does cause you breathe out carbon dioxide is it allows you to then hold your breath for longer than you normally can. And this is where the magic happens. So when you hold your breath for longer than comfort zone eastern, you actually, you raise harmed oxide up.
Niraj: So the carbon dioxide raises up the cells, okay? And through the bore effect effect with the bore effects, the red blood cells come off as the oxygen comes off the hemoglobin, the red blood cells and subsets shoot into the tissues. Whether it’s the oxygen’s need is it comes like a pump. I’m sending oxygen’s additions, okay. And then that cognitive. So what it also does is if you get good at this, we have to start holding your breath for fairly long periods of time. When you usually hold your breath for all than a minute 30 with no air in the lungs. On Your exhale, you create this positive stress response in the body and your places adaptive response to having less than normal oxygen. You go into a stapled intimate hypoxia and that creates this adaptiveness. When you get better vascularization, nitric oxide comes out, increases blood flow, vascularization, you crate better blood phone, your heart and the brain. Um, everything optimizers. Um, it’s an amazing benefits you can get. It’s like going into a sword for 20 minutes or going into like the ice, like no, like a friend of mine hops into, um, that through the breadth that positive stressors most in the breath, you can all say invoke really powerful changes. And so we, our techniques as it is like, uh,
Niraj: it’s different rhythms like two, four or four, eight rhythms in a sequence with breath retentions in between. And what this does is in the morning it really kind of resets and re harmonizes the body and brings you into this like flow state right from the start that that is also really good technique to prepay. If you do yoga, if you are a yoga or anything like that or even work out exercise gets you in really good state for exercise as well. And then we have other rhythms that get your help. You go to sleep. So through the rhythms of breath and the length of breath, breathing out, breathing in, you can actually change your physiology and work on using your gnosis. And this is our way of controlling also analysis, which we’ve been told that we can’t control without drugs or surgery and things like that. Actually Yoga is a thousand years in using power of the breath. Controllables emphasis. Yeah,
Guy: that’s a great explanation. I love it. And I can still really, cause like I was saying earlier, I spent a week with a Wim Hoff exploring different breathing techniques and ideas. Caught a number of years back and we actually have a regular, um, ice bath community now where we ice bath once a week and we have a breathing practices or, and, and uh, it’s, it’s made a huge fundamental difference over the years. It’s really hard to explain until you start to embody it, you know, as it definitely brings a, a level of clarity into who we really are if we’re willing to start the goal there and do the work. But it does take effort, you know, it’s like anything, um, this why is consistent like routine. Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. So I’m interested as well this because you’re, you, you’re certainly creating a movement with Soma and some are breath and there was an element for you where you would have had to have made a conscious decision as you started to explore this work, recover from your health and actually start to go down to this pass for you. Yeah, it’s a big deal. And I, and I only say it because I’ve done the same myself and from the outside looking in, it’s very easy to assume, oh, you know, there he is. He’s just doing that. This is great. I’m going to get on board. Um, what was the defining point for you, where you knew you were gonna do that and was it like a realization or come to you, or was this, was there an exploration of the work that just kind of unfolded? How did they happen? Cause I think,
Niraj: well with the Soma in specific, yeah. So actually on was the, um, I was always in that little bit of disbelief whether the breathing had anything to do with my recovery from colitis. Um, and then what, so what happened was it seemed too simple, right? That, that, that, that had an impact, um, in the beginning. And so what happened was, um, so I started to buy every night, um, well every day. Actually this point when I was craving my first business. So I wasn’t really into music. Music was my big passion. And I started to realize, um, I could make really good meditation music and I could combine it with like breathing techniques to relax and go to sleep and things like that. And that paternity for quite a thriving online business. And started making music for therapists. This was like in 2012, 2013 and I started to quite a automated business around my passion and I started traveling around the world and, but I was never really sure if it was the breathing techniques that were doing anything that dramatic.
Niraj: Right. And, um, it was when I started to go, um, to explore and stop being in like Yogis and, and people who are really into Pranayama and stuff and also people are went home after I started to realize actually there’s breathing techniques I’ve been doing is probably the most impactful thing, you know, sign. And then I really learned the science. Um, I went to Rishikesh and I spent some time with a doctor there who is trained in this, um, very ancient Himalayan formula yoga and [inaudible] and he uses it to heal patients in his clinics. Um, that’s when I got the real like conclusive proof that this is, this breathing stuff really is magic. And, um, you know, I spent a lot of time with women. Women became a good friend of mine and we did a lot of music together. I made the music to the Wim Hof method and all that.
Niraj: And, but he’s, his focus is really more on this kind of power energy, kind of like, you know, breath that really creates a lot fire in a fire as why as coming this morning in a fight. Um, but what I was doing plenty on my level is more that balancing and bringing people into like the heating states. So I wanted to make something that everyone could use that would be like more very therapeutic. And that’s why when you’re really deep into Pranayama to Lugs, I realized it’s not one size fits all. Like there’s different rhythms of breathing for different people, different as a pharmacist. That was my insights and what happened was then I actually, because I love dance music, I love music. I love actually like the celebration of life going to a rave and everyone dancing together and, and having a good time. And, um, what happen was I, on the way I discovered like this rebar thing and holotropic and the states people were getting into just with the breath.
Niraj: And, um, so I actually, when I started, I started to study like different types of comebacker techniques. So the, uh, Kavalla come Baca, which is where you go to this breakfast state, um, and it requires you to go into it, do a lot of, it’s very much a holotropic breathing way. At the end of the day you’ve done it for like interbreed or so. Um, and then rebirthing is similar. I very similar. And then the Wim Hof stuff’s got, um, the breadth retentions in there and all that, which is called comebacker and Connie up. And so I was like, I started to like make music to be the soundtrack the wild soul was missing and all of these things was, there was no guiding music. And then I realized actually something really profound. I was like, actually, music has a beat to it. And the ancient, if you look at the ancient African tribal people, the ancient wish Indians, you still still in the villages.
Niraj: So they, this is their abuse music with ribbon to guide people into trance states to info translates with Lala chanting, mantras and breathing at the same time. And so I started to make this really powerful music that’s like very like kind of transcendental music that takes you on a journey, but it has beats to it. And so when I was living in Copenhagen in Thailand and just with a few friends, I started to test it out like this Brea breathing beats I could breathe in and basis rhythmic breathing to be with combined with breath retention techniques and using some tantric techniques of moving energy using like the root lock, the sexual energy locks and aside to my friends on the beach and people would just go nuts that, that like four people in the beach turn into like 20 people. They, I guess you do that, which turned into 200 people.
Niraj: Um, uh, it’s like Tantra festivals, which turned into like people coming off from like Russell Howard from UK came into the TV show and he experienced the whole thing. And it started to turn into this thing where I was like getting invited to places to do these things to the sessions. And like I got involved with mind valley, the blocks off of them, they’re events. And, and then I realized actually like I’ve got something here cause everyone kept asking me, um, how can we s can you certify me in this method? And what I realized was why I’ve done is I’ve, I’ve, I’ve almost recycled or broad modernized, a very, very, a very ancient practice of comebacker with rhythmic breathing, which is where the legend of sober kind of leads to and the legend of sober in the brick Veda, which is the text that is the origin story of, um, all of these modern religions from Tantra to yoga, Buddhism, you know, everything comes from this strange story because it’s one of the oldest religious texts is the raid later.
Niraj: And in that I talk about this circular plant concoction with stover that the wishes would use to invoke the gods that speak to the divine sounds a lot like io Asheville or San Pedro or you know, Margery machines or it’s probably a catchall name for such a manic kind of plants. And, um, what happened was during this time, everyone was obsessing and hooked on the Soma for their happiness and bliss. And then at one point the Soma starts to run out. So they start to freak out because they’re so dependent on Soma for their happiness. And that’s when God, Indra is the most addictive we vote says we’ve got to go in with to discover how to quite the same move within and are within is a DMT mode, the spirit molecule or the thing that is when you release in abundance you has trans and then until spiritual awakening, like if you do a big dose of shoes or something like that.
Niraj: So, um, they, um, so that’s, that’s literally how they discovered Tantra, which is the foundation of like yoga, meditation, Pranayama. I vet all of these things like originally from these practices of energy moving through the body with Tantra, the original kind of methods of moving Asian antibiotic. And, and that was what I realized was actually through the breath. We can actually, um, crate any of the drugs that we need. Uh, you know, we already produce everything we need already. They exist in nature. You already need, we already do it. We just, we just don’t know how to use it. And that’s when people started to become less dependent on, um, external things. And nowadays, due to the modern world, we’re so dependent on the external physical world for our happiness and the somos as like a metaphor. So this practice that they created was like their way of having these psychedelic experiences, um, and getting in to incredible states of bliss.
Niraj: You’ve ecstasy through just the power of music with the breathing and breath retentions and you know, like certain energy lots and things. And that became that if you look at the histories of Soma tribes and coats and moved around the lines, they emergence of the original kind of breathwork work as well, which then turned into kind of religion eventually over time. So, so literally I realized that what I’ve done is I’ve just revived something that’s thousands of years old, which was also a very powerful way of getting people to come together. And actually there were spiritual. The same means to breathe. Well, conspire actually means to put this together. Conspire inspires a breathe in right x by me as a breathe out [inaudible] together. In the end, the conspiracy was actually word related to people getting together and having a shared interest and creating a bond with each other to breathing. So conspiracy back in the day was actually a good thing. And then it got changed into a bad thing when a Christian start to, um, label ever as heretics and anyone who was doing anything weird and tantric was, uh, considered to be conspiring against them. And so that’s where the about the word negative connotation because we’re, so, my big conspiracy right now is I’m getting this community of people breeding together, celebrating life together and praying community together. And that’s one of the things we’ve really, really, um, manifested, uh, through Soma.
Guy: Yeah. Well you’re clearly doing a good job of it. It’s quite incredible. Yeah. Some question for you. Those, those experiences, those heightened experiences through having something like that where you talk about Soma or even the dimethyltryptamine release like the, they can be quite profound experiences. And how do you find people are responding to it when they’re coming to these events and having something like that and then going back and like, do you think we should all be experienced in that or do you think it’s a choice? Like what have you, what’s your experience taught you over the years with this?
Guy: That’s a, that’s a very good question. I think you get cool to it. We don’t push it on anyone. People get attracted to it. So it’s just like with any kind of traumatic mom medicine, like you shouldn’t, as a [inaudible], it should not be going around pushing and encouraging people to do it and forcing upon people. It’s the idea is that the plan calls you to it and the spirit I believe also calls you to it when you need it. And I’m so, I never push it on anyone. We use, you know, the laws of attraction to bring people into the community. And, um, I think, I think like it’s a great alternative. The idea is it’s a great alternative to, um, taking substances that may be very extreme, the traumatizing for certain people because there’s no control over the experience with breathing practices. You just can switch it off vertically and you don’t have to ensure a four hour long journey without your control.
Guy: Um, you know, it’s just something you can just switch off like very quickly. So we’ve never had any, and the way I do with some of the way it worked is much more blissful. I’ve never had any, um, uh, unreal anything traumatic or negative happening. Whereas I’ve seen with certain other breathing practices like holotropic, which are much more extreme. Um, there are people get tools eyes by it, especially if they don’t have good instructors. You give people the right warnings of what to expect. You need to have good facilities. That’s why we have a really good training, you know, in short to train [inaudible] and, yeah, and it’s, there’s different stages, so we never recommend people go straight into these advance on a psychedelic states. You build up to it.
Niraj: Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah, I’ve experienced both plant based medicine and different breathing techniques that take you there. And like you say, there’s definitely a much more element of it feels safer and more controlled around eight, which, which is really important because then you can lean in and surrender to it more, you know, as opposed to start fighting it.
Niraj: Yeah, totally. So,
Guy: yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Um, I’ve got a, I got questions I ask everyone on the show and it’s fascinating. You might’ve answered this already, I don’t know, but what’s been a low point in your life that has later turned out to be a blessing?
Niraj: Yeah, I think, um, I’ve had several, uh, but the most key turning point was definitely when I was told like I was going to have my [inaudible] moved, you know, that was like at 30 years old or whatever. I was, uh, to have my colon removed. I mean, that was intense. Yeah. Yep. So, yeah. How do you, how do you take news like that and really turn it around? Um, pray. No, I just, um,
Niraj: I just, I have no explanation of exactly what happened because it was, it was almost like there was a, it was a weird time. I was even getting my crazy lightning flashes in my eyes. Something weird happens to me, like that point. I imagine you’ve lost like three stone in weight. So it, you know, that’s like going, I was like 40 kgs in weight, so skinny and sick. I was on the verge of like just death, you know, I was on my death bed. I would say like if I lost any more weight and blood, I might’ve died. So, um, uh, it’s weird like it was like when my Swami gave me that, that ray of hope that there is, there is a way out other than what the doctors told me. Like it was like, hey, everything went into a line and when she told me like, the, you have a gift, you know, this is not a black, this is not curse as a gift.
Niraj: Cause I for a while, like my, um, my kind of perception of the world was like, we are screwed. This planet is game over for this fight. Like I know, I mean, you could still argue the hell I was right. I then um, judging by the way things that kind of been manifesting, um, which isn’t always, which isn’t true. There’s a lot of hype, uh, which I realized as well. Um, I, you know, I just felt like I had to do something with this opportunity cause it was like I now saw everything as a game. I was like, if I can fix myself and I’ll do everything I can and I will. The other thing that gave me hope was realizing that actually you can make money and have it, you don’t need to have a job location in your pen. When I recognize actually actually the, I can do it a business online around my passion, which is music.
Niraj: That was the biggest I do. I, I, I’m surprised people still don’t even try and make a second income like online even just pay off the mortgage the same because we have so much opportunity right now. Like nobody should be stressing about a job that they don’t want to do. There’s so much opportunity to move and change the so many exciting things going on. And back then for me, the most exciting thing was this internet, this thing about an internet. Yeah. 2011 was like, Whoa, I can actually reach people without being, you know, I’m in this little cubicle in the pharmacy. Yeah. That was the biggest motivator of all. Yeah, I made you, it was a system. I just need this to do these things. It gives you more clarity when you realize that somebody else else’s walk the park and if you just follow what they’ve done, if you model the success, you’re most likely to get the same or better results and that that’s, that’s what these are the little turning points that give people hope and get them out of their shift situations.
Guy: totally. I couldn’t agree more with that. I mean look at us today, right? We’re talking on the Internet and this was done by thousands of people over time and, and it has impact, you know, massive. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. What, um, what does your morning routine look like?
Niraj: Um, it depends on traveling. A lot is a, so, um, it camp sometimes gets broken. A typical one is we would do, uh, in the morning it starts off, it’s an hour. It’s like about an hour routine, uh, which is first, firstly in the morning. I, I hydrate. So lots of water in the morning, hydrate and stuff. And uh, the second step is, uh, we go in and we do, um, a bit of special ecstatic dancing to dance music like with which shakes up both sides of the hemispheres of the brain, activates both sides. And that prepares you with Chauncey. Would you like a few minutes of both challenging uhmm in a specific way. And then, uh, we go into the breathwork routine and show us talking about which then prepares us with the Soma Yoga and then we’ll do this special type of yoga way. It’s more like a meditation. Um, and that kind of gets you go and I’ll do a few strengthening exercises as well. Cardio, holding breath and then push ups. Um, there is some anaerobic kind of exercise in the morning as well. So maybe a couple of laps holding your breath on the water, stuff like that. But yeah, that’s, and then I’ll eat then I usually offer that
Guy: sounds like a good start to the day, that’s for sure. Yeah. Yes. You’re into that same totally. Yeah. Um, last question. If you could have dinner with anyone tonight from anywhere in the world, in any time frame, who do you think it would be and why?
Niraj: Ah, any, any time in history.
Niraj: Then you would have to be like,
Niraj: hmm…
Niraj: Alright. And one on one with Shiva, Shiva himself or Brahma. What are the one of the, these I think all three of them. If it’s possible. All of the profits. I’d love to know. They’re real good. Whether they first see whether they really existed or, um, a true is or if, uh, well they really are like, are they really just, just normal, average, everyday people to people like on a pedestal and made out to be like these perfect children specimens over, they’re just normal, average people who also had the same things I’ve ever really believed that [inaudible] we will have gifts. And, and everyone is perfectly imperfect. And I would love to list to see that perfectly imperfect, um, profit from the past.
Guy: Mate, any last words for the people to ponder on of everything we covered today?
Niraj: Um, I’ve, I like, I always love to leave people with, um, one question to ask every single time you wake up in the morning. And that is, um, if you can answer this, uh, in the right way with conviction, then you’re going to be healthy. And that is you wake up every day, like feeling like you have to do something to survive, like say your job to pay the bills or to be in this relationship to keep your parents happy or whatever. That having to, um, is what leads to chronic stress. But if you wake up with absolute enthusiasm to do a hard day’s work, whatever it is to be, you know, the best partner you can possibly be, that enthusiasm will lead to health and happiness and what we’re trying to do so much as to give people that answer the right answer for them. Um, and the other thing is just the real definition of, of wellness, which is weakness. The first two layers of wellness’s wheat, first letter of illnesses. I, so the more I send you people are more individual people are the more disconnected from community people are, the more likely adults get sick. It’s very noticeable. I’ve seen it Tom and Tom again as a pharmacist. So the wieners bringing the weakness by the wellness is a big like the mission of Simon.
Niraj: Yeah, certainly uh, I would say the best is a resource of breathwork at the moment cause I’m completely bias. It’s so breath.com so, so m a breath, B r e a t h.com. Um, you can also go forward slash a awaken and download. Like you can get some free music into tracks to start practicing with and some tutorials and sign up for our Webinar as well, which goes, it teaches you how to raise your heart rate, lower your heart rate using power of your breath and tap into and on the system. Go into heating states, tend to energy states, pray fire within, you know, cool your body down. We’ll do that stuff free we have in this webinar. Um, and you get to really learn like what an experience, the Soma breathing technique, awakening up with it, which actually as a, an amazing effective as I said, like waking you up in the morning in the right way. Um, harmonizing the physiology, but also every time with practice it actually can enhance the function of your brain and create, uh, through power of director, new agenesis strength and areas of the brain you want to grow. So if you want to claim more compassion, self esteem, self confidence, uh, even talents and skills you can do so through, through the right intention. And this is what Sofa is all about. It’s like praying Roy intention in your life for your life. Why purpose and by action.
Guy: Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing your wisdom. I’ve no doubt that conversation will go down very well with a lot of the guys listening to this or, um, I appreciate all that you’re doing and putting out to the world and thanks for coming on.
Niraj: Thank you so much and vice versa. Appreciated with the unit.
Guy: Your welcome.
Niraj: Thanks brother.
Guy: Thank you.
Niraj: Peace.