By Mario Rockstroh When I started practicing Yoga 10 years ago, the first and obvious aspect was asana or physical posture. My attraction to Yoga grew as I was willing to experiment with the various permutations over time. So many aspects of the practice have not only changed my life but also my character and perspective. Before beginning my journey into this new paradigm, I viewed the world in a mostly cynical way, always keeping people at a safe distance. I believed my mind, spirit and body were separate and only realized much later that I had never been fully in body, never really embodied so to speak. I was ignorant of any possible method of integrating the somatic with the cognitive. At first, I enjoyed the small feelings of relaxation and ease I was left with after practices. In a relatively short time, strength and flexibility grew as well. Practicing several times a week, within a year I integrated Yogic breathing techniques, meditation and philosophy into my life. I felt more at ease with myself and began a shift towards other people and the world around me. That was actually the first step onto a mighty 10 year journey of opening deeper aspects of my being, my body, and layers of stored emotional pain, tension and disease.
By Erin Schifferli To Understand To hear with your heart not your ears. To feel with your heart not your hands. To see with your heart not your eyes. To speak with your heart not your mouth. To think with your heart not your mind. To be one with all in the heart. ~ Running Elk Woman The View, by Christopher D. Wallis, is an offering rich in insights about the true nature of reality according to the non-dual teachings of Saiva Tantra (NST). It states that, “All that exists throughout all time and beyond is one infinite divine Consciousness, free and blissful…” The View encourages us to embark on an inward spiral, one that involves a deeper look into our origins and essence: the what, why, and how of life itself.
By: David Sonshine I’m often struck by similarities between the Yogic world and the scientific world: the rules of one often apply to the rules of the other.
Take duality, for instance. Yogic texts describe the material world as dualistic, which few will deny. Our world manifests itself as a variety of spectrums with two extremes: light and dark, good and evil, delicious and disgusting, calm and anxious, fast and slow. We live within these contexts and often suffer from them. Our senses lead us to develop aversions or desires for one dualistic extreme or the other, which can often lead to destructive and painful thoughts or emotions. For example, the stress we feel at work can arise from a desire for material wealth and comfort. Or, the impatience we feel when in traffic can arise from an aversion to wasting time. Anger, which often boils up when we’ve been hurt, can arise from the desire to be accepted by everyone. Whether the spectrum is material, social, or temporal, we are often driven by one extreme or the other if we’re not conscious of it. In either case, these desires and fears can drive us to extreme circumstances and feelings, which can derail our flow and shatter our contentment. By: Nick Meador In the three-week Tantric Way Series with Gaia Ma I took the biggest leap forward in my path of empowerment and liberation that I had experienced in any self-development workshop or seminar.
I met Gaia at Cosmic Convergence Festival 2015 at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, during her shorter Tantric Way workshop. The experience impressed me so much that I signed up for her OSHO Facilitation Training in San Marcos the following week. What struck me most was her willingness to be flexible and adjust based on the needs of the participant and what would allow them to find the most release and growth. After also spending time at InanItah, the spiritual eco-center Gaia co-founded in Nicaragua, I decided to join the whole Tantric Way series in April 2016. I’ve worked with various therapeutic systems based on the idea that what happens in the mind is also happening in the body (and vice versa), but none quite like this. |
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