Yoga teacher training in India - week 5






It is already the second last week in Rishikesh. It started to set in that we will not be here forever and I found myself feeling more present in my experience this week. We began to teach each other and had some awesome workshop themes, including Tantra, Thai Yoga massage, Chinese Medicine and foot massage, Creating healthy lifestyles and essential oils, Ayurveda, Prenatal Yoga, Critical thinking to apply yogic knowledge, studying the Sacro Iliac Joint, releasing emotions through hip opening and awakening love with Kundalini Yoga. All my fellow 300 hour yoga teacher trainers have so much to offer and it was nice to be given the opportunity to learn from everyone.
In the Tantra workshop, we learned that Tantra is about balancing Shiva and Shakti (masculine and feminine) energy. It is a way to see the spark and eternal flame in your partner not just the being in front of you. There is left hand tantra and right hand tantra. The ultimate goal is right hand tantra which is the non-sexual spiritual path to awakening.
Ayurveda is the sister science to yoga. In this workshop, we learned that Ayurveda is the science of life. There are three main human constitutions or body types called Doshas, which are Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Knowing your constitution can give you a lot of insight. Ayurveda offers many suggestions for what is best to eat for different body types. Ayurveda recommends eating a small breakfast, the largest meal in the middle of the day and a small dinner. There are many quizzes you can take online to figure out what your Dosha is.
I taught my workshop on awakening love with Kundalini Yoga. One of our main texts for this Hatha Yoga course is Hatha Pradipika which says that the purpose of Hatha Yoga is the awakening of Kundalini. Kundalini is the spiritual or life force energy located at the base of the spine that is conceptualized as a coiled up serpent. Kundalini Yoga arouses the sleeping Kundalini within so that it may penetrate up through the Chakras (energy centers of the body). I really believe that the purpose of yoga is not to tie ourselves into knots, but to untie the knots within our hearts. Rumi said: “Your task is not to seek for love, but to merely seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” I feel like this quote says it all. I believe that we are all one consciousness and that consciousness is made of pure love. At our deepest level we are already love, so we do not need to seek from the external world that which we already are. In the human experience, we deal with pain, ego, and challenges that cause us to put barriers over our love. That is why I practice yoga to remove these barriers and open my heart. Hatha yoga is the stairs that prepare and take you to Raja yoga. Kundalini Yoga is known as a Raja Yoga.
The members of the 300 hour yoga also began teaching one class to the 200 hour yoga teacher training this week. This was a great opportunity to apply the skills we have been learning. Our teacher Krishna began lecturing to us on yoga therapy. He told us that every form of yoga has a yoga therapy aspect to it. Joy and happiness is the harmony between mind, body, and spirit. The intention of pranayama and asana is to stabilize the psychophysiological mechanism to create fewer imbalances from external and internal influences.
We are all really enjoying our evening Ashtanga Vinyasa with our teacher Jeet. It is very challenging but I leave feeling as free and light as a feather!
The monsoons, rainy season came early and it has been raining a lot this week, it is very refreshing and has cooled down the weather considerably. I went on a walk to Laksham Jhula yesterday and had a lovely lunch in the Krishna Café overlooking the Ganga River. I feel that I have grown so much already and I am excited to see what insight this last week in Rishikesh brings.

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