Traditional Yoga Training

Stated simply, traditional yoga instruction is very different to most contemporary yoga training courses. Most current programs give predominant, if not total emphasis, to the physical practice of postures or asanas as if the body were the beginning and end of us. The postures are taught from a technical standpoint and interpreted from the perspective of western medical anatomy and physiology modalities. This does not fully represent Yoga for what it is.

The traditional yogic context is vastly different. Traditional practice derives its inspiration and guiding principles from a profound and holistic wisdom base. A vast network of applied Vedic sciences and skills, that encompassed broad spheres of human potential, arose from a common yogic source. Without drawing from it roots yoga is like a tree that has been cut at ground level which can no longer draw nourishment from its foundations.

Let’s use the analogy of archaeology. If evidence of an ancient culture is found beneath the earth, what is often uncovered are its dwellings, artefacts, tools and items of daily living. Archaeologists piece together a view of another era in human existence. To gain insight and appreciation of what life might have been like at that time requires a deeper probing. Posing the right questions can reveal what the culture valued, how its communities coexisted and what values governed day to day experiences.

Let’s compare the legacy yoga has afforded us all with the archaeological dig. Without the overarching knowledge base and cultural context of its’ founding culture, ‘yoga’ is often appropriated and interpreted in a lesser form than was intended. Without an appreciation and understanding of its purpose and guiding principles it would make little sense. Unfortunately, much of contemporary yoga is like this, it has lost sight of its roots, governing principles and purpose.

The yogic tradition dates back well beyond 10,000 years according to current archaeological and Indological research. The view of the founding culture reveals a highly sophisticated culture that highly valued ‘Rta,’ a principle of universal law that ensured balance at every level of society and all its endeavours. Human life was viewed as part of nature with all her forces and rhythms both earthy and cosmic seamlessly woven together out of the same universal intelligent energy.

Traditional yoga keeps its wholeness intact by being informed and embracing its’ germ seed, the cosmic blueprint, and by sustaining continuity throughout many thousands of years of human endeavour and dedication to living consciously. Yogis download the knowledge of the cosmos in silence and stillness in a seamless stream of consciousness and then put it into the empirical laboratory of human experience and life. Their archaeology is that of consciousness, they look through to the cause, effect and purpose of body and mind. Modern science is nearing the understanding yogis have always understood, ‘everything is a product of consciousness’.

The physical asana practices are informed by a much more expansive understanding of the nature of the human body that includes subtle and physical sciences. Yoga’s perspective of the human body is a unique composite of physical body, subtle body and causal body with an abiding lucid background consciousness at the root of all of it. Yoga views the subtle as intrinsic to the physical. Without the subtle which includes energy and mind the physical would not exist. So, in practice yoga seeks to unite all layers of our experience of being. Yoga encourages a deep understanding of how the bodies, or inter relational loci of subjective experience work together, and how our bodies can be restored to balance, greater function and potency.

Traditional training reveals the essential knowledge to truly make the most of the human experience we are having. Such practice therefore offers much more than learning a set of postures that can be flowed together to generate an exercise regime with increasing flexibility and a softer ‘spiritual’ package around the edges.

Traditional yoga pathways and practices give knowledge that generates body intelligence. Such knowledge gives skill in sustaining optimal health for both body and mind. Students learn to restore balance where it has been lost and to integrate the body/mind in such a way that they become the perfect marriage of physical and subtle experience, where neither dominates nor generates ill effects for the other.
Traditional yoga awakens the background consciousness beyond ordinary foreground mental activity so that we can draw on a much more powerful level of intelligence to make beneficial choices in our day to day experience.
Traditional yoga will guide practitioners along a steady curve of ever-increasing awareness and transformation physically, mentally and spiritually.

Today we are bombarded by existential crises of all kinds. How do we stand centred, focused and wise in such times? How can we find genuine courage and knowledge to navigate such times for ourselves, and with our families, friends, associates and communities? Traditional Yoga gives all the maps and tools for living in such times with power and grace.
When you embark on traditional yoga training you gain much more that a set of physical postures you can teach in studios. You gain skills to assist people across the broad spectrum of needs within our greater community. You gain a way of living that is revelatory in these times.

Shantarasa specialises in traditional yoga training in the interest of assisting the human family to find peace and ease, stability and grace alone and together.