Throughout history there have been great explorers
and adventure seekers, those that set sail across the oceans, those that rode
camels across the deserts and those that made wings and tried to fly. Yoga for me has been and continues to
be that great exploration, the journey inwards and the exploration of the self
is full of the whole world and for me it is the Sivananda system of yoga that
gives me the transport to dive into that journey. It is full of light, colour and darkness, elation and joy
and then difficulties and challenges.
But Swami Sivananda has given us the opportunity to feel and
experience. To know yoga is to
know what is in our hearts, he gives us the means to our own experience, an
experience of feeling. He has
shown us ways to open our hearts, there is so much emphasis on the bodies and
the minds these days, everyone wants that perfect body, what ever that may be
or what the media presents to us, and everyone is searching for knowledge or
wants to find meaning behind everything but Swami Sivananda has given us the
map to feel a more complete way of life through the heart, “Develop the heart,
develop the heart.” Says Sivananda.
Who cares what the body looks like as long as it is healthy, who cares
if we don’t understand everything from an intellectual point of view as long as
we feel. In our hearts is all
cognition of memory, all time is there, all knowledge is there, all peace is
there, all light is there, so why look anywhere else?
The Sivananda system of yoga is very profound, Swami
Ji was one of the great
enlightened masters who shared so much love for all people and brought so much
peace to the world. To me it is a
system that puts you on an arrow and directs you straight to the centre of the
heart. And what is so beautiful is
that it is accessible to everyone, beginners and very advanced practitioners
alike, it is there for all of humanity whatever your culture, age, and
background.
The practice always starts in stillness then there is
the creation of sound with the chanting of the very powerful AUM, which is a
vibration of consciousness, like the creation of the Universe. Then there comes an awareness of the
body like an awakening, moving onto working with pranayama – breath work opening
the vital life force ready to move on to Suryia Namaskar; our salutations to
the sun where we move through the whole body like a creation of that body then
strengthening, lengthening and preparing the body for birth with the
inversions. Like birth the head
comes first with the headstand and we move through the postures in the correct
order working through the energy centres from the highest energy centre at the
crown of the head to the earth centre at the pelvic floor. This flow of asanas are like the
journey through life, they are always changing within the body, sometimes
challenging and sometimes comforting and then like the circle of life we come
back to stillness in savasana our relaxation pose at the end of the class. It is a very organic process and what
you learn on the mat you can apply to the world that awaits you once you leave
the studio or place where you practice.
The journey allows you to dive within, experience it and then come back
out flowing from the internal to the external just like our breath flows in and
out of the body. For me I love it
every time I practice I experience something else there is a real depth behind
this system and often it is hard to get off the mat, I could just stay there in
yoga, but like all things we have to be fluid and there are the other things in
life to take care of!
His Holiness Swami Sivananda was born in 1887 in
Tamil Nadu – India, and left his body in 1963. He was one of the first Indian masters to make yoga
accessible to anyone also bringing this amazing practice to the West. He was eager to relieve human misery
and decided to look within himself and became a Swami – a wondering monk – and
spent long years in secluded practice in the Himalayas. He founded the Divine life Society in
Rishikesh where he trained people from all walks of life and from all over the
world in the synthesis of the key paths of yoga, encompassing Hatha, Raja,
Karma, Bhakti and Jnana yoga and wrote hundreds of books explaining the most
complex aspects of yoga. Today
there are Sivananda teachers all over the world and centres and ashrams within
India and many countries worldwide.
I hope I can bring the light of Sivananda to anyone
that comes to practice with me, I certainly have felt him in my heart from the
moment I saw his face staring at me from a computer screen as I searched
through for teacher training courses, I saw him and knew yes this is what I am
meant to do.
“Divine life is full, infinite, perfect and
blissful. Therefore lead the life
divine.” Sri Swami Sivananda
For now enjoy the journey!
May we be lead from the unreal to the real, from the
darkness to light from mortality to immortality.
Om Shanti Shanti Shantih
Mangala / Nicky
No comments:
Post a Comment