Our Approach to Yoga - HeartYoga
In meditation, go deep in the heart - Lao Tzu
There are many approaches to Yoga and many interpretations of what exactly it is.
Georg Feuerstein says that it is a technology of ecstasy. Vivekananda said that it is a science of religion. We like to say that it is an art of living well.
All of these capture something of what Yoga is about but none exhaustively describes it. Perhaps it is too vast to be fully captured by any description or definition.
So let us simply say what we are about. For us, beatitude is available in this life, on this earth and in this moment. However, that beatitude can neither be forced nor enticed into showing itself.
Rather, the ecstasy of living well can only be invited and Yoga is that invitation.
And yet… in this special case, to invite is to be blessed! For the guest hides her presence in your very hope to welcome her. Yoga, then, is beatitude itself as well as the means to invite it!
What practically does this mean for the way we teach?
It means that we encourage people to let go of their rigidities, be they physical, emotional or conceptual so that they can dance under the open sky. It also means that we encourage awareness of what is immediate so that our ever-present beatitude can be glimpsed and then become more permanent. It means that we definitely don't encourage escape from life into some imaginary beyond or into asceticism and fantasies of control.
On this basis, we teach Hatha Yoga (physical Yoga) not as a means to gain great buns or an iron will, but as a ladder by which Raja Yoga can be approached. In other words, Hatha Yoga is taught for the sake of meditation and awareness, as it is in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, (a key Hatha Yoga text). So our classes involve meditation as well as posture-work and breath-work. Time and attention are also given to relaxation and everything is done with awareness. At the same time, we are happy to employ humour and a light touch!
However high you fly, return to the heart.
However much your heart aches, stay with it:
The beloved is there in the pain of separation.
If
there is no love comes out of it
What's the use of chanting, visualising, twisting and turning,
Sitting till you turn to stone?
Don't
go to the sky or the depths of the earth to escape.
Rather, know earth and sky because they need you to know them.
Look all your possibilities straight in the eye -
Then your heart will flower
In the midst of this ordinary life.
about the parkdale yoga centre
links to useful & interesting sites
*NEW* bowen technique treatments
Contact:
The Parkdale Yoga Centre
10 Parkdale West
Wolverhampton
WV1 4TE
Phone: 01902 424048
