April 2019 Newsletter from Srivatsa Ramaswami--Texts
I have written about the videos of my talks on Bhagavad Gita for Yogabhyasis. A few years back I gave a 20 hour program on the Gita to a compact group of yoga practitioners and teachers. It was organized by my friends Sarah Mata and Arun Deva in Los Angeles. Sarah Mata arranged for the entire program (I completed about 10 chapters in those 20 hrs) to be videographed. It was produced by my friend and a film maker, Lisa Leeman. She was assisted with the camera work by Neerad Reddy ( a documentary maker) and Kija Manhare who took videos of my yoga teachings including surya namaskar videos used in my YouTube uploads. After considerable time and painstaking work my friend Jacquelin Sonderling started editing them with captions of slokas and meanings of the terms used. She released five of them already, Chapter II in two videos, chapter III Chapter V and now in March 2019, chapter VI. I have shared all of them in my You Tube page and here is the playlist link
I wish to thank my yoga friends, Sarah Mata, Arun Deva, Lisa Leeman, Neerad Reddy, Kija Manhare and of course Jacquelin Sonderling for their interest and support.
In March, I gave a morning talk to the students of Yoga at Shruti ShankarKumar's studio in Chennai. The talk was on Yoga for kids wherein I mentioned that yoga practices like asanas, pranayama and even japa/meditation, trataka and chanting/prayer were made mandatory to children as young as 7 years old. in the olden days in the form of a sandhya ritual performed daily at sunrise, midday and sunset. Yoga practice started early will bring about physical and mental discipline that will help children as they grow up and in their adult life. Yoga learnt while young will be more useful than yoga learnt at a later stage in life. Learning yoga any time is better than not learning yoga at all.
I was New Delhi for four days teaching different vinyasa sequences to a group of dedicated yoga practitioners at Mini Shastri's Om Yoga. Apart from asanas it included serious pranayama practice as well.
I also talked at Paro in New Delhi on Surya Vandana or paying homage to Sun. With the help of Mini Shastri performing surya namaskar exquisitely, I explained surya namaskara performed with mantras also known as samantraka surya namaskara. I also chanted several surya or sun mantras from the vedas and also the ghosha shanti chant from the ten peace chants. I recited the entire आदित्य हृदयम् āditya hṛdayam a classic sun prayer from the great epic Ramayana. Sun worship is considered one of the six forms of orthodox worship in olden days. Paro also produced a beautiful booklet/brochure on some of the sun mantras with brief explanations. Here are the links to the chants mentioned
Texts
I wish to write about the upcoming programs scheduled for the the rest of the year. Firstly on May 19, 2019 there is a talk on "Gunas"arranged at Mindbodysoul Yoga in New York City.
This year I will be teaching several texts that may be useful to yoga practitioners. In February I gave a five day 20 hour talk on the Upanishad Vidyas. I took four important Vidyas from the Upanishads. Firstly, the pancha kosa vidya from the Anandavalli chapter of Taittiriya Upanishad. Many yoga practitioners are familiar with the 5 kosas of food, prana, mind/senses, intellect and emotion. This chapter is a beautiful narration of creation in general and the arrangement of individual being made of the five layers or kosas and the Self beyond the 5 kosas. I then spoke on the pranava vidya or the implication of the pranava mantra "OM" as described in a unique upanishad the Mandukya Upanishd. In this the Self is realized through the analysis of the three states of awareness, the waking, dream and the deep sleep stages. The Self is said to be the unwavering awareness that witnesses or experiences all the three states without itself undergoing any change whatsoever. Then I spoke about the Vedanta view that the source of the entire universe is the non changing Brahman, pure consciousness. The vidya is called sadvidya from Chandogya upanishad from the sama veda. In fact this was the first upanishad Sri Krishnamacharya taught to me as a vedanta text. Then there was the panchagni vidya from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad a narration of the five transformation that the transmigrating soul is said to go through from death to birth.
I also taught a 100 hr विन्यासक्रम योग vinyāsakrama yoga program at Yoga Vahini Chennai, for the fourth year in succession. There were about 30 participants but 2/3 of them were from other countries. This program has 3 components. Firstly the 60 hour Asana/vinyasa program in which about 700 vinyasa movements were attempted built around about 130 classical asanas in 10 major sequences. Then there is the 20 hour chunk for pranayama, mudras and dharana, and the effects of all these procedures on the vital internal organs and then dharana the first step in meditation. In this different pranayama methods were taught-- about 10 varieties, then pranayama mantra and its use in pranayama, introduction of bandhas and the participants are encouraged to practice pranayama in long sessions. Since pranayama is seldom practised by modern yogis though asanas are overdone, one should give time to learn and practice pranayama so that one would feel the salutary effects of pranayama on the mind. In fact many participants are encouraged to do even 80 pranayam rounds in one sitting of about 45 minutes say for a few days or weeks. Then an introduction to dharana practice into antaranga or internal practice. This session also included study and discussion of the effects of these procedures, asanas, vinyasas and particularly pranayama and mudras including bandhas and inversions on the health of the internal organs also known as koshas, the six physical bags/sacs the heart, the lungs, stomach, intestines, bladder/kidneys and the uterus/prostrate. The third component of this 100 program is the study of yoga sutras. We would go sutra by sutra word by word to have a comprehensive understanding of the thought process contained in the yoga philosophy. It also included chanting of the sutras.
I have taught this 100 hour विन्यासक्रम योग vinyāsakrama yoga program for a few years now in a number of places. Prior to this program I was a teaching a 200 hr YA registered TT program. Since it took 5 to 6 weeks and I always wanted to do the whole program in one go, many interested participants found it difficult to find the time and to be away from work and family for such a long time. Further I found that many of the people who came to my program were already teachers with a 200 hr certification, my certificate appeared redundant from the point of view of the certification to teach. So I cut down the program to 100 hrs and retained the three components asanas, pranayama and sutras.
This year I am scheduled to teach the विन्यासक्रम योग vinyāsakrama yoga 100 hr program in two other places. I will be teaching this program at One Yoga Victoria, Canada in June 2019. However in this program as per the direction of the sponsors, instead of yoga sutras I will be teaching योगयाज्ञवल्क्य yogayājñavalkya for the 20 hr slot. This lesser known text affords considerable additional and a unique approach to yoga somewhat different from the other well known texts, the yoga sutra and hatayogapradipika. I am teaching this 100 hr program in Victoria for the second year in succession. I had taught this 100 hr program for One Yoga in their Saskatoon facility a few years back. Here is the link for the Victoria program
I am also scheduled to teach 100 hr Advanced Teacher Training program in विन्यासक्रम योग vinyāsakrama yoga at Loyola Marymount University where I have been teaching every summer for more than 10 years now. The program here will be 60 hrs of asana/vinyasas, 20 hrs pranayama and internal organs and 20 hrs of Yoga sutras. Here the university has made a change in the format. I will be teaching the entire 60 hrs of asana/vinyasas in the forenoon sessions for 15 days and in the afternoon for 80 minutes each will be teaching the sutras and the pranayama. This has been done as it will enable participants to either register for the entire program of 100 hrs or take any one or three sections. Here are the links
In September I will be teaching an extended weekend program at Chicago Yoga Center where I have been teaching for more than 10 Septembers. I will be teaching my Guru Sri Krishnamacharya's नाथमुनि योग रहस्य yoga rahasya of nāthamuni . My Guru used to quote extensively form this then unpublished work during his teaching days and he had even dictated several of the slokas. This book written by Sri Krishnamacharya contains four chapters and we will be going through each and every sloka/verse and explanations based on his teachings
In October I will be teaching a weeklong vinyasakrama program along with Samkhya Karika at Centered City Yoga in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here again it will have an asana/vinyasas/pranayama component and a theory session in the afternoons. Here I will be teaching Samkhya Karika of Iswarakrishna. I had been able to teach this text in a few places and Yoga Vahini in Chennai had the whole program videographed some time back. Here is the link to the Utah program
https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws?studioid=24504&stype=-8&sView=week&sLoc=0&sTrn=100000366&date=10/20/19 The Art of Yoga with Srivatsa Ramaswami
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With these programs I have been able to teach almost all the important texts I studied with Sri Krishnamacharya. Yoga Sutras, Hatayoga Pradipika, Yoga Yagnyavalkya, several Upanishad vidyas, Samkhya Karika, Yoga Makaranda and Yoga Rahasya of Sri TK, the Bhagavad Gita, individual upanishads like Mandukya and Taittiriya. Hundreds of hours were devoted by my Guru to teach chanting several vedic chapters, but I have not been able to teach chanting to any of my students, though my You Tube page also contains tutorials on learning to chant the 4 chapters of Yoga sutra. However, I got a recording company to record many of the chants I learnt from Sri Krishnamacharya like Arunam/Surya Namaskar, Kushmanda Homa, Aswamedha, Taittiriya Upanishad, Yoga Sutras, Mahanarayana Upanishad, Chittisruk and others. I have also recorded several other Sanskrit works like Sahasranama of Lalita, Durga, Gayatri, Raghvendra, Anjaneya, Siva, Vishnu and other works like Sundara Kanda(10 hrs nearly 70 chapters) of the Ramayana, Devi Mahatmya, Mooka Panchasati, Sandhya Vandana, Indrakshi Siva Kavacham, Aditya Hridayama, Bala Ramayana and a few others. Many of them are accessible on line (juke box, you tube). My You Tube page also contains tutorials on learning to chant the 4 chapters of Yoga sutra.
I did not run a studio to teach. So I am much beholden to many of the sponsors who arranged several of my programs all along. My thanks are due to Kalakshetra where I taught to youngsters for nearly 20 years, Yoga Brotherhood in Chennai where I taught several yoga camps for many years, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Chicago Yoga Center, Chicago, Public Health Center, Madras, Harmony Yoga, UK, Om Yoga, New Delhi, India, Yoga Vahini Chennai, India,One Yoga in Canada, Sarah Mata Yoga in Los Angeles, Yoga Center in Houston, East Side Yoga, Austin,TX, Heights School of yoga, Houston TX, Ricky Tran's yoga schools in Dallas, TX, 136.1, Centered City Yoga Utah, and a few others. I also taught at Yogashala, CT, Mindbodysoulyoga in New York,German Yoga Body, Germany, Centre de Yoga, Luxembourg, Yoga Kanda, Chile, Jivamukti Yoga, London. And I am grateful to all those who came to participate in my programs.Thank you all for your interest and generous support.