Two time slots available: April 16, 2024- April 24, 2024 (9 days)/April 27, 2024- May 5, 2024 (May Day holiday, 9 days).
Senior Teacher A-Tang, Philippa Asher, 2024 Small Class A-Tang Intensive Teaching Class.
Recent Ashtanga Yoga training opportunities recommended by other official account editors can be found here.
Yoga first turns our minds towards the inner world; We are not observing the bustling scenery of the world, but rather exploring our inner selves. Turning inward and delving deeper, we cultivate the ability to perceive our inner world. In Sanskrit, the word “nadam” refers to the inner voice. When our hearts are calm like water, the inner voice of nadam becomes clear and distinguishable. Listening to the inner voice is like an advanced art appreciation ability that requires not only patience to cultivate, but also empathy and the tranquility of the brain. Nadam is sometimes referred to as “OM”. Although we often recite it in yoga classes, the mysterious sound emitted by this light can be heard deep within everyone. In ancient yoga, there was a type of Nada Yoga called “sound yoga” or “inner listening yoga”. We practiced postures, practiced meditation, and practiced breathing… All of these “lessons” had a dimension of listening to the inner world..
Listening is closely related to our emotional state and heart. Pratyahara, the fifth branch of the Eight Yoga, is often translated as “sensation control”, meaning the withdrawal of the senses from the external world to the inside. If we simply understand this yoga practice as not seeing, listening, or feeling, it would be biased. Pratyahara is not about shutting down or stopping sensory collection, but about redirecting the perception direction of the sensory organs to the inner world. This is like when practicing Astonga yoga, the teacher emphasizes the gaze point – one of the three pillars of Astonga yoga. The purpose is not to make you look at nothing, nor to make you only look at the thumb, eyebrows, and nose, but to make you retract your senses and turn to “observe” the inner world – the so-called “observation” is inner listening. It is an individual’s choice whether to pursue the principles of color, fragrance, touch, or to observe the sacred space within. This sensory shift occurs at every moment of every breath you take while practicing soup, seemingly subtle but actually a huge step towards freeing yourself from the Samsara habit set. As long as we define our lives based on the achievements, fame, and fortune in the external world, we inevitably wander in the joy and pain brought about by external stimuli. Yoga practice allows us to have the opportunity to shift our minds away from the troubles of the external world and instead immerse ourselves in listening to that primitive voice – it tells us about the non temporality, eternity, and who we truly are..
Of course, achieving such a high level of yoga practice is not just about practicing a few soups. All we need to know is that yoga is a journey and what its ultimate goal is. The rest is just daily self-discipline. At the level of practice, we all get lost in the external environment on the yoga mat, and our brains unconsciously rush towards tasks unrelated to practice,.