THE RELEVANCE OF THE YOGA SUTRA OF PATANJALI

Yoga Sutras Patanjali with Arun Deva

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times

The Yoga Sutras are about the tradition of yoga. They clearly define the goal, the practices and the path.  Although the paths and practices are numerous, the final goal is singular. It is peace of mind.

The transformation of patterns into essence.
To find ourselves and come to peace.

The legend is that the eternal serpent upon which rests pure consciousness was awakened by a restless moving of this consciousness. And was sent to seek an answer to end all such restlessness. Through observing the dance of Śiva he discovered yoga.

The beauty is its recognition that as individuals we all seek the same goal but are unable to break our patterns because we cannot put a name to our restlessness. When yoga leads us to this answer we are set free.

Arun teaching yoga students

In this short weekend immersion we will imagine the final goal as Patañjali may have and we will then explore how to adapt the path to our individual states of being, and our own world circumstances. We may find that though much has changed in practice, nothing has changed in principal. Starting with the first chapter where the final goal is laid out in the first 15 sutras, we will jump to the second chapter to the practices for beginning the journey. Besides the traditional understandings of the classical commentaries, we will bring relevance to our own journeys here and now. And we will find how the traditional yoga can indeed infuse our modern practices.

This workshop is informed by a desire to show the huge potential of yoga and how āsana practice has the power to give us an inkling of this. When the āsana expands into something more, then we have begun the inner yoga.

COMING UP IN 2019

FEB 2-3

ENCINITAS, CA
details »
Sat Feb 2:
9:00am – Noon
2:00-5:00PM
Sun Feb 3:
7:00 – 10:00AM (The Practice)
Noon – 5:00PM

$195 • Includes copy of textbook
Held at private studio in Encinitas
Limited attendance available

FEB 8-10

PHOENIX, AZ
details »
Friday: 7-9 pm
Saturday:
9 am – Noon
2 – 5 pm
Sunday:
7-10 am: The Practice
Noon – 5 pm

$245 until Jan 20
$280 after Jan 20 • Includes copy of textbook
Held at private studio

FEB 23-24

LOS ANGELES, CA
310.435.4197
pre-register: adretreats@gmail.com
Sat Feb 23: 10am – 5pm
(Lunch and tea included)
Sun Feb 24: 8am – 5pm
(Brunch and tea included)

$225 • Includes lunches and textbook
Private studio in Hollywood Hills
Limited attendance available

MAR 15-17

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, CA
949.310.5477
Pre-register: yogabungalow@yahoo.com
Fri Mar 15: 6:30-8:30pm
Sat Mar 16: 12:30-7:30pm
(Lunch included)
Sun Mar 17: 12:30-7:30pm
(Lunch included)

$225 • Includes lunches and textbook
Yoga Bungalow

REGISTER OR INQUIRE

adretreats@gmail.com or call 310.435.4197
Consider registering early as space is limited. Late registration may mean no textbook available in time for class. You will however receive a copy shortly after.
NOTE: times and prices vary by location.


Arun Deva DASc, AP-NAMA, AYT-NAMA, C-IAYT, YTRX is a senior Ayurvedic Practitioner, Certified Yoga Therapist, senior yoga teacher and a long time student of the philosophies of yoga, ayurveda and Buddhism. He travels and lectures around the world, is a Board member for the National Ayurvedic Medical Association, Director of Ayurveda for LMU Yoga Therapy program and the Chair of the Committee for Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy-NAMA.

RELATED READINGS

RASA BHAVA: healing the emotional body

ENCINITAS- AUGUST 26/27:
RASA BHĀVA
HEALING THE EMOTIONAL BODY
with Yoga & Āyurveda
WEEKEND WORKSHOP

CURRICULUM:

Saturday August 26th
10AM-Noon:
Foundational aspects of Ayurveda and Yoga and where they intersect in therapy. Connecting sattva (clarity) rajas (restlessness) and tamas (inertia) to our individual natures of vāta, pitta and kapha: personalizing our emotional healing.
1-4PM: Understanding the tools of yoga in emotional therapy. We will examine the roles of kriya, vinyāsā, āsana, prānāyāma, mudra, bandhā, japā, dhāranā and dhyāna. That is cleansing breathing, sequencing to place in intelligent postures, awareness breathing, external and internal symbolization, internal locks, chanting, becoming aware through breath and body and finally sitting in awareness.
4:30-6PM: Svatantra Nyāya: Finding that the logic inherent within wisdom and compassion equates with love and intelligence. This is the deeper healing, where we end up when we have learned the logic of the body as correct action, breath as correct speech and mind as superior contemplation.
Sunday August 27th
10AM-1PM: Practical Session that will utilize all the yogic tools we speak about on Saturday so we can actualize the experience of emotional stability. A short talk will close out any additional needed explanations at the end. All levels of healthy practitioners are welcome. If you have special injuries or needs you may also observe the practice. It can be just as powerful.

Cost: $150/$175 at the door.
Please note that this workshop will be held at a private studio.
It is limited to 15 people.
Please register or inquire further at adretreats@gmail.com


HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND THE EMOTIONAL BODY?
The link between the mind and the different organs/systems of the body is  well researched and documented in Ayurveda. Now the progressive field of psychotherapy has related our instincts to our reptilian stem, our emotional to the limbic, and the rational to our neo-cortex. In Āyurveda, however, the mind is not restricted to this structure, instead it begins in the heart, reaches downwards into the gut and upwards into the brain. The connections are easy to see as seats of instincts, feelings and sensation/thought. Therefore, all our instincts and our rational thinking revolve around the mediating emotional state. When our emotional state is one of creativity, innocence and joy, we see beauty, feel compassion and instinctually open to universal waves of loving. However, when our emotions are dominated by fear, anger and grief, we become susceptible to the 6 enemies of the mind: lust, rage, greed, jealousy, envy and delusion. And our thinking and functionality begins to operate from these states. In Ayurveda, it is also said that if you wish to conquer these six enemies, there is no better pathway than that of yoga (sattvavajaya cikitsa). After years of personal practice, study and teaching on the relationship of the emotional body to our health and our peace of mind, the results I have gained offer clear, succinct information on the use of these yogic tools. We will do an actual practice to show their effectiveness in transforming fear, anger and grief into creativity, innocence and joy.

After 7 years of teaching this at the Sivananda Yoga Farm, Grass Valley; we are pleased to be able to bring it to Encinitas; and later this year to Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. If you would like it closer to your own hometown, do reach out! adretreats@gmail.com

TESTIMONIAL:
The first time I attended Arun Deva’s Emotional Intelligence workshop, I was literally blown away.  I could not even take notes as it was so fascinating.  I then decided I needed to hear it again – and this time I managed to take notes.  We all know what note-taking ends up being – another pile of papers that are pushed aside somewhere, never again to be referred to.  Not in this case.  Arun’s material is so totally right on, so very timely – I have referred to it many, many times – not only for students and/or clients, but for me as well.  Thank you Arun for sharing this meaningful knowledge – EI is a gorgeous workshop.  I recommend it highly to one and all. 
A. Abhaya Geyer, C-IAYT; AHE-300, C-IAYT Yoga Therapist/Educator, Yoga Instructor, Ayurvedic Health Educator

TO REGISTER: adretreats@gmail.com

ANNOUNCING INDIA 2016!

Dear friend,

Greetings from the forests of India. It has been a long time wish of mine to teach the yoga sutra’s. In their own environment. The forests of India. This year, yogarasayana does just that. We are very excited to announce the “Forest Sage India Retreat 2016!”

We will locate ourselves in a very remote but amazingly beautiful, fully equipped, rustically luxurious Retreat Centre deep in the heart of India’s most beloved Tiger Conservancy National Park.

Run by people as in love with the forest as I am. We will visit its animals by jeep safari, by elephant safari and by foot. We will eat sumptuous locally grown organic meals put together by our hostess, who I must confess, understands Ayurvedic cooking better than many who have trained years in it 🙂

But most of all, we will practice the yoga sutra’s.

Yes, practice them. They are not meant for armchair reading. They must have deeper meaning that touches our own lives intimately. That is what I have yearned to teach. Please come join Jutta Hecht, Anjali Deva and me for this. Oh, and you will obviously get an Ayurvedic spin for all of it too!

We will also travel to the very abode of the sages: Rishikesh. Where we will visit the sacred Nìlakanțha Śiva Temple, perhaps river raft, do evening Puja’s on the banks of the Ganges and um, visit the Beatles Ashram:)

Details:
Dates: Oct 14-27.

Locations: Corbett National Park & Rishikesh, India.
Space is limited.

Further details to follow shortly. If you would like advance notice (and a special offer) please write to yogarasayana@gmail.com and tell us why you are interested!
Click Here for More Pictures

MEANWHILE:
Soon as I am back Stateside (and have seen Bruce Springsteen play just one more time J) I am off to Phoenix, hosted by the lovely Mary Bruce and Lorilee Gilmore for: The Wise Day It sold out some time ago, but if you are in Phoenix, please do contact Mary to see if we can fit you in.

April is a month I really am looking forward to.
First, I get to present the Saturday Practicum at the NAMA Conference.

My topic is Satvavajaya Cikitsa: The Conquest of Truth as a Therapeutic Tool.
I am really looking forward to meeting old friends. And making new ones.

April 22-26th I am so very happy to be back at the Sivananda Yoga Farm in Grass
Valley to teach the fourth year of Emotional Intelligence Studies through Yoga and Ayurveda.

This year, we have an additional two days of advanced training for those who may have done this before, have studied emotional intelligence elsewhere, are yoga therapists, Ayurveda practitioners…oh darn it, anybody who wants to and feels they can go further, please come!

Later in May, I will be in Salt Lake again. With Jennifer Ellen and In Body Academy as my hosts once more. We are planning a very special weekend Immersion. And of course there will be some days set aside for consults and follow up’s. Details to follow shortly!

June and July are teaching, practicing and being home in Southern California. I will teach for LMU’s Yoga Teacher Training Course. My own teacher, Srivatsa Ramaswami has requested some of his older students to teach part of his training this year and I am honored to teach the Yoga Sutra Chanting and Subtle Body Anatomy.

There is much more to come, including a long weekend teaching in the Lake Arrowhead area with my dear friend, Amy Wheeler Yoga.

As she puts it, a few days of yoga, Ayurveda and fun!

I will also be back in Temecula with TYC and Dana Point with Tam’s Yoga Bungalow.

For now, I leave you with some thoughts on the division coming up between Yoga Teacher Training and Yoga Therapist Training. These are my personal thoughts and not endorsed by any organization or person. There has been much written already and it is all very well thought out and stated. This will not come from the same intent to be rational. Rather this comes from the felt sense. Where we may acknowledge something like this: This does not make me feel good. It is from this place I write.

Yoga is nothing if not therapeutic. Yoga is many things. It is union. It is stillness. It is completion and the journey to completion. It is sacred, it is mundane, it is time consuming, it is one hour of asana per week.
What it is not, is a system of exercise in a classroom or gym setting with designer clothes, mats and gossip about our latest smoothie recipes. It is not in competition to other forms of exercise. Tight butts and longer hamstrings are only side benefits and certainly not the goal. Or at least they should not be.
But it can fast become reduced to that. If we let it. Yoga is us. And we cannot be divided and still call ourselves yogi’s. Is a Yoga Therapist different from a Yoga Teacher? No. Just more specialty-trained: in its therapeutic application. They are still only yogi’s. Like you, me and the new person in class.
There are many realities. One is that yoga is by nature, a therapeutic tool. I beseech Yoga Alliance, who has taken on the responsibility of governing this powerful medicine as it transitions into the West, to live up to this responsibility: to keep yoga sthiram-sukham, keep it as authentic as possible. Certainly not declaw it, denature it and create an impotent yoga. When something comes into contact with a hostile environment it can either be strong enough to survive or it mutates to survive. If yoga mutates into nothing but a magazine style set of physical exercises, albeit posing as asana, it will be a great loss for a lot of seekers who will not know how to find its authentic core. Make no mistake, no matter what we do, this authentic core will survive. But let it not come to that. Where the real yoga needs to be once again sought in rare places. It came West to heal us. Let us not allow it to tear itself, and us, apart. ”


Meanwhile, I continue to work hard to bring yoga and Ayurveda together. I believe it is time. Not as an aberration needing correction but as an evolving of sister sciences that end up converging for the betterment of humanity. This work continues officially through NAMA, where our Committee is creating a new Category of Practitioners: Ayurvedic Yoga Therapists. Powerful stuff.

May we find stillness,
Arun Deva

Rasa`vada: Alchemy of Consciousness

Healing the mind with Yoga, Ayurveda & Tantra
at Sivananda Yoga Ashram, Grass Valley:

April 17-19, 2015

We understand alchemy as the transformation of base metal into gold. In Vedic terms, however, it is best described as rasavada: the revealing of our Essence. Thus we are both the dross metal as well as the gold revealed through the alchemy of our consciousness. Rasa which means essence also refers to the flavors of our lives: the emotional content. When we turn our emotional dross of fear, anger and grief into the gold of creativity, innocence and joy we learn to surf the waves of our lives no matter what the tide.

Upcoming Events:

NAMA Conference
April 9-12
Please join us for this very special Ayurveda gathering. On Thursday and Friday, will be presenting the work we have been doing on creating Standards for Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy (AYT)

 

Barefoot Yoga Studio, San Jacinto, CA
May 9

Ayurveda,Yoga, Health, Disease & the Modern World

Yoga Bungalow, San Juan Capistrano, CA
May 22-25
Memorial Day Weekend Immersion

SYTAR Conference:
June 4-7
Applications of Ayurveda for Yoga Therapy: Arun Deva, Devi Mueller, Hansa Knox.

Greece!
Sept 19-23
Ayurveda Immersion for yogin: The Path of Healing

India 2015!
New Edition: Oct 14-30
Because of limited space, our first week is sold out.
5 spaces are left for weeks 2 and 3.


The Hidden India Retreat:  Oct 14-23, 2015
The Royal India Retreat: Oct 23-30, 2015.
$3950
Write immediately to yogarasayana@gmail.com if you would like to take one of the 5 spots!
Later in the year I am happy to return to old friends in  Salt Lake and Park City, Utah.
Details to follow soon!
With love & light,
Arun