YOGA
PERSONALIZED HEALING AND EMPOWERMENT
THERE WILL COME A TIME WHEN YOU BELIEVE EVERYTHING IS FINISHED. THAT WILL BE THE BEGINNING.
THERE IS NOTHING LIKE RETURNING TO A PLACE THAT REMAINS UNCHANGED TO FIND THE WAYS IN WHICH YOU YOURSELF HAVE ALTERED.
PRIVATE INSTRUCTION is one of the best ways to begin, return to, or advance your yoga and breath practices. Working on specific goals, injuries, and needs, we create and ideal setting for addressing your personal discipline.
PRIVATE, SMALL GROUPS are an opportunity to customize your experience. Addressing an individual’s needs and goals, it’s perfect for families and friends that want to move and grow together. Great addition to a girls’ or guys’ weekend.
GROUP COMPANY CLASSES are a great way to improve morale, increase productivity, and reduce stress. Improve memory, focus, productivity, and decision-making skills and increase energy and decrease fatigue. All of this goes to lowering the costs of stress-related illnesses and absenteeism.
EVERY NOW AND THEN A PERSON’S MIND IS STRETCHED BY A NEW IDEA OR SENSATION AND NEVER SHRINKS BACK TO ITS FORMER DIMENSIONS.
INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCE LEVELS
50 minute Asana practice
10 minutes of Pranayama
15 minute Savasana and Sound Bowls
Steady breath-to-movement asana flows that bring peaceful vitality to the mind, body, and spirit.
Classes themed around various elements including Pantajali’s 8 Limbs, the Koshas, Vayus, Chakras, and physiological systems.
ALL LEVELS
This yoga class is great for anxiety and trauma recovery as it deeply connects the mind and body through focused breath and movement.
Dive deeper into your Yoga practice by slowing down the Asana and focus on the more subtle of Pantajali’s 8 Limbs. We will focus on Pranayama (breathing exercises), gentle breath-based Asana (movement and poses), and Samyama (stages of meditation).
No need for previous experience this No-Harm Yoga is for all levels and all bodies.
ALL LEVELS
A community-based class is offered every Wednesday to provide ‘Yoga to the People’.
One of the most important aspects of our journey is SEVA ‘Selfless Service’. No donations are necessary – we only ask that you come with an open heart, an open mind, and a willing spirit.
commUNITY YOGA features a variety of guest instructors each week. Come be part of the commUNITY that believes that yoga should be accessible and inclusive.
This class is a joint offering from KATSINA LOVE BHATIA and YNG YOGA STUDIOS
ALL LEVELS
No need for previous experience this No-Harm Yoga is for all levels and all bodies.
WE SHOULD NOT JUDGE PEOPLE BY THEIR PEAK OF EXCELLENCE, BUT BY THE DISTANCE THEY HAVE TRAVELED FROM THE POINT WHERE THEY STARTED.
NURTURE YOUR MIND WITH GREAT THOUGHTS, FOR YOU WILL NEVER GO HIGHER THAN YOU THINK.
THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATAÑJALI is a collection of Sanskrit sutras or precepts. The Yoga Sutras was compiled between 500 BCE and 400 CE, in India by the sage Patanjali, who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions.
YOGA TRADITION holds the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali to be one of the foundational texts of classical Yoga philosophy.
The Yoga Sutras offers a strategy for discovering the state of wholeness that already exists in us, and for how we can begin to understand and let go of our suffering. This, Patañjali reminds us, is the true aim of yoga.
YOGA IS THE PROGRESSIVE SETTLING OF THE MIND INTO SILENCE.
WHEN THE MIND IS SETTLED, we are established in our own essential state, which is unbounded consciousness.
Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind…
…the purpose of yoga is liberation from suffering, caused by entanglement with the world, by means of discriminative discernment between Purusha, the witness-consciousness, and prakriti, the cognitive apparatus including the muddled mind and the kleshas. The eight limbs are “the means of achieving discriminative discernment,” the “uncoupling of puruṣa from all connection with prakṛti and all involvement with the citta.
To Patanjali, Yoga-practice “essentially consists of meditative practices culminating in attaining a state of consciousness free from all modes of active or discursive thought, and of eventually attaining a state where consciousness is unaware of any object external to itself, that is, is only aware of its own nature as consciousness unmixed with any other object.”
MORAL OBSERVANCES
YAMAS– relationship to the world
Ethics and integrity comprise the foundation of the first limb of yoga, yama. The teachings of this limb can be compared to the biblical adage now known as the Golden Rule” “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” Within the limb are the five separate yamas: ahimsa, meaning non-violence; satya, which is truthfulness; asteya, or non-stealing; brahmacharya, meaning self-control; and aparigraha, which means non-covetousness.
MORAL OBSERVANCES
NIYAMAS– relationship to self
Spiritual observances and self-discipline are at the core of niyama, the second limb. Examples of practicing niyamas can include giving thanks before meals, creating meditation routines and taking contemplative walks. The five niyamas include saucha, or cleanliness; samtosa, which means contentment; tapas, or spiritual rigor; svadhyaya, the study of the self and sacred scriptures; and Isvara pranidhana, the surrender to god.
The physical body becomes a pathway to the heart, mind and spirit.
Each posture in yoga is considered an asana, which is the third limb. It is believed that the body must be cared for and honored in order to achieve spiritual growth. Concentration and discipline can be honed through performing poses, which in turn lead to developing greater meditation skills.
The art and control of energetic movement … utilize the breath as a powerful transformational tool
Formally controlling the breath, the source of our prana, our vital life force, the art and control of energetic movement. Utilize the breath as a powerful transformational tool. The fourth limb of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, pranayama involves recognizing the correlation between breathing, emotions, and the mind. Techniques for breath control are detailed in this limb, which translates to ‘life force extension.’
Drawing inward and harnessing the outward senses to prepare for increased focus on the present moment and experience
Entering the second half of the limbs, pratyahara shifts the focus of the journey from external matters to internal development. By removing attention from the senses and the external world as a whole, the individual can better devote themselves to becoming more introspective. This closer look inside can help an individual shed any habit that may be detrimental to the process.
The art and discipline of concentration.
With sensory distractions rooted out, the sixth limb, dharana, strives for complete concentration. As preparation for coming limbs, dharana teaches techniques for slowing the mental process, such as thinking of a single energy center in the body, a spiritual being, or a silently repeated sound. When concentration skills strengthen, the individual becomes better prepared to begin meditation.
Meditation is the ultimate teaching tool … carving out space and time for self, breath, clear thoughts … manifest deep regard for a life filled with appreciation and gratitude
The penultimate limb, dhyana channels unwavering concentration into meditation. While dharana teaches concentrating the mind on a singular focus, dhyana differs as the quieted mind is nearly free of thought. Acknowledging the daunting, seeming unreachable nature of such a feat, the seventh limb also provides the reminder that yoga is an ongoing process, no matter the amount it is practiced.
Concentration, connection, bliss, divine unity. Create a sense of trust, faith, and certainty while flowing through the turbulence of life.
Described by Patanjali as a state of ecstasy, samadhi sees the meditator realize their interconnectedness with all things living and divine. The realizations yield a blissful experience of unity with the universe, a state known as ‘peace that passeth all understanding.’ As the ultimate state of yoga, it can only be reached through ongoing devotions and practice.