Costa Brava/ Spain Workshop with Gregor Maehle

Day 1 Morning Led class evening Sutra.
Day 2 Morning Mysore evening Pranayama and Kriya
Day 3 Morning Mysore evening Finding your Life’s Divine Purpose

Morning practice

Gregor will analyse the many intricate anatomical details of the majority of the postures of the Primary Series, while maintaining as much pace as possible. The focus will be on breaking down the various phases of entering and exiting the postures into their constituents. Performing postures safely while understanding which anatomical actions will get us deep into the asanas will prevent unnecessary energy expenditure. Through inducing precision this format also achieves that conditioning and emotions lodged in bodily tissue are released, preparing us for the higher limbs of pranayama and meditation.
The Mysore-style format will give students the opportunity to integrate the information learning in the Led class and also for Gregor to give individual attention to student’s needs.

Sutras

The Yoga Sutra is the operating manual of yoga. It is only when we understand the why’s and how’s of yoga that we will practice with confidence and beyond doubt. In this class we will chant selected stanzas in Sanskrit and a detailed commentary based on Gregor’s four decades of practice and study will be given. The commentary will retain the depth of the ancient treatises but will be fun, relatable and applicable to modern urban life.

Pranayama and Kryias

Imagine how great it would be to have a switch that, when operated, would enable you to consciously choose between your right and left brain hemispheres, intuitive and analytical intelligence, sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, fight/flight reflex and rest/relaxation, and between the male and female, solar and lunar, aspects of your psyche. How great it would be if, when required, you could switch from being compassionate to doggedly determined. Or from charged with energy to completely relaxed within a few minutes. Or from extrovert (physically present, expressive and outgoing) to introvert (reflective and absorbing) within a short time. This switch does in fact exist and it is not at all hidden. It is the prominently protruding olfactory orifice right in the middle of your face: your nose.

Pranayama includes some of the most neglected but yet most powerful methods of yoga. Pranayama is the vital link that connects asana to meditation without which the combined benefit of both cannot be harvested. Learn how to use pranayama to harmonize the doshas (humors of the body) and thus attain a state of health and balance as well as how to still the mind, enabling spiritual insight.

The kriyas are predominantly methods of purification of the body. They support the work of postures and are especially important for people who live in large cities. They aid in removing contamination from chemical, environmental, electrical, biological and electromagnetic sources.

Divine Purpose workshop

Do you remember a time when you knew that your life would be amazing and that you would live to make a meaningful contribution to life on Earth and the life of others? And then what happened? Somehow our education and the process of enculturation cut us off from this sacred knowledge and élan vital. We became cynics and “realists”.

Since time immemorial human societies were organized around the idea that the life of the individual and of society have divine purpose. This workshop traces this knowledge to indigenous cultures, to the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible and the Yoga Sutra. Our loss of this knowledge is what has led to our environmental destruction and the 6th mass extinction of life as well as the current epidemic of mental disorders.

Also covered are:

·      Our life’s divine purpose in relation to quantum mechanics, astrophysics and evolutionary psychology

·      Connection to bio-symbiosis, brain development and homeostasis

·      The practice & psychology of finding one’s life’s divine purpose

·      Overcoming obstacles

·      How do we know it’s the right voice? 

·      Daily cleansing regime of the subconscious mind

·      Being in the zone and absence of internal dialogue

·      Importance of forgiveness, gratitude, acceptance and surrender

·      How to embody your life’s divine purpose

·      Humanities collective divine purpose

This workshop not only shows how we lost the knowledge that all life is sacred and purposeful, it also introduces layers of technique to lead us back to finding and gradually implementing our life’s divine purpose.