Here comes a combination of two different yoga days: a more psychological raja yoga and a mixture of India meets Helsinki, a meditation for the busyness of life and yogic relaxation for quieting down the nervous system.
Let’s start with the last one.
¤ At an ashram ¤
After all the easy movements should be a relaxation of the muscles in a Shavasana, a dead man’s pose. This’ll relax your nervous system after a while.
The teacher is working as a film director in the busy west, but he’s also a yoga instructor, as well as an author. He’s spent years in an ashram in India under one particular Mother Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi). Even that little factor would be enough, but he has written books too f.e on the power of meditation.
Now, this is what was probably the hardest thing to do, in like…ever. Meditating. And that seemed to go on for ever and e-ver. 10min, 15min..perhaps 20min just sitting still and listening some instructions here and there.
Look, I personally require movement: katonah, astanga or even hatha, but not sitting quietly!
In the following lecture, he said that he can be in meditation for 3 hours. 3 hours! Holy..
Even the 20min was pure torture. Therefore that was the toughest portion of the whole two yoga days. Just listening on breath. Breathing in: “Ma”, breathing out: “Om”.
After the 20 minute meditation, it was Shavasana again. A total break from 9 to 5 I’ll say.
¤ Rāja yoga ¤
In Sanskrit, raja means ‘king” or ‘royal,” referring to the status of Raja yoga as a “royal path”’ or principal form of yoga. Traditionally, Raja yoga refers to both the goal of yoga and the method of attaining it. (yogapedia.com)
In Raja Yoga you control your body, breath, mind, desires to remove the ego and reach the state of samadhi.
》The Four Paths of Yoga《
Yoga philosophy presents four paths towards enlightenment. It’s sometimes suggested that Raja Yoga is a superior path, because of the confusion caused by the “Yoga of Kings” myth. In truth, all four paths are equal. You can practice any one, or more than one, on your personal journey.
The four paths presented in yoga philosophy are:
Karma Yoga (the Path of duty)
Bhakti Yoga (the Path of devotion to purity)
Raja Yoga (the Path of self-control)
Jnana Yoga (the Path of knowledge of Self)
(arhantayoga.org)
There’re lots of teachings in number order in Rāja. It might be III or IV: a mental arrangement from negative (self)talk for using positive, such as “You are free from anger.” There actually is a negative tone in the sentence that you can now swap for more positive light: “You love..”
X Johanna
(c) rāja:
https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5338/raja-yoga
What is Raja Yoga?
GEM 