Thoughts & Reflections
two New Classes in the Video Library
✨ Listening to the Body (Flow & Restore)
…designed to bring you in touch with the innate intelligence of the body. Our bodies are always giving us feedback, but so often we're too busy or distracted to listen. We encourage energy flow, then slow down and tune within to what needs to move, process and breathe
✨ Opening to Inspiration (Flow & Nidra)
…our Summer Solstice special - flow yoga followed by a deep guided relaxation journey around the theme of opening to fresh possibilities as we welcome this next chapter (available as a whole class, and as 30min pure Yoga Nidra)
All video library classes can be booked individually (€3-6) or access everything any time for €24.99 / month
I’m always interested to hear how this works for you!
Love, Anya
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How do we define Yoga? What are we doing?
This is my all-time favourite translation of the definition of Yoga from the opening 'Yoga Sutras' of Patanjali
Is 'Yoga' the practice/s or the state we arrive at? (i.e. the 'stilling' of the mind or the tranquil space itself) Or is it both?
✨ In any case, it's certainly not about physical perfection, but an inner process guiding us to uncover the true nature of our innermost self ✨
So, what does that mean for my own practice? If you're interested to explore this together:
🔸 EMBODIED YOGA PHILOSOPHY
April 11 - May 16
(or self-guided with the recordings)
Any questions? Write to me at: info@yogainenglish.berlin
Meditation focus: EMOTIONS
How do we let emotions be a part of the meditative experience?
The more we try to minimise feelings, the more they become amplified. We feed them with resistance.
A mindful approach means being with an experience without adding layers of storyline onto it. So we practice sitting with emotions and relaxing around them.
Not avoiding, not escaping, not numbing or faking peace or 'spiritually bypassing', but 'turning towards' emotions, holding space for them to be felt, heard and to work themselves out.
To sign up for a meditation course, see: www.yogainenglish.berlin > EVENTS
Students often say this is their most powerful insight from learning meditation…
We tend to take the contents of our minds very seriously, believing it defines who we …We tend to take the contents of our minds very seriously, believing it defines who we are and always will be. Yet, our mind space contains all sorts - changing impressions, other people's words, vague memories, judgements that may or may not be valid...
In meditation we can 'sit back' and watch it all like a film. Then we can make healthy choices - do I need to follow that storyline? Is that even true?
This gives so much lightness and ease. Our reactivity relaxes, we get easier on ourselves, we can become 'loose and natural like hollow bamboo' as Osho beautifully puts it.
*
I like to bring meditation teachings into every class so that you're left not just with physical relaxation, but a relief for the mind and emotions that can continue long after the class.
My 'Meditation Essentials' course is returning soon. In the meantime, give yourself a pause for body & mind - online from your home - every Monday & Wednesday.
Register: https://widget.fitogram.pro/yoga-in-english?w=/list-view
Love, Anya
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Vairāgya
Today we explored vairāgya in our morning meditation class. This is usually translated from Sanskrit as: non-attachment / dispassion / objectivity. An interpretation that I love from one of my teachers is 'the absence of longing for things’.
It’s an attitude we can bring into meditation; allowing sounds, sensations and experiences to be as they are, unfolding before us as we let our reactivity relax. We’re invited to take a pause from the constant push and pull of reaching after imagined gain and loss, whether mental or material. To relax into ‘being’ itself.
When we examine the nature of worldly ‘gain’, we find that external objects are finite, so can’t bring lasting happiness. When we really accept that, something magical occurs: vairāgya happens by itself. We no longer need to ‘make’ it happen; attachments naturally start to drop away as we discover inner sources of fulfilment.
What’s more, we become less susceptible to advertising and images of perceived perfection on social media when we remember that we have enough, and we are enough. So, integrating vairāgya into our daily life mindset gives such emotional stability and contentment.
Someone in the group said that this reminds her of how she’s been feeling in corona times - enjoying finally having time to be with herself, in the relaxation that comes from fewer choices and reduced external focus. I really resonate with this. It’s a time that can teach us so much about needing to take a pause.
I hope you’re all well and have time for yourself to reflect, breathe, rest, be... Love, Anya
*Vairāgya is found in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, where it is coupled together with abhyāsa - repeated practice - as the key to calming the movement of the mind (YS 1.12, "abhyāsa-vairāgyabhyāṁ tannirodhaḥ”)
Adhiṣṭhāna
In Vedānta (one major philosophical framework of yoga), Adhiṣṭhāna(m) translates to: seat / basis / ground / support / abode / the substance from which something is made.
This tradition asks us to discriminate (have ‘viveka’) between everything that is unstable due to its nature of change, and that which is beyond change - our underlying essence. That which is the basis or foundation for everything else.
It is a reminder that all of our human concerns & limitations rest on a basis of stability; existence or being itself. In my experience, we can gain insight into this when we sense our own presence in the pauses between mental movement.
This is why meditation is often called a process of ‘remembering’. Relaxing mental busy-ness to remember our essence nature.
In Vajrayana Buddhism the term also means ‘grace’ and ‘blessings’, which makes sense to me; there’s a certain sense of alignment and reciprocity with the universe when our minds return home to quietness and we rest in our natural state.
Śraddhā
In Sanskrit, this means means faith, trust or conviction. A deeply held trust - in the rhythms of nature; that we belong in the universe; in our life path; in this moment.
Amidst all the uncertainty, the tides continue to flow, the sun and moon rise and set in perfect rhythm, Italians are singing songs of solidarity from their balconies, and we're all, always connected. Both online, and in a much deeper sense.
Śraddha is the fundamental trust not only that 'everything's going to be ok', but that in some deeper sense, it already is. Even if our rational minds can't fathom it at the moment.
With love, and Śraddha,
Anya & team
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Intimacy
What does intimacy mean in a spiritual context?
It is said that in early Chinese Zen literature, the word 'awakening' was used interchangeably with 'intimacy'. We often think of intimacy as connecting with another person, but this ancient practice shows the path to intimacy with all of life.
Dogen Zenji: ''To study the self is to lose or forget the self. And to lose or forget the self is to become awakened, or, to be intimate with the 10,000 things''
What are these 10,000 things? To 'forget' the self is a way of saying we forget our notion of separateness, seeing our inter-connection and inter-dependence - our inherent belonging - in the here and now. So 'the 10,000' things here beautifully represent all aspects of life.
We might say that our longing for connection and intimacy with a partner - the joy of 'merging' and losing our separateness in relationship - is the same deep urge we have to unite with all of life, divinity, or source, as we might call it.
In savasana and meditation we may experience the sensation of relaxing so deeply that our 'edges' seem to merge with the space around us, leaving a sense of pure presence and belonging.
Beyond the leggings and handstands, this is really what yoga and meditation are about - an experience of intimacy with the here and now.
To wake up from endless auto-pilot and find intimate contact with the pulse of life. To know that we belong. To know that we're already home.
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