12 Apr Explore the Yogic Path of Integration and Healing – Thomas Amelio/Shivanand
This is a workshop for people who want to explore how yoga can help you integrate, heal and increase your capacity for a full-hearted way of being, despite any – and all – complications life hurtles at you.
In this workshop you’ll get a taste of how the psychology of Yoga can make a difference in your every day life.
In our time together, Thomas will weave together several threads from the longer courses he has taught for over thirty years in ashrams and to lay practitioners. Distilling yogic psychology Thomas points us to the simple reality: Touching our true nature, which in IFS we call Self Energy, opens the path of joy, satisfaction, and contentment. Learning to live without rigid internal compartments where parts are kept separate, allows us to release the stored “impressions” or samskaras (or what we call “parts” in IFS and psychological language) that obscure our true nature.
To this end we will taste the classic meditation practices of focus, inner-mantra and breath, chanted mantra and sound toning for clarity and healing. Thomas will guide us in a unique approach to the chakra system of subtle energy centers. Combining these practices with Self-Inquiry Meditation or Atma Vichara (rooted in the yogic path of Advaita/non-dualism using open questions, attention, and awareness), can reveal and then release acquired identifications with our past, with our the stories our parts hold and invite us to dissolve limited ideas of who we think we are.
Shivanand/Thomas Amelio has been one of my main teachers of yogic philosophy for the past twenty years. When I knew he was coming to town I grabbed at the chance to share his light hearted wisdom honed from over thirty years of practice as a monk in India and as a yogi in everyday life serving as the President of the New York Open Center. Thomas knows how to translate the profound yogic teachings into daily life. He’s helped me do that for years with laughter and grace.
Below is more information on the pieces Thomas will weave together.
Bio: Thomas Amelio intensely studied yogic disciplines in India, where he edited Rajarshi Muni’s classic, Yoga–The Ultimate Spiritual Path, in 1994. He is a founding member of and has been a senior teacher at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health for over 30 years, and is President of the New York Open Center. As a master teacher, Thomas continues to teach classes on meditation, self inquiry, mantra , sound healing, and yogic meditation practices.
Workshop will be in Watertown, MA from 9-1, May 3, 2014
Suggested donation is $40
Feel free to email me with questions, thoughts, and to reserve a spot. I’m thrilled to be sharing Thomas with you.
Sound Meditation for Healing and Awakening
In this workshop we will learn about Sound Meditation for both healing and inspiration. While Sound Meditation can incorporate sounds from many traditions and languages, as well as from ones own revelation, this workshop will place special emphasis on using powerful one-syllable Beej (seed) mantras of the Yoga tradition. We will focus on how mantra awakens prana (life-force) to engender healing in self and others; the basic alphabet and ‘language” of the chakras (subtle energy centers); how to develop our own personal practice; the role of awareness and breath; and how to offer sound meditation and healing to others
Achemy of the Chakras
One of the most powerful and complete means for awakening, healing and transformation is chakra practice. Central to the yoga tradition, chakras are spiritual, psychological and emotional energy centers that exist within the human subtle body. In this class we will explore the unique purpose and function of each chakra. Ideally each works in harmony with the rest; however, for most, their full expression is hampered by long-held negative conditionings and suppressions (samskaras). This results in a disharmony of function—for example, a fifth chakra calling to self-express and have our talents shine can be inhibited by a first chakra fear of losing safety and security.
The yogic approach to addressing these disharmonies offers time-tested, experiential, vibrational and energetic practices to purify, and bring healing to, the chakras and bring them into full radiant expression. We will explore mantras, symbols and archetypes associated with the chakras—including the five elements—and the yogic practices of vichara (inquiry),pranayama (breath practice), mudra (hand seals), bandha (energy locks) and kumbhak(breath holding) to bring greater clarity and harmony to our inner and outer lives.
Advaita/Non-Dual Yoga
Who am I? Where is the boundary where “I” end and all else begins? Most of us identify ourselves as our separate bodies, personalities and social roles; Indian philosophy teaches that our real nature is the blissful Awareness that transcends these. But how do we experience this Awareness? Rooted in the Eastern system of Advaita (non-dualism), Self Inquiry Meditation (Atma Vichara) uses mind, attention and awareness to reveal, and then dissolve, obstacles to experiencing our true (radiant) self. Incorporated with basic meditation, breath, movement, relaxation, and awareness of energy and body sensations, Self Inquiry is an ever fresh and absorbing inward adventure. Over time we will begin to identify more and more with the unfettered “energy body” and then pure Awareness itself—moving from the struggle of separation to the joy of boundless unity consciousness.
Most of us identify ourselves as our separate bodies, personalities and social roles; yoga philosophy teaches that our real nature is the blissful Awareness that transcends these. But how do we experience this Awareness? Rooted in the Eastern philosophy of Advaita (non-dualism), and the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Jean Klein, and others, Self Inquiry Meditation uses mind, attention and awareness to reveal, and then dissolve, obstacles to experiencing our true (radiant) self. Incorporated with basic meditation, breath, movement, relaxation, and awareness of body sensations, Self Inquiry is an ever fresh and absorbing inward adventure. Over time we will begin to identify more and more with the unfettered “energy body” and then pure Awareness itself—moving from the struggle of separation to the joy of boundless unity consciousness.