Yoga

MuktiBhukti Classical/Tantric/Ayurvedic Approach:

Mukti means liberation and Bhukti means enjoyment.  Every experience that comes from this world has the dual purpose of being here for our enjoyment and for our growth.  The challenge with enjoyment is that is easy to get attached to it, which often cause suffering. Yoga is a path of freedom.  It helps us see experience as an opportunity for growth.  It shows us what choices or attachments cause our suffering so that we can make the challenging yet worthwhile changes to break free from our habits and patterns.  Once free, we again feel the enjoyment of living but maintain the freedom to experience that without attachment.  When we practice Yoga, we gain clarity.  Clarity puts us back on our path, our Dharma.  Karen’s group and private Yoga classes always have this goal in mind. With a combined understanding of Classical and Tantric Yoga as well as an understanding right lifestyle and diet via Ayurveda, Karen creates a Yoga practice that best serves you.

 

Classical Yoga Approach:
Yoga is an ancient practice that was orally passed down through the ages from teacher to student.  The great Sage Patanjali is accredited as having recorded the process of Yoga as union in the form of short aphorisms collectively called the Yoga Sutras.  This work forms the basis for the Yoga School of Philosophy and of Classical Yoga.  It clearly describes the practice of Yoga as a holistic and systematic approach of refining the mind via the Eight-limbed Path for the purpose of Self-realization. The Eight-limbs progressively take us from the gross to the subtle.  As we refine our mind our choices lead us to longer and longer periods of joy and less suffering.

 

 

 

Tantric Yoga Approach:

Tantra is the oldest known path of Yoga.  Its practices systematically unify the forces of duality.  The ultimate aim is also Self-realization, the union of creation and consciousness, Shakti and Shiva.  The popularity of Hatha Yoga expounded upon the Tantric teachings in Hatha Yoga Pradipika.  This text enhanced the utilization of physical postures, cleansing techniques, meditation and energy work (Asanas, Kriyas, Dhyana and Bandhas) as a way to purify and release tension in the body for healing, mental clarity and proper energetic flow. These preliminary steps are necessary to begin the deeper inner quest.  These detoxifying and purification techniques prepare the body for the more subtle stages of Yoga that lead to Kundalini awakening via Self-realization.  Tantra utilizes a vast range of Yogic techniques and tools, including the Yoga Sutras that also encompass the gross to subtle.  Classical Yoga and the Tantric Yoga approach are more similar than different in that the goal of both is the highest aim in Yoga, that of Self-realization.