Questions about Ashrams and the realities of dedicating my life to a Spiritual quest

Let's go tantric ! with vegan cookies

I have a whole video library of those goofy yoga videos that people send me..some funny, some eh...have to find the one about the hip hop Buddhist...

but if there's a question of modern v. traditional yoga, I think this answers the question of what modern yoga is: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/fa...&smid=pl-share

if one does a true inner practice for many years, no craving to kick one's own ass in yoga will arise. just sayin'.

Hangover Yoga. ok then.

It would be greatly appreciated by some if you could dig that up

Sickest Buddhist

the funniest thing is that it was filmed where I did yoga & dharma training in California.

korosh: I am following a Raja Yoga course for 2 years now, back in the Netherlands. It are 3 hour classes once a week in the evening, so it is very convenient to combine this with a normal working or student life. Raja means royal, but really it is a form of ashtanga yoga which means eight stepped yoga. You can look this up on wikipedia. It follows the yoga sutras of Patanjali. A worthy note; the Sanskrit word Asana means 'sitting down' ! How funny is that

Furthermore, the word Yoga means 'to join' or 'to unite'. Not surprisingly the goal of Yoga is to achieve moksha, kaivalya, liberation or enlightenment (all the same!).

My Yoga teacher stresses that the postures that he does teach, the Hatha Yoga, are only for preparation purposes. By stretching the spine in different directions, and thereby loosening and straightening it, it makes it easier for the energy to flow through the body and solves possible blockages (either physical or energetic ones).

The classes I follow are of the following structure: 45 min meditation (different type every week, but you are free to choose your own!) then about 10 minutes discussing the experiences. After this we move on to do the physical exercises for about half an hour to 45 minutes and then a relaxation exercise (corpse asana) of 15 minutes. Then about an hour remains for him to talk and read from a book explaining the Yoga sutras of Patanjali. Besides that he is a story teller, stories with spiritual background of course!, but he also quotes a lot of other spiritual persons like Osho, mdm Blavatsky, Ramana Maharishi etc.

Personally I really like this approach, since it contains a lot of different points of view. Even more so because he notes that in the end everything is non-dual and we have to forget about all we have read at some point! If this sounds like something you would like, try searching for it near you, although it might be hard to find such a place/teacher. Furthermore I could advise to read a lot and see whatever feels right for you and you will probably come across teachers that teach in the style you prefer!

Having said all this, I must note that I am still on the path my self and have not steadily realized the adorned state. Yet I feel my words above might be of help to you. Good luck in finding your path!

Taking a little more time out to laugh. From the same people:

Tit for Tat.

(Sheesh, I wish I could carry that off )

After watching, be sure to see the out-takes. The passer-by comment at the end is hilarious.

That's right, the Asana's mentioned by Patanjali are all about finding a comfortable posture to sit for meditation,standing on your head is not conducive to this. Savasana (corpse pose) IS a Spiritual exercise,the rest are just physical.KK

Physical yoga practices weren’t really developed until the early medieval period. No text refers to “Hatha yoga” prior to the 13th century Dattatreya Yoga Shastra.

and the Buddha mentions physical practices that would definitely qualify as Hatha yoga in the Pali Canon, but he didn’t call them that.

I had another... but then I am scared of Indian Palins and Bachmanns; So self-censorship imposed.