Drawing on the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras, learn how to effectively integrate spiritual teachings of yoga into your classes naturally, without being too ‘out-there’ or ‘over-sharing’ your personal story. Learn philosophy of yoga in relation to daily life, mantra and chanting with Nada yoga (music). Explore what it means to be a spiritual activist and the path of the yogi in the modern world.

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It is important for yoga teachers to study the philosophical Scriptures of yoga for many reasons.  Some of these include: 

 

• Teaching from ’source’ to honor lineage and yoga’s cultural roots

• Having a point of difference and competence as a yoga teacher 

• Offering our students the full spectrum of the richness of the teachings 

• The beauty, poetry and sweet mood of yoga (‘bhav’) is accessed and elevated through Scripture and understanding something about Sanskritskirt, the ancient Indian language

 

There are many conversations at this time about cultural appropriation and yoga teaching - when we understand and teach through the lens of Scripture, particularly the ethics of the Yamas and Niyamas (Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra) we are much less likely to cause offence or misrepresent yoga. 

 

My teacher David Life calls English the language of ’trade and commerce’ and Sanskrit the language of ‘poetry and philosophy’.  Through looking at the Scriptures in their original format we understand the depth of yoga. 

 

“We need a language such as Sanskrit to capture the complexity of our deeper nature. It doesn’t make sense to use the language of the analyzing mind to cut through its own illusions, so we employ the poetry, philosophy and vibration of Sanskrit to balance the limitations of our thinking, describing, analyzing mind.” (Russell Paul) 

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This Sacred Scripture is very practical, relevant and alive.  We don’t get too ‘academic’ or bogged down in scholarly study.  You will learn to understand the original Scriptures, bring them to life in your own world-view and experience and then develop the tools to share them skillfully with your students.