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Yoga Tantra Advanced Study Group

8 x 90-minute classes, every fortnight, starting on August 30th at 9 am (Sydney, Australia time).

Hi everyone, we hope you are well and safe in these difficult times.

Many of our students have been requesting guidance in developing a practice program that’s in line with their needs, especially regarding health, psychological growth, and spiritual evolution. As a result, we are starting an online study group for advanced students of yoga, tantra, and meditation.

The aim of the group is to empower and illuminate the yogic path through knowledge and practice; to provide live online teachings, access to deeper theory and practice, and opportunities for discussion.

  1. The first part of the teachings will focus on how to use yoga to develop a strong balanced ego structure, a strong sense of self-esteem, and the ability to better achieve your goals.
  2. The second part will focus on growing your relationship with your deepest Self and exploring the mysteries of the psyche, unconscious, and higher dimensions of being.

This is an opportunity to deepen and upgrade your understanding of the philosophies and techniques from Yoga, Tantra, Sāmkhya, and Vedanta, and to practice meditations and techniques derived from these philosophies.

Selected texts will be recommended. For example, we will explore the Upanishads, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and various Tantras (sacred texts).

Topics

Topics include consciousness, energy/shakti, light; mind, karma, elemental forces; mantras, yantras, initiation, psychic symbols (Ishta devatā); spiritual practice (sādhana), peace, silence, stillness; community (sangha). Many other topics will be incorporated into the teachings and discussions.

You will also learn principals from both Eastern and Western psychological approaches to self-development and self-realization.

You will have the opportunity to clarify and discuss issues in health, mental strength, and spiritual life. This does not include personal medical advice.

Pre-requisites

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How To Failproof Your New Year’s Resolution – And Any Other Goal

“New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

— Mark Twain

The new year is a time to think about what you want to achieve and to set new goals accordingly. Proceed carefully, because unless you’re in the minority of people who succeed, your new year’s vision will soon cloud over and nothing will change.

A 2018 YouGov poll found that one in 5 Americans stuck to their resolutions. Other research suggests the same stats, 80% abandon their resolutions in the first quarter. More radical resolutions fail faster. The reason cited is lost motivation. The remedy: Find tools and tactics to keep you motivated — a productivity app, accountability buddy, or motivational coach.

If you suspect that motivation is your issue, it could be wise to try these remedies. Personally, I’m not for externally imposed motivation. It takes me back to catholic girls’ college and cantankerous nuns killing all manner of fun.

But it’s not only my personal experience (trauma) that makes me reject external motivational. When it comes to falling short of a goal, I believe something more fundamental sends our desires sideways or to the back-burner, or into oblivion.

Reduce Excess

“As there is no worldly gain without some loss, so there is no worldly loss without some gain.”

– Francis Quarles

We, humans, are acquisitive creatures. The archaic drive of the hunter and gatherer also powers modern lives. But unlike our lean-living, itinerant ancestors, we inhabit a world of oversupply and stagnation. We tend to sit, dig in, and hold onto things long past their use-by date.

Just as planet earth suffers from human excess, we individually bear this burden. While the bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up and zen-living gurus showed us — room by room, object by object — how to live with less, our less-visible hoardings still collect dust year after year.

Projects, skills, jobs, relationships, behaviors, and habits would also benefit from the life-changing habit because if we’re at full capacity with things set in motion in the previous years, piling on more won’t upgrade our quality of life or bring success — only the opposite.

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Ego, Shadow, Self – Which Is In Control?

Ego Shadow And Self

Most of our actions are unconscious. We simply react in real-time.

Modern neuroscience tells us we are consciously aware of about 5% of our thoughts. Most of our behaviors and emotions are reactions to the 95 percent of brain activity that occurs beneath our awareness.

At the root of our automatic, knee-jerk reactions to life is a lack of self-knowledge. Modern wisdom says you should just be yourself: very appealing because no effort is required. Older wisdom says you should cultivate the self because a consciously directed life is much more likely to satisfy and bring meaning.

According to Eastern and Western psychology, we have an ego/persona, a shadow, and a self. The simplest way to understand them is:

Ego is your identity, while the persona is the mask you wear to survive and thrive – your social personality.

Shadow is the aspect you hide so that you can integrate and find acceptance.

Self is your true inner nature, who you are, and who you always will be. It actually includes the ego and the shadow.

In many cases, identity and relationship issues, and mental health problems stem from these three parts of ourselves working independently (often in opposition) rather than in harmony with each other.

Psychological education and inner-reflection methods such as meditation create healthy, harmonious selves.

Where to begin?

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The One Thing You Can Do To Bring Yoga Into Every Situation

Did you know that you can engage in a yoga posture and a meditative state in almost any situation; while taking a meeting, shopping, working out, or socializing?

Here, we define a yoga posture as any position that enables deeper awareness, embodiment, and connection.

This practice needs no yoga props or special conditions. It only takes a decision to perform, and a skill, which can be learned and cultivated.

In today’s world, the majority of people are stuck in states of contraction (tension) caused by stress, strain, overthinking and overwhelm.

Unchecked contracted states eventuate in illness.

Contraction diminishes your life-force by cutting you off from parts of yourself.

  • Physical contraction cuts one part of the body off from another.
  • Psychological contraction cuts off self-awareness which creates anxiety.
  • Emotional contraction cuts off feeling and connection with others.
  • Spiritual contraction cuts you off from cosmic energies, which causes alienation.

Your feeling states, contracted or relaxed, also create a powerful impression which others can sense, for better or for worse.

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Should Your Passion Be Buried Or Reborn?

Christine, a 40-year-old Australian artist, now living in the US, almost fell into the wrong career and surrendered her passion. But a conversation with someone she greatly admired re-orientated her life.

Words by Christine

Art and the artist’s life were my passion all through my 20s, but my 30th birthday and a broken 8-year relationship gave me a harsh reality check. Then, a steady income became more important to me than anything else.

I’d worked part-time in aged care homes. With my new aim, I trained to gain a better income, and I soon turned full time.

I planned to paint in my spare time, but it became unsustainable with a hectic social life that involved a lot of wine (and other substances), art openings, parties, celebrations, etc. Although I continued to call myself an artist, life was fun, and pleasantly uncomplicated without actually making art.

Watching Success

Years flew by without a single painting being completed. Then over a 6-month period, I noticed a fellow artist, Lucas (whose work I respected), turning out an astounding amount of work – a solo show one month, a group show the next, paid commissions the next.

“Have you hired a secret helper,” I joked at one of his exhibitions? “Oh yes, ten little fairies,” he joked back. “Seriously, what has changed”, I pressed.

“I did a course about life purpose, and it messed with my head, in the best possible way,” Lucas said.

I remember his words because, although I was happy with my therapy work and doing more training to advance my career, the fact that I did not know my life purpose made me quite sad, and very curious.

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