Recently, I’ve been reading The Recognition Sūtras by Christopher Wallis. It’s a commentary on Kṣemarāja’s Pratyabhijñā-hṛdaya, a Shaiva Tantra treatise. In comparison to the dualism of sāṃkhya philosophy (i.e Yoga Sutras of Patañjali,) this is a refreshing non-dualistic view — recognition of oneself as an expression of divine consciousness. The first sutra in the text is translated as: “Awareness, …

The word sādhana is an important one for yoga practitioners and spiritual seekers. The root of this Sanskrit word is sādh which means to ‘bring about’. Sādhana is a means to accomplish something; it is to discipline oneself, to work towards something in particular. A sādhaka is a practitioner, one who performs sādhana.Sādhana can have many forms. For example, you might decide that in order …

Lead me from the Unreal to the Real This is a great time to be be considering such things as we just recently had Halloween, which is all about disguise and trickery. The other day I tried generating some AI images of a person blissfully practicing yoga. The above is one example of what AI …

I’m find myself thinking a lot about earth energy. There has been alot of instability and uncertainty this summer. The Okanagan and many other locales across Canada and beyond, have been scorched by wildfires, which has threatened or destroyed homes and habitats and wreaked havoc on our physical and mental health. A few weeks ago …

Years ago, I was going fairly regularly to Yasodhara Ashram in Kootenay Bay, which was founded by Swami Sivananda Radha. They held daily asana classes which were very different from my Iyengar training, and yet, both BKS Iyengar and Swami Radha spoke of a “hidden language” in hatha yoga practice. BKS Iyengar wrote a letter …

And moving into Summerland! From a yogic perspective, moving house can be viewed as more than just a physical transition, because relocation (whether home, job or otherwise) has the potential for deep transformation and personal growth. I’ve lived in Kelowna for 33 years. Within that time, I have moved house many times and each move …

I just came from class where I was instructing students to “take a seat” in Virabhadrasana I, and then a delivery of new yoga chairs arrived. I was immediately reminded of the meaning of the word āsana, that we commonly know as “posture”. It comes from the root word आस् (ās), which means to “sit, …

There’s that saying: “the only constant in life is change.” Life itself is transient, our bodies, minds, thoughts, the earth we live on are all are constantly changing. Whether lightning quick or molasses slow, change is happening ALL THE TIME. Maybe we were really into yoga practice and then circumstances changed. We found it hard …

You may or may not be aware that teachers of Iyengar Yoga follow a set of guidelines that is applicable worldwide. These guidelines originally came from BKS Iyengar himself, and were initially called the “Pune Constitution”; Pune, being the place in India where the Ramamani Iyengar Yoga Memorial Institute was established by Guruji back in …

Iyengar Yoga has become synonymous with prop yoga; however, there are times when props are definitely being overused. BKS iyengar has been known to exclaim “I wish I never invented props!” because he saw them often misused. In his younger years, BKS Iyengar practiced more of a vinyasa style of Yoga.  Through his evolution as …