š”For the month of August, we're re-releasing a few of our favorite podcasts from the 2023 season so far. Enjoy listening (or re-listening!) to these talks and, as always, tell us your thoughts and send over guest ideas.
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Doug Keller's talks with me continue to be some of our most popular episodes. Here in his second episode, we explored what became a set of expanded precepts whose inclusion into modern practice could change yoga practice. ā Rather than the 10 yamas (restraints) and niyamas (observances)ā that nearly every yoga teacher at least touches on in a teacher training, he offered 20. These come from the Natha Yogis, who in the 9th-10th centuries carried on with these behavioral suggestions for living a good life and, in doing so, embraced the tradition in yoga of practicing, experimenting, sitting with those experiments, and practicing some more. I think it's time in modern yoga to consider what Doug and I explored here. We also got into politics and social issues! I hope this talk delights you as much as his first episode did!
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Terms:
1. Prakriti: the Nature
2. Upanishads: Hindu religious texts in Sanskrit that make up the Vedas
3. Mahavira: founder of Jain spiritual system
4. Vedas: the most ancient Hindu scriptures
5. Mahabharata: a Sanskrit epic poem, which includes the Bhagavad Gita
6. Pada: portion
7. Kleshas: obstacles; the kleshas are considered the cause of suffering and are to be actively overcome
8. Henry Thomas Colebrooke: a Sanskrit scholar and orientalist
9. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: a German philosopher who is considered one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy
10. Ralph Waldo Emerson: an American writer and philosopher who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century
11. Henry David Thoreau: an American wrier and philosopher who was a leading transcendentalist
12. Neo-Vedanta: also called Hindu modernism, the Hinduism that developed in the 19th century
13. Swami Vivekananda: the first Hindu teacher to arrive in New England, taught Vedanta
14. Chakras: seven wheels of energy in the body located from the base of the spine to the crown of the head
15. Hatha Yoga Pradipika: a 15th-century Sanskrit text on hatha yoga
16. Western Esotericism: combines spirituality with an observation of the natural world while also relating humanity to the universe
17. Samadhi: contemplation; the final limb of the eight limbs of yoga
18. Jivanmukta: someone who has gained complete self-knowledge and self-realization and has attained liberation
19. Dharma: duty
20. Kama: pleasure, enjoyment
21. Kaivalya: a state of liberation reached by realizing that one's consciousness is separate from Nature (prakrti)
22. Natha Yoga: a variation of Tantric yoga; melded principles from yoga, Buddhism, and the Shaivism branch of Hinduism
23. Bindhu: a point or dot
24. Purusha: the divine Self which abides in all beings
25. Muktananda: the founder of Siddha Yoga
26. RenĆ©Ā Descartes: a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist
27. Tantra: a type of yoga using yantra (a sacred geometrical figure) and mantra (a sound formula) to experience the union of the masculine and feminine within the individual
28. Mukti: spiritual liberation
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References:
2. ā J-aimā
3. ā Christopher Key Chappleā
4. ā Raja Yoga, by Swami Vivekanandaā
5. ā The Weeks Well episode with Seane Cornā
6. ā Doug Keller's guide to the yamas and niyamasā
7. ā The Weeks Well episode with Eddie Sternā
8. ā The Weeks Well first episode with Doug Kellerā
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Episode credits:
Original music by Kim's band Governess.
Produced by Alyssa Yeroshefsky and Kim Weeks.
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