Luxembourg Workshop with Gregor Maehle

Saturday 16th September 2023
9:00 – 12:00 Guided Asana class
14:0-17:00 Tantric Meditations from the Vijnana Bhairava

Sunday 17th September 2023
9:00 – 12:00 Pranayama & Kriya
14:0-17:00 Karma Yoga and the Bhagavad Gita

Guided Asana
Students of all styles can benefit from Gregor’s Led Asana Class. Here Gregor will analyse the many intricate anatomical details of the accessible postures of the Primary Series, while maintaining as much pace as possible. The focus will be on breaking down the various phases of entering and exiting the postures into their constituents. Performing postures safely while understanding which anatomical actions will get us deep into the asanas will prevent unnecessary energy expenditure. Through inducing precision this format also achieves that conditioning and emotions lodged in bodily tissue are released, preparing us for the higher limbs of pranayama and meditation.

Tantric Meditations from the Vijnana Bhairava
This workshop is based on meditation techniques from an ancient text called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. This text came down through Kashmir Shaivism and contains 112 dharanas, what we today would call meditation techniques. Many of today’s popular meditation techniques were already introduced in the Vijnana Bhairava.

Most of these tantric meditations are much simpler than yogic meditation and require less effort. There are also many different techniques to choose from. Here is a sophisticated approach that offers a great variety in case a particular technique doesn’t work for a student. This makes this system very adaptable to individual needs and preferences.

Of particular interest are those techniques that deal with realizing ones true nature as consciousness. Consciousness in this context is that what is conscious, rather than that what we are conscious of (i.e. the contents of the mind). Realizing this leads to great inner peace and stillness. In the tradition of the Indian mystic Shri Aurobindo, however, this state is not the end of one’s spiritual evolution but the beginning of its most fruitful phase. It makes us receptive and open to download higher forms of spiritual insight through which we become transformed into tools of universal consciousness.

Pranayama and Kriya
Imagine how great it would be to have a switch that, when operated, would enable you to consciously choose between your right and left brain hemispheres, intuitive and analytical intelligence, sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, fight/flight reflex and rest/relaxation, and between the male and female, solar and lunar, aspects of your psyche. How great it would be if, when required, you could switch from being compassionate to doggedly determined. Or from charged with energy to completely relaxed within a few minutes. Or from extrovert (physically present, expressive and outgoing) to introvert (reflective and absorbing) within a short time. This switch does in fact exist and it is not at all hidden. It is the prominently protruding olfactory orifice right in the middle of your face: your nose.

Pranayama includes some of the most neglected but yet most powerful methods of yoga. Pranayama is the vital link that connects asana to meditation without which the combined benefit of both cannot be harvested. Learn how to use pranayama to harmonize the doshas (humors of the body) and thus attain a state of health and balance as well as how to still the mind, enabling spiritual insight.

The kriyas are predominantly methods of purification of the body. They support the work of postures and are especially important for people who live in large cities. They aid in removing contamination from chemical, environmental, electrical, biological and electromagnetic sources.

Karma Yoga and the Bhagavad Gita
The main source for Karma Yoga is the Bhagavad Gita, the Divine Song. The Gita itself presents a sophisticated mix of Jnana Yoga (yoga of knowledge), Bhakti Yoga (yoga of devotion) and Karma Yoga (yoga of action). We will learn to chant some of the important stanzas and then analyse the practical lessons for life that the Gita imparts.

Do you remember a time when you knew that your life would be amazing and that you would live to make a meaningful contribution to life on Earth and the life of others? And then what happened? Somehow our education and the process of enculturation cut us off from this sacred knowledge and élan vital. We became cynics and “realists”.

Since time immemorial human societies were organized around the idea that the life of the individual and of society have divine purpose. Our loss of this knowledge is what has led to our environmental destruction and the 6th mass extinction of life as well as the current epidemic of mental disorders.

This workshop not only shows how we lost the knowledge that all life is sacred and purposeful, it also introduces layers of technique to lead us back to finding and gradually implementing our life’s divine purpose (svadharma) and that implementing it is to act in alignment with the Infinite (Karma Yoga).

Also covered are:

• The practice & psychology of the yoga of action
• Overcoming obstacles
• How do we know it’s the right voice?
• Daily cleansing regime of the subconscious mind
• Being in the zone and absence of internal dialogue
• Importance of forgiveness, gratitude, acceptance and surrender