Tuesday, 30th August

7:00-9:30 Pranayama & Led Primary
16:00-19:00 WS Yoga Sutra

Wednesday, 31st August

7:00-9:30 Pranayama & Mysore Practice
16:00-19:00 WS How to Find your Life´s Divine Purpose

Thursday, 1st September

7:00-9:30 Pranayama & Mysore Practice
16:00-19:00 WS Tantric Meditation

Asana is the bedrock from which all other yogic techniques arise. It forms the base from which success in higher yogic techniques can be integrated. Gregor will use both Led (Technical Talk-Through) and Mysore-style. During the Technical Talk-Through we will analyse the anatomical details of the postures and to break down the various phases of entering and exiting the postures into their constituents. Through inducing precision this format also achieves that students practice the postures safely without encountering demerit.

The Mysore-style format will give students the opportunity to integrate the information learning in the Led class and also for Gregor to give individual attention to student’s needs.

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.

Program for afternoon classes:

Yoga Sutra, and Sanskrit chanting 

“The Yoga Sutra entered my life 39 years ago and since then it’s been a constant companion. It took me a long time to completely understand it but once this had happened it ended all confusion I had about yoga. Understanding the Sutra gave me complete confidence in how to apply my practices diligently and that I would succeed in due time. The Sutra changed yoga for me from a faith and hope-based system to a science with predictable and repeatable outcomes. It is exactly this confidence and certainty that I would like to pass on to my students. The workshop will be interactive, with ample time for participants to ask questions.”

The Yoga Sutra is the operating manual of yoga. It is only when we understand the why’s and how’s of yoga that we will practice with confidence and beyond doubt. In this class we will chant selected stanzas in Sanskrit and a detailed commentary based on Gregor’s four decades of practice and study will be given. The commentary will retain the depth of the ancient treatises but will be fun, relatable and applicable to modern urban life.

How To Find Your Life’s Divine Purpose

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. This workshop traces this knowledge to indigenous cultures, to the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible and the Yoga Sutra. Our loss of this knowledge is what has led to our environmental destruction and the 6^th 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.

Also covered are:

• Our life’s divine purpose in relation to quantum mechanics, astrophysics and
  evolutionary psychology
• Connection to symbiosis, brain development and homeostasis
• The practice & psychology of finding one’s life’s divine purpose
• 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
• How to embody your life’s divine purpose
• Humanities collective divine purpose

Tantric Meditation

Gregor teaches two meditation systems side-by-side, yogic and tantric meditation. Similar to our asana and pranayama practices so also yogic chakra-Kundalini meditation is very structured. While yogic meditation is a very transformational and powerful technique, some students struggle with its rigor and demands for concentration and visualization. If we experience a lot of pressure in our lives and minds the simple but effective tantric meditation techniques can be useful.

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.

During demanding and stressful times, emphasis on these meditations can create more headspace and nurturing. During other times when more certainty and inspiration is available, this can then be invested into the transformational power of yogic meditation. Hence the two systems work excellently side by side and can easily be integrated with each other.

About Gregor Maehle

Gregor Maehle began his yogic practices forty years ago. In the mid-1980s he commenced annual travels to India, where he studied with various yogic and tantric masters, traditional Indian sadhus and ascetics. He spent fourteen months in Mysore, and in 1997 was authorised to teach Ashtanga Yoga by K. Pattabhi Jois. Since then he has branched out into researching the anatomical alignment of postures and the higher limbs of yoga.

In India Gregor also received eight months of mostly one-on-one instruction in scripture and the higher limbs of Yoga through B.N.S. Iyengar, a student of T. Krishnamacharya, and he studied Sanskrit under Professor Narayanachar and Dr Chandrasekhar. Gregor’s internationally acclaimed textbook series consisting of Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy, Ashtanga Yoga: The Intermediate Series, Pranayama: The Breath of Yoga, Yoga Meditation: Through Mantra, Chakras and Kundalini to Spiritual Freedom, Samadhi The Great Freedom and How to Find Your Life’s Divine Purpose – have sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into eight foreign languages.

Today he teaches an anatomically sophisticated interpretation of traditional vinyasa yoga, integrated into the practice of the higher limbs in the spirit of Patanjali and T. Krishnamacharya. His zany sense of humour, his manifold personal experiences, and his vast and deep knowledge of scripture, Indian philosophies and yogic techniques combine to make his teachings applicable, relevant and easily accessible to all his students.

https://www.8limbs.com/