Nico Luce Yoga Master and Disciple

Transcript

hello my name is Nichole Uche and this class is called master and disciple so it comes with a story from the Ramayana which is one of the two ancient Indian epic stories this story is about a king and the king was very dedicated to his kingdom he was touring and travelling around making sure that the first of the kingdom were taking care of and at some point he encounters an amazing place a magic place he can tell that there's something different about this place because the trees are full of flowers and fruits and the birds the singing of the birds there's something special so he's attracted to this place and he stole that it belongs to a sage his name is Vasishta you may know him from site blank vashistasana so he wants to meet the sage he enters the ashram and he's greeted by the sage and the sage invites the king and the whole troupe to come for a feast that night and the king is like no thank you it's a lot of people to feed the sage says oh no problem we'll take care of that please come back tonight so that night the King returns with a whole army and he can't believe what he sees there's food for everyone and the most amazing feast and everything has been prepared and sorted out and he starts wondering how can this be possible how can someone put together a party like this so he asked but she starts like what happened how can you make this happen and was Justice says well there's a gift given to me by Lord Indra like the king of gods and this gift is a cow is a magic cow she can give me anything I want and what I wanted is to honor you so the couch is provided all this and the king is wondering like why does he need something like that he starts wondering well maybe I should have that gift because I have to take care of the affairs of the kingdom I travel around sometimes we go through rough times it would be great for me to have this gift so he asked my sister for the gift and she says oh no that's a gift to me I'm not giving it away and the king is like well but I'm the king and I rule here and I ruled that that cow should be launched who belong to me I'll give you a thousand cows and Vegeta says why do I want a thousand cows if with one I get everything I want I'll give you elephants and I give you a treasure if you want and which is this ass definitely not this this cow belongs to me and here it will stay so the King has decided that he wants to have the cow and he orders his his army to seize the cow and vasista all he does he stands in between and he falls his hands in front of his heart just like we do before we start the practice at chants ohmm and they say in the story that that ohm defeated the entire army everybody went down and the King just like that lost all his power what was for him an external pursuit and it became an inner quest he realized that the power that he had was nothing compared to the power that this man had so he started a quest this internal question on the outer level my sister was his teacher and he became a disciple and the story goes on and on he wants to become a great sage as well and and he succeeds at the end his name is given to him was visvamitra and you may know him from a pose that we'll be doing in today's class which is called visvamitra asana Vishwamitra means the old compassionate one so in this journey of self-revelation he becomes a great servant to humanity he's going to help everyone I tell you the story because as we approach this to process we are faced with the same issues that were faced in life in the sense that in life we need to remain as disciples life is the teacher the world is the classroom and everybody we encounter has something to teach us there are no more friends and enemies anymore but teachers out there now on the inside we are the master on the outside there's a lot to learn on the inside you have everything you need on the outside there are things that you can get on the inside you have it all so I want you to remember this as you go through the practice that is not about doing the poses I will be showing you different levels and different stages in the pose and you can start from the beginning and add to that and if you feel encouraged to go for the full pose go ahead but just remember that it's not about what you do but how you do it it's not about what you have but how you use it so just keep this in mind and enjoy the practice namaste so we'll begin the practice standing at the front of the mat in Mountain Pose set your feet hip distance apart and parallel to each other pointing straight forward let your knees be soft and aligned your pelvis right over the arches of the feet the shoulders over the hips and then the head right over the shoulders start following the breath the breath is the lead the breath is the master that takes you into the pose on the next inhale breath lift the arms up as you exhale fold forward from the pelvis release your hands to the floor as you inhale lift the chest halfway and lengthen and on the exhale step your right leg back lower the knee with the next inhale breath lift the arms up and then as you exhale lower your palms step your left foot back downward facing dog