What is Yoga? And what is Tantra Hatha?

Transcript

hi hello I'm Tom Jones Tantra hatha yoga teacher as well as a photographer and a few other things I thought I'd make a short video to introduce my style of yoga and to kind of outline what yoga is and what yoga isn't I think there's a lot of misconceptions in the world now yoga is so popular about what yoga is lots of people think that Yoga is to help us feel good it's a form of exercise it's to help us feel stretchy flexible lower our stress cholesterol help us look sexy in Lululemon clothes whatever it may be there's as many answers to what is yoga as there are people in the room often all of those things I just listed might be nice and desirable side effects of yoga but they're not the reason why we practice the reason why we practice is outlined by Patanjali and potentially wrote the yoga sutras 2,000 years ago the Yoga Sutras is a compile of teachings 196 sentences that define what yoga is and if you practice yoga of any kind in any studio around the world but Angelou's EOKA sutras will be informing that practice in the second of these 196 sentences Patanjali says yoga chitta vritti nirodh aha' yoga chitta vritti nirodh aha' that translates from Sanskrit to mean that Yoga is to remain undisturbed by the fluctuations of the mind Yoga is to remain undisturbed by the fluctuations of the mind some Patanjali 2,000 years ago was writing down the system that had been passed down for many centuries before him he was running down a system that would help us deal with our busy minds which is what many of us still struggle with today so what he was saying there is that behind the fluctuations of the mind is something else is our true self is the essence of our being our light of life perhaps you might call it God or the divine Krishna or whatever it is that you wish to call it that exists within you behind these fluctuations behind the ego and the practice of yoga is to remove ourselves from our identification with the ego and instead identify with that light inside that light inside of us is unchanging as we grow old growth wrinkles lose limbs fall in and then out of love all those changes that we go through in our lives they can swing us into happy moods and sad moods and elation and depression but ultimately behind all of it is this unchanging light of life and potentially through the yoga system is helping us identify with that light inside such what the practice of yoga is my style of teaching is a Tantra hatha style of teaching I trained first in vinyasa and that was great for a while that felt like kind of dancing on a mat to music it made me feel good made me feel stretchy made me feel strong but then I came to study with Octavio at the practice in Bali where I studied at Tantra hatha and this was a different much more profound approach the Tantra approach is quite simple it's it's combining the mundane with the spiritual it's making everything spiritual rather than having to go off into the mountains sit still quiet and give up everything to be a yogi it's about being a yogi in this world it's about thriving in the world it's about achieving and succeeding but doing so from an authentic space from operating from that light within so I teach three different styles of Tantra hatha yoga three different subgenres moon Sun and fire the moon elements are about twisting and folding forward it's much Karma we exhale a lot more to induce the parasympathetic nervous system when we twist we assimilate we stoke the fire in the digestive system and then when we fold forward we release in some practices we backbend and we open and we side stretch and that creates space that cultivates energy and expands our being we do this once we've already become stable in a moon practice once we've already established a calmness then once you've established that calmness cultivated energy in a Sun practice you can then use a fire practice to direct that energy to direct that prana into places within the body through Kriya meditation to melt limitations to burn through limitations and burn through karma that's holding you back from achieving what it is you want to achieve in life so that's in a nutshell my practice of yoga and how I approach yoga I hope you've got something from it feel free to leave a comment or send me an email with a question I hope to see you on a mat at some point in the future and I've been making more videos as well so maybe I'll see you online much love the light in me sees and is equal to that light in you that's what we mean when we say to each other namaste