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110 | Rhythm of Life

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110 | Rhythm of Life

Take a journey within, to understand better your values, beliefs and desires. Everything in the universe has a rhythm, the sun rises and sets, the phases of the moon, the ebb and flow of tides, the changing of seasons, similarly human life has ups and downs, delight and despair, love and loneliness, health and disease, abundance and lack and so on. But we forget this and at times we feel stuck in our suffering, or we question our own self-worth, we feel lost, disconnected with our inner resources and guidance and life starts feeling like it has gotten off course. The Rhythm of Life program offers you a space to reflect, learn and discover your own rhythm and take charge in your life to experience greater fulfilment, connection, healing, restoration, and harmony in life.The program is based on the Jain principle “Jina- Be a Conqueror of the self” applied to a householder lifestyle. With better understanding of our true self, we can evolve, overcome ourobstacles and limiting beliefs, and take charge of our overall well-being and happiness. There are 4 main modules in this course, which bring together various Indian philosophical traditions with a special emphasis on Jain philosophy, modern scientific research, and real life experiences.Learning Objectives:1. Develop a toolkit to lead a happier and holistic life.2. Understand human suffering and its purpose in our lives.3. Become more conscious of values-based living.4. Redesign beliefs to harmonize your inner and outer worlds.5. Create new habits to become the best version of yourself.
$99.00 USD

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Self-paced

3004 | Modern Yoga Studies: Critical History, Anthropology and Methodology

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3004 | Modern Yoga Studies: Critical History, Anthropology and Methodology

One of the primary questions students of modern yoga seek to answer is precisely how the forms of contemporary yoga practiced today are connected to pre-modern forms of yoga developed in India. To begin to answer this question and to formulate new questions, this course will trace some of the historical continuities and discontinuities between pre-modern and modern yoga practices, demonstrating that modern yoga is a complicated, transnational cultural product. We will explore the legacy of the first yoga teachers who brought yoga to America and Europe as well as yoga’s development from a historical, social, and political perspective.Students will thus take into account current scholarly debates regarding the relationship of transnational yoga to categories such as capitalism, neoliberalism, orientalism, racism, speciesism, gender, cultural appropriation, biopolitics, nationalism, and colonization. Doing so will encourage yoga practitioners to adopt new methodologies concerning the critical study of modern yoga, and will also give them an opportunity to confront and unravel saṃskāras, or acquired mental impressions and social conditionings, related to their inherited beliefs regarding the origins, history, and contemporary practice of yoga. The course is thus simultaneously intellectual as well as, from a yogic perspective, transformational.
$99.00 USD

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Self-paced

3005 | Modern Yoga, Embodied Self-Care and Healing

$99.00 USD
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3005 | Modern Yoga, Embodied Self-Care and Healing

This course builds on the understanding of modern yoga as a set of historically evolved body-mind practices and discourses that developed into an effective, late-modern self-care. Based on this definition, contemporary yoga – inspired by both pre-modern practices, such as āsana and prāṇāyāma as well as more modern practices, such as mindfulness, body awareness or relaxation techniques – can be defined as a highly efficient tool for self-care. It continues to evolve by adapting to contemporary needs and contributes to the health of late modern societies.In 1946, the World Health Organization defined “health” as complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Thus, cultural studies can and have to contribute to such a holistic understanding of health with their view on humans as biological, but likewise social, ritual, symbolic and deeply interconnected beings, very much so via their bodies.But how can this insight be brought into practice? The course examines theories on embodiment and body knowledge and enriches our existing, individual yoga practice with additional, accessible, and highly efficient tools for self-care. It helps developing a more elaborate and sophisticated language as well as a deepened understanding for embodied processes. This includes the knowledge and training of our external and internal senses, getting to know our individual body image and understanding that how we talk to ourselves matters. We investigate the body scheme, understand the importance of touch, flow-states, relaxation, and other techniques that we can employ for both, getting to know but also to transcend ourselves as well as to understand ourselves as fully interconnected beings. Knowing one’s own body in such elaborate ways can, in a yogic manner, help to unlearn embodied habits and conditioning and to gain distance from them whenever needed.
$99.00 USD

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Self-paced

3006 | Embodying Transnational Yoga

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3006 | Embodying Transnational Yoga

"Yoga is more than āsana" is a phrase we commonly hear in the contemporary yoga world. But what does this actually mean in practice? In this course we will explore the ways yoga practitioners engage in the practice of eating, singing, and breathing. We will learn about these three transformative, yet understudied embodied yoga practices: yogic diet, music, and breathing techniques. While embracing philosophical, philological, and historical approaches to the study of these practices, this course also presents novel cultural approaches for understanding each following the methodology in Professor Miller’s book, Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation.   Students will move through three contemporary sites of yogic practice where they will learn about the social-historical and cultural forces that both shape and enable particular ways of yogic eating, singing, and breathing therein. By combining the field of yoga studies with Indian Ocean Studies, Food Studies, Ethnomusicology, and Pollution Studies, they will learn that when they embody their own yoga traditions’ transformative practices, they are also simultaneously embodying other unseen cultural and social-historical influences. Students will therefore also learn how to perform research in their own yoga tradition or community to better understand and communicate to others the often unrecognized and complex histories, social contexts, and philosophies comprising their embodied yoga practices.   Professor Miller will take students through a systematic approach for performing yoga research to help each participant identify their own key research questions concerning their yoga tradition’s embodied practices and techniques. They will also be inspired to develop their own research methods that will help them to answer these critical questions, thereby becoming a scholar of their own yoga tradition. The only prerequisite for this course is a sincere curiosity to learn about the historical sources and cultural influences shaping contemporary yoga practices whether they are eating, singing, breathing, or another transformative yogic technique of special interest.  This course is offered in collaboration with Yogic Studies

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3007 | Ancient and Classical Jain Yoga

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3007 | Ancient and Classical Jain Yoga

This course provides an in-depth exploration of yoga and meditation as understood within ancient and classical Jain scriptures. In Part 1: Ancient Jain Yoga, students will be introduced to foundational concepts such as āsana, or physical postures, as a tool for purification and meditation. Drawing from early Jain texts, including the Uttarādhyayanasūtra and the Daśavaikālikasūtra, students will learn how restraint of the body, mind, and speech formed early Jain definitions of yoga.  Part 2: Yoga and Meditation in Classical Jain Philosophy, transitions into an examination of the Tattvārthsūtra and its commentaries, where yoga is described as the inflow (āsrava) of karma—representing an obstacle to spiritual liberation. Students will explore the key to liberation through correct worldview, knowledge, and conduct, as well as the role of dhyāna (meditation) as both an austerity (tapas) and a means of wearing away (nirjarā) karma. Through a discussion of virtuous (dharma) and pure (śukla) meditation, the course will highlight how advanced meditation practices lead to spiritual purification and the elimination of karma, providing a comprehensive understanding of Jain yoga's ultimate aim of mokṣa, or liberation. This is designed as a two-week course that will take approximately 4 hours to complete, and includes readings and a series of 10 lectures to guide you through the intricacies of ancient and classical Jain definitions of Yoga. Learning Objectives:Learn the role of āsana (physical postures) in ancient Jain yoga as a tool for purification and meditation.Discover how restraint of body, mind, and speech formed early Jain definitions of yoga, with guidance from key ancient texts.Explore the classical Jain philosophical view of yoga as the inflow (āsrava) of karma, and see how this concept is discussed in the Tattvārthsūtra and its commentaries.Understand how meditation (dhyāna) serves as an austerity (tapas) to wear away karma (nirjarā) and how virtuous (dharma) and pure (śukla) meditation practices lead to spiritual purification and liberation (mokṣa).
$99.00 USD

Instructor

Self-paced