ECOnnect Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras!
An in-depth exploration of the relationship between self, other and the more-than-human world through studying key Sutras yoga further training yoga nidra
ECOnnect Patanjali
Syllabus, dates, etc
ECOnnect Patanjali’s Sutras!
An in-depth exploration of the relationship between self, other and the more-than-human world through the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and Yajnavalkya
Taught by: Dr Lucy Weir, philosopher, yogi, writer, teacher
Summary
ECOnnected Yoga is an in-depth exploration of the relationship between self, other and the more-than-human world through the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with a look at Yajnavalkya’s Sutras too. It is the development of a practice of embodied philosophy, which includes asanas, pranayama, meditation and yoga nidra, as well as explorations into lucid dreaming, practice-realisation and attunement to compassion. It is about communication, community and connection, and will help us all respond to our interconnectedness more effectively.
The ecological emergency includes climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and systems fragmentation but which also includes our individual and collective challenge to integrate a response to this emergency. Eco in the word ecology comes from the Greek word ‘oikos’ which means ‘home’ and is therefore more intimate than ‘environment’ which means ‘neighbourhood’. But the root ‘eco’ also gives us the word economy. We have the way we talk about our home, and we also have the issue of body, and planet, budgeting.
We have to rethink how we experience ourselves in relation to the systems outside us and to the systems inside us. Being in an emergency requires an urgent and critically important response from us. Traditionally, throughout the development of the dominant cultural ethos,we thought we could use will power, or strength (through technical innovation) or force (through militarisation), to overcome the limits of systems. My thesis suggests this approach has failed. Instead, we need to use the practices of yoga to explore our relationship with others, including the more-than-human world, through the yamas, but also to explore our relationship with ourselves through the niyamas. Throughout this course we explore the relationships as intimately interconnected.
This, then, is the practice-realisation that is talked about in Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō. And it is also at the heart of a generous and up-to-date interpretation of Patanjali’s, and Yajnavalkya’s, Sutras, as well as ecophilosophy. We can live an examined life, a life where we experience the spaciousness and compassionate nature of all existence. We can both honour, and ‘forget the self’, and let love work through us. Through us love does what needs to be done. We will work on communication, connection, and developing communities that are resilient, diverse (we don’t all have to think alike…) and tolerant. We will learn to ‘think like a planet’, or a river, and we will reintegrate ourselves, and our species, with all.
This is a revolutionary course. It is based largely on my book, Love is Green: compassion as responsibility in the ecological emergency (Vernon Press, 2019) and on my own understanding and practice of Yoga, Zen and Philosophy as Practice (about which I’m currently editing a collection of philosophical contributions called Urgent Matters for Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming 2021).
Students will learn:
- To use the practices of asana, pranayama, yoga nidra, meditation, discussion, reflection and lucid dreaming to develop an in-depth understanding of the relationship between self, other and the more-than-human world.
- To understand and embody the philosophical concepts of attitude, realisation as agency, and compassionate attunement in order to deepen their practice and insight into responding to ecological awareness and the ecological emergency.
- To use the practices of yoga and meditation to gain a better insight into and develop better relationships in order to develop resilience, tolerance, and an understanding of the importance to these of diversity.
- To use the practices of yoga and philosophy to develop the practice of overcoming conflicts, internal and external.
- To use the practices of yoga and philosophy to develop skills in communication and building community through compassionate communication and compassionate achievement so that their own professional development advances and they become more skillful in their work.
Requirements:
A strong interest in yoga and philosophy, preferably having undertaken teacher training in yoga.
A regular (preferably daily) yoga or meditation practice, preferably both. A desire to contribute to any aspect of global or local community movements in response to the ecological emergency.
A desire to understand and find tools to deal with obstacles to compassion, to understanding other points of view, and to overcoming conflict.
A willingness to approach the external emergency as an internal emergence of growing awareness through discussion, practice, work exercises and other techniques that allow self transformation to take place.
Target students:
Yoga teachers, serious yoga and meditation practitioners, and those with a yoga and meditation practice who are particularly interested in learning techniques and practices to respond with compassion in the ecological emergency
Schedule:
- Week one: Introduction: kinetic and potential energy and non-dualism as a practice. Integrating yoga with non-dual embodied philosophy through the practice of asanas, pranayama, meditation and yoga nidra. What will be expected of you. two assignments (week 6, week 11), one presentation - half an hour, recorded (week 12). What you can expect from me. Availability, WhatsApp group, follow up, community participation. Sankalpa. Yoga history and philosophy. The relationship between the internal and the external worlds.
- Week two: the first Yama. Ahimsa. Georg Feuerstein: if we get no further than this, we will still have done some good. How we harm is also how we suffer. We suffer by creating suffering.
- Week three: the second Yama. Satya. How we lie. What we deny. What we know and don’t know. Telling the truth does not mean being unkind. The truth and freedom. Science and truth. Data and truth. Knowing what we don’t know. Humility and truth. Freedom of speech.
- Week four: the third Yama. Asteya. Stealing from the future by taking more than we need. Stealing from the past by not learning the lessons of history (as outlined in Collapse by Jared Diamond). Stealing from others by stealing ideas and not acknowledging them. Thus Asteya builds on honesty and kindness.
- Week five: the fourth Yama. Brahmacharya. Restraint. The tendency to blame others is a reflection of unresolved conflict in the self. Compassionate achievement: creating win-win situations. Compassionate communication: seeing others’ communications as reflections of needs, meeting the need with skillful speech. Yoga is skill in action, thought, words.
- Week six: the fifth Yama. Aparigraha. Non-grasping, non-covetousness. See also 1.33. Delphi: know thyself, do nothing to excess, be not assured. Alan Watts’ The Wisdom of Insecurity. The monk story.
- Week seven: the first Niyama. Saucha. Clean body, clear mind. Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha. Declutter. Create more space. Delegate. Do less.
- Week eight: the second Niyama. Santosha. Contentment. Radical self-acceptance. Changing the narrative. The compassionate self.
- Week nine: the third Niyama. Tapas. Effort. Abhyasa and Varaghya. Effort and Surrender, or impartiality, or dispassion and passion. The practice is the way.
- Week ten: the fourth Niyama. Svadhyaya. Know thyself, forget the self. Confucius: the steps to the way of self knowledge and peace.
- Week eleven: the fifth Niyama. Ishvara Pranidhana. For whom the bell tolls. Listen. Datta Dayadhvam, Damyata. Lucid dreaming.
- Week twelve: Summary, presentations, certification.
Time and Dates:
Starting 6th April 2021-22nd June 2021 (12 weeks) Tuesday evenings 6.30-8pm
One and a half hours per week, 18 hours contact with students, plus student assignments and presentation (expect to work on these for at least an hour a week, as well as establishing a daily practice of asana, pranayama and meditation for at least 20m per day, or at least two hours per week: 36 hours student study time per course. Total course time: 54 hours total course time.
My Credentials:
- Yoga Alliance Professionals certified teacher, course creator, provider and trainer.
- PhD in Philosophy. Thesis: From Respect for Nature to Agency as Realisation in the Ecological Emergency (UCC, 2014)
- Author: Love is Green: compassion as responsibility in the ecological emergency, Vernon Press, 2019
- Urgent Matters, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2021.
- Academic papers, contributions to journals in yoga and philosophy, blog, etc
- Social justice and ecological advocacy work since early 1990s
- Please see www.knowyogaireland.com for more.
Your Certification:
Postgraduate Yoga training, certified and endorsed by Yoga Alliance Professionals. If you are not a teacher, it will still ensure that you understand and can communicate the interrelatedness of self, other, and more-than-human world. You will receive a signed certificate of successful completion, contributing to CPD.
To register: email knowyogaireland@gmail.com
Price: £300, €330, $390, payable in advance through Revolut, Paypal, or bank (details on request).
Please approach to discuss if financial assistance is required. further training