Yoga as a path to Samadhi Online workshop with Guy Donahaye

Who I am?

Am I my body? Am I my mind?

Or do I have a body and a mind, and is my true nature something else entirely?

These questions baffled philosophers for thousands of years but were positively answered by meditators (yogis) who sought answers through direct experience.

According to the great sages, our true nature is neither physical nor mental, it is something else entirely - our true inner nature being is one of pure consciousness.

These yogis reach their vision through meditation through sitting still and quieting the mind. When mental activity decreases, what remains?

Stilling the mind and seeing the truth about our inner nature is extremely challenging for most people. For this reason, techniques have been developed as means to facilitate this investigation. One of these is the Ashtanga Yoga step method.

In the path of Ashtanga Yoga, asana is the first, established as the foundation. Based on stable and comfortable posture, Pranayama is then developed as a means of calming the fluctuations of the mind. In order to properly establish a comfortable posture and peaceful mind the practices of Yama and Nimaya are also necessary.

Establishing the first four limbs of Yoga, the next step, pratyahara, is the technique to introvert the mind's attention, dharana brings the mind to concentration, dhyana channels the mind towards only one object, and samadhi brings the mind to a stop.

When the mind enters samadhi, the meditator can realize himself/herself as pure consciousness.

Samadhi is not an exalted, inaccessible, sublime state, frequently presented as an impossible dream, only attainable by extreme practices and austerity, but an intimate condition that is close to all of us, a state that is revealed when the mind is still.

In this workshop, we will trace the path through the internal limbs of yoga (in theory and practice), starting from the foundation with asana, followed by practices of pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, towards samdhi.

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Guy has been fascinated with meditation for over 40 years after having profound non-dualistic experiences as a child. Having explored different paths and spent many years traveling in India, a method of meditation opened up to him through the authentic teachings of his teacher Dr. KLS Jois.

Guy is the director of Ashtanga yoga shala in New York, practicing and teaching Mysore Style for almost 30 years. He extensively researched the origins of Ashtanga practice and published an influential book "Guruji: a portrait" - a book with in-depth interviews with senior practitioners in 2009.