The chakras represent the architecture of the human soul. As meeting points between mind and body, spirit and matter, the chakras form the yoke of yoga. As portals between the worlds, the chakras are the seven windows to the soul that connect the inner world with the outer.
Yoga is the spiritual language that opens these centers and brings us to the core consciousness of the divine within. Chakras are modulators of subtle energy and the goal is to free the prana to travel fully through the whole body: grounding your first chakra and rising through the core to the infinite consciousness of the crown.
In this training, yoga teachers and seasoned students will learn asanas through the lens of the chakra system. What postures do we use to open, stimulate, or relax various chakras? How do we read the body to understand the functioning of the chakras within? How do we combine opposites, such as opening and closing, holding and releasing, charging and discharging, to pump energy through the whole body-mind system? How do we incorporate breath, mantra and mudras into our chakra practice? How do we access and strengthen the core?
You will learn sun salute variations for each chakra, along with yoga and bioenergetic exercises for each chakra, along with chakra philosophy, pranayama, mantras, guided meditation and more.
This beautiful Chakra Yoga Teacher Training Manual is used for our Chakra Yoga Teacher Trainings. It contains both philosophical and practical instructions on how to teach the chakra system. What's the history of the chakra system? How do you explain chakras to your students? What are the principles, practices, properties, and poses for each chakra? Learn asana sequences, pranayama by chakra, mudras, meditations, and how chakra and yoga philosophy interface. Also includes chakra sun salutations, meditation, and Anodea discusses how to become a better teacher. This Chakra Yoga Manual is invaluable. 92 pages, color pictures and charts.
The Purpose of Chakra Yoga
Taken from the Chakra Yoga Teacher Training Manual
PURPOSE
The body is the vehicle; consciousness the driver. Yoga is the path; the chakras are the map. The core is the key and the moment is now.
The word yoga means yoke or union. Yoga is a set of principles, beliefs, and practices whereby we yoke matter to spirit, body to mind, mortal to immortal, and Earth to Heaven. It is a path to align our life force with the Divine, not only for liberation and transcendence, but also for manifestation and immanence. It is simultaneously a path of ascension and a path of bringing divine energy down into us, to shine through us, and out into the world.
The Chakra System is the architecture of that yoke. Much as anatomy texts describe the architecture of the body through the bones, muscles, and organs, the Chakra System describes the architecture of the human soul through the subtle energy centers aligned along our core. The elegant arrangement and meaning of these centers provides a map for the journey to divine realization in the individual and an evolutionary map for our civilization’s next awakening.
As a yoke, the chakra system acts as a bridge between polarities: inner and outer, above and below, matter and consciousness, mortal and divine, finite and infinite. This bridge is made from stepping stones of consciousness arranged along the axis mundi, or sushumna, a vertical channel running through the sacred center of each one of us and all living things. These stepping stones form a ladder upon which we can climb up to Heaven or down to Earth, up towards liberation and transcendence, or down into manifestation and immanence. The goal of the chakra system in Sacred Centers Yoga is not some otherworldly or disembodied enlightenment but wholeness and integration. In this way the chakra system provides a profound formula for wholeness, a ladder for liberation, a template for transformation, and a map for manifestation.
The purpose of Sacred Centers Yoga is to create vibrant health and spiritual awakening through contact with the Divine Energy of Shakti moving freely through our core and therefore all of the chakras. This is achieved through practicing proper alignment and balancing archetypal forces, with an attitude of openness and reverence.
As a teacher, you are both a conduit and a catalyst for a sacred experience. It does not come from you but rather through you. But you are the one directing the attention of your students toward an experience that makes contact with the sacred, an experience of grace.
In order to do that, you must be there yourself. You must frequent this state regularly and remember, that beneath any pose or practice, the sacred is always within and around us – we need only enter the proper attitude and openness to access it. Sacred Centers Yoga is a path to that openness.
