a center for
personal and planetary
awakening

Mystic River Yoga
214 Crosby St.

Arlington, MA 02474

781 643 0117
info@MysticRiverYoga.com

Introduction

12 Principles of Awakening

Spiritual Foundation

Scientific Foundation

Embodying the Practice

Collective Awakening

                   Yoga of Embodiment:

   Introduction to the Intermediate Course

              Developing Subtle Awareness:

            Cultivating Self Study (Savadhyaya)

          Feeling Our Way into Energy and Flow

                Goals, Obstacles and Resources

    Our intermediate themes expand on the foundations of spiritual practice began in the beginning section. We have established a personal practice, perhaps found a tradition or community to become involved with, and have some roots extending down into the earth. Energies devoted to frivolous pursuits are now channeled into the spiritual quest. To move to the next level we begin to refine our sensitivities. This transition is not sudden, but emerges gradually over time. By slowing down, doing less, observing more, we allow more spaciousness and subtlety into awareness and continue to expand our perceptual fields. Transcend and include is our motto for evolutionary progress so we continue to inhabit our bones and breath as we invite in the organs, cells and more subtle sensations and perceptions. New insights into our relationships and our emotional states arise as the integration process deepens.

   Our goals as an intermediate student is to become grounded in the subtle body, the fluidity of the body, expanding our sense of breath and bones to the water element as expressed in the organs, cells and the fluid component of the living matrix. Water also signifies emotions, so we are also looking to become more deeply sensitive to our emotional states as they come and go. Our relationships become an intimate aspect of our unfolding spiritual practice.

    Obstacles at this level include aggression, spiritual materialism, attachment to objective knowledge, and the tendency towards fundamentalism. The dullness and lack of focus that occur in beginning students is replaced by an abundance of energy that is both applied to and released by our practice, and we must be careful not to use this aggressively.

    In our highly competitive culture, spiritual practice can easily become another arena to push ourselves to achieve, accomplish and acquire 'spiritual goodies'. Chogyam Trungpa, Tibetan Buddhist teacher and founder of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado recognized this tendency upon his arrival here in 1970 and his first teachings in the US became the book "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism". To understand this phenomenon, we need to introduce the highly useful and equally complex term "ego".

   All of us have a felt self-sense, a sense of "I" of "I am". Neurobiologically, we also have an organizing center in the brain/mind around which the various representations of mind and aspects of our lives are integrated. (See Science section for a more detailed articulation of this.)

    In this course we will use the term ego to describe the organizing capabilities of the mind/brain, which are absolutely essential for us to be able to function efficiently and carefully in the complex and constantly changing world. A healthy ego is very much a part of health and well-being. But, being composed of fluctuating neuronal firing patterns, this healthy egoic structure is inherently limited. It is totally unequipped to understand or define the inherently limitless 'Self'. The ego is not the "I Am" we all know, but it loves to run the show. Ego acting as 'I am' seeks the infinite through acquiring and achieving, grasping and avoiding. It is terminally hungry, lacking, and needy, and more than willing to run your spiritual practice. Ruin is more like it.

 Resources at this level include the yoga vitamins, the four frolics in God, and modern spiritually based psychotherapeutic modalities.