Jnanahata YogaJnanahata Yoga is the Sanskrit name I created for the yoga that I live and teach. The asana practice of Jnanahata Yoga is a blend of Ashtanga, Anusara, Iyengar, Viniyoga and Kriya Yoga. Jnanahata yoga can be defined as a challenging, creative and flowing vinyasa (movement linked with breath) yoga practice that also features long holds in postures, thorough exploration and application of alignment, and which incorporates special practices for the shoulders, hips and core to deepen and enhance our yoga practice.Through the concentration cultivated in our asana practice, and through contemplation, pranayama, chanting, kriya and meditation practices, we discover and become immersed in an unbroken experience or awareness (dhyana or meditation) of the stillness and silence of our pure consciousness, the Heart or Soul. As we surrender more deeply into that stillness and silence, it becomes like a mirror that reflects the joy, love, truth, light, peace, goodness and compassion, which are deeper qualities or attributes of our Soul. When we become absolutely surrendered in an unbroken experience or awareness (dhyana or meditation) of those qualities of the Soul, we are drawn into the experience and knowing of our selves as the Soul. When our little self, chitta or conscious awareness, becomes merged with the big or true self, the Soul, so that we are liberated from the delusion of separate identity from the Soul, we are in Samadhi: merged in the experience of ourselves as Soul. Ultimately, because the wave of our Soul is one with the ocean of God’s consciousness, the experience of ourselves as Soul leads us to the deepest and most important goal of yoga, unity of, or merging (samadhi) of, our true self the Soul, with God. Below I have elaborated on the Sanskrit words that make up the word Jnanahata Yoga to more fully express it’s meaning: Jnana: Jnana can be interpreted as truth or wisdom that you know through, or in your Heart or Soul. Our Heart or Soul is a wave on the Ocean of God’s boundless, infinite, and eternal consciousness. And the nature of God’s consciousness is love, joy, truth, light, peace, compassion and goodness. Therefore, being one with God, our Soul shares in, or embodies, all of the qualities or attributes of God’s consciousness. When we experience, or know ourselves as Soul, we consciously experience, or know, all of the attributes or qualities of the Soul. So the deepest and most correct understanding of the word Jnana is: truth that is intuitively realized, or known, through the omniscience of the Soul, by the conscious experience of our selves as Soul. Through the truth embodied in the paragraph above it also follows, that when we experience ourselves as Soul, we also automatically experience, know and are in communion with God. In my humble opinion, this truth, or reality, is the essence of, and the ultimate purpose of our sadhana, and therefore our lives. Anahata: The Sanskrit word of the Heart Chakra. Yoga: Unity, or to unite, to bring together, or to merge Jnanahata: Wisdom, or Truth of the Heart Jnanahata Yoga: Realizing, or knowing the wisdom or truth of the Heart or Soul through yoga, and thereby uniting the wave of our Soul with the ocean of God’s consciousness, and expressing that truth, light, love, joy and goodness in and as our lives. [ To Top ] |