Vijnana Yoga Classes
with Einav
What is Vijanana Yoga for Me?
“I come to the mat to meet myself. Sometimes I experience satisfaction, sometimes frustration, sometimes joy. The practice is a space for research and exploration. You are invited. Everything is there”.
Einav Feit, Vijnana yoga
You may have come to yoga for a specific need. Whether it’s the pain in your back, or you wish to gain more flexibility, come open to learn and experience. The following day you can feel in your body what the practice awakened in you, and in time recognize that yoga gives you much more that you could ever ask for. Then you will know you have arrived.
It’s important to respect your abilities during the lesson and in the moment, and remain attentive to your body and sensations. If you feel uncomfortable stop and share it with me, and I can offer personalized training and variation that suits you.
Vijnana yoga includes all the following practice elements: Just sitting (meditation), breathing exercises (Pranayama), principles of Vijnana yoga, yoga poses (Asanas) and relaxation at the end of the class (Savasana).
The principles of Vijnana yoga reverberate in my own personal practice and in my teachings. In the lessons you will meet additional methods that I picked up along the way.
Classes are given in our Tranquility Studio & Clinic in Praia da Luz.
Class duration is an hour and a half and is suitable for beginners and practitioners.
You are welcome to try it out.
Seeing the Body from Within
“When practicing yoga, we observe and in time see much more and recognize the subtleties” {Yoga Insights: Reflection from a life of yoga practice / Orit Sen Gupta).
According to yoga Sutra and Yoga Upanishads scripts, this subtle observation eventually leads to see things we never imagined we would see.
For example, when we are very attentive, we can actually see our diaphragm. This vision that has nothing to do with the eyes is highly accurate. There are no limits to how subtle our vision can get. While it doesn’t have to be our main goal, we need to understand that we are on a certain path that can lead to unexpected places that we did not know about or could imagine.
“Just as a child of five can’t imagine his body and his thoughts when he will be fifteen, so we can’t know where this path will take us and how we will perceive things as our vision develops. But we can say that if we persistently practice, our ability to see will deepen and widen.”
Yoga Insights: Reflections from a Life of Yoga Practice / Orit Sen Gupta
To read more in the official Website of Vijnana yoga – Orit Sen Gupta
Practice, Feel, Understand from Within
Vijnana yoga is a unique yoga practice founded and developed by my Yoga teacher since 2008, Orit Sen-Gupta. Vijnana yoga is based on the tradition of Krishnamacharya – teacher of B.K.S lyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois and founder of Ashtanga vinyasa yoga, and on the doctrine of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh.
What is Vijnana Yoga?
The Taittirīya Upanishad, an 2700 year ancient text, teaches that men and the entire universe is made up of five “kushot”or layes – the physical, energetic, mental, “vijñāna” and the one full of joy.
Shankara, a great indian philosopher and founder of the Vedānta philosophy explains that Vijnana is a deep understanding or knowing that cannot come about merely through outer knowledge such as we receive from our teacher or spiritual texts. Vijnana is internal clarity that is revealed through personal experience.
Ramakrishna continues his interpretation of Vijnana saying it is – “The awareness and conviction that fire exists in wood is jana (knowledge). But to cook rice on that fire, eat the rice and get nourishment from it is Vijnana.” Thus, Vijnana is knowing and understanding from within.
Guiding principles include body relaxation, quieting of the mind, focusing through intention, grounding, connecting, expansion, and awareness of the breath, all enable us to be attentive inwards, see, sense, understand and operate skillfully.
Vijnana yoga practice is giving recognition to something that that is always there, in the very heart of our path – the ability to understand, sense, and practice from within.
(Taken from Vijnana Yoga Website)