Yoga & Community

 

 

Celebrating together, in multi-sensory ceremonies, the Dance of Life has been the traditional way ancient cultures affirmed and nurtured their family bond to the cosmos. An innate and spontaneous feeling of belongingness to the universal divine shaped our ancestors' s life and kept a smile of inner happiness in their hearts.
 
Upon the impact of westernization & the globalization of our current modern, science-based worldview, long-established self-contained cultures disappeared to be replaced by the cult of individuality. In the process, "community" has been uprooted and supplanted by "society". The sense of living within a loving, harmonious, divine and benevolent universe (a "cosmos") has been progressively eroded and the only accepted reference frames or worldviews now offered peoples of the Earth are narrowed down to an odd gamut of man-based and mind-based belief systems, all a far cry from being truly "universal", in the sense of encompassing all aspects of nature, life and consciousness. Contrary to its claims, the peak of science, the cosmology of the Big Bang, is proving to be only a myth among others.

Yoga, an art & technology of unification and universalization, was re-discovered and re-created in India in the early 20th century by visionaries such as Krishnamacharya. Yoga, suddenly, is now exploding in Western countries and embraced all over the world. Why? Obviously, it contains a global medicine of oneness dearly needed to heal the global disease of separation, stress and emotional & spiritual estrangement experienced by peoples of the Earth, specially those living in these society's strongholds called "cities" (small & large), within cubic boxes called "houses" or "apartments".

Yoga goes directly to the root of the dis-ease by totally by-passing the mind and its ever-changing movie-clouds. Yoga is "cessation of the mind", as defined by the classical author Patanjali. Yoga looks at the sun between the clouds: the cosmic sun or light embodied deep in the energy flows of the human body. Yoga directly changes the physiological (quantum, chemical, molecular, cellular, organic), emotional, mental & spiritual energy fields of the practitioner. It kindles directly the two cosmic pulses weaving the human nature: Sun & Moon, Yin & Yang, Shiva & Shakti... At this fundamental level, Yoga is the cosmic medicine of the contemporary world.

As a result, the "Yoga mat" has, interestingly enough, become the contemporary sacred temple ground and healing table of the world. The Yoga mat is the new magic carpet: together a prop, a map, a symbol, a partner and an invitation to meet oneself as the ultimate partner. However, the Yoga mat can and has also become a prison enclosing spiritual ego and subtle forms of separation from other brothers & sisters who are not "yogis" or "yoginis". Short of conscious honesty, a new aristocracy is easily born: such are the traps of Maya...

We are now facing the call to bridge over and graduate from the yoga mat practices of individual union with the cosmos: they have served us so well and will continue to serve us and others but we now need to practice them in a progressively larger context. It is global time to start exploring community practices of union with the cosmos. We are all called upon to open up traditional yoga and expand it into the magical combination of individuals called "community", "family", "tribe", "team" or "pod"... The way was shown by yoga leaders such as Seane Corn: "go off the mat and into the world". First, know yourself, then know yourself as the others, as nature, as life and as the cosmos in your glorious divine infinity.
 
This is where Partner Yoga and AcroYoga come in as perfectly timed global practices. They offer a connection working both ways: • Yoga practitioners can explore fun ways to reach out to group awareness and community re-building. • People unfamiliar with Yoga can experiment with partner and group situations of co-creation, togetherness and oneness. In balance, they meet.

In both cases, it takes an open mind and heart and the wonder of a child to walk & dance in this unexplored consciousness landscape between individual territory and collective common ground. This is where the future of human consciousness is being played. This is where Yoga and Community meet. This is where Partner Yoga and AcroYoga provide a bridge of grace & hope.

A moment of Global Change
is protected and nurtured by Community Celebration