Saturday, December 3, 2011

Trikka Agama Yoga

My 24-day yoga program is called, Trikka Agama. Agamayoga.com

It is an intense foundation to traditional yoga. Our teacher says, “It’s not gymnastics yoga like done in the west”. We learn a simple pose everyday then you go into the pose for up to 5-minutes at a time. Touching your toes sounds pretty simple, but try it for 5-minutes and see how simple it is for you. The original yoga teachings say you should be able to stay in this pose for 3-hours and 48-minutes. After much practice, you might be able to reach Samadhi.

So our program is a brief lecture in the morning about our new pose for the day, then we do about one hour and 45-minutes of yoga. In the afternoon, we meet again for 2-hours of yoga, preceding a 2-hour lecture on yoga, diet, lifestyle and health related topics. Some of the stuff they talk about is a bit bizarre for me to partake in, like “urine therapy”. They said the old Prime Minister of India drinks his own urine for health reasons.

There are approximately 25-people in the class from all over the world. Once again, I am the oldest! I think it is going to take years for me to be able to do a headstand and backbend. With all of my cervical and spinal issues, many poses are a challenge and painful. But the good news…………….every day I am feeling better and in less pain. I actually sat still for 25-minutes cross legged for meditation. I only moved twice. It was a major break through for me.

One of my classmates is a young Indian, 22-year old. He is in a class of all westerners and I was the first to talk to him. We have become friends. It is amazing to see him come out of his shell. After an intense heart chakra meditation, he really opened up and hugged over twenty people. You should have seen the smile on his face. He said he had never hugged so many people in all his life.

We rented a motorcycle on Sunday for the day, our day off, and toured a temple and some of the surrounding countryside. I love riding motorcycles. It makes me feel liberated, young and free!

I have met several other really nice people here and we have dinners and lunches together in between our yoga practice. We had a dancing meditation session………loads of fun, a sing-a-long, and a jam session. I know it sounds like I’m at a summer camp! Everyone went into a trance while at once people were chanting, playing a dijeredo, guitar, flute, drums, singing bowls and several weird instruments I had never seen. One of our classmates, a German is joining a circus and traveling throughout S American soon. He can do about anything and is a fascinating artist!

So my plans are to fly to Goa, down South, in 2-weeks for my remaining time in India. Then I will go to Thailand for Level 2 of this same yoga program. They have 24-levels and it takes 5-years to complete this university level program. We shall see how involved I get after Level 2. Last night we had an Introduction to Tantra which they teach a couple of times a year. Unfortunately I will miss this workshop, but perhaps I can learn this in Thailand at their affiliated school. I have always been interested in Tantra. I know in the west, we think it is all about sex, but there are so many aspects of Tantra. It was even discussed in my Buddhism class about the scriptures of Tantra.

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