This page offers an overview of the entire curriculum.
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VIEW THIS VIDEO CLIP AND OTHERS BELOW
The main body of the program is a Yogic Mystery School presented in three distinct but interrelated tracks: meditation, music and mantra. All three of these tracks are derived from Indian spirituality, from the broad scope of the yoga tradition, that is, yoga in all its forms (nada yoga, kundalini yoga, raja yoga, etcetera) together with the great philosophical schools of India (especially the Advaita Vedanta tradition of the Upanisads, but also Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali). You will learn about all these schools and benefit from what they have to offer us today. The emphasis, though, is on meditation, which is the experience of the transformation of consciousness, and we learn to use music as well as mantra to enhance our knowledge and practice of meditation. However, each track can be studied separately and will be presented as methodologies that stand by themselves.
Additionally, although we will draw extensively from the yogic tradition and from Indian spirituality, the program as a whole is not confined to a single tradition and will be balanced with relevant and meaningful content drawn from eastern as well as western sources of spirituality, psychology and science. Sound, though playing a central role, will be approached from the broad perspective of language, listening and healing. We will also look at the history of the yoga tradition and what it offers us, especially in view of combining meditation practice with sound in order to accentuate inner vision and authentic mystical experience. The chakra system too, will play an important role in our process, however from a practical rather than an esoteric standpoint. Most importantly, we will cultivate spiritual experience in a manner that fulfils our reasoning and our critical faculties, which we will continue to develop though understanding the overarching implications of sound in health, cosmology and spirituality. In other words, you are not going to be asked to compromise your intelligence in the exploration of the mystical life.
THE VALUE OF AN APPLIED COSMOLOGY
Finally, cosmology will also play an important role in our process. Indian spirituality, especially in its traditions of meditation, music and mantra, is a sort of “applied cosmology”. Cosmology offers a dynamic sense of our place and participation in the universe and is a crucial aspect to recovering our balance today. In fact, the word “university” derives from the effort to “know ones place in the universe”, and this form of learning, that included the scholastic process, developed around the monasteries of Europe. Cosmology is important because, in the words of Matthew Fox, “it moves us from text to context”. We have become excessively preoccupied with our minds, even in our spirituality, which is why this movement to “context” is crucial to the restoration of our balance.
However, our pursuit of an applied cosmology must be conducted in a manner that complements our knowledge of ideas with the knowledge of experiences. We seem to have lost the power to truly experience our experiences, for often, our experiences are “descriptions of experience”, cluttered with labels and associations, projections and analyses. As a result, our sense of wholeness is adulterated through being fragmented into parts. Cosmos means “whole” from which the word "holy" derives as well, so to recover a sense of cosmos is to recover a sense of wholeness and holiness in our lives.
THE RECOVERY OF INTUITIVE PERCEPTION
The main goal of yoga, which is often forgotten, is “perception”. In other words, the practice of yoga leads to vision, and “health”, we can say, is a result of this vision, which is also “enlightenment”. Meister Eckhart once stated, “The eye with which I see God is the same as that with which God sees me”. And St. Augustine adds, “Our whole business in this life, therefore, should be to restore the health of this eye of the heart whereby God may be seen”. This is exactly what Yoga does for us as does the Upanishadic vision, which brings about intuitive spiritual perception, a type of perception that we have lost to the excessive power of the rational mind that dominates our perception today. It is this, “feminine” dimension of mind that we seek to recover and reinstate through our practice and study in this Mystery School, for it opens us up to depth perception, hidden levels of perception that are “below” the typical mind that is a part of our conscious, waking existence. Yogic perception goes deeper, into the dream state, and even deeper, into the state of deep sleep, and then emerges into the awakened state of Turiya. This search for the ultimate state of consciousness is the true goal of this program.
A NEW VISION OF REALITY
As we restore a sense of Divinity to ourselves and to our world, we infuse our temporal material existence with a sense of the eternal and the sacred, balancing our mental and egotistical orientation to life with an embodied connectedness and intimacy to one another and to all of creation. As we see our systems breaking down, we must lay claim to this inner depth of vision, for it is from here, from our own depth, that the new order of life will issue forth. I hope very much that you will join me, in community, in learning and in deep discussion of the value of spirituality in the on-going transformation of our species and in the evolution of consciousness on our planet.
The content of the program progresses through three distinct tracks: meditation, music and mantra. And each track progresses through three levels -- beginner, intermediate and advanced. Each level offers a number of modules that breaks down the content into easy to assimilate lessons that help build you up from a strong foundation progressively. Eventually, you will be able to take master-classes, if you so wish, to develop your expertise even further.
You do not need to have a background in any of these disciplines to benefit from any of the modules as you will, initially, focus on the absorption of their underlying principles above mere mastery of their techniques. Our purpose in studying mantra, music, and meditation is not from the perspective of the scholar but from that of the spiritual seeker. How do meditation change our conciousness? How does music expand our soul? How does mantra affect and tranform our mind?
The methodology of this program will emphasize vision above concept and we will learn to value experience above information. Nevertheless, you will be engaged in techniques, and not only will you begin at the basics, but you will be shown how, step-by-step, you can use these tracks to transform your life, your health and your relationships while progressing toward more advanced levels of spiritual application.
The modules utilize specially prepared DVDs, Audio CDs, and Printed Text, or any combination thereof combined with a powerful student support system. You will be able to clarify questions and engage in dialog with the instructor while studying and applying the lessons through either a web-based support, phone-based support, or a combination of the two. Support can also be group oriented or individually oriented.
There are no papers to write or tests to pass. However, students wanting to take their practice to critical levels will have the opportunity to attend master classes. Such students will also have the opportunity to function as mentors within the program. Additionally, the program will offer regular retreats and workshops that allow for in-depth group practice.
As mentioned, the program’s structure comprises of three tracks that progress through three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. While each track deals with a specific discipline, all tracks integrate though an unfolding organic process. You can always specialize in a track, especially after you have built a strong foundation. Some may specialize in all three. However, specialization is not the goal of the program: the primary goal is really to live the essence of the tracks, and everyone can do this.
In this track, we will explore the use of sound as a form of nutrition by applying the energy dynamics of the Sanskrit language within the context of the practice of mantra. Our approach to mantra will be broad and deep, in which we understand mantra as the root of all speech, where the sense of sound and form and idea are inseparable from one another. Additionally, you will discover how mantras are powerful tools of spiritual awakening and extraordinary catalysts of authentic spiritual experience. As transformative tools of the mind, they can enhance concentration, dissolve blockages and awaken spiritual energy, thereby aiding the process of meditation.
We begin by learning the alphabet, which in itself is a spiritual practice. As part of our training in mantra, we will learn to read, write and chant in Sanskrit. This will be approached, not as an academic exercise, but as a spiritual practice that explores the intimate relationship between sound, consciousness and energy. The goal here is not to read the classics of Sanskrit literature or to master Sanskrit grammar, although you may well end up with a foundation to pursue formal Sanskrit training later. Instead, the purpose of our learning Sanskrit within the context of this track is to learn how to awaken spiritual experience, enhance our abilities to communicate effectively and to manifest the conditions we desire in our life.
Thousands of years before Wayne Dyer and Shakti Gawain and Louisa Hays, the rishis of ancient India understood the power of sacred words and affirmations. Today, these wonderful western gurus have helped re-establish the value of these ancient insights in ways that are meaningful to western culture and civilization. This track gets to the heart of the crucial role sound plays in constructing the experiences of our lives and in the hidden working of energy in our universe.
This track addresses the role of music in health, healing and in the creation of harmony in our life. The track modules are designed in such a manner that you do not need to be a musician, or a vocalist, to benefit from the insights or the practices that come with this dimension. Today, we know that we live in a world of sound. The entire physical universe can be seen as a vibrating mass of energy comprised of innumerable sound waves of varying frequencies. In Indian cosmology, this is known as Nada Brahma, which can be translated as “The world is sound”; or, more precisely that, “sound is creation”.
First, you will be introduced to vocal production through the use of toning. This simple process is known to have profound therapeutic effects. Second, you will be introduced to the fundamentals of music through training your voice and your ear. This process offers us insight into the harmonic alignment of our chakras and makes us more aware of our body and its energy flows. Third, we will explore ways of listening. All of these techniques may be contextualized by an ancient science of sound known as Nada Yoga, or Sound Yoga, which is an esoteric branch of yoga that develops alongside the classical yoga system of Patanjali who is traditionally revered as the primary spokesperson of yoga philosophy.
Although the purpose of the curriculum in this track is not to train you as a musician, it will nevertheless increase your overall appreciation of music and enable you to choose the kinds of music that advance your spiritual life. For instance, we may apply many of these techniques to the music we listen to and learn more about how we are being configured by the sounds we are exposed to everyday, both positively as well as negatively. Nada Yoga reveals to us how the combination of listening and sound production can be extraordinarily powerful in the process of spiritual transformation.
Many of the vocal training exercises are simultaneously spiritual exercises. The goal, after all, is to transform, not perform! However, if your intention is performance, you will certainly develop your abilities in this area as well. The human voice is one of the most powerful tools for healing and transformation that we have available to us. The great Sufi mystic Hazarat Inayat Khan once pointed out that our voice functions as a barometer for our soul. Not only does our voice reveal all the conditions of our inner self, it is equally a tool that we can use to transform the dark shadows within us into energies of light and joy.
Meditation has come to mean many things to many people. Primarily, we consider it as a form of deep relaxation, facilitating what Harvard researcher, Herbert Benson, called “the relaxation response”. There can be no doubt that this profound, therapeutic calm is real and predictable, a fact made clear through innumerable scientific studies that continue into the present day. We, most certainly, need this aspect of meditation to balance all of the stresses of daily life.
Meditation, though, is more than a mere unwinding of nerves and thought processes. It represents a condition of mind that is crucial in our quest for reality, or in ancient lore “immortality”. Modern language often refers to it as the search for “meaning” in our lives. This is the true purpose of yoga, to “perceive” reality in its deepest forms and become aware of the true nature of our being. However, in my opinion, there. is a third dimension to meditation, which is intimacy and relationship.
After we have relaxed, and after we have perceived our depth, there is yet another process that unfolds. One way of describing this subtle movement within is “intimacy with the Divine Presence”. There is, built into the very deepest infrastructure of being, an aspect of relationship that is transpersonal. It is our participation in this profound mystery of interior relationship that plays itself out in all of the myriad variations of relationship we experience in our “outer world”. However, this inner relationship should be known in itself, not merely through the conditioned reflection of outer relationships. When both inner and outer are known, then the two come together in a dance of completion that leads us toward authentic spiritual experience and spiritual awakening. Imagine bringing together in ourselves the moksha or self-realization of the Hindu, the nirvana of the Buddhist, and the beatific vision of the Christian. That, would indeed be the fullness of spiritual realization that can be known in this life.
In this track we will learn techniques of breathing and concentration that go together with the application of mantras and mudras (hand gestures). However, we will also seek to go “beyond technique” into the heart of reality to discover our innermost being “in relationship” with the numinous mystery of divine presence and ultimate reality. It is from this inner space that we discover an extraordinary capacity in which to relate to others and to all of creation, and it is this transformative power that finally renders all our spiritual practice truly meaningful and worthwhile. One might hope, additionally, that it leads to that total transfiguration in which we, like Jesus, can experience the benediction of spirit in which we directly encounter the Divine within ourselves, unmediated and unconditioned, as cosmic mystery that is “well pleased” with our connectedness.
Once you complete the initial program level (Level 1), you can choose to be a program associate, running programs in your area based on the curriculum you have studied. A simple certification process requiring a few private sessions with the instructor by webcam tand/or telephone is necessary to qualify. In some instances, you may need to take a workshop or retreat as well. Program partners and associates can then coordinate live group sessions in their local area while deriving support from the instructor and financial compensation from the program’s service provider. The vision of this program, as explained, is to build community and to make available to others the spiritual tools that we refine for ourselves.
For those who wish to develop greater skill in specific tracks after studying the foundational levels, special intensives and master-classes will be offered. Some may choose this route in view of becoming mentors of that particular track in the program. Others may do so for their own personal, professional or spiritual purposes. In either case, your personal spiritual empowerment is the objective of this program.
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