I was interested in self-realisation before I started yoga, or even before I knew the word. When I taught myself yoga, from a book, much of what interested me became an actual practice. Practice as opposed to theory. What appealed to me most about the yoga in the book was its overlap of philosophy with a physical practice and spirituality. Or sacredness. This physicality was focussed on health, not winning, a gymnastics without the sport, and the absurd notion that there can only be one winner. It’s self-knowledge wasn’t the disaster of intellectual existentialism, and was untainted by the dogma of religion.

And yet the physical pleasure of asana and breathing provide profound meditation, to illuminate my Western world of material reality, sport and intellectual pursuits, and anchor that in a holistic background.

What is the Truth of Yoga? Maharishi Ramana was an Indian Sage of the 20th century. He used the phrase “Who AM I” as the basic tenant of self understanding. The Yoga that I have been teaching is based on the Vedas, the ancient texts that informs the integral hatha Yoga of Swami Sivananda, the foremost exponent of a complete yoga practice of our times.

This Yoga is considered metaphysical, matter and energy, where Body and Mind is inseparable from the Universe – All That is. Awareness of Self, and the Source of Everything, forms the basis of the science of Yogic self enquiry. All the Hatha Yoga practices activates the Realisation of Self, in the Truth of Pure Awareness. Therefore the Yoga that we practice in my classes are not a religion, or belief system, but a systematic activation of the BodyMind as Device of Conscious Being.

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Johann Kotze Music & Yoga (@johannkotzemusicandyoga)

Hari OM
Johann, Cape Town,
August 2024

Mantra illuminates the mind. It also resonates with the body, therefore both are bodymind practices deeply aligned with yoga metaphysics – my primary interest in the primordial Source, and cultural context of yoga. To extensively explore a sound experience, in a sense music, born of yoga, and yoga born of breath and movement, ideally would require a much longer than an hour class setting format.

When I started to develop my own mantra chant practice during the lockdowns it opened much self enquiry for me. How may I share a personal meditation prayer experience in a traditional class? Without it becoming entertainment, especially as yoga is a complete practice on it’s own, and music so easily becomes a distraction? Not what mantra, as a sacred practice, should be. Yet mantra chanting can also be joyous, spontaneous, and a celebration, uplifting. One solution is to chant together, with the yoga students, and also practice yoga during the same event. This is what requires a different, longer than a class setting. 

Understanding mantra chanting, and the understanding of yoga philosophy, as with the study of scriptures, is primarily derived from the actual practice of sounding mantra and doing yoga. Both are, or should be, experiential, embodied metaphysical philosophies. Such yoga and the yoga of sound can bring balance to our personal world, and activate the BodyMind as a Device of Universal Conscious.

Let’s chant and be happy

I have shared some simple, pleasing to me and well received mini forays into this collaboration of music and yoga within favourable setting in recent times. This is what we will set out to do for three hours (with a tea break) at the studio. Currently I aim for a Sunday Session the first weekend of a month. Please book, spaces limited. See my events listing for details.

Yoga  & Mantra to Activate Relaxed & Conscious Being

Gentle deeply restorative yoga, with sound and mantra chant meditation to activate the BodyMind as Device of Consciousness. 

A recent opportunity to appear on the top national television magazine program Expresso reminded me that broadcasting this love of yoga, in any form or format, is at the heart of my being.

Yoga incorporated into education

A local surf outreach organisation incorporates volunteers from abroad into their education program that includes surfing and yoga. I have the occasional privilege to do yoga with the Surfpop children.

Increased mobility through stretch and strength practices should be part of every physical education. Concentration, breathing and other mindfulness practices is now also taught in many top learning institutions around the world.

Yoga as a human-on-Earth tool to develop awareness of energy, how we feel, in life, and the environment, is vital should we want to achieve holistically sustainable development. I totally believe yoga is a great blessing for the children going into the future!

 

 

 

 

 

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As an offshoot to these training modules came the opportunity to consolidate my 30 years of a life steeped in yoga and music, and its therapeutic applications, in the below two offerings. I am pleased to share a humble beginning of the vision I had for myself, way, way back, as a yogi and musician, in a practical healing application of these two vocations. Here is to the future, and the past!

The links below provide more detail and background to my interest in sound and bodywork energetic healing.

● My yoga training decades ago was based on remedial, therapeutic yoga, a healing yoga style well suited to private individual yoga therapy.

● Healing music, and yoga and music combinations, as vibrational healing, and mantra, in group sound healing activations, and private sound healing therapy.

Yoga in a Universe of Sound

Sound was the cause of – and witness to – the beginning of creation. The first manifestation of creation is understood as a cosmic sound vibration, that we know in yoga as OM.

Sound is vibration, and a powerful activator of the natural healing capacity of the bodymind. Activation of this innate healing is a primary function of yoga, and also motivates my vibrational healing practice.

The fact of the matter is that sound organises matter! This original sound principle is found in many texts. In the Vedas, as Shabda Brahma, similar to the Big Bang theory. And a transcendental sound vibration of creation as in the Bible, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Upcoming Sound Healing Activation Events

Persons interested in vibration healing, in meditation, bodywork or sound healing would do well with a deep look at yoga practices, including sounding.

Healing, Therapeutic Yoga

Yoga is a perfect holistic modality, and can be tailored to meet every need, on any level, for any individual. Gentle, slow, person specific private sessions, fill the gaps, large or small, that cannot be met in group classes. Therapeutic yoga is especially effective to regain whole body mobility for functional improvement of all physiological systems.

]]> https://johannkotze.com/blog/yoga-sound-healing-holistic-therapy/feed/ 0 https://johannkotze.com/blog/sound-healing-soundjourney-mantra-music/ https://johannkotze.com/blog/sound-healing-soundjourney-mantra-music/#respond Tue, 01 Feb 2022 14:55:15 +0000 http://johannkotze.com/?p=8361 I recently made a live recording, in of the Shanti Mantra, singing bowls, bells and chimes, and other sound journey elements with yogi friend Janet Farquharson. Stream our EP below on this page, or on Soundlcoud. It is also on Apple Music, Spotify and other services.

Janet played most of the singing bowls, shakers, rainsticks, and I contributed some chimes. bells, guitar, keyboard and monk vocal.

We would love to do a few live events of our yoga music around Cape Town this year. If not in person, also Livestream has been in the pipeline (haha, for two years now). Let’s see what is possible. Check my social media Instagram or Facebook for dates, or announcements on my page here.

Also check out another playlist of my other soundjourney yoga music playlist on Soundcloud:

The view of the chakras and energy fields have been invisible to most human beings for a long, long time. Including yoga practitioners. We may be on the mat, or on meditation cushions, but we are also in a society that has literally zero belief in the esoteric core of metaphysical yoga.

Let the yoga begin! 

The view of the night sky has been obliterated for vast numbers of humanity. Including yoga practitioners. Mostly because we live in cities and look at screens most of our lives. Light pollution diminishes our view. 

Let the yoga begin/Atha yoga anushasanam!
Thus proclaim the first Sutra of Patanjali.

I’m jotting down this blog from Betty’s Bay, just outside Cape Town. Here
one can be in direct touch with the sea, sky and stars.

Patanjali’s Sutra talks about Nature as True Being. Yoga’s “svarupa”. The Mystery of Nature speaks to the yoga practitioner that enters into the State of Yoga, Union. This Yoga is not an idea, or an exercise, it is a combination of both, and Spirit. In direct experience of All Three Aspects.

This state is not something everyone knows about, or has access to. We live in a world dominated by ignorance caused by materialism. Were it not for Elon Musk, fantasy books and sci-fi movies most people may have thought humanity is limited to dreary materialistic existence, perhaps elevated by some degree of fame, fortune or pathos. Even worse is the fear of an uncertain future,  that opens humankind to the manipulations of tyranny of dogma. 

A small number of the billions have the option to choose healthy, ethically produced food. Or the time, energy and inclination to practice yoga. The vast most is scurrying for, or hoarding, food that is produced in some unsustainable manner. 

The vast most is trying to survive, or climb to the top of whatever pile of the funeral pyres we are living on. 

Even more tyranny thrives along these dark paths of greed, corruption and control. 

Yet I am no longer as weary of, or as undermined by the grim reality of our current sociopathic socio-political materialistic “uncivilation”. Possibly because it has not gotten as bad as Revelations describes. At least not on the surface. But  if at all possible I’m sticking to my pro choice sovereignty state of BodyMind. Which is thankfully not so much a stance as it is a yoga practice. 

And this is why I’m sticking with my yoga practice.  Yoga has given me a glimpse of the magnificent Universe and All The Energy Fields, Without and within. Should this make me sound like a zealot, perhaps it is so, perhaps a degree of Zen passion is required along the grails of the gateless gates. 

Blessings, peace, peace, peace, peace

I recorded this below Om Mani Padme Hum towrads the ened of 2021. I’d love to do more of this work this year. I’m allowing the chants to create the flow, and set the stage for greater inner peace.

Patanjali, Sutras of Sage Wisdom. Let the yoga begin. Let’s see what happens next.

Blessings for 2022
5 January 2022.  

About the production

Sacred On Earth is about being more aware of the BodyMind and Soul experience of Being Human. Philosophy, practice and music performance may meet as a healing experience that is hopefully also entertaining.

Sacred On Earth is to some degree improvised and may vary from a “one man show” of 60 – 90 minute to soundjourney and yoga sessions. Its content may be incorporated into a traditional yoga class, or presented as performance art. Collaboration with other teachers or musicians may be added, and the more traditional yoga class content could happen in any familiar yoga setup or adapted for other settings. While the content is yoga and philosophically inclined it is meant to be accessible to audiences with or without yoga experience, with an interest in arts, culture and philosophy. I am touring Sacred Earth around in my area, but eventually also would love to take it further afield to small and large venues, yoga studios, healing rooms, house concerts, outdoor events, or as part of a yoga or spiritual festival events.

Incorporated in Sacred On Earth is my Sound Activation/healing (read more here). See my general workshop/events schedule.

My thoughts on the production

As a yogi and musician I am interested in the same thing that both offer: a connection into the Mystery of Creation. Life is all about perspective, and the way reality is perceived. In Yoga Everything that exists in the Universe, is named All That Is. One may be able to sense this All because everything is a vibration. The Way of the artist is to express this mystery. The function of the yogi, sound therapist, healer or shaman is to connect into this Way. 

Such awareness is a Universal bottomline of Understanding All That Is. Understanding of yoga, healing arts, art, visual, composition, and specifically of Self. Such perception is best experienced in silence, and may only be entered in Surrender. Here is where Self is Realized when True understanding arise. This is also where True Nature is revealed. And the reason why rituals of silence is Sacred. As Sacred as Nature. 

Everything heard, unheard, seen, or unseen, are aspects of consciousness. According to yogic philosophy the material world is a distraction and barrier to Universal Awareness. Liberation from Samsara is a Knowing of Consciousness from beyond the Veil. On the side of materialism and limitation we suffer in unconscious. To transform the subconscious we have to awaken of activate the BodyMind in many different ways. We may want to tap into our dreams, follow our bliss, practice deep breathing, meditation and other yoga techniques. 

The Sacred Earth production was born, amongst other things, from a dream, the morning after talking to a friend about the kind of metaphysics, philosophy, and Way of Life l wrote about here. It’s as simple as that – synchronicity. 

Willingness to engage, openness to accept pain, Light enough to be buoyant when its Dark. Its about survival and transcendence. We are alone in this and we are in God. Brahma and Atman meets when the sattvic spark is ignited. Life and death is about celebration of life and death. It’s all theater and life is the stage – we make it up as we play. 

This narrative, the stories we tell ourselves, and share with others, create our community, and is a communion. In community and Holy communion we are holistic. Whole. We break bread and drink wine. In Yoga we attune the BodyMind with practices that make it possible to be fed by Soul.  

When these realities are in harmony vibration the Way of the Tao appears. It is an Eternal Peace. When this state of BodyMind is Directly perceived and therefore experienced, there is Peace on Earth. Within. Chanting OM Mane Padme Hum, or vibrating with it, transforms the BodyMind, and therefore perception and experience, into Peace. Peace on Earth. Sacred Earth. OM Mane Padme Hum.

Event schedule and details

● 14 November
Sacred Earth – Sunday Sunrise Yoga & Sound

Yoga on the edge of the water at Zeekoevlei. Tune in to the sunrise and nature from the lovely lawns of a private, East facing, beautifully natural fynbos garden.   

Yogi-musician Johann Kotze teaches an accessible style of healing yoga, conducting sessions with a sense of fun, while observing a deep sacred spiritual lineage.   

● Arrive from 7 AM
● Tea or Coffee self serve available throughout
● Bring your own breakfast or snacks

● 20 November
Sacred Earth Launch

Venue is a private home in Bergvliet. 
Please let me know should you like to attend this event, for only R 50, to cover beverages and snacks.

● 21 December
Summer Solstice Beach Yoga
Muizenberg

]]> https://johannkotze.com/blog/sacred-on-earth/feed/ 0 https://johannkotze.com/blog/stand-in-the-light/ https://johannkotze.com/blog/stand-in-the-light/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2021 11:45:25 +0000 http://johannkotze.com/?p=7976 An amazing experience of the Egyptian Sun at Solstice, 21 December, at the Healing Temple of Abedos, Egypt, crowned an amazing trip into a distant past, to illuminate the present, and a possible future, with its very bright light of timeless wisdom.

My family and I were in a group of eight Cape Townians, and we offered informal rituals of conscious intentions for ourselves, others and communities.We visited several Ancient Sacred sites along the Nile, including the pyramids, and Luxor., and called it Earth Healing.

And that is precisely what we what got: shifts in our consciousness, and how we perceive the world. We went around with a 17kg Lemurian Quartz, without specific religion or dogmatic agendas. We purely wanted to connect with the sites as they presented themselves to us. We looked, and felt with open minds and hearts. Our guides had incredible knowledge, and even though we in principle had no specific expectations, were blown away with the magnitude and subtlety of what we saw and experienced.

Divine Being

Stepping into the clearly defined antiquity of Ancient Egypt, and its landscape, revealed astounding insights about the modern world perspective we stepped out of. I always feel that the truth is hidden in plain sight, right in front of our eyes, if only we would bother to look, or learn to see clearly. Immersed in tombs, passages, temples and chambers in pyramids, and wandering, in awe, amongst fantastical pillars and obelisks and figures, engraved with mystical images of male and female humans, deities and gods, engaged in exchanges of mysterious rituals, cannot but enlighten the heart-mind of someone who seeks to confirm, or validate alternative world views. Awareness of Divine Being defined our particular Egyptian experience.

Fall from Love and Light, into duality

World systems and religion as we know it is characterised by a sudden rise of patriarchy, instated by Roman destruction of the female participation in spiritual matters, circa 300 AD. Up to this period the Egyptian civilisation displayed a distinct expression of the feminine, in harmonious balance of male and female priesthood. It’s Wisdom Teachings were famed, and many Greek thinkers, artist and philosophers sought out the Egyptian teachings.

In the Yoga lore there is an oral tradition of earlier epochs, much older than what is thought of in our time as ancient (i.e. the oldest printed traditions of 3 000 Bc.), times when there were balance of the masculine and feminine. In the Yoga system “healing” may be understood as the Sacred (Divine) Union of Dualities. Duality may be any apparently opposite aspect of the whole – for example, male and female. This is also the great yin-yang of the Ida and Pingala currents, which, when balanced, and activated, connects the practitioner to Bliss. Or transcend ordinary duality reality.

In the Yoga system this “whole” is most neutrally expressed as The Source. Everything that exists in the Universe is part of Everything, The Field of Existence. Separation of any of its parts from awareness of the Source, for example, disconnection from inner nature and the natural world, creates the delusion of a reality that are mutually exclusive dualities, spiritual and profane, dualities.

Union In Yoga, in OM

With the destruction of the “Divine Feminine” the world was plunged into the ignorance of the “undivine” i.e. dominating masculine, and the female rendered “undivine” too. In this duality the world fell into the unconsciousness of the male biased rule of commerce and religious of our era.

Interest in a return to Union, the One-ness, non-dual state, thought of as a return to Source – is creating a possible wave of change. Much evidence of a return to Universal Intelligence is evident in cutting edge culture and science.

OM as mantra is chanted as symbol of, and actual physical practice of the Sound of the Universe. To hum this sound is to vibrate with this sound, a physical and spiritual transformation, a healing force. I recorded a few of our group, on my iPhone, chanting at a sacred site in the Valley of Queens, Luxor:

Sacred Mystery – Secret School of Initiation

An initiate in the Egyptian Mysteries was also called an Adept, because the knowledge acquired involved the greater, unseen forces of the Universal Realm. This esoteric wisdom held great revelations, as it lies behind the immediate material and mental domains of Earth plane. Pharaohs were initiated during these secret, sacred rituals, and it is said by some that Alexander the Great, Pythagoras, amongst others, including Joseph from the Bible received such training. We know historically that Jesus was taken as a baby, to Cairo, to safety, but also to where Joseph had connections with the great wisdom keepers of the Mystery Schools.

To attain conscious connection to the “original One-ness”, in an actual experience, and not only as a conceptual or cognitive reality, demanded death of the ego. In Yoga the “unrealised self” is an unconscious person, in a state of consciousness sleep, of limited material being. Central to the Egyptian Mysteries was an awakening to “the whole being”, and practices and rituals with frequencies, or therapy with sound, olfactory, colour, light and darkness, activated the BodyMind to its harmonious potential of left and right side balance, harmonious being of inner or outer aspects, altered states of stimulated awareness to reveal the subtle, normally unseen worlds.

While there has been abuse of the power gained from the mysteries, there also has been an ongoing lineage of liberation, a paying forward of this Universal Power. Such greater co-creation is the foundation of healing non-duality – not a concept, or religion – a State of Being. While dualities are a natural, necessary expression of the whole, ignorance of the whole may cause any aspect of duality to dominates another. The video suggests that earlier Egyptian culture, with its mystery teachings, was a remnant of a glorious past of Higher Being, in touch with the Divine Realms.

Mythology and Middle Eastern Sci-fi on the Nile

A few days in close proximity of the pyramids impressed me with an overwhelming sense of an unfathomable sci-fi. Much research suggests a celestial purpose to the Great Sphinx and temple complex. Some say it was to resurrect the soul of the pharaoh Khafre, who built the last of the great pyramids 2 500 Bc. For me it seems there is more to the story than channeling the power of the sun god Ra! Khafre appeared to have had Divine Intentions of co-creation rather than personal power.

In the Cairo Museum is a fantastic sculpture of this renowned (possibly the last great Initiate-King of Egypt). His gaze emits a serene energy that emanates from from another realm of Grace. His hands reminded me of the Buddha sculptures I contemplated in Sarnath, India, transmitting Life Force via specific mudras. Khafre’s is depicted with a tight hand for holding the reigns, and an open hand of peace.

One of the members of our group was inspired to write about the being of Pharaoh Khafre upon observation of the stone carving: “In intimate embrace on your shoulders Horus, the celestial bird, gentily touching you with spreaded affectionate wings, enhancing your vision beyond the physical realm.” Jospeh Koetsier, scholar, writer and visionary entrepreneur.

Transcendence

My main takeway from this Egyptian experience, and from previous sacred retreats and travels to temples, is that every yoga class or meditation is a conscious act. There is a possibility, of health and happiness, every time we make the choice to be conscious. Literally a Life Path.

Yoga is about the interaction and integration of realms. To stand in that Light remains the central pillar of Yoga. We may not be able to achieve this all the time, but that is okay too, awareness of duality also reveals the possibility of non-duality. As the business and busyness of this materialistic era increase, it becomes increasingly clear that the only True Peace is in True Presence. Yoga manifests itself, in our Self, when in such a Moment, Here, Now. 

Which is not always easy to manage. Perhaps this is a value of suffering, and chaos – which may also show us humility and instil gratitude.

What can we do but stand in the light? 

Outer peace is the result of going within. With practice we can develop transformation of our personal reality, to help balance the individual aspects of one’s internal being that hinders personal growth. The sense is that tolerance of “the other”, flexibility, innovation, and surrender, with a detached logic and a warm heart – will connect us to Source. We frequently forget, and don’t make this Connection. In the Stream of Consciousness, and only that Stream, is True Peace. Heed this call, and Stand in the Light – in the Sacred Temples of our own BodyMinds!

Yours in Yoga and Music,
Cape Town,
January 2021.

Useful resources:

Podcast with Joseph Koetsier, whom I met, and travelled with in Egypt.

Ancient Egyptian research centre:
https://www.arce.org/resource/ra-creator-god-ancient-egypt

]]> https://johannkotze.com/blog/stand-in-the-light/feed/ 2 https://johannkotze.com/blog/mudra-finger-practice/ https://johannkotze.com/blog/mudra-finger-practice/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2020 05:49:00 +0000 http://johannkotze.com/?p=3392 Use of mudras is an absolutely simple technique that increases vitality and well-being. This advanced yogic practice is not difficult to do, yet sustained, skilled, regular practice may produce astounding health benefits.

Mudras are specific hand positions that regulate, focus and distribute the flow of life force, or prana, within the body. The neural, and nadi pathways, or meridians – unseen subtle energy channels – provide energy flow into, and within, the whole bodymind. All systems; immunity, cardio-vascular, digestive, and lymphatic, are strengthened, and amplifies potency of the systemic whole. In a biofeedback loop individual problem areas, such as injuries to joints, or trauma on emotional and mental levels, are brought to innate healing processes.

Mudra practice is frequently reported as an experience of heightened life force flow, and simultaneously as calming, with a sense of stimulation of health and happiness, at the core of every cell.

Ornate, powerful functionality  

Mudra lends yoga a mysterious, esoteric air. More importantly, its practice helps balance the universal elements of earth, air, water, fire, and ether in the body.

The image of Goddess Lakshmi is an example of how yoga supports its practitioner to receive Universal Life Force, and share it with others. Note her open, transmitting hands, with the thumb-to-finger gestures of mudra – Divine purpose, high functionality, and mythical!

A simple mudra practice, with knowledge of the elements

The thumb represents fire. Each finger represents an element. Hold the thumb to each finger, for about a minute each, five minutes in total.*

● Sit in meditation
● let the hands rest on the knees, palms open, in a gesture of receiving
● breathe a few deep, slow breaths
● with each inhale bring you attention inwards
● become body aware, get out of the head
● just sit in that awareness, feel what is happening, no expectations

● bring the thumb to the index finger, the air element
● move thumb to the middle finger, the ether/space element
● as previously, breathe and observe for about a minute
● move on to the ring finger, the earth element, breathe and observe
● move thumb to the pinky, the water element, breathe and observe
● relax the mudras, sigh breath out, and just sit…

● let the hands rest on the knees, palms open, breathe a few deep, slow breaths, in self awareness, perhaps a sense of inner space.

Regular practice for best results

● 30 minutes daily for a more powerful result
● but a 5 minute practice is more sustainable
● add a mudra practice to the open or close a meditation
● or start or end a yoga session
● do it in savasana
● while you listen to music for deep relaxation

My Yoga Training Online Course – for teachers and practitioners:

Mudra for a life goals

Realise your life goals, incorporate mudras with your meditation and asana. Would you like world peace? Start with cultivation of your own inner peace – the “peace mudra”