Early on in my teaching career I had three symbols made for my first yoga studio. Each one was painted on a small canvas, so that I could move them along to future studios. Nearly thirty years on and I still have the yin-yang, AUM and The Way of Tao in my current studio. Symbols represent a practice, philosophy and a way of being. Exactly what “the way” may mean is open to individual perception, but the broad strokes are as follow:

Nourish this understanding, of Self, in Life, and you balance yin and yang (doing, non-doing, form and formless) with, according to The Way of the Tao, Lao Tzu’s poetic, deep mind experience of nature and inner nature (a lovely companion to Patajali’s 8 Limb Principles and Sutras). And of course all of this happens in the Universe, or All That Is. The undifferentiated A-U-M is the Totality, the sound mantra, is the vibration we make in our practice, and it resonates with the vibration or multiple octaves of matter and subtle energy frequencies of Everything. Jesus said for us to build our lives on the rock of the Love of his parents, God/Goddess, or call it Shiva-Shakti.

This is what we are to surrender to if we are to be in the flow of the great Yin and Yang of duality, within the liberating Non-Duality of Pure Awareness. Practice of the Yoga of Self-realisation, Union is a practical day-to-day reality. It is a process where yoga is self-development therapy that supports change. We are the change, made possible by our surrender in our practice. Nourish this Way, Know Self, Know the Way and Grow. Realise Self, Be Bliss.

Practice Yoga and keep warm – I write this from a wintery Yoga Studio,
on Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town, July 2019.
Regards, Johann.

Yoga is associated with the East, with India and its cultural identities of race, ritual and religion. Its ancient Vedic roots are often misperceived as mere Hinduism, while its deeper message is a universal truth. Yoga’s non-duality philosophy, a science of Universal Life Force and intelligent creation, is a fascinating quantum metaphysics, where the universe, and everything in it, is interconnected. Such yoga asks us to understand life from beyond the limitation of the popular image of yoga, orthodox science, religious beliefs systems.

The concept of East and West and its embedded realities are but one example of the multiple duality fragments and aspects of non-duality truth. In Yoga, creation and Creator is “All That Is”, a living system of consciousness. The differences become apparent in the kind of yoga where the human bodymind is the device and temple of the practices of conscious awareness, which includes the yin-yang of duality, also on a Creator-Creation level.

Shiva, the Hindu God, may then be an aspect of “God”, more importantly a masculine aspect balanced by Shakti, a nurturing feminine power. Such a Shiva-Shakti is symbolic and functional beyond religion, with Shiva the destroyer of ignorance, and regenerator of the understanding that holism overcomes the illusions of duality. Shakti is the creative energy or Spirit that births and forms Creation.

Knowledge and understanding of the creative dualities that work in pairs – as example the masculine-feminine aspects are represented as the Ida and Pingala of the yogic Sushumna Nadi, the central channel of Life Force Prana, the spine, in the bodymind.

Knowledge, and understanding of the wisdom of non-duality helps the seeker of bliss to penetrate beyond the layers of superficiality illusions. The adept yogi practice on both levels, a duality within a non-duality. Applied to meditation practice the adept finds quickened wisdom of consciousness.

This throws much light on the practice of Yoga as Union, a holistic duality. This whole, with its ebb and flow tides of balance of dualities, is beautifully illustrated by the yin-yang representation of nature and existence.

This yoga of understanding asks us to learn from life itself, beyond religion, ritual, and intellectual knowledge. We study and we do yoga, using logic, experience and enquiry. To connect with the non-dual bliss of the whole, the spark of Divinity, we have to go within, reach out for Divine guidance, and surrender to it.

Join my Turn on your Bliss with Yoga Intensive

7 Day 50 Hour advanced yoga teacher training and yoga practice appreciation.

Please contact me with your enquiries, or to book to ensure your place.

In service of Peace & Bliss
Johann
Muizenberg Beach
Cape Town
16 June 2018