Thursday, October 28, 2010

1) Reasons for starting this blog

I already have 2 blogs : 1) eyogateacher@blogspot.com which deals with Yoga according to Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga and other related yoga articles and 2) dailyspiritualmessage.blogspot.com that deals with non duality ,vedanta and other related spiritual topics .I am not a very frequent blogger and do keep updating the above 2 blogs from time to time and sometimes never update them for a long time . From July 2010 I started seriously pursuing Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and now have been hooked on to it and have decided to keep mastering all the series of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga as my main Yoga Sadhana for the coming decade i.e from 2010 -2020 .It is not that I am giving up my Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga , I still continue to practice and teach the same and do feel that it is a very excellent system of Yoga for a beginner or for people who do not have the time and energy( like householders and busy professionals ) to commit to any serious yoga sadhana and will continue to pursue it as my main teaching tool but personally for me Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga will be the main yoga sadhana for the next decade i.e from 2010-2020 .
When I started my Yoga journey through the Sivananda System in July 1997 I did not have sufficient guidance from my teachers in maintaining a regular practice journal or sadahna diary but Swami Sivananda had always insisted on every spiritual aspirant in maintaining a regular spiritual diary so that they it helps them as well as their teachers to monitor their spiritual progress and suggest changes accordingly .In fact Swami Sivananda had even given a basic template of how a spiritual diary must be in some of his books and the same can be downloaded from the site http://sivanandaonline.org/ .Looking back at my Sivananda Yoga Journey from mid 1997 onwards I feel that I have missed a great opportunity in noting down my own yoga journey i.e my daily yoga sadhana , my insights , my teaching experience and other things that I learnt along the way . After my Advanced Yoga Teachers Training in 2004 I did start making note of my practices and insights but it was not consistent enough .It was only in mid 2008 I seriously started Journaling after reading an article from Life Positive by Anita Anand on the benefits of maintaining a journal .I started using an Old Bound diary for the same and it was quite tough writing using a pen after a long gap . There was enormous mental resistance in putting my thoughts on to paper and the mind was always postponing me to write later when I took up the journal . But I never gave up and started writing even if it was few lines and even if the matter was not very important . After my Sadhana Intensive (SI) Course at the Sivananda Ashram ,Madurai in 2009 I really got hooked to maintaining my journal more regularly as during the course of SI I was maintaining my journal there regualrly documenting all my practices and other things at the ashram . I felt I need to carry forward this when I got back home and was quite regular in maintaining my Yoga sadahana journal as well my regular journal .I moved away from using Old diary to using a regular spiral bound Journal for my Journaling activity . In Jan 2010 I had an opportunity to redo my SI course at Maduari and that was also an excellent opportunity for me to keep my journaling activity in tact .By Mid 2010 i.e around July 2010 I got seriously interested in practicing Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and decided that I need to maintain a separate journal noting my daily practice , my insights about the practice and other things that can help me see later how I evolved myself in my own ashtanga vinyasa yoga practice .What I missed in my Sivananda journey I did not want to miss the same again in my Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey and I started maintaining a separate spiral journal for the same and was writing on it regularly and even documented all of my ashtanga yoga practices up to date .During this period I came across many blogs on the internet totally dedicated to Ashtanga Vinaysa Yoga practice and that there was a virtual ashtanga yoga community there on the net and I also wanted myself to be part of the same and hence started this online blog exclusively dedicated to my Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga practice .So this is the reason why I started this blog and will keep updating it regularly documenting my Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga practice as well as the various insights that I gather by reading from books ,blogs ,DVDs related to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga .

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