Chandni Rodriguez
As a second generation Indian American woman I teach yoga because my mother taught yoga. The life and yogic expression of Gurani Anjali is the foundational training for the way I teach. In 1972; my mother a woman from South Asia, seeing the suffering of many people, founded Yoga Anand Ashram; a not for profit organization on Long Island, NY. This was the first ashram on Long Island.
I want to share the practice of yoga with you. Yoga is radical from the perspective of the thinking mind. But it is what is occurring at every moment. What I have learned from my mother is a way to understand and feel yoga within ones own experience. I find for many yoga students is that there is a desire for what is next. What is this yoga about? I feel peace at the end of yoga class but what is really going on? What is life? What is this movement? I want to know.
In my classes I utilize the framework of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. This classical text draws one to see experience and find the source of suffering thereby cultivating ways to mitigate the pain to come. In sharing this great path, I draw from Gurani Anjali’s meditations, books, songs and lessons she shared with me as I grew up. Her songs and meditations are a way to experience yoga as she did using her words and lyrics as a guide to one’s own discovery.
Yoga is not a concept but a way of life, an intimate journey that takes one to the heart of experience: awareness. The Yoga Path is comprised of eight distinct angas or limbs. Each limb can be studied independently first and can become the way of ones experience. The system starts with ethical disciplines yamas(restraints) & niyamas (observances). Then asana (postures) after that pranayama (breathing practices); dharana (concentration), pratyahara (sense withdrawal),and dhyana (meditation.) Last, is Samadhi (meditative absorption/awareness.) These are all a part of the yogic expression of Gurani Anjali.
By teaching in this way Yoga will become a way to live. ‘Live yoga everyday~create your life in a special way’ my mother was fond of singing.Yoga is practice ~ Let’s practice together!
Om shanti, shanti,shanti
Chandni
One of my favorite songs that my mother composed is “The Yoga Path”
As I walk on the Yoga Path
I think of those who paved the way
They sought after truth and weren’t the veil
The veil that is called maya
Yoga will guide me
Yoga will yoke me
I want to know the truth
I must be patient
I must be humble
It’s journey won’t be long.
Copyright : guranianjali
