Table Of ContentYoga: The Practice of
Myth and Sacred Geometry
Rama Jyoti Vernon
Twin Lakes, WI USA
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Foreword
Author's Preface
A Message to Yoga Teachers
Introduction
The Hidden Meanings of Haṭha Yoga
The Polarities
Yoga as Union
The Symbolism and Significance of the Spine
The Deeper Meaning of Āsana
Āsana as Sacred Geometry
Inaction Within Action
The Path of Perfection
The Primal Power of Prāṇāyāma
The Integration of Breath
Back Breathing
Moving From the Exhalation
Ujjāyī Breathing and Āsana
Breath and the Brain
Changing Our Lives Through Breath
The Divinity of Breath
Practicing Svadharma in Āsana
Coming to the Edge
Different Students, Different Dharmas
We Cannot Do the Same Pose Twice
Letting Breath Be the Teacher
Breath and the Five States of Mind
The Methodology of Svadharma
The Postures
Āsana I
Āsana II
Appendices
Acknowledgments
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
YOGA: THE PRACTICE OF MYTH AND SACRED
GEOMETRY
“Yoga: The Practice of Myth and Sacred Geometry is for all of us who want to
continue in the study of yoga’s deep teaching and technical instruction. The
wonderful diagrams and photos will clearly assist us as we learn and teach asana
and pranayama while walking life’s journey. Thank you, Rama, for sharing the
heart, soul, and passion of your own practices, insights, and reflections, and for
imparting your years of yoga experience, study, and teaching. This is a book I
will treasure for years to come.”
— Lilias Folan, PBS host and author of
Lilias! Yoga: Your Guide to Enhancing Body, Mind, and Spirit Midlife and
Beyond
“Rama floated into my life in 1992 with a ‘presence of Self,’ immediately
touching my heart. When she teaches, asana becomes a dance of story,
philosophy, subtle body knowledge, and basic safety. She interweaves the
essence that makes yoga alive. In Yoga: The Practice of Myth and Sacred
Geometry, Rama imparts this essence. She shares the precision of yoga practices
while merging the stories behind the practices, marrying the practice with the
heart of yoga. Her students learn to explore yogasana on the mat and in the
world. Rama has been my guiding light. With this unique asana manual she
offers, in a very accessible format, the spirit and the depth of yoga. Through
teaching and living yoga, she makes a difference in the world!”
— Hansa Knox, Director of Training at PranaYoga and Ayurveda Mandala
(Denver, CO),
past president of Yoga Alliance
“Rama Jyoti Vernon unfolds the profound mystery of the practice of yoga while
guiding the reader with practical skill. As practitioners journey through this
book, they will experience the true sense of the word myth that will manifest as
the sacred geometry of the body, mind, and consciousness.”
— Vasant Lad, B.A.M.S., M.A.Sc., Ayurvedic physician, founder of The
Ayurvedic Institute
(Albuquerque), author of Ayurveda: Science of Self-Healing and other titles
“It’s exciting and rare for me to come upon a modern-day writing that offers a
fresh light, and breathes new life, into the ancient teachings of yoga. This is one
such book.”
such book.”
— Richard Miller, PhD, author of
Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga and other titles
“Rama Jyoti Vernon has been a pioneer in bringing yoga to America and has
inspired my own practice in innumerable ways. Her heart-centered wisdom as a
teacher of teachers and of hundreds of thousands of students around the globe
shines through in this book. Not only does Rama’s understanding of the
biodynamics of asana and breath make this a must read for everyone who aspires
to serve others through the teaching of yoga, but the great value and humility she
brings to the calling of yoga teacher — as ‘servant’ or ‘fellow seeker’ — lights
the path through the darkness for countless fellow seekers, me included.”
— Amy Weintraub, Founder of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute,
author of Yoga for Depression and Yoga Skills for Therapists
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Oṃ Gaṃ Gaṇapataye Namaḥ
Gaṇeśa, the son of Shiva, who is the Lord of all Yogis, is invoked before any
event, undertaking, or mantra. He is the favored deity of scribes and merchants,
and he is associated with wisdom, good luck, successful enterprises, prosperity,
peace, beginnings, journeys, building, and also with books and writing.
Gaṇeśa is the remover of obstacles, both spiritual and material. He is a
protector, evident by the rattle that is heard before his darśana, or revelation. The
rattle is to chase away the evil spirits that symbolize hindrances on the spiritual
path.
In one hand, Gaṇeśa holds a bowl of rice and in the other, the Vedas. This
symbolizes that one needs material fulfillment as well as spiritual nourishment.
It is believed that when one is hungry, the mind cannot soar to loftier heights and
becomes consumed with survival at the most basic level. Perhaps this may
explain why Gaṇeśa is said to dwell in the first chakra, Mūlādhāra, guarding the
chamber of the Inner Self, just as he is known to be the guard of his mother
Pārvatī’s chamber.
Gaṇeśa’s huge ears symbolize the ability to hear all things, the ability to
listen, and to listen compassionately. His small eyes symbolize shutting off the
outside world to look within. His long trunk, which brings nourishment from the
ground into his mouth, symbolizes discrimination, for it takes more time for food
to reach his lips, allowing time for evaluation or re-evaluation of the action.
Gaṇeśa represents a vast universal energy, an energy that we can bring into all
of our lives and our yoga practice.
With this book, I offer the wisdom of my many teachers. It is the labor of a
lifetime, the culmination of sixty years of yoga study and teaching, and a decade
of writing. I offer it with love to all my teachers and students, past, present, and
future.
— Rama Jyoti Vernon
For more information about Rama Jyoti Vernon go to
www.ramajyotivernon.com
FOREWORD
Rewind. It’s 1973. I’m studying yoga at the Yoga College of India in San
Francisco. A group of yoga students are visiting from the Institute for Yoga
Teacher Education (IYTE), a school that Rama Jyoti Vernon has helped found.
Fast forward. It’s 1976. I’m sitting in Rama’s home, learning the art of
pranayama with Rama as my teacher, with a group of fellow students from the
IYTE, where I’m now taking classes to increase my studies in yoga.
Fast forward. It’s 1977. I’ve just submitted my first article, Yoga for the Blind,
to the Yoga Journal, the magazine Rama helped found in 1975.
Fast Forward. It’s 1978. I’m attending numerous parties hosted by Rama in her
home, where visiting yogis from around the world are sharing their knowledge
and presence.
Fast forward. It’s still 1978. I’ve just been invited to serve as the vice president
of the California Yoga Teachers Association (CYTA), which Rama helped
found several years earlier.
Fast forward. It’s still 1978. CYTA has just agreed to spin off IYTE, which is to
become the San Francisco Iyengar Yoga Institute, where Rama will continue
teaching classes.
Fast Forward. It’s 1979. Rama has invited me to host Ian Rawlinson, a senior
student of T.K.V. Desikachar, for a series of seminars at my Marin School of
Yoga. Ian will introduce me to the teachings of T. Krishnamachara, and I will
subsequently fly to Madras to begin formal studies with Desikachar in 1980.
Fast forward. It’s 1981. I’ve been invited by Rama to become a member of Unity
in Yoga, an organization that Rama has founded to promote unity among the
various international schools of yoga.
Fast forward. It’s 1984. Rama has established the Center for Soviet-American
Dialogue to help connect citizens of the United States with those of the Soviet
Union. She later changes the name to the Center for International Dialogue in
order to expand its reach into the Middle East, as well as into Ethiopia, Central
America, and Africa, among other sites.
Fast forward. It’s 1992. Rama helps found the Regional Women’s Gatherings
(RWG), an organization dedicated to providing women a platform to express
their visions for peace in the world. RWG culminates in the 1994 Georgetown
University Conference, Women of Vision (WOV): Leadership for the New
World, which brings together over 500 women and leads to the formation of the
Women of Vision National Network, which provides ongoing WOV Regional
Conferences.
Fast forward. It’s 1995. Rama is an NGO delegate to the Fourth UN Conference
on Women, where she is focusing on empowering women in Africa.
Fast forward. It’s 2004. Rama founds the International Yoga College (IYC),
which offers educational opportunities for experienced students and teachers of
yoga.
Fast forward. 2004-Present. Throughout these years Rama continues to travel
throughout the world, bringing her expertise, teachings, love, and creative
energy to helping people come together to resolve their conflicts, and promote
peace in their lives and the regions where they live.
Suffice to say, Rama has deeply touched my life in countless ways, as she has
the lives of countless others around the globe. Rama is a woman of vision, who
leads a mission-driven life, exemplifying peace and action in every breath she
takes. It’s been a privilege to know Rama through the years, through her many
adventures. From my first meeting with her, and throughout the years, I’ve
experienced light, love, and authentic presence in her every interaction with
myself, and those around me. It’s therefore an honor for Rama to have invited
me to provide this brief foreword to her new book.
It’s exciting and rare for me to come upon a modern day writing that offers a
fresh light, and breathes new life, into the ancient teachings of yoga. Rama’s
offering, Yoga: The Practice of Myth and Sacred Geometry, is one such book.
And I would expect no less from Rama.
Rama writes with the authoritative autonomy of one who has truly traversed the
entire breadth and depth of yoga, from marketplace to mountaintop and back
again. Rama offers us timeless wisdom derived from her years of study, practice,
devotion, and sitting with her many gifted teachers. She offers us sage advice
and knowledge that is at once practical, philosophical, and heartfelt, delivered
with passion and appeal from page to page and chapter to chapter.
I take great delight in knowing that I will be sharing Rama’s book with my yoga
friends and students for years to come, providing them with, as I have found, a
treasure trove of sacred teachings that enables us to find equanimity no matter
our circumstances.
Richard Miller, PhD
author of Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of
Yoga and Yoga Nidra Meditation to Overcome
Trauma (www.irest.us)
San Rafael 2014
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
For years, I was reluctant to write about yoga, always feeling I didn’t know
enough. Even though those feelings are still present, after continual urging of
students and yoga teachers, I now offer these pages as an organic unfoldment of
my own practices, insights, and reflections. I hope you, the reader, will receive
this offering as simply that.
These writings encompass over a half-century of blessings by master teachers
and yoga’s everexpanding presence in all areas of life. Yoga and its tributaries
continue to be a map of how to live life on this earth plane to the fullest extent
while finding serenity in the midst of all changing endeavors and experiences.
Yoga has been my guide and preceptor on journeys through the valleys of the
dark night of the soul to the mountaintops of unveiled understandings.
As a householder and mother, I have had to find ways to integrate my children
into my practice and my life, no longer seeing the family as separate from my
spiritual life, but as the spiritual path itself. Mine has been a journey of
integration that continues to reveal itself. As a householder and yoga teacher, I
have found that the fullest expression of yoga is not just within a pose but within
every aspect of life. Yoga exists within each action and every spoken word, and
it is expressed through every thought.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that a yoga teacher’s inner experiences,
combined with an understanding of the deeper significance of yoga, creates a
vibrational frequency that attracts students of a similar resonance. I have found
that as I changed, some students dropped away while others appeared. I also
discovered it was not up to me to discern whether I taught a “good” or “bad”
class.
Among yoga’s blessings: We learn balance within the polarities of opposites. As
we learn the art of bilateral integration within the body, we also learn the same in
life. We do not seek approval or cower under disapproval, real or imagined. As
teachers and as students, we learn to stay centered in the midst of attachments
and aversions, praise or blame, criticism or compliment. Through āsana, we
learn to give up goal orientation, to give our all to the present moment, and then
to release it, as we learn to release in Śavāsana. We learn to let go of the past and
come into the present moment within our classes and within our lives.
As a teacher, I found that if I took on many classes and responsibilities and did
not have time to deepen my own practice, it was possible to become dry inside
and weary in body, mind, and spirit. I was feeling that weariness many years
ago, until Mr. B.K.S. Iyengar said: “Practice twice as much as you teach.” As I
began to implement his advice, I discovered a wellspring of love and a true
desire to serve. These words arose out of the depth of my soul: “To love is to go
on teaching forever without growing weary.”
I taught only when invited and discovered that I taught not so much for others
but for the refinement of my own evolutionary unfoldment. As my
understanding of the practices deepened, they brought me into ever deepening
layers of consciousness. During class, I found it was possible to convey the
essence of yoga not only through the spoken word, but also by allowing the
words to be used as a vehicle for the universal presence to guide and inspire.
Words convey energy: The Śakti of the masters reflects through the spoken word
as well as through the teacher’s silent presence.
Now, however, I find it a challenge to convey this feeling through the written
word. It seems difficult to crystallize in writing what is a continual organic
unfoldment of the practices. I hope that my reflections will encourage readers to
seek their own experiences through the practices that explore the vast universe
that lies within. We are always in the flux of change; nothing is solid. This book
is not an end, but only a beginning of Self and Universal exploration. For me, it
is a reminder of the evolution and integration of yoga in our world of today.
What is presented here may at times seem different than traditional approaches.
It is not meant to confuse but only to share personal experiential understanding.
Even though there are yoga traditions that are eternal and unchanging, there are
also evolutionary spikes and spirals occurring in the U.S. yoga community as we
find new ways to incorporate yoga into our everyday lives. We no longer have to
go to the mountaintops but can now find the mountaintops in the marketplace.
Held within each āsana is the mythology linked to its name and the geometrical
patterns of the cellular structures of creation. Through the practice of yoga, we
can let our hearts convey our love of all humanity and the Divine essence of all
creation. We do this when we caress our feet upon the earth in standing poses,
when our toes and heels reach for the center of the sun in inverted poses. We can
let our love for the Divine reflect in the ceremonious offering of our upper to
lower body in forward bends. Āsanas reflect the art and beauty of the
communion of Self with the Universal. They help us release the impediments
that shroud the light that is always shining. We are not “becoming One with” but
realizing the Oneness that already is. This is the Union of Yoga.
Blessings and prānaṃs to you always.
— Rama Jyoti Vernon
