Namaste beautiful people! It has been quite an honor to be engaged in spiritual practice with you over the past week. I'm getting ready to head back to Austin, Below are my summarized notes for each day. If you would like a free week on The Yoga of Sound along with an understanding of the Tantric Path, you can learn more sign on for that using the link below. It means getting on my list if you want to:
If you want to systematically study the Tantric approach to sound and sound healing, or if you wish to gain a solid foundation in mantra pronunciation, specifically for Yoga and Veda mantras, here are two trainings. The Tantric Path is through private study. The Mastery of Mantra is through training in small groups.


​The Yoga of Sound: Tapping the Authenticity of Yoga (Summary Notes)
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What exactly is “authenticity” in Yoga? We might discern a general tendency among western yoga practitioners to stay true to tradition and to be fully themselves at the same time. Authenticity in Yoga in the west often implies a sort of hybrid quality of staying true to tradition on the one hand and staying true to oneself on the other. 

Then, again, what do we mean by one’s “self”? Do we mean the egoic personality with its culture, language, mannerisms, nuances? Or do we mean the true self, the deep self, the realization of Yoga, to know one’s true nature which transcends culture and language? 

If by self we mean the true self, then we are leaving out the personality that necessarily needs to be integrated into one’s yogic identity. But then you cannot really be yourself in the fullest sense, can you? If we mean the personality, then that involves our ego and  culture, there are bound to be aspects of ego modern culture that would be incompatible with ancient yogic tradition, if authenticity is to be found in tradition. 

So what exactly is “authenticity” in Yoga today if not the hybrid of staying true to tradition and true to oneself? This is what we must discover together. It will be an adventure. Parts of it may be involve navigating some challenging terrain, so we see ourselves as a team working together to arrive at this authenticity of experience, a true knowing of the yogic experience.

SESSION 1​

​We began our session by sensing the connection between our voice and our presence, sensing the vulnerability and transparency of the naked voice experienced within the context of awareness that that is deeper than typical self-consciousness. 

We established that the goal of Yoga is a state of consciousness, an awakening within our awareness. Everything is consciousness. We ourselves are made up of the stuff of consciousness like everything else. However, yogic consciousness is a special quality or knowing within the vast field of consciousness.

We discussed the yogic experience as an awakened consciousness, and we tried to faciliate this experience by freeing up our consciousness from our incessant thinking, noticing how our consciousness is always responding to our thinking.

We looked at Patanjali’s yoga sutras, especially sutras 1, 2 and 3 from his samadhi pada, which points to a particular kind of knowing as the goal of yoga. We might call it “the pure seeing of pure consciousness in the awakened seer.”

We chanted together drawing from all three streams of sacred sound: Bhakti, Tantric, and Vedic, using Ganesha as our channel of reference. Our voices were not together but a space opened up that we surrendered to by lying down in savasana.

PART 1: VEDIC MANTRAS

Vedic mantras are a form of articulate speech charecterized by their precision.
In mantric speech, the meaning is preserved in the pronunciation and chanting.
Entrainment happens in the tones, aspirated consonants, and length of vowels.
You can use a whole tone below and a whole tone above for the chanting.
Or you can use a whole tone below and a half tone above for the chanting.
Vedic mantras are based on meter (like the gāyatrī, which provides rhythm).
Rhythmic meters of mantra enables us explore deep regions within consciousness.
Saying the mantra aloud empowers the voice brought later into the mind for practice.
The distinction that the voice saying the mantra is not the voice thinking helps.
The voice saying the mantra can function as a lifeline to the familiar, also like an anchor.

The following are from the older Vedic period
vyāhritiḥ: sacred utterances
om bhūḥ bhuvaḥ om suvaḥ om mahaḥ om janaḥ om tapaḥ om satyam

gāyatrī mantra (sūrya gāyatrī—to the sun)

tat savitur vareṇyaṃ
that radiant light fit to be worshipped

bhargo devasya dhīmahi
we meditate on the light from that intensity

dhiyo yo naḥ prachodayāt
we our meditation propel into enlightenment

these are from the upanishadic period, also the time of yogic method

krato smara kṛtam smara
o child of creation, remember your (good) actions

asato mā sadgamaya
lead me from the unreal to the real

tamaso mā jyotirgamaya
lead me from darkness to light

mṛtyor mā amṛtamgamaya
lead me from death to immortality


PART 2: TANTRIC SOUND
and the integration of Vedic, Yogic and Bhakti

(The following dates are from western scholarship)

1500 BC — 1000 BC
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The Vedas are abgout enlightenment (and well being). In the Vedas, the ultimate enlightenment (of the Upanishads—1000 BC) is arrived at through renunciation, especially in the forest period (āraṇyaka). Yoga is the methodology that assists the process, but grace also factors in rather strongly. And knowledge of the true self, the Atman.

At the end of the Vedas (Ved-anta), that is, during the Upanishads, there is breakthrough into the oneness of the great mystery behind all the diversity of creation and all of the intelligences to be found in creation, much of it being deitic (forms of divinity). We have the great utterances (mahā-vākya) of the Upanishads that capture this experience.

aham brahma asmi—I am this Creation
tat tvam asi—that, you are also
sarvam etāt brahman—everything is this one great reality
prajñānam brahman—intense knowing is also the same thing

However, neither the Vedas nor the Upanishads give us the method of how to arrive at this oneness. We only know about it through allusions, as, “when all selfish desires are given up”. Yoga is certainly the method, but it is not explained through explicit practices. Obviously, many approaches to Yoga are being developed at this time.

500 BC

In the Bhagavad Gita, the many approaches to Yoga (karma, bhakti, gnana), and the many ideologies that were circulating are treated as different ways to the same end. However, here, the highest consciousness becomes personal, taking the form of Krishna. In the Gita, the Bhakti and Yoga connection is strong. And there are strong parallels here between Krishna and Jesus and how they became identified with Ultimate Reality subsequently. The Gita is the first official treatise on Yoga and method, although there is nothing here about āsana, other than finding a seat that is neither too high nor too low for meditation.

Turn of the Millennium 0—1 BC

In the Vedas, the mantras are essentially the simulation and stimulation of the state of enlightenment, which later, with Patanjali, becomes samadhi. Samadhi, is absorption, into the state of enlightenment. Patanjali draws heavily from sankhya philosopy, which also informs the Gita. He, too, makes a point of surrender to Ultimate Reality but frees it up from any particular name or form. And he validates many other methods. In other words, you can know the ultimate experience of Yoga through surrender to God, and the chanting of Om, or by other means, too, such as meditating on an object.

Patanjali offers Yoga as a path and a philosophy with samadhi as the goal. He discerns between two essential states of samadhi. One in which there is still awareness of other things—forms, shapes, qualities, events, etcetera. And the other in which there is no awareness of anything other than the state itself—a state of total absorption. Absorption is into the nature of Ultimate Reality.

500 AD

All throughout this time, Tantra, is developing in the background, as a reaction to the Vedas, its caste system, its elitism, its puritanical rules, its emphasis on proper pronunciation, its elaborate rituals, the detail with which the rituals need to be performed, and so on. Much of what Tantra develops is anti status quo, in an underground movement.

Sri Vidya is a somewhat brahminical and gnostic form of Tantra that develops about 1500 years ago and integrates the mantras and rituals of the Vedas; the methods, practices, and technologies of Yoga; and its own methods, technologies, mantras, and rituals. The goal is liberation in which the experience of samadhi is integrated with everyday life. It is a householder path.

Tantra, in the Sri Vidya tradition, has a strong element of bhakti. However, it also integrates what are called “siddhis” or powers into one’s practice. This is done through mantras, rituals, and practices. There is also an elaborate understanding of how the self and consciousness is constructed. This knowledge is used towards liberation.

For us today, while enlightenment is still much the goal of Yoga, we realize that the fullness of enlightenment requires the complete freeing up of all trapped consciousness. Any other type of enlightenment, which is also possible, is not a complete. Therefore, in some ways, we are fashioning a new approach today, one in which the western Age of Enlightenment and also western psychology is integrated. This is what I am sharing with you, not only the authenticity of the Vedic, Tantric, and Bhakti traditions of sacred sound and how they interect with Yoga and the yogic experience, but also how all of this ancient wisdom needs to integrate with contemporary knowledge in ways that are also authentic.

With this in mind, before facilitating spiritual awakening, the pathway of the chakras being the channel for awakening, there is a loosening of three spiritual knots using the following practice. This sets the stage deeper work, having tapped into a pure form of shakti and allowing it to pass though the chakras.

This pure shakti has a healing power. As it continues to clean the chakras of all that holds back the development and evolution of our personal concsiousness, the consciousness that we are, as individual entities, or souls, can expand and experience a richer fulfilment in knowing, being, experiencing, and doing.

for the brahma granthi (at spine base)
om gam gaṇeśāya namaḥ used with muṣṭi mudrā (making a fist around spine base)

for the viṣṇu granthi (at heart area)
om glauṁ gaṇapataye namaḥ used with gaṇeśa mudrā (locking the fingers at heart)

for the rudra granthi (at crown)
om mahā gaṇādhipataye namaḥ namaḥ used with namaskāra mudrā 

TANDAVA MANTRA
the tandava is the dance of consciousness aka the dance of shiva
we learn to allow a mantra to express itself through us and to free up our consciousness
we used this mantra for our Tandava practice, to facilitate flow of pure consciousness
om namah shivaya (2) chandrasekhara parameśwara​