Integral Yoga Teachers - Swami Ramananda
| Article Index |
|---|
| Integral Yoga Teachers |
| Swami Ramananda |
| All Pages |
Swami Ramananda
Swami Ramananda, a senior monastic disciple of Sri Swami Satchidananda, is the Director of the New York Integral Yoga Institute. He formerly served as Director of the San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute and Manager of Integral Yoga's headquarters, Satchidananda Ashram-Yogaville, in Buckingham, Virginia. Ramananda has been teaching Hatha Yoga since 1976, and now lectures and conducts programs on many aspects of Yoga practice and philosophy, and leads Integral Yoga Teacher Training Certification programs for Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga and Stress Management.
"Ramanandaji's wisdom, clarity and compassion are a source of deep inspiration - he lives what he teaches with humility and open-heartedness. It is an honor to study with him." - Yoga Student
Swami Ramananda is also a scholar of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. With his deep knowledge and love of this ancient yogic text, Ramananda has a great ability to explain, inspire, and demonstrate how to integrate yogic teachings into one's daily life.
Swami Ramananda also has a deep love of kirtan (chanting), mystical poetry and devotional ritual. He offers workshops on "Mystical Poetry", reading, discussing, and writing, "Giving a Voice to the Heart", participatory chanting in English and Sanskrit from a variety of spiritual and cultural traditions, and "Calling Forth the Divine: How to Perform a Puja."
His warmth, wisdom, and sense of humor have endeared Ramananda to many. He has presented his popular programs worldwide including presentations at Yoga conferences for Yoga Journal, the Omega Institute and the International Association of Yoga Therapists.
Public Lecture and Seminar Topics presented by Swami Ramananda
- Work, Love, Laundry and Lunch: Integrating Yoga into Daily Life
- Calling Forth the Divine
- Creating a Path with Heart
- Cultivating Forgiveness
- Deepening Your Practice: Hatha Yoga as a Tool for Self-Discovery
- How Yoga Enlightens: Yoga Practice as a Path to Self Realization
- Rising out of Depression
- Transforming Anger
- Healing the Dis-ease of Busy-ness
- Resolving Inner Conflict & Painful Emotions - Yoga’s Practical Wisdom
- Spiritual Activism: Skillful Action During Difficult Times
- Click Here For Descriptions Of The Above Lecture & Seminar Topics
- Unless otherwise noted, these topics can be presented as either short lectures of 11/2 to 2 hours in duration, as 4 hour seminars, or as one or two day workshops.
Work, Love, Lunch and Laundry: Integrating Yoga into Daily Life
Discover how to turn both the magical and the mundane moments of life into opportunities for spiritual growth. Examine places in your daily routines where you struggle to integrate the teachings of Yoga and learn how asana and meditation practice can help build presence of mind and spiritual stamina. This program includes lectures, Hatha poses, guided reflection and discussion. Through our group practice and through the guidance of the classic yogic text, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, we will come to understand that ultimately everything we do is an opportunity to be free and to experience our true nature of peace and love.
Calling Forth the Divine: How to Perform a Puja
During this beautiful program Swami Ramananda will explore the power of ritual and perform a puja - a sacred ceremony used to invoke the presence of God or the Divine Consciousness. That Presence can be invoked in whatever form feels personally meaningful: a statue or picture of God from a religious tradition, or a symbol, such as light, that represents the Divine. Ramananda will explain the symbolic relevance of classic components of puja which include purifying oneself to receive that Presence, and honoring it with incense, light, flowers, and food offerings. While the external ritual itself becomes a powerful meditation, at a deeper level puja calls forth our inner Spiritual Consciousness in response to the Divine Presence we invoke. Program attendants will have the opportunity to either observe or participate in the puja directly.
Creating a Path with Heart
To gain real freedom and make steady growth, we must face our full humanness, our pain and fears. We must cultivate an open, loving attitude towards the workings of our own hearts and minds. During this inspiring program, Swami Ramananda will support participants to develop their own path with heart by offering instruction and guidance in:
- Building a foundation of regular practice
- Practicing compassion
- Using life's daily events to understand hidden needs and fears
- Allowing lifestyle changes without stress or backlash
Cultivating Forgiveness
Deeply painful experiences can create resentment and anger that are held like protective armor around the heart, constricting our capacity to love. In this workshop, Swami Ramananda introduces forgiveness as a process that includes finding our center, understanding the source of our resentment toward others and ourselves, and steps toward release. Forgiveness can then function in our lives, freeing us to be fully ourselves and have compassion for others.
Deepening Your Practice: Hatha Yoga as a Tool for Self-Discovery
Since we tend to identify strongly with the physical body, most of us are drawn to Yoga for physical reasons. We typically begin with Hatha Yoga as a practice focussing on wellbeing of the body, but the masters of Yoga designed the system or method of Hatha Yoga primarily for the purpose of leading us into deeper, more subtle levels of our being. During this program Swami Ramananda will explore:
- The place of Hatha Yoga in the overall framework of Yoga
- How we can use Yoga postures and breathing practices to get in touch with more subtle dimensions of our nature
- Practical hints on how to derive more satisfaction and enjoyment from our practice
How Yoga Enlightens: Yoga Practice as a Path to Self-Realization
A stronger body. A calmer mind. A moment of quiet reflection. The practice of Hatha Yoga has many benefits. But its ultimate goal is much more: a harmonious union of body, mind and spirit that facilitates living in a state of steady peace and wisdom, celebrating the joys and challenges of life.
This workshop will examine the eight limbs of Yoga as presented in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, one of the original scriptures that define the meaning and practice of Yoga. During this program you will discover how: these limbs build on one another to achieve the final goal of realizing the true self within. Discover how Hatha Yoga fits into the greater context, and how you can orient your practice and daily life to help your True Self shine forth. Then Yoga will not only relieve your stress-it will transform your entire life, helping to prevent stressful reactions from ever occurring, and enabling you to remain steady and mindful even in the midst of difficulty. Depending on the length of the program, part of this workshop will be a session of Hatha Yoga that is appropriate for practitioners at all levels.
Rising out of Depression
Research has shown that medication is not the only way to overcome depression. Understanding the physiology of depression and applying the teachings of Yoga can be of much benefit. In addition to physical practices, Yoga offers ways to identify and transform the thought patterns that keep us from fully enjoying life. Swami Ramananda introduces the psychotherapeutic techniques and Yoga practices that are effective in overcoming depression, and offers inspiration to support lasting positive life-style changes.
Transforming Anger
Anger is a powerful energy that can be used in healthy ways to further spiritual growth and constructive communication. Many of us learned as children to view anger as negative and painful, and have seen how its repression brings physical and emotional suffering to others and ourselves. During this program, Swami Ramananda focuses on understanding how anger originates, how it affects us, how it can be acknowledged, released and expressed in appropriate ways. Participants will learn a number of methods to strengthen both mind and heart to transform anger into a tool for spiritual development.
Healing the Dis-ease of Busy-ness
It has become the status quo to fill our lives with so much activity that we hardly recognize how driven we are and how stressful our lives have become. In this workshop, Swami Ramananda will explore the root causes of the dis-ease of busy-ness and the tendency to value how much we do rather than the quality of what we do, or how we feel in doing what we do. Participants will explore and practice simple yet powerful tools for slowing down, relieving stress, and being present with what we are doing. Focus will be given to inspiring lasting life-style change through discussion and initiation of long-term strategies to set and maintain priorities in our lives, how to make decisions that reflect what we truly value, and how to create balance between the various roles that we play.
Resolving Inner Conflict & Painful Emotions-Yoga's Practical Wisdom
We all attract to ourselves challenging situations that expose our conflicting feelings and unresolved emotions. When our "buttons" get pushed and/or our hearts disagree with our heads, we may feel stuck and powerless to act with clarity and care. The teachings and practices of Yoga have been used for thousands of years to bring awareness, healing and transformation to such psychic knots that bind our energy and undermine our wellbeing. This workshop explores how you can recognize and relate to unresolved issues, discover and understand their root causes, and receive the messages they bring. You will also discover how to create a regular spiritual practice, step by step, to support your efforts to be present and compassionate with your own inner states and in your relationships with others.
Spiritual Activism: Skillful Action During Difficult Times
During these first years of the New Millennium, terrorism and violence, natural disasters, unprecedented corporate greed, and political unrest are marking our life in the USA. In the midst of such overwhelming circumstances, we can easily feel powerless, disheartened, or depressed. During this workshop, we will explore together the nature of a spiritual activism that works outside of conventional power structures to connect us with others, create awareness and initiate change. You will learn how your spiritual practice can create a foundation for action that touches others on a deep level and connects you with a worldwide network of people whose service is guided by spiritual values. In opening the doorway to awareness and compassion we also plant the seeds for lasting peace.Â