Gary Kraftsow
Viniyoga: Journey to OneSelf

Journey to OneSelf is a five-day intensive with Gary Kraftsow exploring the nature of human experience at every level, and the means and methods evolved in the Yogic and Tantric traditions to help us overcome suffering, achieve our goals, and realize our true nature. In this intensive, we will study how these methods were designed to function in an integrated way, rather than as discrete and separate practices.

Teachings in the intensive will draw from include: the Upanisads, Sankhya Karika, Patanjali Yoga Sutra, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. A comprehensive set of yoga techniques will be used including: asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation (incorporating chanting, mantra, visualization and inquiry), and ritual (including nyasa and sankalpa). Although this intensive is designed to be taken in its entirety, students will be able to participate on select days if their schedule prohibits full participation.

June 22 – Tuesday 5:30-8:30pm

$75
Keynote: Vedic Revelation and the Evolution of Yoga and Tantra

June 23 – Wednesday 10am-5pm with an hour and a half lunch break

$160
Anna Sakti: Breath centric Asana
For many of us today, asana practice has been a valuable tool to help us understand our anatomy, and achieve a greater degree of structural integrity including: stability, strength, and flexibility. Asana in the context of the integrated practices of Yoga and Tantra offers more than this valuable anatomical integration. In this day, we will focus on asana as “prana pumps,” designed to deepen our breathing and remove obstructions to the flow of prana throughout our body.

June 24 - Thursday 10am-5pm with an hour and a half lunch break

$160
Prana Sakti: the Nervous System and the Mind
Pranayama practice is one of the greatest and unique methods developed by the Yoga and Tantric traditions. Just as asana serves an important role in developing and maintaining structural integrity, pranayama serves to help us create sympathetic/parasympathetic balance and thereby optimize our physiological well being. But just as asana serves a greater role in relation to building and circulating prana in our systems, so too pranayama serves a greater role in helping us gain control over our minds, and the changing movement of our thoughts and emotions. In this day, we will focus on pranayama as a means to stabilize and clarify our minds, and balance our emotions. We will use asana and pranayama in an integrated practice to serve this intention.

June 25 – Friday 10am-5pm with an hour and a half lunch break

$160
Mano Sakati: Language, Chanting and Mantra
Language is at the root of our experience of ourselves and the world around us. It is through language that we conceive, learn, and discern. It is in language that we hold our sense of meaning and purpose, but it is also in language that our conditioning is held. It is therefore no mystery that Yoga and Tantra masters, who were searching for the knowledge that would help humans transcend suffering and achieve freedom, developed methods to work through language to change conditioning and conceive the knowledge that would lead to freedom. In this day, we will focus on chanting and mantra as a way to begin to reprogram our conditioned mind, and experience teachings that will support us along our journey to freedom. We will use asana, pranayama, and chanting in an integrated way to achieve this end.

June 26 - Saturday 10am-5pm with an hour and a half lunch break

$160
Buddhi Sakti: Mantra and Meditation
One of the great insights of the Yoga and Tantra masters was the nature consciousness, and its relationship to the world through the mind via the senses. In the normal waking state, the consciousness is drawn through the mind via the senses towards the objects around us. When we are disconnected from the senses, consciousness is drawn into the twists and turns of memory and the complexity of our past which conditions our thoughts about ourselves, our attitudes, priorities, and goals. Meditation begins as we master the fluctuation of attention and can begin to direct our minds rather than being pulled along. Once we begin to gain this control, then we can set a new direction for our lives. In this day, we will focus on meditation, including inquiry and self reflection, as a way to realign our actions with our priorities. We will use asana, pranayama, chanting, mantra, and meditation in an integrated way to achieve this end.

June 27 - Sunday 10am-5pm with an hour and a half lunch break

$160
Prema and Sankalpa Sakti: Intention and Ritual
The Yoga and Tantra masters understood that our thoughts, emotions, and behavior work in relation to each other, and together shape our character. They understood the power of intention to reframe thoughts and emotions and transform behavior. These masters also realized that it takes faith, support, and a strong will to manifest intention. Towards this end, the Ancient Masters conceived of idealized macrocosmic forces that correspond to our inner world, and developed a science of ritual, to help us actualize our unrealized potential. In this day, we will focus inner Yoga and Tantra ritual, including sankalpa (intention) nyasa (gesture) and visualization to connect to these forces. We will use asana, pranayama, chanting, mantra, meditation, and ritual in an integrated way to achieve this end.

Gary Kraftsow has been a pioneer in the transmission of yoga for health, healing and personal transformation for 30 years. He began his study of yoga in India with T.K.V. Desikachar in 1974. He is a renowned speaker and teacher of the Viniyoga methodology at many conferences and schools nationally and internationally. In 1999 he founded American Viniyoga Institute, LLC. Gary has successfully developed protocol for two National Institute of Health studies: "Evaluating Yoga for Chronic Low Back Pain" and "Yoga Therapy for Generalized Anxiety." He is the Director and Senior Teacher of the American Viniyoga Institute; author of two books published by Penguin: Yoga for Wellness and Yoga for Transformation; and author of two educational DVD's: Yoga Therapy for Low Back, Sacrum and Hips and Yoga Therapy for Upper Back, Neck and Shoulders.

Gary graduated with a BA, Magna Cum Laude, from Colgate University in 1976, and received his Masters Degree in Psychology and Religion from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1983. He began practicing at the Maui School of Yoga Therapy in 1983, and received a Viniyoga Special Diploma from Viniyoga International in Paris, France soon thereafter. Since then, he has become a renowned speaker and teacher of the Viniyoga methodology at many conferences and schools nationally and internationally