We are thrilled to announce that Chris Chapple is now a YogaGlo teacher!
Chris Chapple trained in classical Yoga from 1972 to 1985 at Yoga Anand Ashram in Amityville, New York. He moved to Los Angeles in 1985, where he is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology. He has published more than a dozen books, including Karma and Creativity (1986) and several translations and editions of Indian texts, including the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yogadrstisamuccaya of Haribadra, and the Prthivi Sukta section of the Atharva Veda. In 2013, Chris founded and currently directs the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at LMU.
Many of you have enjoyed the free Yoga Sutra of Patanjali lectures we posted on the blog long ago and you’ve asked when Chris might be back for more regularly lectures on the site. Today is that day!
His new lectures have just been added to the site so you can begin studying with Chris today:
- Introduction to the Mahabharata – India’s great epic. This epic poem, seven times the length of the Illiad and Odyssey combined, tells an enduring story of ancient India.
- Spiritual Accountancy – Witness Consciousness (Purusa) in Relation to the Realm of Activity (Prakrti) Purusa and Prakrti, consciousness and activity, seer and seen, exist in reciprocity. Because of misplaced ego identity, Purusa, though always free, gets buried in the flurry of busy-ness. In the words of Gurani Anjali, freedom gets lost: “Purusa, bound from within, without looking on.” Meanwhile, all actions serve two functions: experience and freedom: “So I dance, yes I dance, yes I dance, yes I dance for you alone.” By moving through a modified child pose and performing analoma viloma (alternate nostril breathing) we acknowledge consciousness and activity within the human form.
- Bridge Between Worlds: The Role of the Gunas – As Prakrti begins her dance and emerges from her unmanifest state into the manifest, she takes three forms: sattva (illumination), rajas (passionate activity), and tamas (heaviness). The lower realms of the body (pelvis and legs) ground us in tamas through the elements of earth and water; the middle zone of the body (torso) contains the heat of our inner organs below the diaphragm and the movement of breath in heart and lungs above (rajas); the head connects us to sattva and upwards toward the heavens. By performing Marici Asana and by the Tribandha Pranayama, we evoke and recognize the symbiosis of all three gunas, in service of consciousness.
- Stilling the Impulses – We awaken into emotional states determined by past actions. By seeing the eightfold nature of human propensities, we can minimize the tamasika aspects of our existence (weakness, attachment, ego, wrong action) and cultivate the sattvika qualities of strength, equanimity, knowledge, and dharma. By doing the forward bend, first to the left, then to the right, then both legs forward, followed with the butterfly bringing feet sole to sole, we can embed these positive qualities within standard moves of asana practice.
- The Bridge into Ego: How Karma Shapes Identity – Five major afflictions define human action or karma: ignorance, egoism, addictive attraction, revulsion, and non-recognition of our mortality. Due to various forms of complacency and lower-level success, one can be tricked into the deluded attitude that spiritual work is not needed. However, the pain and suffering of daily life will eventually prompt the spiritual seeker to move out of complacency into sustained spiritual practice, sadhana.
- Five Elements & The Dance of Manifestation – 23 aspects of reality (Tattvas) emerge from the creative matrix known as Prakriti. In this session we engage bodily with the five great elements (earth, water, fire, air, space: Mahabhutas), the subtle elements (Tanmatras), the action organs (Karmendriyas) and the sensory organs (Buddhindriyas), seeing their connection with mind (Manas), ego (Ahamkara), and the will as governed by past impressions (Buddhi). By exploring the dance of manifestation, an awareness slowly (or suddenly) dawns that without consciousness, no movement can take place. Through this understanding, freedom emerges.
Please join us in welcoming Chris Chapple to YogaGlo!
