Transforming Consciousness Through The Practice Of Yoga

Siegfried Bleher

Siegfried Bleher earned a PhD in Physics from University of Maryland in 1989 in nonlinear dynamics, and completed postdoctoral work in quantum chaos at University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia and postdoctoral work on transition state theory at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, before accepting a visiting faculty position at West Virginia University in 1994. Since 1992 Siegfried has had an interest and practice in yoga, and began teaching yoga full time in 1996. He and his wife run Inner Life Yoga Studio in Morgantown, WV. He is a certified teacher in the method taught by modern yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar, at the Intermediate Junior II level of certification, and has trained with the Iyengar family in Pune India, as well as with many of the senior-most teachers in the US.

The aim of classical yoga, as it is described in The Yoga Sutra, by Patanjali, dating back approximately 2000 years, is liberation from conditioned existence. There is a technical definition in The Yoga Sutra for this, but the meaning is that we can gain freedom from thought patterns and behaviors that are not relevant and responsive to the needs of the present moment. Contained within this philosophy is a cosmology, a psychological theory and a view of the nature and structure of consciousness that are all gleaned from and informed by the direct experience of ancient yogis. And each of these theories is meant to be verified experientially. In the process of verifying these theories, the practitioner gradually attains liberation from conditioned existence. In this workshop we’ll use asanas (yoga postures) to explore the nature of consciousness as Patanjali depicts it in The Yoga Sutra. Patanjali describes three different kinds of transformations that consciousness undergoes as a practitioner progresses, along with three parallel transformations in their bodies, or rather in how the practitioner’s consciousness subjectively experiences the body. Each of these transformations awakens a distinct capacity of consciousness (which can here be summarized as ‘one-pointedness’, ‘all-pointedness’ and ‘no- pointedness’), which is normally dormant or at best intermittently active. As these capacities awaken, then the cosmology and psychological structures that are described by Patanjali become verifiable by the practitioner. And this includes aspects of consciousness that are currently considered anomalous or mystical. The asanas taught in this workshop will be taught in the method of Mr. B.K.S. Iyengar, modern yoga master, by a certified teacher trained in the method. The workshop is progressive and aims to give the participant an experience of the ability of asanas to change their state of consciousness, and at least a theoretical understanding of their potential to change the structure of consciousness. Reference will also be made to the submitted paper, where we show how the method of practice taught by Mr. Iyengar parallels the iterative way in which many complex emergent systems evolve.

 

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