Art of Awareness: Meditation & Mindfulness

This course is a part of the Svastha Yoga Therapy Program and can be attended as  part of the 300-hour Yoga Therapy foundations course or independently, as a continuing education program.

Course Content:

During this course, participants will:

• Understand the key types of awareness practices.
• Examine the ancient yoga frameworks that structure and explain awareness practices.
• Explore how we can use different types of awareness practices optimally on our journey of wellbeing.
• Classify objects of awareness, what we can practice mindfulness or meditation on, based on practical samkhya and yoga frameworks.
• Practice yogic mindfulness extensively and in-depth.
• Experience absorption practices in sight, mantra, breath and body, positive emotions and more.
• Practice composite visualizations of sensations, images, and more.
• Explore the neuroscience of consciousness and attention.
• Understand the connections between yoga and modern positive psychology and neurobiology on the topic of meditation and mindfulness.

Topics covered include:

What and why of awareness practices

•  The categories of directed attention: mindfulness, absorption, contemplation. What are their key features and the differences between them?
• The stages of progressive absorption in meditation practices.
• Dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi, samyama in traditional yoga.
• Ways that awareness practices play an important role in supporting holistic wellbeing and self-transformation: monitoring, focus, insight, goal-setting.
• Experiencing holistic states of change (bhāva).
• Recalling one’s attention (smṛti-sādhana).
• The arising and role of insight (prajñā) in transformation.
• What to meditate on? Objects or experiences of focus: body, breath, senses, emotions, abstractions, I-sense (grahītā, grahaṇā, grāhya).
• Contemplation and abstractions in meditation pathways: vikalpa, vitarka, vicāra.
• Awareness and the three guṇas of yoga as an underlying framework.

How of awareness practices

• Balancing effort and relaxation in attention practices, walking the line between energy and dullness.
• Growing the qualities of steadiness and entrainment.
• Understanding and practicing focused vs. expansive awareness states.
• Managing the emotional background of mindfulness and absorptive states.
• Cultivating a stable meditation pathway over time.
• Finding salience or importance in objects of absorption.

Yogic mindfulness: cultivating sattvic presence

• Understanding the cautions, challenges, recommendations in mindfulness practices.
• Developing and deepening sattvic mindfulness of breath, body, senses, thoughts and emotions.

Yogic absorption: foundations of mantra, imagery and more:
Understand the principles of, and practice absorption in:

• sound, mantra, speech.
• light, images.
• breath and body sensation.
• positive emotions.
• peace, stillness.

Science of consciousness and attention
Understand the neuroscience of the self, including:

• emergence and purpose of self-construct.
• nerve signaling, neural circuits.
• theories of consciousness.
• top-down monitoring and feedback systems.

Explore the neurobiology of:

• mindfulness, absorption.
• flow states, default mode network.
• mystic and alternative consciousness states.

Traditional yoga frameworks

• bhāva
• dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi, smṛti-sādhana
• prajñā
• vikalpa, vitarka, vicāra
• grahītā, grahaṇā, grāhya

Dates:

This course is held over 4 days, 8.30am – 5.00pm daily:

18th – 21st October 2024 (Friday – Monday)

Fees:

$660.00

Prices include GST.

Barbara Coley is an experienced and skilled yoga teacher, educator, & certified yoga therapist. She has a deep passion for sharing sound yoga practices that empower and promote well-being on all levels.

Barbara has been practising yoga since 1992 and teaching since 2007. She has deepened her understanding of yoga, and continues to do so, through extensive studies with A.G. Mohan and Indra Mohan of Svastha Yoga & Ayurveda. She has also studied online with a number of renowned international teachers specialising in various fields including Vina Shah, Jean Campbell, Jivana Heyman, Amber Karnes, Tom Myers, Marlysa Sullivan, Amy Wheeler, Dianne Bondy, Tiffany Cruickshank, and more.

Barbara began her studies in Yoga Therapy with Dr Ganesh Mohan in 2010 and has been a practicing Certified Yoga Therapist since 2016. She is certified with with the International Association of Yoga Therapists, Yoga Australia and Yoga New Zealand.

Barbara is grateful to be a personal student of A. G. Mohan & Indra Mohan and continues her studies and mentoring in yoga and yoga therapy with them and their son, Dr Ganesh Mohan. Barbara presents the Yoga for Svastha Yoga Teacher Training Program and the Svastha Yoga Therapy Training Program in Aotearoa.

Barbara’s yoga qualifications include:

• Certified Yoga Therapist with the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT),  Yoga Australia and Yoga New Zealand
• E-RYT500 with Yoga Alliance
• Registered Senior Teacher with Yoga Australia and Yoga New Zealand
• Svastha Yoga Aotearoa is a Registered Training Provider with Yoga New Zealand and Yoga Alliance.