योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोध, or yogashchittavrittinirodhah in our alphabet, can be translated as “Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind”.
Thus reads the second Yoga Sutra of Patanjali and this is exactly what we experienced with my husband when attended Sallie Sullivan’s workshop last week. Sallie is a Senior Intermediate Iyengar Yoga teacher. She runs the Introductory Teacher Training course at the Maida Vale Institute, which I had the honour of attending! Sallie is a Sanskrit autodidact and furthermore studied the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with the late Professor Arjunvadkar, co-author with Mira Mehta of “Yoga Explained”.
This was our first workshop to read and chant Yoga Sutras. Merely chanting without context would not have been educational on its own; fortunately Sallie shared her knowledge and understanding of the subject kept us captivated and inspired to digest a tiny bit of this ancient knowledge. We got an idea how to read yoga sutras correctly and experienced the effect of chanting them. You must do it in order to experience it.
We don’t know how far we will go into learning this material, but definitely, this kind of workshop proves that along with the yoga mat there is a myriad of yoga secrets to transform our minds and bodies. And as we learn we will share.
With love and anticipation to see you on the mat soon.
Sincerely yours,
Irina and Alistair