“I was deeply touched, inspired and uplifted by your gorgeous Bhakti Yoga. WOW! I felt as though I was swimming in pure bliss. My practice has been enriched and renewed and I cannot wait to do it all again.” ~Sherrie Davidson |
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5th Annual Bhakti Yoga Retreat at Gray Bear Retreat Lodge. September 30th - October 2nd, 2011. Join us for this weekend in paradise, only 2 hours from Nashville. The 2010 fall workshop was pure bliss! Gray Bear is one of the most healing and rejuvenating places on the planet...with a wood fired sauna & spring fed cold plunge, natural hot tub, watsu pool, waterfalls, and the most delicious local & organic food! Please check out Gray Bear at: www.graybear.org and feel free to email me with any questions you may have. amy@amybarnesyoga.com |
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 Bhakti Vinyasa Class Description In our Bhakti Vinyasa classes & workshops we explore BEING fully alive through various yogic practices: pranayama (breath extension), kriya (intentional action), mudra (sacred hand gesture), asana flow (physical postures), & kirtan. KIRTAN is the ancient practice of chanting the many names of the One God. This loving connection brings us into expansive states of awareness and blissfulness...our true nature. These classes are open to EVERYONE, no previous music or yoga experience is necessary. The emphasis of this class is on relaxing into wholeness…our natural state of BEING.
Sri Chakra ~ the Wish Fulfilling Tree class offering is grounded in Kundalini Tantra & Bhakti Yoga practices. Each session is designed to awaken the sacred energy of each chakra, illuminating the entire spinal channel, Sashumna, and blossoming the wish fulfilling tree of the heart. We will cultivate our intentions, our heart's longing, (Sankalpa) as the guiding center of all our efforts, connecting with the inner Source of our creativity, gifts, & life purpose. Each session will include elements of sacred sound and mantra chanting, asana & creative movement, kriya, pranayama, puja/ritual, offerings & prayer… ordinary magic making! These classes are created for those who want to deepen, enrich, & integrate their inner & outer devotional lives; increasing one's capacity to contain expansive states of awareness, energy, and joy; living in the grace of self responsibility. Blissfulness and being fully alive is our true nature. Why live any other way? |
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Bhakti Yoga O Uddhava, neither Yoga, nor Knowledge, nor Dharma, nor study of the Vedas, nor austerity nor renunciation propitiates Me or wins Me, so much as unswerving devotion to Me. I, the beloved Atman, am attained only by undivided devotion and faith. How can the mind be purified without devotion to Me which is characterized by melting of the heart, the hair standing on end and tears of joy trickling down the cheeks? |
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A devotee of mine whose speech is broken by sobs, whose heart melts, who without shyness weeps profusely, or laughs or sings loudly and dances, not only purifies himself but purifies the whole world!
Just as gold blown in the fire loses it's impurities and regains it's real form, so also the mind shakes off it's impurities and it's tendencies of Karma and desire by means of devotion to Me, and attaining to Me, regains it's own true form. The more the mind is purified by listening to my sacred stories and the repetition of My names, the more it sees the subtle essence of things and the subtle Reality. Therefore, think of Me and your mind an d heart will be merged in Me alone! |
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George Feurstein ~ Aesthetic Vedanta For Sri Caitanya and his followers, Bhakti is the ultimate aesthetic experience, or rasa, which is beauty and joy eclipsing all other emotions. The Bhakti~Yoga, the spiritual path of love and devotion, revolves around the cultivation of ecstatic self~surrender, yielding the graceful gift of rasa (nectar). The walls have crumbled and the heart stands naked before the Beloved, whose sweetness (madhurya) knows no end. Liberation in love is not mere isolation from the drama of ephemeral existence (samsara) but freedom from the ego~personality and the empowerment to participate consciously and ecstatically in the eternal lila (play) of the divine. The liberated devotee does rest content with reaching the summit of spiritual practice but, seeing the divine in all beings and things, happily returns to the valley of life to bear witness to the supernatural beauty in everything. In a way, he or she never leaves the valley but discovers the summit of spirituality amidst daily life: love melts down the distinction between sacred and profane, and in full bloom can be at least as potent a mind~harnessing tool as conventional yogic meditation. In love, all the energies of the soul are focused into a single laser beam that reaches across the gap between the artificial boundaries of the intellect, uniting the devotee's heart with the ever~pulsing heart of the Beloved. |
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