Rama Jyoti Vernon - Yoga: The Practice of Myth & Sacred Geometry

Rama Jyoti Vernon

Twin Lakes, WI USA

Table of Contents

2014 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in review.

Text copyright 2014 Rama Jyoti Vernon

Photographs 2014 Michael Jardine

Ebook Edition 2015

Editor: Kathleen Bryant

Illustrations: 2014 Rama Jyoti Vernon

Cover design: Tonita Abeyta Project manager: Ruth Hartung

ISBN: 978-1-6086-9181-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014954487

For information address

Lotus Press
P.O. Box 325
Twin Lakes, WI 53181 USA
800-824-6396 (toll free order phone)
262-889-8561 (office phone)
262-889-2461 (office fax)
www.lotuspress.com (website)
(email)

Printed in USA

Yoga: The Practice of Myth and Sacred Geometry is for all of us who want to continue in the study of yogas deep teaching and technical instruction. The wonderful diagrams and photos will clearly assist us as we learn and teach asana and pranayama while walking lifes journey. Thank you, Rama, for sharing the heart, soul, and passion of your own practices, insights, and reflections, and for imparting your years of yoga experience, study, and teaching. This is a book I will treasure for years to come.

Lilias Folan, PBS host and author of
Lilias! Yoga: Your Guide to Enhancing Body, Mind, and Spirit Midlife and Beyond

Rama floated into my life in 1992 with a presence of Self, immediately touching my heart. When she teaches, asana becomes a dance of story, philosophy, subtle body knowledge, and basic safety. She interweaves the essence that makes yoga alive. In Yoga: The Practice of Myth and Sacred Geometry, Rama imparts this essence. She shares the precision of yoga practices while merging the stories behind the practices, marrying the practice with the heart of yoga. Her students learn to explore yogasana on the mat and in the world. Rama has been my guiding light. With this unique asana manual she offers, in a very accessible format, the spirit and the depth of yoga. Through teaching and living yoga, she makes a difference in the world!

Hansa Knox, Director of Training at PranaYoga and Ayurveda Mandala (Denver, CO),
past president of Yoga Alliance

Rama Jyoti Vernon unfolds the profound mystery of the practice of yoga while guiding the reader with practical skill. As practitioners journey through this book, they will experience the true sense of the word myth that will manifest as the sacred geometry of the body, mind, and consciousness.

Vasant Lad, B.A.M.S., M.A.Sc., Ayurvedic physician, founder of The Ayurvedic Institute
(Albuquerque), author of Ayurveda: Science of Self-Healing and other titles

Its exciting and rare for me to come upon a modern-day writing that offers a fresh light, and breathes new life, into the ancient teachings of yoga. This is one such book.

Richard Miller, PhD, author of
Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga and other titles

Rama Jyoti Vernon has been a pioneer in bringing yoga to America and has inspired my own practice in innumerable ways. Her heart-centered wisdom as a teacher of teachers and of hundreds of thousands of students around the globe shines through in this book. Not only does Ramas understanding of the biodynamics of asana and breath make this a must read for everyone who aspires to serve others through the teaching of yoga, but the great value and humility she brings to the calling of yoga teacher as servant or fellow seeker lights the path through the darkness for countless fellow seekers, me included.

Amy Weintraub, Founder of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute,
author of Yoga for Depression and Yoga Skills for Therapists

Gaea, the son of Shiva, who is the Lord of all Yogis, is invoked before any event, undertaking, or mantra. He is the favored deity of scribes and merchants, and he is associated with wisdom, good luck, successful enterprises, prosperity, peace, beginnings, journeys, building, and also with books and writing.

Gaea is the remover of obstacles, both spiritual and material. He is a protector, evident by the rattle that is heard before his darana, or revelation. The rattle is to chase away the evil spirits that symbolize hindrances on the spiritual path.

In one hand, Gaea holds a bowl of rice and in the other, the Vedas. This symbolizes that one needs material fulfillment as well as spiritual nourishment. It is believed that when one is hungry, the mind cannot soar to loftier heights and becomes consumed with survival at the most basic level. Perhaps this may explain why Gaea is said to dwell in the first chakra, Mldhra, guarding the chamber of the Inner Self, just as he is known to be the guard of his mother Prvats chamber.

Gaeas huge ears symbolize the ability to hear all things, the ability to listen, and to listen compassionately. His small eyes symbolize shutting off the outside world to look within. His long trunk, which brings nourishment from the ground into his mouth, symbolizes discrimination, for it takes more time for food to reach his lips, allowing time for evaluation or re-evaluation of the action.

Gaea represents a vast universal energy, an energy that we can bring into all of our lives and our yoga practice.

With this book, I offer the wisdom of my many teachers. It is the labor of a lifetime, the culmination of sixty years of yoga study and teaching, and a decade of writing. I offer it with love to all my teachers and students, past, present, and future.

Rama Jyoti Vernon

For more information about Rama Jyoti Vernon go to www.ramajyotivernon.com

Rewind. Its 1973. Im studying yoga at the Yoga College of India in San Francisco. A group of yoga students are visiting from the Institute for Yoga Teacher Education (IYTE), a school that Rama Jyoti Vernon has helped found.

Fast forward. Its 1976. Im sitting in Ramas home, learning the art of pranayama with Rama as my teacher, with a group of fellow students from the IYTE, where Im now taking classes to increase my studies in yoga.

Fast forward. Its 1977. Ive just submitted my first article, Yoga for the Blind, to the Yoga Journal, the magazine Rama helped found in 1975.

Fast Forward. Its 1978. Im attending numerous parties hosted by Rama in her home, where visiting yogis from around the world are sharing their knowledge and presence.

Fast forward. Its still 1978. Ive just been invited to serve as the vice president of the California Yoga Teachers Association (CYTA), which Rama helped found several years earlier.

Fast forward. Its still 1978. CYTA has just agreed to spin off IYTE, which is to become the San Francisco Iyengar Yoga Institute, where Rama will continue teaching classes.

Fast Forward. Its 1979. Rama has invited me to host Ian Rawlinson, a senior student of T.K.V. Desikachar, for a series of seminars at my Marin School of Yoga. Ian will introduce me to the teachings of T. Krishnamachara, and I will subsequently fly to Madras to begin formal studies with Desikachar in 1980.