Richard Faulds - Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat

CONTRIBUTORS

SENIOR TEACHERS

Maya Breuer
Yoganand Michael Carroll
Stephen Cope
Diana Damelio
Sudhir Jonathan Foust
Aruni Nan Futuronsky
Shantipriya Marcia Goldberg
Devarshi Steven Hartman
Rebekkah Kronlage
Michael Lee
Sudha Carolyn Lundeen
Konda Mason
Rasmani Deborah Orth
Rudy Peirce
Dinabandhu Garrett Sarley
Don Stapleton
Amy Weintraub

AND OTHER MEMBERS OF
THE KRIPALU YOGA COMMUNITY

KRIPALU YOGA:
A Bantam Book / January 2006

Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York

All rights reserved
Copyright 2005 by the Kripalu Yoga Fellowship
Yoga poems copyright 2002, 2003, 2004 by Danna Faulds
Cover photograph copyright 2005 by Mary Schjeldahl

Illustrations by Robert Bull
Photographs by Paul Conrath

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Faulds, Richard.
Kripalu yoga: a guide to practice on and off the mat/Richard Faulds, and senior teachers of Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health,
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-48686-8
1. Hatha Yoga. I. Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. II. Title.
RA781.7.F38 2006
613.7046dc22
2005053655

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1

This book reflects the spiritual practice and heartfelt aspiration
of thousands of people over many years.
It is dedicated to everyone East and West
who has practiced, served, and taught
in the Kripalu Yoga tradition.

In Kripalu Yoga, you learn many of the same postures as in other yoga classes, but the emphasis is not only on how you practice, but also on how you live your life.

BRAHMANI HOLLY LIEBMAN

People come to yoga for different reasons. Most are looking for a way to improve their health. Others are interested in effective tools to manage stress. Still others seek personal and spiritual growth. Kripalu Yoga offers all these things. Its a practice that revitalizes the body, calms the mind, and deepens self-awareness.

Kripalu Yoga works its magic by bringing body, mind, and spirit into a state of harmony and balance. Focusing on the sensations that arise as you breathe and move bridges the chasm separating body and mind, allowing you to become fully present in your body. A balanced sequence of yoga postures stretches and strengthens the entire body, releasing the chronic tension that so often dulls vitality As you conclude your yoga session with deep relaxation, energy naturally flows to the areas of your body most in need of rejuvenation and healing. You leave feeling balanced, energized to resume your life, and naturally motivated to sustain your practice.

Regular practice takes you to deeper levels, initiating a gradual process of growth and transformation. Concentration deepens, enabling you to observe the inner flow of emotion and thought with heightened awareness. Riding the wave of your moment-to-moment experience, you release trapped emotion by choosing to feel it fully Witnessing the activity of the mind, you learn to recognize unproductive thinking and let it go. As these obstacles fall away, a joyous clarity emerges. Moments arise where you touch into the core energy underlying body and mind, expanding your sense of self.

Slowly and steadily, your experience on the yoga mat begins to overflow into the rest of your life. In touch with your body, habits fall away and your lifestyle becomes more supportive of health. Aware of deeper feelings and thoughts, your words and actions begin to express more of who you really are and the quality of your relationships deepens. With abundant energy at your disposal, lifes challenges occur as opportunities for growth. On all levels, you feel more vital and fully alive. This is the experience of Kripalu Yoga.

Kripalu Yoga initiated a course of profound change in me. It connected me to my body in ways I had never experienced before. Through Kripalu Yoga, I have found gentleness, spaciousness, and a way to express who I really am.

Marcia Reass

Kripalu Yoga is a contemporary approach to yoga practice designed for mainstream people leading active lives. Brought to America in the 1960s, the roots of Kripalu Yoga reach back thousands of years into an ancient and authentic yoga tradition. Over the last thirty years, Kripalu Yoga has been assimilated into Western culture by a large and diverse community of North American practitioners and teachers. The result is a potent spiritual practice free of unnecessary cultural trappings and dogmatic lifestyle restrictions, a yoga approach especially suited to our time and place.

Anyone can do Kripalu Yogait certainly isnt limited to those with a flexible or trim body. Nor does it require the adoption of any religious beliefs, as people of all faiths practice Kripalu Yoga. The theory and techniques of Kripalu Yoga can be explained in English, so you wont be faced with learning a large number of Sanskrit terms. Although the English names of yoga postures are used throughout the text, the traditional names are also listed to make it easy to cross-reference to other approaches that rely on Sanskrit.

For thousands of years, yoga has recommended a natural and wholesome lifestyle supportive of health. Building on this solid base, Kripalu Yoga integrates principles of holistic health, preventive medicine, and medical research into the traditional yoga lifestyle, augmenting age-old wisdom with contemporary health science.

Kripalu Yoga is not based on the guru/disciple relationship, a paradigm that has proved problematic in so many spiritual communities across America. In its place is an experiential model of education that empowers the learner to discover what is true based on his or her own direct experience. Yogas traditional emphasis on transcending the ego to attain an otherworldly enlightenment has been balanced with a developmental perspective drawn from Western psychology. The result is an approach that facilitates psychological growth without negating the potential for deeper levels of spiritual awakening.

Although a group class is a great way to jump-start a practice, Kripalu Yoga can be learned in the comfort and privacy of your own home, and requires nothing more than some loose-fitting clothing and a little floor space. Perhaps best of all, Kripalu Yoga doesnt demand an excessive time commitment to bestow its gifts. This book recommends a regular practice of thirty minutes to an hour. Even a daily ten-minute dose of deep breathing and relaxation can make a real difference in your life.

While its form has evolved, Kripalu Yoga still conveys the authentic spirit of yoga and does so in a commonsense practice accessible to everyone. You dont need the body of an athlete, the mind of a mystic, or the lifestyle of a monk to benefit from Kripalu Yoga. Yet if you practice consistently, you will not only nurture your health but also experience the unity of body, mind, and spirit that lies at the heart of all mystical traditions.