Group
Satsang with Steve Gold Saturday, May 17, 7-8:30pm
Location: SHAKTI West, Ballard Cost: $10
Drawing from devotional sanskrit mantras, traditional
spirituals, native american chants, african and sufi devotional
songs, Steve invites you to celebrate the breath and spirit of singing.
This is a wonderful opportunity to be nourished with the healing
vibrations of voice in a relaxed, friendly, social environment.
We are happy to share some exciting news with
you! You can now buy you own copy of Magnificence online!! Just
visit http://www.myspace.com/stevegoldmusic
, and it's only a few clicks away. We hope you enjoy the song as
much as we have enjoyed recording it! It's a great pleasure for
us to be able to bring this studio version to you.
40
Days to a Personal Revolution“Let
the Revolution Begin Today…” A
breakthrough program to radically change your body and awaken the
sacred within your soul. March 30 – May 9, 2008
-- Now in progress!
Pre-Registration: $390 before
March 9; $420* after March 9 Program cost includes:
• The book 40 Days to a Personal Revolution by Baron Baptiste
• A Guided Meditation CD by Baron Baptiste
• Unlimited yoga classes at SHAKTI East and West for 40 days
• Six weekly 90 minute group meetings with Lisa and Peter
(Sundays 2-3:30 pm)
• Upon successful completion students receive a FREE five
class pass
PRACTICE: Attend 6 days/week
of asana classes at SHAKTI EAST or WEST. The 7th day is a restorative
home practice, optional yoga class, or day of rest. MEDITATION: At home or before classes in the mornings
and evenings. The Baptiste meditation CD can serve as an effective
tool. WEEKLY MEETINGS: We will gather together to meditate,
journal, learn, check-in, and receive personal and group support
during the program. FOOD CLEANSE: Maintain a focus on dietary awareness,
discovering & practicing a vibrant new health for the physical
body, including a three day fruit cleanse.
In
40 Days to Personal Revolution,
Baron Baptiste -- one of the world's most beloved master yoga teachers
-- inspires us to transform more than body and mind: He gives us
the tools we need to set ourselves free to live the healthful life
we've always imagined. In the next 40 days you will create a whole
new way of being and living. Tapping ancient wisdom and his own
personal experience, Baron has created a relevant and completely
practical program that will lead you to the clarity of mind, body,
and spirit that awaits on the other side of your revolution.
Baron's Basic Laws of Transformation, based on timeless principles
of growth, serve as the philosophical underpinning of the 40-day
journey and demonstrate that radical change can come from making
even the smallest shift. The program itself is divided into five
weeks, with the seventh day of each devoted to active rest. Each
week builds on the lessons of the one preceding it and includes:
• a yoga practice to do every day
• principles to cleanse your body, along with a specific eating
plan
• instructions to begin and deepen a meditation practice
• excavation questions to root out limiting beliefs and patterns
Baron ends with a section on Daily Practices for Living an Enlightened
Life, to help you maintain your new state of mind and health in
every moment of your life. From here you will go beyond your revolution
and discover your own personal purpose and way of living.
Introduction
Purity
of life is the highest and truest art-- Gandhi What is a personal revolution, and why do we need one?
Many of us are searching without knowing exactly what we are looking
for. Some of us go on a diet to lose weight and try all kinds of
programs and workshops to make ourselves feel better, or perhaps
we throw ourselves into our work and seek wealth and status to fill
the void, but underneath, an emotional emptiness remains. No matter
how much we try to gloss over that yearning with temporary fixes,
it is still there, whispering the truth: that what we need isn't
another quick fix, but a rather a rebirth -- a whole-life revolution.
When I was born, my parents' Yoga and Health Center -- the first
of its kind in San Francisco -- was already well established. Famous
yogis would come and stay at our home, and we would go to India
often for research. Because I was always around yoga, I just kind
of picked it up by osmosis. As an adult, it became a natural way
of life for me, and for years it seemed as though I was either studying
under a guru, practicing yoga, or teaching.
But
as I acknowledged in Journey into Power,
at a certain point I felt as though the yoga process was failing
me. What was supposed to produce miracles in my life just wasn't.
Without realizing it, I had bought into the notion that something
outside myself could "fix" me. The practices were calming
me down a bit on the surface, but they were not enough. Something
deep down was still missing. Perhaps my body was healthy, but my
soul felt empty. My relationships weren't really working, and in
many ways, my life felt futile. I knew I needed something more.
Many of us reach this point, yet somehow we get good at masking
it. When someone asks us how we are doing, we automatically say,
"Really great...things are so good...no complaints," but
the truth underneath says differently. Eventually we can't fake
being healthy or spiritual or pretend that "everything is just
fine" any longer, and we either land in an emotional fetal
position, ask for help, or both.
In my most desperate moment, from somewhere deep in my soul, I asked
God for help. I had heard the phrase "Ask and ye shall receive,
knock and the door of your mind will open," but it took a humbling
emotional pain to understand what that really meant. I asked and
I knocked, and as promised, a door was opened. It didn't swing open,
as I had hoped; it barely cracked an inch. However, it was as though
I were living in a dark room and that tiny crack in the door provided
me with the light I needed to see the truth. I finally started to
see that real health means wholeness on all levels and a deep and
true connection to what is most sacred: the truth within our hearts.
I realized that in order for my life to really change, I needed
to be willing to surrender all the parts of myself for transformation.
It wasn't enough to just work my body and my life on the surface;
I needed to look within, take responsibility for my own path, and
completely overhaul everything from the inside out.
Once
I woke up and really got it that I couldn't just throw myself into
the mechanics of the practice without also seeking wholeness and
expect to feel better, I began to see the real gifts yoga can offer.
In the end, yoga is not a magic cure-all, but the way it challenges
our bodies, moves our stuck emotional energy, clears our mind, and
inspires us to seek and live in truth can be a catalyst for amazing
growth. The style of yoga I practice and teach, which I call Baptiste
Power Vinyasa Yoga, is ultimately a system of physical, mental,
and spiritual awakening that integrates the whole person, on every
level.
Ultimately, the yoga program found in this book is about developing
a soulful perspective to the question that I hear nearly every day
in my classroom: "How did I get myself into this state, and
how can I get out?" The Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga method
offers us the understanding of our condition and the road map to
get ourselves out into a more sculpted and awakened life -- whether
that be a stronger, more powerful, or pain-free body, a heightened
emotional intelligence, or a spiritually deeper experience of life.
The
word yoga, in fact, means "to join one point to another,"
"to leave one place, space, condition and move toward a better
one." We can use the practices to move us forward, but we will
see the results we seek only if we are wholly willing to be fully
present and accountable for the reality we have created in our bodies
and our lives and to take full ownership of the revolution we know
we need. Taking responsibility for the self means taking action,
and this program is about taking action.
This program is designed to challenge your personal philosophy and
your body so that you can tap unknown resources within yourself.
Very often after someone or something challenges us we say, "I
learned a lot from that experience, but I wouldn't have chosen it."
It could be some physical challenge that came our way, a failed
relationship, or a career decision. When something pushes back at
us and bumps us against the fabric of our own being, it forces us
to examine who we are and how we see things. In those moments, we
can see and start to live in truth, which is the beginning and real
basis for any lasting transformation.
A
rock climber resting on a safe spot on a cliff must face her ingrained
patterns and fears in order to move forward toward the next scary
spot. After completing the journey, the climber looks back and feels
good about what she's done, because she met a challenge and as a
result developed self-respect and a new view of life. This program
is meant to challenge your ingrained patterns and propel you to
radically move forward and up, away from the plateau where you currently
rest.
Once we accept responsibility for ourselves, we can become our own
teachers, healers, and motivators. I can promise you that once you
take full responsibility and spark your inner revolution with full
consciousness, the practices you learn in this program will never
fail you. Never. You won't need drugs, surgery, machines, or miracles
to transform. All you will need is yourself and your new understanding
of what it really means to live an awakened and truthful life.
The Great Masters
My good friend Krishna Das tells a story about how when he and his
friend Ram Das were younger, they went to India expecting to leave
the Western world and all its beliefs behind. They saved their money
and journeyed on this huge pilgrimage to cash in on the exotic enlightenment
that Indian mysticism seemed to offer. They believed there was something
out there -- over there -- that would give them the insight and
tools they needed to transform their lives, to fill in the missing
piece of their existence. When Krishna Das and his friend finally
sat at the great guru's feet, they heard him simply giggle and offer,
"Be like Jesus!"
This wasn't what they were expecting. But like so many westerners
who came after them, they believed they needed to look elsewhere
for the answers, when much of the ancient wisdom and timeless guidance
we need is right here, within our own heritage and our own hearts.
You might expect that I would base the majority of my teachings
on the ancient yogic texts and philosophy, but after spending a
lifetime immersed in it, I can honestly say that much of the teachings
of the East don't make sense for us here in the West. It has become
very popular to dress things up with Hindu mysticism, but all the
flowery language and talk about peace, chakras, samadhi, and grand
promises of spiritual enlightenment can easily become distractions.
I've seen so many enthusiastic people sincerely seeking a better
way get sucked into the black hole of yogic promise. Blindly worship
a guru, contort into strange poses, control your breathing...it
all fits perfectly into the dark side of what is wrong with American
culture. It appeals to our Madison Avenue-fed belief that happiness
is found on the outside.
In this book, I attempt to bridge the gap between the wisdom of
the East that can and does apply to us here and the teachings of
great masters such as Jesus and Moses. We forget that what these
masters taught lies at the heart of what we seek in yoga, and they
stand as perhaps some of the greatest yogis who have ever lived.
Many of us have rejected these teachers in favor of what we perceive
as the more mysterious and fascinating ones from faraway cultures,
but the teachings of one can enrich the teachings of the others.
Forty Days
The
purpose of this forty-day program is to lead you into your own personal
revolution. Like the great masters, you will come to understand
that all health and vitality is the outward reflection of a pure
heart and right intent. As you start to align your mind with the
Laws of Transformation in Part One, you will start to see that the
transformation happens naturally. You will lose weight, if that
is what needs to happen; you will become less reactive and more
calm; your bad habits will start to release their grip on you. You
will discover, as I did, that external changes happen when we adjust
the inner workings of our minds -- when we adopt a philosophical
foundation that gives our growth greater purpose and meaning.
Why
forty days? Because the number 40 holds tremendous spiritual
significance in the realm of transformation. Jesus wandered in the
desert for forty days in order to experience purification and come
to a greater understanding of himself and his mission. Moses and
his people traveled through the desert for forty years before arriving
at their home in the holy land. Noah preserved the sacredness of
life by sailing his ark for forty days and forty nights. According
to the Kabbalah, the ancient Jewish mystical text, it takes forty
days to ingrain any new way of being into our system, and that is
what we are aiming to do here: wipe out the old and welcome the
new. In forty days, you can shift into a whole new way of living
and being.
Here in these pages, I hope to tap ancient wisdom to address the
Western world's desperate need for real health, and create a relevant
and practical program to spark radical changes within you. Allow
these forty days to be a chance to use the tools here to stir things
up and see what you are made of. You're not here by accident --
you opened this book at the right time, in the right space. If you
honor the inner voice that says you are ready to let go of the past
and create a new reality, I am confident you will find your way
home to the mental clarity, lightness of body, and illumination
of spirit that comes with whole-life health.
SHAKTI is pleased to support the arts and host
special events of music & dance, personal and spiritual growth,
or just plain FUN! Please contact SHAKTI if you are interested in
hosting an event at our studio.
In
Purity
of life is the highest and truest art-- Gandhi
But
as I acknowledged in 
Once
I woke up and really got it that I couldn't just throw myself into
the mechanics of the practice without also seeking wholeness and
expect to feel better, I began to see the real gifts yoga can offer.
In the end, yoga is not a magic cure-all, but the way it challenges
our bodies, moves our stuck emotional energy, clears our mind, and
inspires us to seek and live in truth can be a catalyst for amazing
growth. The style of yoga I practice and teach, which I call Baptiste
Power Vinyasa Yoga, is ultimately a system of physical, mental,
and spiritual awakening that integrates the whole person, on every
level.
The
word yoga, in fact, means "to join one point to another,"
"to leave one place, space, condition and move toward a better
one." We can use the practices to move us forward, but we will
see the results we seek only if we are wholly willing to be fully
present and accountable for the reality we have created in our bodies
and our lives and to take full ownership of the revolution we know
we need. Taking responsibility for the self means taking action,
and this program is about taking action.
A
rock climber resting on a safe spot on a cliff must face her ingrained
patterns and fears in order to move forward toward the next scary
spot. After completing the journey, the climber looks back and feels
good about what she's done, because she met a challenge and as a
result developed self-respect and a new view of life. This program
is meant to challenge your ingrained patterns and propel you to
radically move forward and up, away from the plateau where you currently
rest.
The
purpose of this forty-day program is to lead you into your own personal
revolution. Like the great masters, you will come to understand
that all health and vitality is the outward reflection of a pure
heart and right intent. As you start to align your mind with the
Laws of Transformation in Part One, you will start to see that the
transformation happens naturally. You will lose weight, if that
is what needs to happen; you will become less reactive and more
calm; your bad habits will start to release their grip on you. You
will discover, as I did, that external changes happen when we adjust
the inner workings of our minds -- when we adopt a philosophical
foundation that gives our growth greater purpose and meaning.
Why
forty days? Because the number 40 holds tremendous spiritual
significance in the realm of transformation. Jesus wandered in the
desert for forty days in order to experience purification and come
to a greater understanding of himself and his mission. Moses and
his people traveled through the desert for forty years before arriving
at their home in the holy land. Noah preserved the sacredness of
life by sailing his ark for forty days and forty nights. According
to the Kabbalah, the ancient Jewish mystical text, it takes forty
days to ingrain any new way of being into our system, and that is
what we are aiming to do here: wipe out the old and welcome the
new. In forty days, you can shift into a whole new way of living
and being.