REL 14
Yogic Meditation: A Dynamic Synergy of Experience and Understanding Winter 2020

This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

Would you like to learn to meditate with ease? Are you interested in texts and explanations that support a meditation practice? This course is an experiential immersion into a deep practice of meditation that works with the nature of the body and the mind. It is also an exploration and familiarization with key ideas and understandings about how meditation actually works. No particular faith or beliefs are necessary for this practice. This course is not about becoming part of any group, but rather establishing yourself in deep meditation practice that supports your life. At the beginning of the course, you receive personal instruction and learn your meditation practice. Having learned an effective practice you are not required to forcefully concentrate or wrestle with your mind. Instead the practice unfolds naturally. Understanding how this might work involves study. To anchor key understandings of yogic meditation in a larger context, we study important texts from the non-dual Shaiva Tantras. Moreover we delve into some of the roots of this particular meditation practice in the earlier Classical Yoga. In addition to written texts, you will work with audio recordings and study guides that explore both the theory and the practice of Neelakantha Meditation. This particular practice, Neelakantha Meditation as taught in Blue Throat Yoga (https://www.bluethroatyoga.com/), is specifically intended for those of us active in the world. So it is oriented to provide rest, restore well being, and also to up level our capacities for skillful, wise and compassionate activity in the world. This class meets four three hours a week for 1.5 hours to meditate and discuss the foundational concepts. We also learn additional practices that support meditation including chanting, breathing and light yoga asana. On your own you meditate twice a day, read and contemplate texts, listen to audio recordings, and journal. Each week you submit a 3-4 pg. journal reflecting on your practice and study. Individual Personal Instruction in Neelakantha Meditation at taught in Blue Throat Yoga is required, and may take place outside normal class hours January 6-8. Adjunct Instructor Bio: Tasha Judson is director and teacher at Tasha Yoga in Williamstown. She has been teaching yoga asana for over 25 years. In 2016, she became an Authorized Teacher of Neelakantha Meditation as taught in Blue Throat Yoga after eight years of intensive study and practice. She has traveled to India multiple times to related sacred places and communities.
The Class: Format: lecture
Limit: 15
Grading: pass/fail only
Requirements/Evaluation: three papers of 3-4 pages each
Prerequisites: interest in learning a natural and easeful meditation practice; receiving formal personal meditation instruction is required, and may be scheduled outside posted class times within the first three days of the course
Enrollment Preferences: based on statement of interest and seniority
Materials/Lab Fee: $300

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