Yoga Rasa, a Yoga Alliance Registered School, offers Yoga education, Yoga classes, as well as pilates, yoga dance, educational workshops, and seminars in Yoga & Ayurveda, self-healing, pain management, complementary and alternative health. Our purpose is to create life-long Yoga education programs to enable personal growth of our students during life's journey and to empower others to embody the teachings of Yoga that restore, improve, and maintain total health by balancing mind, body, and spirit with the environment. We represent unity in Yoga and believe this is experienced through many different schools of Yoga. The faculty at Yoga Rasa is not selected based on any particular school of Yoga but rather on the level of devotion to personal practice, commitment to personal growth through study, enthusiasm, and living Yoga.

MISSION STATEMENT

Yoga Rasa exists to actively participate in creating peace
on our planet by joining with others to grow an all-inclusive
yoga study community, promoting total physical, mental,
spiritual health and well being.

WHAT IS RASA?

Rasa: the "taste" or essence of any impression; the aesthetic experience in transcendence; the emotional fulfillment of the soul; nectar of life.

Vira Rasa - As Emerson says, "what lies behind us and what lies before us are small matter compared to what lies within us". Vira rasa is a commitment to the exploration of the power that lies within us. It is the tending of the sacred flame of life with humility that breeds confidence. Vira is the pilgrim's strength that takes each step up the mountain as a purifying process and embraces challenge with love of living fully. In vinyasa, vira is activated through asanas, pranayama, meditation, and sequences which cultivate embodied concentration, sustaining power through alignment, breath, bandha, awareness (one unconscious step and you fall off the edge), and use of krama (stages) to approach one's potential in strength, flexibility, and inner presence.

Shanti Rasa - Shanti Rasa is a conscious cultivation of inner balance, equilibrium, wisdom, and serenity that is the fruit of living yoga. In the arts, shanti rasa is the culmination of all rasas - the shavasana at the end of an artistic journey. In applying shanti rasa to vinyasa, establishing and maintaining a meditative, even rhythm throughout the practice is key. Frequent reflective pauses through postures such as child's pose, vajrasana, tadasana, and shavasana allow the nervous system to unwind, the fluctuations of the mind to relax, and the internal equilibrium to deepen. Shanti rasa can be applied to all asanas and in life when a relaxed, non-aggressive, or non-adrenalized approach is cultivated. The rhythm of the breath is the greatest reflection of shanti rasa. Even smooth breath = steady mind. The symbol of a lotus rising from the mud is the timeless yogic symbol of shanti, for peace is not dependent on cloudy or clear water, or external circumstances, but a deep connection to eternal essence within.

Sringara Rasa - Sringara Rasa is the archetypal union of masculine-feminine, sun-moon, active-receptive, stillness-dynamic movement, potent seed-bursting flower, x-y chromosomes, inhale-exhale that is reflected in nature, in the divine couples of Shiva-Shakti, Krisna-Radha, Sita-Ram, and within the layers of our being. In vinyasa, this rasa requires the most skill and personal experience to integrate into teaching (the potential for being corny is high). In our own practice and in life, sringara rasa can be the most satisfying rasa of all as we open to experiencing life in sensual fullness, each breath as an expression of a lover's caress. Sringara rasa follows the musical-dramatic-natural structure of multiple waves of building energy - sustaining - and then finally peaking. This rhythm can be mirrored in the sequencing of a practice towards a culminating backbend, hip opener, or meditation. The key is the bhava - savoring each unfolding breath, sensation, experience. "Burning with longing - fire, my living is composed only of this desire to be in your presence." - Rumi.

Reprinted with special permission by Shiva Rea, 2004.