Whole Life Yoga Podcast

This May 8-12 2024 I will be collaborating with Clare Nicholls on a living the yoga sūtra-s immersive retreat during which we'll explore how we can embody the practical, whole life teachings of yoga. In this conversation, Clare and I share some of our ideas, motivations and experiences of teaching, practising and studying with nature as the guru. This includes a mention of the teachings and practice can help us attune more deeply to our essence - satya, how they can help us come into truer rhythm - ṛta and experience the vastness of who we really are bṛhat. Find out more about the May 8-12 immersive retreat here on Clare's website: https://thecolourandthechaos.com/evolving-through-embodying-patanjali/

This week I'm going to be collaborating with Rosa Tagliafierro of ashtanga yoga italia in Milano, giving a weekend immersion in Italian. Here is an Italian themed podcast episode in which I share a yogic perspective on the Italian folk song Bella Ciao, a song I have sung since the first year I began learning Italian as an eighteen year old at university back in the 20th century.

In this episode I continue the conversation around the practical teachings of the Bhagavad Gītā with my friend and former colleague from Chulalongkorn University, Acharn Captain William S Whorton. As a combat veteran who has experienced and participated first hand in what he describes as an evil war, Bill brings a unique perspective to yoga and the teachings of the Bhagavad Gītā and how they can help us confront evil. He has recently published a translation of the Bhagavad Gītā, co-authored with Acharn Tassanee Sinsakul, which I highly recommend, published by Uppsala Books. All being well, I will have chance to interview Bill again soon.

In this conversation with Clare Nicholls, we consider:- what does it mean to 'live the yoga sūtra-s'?- why might a person might want to do that?How can these teachings help us weave greater harmony into the fabric of our being. Clare and I will be facilitating a retreat exploring these teachings in greater depth this May 8th-12th in Switzerland:https://thecolourandthechaos.com/evolving-through-embodying-patanjali/

Praha edition 2 - Jakob and the golden hearthAs I’m still in Prague, I’m continuing on the Prague theme, here sharing another of my favourite yoga stories from beyond the Indic tradition. This one is of Jakob and the golden hearth. It features the Karluv most/Charles Bridge and the Prague castle. And it also allows me to talk a little about Purāṇa - the timeless, perennially relevant stories of the yoga tradition that alert us to the gifts of our birth and the inner treasures we are always really conected to. If you enjoy this telling here, I invite you to listen also to another version that I shared on soundcloud a few years back, Jakob, yoga and the real power of love.https://soundcloud.com/james-boag-517265519/jakob-yoga-and-the-real-power-of-love

I am in the beautiful capital of Bohemia, not far from the Vltava river. In this episode I share a story of Princess Kolobiska, the young woman who knows how to find the sure way through even seemingly impossible situations by finding the middle path. This story from Czech folklore I know better from Italo Calvino’s Fiabe Italiane, where it is one of my favourites, the story of Caterina - La Contadina Furba.In this episode, with reference to these yogic folk stories, to Prague and to the Bhagavad Gītā, I talk about how yoga happens in the junction.

In this episode I am in conversation with my friend and former colleague from Chulalongkorn University, Acharn Captain William S Whorton.Over the last twenty-four years, together with our great Sanskṛt teacher Acharn Tassanee Sinsakul, Bill has been studying and translating the Bhagavad Gītā. Their unique translation was recently published by Uppsala Books https://uppsalabooks.com/bgAnd I highly recommend it!The appendices and essays are great treasures, and the translation invites us into the ongoing inquiry that is the heart of practice with concise, stimulating translators’ notes throughout. This work is the fruit of a collaboration between two extraordinary practitioner-scholars who have studied, lived and practised the teachings of the Gītā over many decades. For Bill, a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, the Gītā’s battlefield setting drew his attention as he turned to the study of philosophy to repair his disintegrated mind and troubled soul after seeing the evil of the war he had participated in. Acharn Tassanee meanwhile, is, as Bill would describe her, a sage and a master, a person whose very presence transmits wisdom, insight and integrity. As well as being a lifelong scholar and great teacher of Thai, Pali and Sanskṛt, Acharn Tassanee is established in the spirit of exploration and apprenticeship of a true seeker. It was my great privilege to work with them both when I taught English at Chulalongkorn University 2002-6 and to begin my studies of Sanskṛt with Acharn Tassanee during this period and in the following few years when I had left the university to dedicate myself to the teaching, study and practice of yoga and Sanskṛt.All being well, this will be the first of a series of conversations with Bill related to the Gītā and this practice of yoga on the battlefield for life.

Let us not get lost in lamentation! As Kṛṣṇa urges us in the Bhagavad Gītā, life will involve gain and loss, joy and sorrow, hot and cold, pleasure and pain. The coming and going of these pairs of opposites is inevitable. Once we have felt and acknowledged something, no need to get fixated on it. Let us cultivate steady awareness so we can move through the inevitable ups and downs of life with greater ease, so we can learn, grow and enjoy more easily. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés has sometimes advised: 'Do not complain, do not criticise, do not condemn!' With reference to the beautiful aria 'J'ai perdu mon Eurydice' from Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Eurydice, and its majestic performance by the incomparable Maria Callas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF5FhF_t5i4 this episode highlights the yogic injunction to take responsibility for and take care of how we cultivate our attitude to life with its inevitable changes.

Yoga wants to set us free, but in what sense?

Why does yoga matter? Why is it so helpful and relevant today? This episode considers some of the timeless principles of yoga and how we can work with them to help foster deeper harmony in our lives today.

On Kīrtan - Yoga of Sound and SongThere are so many ways to practice yoga. Yet from a certain perspective, most yoga techniques are in some way about sound, vibration and harmonisation. Kīrtan is one of the techniques I especially enjoy sharing, here I share some thoughts on what kīrtan is, why and how it’s beneficial and in so doing attempt to illustrate how time working with yoga techniques makes it easier to practice yoga the rest of the time.You can read more about kīrtan on my website:https://jamesboagyoga.com/whole-life-yoga/kirtan/And in several blog articles there too:https://jamesboagyoga.com/blog-articles/category-kirtan/

First episode in the Whole Life Yoga Podcast. On faith and courage, or more precisely śraddhā and vīrya - the first two qualities Patañjali sets out as essential for yoga practice. Bringing the ancient, timeless, perennial teachings of yoga to vivid life. Unscripted talks on whole life yoga. Considering life through a yogic lens. Exploring the yoga of the whole human being with reference to the classic Sanskṛt texts of the yoga tradition, mythology, poetry, literature and music, and to movement, meditation, kīrtan and the yoga of sound and song, language and communciation. www.jamesboagyoga.com