Is Your Soul Ready to Dive in by Shakthi Ganeshan

Is Your Soul is Ready to Dive in this Fall?

During summer, I find myself drawn to water. The water’s edge, at the ocean, at lakes, at rivers, beckons me. And even at my local swimming pool, I cannot resist dipping toes in; I eventually always take a plunge.

Water can buoy us up if we learn its ways. In my life I have learned to swim, to boat, and have a ways to go to say I have mastered to surf, to snorkel or to deep dive! Even so, each of these arts represents a different ways to interface with bodies of water.

Imagine your own first dip of a toe into the water in a swimming pool. It gives us so much information! You feel the temperature of the water and all of the sensations of water brushing against your skin. It feels so dense, denser than air.

And yet, there is a real difference between dipping a toe in a swimming pool, and immersing your whole body in the water! So much more information and sensation is transmitted when we submerge. We have more of us touching more of the water. We can feel temperature gradients. It is like entering a different world.

Perhaps our journey with yoga can be likened to interfacing with water.

Yoga classes are wonderful for putting our bodies through the motions and shapes that yogis have held sacred and practiced over millennia. And yet… going to a class here and there is like dipping a toe in. How do we really enter the world of yoga??

For myself, I have found my answer in intensive study. I did so as a medical student, and also also a graduate student for my masters. And in my yoga studies, I have studied with both asana teachers, and philosophy and ayurveda teachers. Each course and intensive has given me further appreciation of the well-rounded set of practices yoga offers.

This Fall, with the Awakening Your Potential Course, we will be delving into aspects of yoga that help each person understand what it is to be human. In a unique way. For that person. We will be asking deep questions and seeing what the texts have to offer us for guidance in answering them. What is the nature of commitment on our paths? What tools have yogis used over the ages to make wise choices on the path? How does a yogi combine the physical practices with understanding of philosophic principles? Is there a way to understand one’s own tendencies (to be lazy or over-disciplined, to be self-deprecating or self-important, to be overgiving or perhaps too self-focused) and to use this knowledge to lead a skillful life?

The deeper I have gone into the teachings of yoga, the more I realize the importance of dedicating myself to study. And the more I realize the scope of the teachings, and how much there is to explore and benefit by.

I am ecstatic to say that in this course, we will direct all of this knowledge! Each student will focus on one specific area of the student’s life that they choose. We will study and learn a lot. And none of it will be meant to remain jotted down in a notebook or ipad to be forgotten. We will make good use of the teachings by applying them directly.

Yogis are not made in a day. I have taught 4 such immersions to date, and what I have seen blows my mind. The growth, the rawness, the strength of yoga students in this course not only benefitted them, but inspired and changed each member of the group.

Get ready to step into more of who you truly are with this course! Although, we cannot determine how and when we will grow, I feel confident that students will benefit, and feel changed by this course, having witnessed this before.

Here is what Isara Krieger, a participant who took the course last year, has to say:

“This course was a beautiful way to spend more time with myself and gain a deeper understanding of some of the texts and philosophy behind yoga. Shakthi is a very supportive teacher and guide, and the cohort was lovely too. It's a course you could repeat multiple times, learning new information and evolving further each time.”

Hello, my name is Shakthi Ganeshan, and I am a Pediatrician and Internist who now focuses on teaching the hotistic practices of yoga, Vipassana meditation, and ayurveda. My teachers include: Shiva Rea, Sarah Powers, Rodney Yee, Timothy Lynch, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, James Baraz, Kate Munding, Robert Svoboda, Sarita Shrestha.