Dear Friend,

Welcome to the course! In the Eight Limbs of Mahāyoga, we will spend four weeks learning about, meditating on, and diving into the ashtānga or eight limbs of yoga. These were outlined in Patanjali's famous Yoga Sutrā, but we will be approaching them from a different angle than the one that is usually found in modern yoga circles.

This is not an academic course, I am not a scholar. I am a humble servant in Nityānanda's spiritual lineage. This course will be a loving introduction to the mahāyoga that Bābā taught and was an exemplar of.

Mahāyoga, also known as kundalinī mahāyoga, is the path of spiritual awakening that centers around the awakening and unfolding of our innate spiritual power and intelligence known as kundalinī. The term mahāyoga means "great yoga". It is a yoga that includes many practices, many teachings and weaves together strands of yogic wisdom from many traditions and lineages. Nityānanda was a master who didn't belong to a particular sect or follow the rules of any particular lineage. He prescribed different practices and gave different teachings to different seekers. But his yoga was not a "system".

The core teaching of mahāyoga is the awareness that everything is divine. This means that our very essence is also divine, and that if we are to seek the power of God, the place to seek that power is within our own hearts, if we are to seek the vision (darshan) of God, we are to seek that within our own inner being. Bābā didn't just teach these teachings, he fully embodied them. He didn't just embody them, he also had the power to transmit the experience of these truths into others. This is known as shaktipāt.

The eight limbs of yoga provide a beautiful framework for "our side of the road". The power, the grace, the blessings of the masters is taken care of by the Divine Power itself. Our part is to make ourselves ready to harness and assimilate the grace and the transformation of our consciousness that ensues when we do.

Read the course preparation suggestions carefully and prepare to have a whole new level of grace in your life for the next few weeks. Even now, you can take a moment and center yourself and connect with your intention for the course.

If you have questions and reflections to share, you can email me. I will do my best to answer your emails promptly. I may also answer questions in the live classes if they apply to everyone.

Harshada