Nidrā Yoga Weekend with Andre Riehl

September 25-26, 2010 - location to be determined

This weekend is open to all - beginners and continuing students. For the weekend taken on an individual basis, the price is 175 Euros (5 Euros insurance cost included). If you pay for all three weekends scheduled through June 2010, the cost will be 460 Euros (a savings of 65 Euros).

The timetable of the September workshop is as follows:

Saturday September 25th
10:00 - 13:00 workshop
13:00 - 15:00 lunch
15:00 - 19:00 workshop
19:00 - 20:30 dinner
20:30 - 21:30 workshop

Sunday September 26th
7:30 - 8:30 Prana Krya (dynamic breathing exercises)
8:30 - 10:00 breakfast
10:00-13:00 workshop
13:00-15:00 lunch
15:00-17:00 workshop

While it is advisable to participate at all workshop times listed above, it is also possible to leave at dinner time on Saturday and return on Sunday at 10:00, if you choose. As you will either be sitting or lying during the workshop, please bring a comfortable cushion to sit on during the lecture portion of the workshop. For the nidra practices, everyone will be lying down on a parquet floor. Therefore, it is important to to bring a thick mat and add folded blankets on top so that you can lie comfortably without moving for an hour at a time. Also, a blanket to cover you as well.

The lunch break will be from 13:00 to 15:00 on Saturday and Sunday. There will also be a dinner break Saturday evening at 19:00 or 19:30. Depending on the location, there may or may not be vegetarian meals provided for lunch, a vegetarian platter or box meal for Saturday dinner, and Sunday breakfast. Historically, the cost will be between 30-40 Euros for 4 meals: Saturday lunch and dinner and Sunday breakfast and lunch, but this will be confirmed several weeks before each week-end, and you will need to order with Fredric a full week before the workshop. You are also welcome to bring your own meals or dine out.

Enrollment Form

Nidrā Yoga Program of study and training

For those wishing to become Nidrā yoga teachers, we have dropped the Western model of teaching certification in lieu of the more traditional Indian model. This means that instead of an arbitrary fixed number of hours after which a diploma is conferred upon the student, prospective teachers must practice under the guidance of André Riehl by attending open workshops, like the one indicated above, for a number of years to develop their own Nidrā practice. Then, in consultation with André, they will be invited to a one or two-week pedagogical course where they will learn how to teach in order to receive a teaching diploma. In this way, students become teachers based on their readiness rather than hours put in.

"In truth, when knowledge that dispels the darkness of ignorance awakens in one’s being, then all is revealed, like a rising sun "
Bhagavad Gita V, 16.

"Accelerated by our human faculties, our time is marked by dispersion. What Yoga can bring to our society is precisely the opposite, collecting and centering these same faculties.

This gathering and centering is obtained only by practice. This concerns as much the rehabilitation of our attitudes in society as mastering the body, the breathing, the senses and the mind. This practice gradually leads to a state of harmony at all levels. This process improves our physical condition and our understanding of life. Yoga is not a religion. However, it develops a unified consciousness of the world "

(Excerpt from the introduction to "European Basic Program" for the teaching of yoga - Gérard Blitz 1976)

Who is the Nidrā Yoga Training for?

For people who seriously want to get involved in this process:
- Yoga teachers wishing to deepen their knowledge.
- Confirmed yoga practitioners or beginners.
- Seekers with other approaches of self-reflection.
To all those aspiring to develop a self-consciousness or wishing to acquire the means of access and transmission in this direction.

Program Content

It is based on knowledge from traditional teachings and contemporary knowledge.
The main fields of study are:
1 - Theory and Practice of Nidrā Yoga
2 - Svadhyaya (inter-personal introspection on the meaning and origin of life from reference texts and traditions of several lines of yoga teaching).
3 - Applied psychology in the Yoga path
4 - Study of non-dual traditions of Saivism and Vedanta
5 - anatomy and physiology of the nervous system
6 - Jnana Yoga: Philosophical and personal questioning

The weekends are progressive in nature. Therefore, it is recommended to participate in all weekends, but people are welcome to participate in individual weekends at any time within the first three years. After that, there is little benefit for the uninitiated to participate into the fourth year.

First Year

The first year covers the basic practices of Sithilikarana - very deep relaxation, and Dharana - penetrating concentration without tension, both of which constitute the foundations of this approach.

Related to one another, both practices allow an exploration and clarification of the Granthis, the 3 main domains of human life: vitality, emotion and thought, before going into conditioned patterns imprinted deep in our personal lives.

Exploration of the yamas and niyamas, ethics from the basic reference text of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in relation to daily life and the practice of yoga.

Learning the 1st degree of Prana Kriya Sadhana, a practice of 8 dynamic breathing techniques to purify the energy body.

The program for 1st year is an introduction to how thought operates and will be used in subsequent years as a means to achieve a state of acute perception and global understanding of life.

It forms the basis of all subsequent practice of nidrâ yoga in establishing a solid foundation and reference in the study of Self and the tools for the transmission for future teachers.

Second Year

The program of the second year takes as its base the Indriyas, the faculties of the five senses, i.e. functions that connect the interior to the outside world. Each of the 5 weekends will be devoted to each of the 5 senses such as smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing.

The practice is to simultaneously develop Antarnyâsa - sensory perception, and Pratyahara - control and withdrawal of the senses. This enables us to enhance our perception capabilities in order to use them toward the interior of the body and the mind. It is a little known practice of using more and more subtle tools of concentration to encourage a knowledge of and an intuitive relationship to the world and to oneself. It can sometimes give rise to surprising phenomena of sudden enlargement of perception, notably regarding vision, hearing, and touching sensibilities.

The program also includes the deepening of the bases studied in the previous year, i.e. learning in more detail the different levels of relaxation and degrees of concentration.

In the base practice of the “recitation of organs” (also known as “rotation of consciousness”), we will explore mental fluidity combined with an intensity on an energetic level with the support of mantra (verbal seed energy) with reference to the texts of the Mandukyâ Upanishad and Kârika of Gaudapada. It is a form of intensified interiorization and generally very joyful.

The practice of Prana Kriya (purifying breathing in the morning) will also be deepened and enrich our concentration favoring the expansion of energy.

Third Year

The program of the 3rd year explores the energetic network of the 7 chakras with reference to the texts of Sat Chakra Nirupana of Purnananda and Yoga of Minanatha-Visayas, in the tradition of the Natha yogis.

This very traditional practice that has spanned the millennia is approached in a systematic way to lead everyone to states beyond ordinary consciousness. It is the heart of the nidrâ teaching and raises the threshold of intuitive knowledge where understanding takes place through personal insight.

The program also includes the deepening of the bases studied in the previous year, i.e. learning in more detail the different levels of relaxation and degrees of concentration.

In deepening the Prana Kriya Sadhana, one approaches the 3rd degree of energy expansion and meditation on the flow of light.

Prospective teachers begin to experience teaching in directing some short practice sessions and to prepare the groundwork for their thesis to be presented at the end of training.

Fourth Year

The program for the 4th year is immersed in the yoga of “death” and the acquiring of educational tools for the transmission of yoga nidrâ.

The “yoga of death” is a practice where students learn to differentiate the event of death from the process of dying.
It addresses the meditation on the conscious withdrawal of vital forces and to concentrate all one’s strength and availability on the origin or source of life.
The practice, based on the text of the Yoga Vasistas, requires approaching deeper and deeper levels of letting go while maintaining an increasingly more subtle vigil of consciousness.
It contains meditations on the elements of the material body and their dissolution in the process of dying.

In deepening the Prana Kriya Sadhana, one approaches the 4th degree of energy expansion and meditation focused on the concentrated dispersion of light.

A portion of time is spent in the education of prospective teachers and the acquisition of various educational tools (techniques of verbal and nonverbal transmission and practices of internal placement and receptivity).

It is also the year of the writing of a thesis which is presented in public at the end of the summer seminar.

Years 1 and 2 - presentation and exploration of the fundamental theory and practice
Year 3 – exploration and deep knowledge of mental patterns
Year 4 - focuses on teaching and preparation for teaching.

Each year there is a summer week which is a synthesis and deepening of that year’s weekend programs.