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The Power of Spirit through the Practice of Yoga

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SPIRITUAL PRACTICE: INTRODUCTION

The spiritual practice at Nityananda Institute is Trika Yoga, an Indian Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. This teaching made its way to the United States through a number of teachers, one of whom was Swami Rudrananda (Rudi). In the last year of his life, Rudi was in the process of articulating what he spoke of as his Tantric work. This was the natural evolution of his own spiritual practice and of what he had absorbed in the company of Bhagavan Nityananda. and, later, Swami Muktananda. However, it was Swami Chetanananda, who, in his explorations of the practice, encountered Kashmir Shaivism as a written philosophy, and realized that it articulated most clearly the subtleties of Rudi's teachings. The descriptions in the Kashmir Shaivite texts corresponded directly to what Rudi had said about his own experience, to what he had taught Swami Chetanananda, and to Swami Chetanananda's experience in the ensuing years of his own practice. It was clear that both Nityananda and Rudi, through the intensity of their inner work, had been espousing the essence of this tradition, though they had not called this practice by this name. Swami Chetanananda has absorbed, digested and expressed the principles of the Trika Yoga tradition in terms that are accessible and practical.

 

More about spiritual practice at Nityananda Institute:

Tantrism

Kashmir Shaivism

Trika Yoga

Meditation

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