[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. I am Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And I'm so happy you're here.
I'm doing something a little different this week. Life has been especially full lately and rather than recording a brand new episode, I thought I'd invite you behind the scenes of something I've been pouring a lot of my heart into to this year, our 300 hour advanced yoga teacher training at True Love Yoga. This is the first year we've offered this program at True Love Yoga and it has been such an incredible experience, not just for our students, but for me. As a teacher and a lifelong student of yoga, I've loved answering in depth questions in this training and I love spending the time to put together videos where I'm answering questions, exploring ideas, and digging a lot deeper into what we're learning.
So today I'm sharing a recording from our second month of training. This is a real recording that I made for the 300 hour students, so it's a little different from our usual podcast format, but I think that's part of what makes it really special. So whether you're a yoga teacher, a dedicated practitioner, or simply someone who loves learning more about yoga, I hope you find something valuable in this conversation.
So without further ado, let's jump in.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Hey, welcome to the month 2Q&A. Not a lot of questions this month, but I got a really juicy one that I will deep dive into. So Maggie asked, how do the chakras, gunas, vayus, koshas, nadis, and elements all intersect? I love this question because yes, we're pulling from so many different sources when we're talking about the energy, body and philosophy, these components of matter as well. So we can ask if these systems form some kind of hierarchy or maybe whether they can be understood in a holistic way. And the answer is kind of a long one. Surprise, surprise. That requires history and discernment as well. But do know these systems did not all arise at the same time. They were not originally unified.
That modern yoga is what integrates them and that this integration isn't necessarily wrong or bad, but it is a good idea to go in and understand these different layers. So yoga philosophy developed in layers. These systems emerged across centuries and were later, much later, woven together. So we'll kind of talk about this in a chronological sense of how the different ideas arose and where and, and then how we can weave them together. So we'll with the early Vedic foundation. So this is about 1500 to 800 BCE.
So in this period, the Brahmins or the priests were concerned with creating cosmic order through ritual. We start to see a little bit of prana emerge as a concept or life force, energy. But we're still not talking about chakras, gunas, koshas or vayus as these technical categories of flows of prana. So this early Veda, Vedic thought introduces a cosmic patterning and life force, the soil from which these systems later grow. So we're not even fully introduced to yoga yet. Through this Vedic period, we're more concerned with ritual to help create social order, fertility, prosperity, pleasure, and righteous living. We then move into the Upanishadic period. So we're looking maybe around 800 to 300 BCE. The Brahmins or priests are becoming less important during this period.
And we're getting a lot more influence from other systems like Jainism and Buddhism, from asceticism as well. And we start to see the Upanishads as texts, these additions to the Vedas. And in these, we're introduced to yoga as a concept, as a practice. We're also introduced to sort of these first layers of the energy body. So within these Upanishads, we see the introduction of the koshas or these five sheaths of embodiment. They are used for contemplative disidentification. So I am not my physical body, I am not my breath, I am not my thoughts, etc. Also in this period, we're starting to see the early concept of the nadis, or energy channels. We see writings about subtle channels coming from the heart, and this is all related to consciousness. We also start to see the early concept of the Vayus, or like the seed form of the Vayus, So this differentiation of prana and its flow. So when we are looking at these things, the koshas, the nadis, the Vayus, they are not really maps of our subtle anatomy at this point. They are more meditation tools. So we're meditating on these different sheaths, on these different channels, these different directions of energy. The Upanishads internalized yoga. So yoga went from this external ritual of the Brahman, sometimes even like ritual sacrifice of animals, to something that happens more internally and that is available to more folks. And we start to see these beginnings of a practice that is typically rooted in meditation and contemplation. Next we'll see Sankhya philosophy from about 500 BCE to 400 cell. The main text is the Samhia Karika. And in this we'll start to see the gunas emerge of Astva, rajas and Tamas. We also see the five elements emerge here. We're looking at here how nature unfolds from subtle to gross and this cosmological explanation. So these aren't like psychological states or attributes for chakras at this point. They're really explaining nature and creating this like metaphysical architecture. Know that Sankhya is a dualistic approach. So we're separating the Purusha and Prakriti, like in Patanjali yoga sutras, which we'll talk about soon. So in looking at like the elements and the gunas, we are defining prakriti or nature, as separate from spirit, also known in the same period, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita were written, which also talk about the gunas and how they relate to our internal states. Next we have classical yoga defined by the yoga sutras of Patanjali. This is about 200 BCE to 400 CE, heavily influenced by Sankhya philosophy. And this applies the gunas to qualities of the mind. And liberation is transcending the mind and transcending the gunas. So this becomes a little bit more psychological in this text. We also, around this same time period have later upanishads being written. And this is going to define the values even further of prana, apana, samana, udana and vyana. And it also starts to expand the nadi system to 101 channels and really emphasizing to the upward moving pathway of sushumna. And prana now becomes functional and directional. So prana becomes organized into directional flows and structured channels. So it might feel like I'm skipping around, but know a lot of these, know that a lot of these periods were happening simultaneously and there are always different schools of thoughts with different influences coming in. So classical yoga ruled for a while and then we start to get into Tantra, which is non dualistic and concerned with the body. So in this period, about 600 CE to 1200 CE, we are now developing the chakras as energy centers that are symbolic and initiatory. So they are something to be meditated upon. They are revealed from teacher to student. We also are looking at ada, Pingala and Sushumna as nadis or these central channels that are being mapped out. So know that as in Tantra, they're working with chakras and nadis that they were used for ritual visualizations for this energetic map of ascension from Shakti to Shiva. But they're not really psychological models in the way that we look at them today. So chakras and nadis emerge in tantra as an energetic transformation map. This flows into hatha yoga from 11th to 17th century or so. Important texts from this period are the hatha Yoga, Pradipika, Shiva, Samhita, and there are even more developments here. So we start to work with the values more through bandhas. There are different purification practices for the nadis and different chakra activation techniques. So hatha yoga was integrating a lot of what came previously, like Sankhya Tantra and prana from the Upanishads, and they became these embodied energetic techniques. So the body is fully involved in the process now. And it turns these kind of metaphysical or ethereal ideas into something that's in the body that's more practical and physically accessible. Okay, so we talked about all these different elements that were asked about. Now let's talk about how they intersect. So this isn't a hierarchy. This is sort of these layers. So gunas are qualities of energy and qualities of matter. Elements are substances of manifestation. Koshas are layers of experience.
Values are a direction of prana, nadis are pathways of prana, and the chakras are transformational centers. They all describe and answer different questions about maybe the same organism. So the same organism can have different expressions of the gunas, or qualities of energy. They can be different combinations of the elements. They can have these layers of experience of the koshas, directions of prana within energy channels and these centers or chakras for transformation. So in a more modern lens, where we have access to a lot of information and practices that many people did not have throughout history, we start to integrate them. So I'll do an example of mapping them onto one chakra. So we'll use the Muladhara chakra, or root, for example. We're thinking of the chakra or this center of transformation as embodying safety and stability and survival. It's related to the earth element from Sankhya cosmology. Its related gunas are tamas, or structure, when balanced, and rajas, or hyper vigilance when it's destabilized. It's also associated now with apana value or this downward moving force, as well as with Anamaya kosha, the physical body, and pranamaya kosha, the energy body. It's related to the nadis and that it's at the base of Sushumna and it's the intersection of the ida and Pingala polarity. So we're looking at the same region through different lenses, different aspects of it. That can all blend and layer together. We can think of each system as describing the same or similar experience, but from a different dimension, structure, energy, flow, psychology, embodiment or transformation. Now we can apply these ideas to modern teaching and how we might see them today.
So as far as the gunas go, we might think of rajas as like overstimulation at times, or even a healthy driving force similar to the sympathetic nervous system. We might think of tamas as shutdown or even freeze. We can think of sattva as regulation, as connection. If we're going to use like polyvagal language, the ventral vagal response. So we can use the gunas as a beautiful way to relate to the nervous system and to frame this in a trauma aware way. The koshas can be really helpful for layered cueing. So moving from the most physical to most subtle aspect of the self, inviting introspection as well as inviting a sense of wholeness within a student. I love doing kosha scans in class. It's such a great way to get in touch with all these different aspects of the self. In Vayu's maybe we're using them for sequencing. So apana, we're using grounding sequencing. Udana would be focusing on uplifting sequencing and transitions.
Maybe samana is this core integration. We can also use the elements which are helpful for theming, for somatic cueing, for adding texture to the practice. Maybe we're relating to the earth element and creating a study practice. Maybe fire is transformative and water is fluid. And then we can also utilize chakras, which are great for developing themes for emotional inquiry or reflection. So we can use each system as a different teaching tool. They don't need to be ranked in the hierarchy. They can just be used strategically and based on what you resonate most with as a teacher. So there's no hierarchy, but there is this foundation of these practices through the Upanishadic period and through Sankhya philosophy. And there's so much richness and layers and embodiment added onto them through Tantra and through Hatha yoga as well. And then in this modern period of yoga, we really seem to be synthesizing all of these things into sometimes even a singular system. So we're really all about integrating them these days. So these systems are layered historically, hierarchically, superior to one another in practice. Before we close, I did want to touch on Ayurveda as well as it was this parallel development to yoga. It is drawn from the Sankhya cosmology or Sankhya philosophy. And it uses the gunas and the elements to help form the doshas. And because of this the gunas now become in the elements as well, these clinical and lifestyle tools. So Ayurveda is applying these same metaphysical principles that were mostly applied to meditation and liberatory practices in yoga to something that is very practical and therapeutic and body based. So I won't go too deeply into that, but know that ran along parallel to yoga and certainly influenced by yoga as well. So yoga never began as this unified metaphysical chart with these different elements included. Instead it evolved through different philosophical streams and time periods with different influences. And our responsibility as teachers isn't to collapse them into a single dogma, but to understand their origins and then apply them with discernment and care and fun, in my opinion. And they are beautiful tools for relating to our students through the body, through their energy, through their nervous system, and that help connect us with the roots of the practice as well. So again, these systems evolved in layers across centuries and modern yoga weaves them together, but historically they emerged in distinct philosophical context. So long answer to a beautifully complex question. Thank you so much for asking.
Please bring on the questions. I love going into these deep dives and hope that they help you understand the origins of these practices in a way that is also very practical to you as teachers. So thank you so much for listening. Enjoy month three I hope you enjoyed
[00:16:32] Speaker B: that little glimpse inside our 300 hour yoga teacher training. One of the things I love most about teaching yoga teachers is that the learning never really stops. Every question, every conversation and every perspective gives us another opportunity to deepen our understanding of this practice. If listening to this conversation has sparked your curiosity about continuing your own yoga education, applications are open for our 2027300 hour advanced yoga teacher Training at True Love Yoga. You can find all the details, including our curriculum and training
[email protected] and whether you're considering another training or simply continuing to explore yoga in your own way, I hope you'll keep asking questions, staying curious and making space for learning. Thank you so much for listening. Om Shanti Om Peace.
