The Spiritualising of the Body

The flower-garden
Religion, sacrifice and yoga
The significance of the asana
Pracitcal aspects for working with the exercises
Relaxation
The beginning of the exercises - the cosmic prayer
The preparatory standing positions
The triangle and the wide circle
The shoulderstand with plough and bridge
The inclined plane with triangle
The lying-triangle positions
The fish
The tree
The tip-toe position
The St. Andrew´s cross
The balance position
The carefree face
The balancing head-knee position
The locust
The bow
The horse
The half-diamond
The crow positions
The head-knee position and the twist
The camel and the diamond
The sitting twist
The turtle
The wheel
The yoga sleep
The peacock
The cobra
The complete bow
The dove
The headstand, the scorpion and its cycle
The half-moon and the dancer
The crow and the handstand
Lectures
About attitude
Spiritual sadhana
In comparison to the way of practising yoga now familiar in the West, this spiritually and artistically-oriented path of spiritual training places less emphasis on a technical method and more on the uniqueness of meditation in its pictures and choice of words. The exercises have been taken from the broad dimension of hatha-yoga and have a deeper and newer meaning through a living, spiritual vision. This spiritual or super-sensory perspective gives the exercises a sensitive and artistic character, which raises them above a mere training in yoga and gives them that touch of the soul, free of the body. Reading and working with the texts, contemplating the pictures and repeated practice in following the message leads seeking students to a spiritualising of the body which grows ever deeper and more intense. With this artistically-oriented path of practice they receive that mysterious, other-worldly spiritual fire which leads them from within outwards to initiation and realisation.

The path, which begins in the intangibility of the soul and so in the source of meditation, free of the physical and even of the mental and emotional worlds is barely comprehensible to our Western world of consciousness. We could assume that people would have to begin the path of yoga with physical exercises and work from here up to an ascent into the subtle and spiritual planes. But such a path from below upwards seems only valid in a very qualified and limited way and so the emphasis here lies in dedication and work with the inspired words, which when repeated give meditation and the descent of an etheric abundance and bliss. Critical opponents, who usually come from the Western ranks of yoga and the church, do not recognise the profound difference between the conventional planes of thinking and the imaginative and inspired way of seeing, which embraces the soul-planes in a much broader and intangible dimension.

The spiritual path described here is therefore not a typical path of practice which begins in the physical and clears the way upwards to the spirit. It is exactly the opposite. The path is a creative source of the spirit in its expression and begins in the pathless and formless and leads from the incomprehensible into comprehensible form. The process of progressive change, which concerns all the mental aspects and ultimately also the body in its coarser manifestation, lasts several years and needs repeated confrontation and work. This is not a fast path which might perhaps be concluded by a fiery experience of enlightenment. The path of transformation is a devotion of the whole of life and needs a limitless surrender of the self, which fits the highest spirit of yoga and is comparable in the West to the sacred sacrifice of the earlier Christians.