Liberated Yoga

09/19/2025

A Yoga class a little outside of the box

Try new moves to improve body awareness (propioception), and get to know yourself a little better!

09/18/2025

How's your posture?

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

09/16/2025

Yoga for neck and shoulders with Anna

Yoga with a therapeutic bend for the health of the shoulders.

02/28/2022

Key takeaways: "In addition to strengthening exercises, emerging research suggests it’s important to develop muscular coordination and spine control."

"The slow, controlled movements in exercises like Pilates teach your muscles to move the spine efficiently."

"Adding instability to exercises — like balancing on an uneven surface or even working out in a noisy environment — was effective at relieving lower back pain."

"It is less about the amount of muscular strength and more about the ability to finely control the activation and deactivation of all the muscles that stabilize the spine."

Back pain is common and complicated. But altering your workout to build control and stability can help prevent it.

02/11/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:25 “Without this ignorance, no such union occurs.” TAD ABHAVAT SAMYOGABHATO HANAM TAD DRSEH KAIVALYAM

When the Self recognizes the distinction between itself and the perceived world, it becomes enlightened. It can see its nature even while abiding in the physical world. Without this knowledge it doesn’t, identifying so closely with what it experiences.

This is the concept of the inner witness in Yoga practice that we try to cultivate. By establishing in the witness state, we can gain inner peace and joy, because all the worries stem from being too enmeshed with the senses. But if we wake up from the trance of the senses and realize the separate nature of the Self, we can be liberated. In the next sutra, Patanjali will describe exactly how to break free.

02/06/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:24 “It is because of ignorance that consciousness loses its sense of Self when uniting with the perceived world.” TASYA HETUR AVIDYA

When the Seer doesn’t know the difference between the Self and the Seen – that is ignorance. Because of this ignorance, the Self mistakes what it experiences for itself. We start to think, “I am happy.” “I am sad.” “I want this.” “I don’t want that.” Yoga asks, “Who wants? Who needs?”

02/04/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:23 “Without each other consciousness and reality it perceives are nothing, but together they manifest the power of their true nature.” SVA SVAMI SAKTYOH SVARUPOPALABDHI HETUH SAMYOGAH

SAMYOGA is union of consciousness with the physical world it exists in. Without the body, consciousness is nothing and knows nothing. The body (from here on “the body” includes the reality it perceives) is nothing without consciousness. As stated in a previous sutra, they both need each other to exist and to fulfill their purpose for existing.

This sutra goes further and says that it is through the body that consciousness can also know itself. Without the body, consciousness would have no way of knowing its Self. The only problem is that when they unite consciousness becomes immersed in the reality that the body supplies for it so completely, that it is confused about who is who. It starts to think that this is all there is, and that this is the Self. This self-identification is described in earlier sutras as the source of suffering, because it causes so much craving, fear and aversion.

02/02/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:22 “Although the one who has achieved enlightenment is liberated, others continue to live in their world of illusions that is reality for them.” KRTARTHAM PRATI NASTAM APY ANASTAM TAD ANYA SADHARANATVAT

Are money, position in society, beauty, age, and skills real? What’s in a name? For most people these things are so real in fact, that they live and die according to these truths they hold dear. But are you using these mental constructs, or are they using you? Yoga ponders that question and tells us that if we live our lives unaware, pulled by our desires and fears, at the mercy of our senses and the illusions they create, then we are nothing but a product. We forget that underneath it all there is a smiling and joyful pure awareness.

01/31/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:21 “The seen exists only for the sake of the Seer.” TADARTHA EVA DRSYASYATMA

Different creatures see the world differently. A bee sees ultraviolet light, a dog smells cancer, a cat senses an earthquake, and a bat hears the shape and location of objects.

Humans, too, experience the world through their mind as the senses gather information. These senses and their abilities and limitations is like a filter that distorts reality so we can make sense on it. The purpose of the brain and the body is to serve the consciousness that abides in it, and all conscious beings have their own Purusha (pure consciousness) that experiences Prakriti (physical world), each according to its senses.

Purusha is neither male nor female, but will identify itself as such because of the body it is in. It is neither tall nor short, but will identify itself as such, etc., etc. ad infinitum. In the Eastern philosophy the senses that perceive have been compared to horses (Indriyas) that run where the mind (Cit) steers them, but the horses have blinders on their heads, so they can only see what’s in front of them. Yoga sees that as a bo***ge, limiting and suffocating, inducing suffering and brining pain. Taking the blinders off is the goal of a Yoga practice, to be liberated.

01/30/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:20 “The Self is nothing but pure consciousness that uses the mind to see the world.” DRASTA DRSIMATRAH SUDDHO’PI PRATYAYANUPASYAH

Consciousness and the body it abides in depend on each other – the body is a vehicle for the mind, whereas the mind needs the body and its senses to experience the world.

The mind tells the body where to go and what to do. Although the mind is the master of the two, it still needs the body to survive, and that is a problem. The relationship between the mind and body is so interdependent and symbiotic, that it makes it hard to separate the mind from the body. Even though the soul is pure awareness, it sees through its agent and loses its identity in the process of identifying with it.

This identification with “the seen” is what Yoga defines as the main problem of human existence and the source of suffering, because the mind has no other purpose but to see (experience) the world. If we learn to differentiate between the two, we can be liberated from this trap, and enjoy the world and being alive in it, in a nutshell, become enlightened.

01/29/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:19 “Matter evolves from potential to manifested, from general to specific.” VISESAVISESA LINGAMATRALINGANI GUNA PARVANI

After the big bang matter in the universe evolved, and it’s amazing that ancient Yogis were able to see what the Webb telescope is hoping to glimpse at the Lagrange point.

The same amount of matter exists, none is created or destroyed, it only goes through transformation, depending on what force of Nature, or guna, is more active (see previous sutra). From general matter with potential to become something specific and unique, elementary particles organize into atoms. Matter can change through chemical and physical processes, and manifest as something else. All orders of being are manifestation of fundamental qualities of Nature. Isn’t this cool?

01/27/2022

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2:18 “What we see is forces of nature (gunas) - equilibrium, activity, and inertia, which give us experiences through our senses, but from which the true Self can also be liberated.” PRAKASA KRIYA STHITI SILAM BHUTENDRIYATMAKAM BHOGAPAVARGARTHAM DRSYAM

This sutra basically states the meaning of life as Yoga sees it – to enjoy it and become free from it.

These forces of nature, these three gunas, are always changing and activity becomes inertia, then back to active state, for a brief moment achieving equilibrium. The push and pull of these forces is very strong, because we are also part of nature, our body and mind are also made of the same matter.

If the one who sees it all learns to distinguish the Self from its embodiment and recognize the various forms it takes, the Self becomes free from the suffering of this ever-changing life in flux and become a just a witness to the play of Life.