Sfashtanga YOGA

When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the recurring question that students asked him most was:
- Do you believe in God?
And he always answered:
- I believe in the God of Spinoza.

Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.

(Spinoza) : God would say:

Stop praying.
What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you.

Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you.

Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. S*x is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything they made you believe.

Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes... ➤ you will find me in no book!
Stop asking me "will you tell me how to do my job?" Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love.

Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you... I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies... free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?

Respect your peers and don't do what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that alertness is your guide.

My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need.

I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.
You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell.

➤ I can't tell you if there's anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.

So, if there's nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask. Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?...

Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.

Stop praising me, what kind of egomaniac God do you think I am?

I'm bored being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me.

Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you've been taught about me.

What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?

The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.

- Spinoza

Just 3 more days!!! Don’t miss your chance to practice with in Miami ✨

Both Led Primary and Intermediate classes will be offered each weekend as well as Mysore Style classes during the week for advanced practitioners.

Led classes are open to all students for registration. Mysore classes are available by application only.

The weekend classes (Led Primary and Led Intermediate) will be held at the Jose Marti Gym, 434 SW 3rd Ave, Miami, FL 33130; and the weekday Mysore classes will be held at the Miami Life Center, 1940 NW Miami Court, Miami, FL 33136.

Space is limited, so sign up today to reserve your spot! Please see below for the full schedule and details.

Important note! If you are applying for the advanced Mysore full-week packages, please do not sign up separately for the individual Primary and Intermediate classes below. You will be booked into those classes through the six-day practice package reserved for the advanced practitioners.

Led Primary Series Classes (open registration)
7:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. EDT

Saturday April 29
Sunday April 30
Saturday May 6
Sunday May 7
Note: Each Saturday Led Primary class will also be offered via livestream for anyone around the world, and includes a full Conference with Sharathji after the class

Go to our link in bio to sign up today!

Pic by the amazing

Don’t miss your chance to practice with in Miami ✨

Both Led Primary and Intermediate classes will be offered each weekend as well as Mysore Style classes during the week for advanced practitioners.

Led classes are open to all students for registration. Mysore classes are available by application only.

The weekend classes (Led Primary and Led Intermediate) will be held at the Jose Marti Gym, 434 SW 3rd Ave, Miami, FL 33130; and the weekday Mysore classes will be held at the Miami Life Center, 1940 NW Miami Court, Miami, FL 33136.

Space is limited, so sign up today to reserve your spot! Please see below for the full schedule and details.

Important note! If you are applying for the advanced Mysore full-week packages, please do not sign up separately for the individual Primary and Intermediate classes below. You will be booked into those classes through the six-day practice package reserved for the advanced practitioners.

Led Primary Series Classes (open registration)
7:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. EDT

Saturday April 29
Sunday April 30
Saturday May 6
Sunday May 7
Note: Each Saturday Led Primary class will also be offered via livestream for anyone around the world, and includes a full Conference with Sharathji after the class

Go to our link in bio to sign up today!

All pictures by the amazing of visit to Miami in 2019

Tilmelding er åben til Sharathji besøg i København d. 11-15. august 2023.

Registration is open for Sharathji's tour to Copenhagen on 11-15. August 2023

https://ayc.dk/da/sharath-jois-in-copenhagen-2023/

Join Chungsue Sunday 9am for Led Primary

Join Chungsue Tuesday 830am for Half/Half

So happy to announce two Livestream classes via Zoom with Paramaguru Sharath Jois in September this year bringing together the worldwide Ashtanga yoga community for Sharathji’s in person led classes and conference from his SYC Shala in Mysore, India.

Led Primary and Conference : September 24th at 6.30am Indian Standard Time

Led Intermediate Series: September 26th at 7.30am Indian Standard Time

Presented in conjunction with / sonima.com.

Registration will open soon on sonima.com

Being able to learn with Danny is a chance you don’t want to miss. He will share his incredible knowledge and experience of Ashtanga Yoga, gathered over decades of practicing and learning himself and with his teachers. Danny is one of the best know yoga teachers from the West, we are excited to welcome him at Engel.

Tim Miller (born 1951)

Tim Miller was working as a psychiatric nurse when he stumbled into the church in Encinitas, California where Gary Lopedota and Brad Ramsey were teaching. In his first class, wearing the jeans he was wearing they taught him surya namaskar A and then told him to lie down and come back the next day.
He did, and 8 months later would meet Pattabhi Jois when he came to the US for the first time in 1978.

Tim then went to practice in Mysore, where he returned for many year. Often even living at times with the Jois family, he enjoyed perhaps the closest relationship of any Western teacher to the Jois’. Indeed, despite his strongly built physique, Tim, as he is known to many is a gentle and caring figure; an alluring mix of strength and vulnerability.

Tim has many stories about what it was like in the early-days in Mysore. Indeed, only to show how different it was back then; by the third week of his stay he remembers Pattabhi Jois had moved him on to the advanced A series.

Back in the US, he has taught, perhaps, the most long-standing Mysore program to date in Encinitas where he originally learnt the practice. He has also pursued a well-known interest in Vedic-astrology for many years.

Tim has been a teacher to so many of the week-known teachers of today including Laruga Glaser.

Amazing art 😍

Sfashtanga YOGA updated their address.

Sfashtanga YOGA updated their phone number.

Join Holly for Intro to 2nd Wednesday 830am

Join us for Led Primary and conference with Sharathji this Saturday - 5.30am on the Pacific Coast / 8.30am in the East. Link is in the bio - see you there…

“Since time immemorial the most profound thinkers have tried to lift the veil that hides the beyond. I have read thousands of volumes of literature and thought for years in the hope that I might get some kind of evidence to show that death is not the end. But all in vain. To me the universe is simply a marvelous mechanism, and the most complex forms of human life, as human beings, are nothing else but automatic engines, controlled by external influence. Through incessant observation I have so convinced myself of the truth of this that I cannot perform any act or even conceive a thought without locating at once the external stimulus that prompted it.

“A forceful argument in support of the existence of a creative agent is made of the law, order and harmony perceptible everywhere. But it must not be forgotten that Kant’s reasoning and conclusion in this respect are irrefutable. According to this philosopher, the conception of fitness has been created in the speculative mind of men, which thus admires a miracle wrought by itself.

“Granted a planetary system, it is absolutely inevitable that in the course of eons such organized beings as we are will evolve. The cooling of the hot masses results in a precipitation of water, and under the influence of the sun’s rays heliotropic action takes place and life is started. Through chemical and other agents and continuous adjustment complex mechanisms come into being, and these ultimately develop into structures of marvelous complexity with capacities of response to the faintest stimulae from the environment.

“When we realize this as a fact we begin to grasp the great idea of Buddha–that self is an illusion. Indeed, we are nothing but waves in space and time which when dissolved exist no more.

“There is this to be said, however, that science without hope is not satisfactory, and unless one has some ideals he cannot achieve happiness. The religious is the most lofty ideal, and it seems that the great reformers who, ages ago, laid down rules of conduct were right in their conclusions that a peaceful existence and a continued onward march of man on this globe is essentially dependent on the conception of a God.

“I have read Mr. Burbank’s statement in which he expresses an opinion shared by most natural philosophers, but one must not be too rash in contradicting the conclusions reached by countless men of genius who spent their lives in endeavors to ascertain the destiny of the human race. A single individual, however well informed and capable, may be partially unaware of if not utterly blind to evidences of a certain kind, which might be quite sufficient for others. This is the reason why I am distrustful of my own findings. Possibly Mr. Ford, who I understand is accepting old traditions, may be closer to the truth than such men as Burbank and myself.

“I have searched during many years for some process or means to test the possibility of future existence by scientific experiment, and I have devised one, which, to my great disappointment, has failed. But perhaps some more skillful experimenter might succeed if I suggest to him the course. To put it briefly, it is this:

“Our bodies are composed of molecules of various elements, harmoniously united. Do these molecules retain any after-effect when the body is dissolved? To ascertain this take, say, two molecules of hydrogen from the body of an individual and also one molecule of oxygen. Furthermore, provide another molecule of oxygen taken from some other body. Now place the two molecules of hydrogen so they can combine with the oxygen, and if they prefer that molecule of oxygen with which they were previously united, then reincarnation is proved. For, though it may take ages and ages, ultimately the molecules which constituted that body will get together again, just as in a vast city individuals from a distant land finally meet and establish close contact.”

—Nikola Tesla

(“After Death — WHAT?” Lima News, Lima, Ohio, March 14, 1926.)

"Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible." – M. C. Escher

Artist: Andre Samador