2022 HYT-TTP North American: In-Person Summer Retreat

Early bird pricing for the July in-person HYT-TTP retreat has been extended!

We are eager to meet our extended AHYMSIN family in person once again, and we invite you all to our summer 2022 in-person HYT-TTP retreat in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  The retreat will be held at the beautiful Providence Renewal Center from July 10th – July 23rd, 2022. Register and complete your payment by March 25th, 2022 and receive $150 off the cost of the retreat.

We have confirmed Dr. Stephen (Stoma) Parker, Chuck Linke, Carol Crenshaw, Charles Crenshaw and Pierre Lefebvre as the primary Faculty for the Summer Retreat.

We will need to confirm the booking of the retreat venue by March 25, and a minimum of participants is required for us to do so.  If you are interested to attend the retreat, please reserve your spot now to ensure that the retreat goes ahead!  Be assured, if the retreat needs to be cancelled due to covid issues or insufficient registrations, all payments will be refunded in full.

Cost of the annual retreat:

For Level One and Level Two students, the price for the 14-day retreat, including lodging and meals, $2,000 USD.  Please note that the HYT-TTP applicable tuition fees for level one or level two are separate from the retreat cost.

We understand that some students would like to attend but are only able to make a 50% Deposit at this time. If this is your situation, please send an email to info@hyt-ttp.com and we will work to support you with your registration. For those that are able to pay the full fee we are extending the Early Bird Special until March 25th, 2022. The registration site is on Constant Contact and will allow you to pay using your credit card or your PayPal account. Please follow this link to register.

1-Week 200-HR Certification Retreat 7/17 to 7/23/22!

We are also very happy to offer this 1-Week Retreat is for those TTP Students that have completed their Level One Home study under either the 200-HR or 600-HR Program and do not have the time to attend the 2-week Level 2 retreat.

The retreat attendees will join all attendees for the morning and evening programs; in addition, the schedule will provide time to prepare for and take the 200-Hour written and practical exams.   The retreat will be from 7/17 to 7/23, coinciding with the last week of the 2-week retreat.  This will allow all graduates to celebrate together during the last Saturday evening.

The cost of the retreat, including lodging, meals, and the event itself is $1,000 USD, with an early bird registration discount of $75. There is no tuition fee for those that registered as 200-HR students and a 50% tuition fee for those that registered as 600-HR students.  If you have previously attended your level one retreat and have completed all your required home study assignments, please discuss this opportunity with your mentor.

Registration for this retreat is limited to allow adequate space for the 2-week retreat.  If you are interested, please send an email to info@hyt-ttp.com by 3/25/22 and we will assist you with the registration.


Meditative Mind, Mantra and Voice – HYT-TTP Spring 2022 Virtual Workshop. 

If you have not yet registered for this workshop, you can still do so on the event page to benefit from and enjoy the wisdom given during this 20-hour workshop.  Recordings of all sessions will be available for registered participants until July first.

This 20-hour Virtual Workshop is designed for all HYT-TTP Students, Graduates and Mentors; as well as any current Yoga Teachers or serious practitioners. We will provide Yoga Alliance CEUs for all sessions.

In Loving Service,

HYT-TTP Administration

 

HYT-TTP Fall 2021 virtual workshop – A big Thank you to Everyone

The Fall 2021 HYT-TTP Virtual Workshop brought a wealth of beautiful inspirations and sharing this November through the teachings of senior AHYMSIN Faculty, including Swami Ritavan Bharati, Swami Ma Radha Bharati, Dr. Stephen (Stoma) Parker, Charles & Carol Crenshaw, Chuck Linke, Pandit Ashutosh Sharma, Adhikari Bhoi, Ramprakash Das. The live sessions of the virtual workshop came to an end on November 21st and we wish to give our heartfelt gratitude to all the presenters and participants for again making this event a success beyond all our expectation.

After the spring virtual workshop, which highlighted all ten subject areas of the HYT-TTP curriculum, the fall workshop took on of those subjects, meditation, and dived deeper into it.  Through the sessions, the faculty addressed and covered different aspect of this central practice of the Himalayan Tradition.

Despite the pandemic still preventing us from freely meeting each other in person, it was such a blessing to be able to gather virtually again and meet our extended AHYMSIN family.

Even though the live workshop is now complete, it is still possible to register for the video only workshop and access the recordings of every session as well as the resources shared by the faculty by registering and making a donation towards the sustenance of SRSG during the pandemic by clicking HERE.  The access to the recorded sessions will be valid until February 28th 2022.

We would like to take this occasion to share with you all the link to Swami Ritavan ji’s workshop session on November 20th.  You can access the lecture HERE.

We also wish to thank all the workshop participants for their generous donations and all faculty for volunteering their time so selflessly towards this cause, adding special thanks to all those who supported the event through their selfless work.

We also invite you to join our next virtual workshop in the spring of 2022.  It promises to be once again a very special event, diving yet deeper into meditation with the subject of Cultivating a Meditative Voice. 

With profound gratitude to the Guru lineage.

In loving service,

HYT-TTP Admin team.

HYT-TTP Fall 2021 Virtual Workshop on Meditation: The Core Practice of the Himalayan Tradition

We are pleased to announce to our worldwide AHYMSIN spiritual family, Yoga Teachers and Practitioners that registration is now open for the Fall 2021, 20-hour HYT-TTP Virtual Workshop.

After the very successful spring 2021 virtual workshop, where our presenters skillfully addressed different aspects of the practice taken from all the ten subjects of the HYT-TTP syllabus, for the fall workshop, the HYT-TTP team is inviting you to dive deeper in the practice of meditation. It is one of the most important practice of the Tradition handed down to us by Gurudev Swami Rama of the Himalayas and Swami Veda Bharati.

The Fall workshop will be held in November. It is titled Meditation: The Core Practice of the Himalayan Tradition, and today we are pleased to share the details of the schedule and invite you to register as soon as possible to secure your place in this important event.

This 20-hour Virtual Workshop is designed for all HYT-TTP Students, Graduates and Teachers, as well as current Yoga Tutors and serious practitioners. We will provide Yoga Alliance CEUs (Continuing Education Units) for all sessions.

Fall 2021 HYT TTP 20 Hour Virtual Workshop 2

The Workshop will be held from November 6th to November 21st, 2021. The sessions will be on Friday evenings at 7:30 PM EST (U.S. eastern standard time), and Saturday & Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM EST, with the exception of November 6th, which will begin at 10:00 AM EST, due to Daylight Savings ending in the North American region on November 7th.  (This will not affect the timing in other regions).

As in the spring virtual workshop, the HYT-TTP Faculty will teach sessions of duration of approximately 2 1/2-hours, including live Q&As. Please find details of the schedule below.

  • Saturday Nov. 6th: Workshop opening and Basic Elements of Meditation in the Himalayan Tradition – Swami Ritavan Bharati, with Adhikari Bhoi and Ramprakash Das
  • Sunday Nov 7th: Hatha Yoga as a Gateway to Meditation – Pt. Ashutosh Sharma
  • Friday Nov 12th: Meditative Practices of the Himalayan Tradition – Swami Ma Radha Bharati
  • Saturday Nov 13th: Deepening Meditation Practice through Emotional Purification – Dr. Stephen “Stoma” Parker
  • Sunday Nov 14th: Breath, Mind, and Meditation – Carol and Charles Crenshaw
  • Friday Nov 19th: Meditation Sadhana as a Way of Life and Full Moon Meditation – Chuck Linke
  • Saturday Nov 20th: Advancing Mantra Practice After Initiation – Swami Ritavan Bharati
  • Sunday Nov 21st: Panel discussion, questions and answers – All Presenters

Click here to register for the workshop.

If you are unable to attend all the live sessions from your time zone, we will allow video access to the sessions for 3 months, so that you can schedule a time that is convenient for you to view the sessions.

To help sustain the Ashram during this difficult period, all the proceeds from this workshop will be donated to SRSG.

We are recommending a donation of US$180.00 for those that live in High-Income Countries, US$140.00 for those in Middle-Income Countries, and US$90.00 for those in Low-Income Countries. Of course, any additional donations to support the ashram will be appreciated.

The registration site is open for constant contact and it will allow you to pay using your credit card or your PayPal account.

If you cannot attend or wish to donate to support the mission and ashram of SRSG, please click here.

If you wish to sponsor one or more students from low-income countries, please click here, and after providing the donation amount, fill in the PayPal “Write a Note” box with the purpose of the donation.

We hope that we will once again be able to help the sustenance of Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama through your committed support to the tradition and lineage.  We look forward to meeting you in the workshop.

In Loving Service,

HYT-TTP Administration

Grace

On the way to India in August of 1989, I spent ten days at our Himalayan Institute near Hamburg in West Germany. It is a center that has grown tremendously in less than ten years under the dynamic leadership of Wolfgang Bischoff. This time he had prepared 50 students to study with me, and the enjoyment of teaching was all mine.

One evening all the Ashram members – residents of the Institute – gathered at Wolfgang’s house. One of the questions they asked was: “We came to live at this Institute ashram with the hope of studying, practicing meditation, and living peacefully; instead, we have to work hard day and night to keep the Institute growing. Why is that?”

I would like to share with you the answer the Guru Spirit put into my mouth at that moment:

“There is much ignorance, and no end to suffering on this planet. There are only a few saints and masters to alleviate it. Their work is at the scale of an entire planet. If it were not for them, humanity would have self-destructed long ago. In addition to what they do, do we also want them to come personally to all their offices and answer and organize beginning level classes? . . . . . . The word ‘member’ means an ‘organ,’ a ‘limb.’ It is in this sense that Christians are ‘members of Christ.’ We initiates are eyes, ears, hands and feet of the spiritual masters. This is as much as we can be, to share their burden; this is how we are part of their work. Their minds’ strength and wisdom works through us, so we may help a few to make a start. When we view, or know, or remember, ourselves as members in the spiritual body of the masters, their life-force, their grace flows through us. Our own minds grow in that grace — only when we remember that in all our work, we are serving as ‘members,’ as ‘organs,’ of that Spirit.”

The next day I heard that some residents of that ashram cried: “Oh how easily we forget that we are members in the spiritual body of the Guru Spirit, making a minor contribution to the Guru’s planetary work!”

Did St. Peter rest? Did St. Paul retire? I sometimes wonder what the retinue of St. Francis had to say.

I cannot forget how much suffering there is all around me in the world, and how few are capable of alleviating it through wisdom.

At one time I made bricks with my own hands to build an ashram and a school in an isolated community in South America. I still make bricks – somewhat differently now. Will you join me?

May you enjoy very sound sleep every night, after tiring you body in the service of others.

Yours lovingly!

Six Guidelines for Teachers

To those who are teaching, those who are learning to teach, and those who are guiding guests,

No. 1

When you are teaching someone or have taught someone, the question is: has the person learnt it?


No. 2

When you have taught someone, you should feel yourself responsible for them forever:

Are they doing correctly?

Are they practising?

Are they progressing?

Where are they in their progress?

What more is to be done for them? When?

You should worry for them. Then you are a teacher.


No. 3

People are still leaving classes without having learnt even though you may have taught them. Make sure they learn. Otherwise you have not taught.

Do consider what commitment you feel towards these seekers and to their progress.


No. 4

When you teach and you think “I am teaching”, it will

• breed ego

• not give love and inspiration

• Guru’s Grace will not flow

Before teaching, sit for meditation.

Surrender the teaching seat to the Guru

Keep in your heart, “I am not the teacher; Guru alone teaches”.

Then

You will not develop ego

You will give love and inspiration

Guru’s Grace will flow

Answers will come to you

One trick is that:

in between the pauses, you remember your mantra.

For example:

You say “relax your forehead”

Pause, think your mantra

then say “relax your eyebrows”

and so on.

That way you will keep a meditative voice and people’s hearts will listen.


No. 5

OUR LINEAGE (GURU-PARAMPARA)

In Gurudeva Swami Rama a number of lineages merge.

Through his Yoga-Guru Bangali Maharaj, he represents the tradition of the Himalayan Yogis.

In Vedanta, the Tradition goes all the way to the ancient history of Vedanta, through Shankaracharya and Vidyaranya Muni, with the seat at Shringeri.

In Sanyasa, it goes all the way to the Vedic times and then through Shankaracharya’s Dash-nami order, with Bharati lineage, with the seat at Shringeri.

In Christianity, it goes all the way to Christ’s chief disciple St. Peter. How is that? The mystery of that is known to few close disciples.

In the Buddhist tradition, as he had told me at the time of my yoga-initiation, we are preparing the grounds for the coming of  Maitreya Buddha.

We inherit the Tibetan tradition through the Tibetan master who was the guru of the Gurudeva of Swami Rama.

We inherit the bhakti tradition through Madhusudana Saraswati, a former birth of Swami Rama, (who introduced bhakti into Vedanta) in 16th century.

Swami Veda was practically born expounding Vedas and the sutras of Patanjali, a fact attributed by the learned of that time to the knowledge from his previous births. So we inherit the Vedic and Patanjali tradition in this form also.

This convergence of diverse traditions is one of our greatest spiritual strengths.


No. 6

PRACTICE   ADVICE

Practice a kriya until you have mastered it.

How do you know when you have mastered it?

Here are the few stages of mastery.

1. You do not need prompting, or any guidance in going through the kriya; you practice it without getting confused about the sequence and the process. You have internalised it.

2. The kriya gets done in a shorter and shorter time and at a subtler and subtler level.

3. During the kriya, the mind does not wander.

4. The experience or the level of consciousness that the kriya imparts can now be accomplished without the kriya. You go into that state without the kriya.

5. That state of consciousness becomes your basic state at all times; you remain in it.

6. When you guide others through that kriya, they reach the desired depth and state of consciousness. Gradually you do it without words.

7. Your very presence begins to invoke that state of consciousness in them, and that is the real teaching.

When you have mastered one kriya, then ask for the next step.