Mudras for Healing and Transformation is released in Japan
The Japanese publisher GAIABOOKs INC, specialized in natural therapy, yoga, bodywork and mind-spirit, has released the first Japanese edition of the book Mudras for Healing and Transformation, by Joseph Le Page and Lilian Aboim in February 2019.
According to the publisher of GAIABOOKs, Fumika, the book has been well received, with favorable comments that mudras are useful for meditation and Yoga practice. The idea of publishing the book in Japanese came from a Japanese yoga teacher who requested the translation of the book because she uses it as a textbook in her classes.
The book was translated from English to Japanese by Ms. Kaori Kohama. It is available in bookstores in Japan as well as online stores such as GAIABOOKs and others, like Amazon.
Mudras for Healing and Transformation was originally written in English and published in the USA in 2013 and has also been translated into Portuguese, released in Brazil in 2019. It is the result of the authors’ intense research into the world of mudras, leading the reader on a true journey through the psychology and philosophy of Yoga and within himself.
Joseph Le Page and Lilian Aboim are the founders of the Enchanted Mountain Yoga Center in Garopaba, (Brazil), one of the largest spiritual retreat centers in Latin America. They are also authors of the Yoga Toolbox, one of the most widely used materials by teacher training programs in the US and Brazil, published by Integrative Yoga Therapy.
Krishna, the Yoga therapist – part 2
The Vision of Yoga Therapy in the Bhagavad Gita
2.70 apuryamanam acalapratisham
samudram apah pravishanti yadvat
tadvatkama yam pravisanti sarve
sa shantim apnoti na kamakami
Arjuna is looking for healing and wants to know what the very essence of that healing involves. He has communicated to Krishna that he is willing to give up the world of action and become a renunciate, somehow believing that giving up the world will be a solution to his problems. In this verse, Krishna defines the essence of healing as a sense of wholeness based in self-knowledge that is so deep and so complete, that nothing can disturb it. It is like an ocean: rivers run into it, storms rage across its surface, waves flow across it, fish swim within it, and yet the ocean is whole, full, deep and complete, at all places and all times. Krishna encourages us to become like that Samudra, the vast, open, deep sea.
3.17 yastvatmaratireva syad
atmatrptashca manavah
atmanyeva ca samtushtas
tasya karyam na vidyate
What does this healing and wholeness look like in reality? And once this wholeness is found, how do we maintain our connection with it? Krishna points out that self-knowledge is an end in itself; and that through knowledge of the true Self, a sense of inner satisfaction arises and inner contentment. Through this sense of self-knowledge and inner contentment, stress is eliminated and health at all levels is cultivated. Beyond this, nothing needs to be done.
3.20 Karmanaiva hi samsiddhim
asthita janakadayah
lokasamgrahamevapi
sampashyan kartum arhasi
And as we become healed along the journey, what is our mission? Krishna has already made it clear to Arjuna that renouncing the world is not the answer, at least for him. In this verse, Krishna outlines Arjuna’s mission saying that complete success on the path will come through action in the world, and that many great people have achieved liberation while setting an example for others and providing service. The word Krishna uses, lokasamgraha, has special significance. Loka means “the world” and samgraha means to “bring together”, so that through our actions we bring the world toward that same wholeness that we are cultivating within ourselves. This is done in Yoga therapy sessions, individually or with a group.
Meditation, the Source of Happiness
Meditation is often thought of as a state we attain through a practice of a technique, normally seated in a meditation posture. This perspective gives an impression of meditation as an achievement or something we add on to our lives that was not previously present.
A clearer understanding can be gained by taking the opposite approach: meditation is an experience that is always present, waiting to be uncovered or discovered. From this perspective, meditation is the nature of life, and the essence of what we call reality. Meditation, rather than taking us away from mundane reality, is actually developing complete objectivity in which we come to see ourselves and the world exactly as they are.
This objectivity involves removing all of the conditioning and colored filters of belief that stand between us and seeing life as it is. This process can be called the practice of meditation, and the experience of living in the world free from conditioning and all of its accompanying emotional pain, sorrow, fear, and anger can be called the experience of meditation itself. Since our conditioning includes the sum total of our experiences at a cultural, social, and family level, the deconditioning process is extensive and normally requires a multifaceted approach. For this reason, there are numerous techniques and methods of meditation.
Our conditioning offers us the gift of an individual self, a rare opportunity to experience this world of duality and develop the knowledge, wisdom, and insight to see beyond appearances and to look directly at the source from which these appearances spring. This source can be viewed as the background of life, the energy and intelligence behind all of the laws of nature, including those that govern human behavior and the functioning of the mind.
How was meditation “invented,” and where did it come from?
Yogis and shamans in all cultures have discovered the state of meditation whenever they peered beyond the appearances of everyday life. Often, these wise people took time out from the daily struggle of survival and began to glimpse a joy that deepened as they allowed the experience to occur more often, eventually becoming an ecstatic experience far beyond human vocabulary. They found communion for this experience in the larger vision of the universe—the movement of the stars, the turning of the planets, and the juxtaposition of the sun and moon. For some individuals, this ecstatic union was so complete that they left everyday life behind to immerse themselves fully in the knowledge and understanding of this greater reality. These were the original yogis, rishis (seers), and gurus (the one who shows light where there is darkness). To share this understanding, they developed techniques and methods that became the practices of meditation we know today.
These enlightened ones, rather than bringing about some new experience, actually shed light on things exactly as they are so that others can see them. This ultimate reality that the seers show us has been given many names, such as Source, True Self, Brahman, God, Buddha nature, etc. Such words have a spiritual or religious connotation, which is natural because the meditation experience is the foundation of all religions. It is important, however, to distinguish between meditation and religion, since meditation is always an experience, and religion may be only another form of conditioning at the cultural, social, or family level and may involve blind faith rather than experience, which is the essence of meditation.
*extracted from Teacher Training Manual
