Self-Awakening Yoga: The Expansion of Consciousness Through the Body's Own Wisdom

Don Stapleton

Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, Jul 22, 2004 - Health & Fitness - 304 pages

Takes yoga back to its roots as a creative learning process and an expansion of consciousness, not just a technique for health and fitness

• Provides simple techniques that enhance the free flow of prana to promote physical and emotional healing, self-discovery, and spiritual evolution

• Includes over 100 exercises and meditations for a self-structured practice

• Teaches how to release the body’s inefficient, painful patterns and to access unknown potentials through kinesthetic inquiries

• Includes 60-minute audio CD-V of four guided meditation exercises

When artist and professor Don Stapleton discovered yoga, it marked the beginning of a journey into the awakening powers of prana--the energy of yogic purification--and the natural spiritual and healing properties of his own body. After 30 years of extensive yoga training, an accident left him with a severe injury to the spine. Faced with the challenge of physical recovery, Stapleton drew upon his knowledge of yoga to create a series of exercises that allowed him to recover freedom of movement, release emotional blockages, and unleash his spiritual and physical potential.

Self-Awakening Yoga is the synthesis of Stapleton’s practice. More than 100 exercises--from focusing on the breath to accessing primal sound--show how to unlock the wisdom and power of prana to engage the body’s healing powers. His simple exercises and meditations focus on natural movements that encourage body awareness. Readers learn how to listen to what the body is saying before engaging in any specific yoga postures. Self-Awakening Yoga takes yoga back to its roots as a creative learning process and an expansion of consciousness, not just a technique for health and fitness.

Contents

• Your Body as Earthen Vessel: ix
• The Origins of SelfAwakening Yoga: 1
• 1 The Path to the Teacher Within: 2
• SelfAwakening Yoga Methodology: 38
• Using the Inquiries: 54
• The Inquiry Exercises of SelfAwakening Yoga: 57
• 4 Releasing into the Embrace of Gravity Growing into the Light: 58
• 5 Rooted in the Earth Open to the Heavens: 75
• 6 Restoring Natural Alignment by Balancing the Cervical and Lumbar Curves: 91
• 7 Recharging the Bodys Energy Battery in the Belly: 110
• 8 Releasing into Movement from the Center of Being: 123
• 9 Opening the Hip Joints for Seated Postures and Simple Spinal Twists: 133
• Opening from the Belly into FrontExtension Postures: 155
• Balancing Stability with Mobility in CrossLateral Movement: 184
• individuation through Bilateral Movement: 210
• Traveling the Time Spiral of the Spinal Twist to Arrive Now in Seated Forward Bend: 235
• 14 The Miraculous Journey to Standing in Now the Open Moment: 259
• 15 The Practice of Flowing with Lifes Unfolding Mystery: 279

About the author

Don Stapleton, Ph.D., has taught yoga worldwide since 1976 and was a teacher and director of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health for 19 years. His extensive training includes Kripalu, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Siddha Samadhi, and Oki-do styles of yoga. He currently lives with his wife and son in Costa Rica, where he is co-founder and co-director of the Nosara Yoga Institute and the director of Interdisciplinary Yoga Teacher Training®.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Self-Awakening Yoga: The Expansion of Consciousness Through the Body's Own Wisdom
• Author: Don Stapleton
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, 2004
• ISBN: 0892811838, 9780892811830
• Length: 304 pages
• Subjects: Health & Fitness / Healing; Health & Fitness / Yoga; Philosophy / Metaphysics; Philosophy / Religious; Self-Help / Meditations