What is Primal Yoga?

For the last fifteen years Satyananda has been helping people from all walks of life to find the source of lasting peace and freedom. Many practitioners of yoga are attracted to the silent retreats and Satsangs that he holds. They soon discover that his support and insight into their practice has a depth and subtlety that they have not previously encountered. His ability to bring back to life the original vision of yoga inspired his students and led him to develop what he has called Primal Yoga.

Primal Yoga offers an opportunity for teachers and students to integrate a new perspective into their own school, tradition or practice. Satyananda has said:

“Primal Yoga aims at providing depth to the practice of yoga: the primal depth that yoga is aiming at, which is firstly harmony in the body, followed by harmony in the mind, Samadhi and Self-Realization. It is a slow yoga, not a yoga of varieties, of positions.  It is a yoga of observation, meditation and development of awareness in consciousness.”

Extract from a Primal Yoga session:

“So the very meaning of yoga, as we are wishing to experience, is for you to raise your consciousness; is for you to become aware of your own Presence.  By increasing the awareness of the space that the body occupies, we increase the awareness of that which is beyond space, which is Consciousness.  Consciousness is not in space.  So every state of awareness has a reflection.  Awareness in the body reflects awareness of the Self.  Awareness of the Self reflects awareness in the body.”

The Primal Yoga form follows a sequence of asanas based on motion within the spine, with a focus on breath and gravity.

The practice is suitable for all levels of ability and for all ages.

Here is what some Yoga teachers have said about Primal Yoga:

“There can be a lot of confusion and misunderstanding around teachings and the reasons why things are practiced. It’s so rich and so beautiful to start to glimpse and taste the real essence of who we are and to strip Yoga back to its primal meaning.” Rowan Cobelli - Yoga Teacher Trainer

“Many yoga practitioners today seem to be compulsively working on the physical aspect of yoga so that after a lot of exertion they may achieve some degree of peace of mind. The most popular forms of yoga today are those which are strongly physical, causing practitioners to sweat and expend a lot of energy. Primal Yoga offers a simple sequence of meditation-inducing movements under the guidance of one who is experiencing what it is they are teaching – the realization of inner peace.” Chris Nelson – Yoga Teacher Trainer

"This gentle simple yet profound form of yoga has helped me to observe, uncover and experience the physical presence more consciously, to observe the energetic pranic body and to fully witness and experience the thoughts, feelings and sensations that arise and to go beyond them. It is a true yoga in this form, guided from truth and related to from truth and real experience." Amba – Yoga teacher

"Primal Yoga has indescribably enhanced my practice and brought a new and deeper awareness of what was already there.  Only when taught from direct experience of Yoga as Satyananda does is the richness of the practice-experience almost palpable, although it cannot be spoken of. It strips everything of what Yoga is to its core with simplicity. Armed with that understanding and experience any form of Hatha and non-Hatha Yoga can be practiced with great joy.” Stephan Siva Trefzer – Yoga Teacher Trainer

Satyananda is an elder member of IYN. Please click here for more information.