Cosmin Iancu (Spain)
Master-classes:
4 may First practice: Cosmic Astanga Sadhana: The way of Agni – Awakening the Fire.
5 may Second practice: Cosmic Astanga Sadhana: The way of Shakti – Realizing the Power.
6 may Third practice: Cosmic Astanga Sadhana: The way of Sattva – Finding Peace.
About Cosmin Iancu
I had my first contact with yoga in the communist Romania, when in a place where any spiritual practice was prohibited, an awesome doctor offer to my parents a forbidden book as an attempt to cure my childhood asthma. Years later, while trying to find my way in a promising world, I started studying architecture and experimenting with reality altering substances and various spiritual practices, till I got to a point where I found myself really close to the point of no return, facing physical and mental decaying till I literally collapsed into an overdose. After years of turmoil, recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and severe depression, I decided to make a complete shift quitting my architect job and my old life, I moved to different countries, living every day of my life on the path of the Peaceful Warrior: Yogic Sadhana. I reconnected with the practice with the help of my god mother and ever present mentor, Umadevi, with whom I continue the work on the path of Raja Yoga, the path of complete liberation.
During the years of rediscovering myself, I had the opportunity to study and practice with great teachers of various yogic disciplines: Traditional Hatha Yoga with Bhooma Chaitanya in India, Hatha Raja Yoga with Andrei Ram in Spain, Ashtanga Yoga with Manju Jois and Kristina Karitinou in Greece, just to name the ones that really help me in understanding the purpose of the yogic science.
I realized that Yoga is not something for special people with special skills, very flexible bodies and of a certain affiliation, but it is the path of the mystics, the spiritual alchemists and freedom seekers, in other words, anyone who aims into transcending his mortal self in order to realize the Universal Oneness and find true liberation. I strongly believe that one’s own conditionings or samskaras are tools rather than enemies, tools that can be used in order to concieve the fastest way out of the mirage of Samsara; any dogma, any false beliefs, any barriers that our own mind puts in our way can be removed by cultivating a daily physical, mental and spiritual discipline, and by sustaining a determined attitude one can attain the state of bliss, or Union called Samadhi by the great masters.
There are no limits others than the ones we impose to ourselves.
Everything else is Freedom.
OM Shanti Shanti Shanti.
The Cosmic Astanga Sadhana – The path of the Cosmic Rhythm .
Yoga has one purpose: Liberation, from this human condition, the conquest of absolute freedom, the realization of the unconditional. The techniques proposed by Patanjali have the purpose of “dehumanizing” the sadhaka, as the humanity represents obedience and fragmentation; at the end of this path the complete Unification and reintegration is to be experienced.
By letting go the chaotic and profane human existence we open to a more profound reality, because of its Rhythm – the Cosmic Life; jumping from chaos to complete liberation – Union – is not possible, we need to pass through this intermediate phase, and realize the Cosmos, the Rhythm on all the aspects of the psychosomatic life. This Rhythm is to be found in the structure of the Universe itself, in the “unifying” role of the celestial objects.
We can find this ambition of creating a Cosmos in all the basic psycho – physiological techniques, from Asana to Ekagrata.
The eight limbed path starts by eliminating unessential vital habits: commodities, distractions, anything that makes overuse of the vital energy and time.
Then one strives to realize harmony – and in the end Union – by living a life in complete opposition with the majority, which represents fragmentation:
- harmony in the physical body, by opposing to the chaotic movement through the immobility of the Asana;
- harmony of the breath, by opposing the arrhythmic, multiform breath patterns by disciplining the air flow and reducing it to one – that of the profound sleep – and in the end to a complete stoppage;
- harmony of the mind, by opposing the chaotic flow of the psychosomatic life through the practice of Ekagrata, taking as a first step the complete withdrawal from the phenomenal world which is Pratyahara, and naturally entering Samyama – the realization of a psychic continuum without interruptions, the Unification of all thoughts.
This Cosmic state also represents a mere step, an intermediary phase, as the final scope is achieved when one will be able to withdraw into its own centre and liberate itself also from this Cosmos and its Rhythm – the yogi becomes immune to experiences, non-conditional and autonomous. This is the real act of transcendence, the Union of the emptiness and the fullness, the life and death, the being and the nonbeing – The Primordial State, Brahman.
(Text inspired from Mircea Eliade‘s book Patanjali et le Yoga)