Greetings. Here you will find a collection of talks and contemplations that have to do with Yoga. Much of this material was recorded in class and transcribed by the writer and illustrator Madelaine Gill, who most kindly presented me with the stuff and wondered whether we might have a website for it. My dear friend Kathy Forer is a website expert as well as a Mac wrangler and she has guided the project along.
I have been teaching Yoga since 1982, upon completing a five year stint of ashram life under the auspices of my Guru, Swami Muktananda. We didnt really practice Hatha Yoga in his ashram as a discrete activity. All the branches of yoga were unfolding at all times, so that is the way i teach Hatha: as inseparable from all the other branches of yoga. If you sever a branch from the vine, the branch withers. Hatha must be connected to its root, or it is merely acrobatics. Yet it is a foundation for liberation when aligned with understanding.
For this reason my students are subjected to a constant prodding to connect the actions we undertake in asana and pranayama with a larger context. The posts on this site represent some of these encouragements. They are mostly transcriptions of informal talks, so i hope you will forgive the grammatical errors, run on sentences and such. I hope these writings may be of service to lovers of Yoga.
& Please feel free to contact me: mnichols@bestweb.net
