Prana Vidya Retreat, May 1–9
In this retreat, the use of yoga and meditation will lead to a profound understanding of the life force known as prana in the yogic tradition. Prana exists as a subtle energetic vibration in the entire cosmos. In the human body, prana unfolds in five different forms that stimulate various body parts and their function. The discovery of these energy flows starts a process of rejuvenating the body and calming the mind. Also, it can awaken surprising insights into deeper realms of existence.
In this context, the retreat is not primarily to be experienced as a yoga holiday, but as a period of intensity. Here, in a secure and relaxed environment, you get more knowledge about yourself by working systematically with the powerful tools that the yoga tradition offers.
The Retreat does require a basic knowledge of yoga, breathing exercises and meditation. Yoga teachers are also welcome to attend the course expanding their knowledge of Prana.
After the retreat (Saturday afternoon) there is the opportunity to take part in a guided walk across the Vidda with Yoga Shakti – from Ulrikken to Fløyen (near Bergen). The walk takes about 6-7 hours. After the walk you can spend the night at the course center (extra NOK 300) or just find a place to stay in Bergen.
Meditation
You will learn two different meditation techniques on the Prana Vidya Retreat: Prana Vidya and Inner Silence.
Prana vidya means meditation on the life force. Prana vidya is an exceptionally subtle yet powerful practice that leads to greater vitality and develops your healing abilities. The technique begins by waking up the latent Pranic energy of the Mooladhara chakra and then raising the energy through Pingala nadi to the Ajna chakra, which is the prana storage and distribution center. In the next steps, psychic energy is circulated through specific pranic channels (nadi) in the body. Eventually you will experience prana as pure light. At the end of the meditation, you can experience a fusion of your individual prana with the cosmic energy, the Maha prana.
You can practice Prana vidya in any comfortable position, lying down or sitting. In some steps during the meditation, Ujjayi pranayama is practiced and you are guided through vivid visualizations in the meditation.
Researchers in the field of information technology already agree that consciousness can interact with material processes and directly affect them. Through conscious processing of information (prana) one can understand and balance psychological and somatic connections at a deep level.
Inner Silence meditation begins with a fundamental training of your awareness. You learn to accept disturbances and thoughts. By doing that your mind will calm down making it possible to be more creative. The essence of Inner Silence meditation is a transforming experience of the silence from where we experience everything else – that of being one with oneself.
Classical yoga and breathing exercises
We work step by step. By using your body in different yoga exercises and poses, you will rediscover it. You will develop more sensitivity towards your body, alleviate tension, build-up energy and gain well-being. Your breathing reflects your state of mind, whether you are calm, impatient, groggy, nervous, restless, etc. With the breathing exercises, you can transform any state and gain contact with your inner surplus energy, the psychic energy.
Deep relaxation
Yog
a teaches you to find the balance between being active and resting. You will learn how to be more at peace with yourself while being active and more attentive while relaxing. On the course, you will learn simple relaxation techniques for use in daily life, and also Yoga Nidra – a thorough, deep-going relaxation technique.
Yoga Nidra is among other things a method for exploring the borderline between consciousness and unconsciousness. You will become more aware of – and learn to relax – the different dimensions of your being. By doing this you will rediscover the ability to rest in yourselves. You will also learn how to make a resolution which you can rely on. You discover and stabilise your attention and ability to stay alert, both in actions and while going into deeper contact with your inner life.
Walks, Sauna and stillness (Mauna)
One of the days we have a joint hike to the nearest hilltop, the Queen (198 meters above sea level) with great views of Askøy and the whole Bergen area. There is a shared sauna 3-4 times on the course with the possibility of swimming in the sea. During the course you keep silence (Mauna) for 1½ days at the end of the course.
Karma Yoga
You learn a lot on the course – but not everything takes place in the yoga hall. Your body must be able to transform the energy you acquire from the practices. An important experience in the process is your participation in the tasks around the Course Centre: in the garden; preparing food; dishwashing and cleaning or perhaps doing repairs on a house or moving some stones.
Socially speaking, Karma Yoga (as these activities are called) implies that you do things for others, together with others and that you don’t expect to be waited on.
After all, you have not come to a holiday resort, but to a retreat with people who want to work with themselves. Naturally, you will want to be better able to deal with the tasks and challenges awaiting you at home. Activity creates stamina and drive.
“When one is active, then one is stable. Stability can only be achieved through action. When happiness is achieved one is active. Someone who cannot find happiness is not active.”
(Chandogya Upanishad).
Many have discovered this secret in our courses.
Without Karma Yoga, it would be impossible to run such comprehensive courses. The course offers many paths to reach deeper states. The expected results, however, would not be achieved in a harmonious way without outwardly directed activities and common tasks. When you let go of something and also give something, then you are more able to receive. The energy is transformed; it becomes available to you. Karma Yoga is an activity that balances the whole course and contributes to the increase in your wellbeing.
Karma Yoga is part of the program for 1-1½ hours a day. In addition, each person helps 2-4 times (depending on the number of students) cleaning and dishwashing after lunch and dinner.
A course day may look like this:
| From | To | Activity | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.0 | – | 7.30 | am | Awakening yourself, toilet, nose cleansing |
| 7.30 | – | 9.00 | am | Physical yoga and breathing techniques |
| 9.00 | – | 9.15 | am | Short fresh air break |
| 9.15 | – | 10.30 | am | Yoga Nidra deep relaxation and Meditation |
| 10.30 | am | Brunch | ||
| 11.15 | – | 12.30 | Karma Yoga – practical work | |
| 12.30 | – | 3.30 | pm | Free time for taking a walk, canoeing, sauna etc |
| 3.30 | – | 6.00 | pm | Short Yoga programs, Breathing Exercises, Concentration and Meditation |
| 6.00 | pm | Supper | ||
| 8.30 | – | 9.30 | pm | Lectures, meditation, Sufi or Kirtan (mantra-singing) |
| 10.00 | pm | Good night! |
The teachers
Hamsananda and Yoga Shakti.
Practical information
Location of the retreat: Ask Retreat Centre, a beautiful setting by the sea on the island of Askøy, 2 miles north of the capital of Bergen. Accommodation in a single or double room in the main Log House, the Log Cabin and the Alcove. We will do Yoga and meditation in the Yoga room.
Take a look at the images from Ask Retreat Centre in our Gallery >>
Please also read the page regarding Practical Information and how to get here.
Cancelling your booking: Cancellation must be done in writing either per mail or email. When cancelling later than 1 month before the course you will have to pay NOK 1.250. Later than 14 days NOK 2.000 and later than 1 week before NOK 3.000. If you cancel the booking after the start of the retreat you will have to pay full price. Cancellation due to illness: Attach medical certificate or doctors statement which verifies your illness, and you don’t have to pay for the retreat.
Conditions of Participation
Be prepared to accept the following:
You are required to attend all classes/activities at the scheduled times – willingly come 5 minutes before the agreed time!
Only eat the food served at the meal. Do not smoke on the school’s premises.If you must smoke, then take a walk alone.
During a retreat, you take a break from your usual influences and impressions. You retire for a period to gain an overview and get some peace to do what you have come for: to work with yourself.
During a retreat, you will not read newspapers, watch TV, use your mobile for talking or SMS or receive visits. Leave your mobile telephone, CD-player, audio player, clock radio, computer and anything similar at home or turn it off during your stay. Inform your family and friends that it is not possible to contact you during the retreat. If an emergency arises in your family they can contact you by phoning the retreat centre at phone +47 56 15 15 00.
Do not persuade others…
…to come with you on the course, not even your partner, unless they themselves are completely motivated to participate. Come for your own sake.
Come because you want to discover and work with yourself.
Welcome to the retreat!
Inspiration and more reading
On yoga Poses
Not a word about sweat and effort; with yoga it is a question of well-being built on other principles.
Yoga and the finer Energy
Even though the «small wind and tension releasing exercises» is the first programme you meet on our courses, it is not just for beginners, it has also a deeper effect. Pawanmuktasana, as it is also called, is viewed from a knowledge of the vital energy, known as prana in India and Chi in China.
On breathing exercises
The yogic breathing exercises have a thorough and precise effect.
Plenty of oxygen
The doctor was nervous: Is there a lack of oxygen when I do breathing exercises and hold the breath? So he investigated the matter.
Breathe through your nose!
This provides more oxygen to the blood, strengthens the immune system, and is also beneficial for the heart.
An EEG study of the brain during Nadi Shodana
An improved balance in the brain makes you clear, optimistic and extrovert.
About Neti, Cleansing of the Nose
On Deep Relaxation
A short introduction to Yoga Nidra.
Pictures of the brains’s activity during Yoga Nidra
A new chapter in research on meditation, it was called, when the scientists published pictures of yoga teachers doing Yoga Nidra. The research was done with one of modern medicine’s most advanced instruments – the PET scanner at The State University Hospital in Copenhagen.
Tantra and Yoga Nidra
Swami Janakananda writes for the first time about the knowledge and methods in Tantra which lie behind Tantric rituals and which make Yoga Nidra so uniquely effective and deep – about Nyasa, Chakras, consciousness and the resolution in Yoga Nidra.
What on earth do they use it for
People’s very different experiences with Yoga Nidra…
On meditation and relaxation
Did we have a living meditation tradition in the North? Did grandmother meditate? Maybe, without knowing it was meditation – she called it something else.
On Inner Silence Meditation
An article about the Tantric meditation Antar Mauna (Inner Silence) – and its ancestors and cousins. A pearl of a meditation – the most basic and advanced at the same time. It opens with methods that make you independent in relation to influences – inner as well as outer.
On the ability to experience
«Say the troll’s name, and it disappears», goes the old fairy tale. The teacher’s foremost task is to awaken the student into being able to experience – perhaps the most releasing and curative ability we possess.
On The Source of Energy Meditation
Using meditation over a longer period of time can have an enduring beneficial effect on your brain activity. One who meditates regularly experiences a lasting relaxing effect in daily life.
Psychic Energy
Energy is more than a discovery in our technical age. «Prana», «Ki», «Mana» – the psycic energy has been known through all times. Now it is being discovered by us.
Summer 2020:
Deposit NOK 2.450
What to enroll in the Retreat paying a Deposit? Apply the Coupon code «Deposit» in the Coupon code field on the Cart page. Click «Apply Coupon» and you will pay 25% of the retreat price (NOK 2.450) now. We will mail you an Invoice of the rest payment one month prior to the retreat. If you choose to cancel the retreat you will not get the deposit back.
Enrolment
Just click the QuickView button for direct enrollment or click the image above and you go to the more detailed enrollment page. We accept secure payment with PAYPAL, VISA and MASTER credit card. After enrolling we will email you a confirmation with further information on how to get here by car or bus from Bergen.
Times: The retreat starts Friday afternoon at 3.00 p.m. and ends next Saturday at 10 a.m. A retreat is intensive – but you still have time to enjoy the countryside, go for a walk, reading, etc.
Bring with you: Comfortable loose clothes for yoga, bedclothes, water proof and solid footwear.
The language of the retreat is English!
Course fee
The retreat costs NOK 9.800 and includes teaching, board (vegetarian food) & lodging. Single room can be booked at an additional cost of NOK 336 per night. As there is a limited number (and they get booked early) please contact us per email for further information.
Ask Retreat Centre
The Retreat Centre is situated undisturbed by the sea, with a great view towards Bergen. Fine possibilities for recreation and walking in the surrounding countryside.
Contact:
Ask Retreat Centre
Floridavegen 81
N-5307 Ask, Norway
ask@stillhet.no
+47 56 15 15 00