October 4, 2023 • 49 mins
Whenever people ask me what studio to check out in Austin, Texas, I always recommend Practice Yoga on the East side.
Rey Cardenas is the co-founder of Practice which recently celebrated it's 10 year anniversary.
If you follow Rey or Practice on Instagram, you'll see he shares a lot about a unique take on philosophy from Rudolf Steiner, that I haven't seen from other yoga teachers.
We talk about:
- Rey's journey of co-founding a yoga studio in Austin, Texas, after facing challenges with his previous teaching position. Rey shared his experience of transitioning from being a professional poker player to becoming a yoga teacher and the process of finding a location for his studio.
- The process of opening a yoga studio, including finding a vacant building, partnering with someone who had complementary skills, utilizing social media marketing, creating memes(!) and choosing a donation-based model.
- Rey's process of finding a more balanced approach to yoga philosophy, moving away from an indulgent sort of philosophy towards a more grounded perspective that Rey found in Rudolf Steiner's work.
- How to integrate different perspectives and practices into yoga teachings. They also explored the connection between Western and Eastern spirituality and the importance of awakening the chakras.
- Rey gives a great introduction to the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, including his embodiment system, and the importance of the thought realm in human freedom. They also discussed how these concepts can be integrated into yoga and are integrated into the teacher trainings at Practice Yoga in Austin.
Rey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reys_awareness/
Practice Yoga on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/practiceyogaaustin/
Practice Yoga website and YTTs: https://practiceyogaaustin.com/
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Keywords: yoga teacher training, ytt, marketing, business, spirituality, yoga philosophy, asana practice, meditation techniques, anatomy and physiology, pranayama (breathing techniques), teaching methodology, yoga history, adjustments and modifications, Sanskrit, chakras and energy centers, Ayurveda and yoga, ethics and professionalism, sequencing and class planning, business of yoga, and self-care and self-study, equity, yoga therapy, community
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There was a certain point and I can talk about this during the
recording, but there was a certain point where I was just
like people are coming to this training seeking something more
than, you know, just like a really good ass in the system,
(00:22):
which at which that is very valuable.
But there were certain questionsbeing asked that I didn't know
how to answer. And I just remember there was a
moment where I was like. I I'm a teacher trainer.
I need to know this stuff and I need to like, you know, study.
And so at that point I just, youknow, was looking into
(00:45):
everything that I could and and and to me that the cosmology
that made the most sense was butRudolf Steiner was putting out
there. I looked a bunch of different
places and everything. There was like a lot of cool
stuff, but no one pieced it all together like Steiner did.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the Yoga TeacherTraining Podcast.
I'm Jeremy Devons and today I'm joined by Ray Cardenas.
Founder of Practice Yoga in Austin, TX who just celebrated
their ten year anniversary. So grateful to have you here
Ray. Thanks for having me and good
job with the last name. It's not easy.
(01:29):
I've actually never known I was just talking.
We were talking about that before I hit record.
I never actually said the name. I just call it always Ray.
But I've watched, you know I wasfinished my teacher training in
2011, 2012, I started teaching alot and and then you started
practice yoga I guess 2013. So I kept, I was always hearing
(01:52):
about it and like always had a really good reputation and like
really good vibe and a lot of the great teachers in Austin, TX
went there. And for listeners, Ray's one of
the rare people born in Austin and still living there and just
outside of the town. But practice was a really cool
vibe and like a special place, and I feel like it still is.
(02:13):
And whenever people go to Austin, they always ask, like,
what yoga studio should I check out?
Practice is always the one I recommend people to.
So I'd love to hear like anything you want to share about
your experience, like creating ayoga studio for our listeners?
Some of our listeners might be like thinking about that or
maybe thinking differently aboutit after the pandemic.
(02:33):
So your journey with that, Yeah,it was kind of a whirlwind.
I was teaching yoga at another studio in town that was really,
really popular and some upheavaltook place.
A lot of changes in the businessmodel and it ended up displacing
(02:53):
a lot of teachers and I held on to my teaching position there
for as long as I could. And I was in this 80 hour
Anusara immersion with Strew andVaz, who has partnered with me
in the studio and with our teachers at that time.
(03:14):
We basically made the commitment.
We were like Okay, It's not working out here where we're at
and we need to do something. Prior to teaching yoga, like
when I was teaching at this other spot, I mean, I could just
say it. When I was teaching at Black
(03:35):
Swan, there was it's under new ownership now.
It's not really a big deal, but that was like a transitionary
period in my life. Prior to that, I was an online
poker player and I was pretty darn successful in that world
until I wasn't. And so pretty much, you know,
(04:00):
found myself in a in a state of limbo for about two years where
I was only teaching yoga and that was pretty much my only
source of income. And I had a child and a mortgage
and so I had to get some help from my folks during that time.
And and my own my I dropped out of college prior, like prior to
(04:21):
that I was delivering pizza. So I didn't have a lot of work
history. I didn't have a lot of skills.
I was, I became a professional poker player in my mid 20s.
And so it was pretty much all I knew how to do was that and
yoga. And so, you know, I didn't, I
really didn't have a choice. I feel like the whole
(04:42):
circumstance was happening to meand happening for me because
things just started to happen and and unfold in a way where it
was like, OK, wow, OK, we're going to do this yoga studio.
I'm going to go look in this area of town.
The first area I looked, I I parked over by what used to be
Tacoma, and I had my bike in my pickup truck.
(05:04):
So I hopped on my bike, rode over.
I was like, I want it. It would be cool to have a spot
by Cheer Up Charlie's because that was like the coolest bar
and spot, you know, on E 6th. And I was like riding my bike
over there and I was thinking, like, what am I doing?
Why am I even looking over here?This is like such a popular
(05:26):
neighborhood. There's not going to be anything
available. And lo and behold, directly
across the street from Cheer Up Charlie's I'm riding up.
I see like a sign in the window what looks like a vacant
building and that was that's it was open.
So I called the note, I looked inside.
It's a big open room. I was like wow, that's one
(05:50):
example of of you know, just something serendipitous
happening regarding opening the studio.
Another cool aspect was Struins very good with numbers.
He's an engineer and so he laid out, you know, the the
quantitative aspect of the business.
And I couldn't have done that onmy own.
(06:15):
And so it really was a team effort.
So if you're thinking of openinga studio, I highly recommend
partnering up with someone who has a skill set that you don't
have. And I was sort of like the the
face and the promotion of the studio.
And Struin was like the back endcrunching the numbers and, you
know, making sure we can make itwork.
(06:36):
And at that time, Blast Swan wason the cutting edge of like
social media marketing. And a big part of the business
model was teachers established adirect connection with their
students. And so we knew that with all
these teachers who were no longer teaching there, they had
a student pool that they could speak to directly.
(06:57):
And so we were able to literallywrite down all the names of
people that we knew were going to come into the door.
We open practice. So we weren't worried about
getting our first customers or anything like that.
And we just made a made a splashwhen we were opening, made a
video, had a party and you know the rest is history.
(07:20):
I don't, I don't know if it's that easy.
It seems like it it it, it seemslike it was sort of like a fairy
tale circumstance. But yeah, we were like breaking
even after four months, which I know like is kind of unheard of
for a lot of businesses. And yeah, it's just, it's been,
(07:42):
it's been great. The the ethos of the studio is
like because we were all kind ofbutt hurt because they're like,
hey yoga teachers, we're being disrespected and we're going to
open a studio that respects teachers and we're going to
prioritize and cater to good teachers and make them feel
welcome and and give them the ability to succeed.
(08:04):
And so that was kind of the guiding light of the studio.
And you know, we're like you hadgood teachers, accessible
structure. It's a donation based thing.
Anyone can come whenever, pay whatever, and you know
everything else will fall into place.
And so thankfully that happened.We're ten years in and it's it's
(08:26):
going well. We got a great we have a
reputation as being like the place where teachers go to
practice and also we've got our senior teachers there that are
teacher trainer. So it's it's part yoga studio
and it's part yoga school. Yeah.
And that decision to do donationbased, I guess it made sense
(08:47):
financially. It seems like kind of risky
though, right? Probably there's a lot of
thought right into that. Yeah.
Also that was the familiarity aspect because Black Swan was
donation based and there's kind of this sentiment that the value
of the accessibility that the donation based model conveys, we
(09:08):
figured that that was going to carry us through and and yeah,
but it is, it is risky and thereare certain things like you have
your suggested donation and now especially with all the
automated payment systems, you can prompt people to donate
suggested amount through the buttons on the the payment
(09:32):
interface. So yeah, you know that those
those little things help but also it's like hey we got the
room, we're not going to turn you away.
So you know and then the processis anonymous.
So we're not really judging. Yeah, yeah.
And you you. So do you do all the memes for
the practice Instagram? I do, yeah.
(09:53):
Sometimes they get me in trouble.
But you know. I I yeah, I've been doing all
I've been doing the memes for that and I I can't like I don't
know I was looking at one day. That's another thing.
It's just like I'm looking at some of the meme templates and
I'm like I could I could do thisand I started to you know put
(10:14):
some words on some images and and you know some of like the
one of the first ones I did was there's that picture of Jimmy
Fallon and he's at a basketball game and he's kind of like
looking off to the side because there's a the back of a
cheerleader like with their you know, just I don't know.
(10:36):
And, you know, open, open posture to him and he's looking
away. And then so I wrote like, you
know, the yoga teacher, that's Jimmy Fallon and the student at
the cheerleader, that's the student and happy baby.
And it's just like, hey, you know, don't make eye contact
during have you ever, you know. So that was one of the first
ones I made. And yeah, it's been it's been
(10:56):
fun. I sort of it's interesting
because when you make content that's popular on social media,
it's it has like an addictive effect where you want to do more
and more because you're getting all that positive attention.
And I saw that happening to me and I was like, I don't want to
just be a meme account or meme maker.
(11:16):
So I I consciously stepped back for a while because it it was
like I was doing it too much. And now I just sprinkle them in
every once in a while. So I got a more healthy
relationship with meaning. Yeah, the the page is pretty
well balanced. I just saw today a post from Jen
talking about, like, her first experience with Ayurveda.
(11:40):
And it's like really grounded. And, like, it's it's great to
hear that story, but then you got the the Iyengar Trump face
meme balance. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Definitely try to. I try to, you know hold the
center I got to polarized and and yeah, I'm all about like
(12:03):
holding the opposites and using that tension to create like a a
third thing, a new thing, you know to progress things forward.
Right. Yeah.
And before I hit record, you were talking about like your
desire to like go deeper into the yoga philosophy and then
(12:25):
bring that into the teacher training and.
And then ending up finding Steiner's work, which is part of
why I initially reached out for the podcast, is just because I
don't know anything about Steiner's stuff.
And I've seen your post about ita lot.
And I thought maybe there's somebridge here because I don't
really know many other yoga teachers talking about it or
into it. And I when I try to get into it,
(12:47):
it seems a little like thick anddense and I'm like, what's a
good entry points? Maybe I get ready to talk about
it for a while and maybe some other Yogi's would be interested
in it too. So I'm curious kind of that
journey of like bringing that philosophy in and maybe that
ties in with what you were just saying too.
Yeah. Well, something that happened to
(13:09):
me in this, in this whole process was I've confronted some
deeply rooted aspects of my personality that.
Are I, to use the right word? But I guess you could say like
selfish or like I had a like basically I was following these
(13:34):
two teachers and the messaging behind what they were saying was
that, you know, you're God and it's all one and well, it's all
one and also it's all multiplicity and and and so
(13:55):
basically like nothing really matters and everything works out
in the end. So essentially you can do
whatever you want. And there was some aspect of my
personality that was like awesome.
That's what I've always wanted to do whatever I want.
And so. I and and and the way that you
(14:17):
this is this is my understandingof what they were putting forth
and maybe I I missed something which I can I can say like sure
the onus is on me but their teaching was like the the way
that you understand like what you truly want and where where
the wisdom's at basically is is in your body.
And so go into your body and don't try to suppress your
(14:43):
instincts and let them play themselves out in the fullest
way possible. So it's kind of A1 sided view
because we have our instincts and our will impulses but we
also have our feelings and our thoughts.
The other thing that contributedto some of the missteps I had
(15:04):
early on, which is what led me to seeking out something that
was grounded in morality, which is what Steiner stuff is
grounded in. It's like it's not an amoral,
it's not a morally relative universe, it's a moral cosmos
that fits together in a certain way, and there's certain laws
that that govern where we are. And so, but one of the things
(15:29):
that caused me to go down the path that I went was a
materialistic outlook that basically said the spirit world
is incomprehensible. I'm not even going to focus on
it. I'm just going to focus on what
my senses conveyed to me. I can't know that stuff.
(15:51):
And therefore I'm going to disregard it.
And I'm going to disregard my. I'm going to limit my thinking
faculty in that way. And so I didn't really like.
And there's there's also this underlying message in a lot of
yoga teaching that says, like, get out of your mind, get out of
your head, you know. And I think that's that's an
incomplete teaching because likemaybe if if you were, like,
(16:14):
caught up in some negative thought pattern that is, you
know, hurting you, then yeah, you want to be able to get out
of your head, get into your breath, get into your body,
that's great. But that doesn't mean abandon
your thinking completely give yourself some space from it and
you know figure out how to thinkbetter, how to work with with
(16:40):
the realm of the head in a in a better way.
And so I was doing all will impulses.
I I I was even calling what I was doing conscious indulgence
and it was like hey what my bodywants to do.
This is this is how I'm free. I'm going to listen to my my
will impulses and that that willmake me free And then so after I
would do like an intense yoga practice.
(17:01):
Well, then I would go to lunch and my instincts would say,
like, well, have a beer You can.You're free.
You work for yourself, you know.And so I would have a drink and
and maybe have another and, you know, and like and all of a
sudden like the. Because here's another thing
that I learned throughout this process is like the lower
(17:24):
impulses associated with safety,security, affection and esteem
and power and control, those will compel you.
And so those actually, you know,you think that you are because
you're you're going against the culture that kind of imposes
certain things that keeps those in check.
(17:44):
And so you feel like it's the culture that's the bigger
imposition on you. I did.
And so I started, you know, justdisregarding that and doing what
I wanted to do and and all of a sudden, you know what I thought
was liberating me. I'm now in servitude too.
And it's it's affecting my perceptions and my associations
(18:05):
and and all of that. And so I basically, you know,
became dominated. I was like a pleasure seeker and
you can only do that for so longand and that drains your energy
and my and you know the true wisdom in my physical body which
wasn't like the the instincts towards the lower level passions
(18:30):
was that like my body basically shut down on me.
It was like stop doing this to me and I had no energy I was in
pain I was like mentally morallybankrupt and and it my body was
like dude you got to stop this and and it basically made me
stop and so I was like okay. I clearly was wrong, clearly
(18:56):
effed up and I need to figure out like a better way.
And also I was, you know, teaching others.
And and basically early on I I was teaching strictly just the
Asana system that I knew and loved, which was an evolution of
the Anusar system, which changedmy life for the better, got me
(19:19):
really into my body. But I didn't have the proper
cosmology to to frame it in. But now I now I do.
So I still use the same Asana system.
But I will tell you this, I don't, like, try to get like
super deep in poses or anything like that.
Like I I used to be really into just like having like sublime
(19:41):
looking poses and getting these deep expressions.
And that was like an indicator of like being at a high level
because I could make my body do these things.
And that's not a priority for meanymore.
I want to, I like to be strong and I like to dabble and
occasionally, you know, hop intothose postures.
(20:02):
But I'm not trying to, like, hold them for a long time or
even get the deepest expression of them that I've ever done.
But yeah, so basically, I I One of the things that I had to
reconcile within myself was my disdain for Western religion.
(20:23):
And I anything that oppressed me, I rebelled against it early
on. And once I realized like, hey,
I'm doing it wrong, I was like you need to go back and look at
these things from a different vantage point and and instead of
writing them off because you don't understand them, try to
understand what's valuable aboutthem.
(20:45):
And and luckily for me and my parents had taken me to this
church when I was younger, called the Church of Conscious
Harmony and it's a contemplativeChristian community.
And the minister there, he almost converted to Hinduism.
He was like friends with also the Dalai Lama and he was very
into like Eastern spirituality and and and harmonizing that
(21:05):
with Christianity. And even those Eastern teachers
that he was friends with, they were like, you need to stay in
the Christian system. That's your system and and and
clothe these universal teachingsin that language.
And so luckily I had that place as a home because when I was a
kid it was always a very welcoming place.
(21:27):
But once I was around in fifth grade, I was like, I can't do
this anymore and my parents let me stop going.
But so I went back there and I found a book called Meditations
on the Tarot, and it's Meditations on the Tarot Journey
into Christian Hermeticism. It was written by this guy named
Valentin Tomberg, and in it he really focuses, especially in
(21:51):
the Magician chapter on on the three sole faculties, thinking,
feeling and willing and making those into a unity.
He's and he says that that's when you're in the yogic state
those 3 sole faculties are harmonized.
And he even cites Yoga Sutra 1.2.
(22:14):
In the first chapter he cited state limbs of yoga and he just
talks about how like this is a system for bringing yourself
into the unified state and you have to get your your will
impulses to what tends to be like the thing that we're least
in control of. You have to bring bring those in
(22:35):
harmony with your you have to work on that through.
Well, he said that he says through like devotion to God and
parts of it. But you can also do it through
thinking. And then and then your thinking
affects your feelings and then your feelings affect your your
will impulses. And so Rudolf Steiner was that
(22:57):
guy's teacher and he and he leftthat that guy had he left
Anthroposophy, which is Rudolf Steiner's system and he went
back to the Catholic Church. And so but for me, I'm like, you
know, reading that book, it didn't inspire me to like join
the Catholic Church or anything.But it, it inspired me to look
deeper into Rudolf Steiner. And so I look into Rudolf
(23:19):
Steiner and I'm just like blown away.
I I find that Udolf Rudolf Steiner Press audio YouTube
channel and it's it's just thousands of of lectures that he
gave over the course of his lifetime and he gave something
like over 66000 lectures and he has 6000 published works.
(23:41):
A lot of them are are transcribed lectures and his his
cosmology is just second to noneit it one of the things that he
focuses on is the mysteries of time.
And so a lot of a lot of spiritual traditions say like
disregard time just become present and and be in the here
(24:05):
and now and that's a good tool to have.
But in terms of like orienting yourself in the in the world
just being present is that can be disorienting you know and so
and even like stuff with astrology like there's a there's
a time there's a spatial relationship to time and there's
different forces that act upon you.
(24:28):
And so to to understand the mysteries of time, you can know
where you came from and then youcan kind of know where you are
and then you can know where you're going.
And so that's what I love about Steiner.
And one of the one of the gripesabout Steiner is that he
(24:51):
characterizes the nature of certain group souls, like
different national group souls, different you know, groups of
people. Says that this is like a a
signature of the group soul thatgoverns an aspect of groups of
people. And even there's a time soul
too. That's like for a certain time
(25:12):
period, this Archangel is informing people's unconscious,
and it has this certain flavor to it.
But he also talks about how we're in an age where our, our
eye, our individuality is able to pull itself out of those
(25:32):
group soul tendencies which weremore pronounced in the past.
And he says, and that's how it should be.
And so these, like distinctions that we make based on on group
identity are not super relevant.And what should be focused on is
the evolution of your individuality.
(25:53):
And the whole mission that he puts forth for humanity is to
become beings of freedom and love.
And he articulates those as these two polarities, where
freedom is like individuality and love is unity, the thing
that connects us in. And so how do we harmonize those
two opposites within ourself? And that's what all his teaching
(26:16):
is all about. Like the the journey of that is
happening. That's what we're experiencing
across many lifetimes. And then his his mission, he
said why he incarnated this mission for that Rudolf Steiner
incarnation was to bring back anunderstanding of reincarnation
and karma. He said we needed to relearn
(26:39):
those because we're on the spiritual arc of humanity now.
We've we've the the materializing arc which he calls
the Mars impulse spirit descending into matter is has
finished and and we've begun to bounce back up to being able to
reengage with the spiritual world and we and it this fall
there's a purpose for it coming into matter to really understand
(27:01):
it and the and the scientific method is like the fruit of that
impulse but it's not the only thing.
And so he says, now that we havethis understanding.
We've got to you know remember where we came from and so I I
just it just makes a lot of sense to me and it's it's it's
hard to encapsulate in one shortpodcast.
(27:25):
But that's part of the reason why I take little bits of his
lectures and I put images to them and captions because I want
to you know get people and it's people seem to really be liking
them. My my follower account went from
like on IG went from like 2300 now it's up to almost 12,000 in
(27:48):
the past like 6 weeks And so it's it's so people are are into
it from all over the world too. It's it's super cool to to see
people following me from Turkey and from South Africa and from,
you know, all over the place. So it's it's nice.
(28:10):
That's awesome. That's really good.
There's a lot of concepts in there that were synced and like
clear, like, OK, I see now I seethe threads of like, how this
weaves with yoga and like where it might evolve from yoga
philosophy or a different perspective on things that we
talk about in yoga philosophy. Is there like a specific way you
(28:32):
might weave into like your current teachings?
I haven't practiced with you as a teacher in a while, so
absolutely. So one of the foundational
things is you have to be able toto pay attention, right?
You have to. You have to be able to
concentrate effortlessly. Like there's two different types
of concentration. There's one where you're like
compelled, where your will is compelled to focus on something
(28:56):
and you can't control it. Let's say like people who suffer
from porn addiction, maybe they're compelled to focus on
that. And then the other type of
concentration is out of your ownfree choice.
You can sit and clear your mind and you can either, like be in
silence and focus on, you know, the the vast nothingness.
(29:17):
And maybe that's and that would be like receptive meditation.
So that's that's my my personal practice and the the practice
that I teach because I have a meditation discord group and
we're doing a six month thing where we're doing Steiner
meditations. And so basically you start by,
you sit and you connect to your breath 1st and when you inhale,
(29:45):
you focus on your skin and you hold the inhale in with your
attention on your skin. And this is like this is
associated with it, an older type of consciousness that in
Steiner systems called moon consciousness in which you're,
it's less individualized, you'vegot the energy from your
(30:08):
environment all around you has come inside of you and so you're
you're kind of merged with that which was previously all around
you and that's it. That's an older form.
And then and then when you exhale you put your attention on
your heart and you breathe out and you hold the breath out with
your attention on your heart. And this when someone gets
(30:30):
really scared and they turn pale.
What just happened is there's a sharp exhale and they hold their
breath out and and and what thatdoes is their blood goes into
their heart because it's that's the instrument of your ego.
So your ego is afraid, goes hometo the heart, and you.
That's why you turn pale, because the blood leaves your
(30:51):
periphery. And Steiner says that it's
really important to be able to kind of send your blood home to
the heart without the feeling offear.
And so hanging out in the retained exhalation without fear
is part of this breathing practice.
And he basically not to be a down or anything, but he says
(31:14):
like in the future, in a future incarnation, you're going to
need this. And so by doing this practice
now you're going to be able to face like really terrible evil
and not be overwhelmed by it, bydoing this breathing practice
and so any and that's the Jupiter consciousness.
(31:36):
So I do that that breath practice inhaling to the skin,
exhaling to the heart. And the effect of that is that
it's a four part breath box breathing and it and it calms
the mind and you do receptive meditation where you just clear
you just notice what's coming across the field of of
awareness, nonidentification with what you find there and and
(32:02):
then abiding from that attention.
Then we go into some form of active meditation where there's
like, you consciously visualize something.
And so right now what we're doing is, and this is a
meditation actually from Daskalos, who's a hermetic,
esoteric Christian teacher from Cyprus.
(32:24):
And basically you visualize a golden sphere around your head.
And this is like this. The sphere is considered to be.
I learned this from Doctor Robert Gilbert by the way over
at Vesica Institute when I give him a shout out.
But the sphere in sacred geometry is considered to be the
perfect shape because the centeris equidistant from all the
(32:49):
points on the periphery. So it's there's it's sort of
like the shape of equality and the realm in which we're all
equal is the realm of spirit. And so it's a spiritual shape.
And so when you hold the golden sphere around your head, you are
having a beneficial impact on your thinking, almost
(33:09):
spiritualizing the sole faculty of thinking.
And then you hold us a a Peach blossom or a light pink sphere
around your heart. And this symbolizes kind of the
passion in the blood being shined the light upon and being
purified a bit and lightened up and so pink sphere around the
(33:32):
heart and then a sky blue spherearound the hips and the lower
abdomen. And that that has a cooling
effect on the the most fiery part of your being the the
digestive fire, you know that sort of thing.
So we and you hold those 3 spheres around you and then you
observe the effect they have andit's a calming effect and and it
(33:54):
it's inviting certain beneficialinfluences in.
And so that's the type of stuff I'm into, is that I like
imaginative meditation and it's it's a higher, it's the higher
limbs of yoga, you know? And I also just do really love
the asana because I noticed thatwhen I sit and meditate, even in
(34:18):
the morning, especially if I haven't been like watching what
I'm eating or watching what I'm is, all this stuff has an effect
on your mind, right? Anything you take in food,
impressions from your phone or from even just the world around
you has an effect. And so but I noticed that after
I do Asana my mind is calm almost regardless of any of
(34:39):
that. Whereas even if I just wake up
and meditate in the morning I I could be, you know, influenced
by you know what what I've been taking in.
And so I I have an appreciation for ASNA but and and I have a
long history of like working deeply with it and I love
sharing that knowledge and teacher training and then I also
(35:00):
love you know, the meditation realm so beautiful.
Yeah, yeah. Sounds like you really
integrated all this into what you're doing and brought in a
lot of different perspectives and.
Really powerful stuff. Really cool.
And I think too like like it's it's it's pretty common and even
(35:25):
because I did this too to to like shit on Western
civilization and western spirituality and it just but but
I'm a member of Western civilization you know like.
But this is what I was born intomy.
My soul incarnated into this circumstance, into this place.
(35:45):
I didn't Incarnate in India. I didn't Incarnate, you know, in
Russia or you know. So it's like you got a like at a
certain point. And it took me till I was 35 by
the way. And there's also this thing
about like different stages of life like you're you're building
up your different bodies at these different stages and
Steiner categorizes them as seven-year periods and it wasn't
(36:09):
until after the 5th 7 year period of my life was I able to
even open up to the spiritual realm and and when specifically
Western spirituality. But I think it's it's it's not
antithetical to Eastern spirituality.
They are connected and they theyfit together.
(36:31):
And I always say that I like to understand and focus on the the
golden thread of truth that weaves itself through all
spiritual teachings. And for me no one, no one else
has communicated that more clearly than Rudolf Steiner.
And also he does it through likelike he awakened certain he
(36:55):
likens it to like. The the analogy is well, if a
fish wants to become a bird thenit has to develop lungs instead
of gills. And so if you want to perceive
the spiritual realm like people intuitively did way back in the
(37:18):
day, because people in prior ages, you can just tell like
people used to only make music for God.
And. And one of the things that
differentiates us from from ancient people is ancient people
believed the images and stories that arose in their mind to be
(37:40):
more real than the physical realm.
And you especially see that in ancient India where they
characterize the earth as Maya, as a a veil over the true world,
which is the spiritual world which reveals itself an astral
perception in dreams and in daydreams.
And so dreams are the source of myths and the the meaning behind
(38:02):
myths is what underlies the civilizations that we live in
like that that inspiration from those stories built our
civilizations And so I want to understand those on a deep level
and and so a lot of standards teaching as well.
How do you awaken those organs of super sensible perception And
(38:23):
these organs are the chakras. It's the he says first do the
Aaj and the chakra and and you do that through study and then
he says you got to awaken the the throat chakra.
And one of his teachings is thatyou know you look at the number
of petals on on the chakras and and you've got the 16 petaled
Lotus in the throat. He says half of those petals are
(38:44):
awakened and alive automaticallyand you need to awaken the other
8 petals. And so he says systems like the
8 limbs of yoga awaken the othereight petals of the throat
chakra. So it's not like an arbitrary
number that #8 and like the 8, the eightfold path in Buddhism
you know and and he has these six essential exercises, the
(39:08):
meditation exercises that awakenthe dormant 6 pedals in the
heart chakra and then you work on the the lower stuff from
there, so. Are there sort of like lineage
holders of people who are teaching like embodiment
practices through this teachingsof the center?
Or is like is it just you out there?
(39:30):
No, there there are and and and he, I honestly he he made-up his
own embodiment system and it's asystem of dance.
It's called Eurythmia and it's essentially like you embody like
the celestial bodies with certain movements and and and
certain like letters. There's a movement associated
(39:51):
with the with the letter A and so you move in a certain way
that has the quality of the letter A.
So it's a really deep system andI'm not super versed in it and I
want to be, but I'm just tackling so much he he did so
much and but I do have some teachers from that lineage.
Like I mentioned Robert Gilbert and my my main mentor is John
(40:14):
Barnwell and he's such a just humble awesome teacher.
I'm so grateful for him because.And then there's Douglas,
Gabriel and a few others. But like, basically, Steiner's
work is so vast. Well I was, I was in just, you
know whatever video that RudolphSteiner press audio YouTube
(40:35):
channel published that would be the next thing I I learned and
listened to and I would just go in that order and the order is
pretty random. So these guys helped me to say
focus on these concepts and now focus on these concepts and now
go here and now go here and but but the whole thing is like his
his key work is called the philosophy of freedom.
(40:57):
He was asked what will be remembered of you in 1000 years
and he said only the philosophy of freedom, which I don't know
if that I don't think that's true.
I think more will be remembered but because we're 100 years past
when he was teaching right around now and but basically the
fundamental thesis of the philosophy of freedom is that
(41:19):
human beings are free if they'reable to think their own
thoughts. That's the key because he says
the the thought realm is what isuniquely human.
We think in a different like animals don't have that and
plants don't have that. Like we animals feel like us,
(41:41):
but they don't think like us. So if you want to understand
human freedom, you have to look to the realm of thought and I
and that ties into yoga too, because what what are the higher
limbs of yoga all about? That's it.
That's the meditative aspect andthe ability to concentrate and
and to think properly. And so just the thought.
(42:02):
If you take anything away from this podcast, the thought realm
is a very important and the ability to think in pictures
that you that you understand themeaning of.
So you attach certain concepts to pictures.
Not arbitrarily, but there's there's concepts embedded in
(42:23):
pictures and stories. And if you're able and you find
yourself in a situation like like, I'll give you an example.
Sometimes I'll be sitting in meditation and some of the
gnarliest thoughts will come into my mind.
They're like super dark and and and So what I associate that
(42:52):
with is the temptations in the desert when Christ is being
tempted by Lucifer and and and in Steiner's version of the
story, the the Steiner is not like the devil tempting.
Christ isn't just one entity, but it's these two polarities.
We don't get into that now. But but basically I think of
(43:13):
myself when I'm meditating beingpresent, I'm I'm like in a
desert, like I'm trying to kind of be in a nothingness.
And then this entity comes in the form of like a thought form
and tries to take me into this other place.
And that's when I get identifiedwith a thought, especially if
it's like a dark one, you know, and and then so, so when that
happens to me and I see that happen, I'm not just like oh,
(43:36):
I'm going to go with that thought.
I'm like oh this, This being that is associated with this
type of thought is trying to pull me towards.
Him and I'm going to not go withthat temptation and I'm going to
come back and be centered. And so that's an example of like
(43:57):
an image picture, a story that Ican access in my mind that that
guides my behavior in meditationand in daily life.
And so so it it it's a it's a guidepost for my being and the
actions that I take and and so yeah.
That's awesome. It's there's a lot of precedent
(44:19):
of that like in the Buddha storyof being tempted and is trying
to reach enlightenment and all these arrows.
Yeah, and then like the sirens, you know, in the Greek
mythology, trying to tempt the men from their boats.
You know this. There's a lot of that precedent,
I think, and I think it speaks to so much of what is human and
(44:41):
like how our minds can be pulledand distracted or seduced or
material things, right? Absolutely.
Yeah. And that's the other thing that
I love about Steiner is that he he's revivifying even like the
old Pagan traditions and and he says like, hey, this is what
this was about. And this isn't wrong and this
(45:04):
isn't antithetical to Christianity.
It's like basically it's all onereligion, whatever you want to
name it, you know and and but but they it all looks different
because human consciousness evolves over time and in and in
different places on earth it looks different, you know?
(45:26):
Yeah, yeah. Awesome stuff man.
I really appreciate you sharing all this with us.
It's really something I've been wanting to learn more about
myself. So I got I feel like I have a
better overview and like sort ofcontext.
So I know you're running teachertrainings at practice pretty
regularly and you're probably weaving this in there.
So, like, curious how you weave it into the teacher training,
(45:49):
like how teachers might apply itin their teaching.
And like when the next practice training is coming up.
Yeah. So I'm one of the things that I
take care to do is to say like I'm going to give you a lot of
information in training and you should take what's useful for
(46:12):
you right now and leave what isn't.
So I'm never, I'm never going totry to get someone to believe
something. What I'll do is I'll invite them
to suspend disbelief and to justearnestly work with the material
and see if it has a beneficial effect and if it does, great,
and if it doesn't, leave it. So basically I do I run the
(46:35):
weekend track trainings at practice and it's nine weekends
and the final weekend is like a you know a group teach
graduation ceremony. But the other eight weekends you
we will do some sort of physicalpractice.
We do some sort of breathing practice can we do some sort of
(46:56):
meditative practice in each of those weekends.
And so it's it's it's pretty well-rounded experience and
given that it is the 200 hour teacher training it is there's a
heavier emphasis on asana and how to teach asana.
That's the other thing a lot of practice teaching because
(47:17):
because my understanding of liketeaching a yoga class is not
super hard if you have the rightconcepts and and and you know
techniques. But what is hard is making
yourself practice those things. And so the teacher training is
like a container to implement the concepts in a group setting
(47:41):
so that you, you know, get the reps in, you're able to get the
words out and able to teach a yoga class after the training.
So that's an important aspect too.
But it's a it's a well-rounded program.
I think we have done like 13 or 14 and the next one starts in a
little under two weeks. So I don't know if this will be
up by then, but yeah, we're about to jump into the fall, we
(48:02):
can track and then we got another one in spring.
So it's fall spring, fall spring.
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, cool.
So practice. What's the website
againpracticeyogaaustin.com? It's all in person, right?
Yeah, it's all in person. There's some there's some
supplemental videos that you getto watch too.
So if you if you miss, you won'tmiss any of the conceptual stuff
(48:25):
because that's all in the videosbecause some people like oh I
can't make this day but but it'slike it's all good.
You got the you'll get the content, but you know and then
the the we we review the contentin a succinct way in the in
person sessions and then implement that stuff can do the
work. So practice.
(48:47):
Awesome. Well, thanks for being here
today, Ray. And also the Instagram.
What's the practice? Instagram at Practice Yoga
Austin on IG and at Ray's Awareness.
So that's REYS. under score Awareness is my personal one
where I post the Steiner clips and other helpful tips.
(49:08):
So. It's a brilliant username.
Thank you. It just came to me one.
Day and I'm like, hey, this is good.
Yeah. Alright.
Well, thanks for being here today and look forward to
talking again sometime in the future.
Absolutely. Thank you, Jeremy.
There was a certain point and I can talk about this during the
recording, but there was a certain point where I was just
like people are coming to this training seeking something more
than, you know, just like a really good ass in the system,
(00:22):
which at which that is very valuable.
But there were certain questionsbeing asked that I didn't know
how to answer. And I just remember there was a
moment where I was like. I I'm a teacher trainer.
I need to know this stuff and I need to like, you know, study.
And so at that point I just, youknow, was looking into
(00:45):
everything that I could and and and to me that the cosmology
that made the most sense was butRudolf Steiner was putting out
there. I looked a bunch of different
places and everything. There was like a lot of cool
stuff, but no one pieced it all together like Steiner did.
(01:08):
Welcome back to the Yoga TeacherTraining Podcast.
I'm Jeremy Devons and today I'm joined by Ray Cardenas.
Founder of Practice Yoga in Austin, TX who just celebrated
their ten year anniversary. So grateful to have you here
Ray. Thanks for having me and good
job with the last name. It's not easy.
(01:29):
I've actually never known I was just talking.
We were talking about that before I hit record.
I never actually said the name. I just call it always Ray.
But I've watched, you know I wasfinished my teacher training in
2011, 2012, I started teaching alot and and then you started
practice yoga I guess 2013. So I kept, I was always hearing
(01:52):
about it and like always had a really good reputation and like
really good vibe and a lot of the great teachers in Austin, TX
went there. And for listeners, Ray's one of
the rare people born in Austin and still living there and just
outside of the town. But practice was a really cool
vibe and like a special place, and I feel like it still is.
(02:13):
And whenever people go to Austin, they always ask, like,
what yoga studio should I check out?
Practice is always the one I recommend people to.
So I'd love to hear like anything you want to share about
your experience, like creating ayoga studio for our listeners?
Some of our listeners might be like thinking about that or
maybe thinking differently aboutit after the pandemic.
(02:33):
So your journey with that, Yeah,it was kind of a whirlwind.
I was teaching yoga at another studio in town that was really,
really popular and some upheavaltook place.
A lot of changes in the businessmodel and it ended up displacing
(02:53):
a lot of teachers and I held on to my teaching position there
for as long as I could. And I was in this 80 hour
Anusara immersion with Strew andVaz, who has partnered with me
in the studio and with our teachers at that time.
(03:14):
We basically made the commitment.
We were like Okay, It's not working out here where we're at
and we need to do something. Prior to teaching yoga, like
when I was teaching at this other spot, I mean, I could just
say it. When I was teaching at Black
(03:35):
Swan, there was it's under new ownership now.
It's not really a big deal, but that was like a transitionary
period in my life. Prior to that, I was an online
poker player and I was pretty darn successful in that world
until I wasn't. And so pretty much, you know,
(04:00):
found myself in a in a state of limbo for about two years where
I was only teaching yoga and that was pretty much my only
source of income. And I had a child and a mortgage
and so I had to get some help from my folks during that time.
And and my own my I dropped out of college prior, like prior to
(04:21):
that I was delivering pizza. So I didn't have a lot of work
history. I didn't have a lot of skills.
I was, I became a professional poker player in my mid 20s.
And so it was pretty much all I knew how to do was that and
yoga. And so, you know, I didn't, I
really didn't have a choice. I feel like the whole
(04:42):
circumstance was happening to meand happening for me because
things just started to happen and and unfold in a way where it
was like, OK, wow, OK, we're going to do this yoga studio.
I'm going to go look in this area of town.
The first area I looked, I I parked over by what used to be
Tacoma, and I had my bike in my pickup truck.
(05:04):
So I hopped on my bike, rode over.
I was like, I want it. It would be cool to have a spot
by Cheer Up Charlie's because that was like the coolest bar
and spot, you know, on E 6th. And I was like riding my bike
over there and I was thinking, like, what am I doing?
Why am I even looking over here?This is like such a popular
(05:26):
neighborhood. There's not going to be anything
available. And lo and behold, directly
across the street from Cheer Up Charlie's I'm riding up.
I see like a sign in the window what looks like a vacant
building and that was that's it was open.
So I called the note, I looked inside.
It's a big open room. I was like wow, that's one
(05:50):
example of of you know, just something serendipitous
happening regarding opening the studio.
Another cool aspect was Struins very good with numbers.
He's an engineer and so he laid out, you know, the the
quantitative aspect of the business.
And I couldn't have done that onmy own.
(06:15):
And so it really was a team effort.
So if you're thinking of openinga studio, I highly recommend
partnering up with someone who has a skill set that you don't
have. And I was sort of like the the
face and the promotion of the studio.
And Struin was like the back endcrunching the numbers and, you
know, making sure we can make itwork.
(06:36):
And at that time, Blast Swan wason the cutting edge of like
social media marketing. And a big part of the business
model was teachers established adirect connection with their
students. And so we knew that with all
these teachers who were no longer teaching there, they had
a student pool that they could speak to directly.
(06:57):
And so we were able to literallywrite down all the names of
people that we knew were going to come into the door.
We open practice. So we weren't worried about
getting our first customers or anything like that.
And we just made a made a splashwhen we were opening, made a
video, had a party and you know the rest is history.
(07:20):
I don't, I don't know if it's that easy.
It seems like it it it, it seemslike it was sort of like a fairy
tale circumstance. But yeah, we were like breaking
even after four months, which I know like is kind of unheard of
for a lot of businesses. And yeah, it's just, it's been,
(07:42):
it's been great. The the ethos of the studio is
like because we were all kind ofbutt hurt because they're like,
hey yoga teachers, we're being disrespected and we're going to
open a studio that respects teachers and we're going to
prioritize and cater to good teachers and make them feel
welcome and and give them the ability to succeed.
(08:04):
And so that was kind of the guiding light of the studio.
And you know, we're like you hadgood teachers, accessible
structure. It's a donation based thing.
Anyone can come whenever, pay whatever, and you know
everything else will fall into place.
And so thankfully that happened.We're ten years in and it's it's
(08:26):
going well. We got a great we have a
reputation as being like the place where teachers go to
practice and also we've got our senior teachers there that are
teacher trainer. So it's it's part yoga studio
and it's part yoga school. Yeah.
And that decision to do donationbased, I guess it made sense
(08:47):
financially. It seems like kind of risky
though, right? Probably there's a lot of
thought right into that. Yeah.
Also that was the familiarity aspect because Black Swan was
donation based and there's kind of this sentiment that the value
of the accessibility that the donation based model conveys, we
(09:08):
figured that that was going to carry us through and and yeah,
but it is, it is risky and thereare certain things like you have
your suggested donation and now especially with all the
automated payment systems, you can prompt people to donate
suggested amount through the buttons on the the payment
(09:32):
interface. So yeah, you know that those
those little things help but also it's like hey we got the
room, we're not going to turn you away.
So you know and then the processis anonymous.
So we're not really judging. Yeah, yeah.
And you you. So do you do all the memes for
the practice Instagram? I do, yeah.
(09:53):
Sometimes they get me in trouble.
But you know. I I yeah, I've been doing all
I've been doing the memes for that and I I can't like I don't
know I was looking at one day. That's another thing.
It's just like I'm looking at some of the meme templates and
I'm like I could I could do thisand I started to you know put
(10:14):
some words on some images and and you know some of like the
one of the first ones I did was there's that picture of Jimmy
Fallon and he's at a basketball game and he's kind of like
looking off to the side because there's a the back of a
cheerleader like with their you know, just I don't know.
(10:36):
And, you know, open, open posture to him and he's looking
away. And then so I wrote like, you
know, the yoga teacher, that's Jimmy Fallon and the student at
the cheerleader, that's the student and happy baby.
And it's just like, hey, you know, don't make eye contact
during have you ever, you know. So that was one of the first
ones I made. And yeah, it's been it's been
(10:56):
fun. I sort of it's interesting
because when you make content that's popular on social media,
it's it has like an addictive effect where you want to do more
and more because you're getting all that positive attention.
And I saw that happening to me and I was like, I don't want to
just be a meme account or meme maker.
(11:16):
So I I consciously stepped back for a while because it it was
like I was doing it too much. And now I just sprinkle them in
every once in a while. So I got a more healthy
relationship with meaning. Yeah, the the page is pretty
well balanced. I just saw today a post from Jen
talking about, like, her first experience with Ayurveda.
(11:40):
And it's like really grounded. And, like, it's it's great to
hear that story, but then you got the the Iyengar Trump face
meme balance. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Definitely try to. I try to, you know hold the
center I got to polarized and and yeah, I'm all about like
(12:03):
holding the opposites and using that tension to create like a a
third thing, a new thing, you know to progress things forward.
Right. Yeah.
And before I hit record, you were talking about like your
desire to like go deeper into the yoga philosophy and then
(12:25):
bring that into the teacher training and.
And then ending up finding Steiner's work, which is part of
why I initially reached out for the podcast, is just because I
don't know anything about Steiner's stuff.
And I've seen your post about ita lot.
And I thought maybe there's somebridge here because I don't
really know many other yoga teachers talking about it or
into it. And I when I try to get into it,
(12:47):
it seems a little like thick anddense and I'm like, what's a
good entry points? Maybe I get ready to talk about
it for a while and maybe some other Yogi's would be interested
in it too. So I'm curious kind of that
journey of like bringing that philosophy in and maybe that
ties in with what you were just saying too.
Yeah. Well, something that happened to
(13:09):
me in this, in this whole process was I've confronted some
deeply rooted aspects of my personality that.
Are I, to use the right word? But I guess you could say like
selfish or like I had a like basically I was following these
(13:34):
two teachers and the messaging behind what they were saying was
that, you know, you're God and it's all one and well, it's all
one and also it's all multiplicity and and and so
(13:55):
basically like nothing really matters and everything works out
in the end. So essentially you can do
whatever you want. And there was some aspect of my
personality that was like awesome.
That's what I've always wanted to do whatever I want.
And so. I and and and the way that you
(14:17):
this is this is my understandingof what they were putting forth
and maybe I I missed something which I can I can say like sure
the onus is on me but their teaching was like the the way
that you understand like what you truly want and where where
the wisdom's at basically is is in your body.
And so go into your body and don't try to suppress your
(14:43):
instincts and let them play themselves out in the fullest
way possible. So it's kind of A1 sided view
because we have our instincts and our will impulses but we
also have our feelings and our thoughts.
The other thing that contributedto some of the missteps I had
(15:04):
early on, which is what led me to seeking out something that
was grounded in morality, which is what Steiner stuff is
grounded in. It's like it's not an amoral,
it's not a morally relative universe, it's a moral cosmos
that fits together in a certain way, and there's certain laws
that that govern where we are. And so, but one of the things
(15:29):
that caused me to go down the path that I went was a
materialistic outlook that basically said the spirit world
is incomprehensible. I'm not even going to focus on
it. I'm just going to focus on what
my senses conveyed to me. I can't know that stuff.
(15:51):
And therefore I'm going to disregard it.
And I'm going to disregard my. I'm going to limit my thinking
faculty in that way. And so I didn't really like.
And there's there's also this underlying message in a lot of
yoga teaching that says, like, get out of your mind, get out of
your head, you know. And I think that's that's an
incomplete teaching because likemaybe if if you were, like,
(16:14):
caught up in some negative thought pattern that is, you
know, hurting you, then yeah, you want to be able to get out
of your head, get into your breath, get into your body,
that's great. But that doesn't mean abandon
your thinking completely give yourself some space from it and
you know figure out how to thinkbetter, how to work with with
(16:40):
the realm of the head in a in a better way.
And so I was doing all will impulses.
I I I was even calling what I was doing conscious indulgence
and it was like hey what my bodywants to do.
This is this is how I'm free. I'm going to listen to my my
will impulses and that that willmake me free And then so after I
would do like an intense yoga practice.
(17:01):
Well, then I would go to lunch and my instincts would say,
like, well, have a beer You can.You're free.
You work for yourself, you know.And so I would have a drink and
and maybe have another and, you know, and like and all of a
sudden like the. Because here's another thing
that I learned throughout this process is like the lower
(17:24):
impulses associated with safety,security, affection and esteem
and power and control, those will compel you.
And so those actually, you know,you think that you are because
you're you're going against the culture that kind of imposes
certain things that keeps those in check.
(17:44):
And so you feel like it's the culture that's the bigger
imposition on you. I did.
And so I started, you know, justdisregarding that and doing what
I wanted to do and and all of a sudden, you know what I thought
was liberating me. I'm now in servitude too.
And it's it's affecting my perceptions and my associations
(18:05):
and and all of that. And so I basically, you know,
became dominated. I was like a pleasure seeker and
you can only do that for so longand and that drains your energy
and my and you know the true wisdom in my physical body which
wasn't like the the instincts towards the lower level passions
(18:30):
was that like my body basically shut down on me.
It was like stop doing this to me and I had no energy I was in
pain I was like mentally morallybankrupt and and it my body was
like dude you got to stop this and and it basically made me
stop and so I was like okay. I clearly was wrong, clearly
(18:56):
effed up and I need to figure out like a better way.
And also I was, you know, teaching others.
And and basically early on I I was teaching strictly just the
Asana system that I knew and loved, which was an evolution of
the Anusar system, which changedmy life for the better, got me
(19:19):
really into my body. But I didn't have the proper
cosmology to to frame it in. But now I now I do.
So I still use the same Asana system.
But I will tell you this, I don't, like, try to get like
super deep in poses or anything like that.
Like I I used to be really into just like having like sublime
(19:41):
looking poses and getting these deep expressions.
And that was like an indicator of like being at a high level
because I could make my body do these things.
And that's not a priority for meanymore.
I want to, I like to be strong and I like to dabble and
occasionally, you know, hop intothose postures.
(20:02):
But I'm not trying to, like, hold them for a long time or
even get the deepest expression of them that I've ever done.
But yeah, so basically, I I One of the things that I had to
reconcile within myself was my disdain for Western religion.
(20:23):
And I anything that oppressed me, I rebelled against it early
on. And once I realized like, hey,
I'm doing it wrong, I was like you need to go back and look at
these things from a different vantage point and and instead of
writing them off because you don't understand them, try to
understand what's valuable aboutthem.
(20:45):
And and luckily for me and my parents had taken me to this
church when I was younger, called the Church of Conscious
Harmony and it's a contemplativeChristian community.
And the minister there, he almost converted to Hinduism.
He was like friends with also the Dalai Lama and he was very
into like Eastern spirituality and and and harmonizing that
(21:05):
with Christianity. And even those Eastern teachers
that he was friends with, they were like, you need to stay in
the Christian system. That's your system and and and
clothe these universal teachingsin that language.
And so luckily I had that place as a home because when I was a
kid it was always a very welcoming place.
(21:27):
But once I was around in fifth grade, I was like, I can't do
this anymore and my parents let me stop going.
But so I went back there and I found a book called Meditations
on the Tarot, and it's Meditations on the Tarot Journey
into Christian Hermeticism. It was written by this guy named
Valentin Tomberg, and in it he really focuses, especially in
(21:51):
the Magician chapter on on the three sole faculties, thinking,
feeling and willing and making those into a unity.
He's and he says that that's when you're in the yogic state
those 3 sole faculties are harmonized.
And he even cites Yoga Sutra 1.2.
(22:14):
In the first chapter he cited state limbs of yoga and he just
talks about how like this is a system for bringing yourself
into the unified state and you have to get your your will
impulses to what tends to be like the thing that we're least
in control of. You have to bring bring those in
(22:35):
harmony with your you have to work on that through.
Well, he said that he says through like devotion to God and
parts of it. But you can also do it through
thinking. And then and then your thinking
affects your feelings and then your feelings affect your your
will impulses. And so Rudolf Steiner was that
(22:57):
guy's teacher and he and he leftthat that guy had he left
Anthroposophy, which is Rudolf Steiner's system and he went
back to the Catholic Church. And so but for me, I'm like, you
know, reading that book, it didn't inspire me to like join
the Catholic Church or anything.But it, it inspired me to look
deeper into Rudolf Steiner. And so I look into Rudolf
(23:19):
Steiner and I'm just like blown away.
I I find that Udolf Rudolf Steiner Press audio YouTube
channel and it's it's just thousands of of lectures that he
gave over the course of his lifetime and he gave something
like over 66000 lectures and he has 6000 published works.
(23:41):
A lot of them are are transcribed lectures and his his
cosmology is just second to noneit it one of the things that he
focuses on is the mysteries of time.
And so a lot of a lot of spiritual traditions say like
disregard time just become present and and be in the here
(24:05):
and now and that's a good tool to have.
But in terms of like orienting yourself in the in the world
just being present is that can be disorienting you know and so
and even like stuff with astrology like there's a there's
a time there's a spatial relationship to time and there's
different forces that act upon you.
(24:28):
And so to to understand the mysteries of time, you can know
where you came from and then youcan kind of know where you are
and then you can know where you're going.
And so that's what I love about Steiner.
And one of the one of the gripesabout Steiner is that he
(24:51):
characterizes the nature of certain group souls, like
different national group souls, different you know, groups of
people. Says that this is like a a
signature of the group soul thatgoverns an aspect of groups of
people. And even there's a time soul
too. That's like for a certain time
(25:12):
period, this Archangel is informing people's unconscious,
and it has this certain flavor to it.
But he also talks about how we're in an age where our, our
eye, our individuality is able to pull itself out of those
(25:32):
group soul tendencies which weremore pronounced in the past.
And he says, and that's how it should be.
And so these, like distinctions that we make based on on group
identity are not super relevant.And what should be focused on is
the evolution of your individuality.
(25:53):
And the whole mission that he puts forth for humanity is to
become beings of freedom and love.
And he articulates those as these two polarities, where
freedom is like individuality and love is unity, the thing
that connects us in. And so how do we harmonize those
two opposites within ourself? And that's what all his teaching
(26:16):
is all about. Like the the journey of that is
happening. That's what we're experiencing
across many lifetimes. And then his his mission, he
said why he incarnated this mission for that Rudolf Steiner
incarnation was to bring back anunderstanding of reincarnation
and karma. He said we needed to relearn
(26:39):
those because we're on the spiritual arc of humanity now.
We've we've the the materializing arc which he calls
the Mars impulse spirit descending into matter is has
finished and and we've begun to bounce back up to being able to
reengage with the spiritual world and we and it this fall
there's a purpose for it coming into matter to really understand
(27:01):
it and the and the scientific method is like the fruit of that
impulse but it's not the only thing.
And so he says, now that we havethis understanding.
We've got to you know remember where we came from and so I I
just it just makes a lot of sense to me and it's it's it's
hard to encapsulate in one shortpodcast.
(27:25):
But that's part of the reason why I take little bits of his
lectures and I put images to them and captions because I want
to you know get people and it's people seem to really be liking
them. My my follower account went from
like on IG went from like 2300 now it's up to almost 12,000 in
(27:48):
the past like 6 weeks And so it's it's so people are are into
it from all over the world too. It's it's super cool to to see
people following me from Turkey and from South Africa and from,
you know, all over the place. So it's it's nice.
(28:10):
That's awesome. That's really good.
There's a lot of concepts in there that were synced and like
clear, like, OK, I see now I seethe threads of like, how this
weaves with yoga and like where it might evolve from yoga
philosophy or a different perspective on things that we
talk about in yoga philosophy. Is there like a specific way you
(28:32):
might weave into like your current teachings?
I haven't practiced with you as a teacher in a while, so
absolutely. So one of the foundational
things is you have to be able toto pay attention, right?
You have to. You have to be able to
concentrate effortlessly. Like there's two different types
of concentration. There's one where you're like
compelled, where your will is compelled to focus on something
(28:56):
and you can't control it. Let's say like people who suffer
from porn addiction, maybe they're compelled to focus on
that. And then the other type of
concentration is out of your ownfree choice.
You can sit and clear your mind and you can either, like be in
silence and focus on, you know, the the vast nothingness.
(29:17):
And maybe that's and that would be like receptive meditation.
So that's that's my my personal practice and the the practice
that I teach because I have a meditation discord group and
we're doing a six month thing where we're doing Steiner
meditations. And so basically you start by,
you sit and you connect to your breath 1st and when you inhale,
(29:45):
you focus on your skin and you hold the inhale in with your
attention on your skin. And this is like this is
associated with it, an older type of consciousness that in
Steiner systems called moon consciousness in which you're,
it's less individualized, you'vegot the energy from your
(30:08):
environment all around you has come inside of you and so you're
you're kind of merged with that which was previously all around
you and that's it. That's an older form.
And then and then when you exhale you put your attention on
your heart and you breathe out and you hold the breath out with
your attention on your heart. And this when someone gets
(30:30):
really scared and they turn pale.
What just happened is there's a sharp exhale and they hold their
breath out and and and what thatdoes is their blood goes into
their heart because it's that's the instrument of your ego.
So your ego is afraid, goes hometo the heart, and you.
That's why you turn pale, because the blood leaves your
(30:51):
periphery. And Steiner says that it's
really important to be able to kind of send your blood home to
the heart without the feeling offear.
And so hanging out in the retained exhalation without fear
is part of this breathing practice.
And he basically not to be a down or anything, but he says
(31:14):
like in the future, in a future incarnation, you're going to
need this. And so by doing this practice
now you're going to be able to face like really terrible evil
and not be overwhelmed by it, bydoing this breathing practice
and so any and that's the Jupiter consciousness.
(31:36):
So I do that that breath practice inhaling to the skin,
exhaling to the heart. And the effect of that is that
it's a four part breath box breathing and it and it calms
the mind and you do receptive meditation where you just clear
you just notice what's coming across the field of of
awareness, nonidentification with what you find there and and
(32:02):
then abiding from that attention.
Then we go into some form of active meditation where there's
like, you consciously visualize something.
And so right now what we're doing is, and this is a
meditation actually from Daskalos, who's a hermetic,
esoteric Christian teacher from Cyprus.
(32:24):
And basically you visualize a golden sphere around your head.
And this is like this. The sphere is considered to be.
I learned this from Doctor Robert Gilbert by the way over
at Vesica Institute when I give him a shout out.
But the sphere in sacred geometry is considered to be the
perfect shape because the centeris equidistant from all the
(32:49):
points on the periphery. So it's there's it's sort of
like the shape of equality and the realm in which we're all
equal is the realm of spirit. And so it's a spiritual shape.
And so when you hold the golden sphere around your head, you are
having a beneficial impact on your thinking, almost
(33:09):
spiritualizing the sole faculty of thinking.
And then you hold us a a Peach blossom or a light pink sphere
around your heart. And this symbolizes kind of the
passion in the blood being shined the light upon and being
purified a bit and lightened up and so pink sphere around the
(33:32):
heart and then a sky blue spherearound the hips and the lower
abdomen. And that that has a cooling
effect on the the most fiery part of your being the the
digestive fire, you know that sort of thing.
So we and you hold those 3 spheres around you and then you
observe the effect they have andit's a calming effect and and it
(33:54):
it's inviting certain beneficialinfluences in.
And so that's the type of stuff I'm into, is that I like
imaginative meditation and it's it's a higher, it's the higher
limbs of yoga, you know? And I also just do really love
the asana because I noticed thatwhen I sit and meditate, even in
(34:18):
the morning, especially if I haven't been like watching what
I'm eating or watching what I'm is, all this stuff has an effect
on your mind, right? Anything you take in food,
impressions from your phone or from even just the world around
you has an effect. And so but I noticed that after
I do Asana my mind is calm almost regardless of any of
(34:39):
that. Whereas even if I just wake up
and meditate in the morning I I could be, you know, influenced
by you know what what I've been taking in.
And so I I have an appreciation for ASNA but and and I have a
long history of like working deeply with it and I love
sharing that knowledge and teacher training and then I also
(35:00):
love you know, the meditation realm so beautiful.
Yeah, yeah. Sounds like you really
integrated all this into what you're doing and brought in a
lot of different perspectives and.
Really powerful stuff. Really cool.
And I think too like like it's it's it's pretty common and even
(35:25):
because I did this too to to like shit on Western
civilization and western spirituality and it just but but
I'm a member of Western civilization you know like.
But this is what I was born intomy.
My soul incarnated into this circumstance, into this place.
(35:45):
I didn't Incarnate in India. I didn't Incarnate, you know, in
Russia or you know. So it's like you got a like at a
certain point. And it took me till I was 35 by
the way. And there's also this thing
about like different stages of life like you're you're building
up your different bodies at these different stages and
Steiner categorizes them as seven-year periods and it wasn't
(36:09):
until after the 5th 7 year period of my life was I able to
even open up to the spiritual realm and and when specifically
Western spirituality. But I think it's it's it's not
antithetical to Eastern spirituality.
They are connected and they theyfit together.
(36:31):
And I always say that I like to understand and focus on the the
golden thread of truth that weaves itself through all
spiritual teachings. And for me no one, no one else
has communicated that more clearly than Rudolf Steiner.
And also he does it through likelike he awakened certain he
(36:55):
likens it to like. The the analogy is well, if a
fish wants to become a bird thenit has to develop lungs instead
of gills. And so if you want to perceive
the spiritual realm like people intuitively did way back in the
(37:18):
day, because people in prior ages, you can just tell like
people used to only make music for God.
And. And one of the things that
differentiates us from from ancient people is ancient people
believed the images and stories that arose in their mind to be
(37:40):
more real than the physical realm.
And you especially see that in ancient India where they
characterize the earth as Maya, as a a veil over the true world,
which is the spiritual world which reveals itself an astral
perception in dreams and in daydreams.
And so dreams are the source of myths and the the meaning behind
(38:02):
myths is what underlies the civilizations that we live in
like that that inspiration from those stories built our
civilizations And so I want to understand those on a deep level
and and so a lot of standards teaching as well.
How do you awaken those organs of super sensible perception And
(38:23):
these organs are the chakras. It's the he says first do the
Aaj and the chakra and and you do that through study and then
he says you got to awaken the the throat chakra.
And one of his teachings is thatyou know you look at the number
of petals on on the chakras and and you've got the 16 petaled
Lotus in the throat. He says half of those petals are
(38:44):
awakened and alive automaticallyand you need to awaken the other
8 petals. And so he says systems like the
8 limbs of yoga awaken the othereight petals of the throat
chakra. So it's not like an arbitrary
number that #8 and like the 8, the eightfold path in Buddhism
you know and and he has these six essential exercises, the
(39:08):
meditation exercises that awakenthe dormant 6 pedals in the
heart chakra and then you work on the the lower stuff from
there, so. Are there sort of like lineage
holders of people who are teaching like embodiment
practices through this teachingsof the center?
Or is like is it just you out there?
(39:30):
No, there there are and and and he, I honestly he he made-up his
own embodiment system and it's asystem of dance.
It's called Eurythmia and it's essentially like you embody like
the celestial bodies with certain movements and and and
certain like letters. There's a movement associated
(39:51):
with the with the letter A and so you move in a certain way
that has the quality of the letter A.
So it's a really deep system andI'm not super versed in it and I
want to be, but I'm just tackling so much he he did so
much and but I do have some teachers from that lineage.
Like I mentioned Robert Gilbert and my my main mentor is John
(40:14):
Barnwell and he's such a just humble awesome teacher.
I'm so grateful for him because.And then there's Douglas,
Gabriel and a few others. But like, basically, Steiner's
work is so vast. Well I was, I was in just, you
know whatever video that RudolphSteiner press audio YouTube
(40:35):
channel published that would be the next thing I I learned and
listened to and I would just go in that order and the order is
pretty random. So these guys helped me to say
focus on these concepts and now focus on these concepts and now
go here and now go here and but but the whole thing is like his
his key work is called the philosophy of freedom.
(40:57):
He was asked what will be remembered of you in 1000 years
and he said only the philosophy of freedom, which I don't know
if that I don't think that's true.
I think more will be remembered but because we're 100 years past
when he was teaching right around now and but basically the
fundamental thesis of the philosophy of freedom is that
(41:19):
human beings are free if they'reable to think their own
thoughts. That's the key because he says
the the thought realm is what isuniquely human.
We think in a different like animals don't have that and
plants don't have that. Like we animals feel like us,
(41:41):
but they don't think like us. So if you want to understand
human freedom, you have to look to the realm of thought and I
and that ties into yoga too, because what what are the higher
limbs of yoga all about? That's it.
That's the meditative aspect andthe ability to concentrate and
and to think properly. And so just the thought.
(42:02):
If you take anything away from this podcast, the thought realm
is a very important and the ability to think in pictures
that you that you understand themeaning of.
So you attach certain concepts to pictures.
Not arbitrarily, but there's there's concepts embedded in
(42:23):
pictures and stories. And if you're able and you find
yourself in a situation like like, I'll give you an example.
Sometimes I'll be sitting in meditation and some of the
gnarliest thoughts will come into my mind.
They're like super dark and and and So what I associate that
(42:52):
with is the temptations in the desert when Christ is being
tempted by Lucifer and and and in Steiner's version of the
story, the the Steiner is not like the devil tempting.
Christ isn't just one entity, but it's these two polarities.
We don't get into that now. But but basically I think of
(43:13):
myself when I'm meditating beingpresent, I'm I'm like in a
desert, like I'm trying to kind of be in a nothingness.
And then this entity comes in the form of like a thought form
and tries to take me into this other place.
And that's when I get identifiedwith a thought, especially if
it's like a dark one, you know, and and then so, so when that
happens to me and I see that happen, I'm not just like oh,
(43:36):
I'm going to go with that thought.
I'm like oh this, This being that is associated with this
type of thought is trying to pull me towards.
Him and I'm going to not go withthat temptation and I'm going to
come back and be centered. And so that's an example of like
(43:57):
an image picture, a story that Ican access in my mind that that
guides my behavior in meditationand in daily life.
And so so it it it's a it's a guidepost for my being and the
actions that I take and and so yeah.
That's awesome. It's there's a lot of precedent
(44:19):
of that like in the Buddha storyof being tempted and is trying
to reach enlightenment and all these arrows.
Yeah, and then like the sirens, you know, in the Greek
mythology, trying to tempt the men from their boats.
You know this. There's a lot of that precedent,
I think, and I think it speaks to so much of what is human and
(44:41):
like how our minds can be pulledand distracted or seduced or
material things, right? Absolutely.
Yeah. And that's the other thing that
I love about Steiner is that he he's revivifying even like the
old Pagan traditions and and he says like, hey, this is what
this was about. And this isn't wrong and this
(45:04):
isn't antithetical to Christianity.
It's like basically it's all onereligion, whatever you want to
name it, you know and and but but they it all looks different
because human consciousness evolves over time and in and in
different places on earth it looks different, you know?
(45:26):
Yeah, yeah. Awesome stuff man.
I really appreciate you sharing all this with us.
It's really something I've been wanting to learn more about
myself. So I got I feel like I have a
better overview and like sort ofcontext.
So I know you're running teachertrainings at practice pretty
regularly and you're probably weaving this in there.
So, like, curious how you weave it into the teacher training,
(45:49):
like how teachers might apply itin their teaching.
And like when the next practice training is coming up.
Yeah. So I'm one of the things that I
take care to do is to say like I'm going to give you a lot of
information in training and you should take what's useful for
(46:12):
you right now and leave what isn't.
So I'm never, I'm never going totry to get someone to believe
something. What I'll do is I'll invite them
to suspend disbelief and to justearnestly work with the material
and see if it has a beneficial effect and if it does, great,
and if it doesn't, leave it. So basically I do I run the
(46:35):
weekend track trainings at practice and it's nine weekends
and the final weekend is like a you know a group teach
graduation ceremony. But the other eight weekends you
we will do some sort of physicalpractice.
We do some sort of breathing practice can we do some sort of
(46:56):
meditative practice in each of those weekends.
And so it's it's it's pretty well-rounded experience and
given that it is the 200 hour teacher training it is there's a
heavier emphasis on asana and how to teach asana.
That's the other thing a lot of practice teaching because
(47:17):
because my understanding of liketeaching a yoga class is not
super hard if you have the rightconcepts and and and you know
techniques. But what is hard is making
yourself practice those things. And so the teacher training is
like a container to implement the concepts in a group setting
(47:41):
so that you, you know, get the reps in, you're able to get the
words out and able to teach a yoga class after the training.
So that's an important aspect too.
But it's a it's a well-rounded program.
I think we have done like 13 or 14 and the next one starts in a
little under two weeks. So I don't know if this will be
up by then, but yeah, we're about to jump into the fall, we
(48:02):
can track and then we got another one in spring.
So it's fall spring, fall spring.
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, cool.
So practice. What's the website
againpracticeyogaaustin.com? It's all in person, right?
Yeah, it's all in person. There's some there's some
supplemental videos that you getto watch too.
So if you if you miss, you won'tmiss any of the conceptual stuff
(48:25):
because that's all in the videosbecause some people like oh I
can't make this day but but it'slike it's all good.
You got the you'll get the content, but you know and then
the the we we review the contentin a succinct way in the in
person sessions and then implement that stuff can do the
work. So practice.
(48:47):
Awesome. Well, thanks for being here
today, Ray. And also the Instagram.
What's the practice? Instagram at Practice Yoga
Austin on IG and at Ray's Awareness.
So that's REYS. under score Awareness is my personal one
where I post the Steiner clips and other helpful tips.
(49:08):
So. It's a brilliant username.
Thank you. It just came to me one.
Day and I'm like, hey, this is good.
Yeah. Alright.
Well, thanks for being here today and look forward to
talking again sometime in the future.
Absolutely. Thank you, Jeremy.
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