The Quiet Place is my offering and my service.
Here are some words about why my intention is to hold this space, and why I feel qualified to do so.
I approach Yoga as originally intended: a way to be.
Short version
Training
- Completed a 4-year, 830-contact-hour Yoga teacher-training programme (2008)
- Curriculum centred on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Yoga as therapy, personal development, and one-to-one tuition skills
- Ongoing study with numerous teachers, plus in-depth study of classical texts, commentaries, and translations
Practice
- Started out on the Yoga path in late 80’s
- Daily Vipassana meditation practitioner since 2011 — nine 10-day courses completed to date
- Daily personal Yoga practice sustained since April 2004 (20+ years)
- First decade supported by regular one-to-one tuition; practice now self-directed, guided by classical principles
Teaching
- Delivering classes, workshops, and one-to-one tuition since completing teacher training
- Specialised in classical, Sutra-based Yoga as spiritual life-practice — not just physical exercise
Lifestyle & Values
- Vegan, following the yogic principle of ahimsa (non-harm)
- Abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and recreational or pharmaceutical drugs
- Daily life guided by the yama and niyama (ethical and lifestyle principles) of Classical Yoga
Extended version
I have ever had strong, but often frustrated, spiritual inclinations.
As a young child I was an altar boy.
I imagined that I would be a priest when I was older.
I would look up at the beams of light passing through the clouds and picture them radiating from God way up there.
In my teens, during the late 70s, there was too much that felt too wrong to me in the orthodox Catholicism within which I was raised.
My instinctive search for Truth widened.
I discovered Yoga in a book, to start with, in the mid-80s.
I went to my first simple Hatha Yoga classes in the early 90s.
From then on I attended many classes and workshops in various styles with many teachers.
I also practised bodywork(yoga asana) at home, albeit without much idea of how to do that effectively.
Nor did I know how to make that physical practice a spiritual practice.
Nevertheless, change happened.
A turning point
In the early 00s I discovered Classical Yoga in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
The whole Yoga-as-spiritual-practice thing opened up for me in a big way.
Here was what I had been missing.
In April 2004 I committed to daily practice, for the first ten years or so supported by regular one-to-one tuition, using the Yoga Sutras as the core guide.
I have kept this commitment to this day, although now I feel qualified to listen inside and lead my own practice, applying as I go the principles and techniques I have pursued and, to a degree, mastered.
Formal training
I completed intensive, high-quality, 4-year Yoga teacher-training in 2008.
This included 830 contact hours, personal development, plus homework/assignments, with emphasis on the Yoga Sutras, Yoga as therapy and on learning to deliver one-to-one tuition.
I have studied with many teachers, and absorbed many books with a particular interest in the commentaries and translations of ancient texts, which seem to me free of much of the clutter of the modern mind, and are more oriented to Yoga as transformative spiritual journey/pilgrimage rather than simply as physical exercise and feeling nice.
I have since delivered regular classes, irregular workshops and one-to-one tuition.
Meditation
After a few years exploring various approaches to meditation, including two solid years of twice-daily mantra, I completed my first 10-day Vipassana meditation course in July 2011.
Again, the journey deepened; the changes were immediate and profound.
I added Vipassana to my ongoing daily commitment.
My next course will be my tenth.
Milestones and landmarks
I am so grateful for all that this discipline has given to me, and for all the crippling physical, emotional and mental burdens it has helped me to manage and, sometimes, to shed.
As I have progressed, at times slipping back, tripping over, getting lost, return to the practice has stabilised, centred and oriented me.
I have passed through milestones and landmarks - physical, energetic, cerebral, emotional and transcendent - on the journey.
And experienced the change that focused, appropriate, conscious journeying inevitably achieves.
It has fed me, supported me, nurtured me and given to me more than I can say, probably more than I myself am aware of.
It has saved me from the worst of my smaller self, whilst steadily, and on grace-filled occasion explosively, revealing something bigger that was previously hidden.
Living the practice
My practice has become independent, internalised, personal and intuitive; listening to the teacher within.
I follow to the best of my capacity the guidance for living daily life given in the Yoga Sutras; the yama and niyama.
These morality-based life-choices (yama), and balancing and purifying life-habits(niyama), form a firm foundation for walking on, and help clear the clouds from our minds.
The first and foundational principle, yama, of a Yoga life, is non-violence/non-harm: ahimsa.
For me this means that I follow a tight vegan lifestyle.
Following the guidance of the Buddha, I do not, many years since, dull/cloud my mind-energy-body field with drugs, including tobacco, alcohol, nor pharmaceutical.
This helps achieve and maintain optimal clarity, sensitivity, health and balance, and removes the burden of subtle guilt that goes with personal intoxication and indulgence.
On being a “Yoga Teacher”
The words “Yoga Teacher” have become very cheapened.
Traditionally, someone was only granted the accolade of Guru (Bringer of Light, Yoga Teacher) if enlightened; an ego-free, sage/seer living immersed in the Ocean of eternal being-awareness-bliss (sat-chit-anada).
I am clearly not this … I am where I am, and with plenty work still to do.
But … I know where the Inner Ocean is, I know how to get there, I paddle on the shore, and have even taken occasional short dips in the deep, quiet, clear water.
I continue to work towards total immersion and the Freedom therein.
I offer an understanding, intellectual, heartfelt, and directly experienced of the detail and meaning of the Yoga Sutras, and of the spirit of some few of the ancient texts.
Plus experience and skill with a range of techniques and tools towards the ongoing development of a personal, independent spiritual practice.
And a space in which to practise this.
The Quiet Place
The Quiet Place is my giving back.
It is a dream realised.
My service and my offering.
A deepening of my own practice.
In committing to it I move into a new phase on my journey towards Inner Truth.
I now picture the beams of light radiating from the Divine within each of us.
I look forward to sharing with anyone with whom this resonates and who wishes to travel awhile together.
Sincerely, with my opening heart,
Rich.
Om shanti
Om shanti
Om shanti shanti shanti-hi
(“Shanti” means “Peace”)
I am developing ideas around the application of ancient knowledge to modern life here (external link to sister website)
Connect
peace [@] thequietplace [.] info
601 880 470
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