Advanced Yoga Practices (AYP)
Community update notice
August 23rd 2024
We are planning a few changes over the next year or two. Here is a summary of some of the changes that are coming, and some new projects that are planned, or already in the works:
Tibetans turning prayer wheels outside a Mahayana Buddhist temple. The prayers are printed on scrolls stored inside the wheels. The prayers are printed onto paper from wooden blocks that are carved by the monks and nuns. |
New Public AYP Community Support Forum
We are currently working on setting up a new AYP Community Support Forum. This will be on a new, more modern platform, which will support more features than we currently have available. Hopefully it will support these new features:
- Image sharing.
- Email notifications when replies are posted.
- Access via an app (on iPhone or Android) as well as through a browser.
- Multi-language in-app translation.
- Better display of links.
- Improved quotes feature.
- Multi-threading (being able to reply to a comment half-way through a discussion).
- Likes.
- Tagging.
- In-app notifications.
The plan is that this new public forum will build on the existing AYP Public support forum which can be found here. All the posting in the existing forum will remain as it is. Access to the new forum will be free for anyone in the world. If all goes well, it could be available by the end of October, or beginning of November, this year.
Changes to the AYP Yoga Teacher Training Program
This year’s AYP Teacher Training Course in Thailand will be our last training course to take place in Thailand for a while. Instead, we will be moving the training courses to Europe. Most of the people who have been taking the trainings are based in Europe or North America, so running the courses in Europe will make more sense in terms of people needing to travel for the trainings. Europe is a shorter flight from North America than Thailand is.
We are also planning to offer part of the training online and part in-person. This will mean that people who are not able to get one-month off work in one go will still be able to train as an AYP yoga teacher. The courses will likely involve a one-week residential during the Spring and a second one-week residential in the Autumn with online training taking place in-between these two residential courses. We are hoping there will also be a fully-online option for people who are not able to attend in-person trainings such as carers, people with young children, or people who live far away.
There will not be an AYP Teacher Training Course during 2025, so the next course will likely be in 2026. We are currently looking for a suitable venue.
New Books on Yoga
This year there were several new books published: One on “Kundalini Awakening” by myself, the “Prayers and Poems” book by Yogani, and a new publication of the AYP Lessons including the hundreds of Lesson Additions added by Yogani.
Over the next few years I am hoping to publish a number of new books:
- A new translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with commentary. My hope is to produce a book that is easy to read which dives deeply into this profound ancient text.
- A book covering my own spiritual journey, including my experiences in the monasteries and ashrams of Nepal, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.
- A second volume of my Kundalini Awakening book. Since publishing the first volume many people have written in with additional questions, so my plan is to publish a second volume to include this additional material.
- A new book on Tantric sexual practice and how it can act as an aid to the spiritual path if used wisely.
Work on all these books has begun and they will be available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble, when they are published.
New Online Video Courses
I have started work on a number of new online AYP video courses. These are the courses currently being produced:
- A course on Samyama practice including a study of chapter three of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali which is the chapter dedicated to Samyama practice.
- A course on Self-Inquiry (Jnana Yoga) which will be a step-by-step guide on going from introducing self-inquiry to a yoga practice for the first time right up to the higher stages of Pure Abiding and Advaita.
- A course on Spinal Breathing Pranayama.
- A course on understanding the nature of Emptiness (Śūnyatā).
These are all being filmed in English and will be available through The AYP Academy when they are ready. They will add to the existing AYP courses there. I am hoping these will all be available by June of 2025 with some being made available earlier.
New YouTube Videos
Last Winter I filmed a number of short podcast videos for YouTube. Some of the videos have received between 1,000 and 10,000 views and the channel has around 1,200 subscribers. From November this year I will continue to film for the channel to cover more aspects of the practice of yoga and on the spiritual journey.