Author Archives: Jean-Claude Garnier

« Onion Bhaji » (onion fritters)


Ingredients for 4 people :
 
• 2 yellow or red onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 bunch of fresh coriander or fresh parsley
• ½ tsp. cumin seed
• ¼ tsp. to c. powdered red pepper (optional)
• ½ tsp. to c. garam massala (optional)
• 2 tsp. to c. turmeric
• 2 tsp. to c. curry
• 100g of wheat flour (for gluten-free: 100g of buckwheat or millet or chickpeas flour)
• A little salt and pepper to your taste
 
Preparation time: 15 ’
 
Cooking time: A few minutes
 
Preparation:
 
1. Two large onions, peeled and cut into 3 mm slices
2. Peel the garlic cloves and cut them into pieces (thin)
3. Place the onions and garlic in a bowl and salt them to bring out the water
4. Finely chop the bunch of herbs (coriander or parsley) that you place with the onions and garlic.
5. Let sit 30 ’so that the onion juice comes out
6. Add, spices, flour gradually, more or less, so that the onions stick together. With the fingertips, mix all the ingredients, if necessary add a little water.
7. In a saucepan or fryer, heat the oil (coconut or rapeseed Holl, sunflower HO (frying oils)) to 180 ° no more …
8. Take a large tablespoon of the preparation and form a ball which you place in the hot oil. Make sure these balls do not touch, especially at the beginning of the cooking. Turn them over regularly so that they are well colored.
9. Place them on absorbent paper, they are ready to eat.
 
Note:
You can prepare them the day before for the next day. To reheat them, place them for 7 to 8 ’in an oven preheated to 180 ° (thermostat 6/7). Let them cool for a few minutes so that the “Bhajis Onions” regain there “crispness”.
 
“Onions Bhajis” by Ranesh, Blue Elephant Restaurant, Mahābalipuram – India
 
 
Serve with cucumber sauce (Raïta) see recipe. It is a popular entry in India. The spice dosage can vary depending on your preferences. We can of course, modify the mixture of spices according to our desires. Frying is traditional, but baking is also possible (preheat the oven to 220° C (thermostat 7/8) and bake between for 15 to 20’, it is lighter, the choice is yours !
 
Om Shanti
 
JC
 

GREECE & INDIA

« Greece is the embodiment of beauty and ligth »
Pascal Bruckner

Greece and India have a long common history. For about two centuries, Indo-Greek kingdoms were known, they were essentially territories conquered by Alexander the Great.

Ancient Greece and India have many affinities. Indeed, between the Goddess Athena and the Sakti, the great Indian Goddess who represents the feminine creative energy, with many forms (Devī, Umā, Pārvatī, Durgā, Lakṣmī, Kālī, Sarasvatī …), there are many common characterstics, many related myths, between themselves and in their “indirect” descendants : Erichthonios, for Greece, Gaṇesha or Skanda / Murugan / Kārttikeya for India.

Athéna

Pārvatī

According to Homer, Erichthonios is the son of Hephaestus and Gaia (the Earth): Hephaestus tries to violate Athena, sperm spreads on the thigh of the Goddess who wipes it off with a woolen cloth that she throws onto the ground. The Earth, thus fertilized, gives birth to Erichthonios, (ἔριον / erion, wool, and χθών / khthốn, the earth).

Érichthonios

Patañjali

According to the Śivapurāṇa, Pārvatī conceived Gaṇesha, mixing clay (earth) with secretions of her skin.

According to the Skandapurāna, Śiva would have let out his semen, which was then harvested by Agni, the God of fire. It was so hot that the fire itself could not contain it, so he poured it into the Gangā (the celestial river). As a result, Agni and Gangā are sometimes considered as Skanda / Kārttikeya’s parents. Gangā being not very maternal, Kārttikeya is said to have had many nannies, sometimes the seven Mātrikā *, sometimes the seven Krittikā, personifications of the constellation of the Pleiade, to which he owes his name Kārttikeya. Because of the large number of his nurses he is sometimes represented with six heads to suckle each of them. In addition, Karttikeya * is systematically born extra-uterine, either on the breast of Gangā or on the peak of six or seven different mountains (Skanda means “jet of sperm”, Sanskrit, skand, “to transmit”).

* Kārttikeya : According to Greek mythology, “the Pleiades” “the seven Krittikā” are seven sisters, daughters of the Titan Atlas and Pléioné (an oceanic nymph aquatic but not marine).

1. Maia

2. Alcyone

3. Asterope

4. Celaeno (or Selena)

5. Electra,

6. Taygete

7. Merope 

* Sapta mātrikā (s), the seven divine mothers, were gradually considered as the paredres (female counterparts) and Sakti (s) (Power of Creation), female personifications of different Devā (s) (Gods).

1. Brahmani is the śakti of Brahmā

2. Vaishnavi is the śakti of Viṣṇu

3. Mahesvari is the śakti of Śiva

4. Indrani is the śakti of Indra.

5. Kaumari is the śakti Skanda

6. Varahi is the śakti of Varaha

7. Chamunda (or Narasimhi) is the Sakti of Śiva

They are also, for some authors, forms derived from the goddess Chandī or Chandikā, kind and protective form of Durgā. They are the personifications of the seven stars constituting the pleiads.

 

Yoga teacher Dorothée Mendel

 

Brussels, Dorothée has lived thirteen years abroad. (Paris, New York, Tel Aviv)

Passionate about literature, she graduated in art history and drama in Paris.

In Tel Aviv, she crosses the path of Ashtanga yoga, and, in fact, quickly, a discipline of life.

Since 2016 she has been training to become a teacher with Jean-Claude Garnier in Brussels.

Rigor and method, the practice of yoga opens the way to the learning of balance, knowledge and listening to oneself.

At the beginning of the huge road ahead, she discovered a passion for teaching yoga, a real revelation.

 

dorotheemendel@gmail.com

Training Memories

Here are some graduation theses, which you can download …

Formation 2012

Mémoire de fin d’études de Annette Pedde

Les āsana(s) de la première série

>> Read and download in french the theses


Mémoire de fin d’études de Jean-Luc Marquise

De Formation Professeur Ashtanga Yoga

>> Read and download in french the theses


Mémoire de fin d’études de Sergine Laloux

moire Danse et Yoga

>> Read and download in french the theses


Formation 2016

Mémoire de fin d’études de Rémy Mendelgwaig

Emotions et Yoga

>> Read and download in french the theses


Mémoire de fin d’études de Camille Dupriez

Étude comparative des pensées stoïcienne et yogi sur le rapport au corps au travers de la question : « Est-ce que mon corps m’appartient ? »


Mémoire de fin d’études de Dorothée Model

De la douceur…

Mémoire de fin d’études de Thomas Vandenheede

Mon histoire, le spina bifida et ma rencontre avec le Yoga

Mémoire de fin d’études de Jean Jaffré

Michael Stone et Richard Freeman, histoire et traduction

Yoga teacher Marie Wittock

Sivananda Yoga is a traditional form of Haṭha Yoga from Northern India, which includes two breathing exercises, 12 main postures and relaxation episodes. The sequence is always the same, on a calm and progressive rhythm. The regularity of the postures invites you to a greater control of these, as well as to a clear evolution of your practice. The attention is put on the breathing and the relaxation, in order to relax the psychic and the body, to go deeper in each posture and to enter meditation. This type of Yoga is for all levels. A Sivananda course lasts 1h30.

Her passions for yoga and cooking have always guided Mary: yoga is what first awakened her the appetite for better nutrition. After living for 3 months in an ashram, his daily life completely changed! Apart from daily meditations and regular postures, healthy eating (vegetarian) is an aspect of yogic life she could discover. His interests in the philosophy of Yoga and the health of the body and mind encouraged him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (2016).

Marie has been teaching yoga since 2013 and continues to enrich her practice and knowledge through various learning experiences. She is currently training as a yoga teacher in Ashtanga Yoga, with Jean-Claude Garnier.

Marie Wittock – La Meilleure Part

Best of yourself with yoga & food

+32 474/53.82.93 –

www.lameilleurepart.com

 

Chennai & St Thomas

Jesus called his twelve disciples (in the Matthieu chapter 10-Verses 1 to 9)

V1. Having called his twelve disciples to him, he gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
V2. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
V3.Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
V4. Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
V5. These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.
V6.  Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.
V7.  As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.
V8.
 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,[a] drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
V9. “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts.

 

Tradition says that St Thomas came to India in 74 AD to convey the Jesus’ message.

San Thome Cathedral was built in 1504. After a fire, it was rebuilt in neogothic style from 1893 to 1896, then completely renovated in its present form in 2006, its stone spire reaches 50 meters high. The building contains many relics (some bones) of Saint Thomas in the crypt. The tomb is located in the middle of the transept (accessed by the entrance of the museum at the back of the cathedral). The cathedral in itself is not extraordinary, but seeing it at illuminated night is a spectacle, it looks like a very nice white sugar cake …

At the top of Mont Saint Thomas, the viewpoint offers a wide panorama of the city of Chennai. The small church “Our Lady of Hope” (16th century, but with no architectural interest) rises from the place where the apostle supposely died.

On Little Mount, 3 km from Mont Saint Thomas, there is a small grotto where Saint Thomas meditated, at the back of the cavity is a source which is, of course, miraculous …

Yoga alternate teacher, Alice Haumont, training

 

Trained in dance (classical and contemporary) in my childhood, graduate and researcher in Philosophy (Free University of Brussels, 1994-2004), I found in the practice of Ashtanga Yoga the meeting point of these two passions.

This discovery of Ashtanga Yoga constitutes for me a true discipline as well as a deep tool of self-knowledge. This led me to undertake the training of a teacher taught by Jean-Claude Garnier, of whom I have been faithful to the teaching for several years.

“Simply be present with your own shifting energies
and with unpredictability of life as it unfolds.”

K. Pattabhi Jois.

Contact information :

 

 

The path of the Orthodox tradition

We have all been rocked in our childhood by the journey of Ulysses and the twelve labours of Hercules…

The journey of Odysseus symbolizes the quest for self, the twelve steps have an initiatory value as the twelve labours of Hercules represent the quest for the ‘self’ to the ‘self’ through the obstacles encountered on the path toward oneself. It is through these myths that man realizes himself. It is a YOGA.

pant7A

 The path of the Orthodox tradition

 Making emptiness, finding absence, in order to find Presence… meeting heaven in Earth. In the Orthodox tradition, it is experience that matters, it is by the sensorial and emotional feeling that meeting occurs and not through a theory or a religious ideology.

“To see oneself in someone else and in the loved”.
Father Georges
 

Tradition, is a “charismatic” experience, it’s meaning is the one of the word communion; it is not just a historical memory of the words.

All Orthodox churches claim according to the tradition of a foundation dating back to the first century of our era.

As the Hindu tradition is faithful to the Veda, the tradition of the Orthodox churches is faithful to the Gospel, to the teaching of the Apostles, to faith, to prayer, to the Tradition. This ‘Tradition’ relies on witnesses, called here Fathers of the Church, Fathers of the desert, and instructors of monastic life because their asceticism and spiritual lives are eminently doctrinal. They are like the Rishi (s) in ancient India with all the strength brought from ascetic experience and from the experience of the divine gained through prayer.

They are the ones who, as the Yogi, embody, make live and flourish from generation to generation, the path, the road, in their own lives and transmit all there strength.

The vocation of the desert passes through Mount Sinai, Mount Athos and the monasteries of the Meteors.

  • Mount Sinai (Moses mountain) houses the Monastery St. Catherine of Sinai, also called Monastery of the Transfiguration, which attracts many pilgrims. To go to the Summit of Mount Sinai, take Siket Sayidna Musa, which enters the ravine behind the monastery “the route the 3750 steps of penance”.
  • Mount Athos (the Holy Mountain) brings together twenty monasteries which support about 2 000 Orthodox monks and other searchers of truth in a mountain landscape also called “Christian Tibet”.

To stay on Mount Athos: it is necessary to obtain a permit (the famous “diamonitirion”). To get it, make a demand addressed to the Office in Thessaloniki pilgrims, “Grafio Proskikiton 109 rue Egnatia – 54622 Thessaloniki Greece”. Give your desired date to visit Mount Athos. You can write, send a fax (00 30 2310 222424), email (pilgrimsbureau@c-lab.gr), or call (00 30 2310 252578). The easiest is to telephone.

The Manager speaks French, English and Greek; he will give you all the useful information for obtaining the “diamonitirion”. Supporting documents can be sent by mail. You can request a renewal for a period of 4 to 8 days at Karyes, the administrative capital of Mount Athos (offices at the top of the stairs, on the right of the church)

  • The monasteries of the Meteors or the monasteries hanging from the sky (Μετέωρα Μοναστήρια). Athanase the Great is the founder of the Monastery of Transfiguration or Monastery of the Great Meteor. Today only six monasteries are still active.

Kyrie Eleison

The prayer of the heart is intended to be repeated continuously, without distraction of the mind, like a mantra. It is the keystone of the spiritual practice of the Church of the East, which leads to mystical union with God

” Man is similar to a tree:”
body work represents the leaves,
while the guard of the inside is the fruit.
Yet the Scriptures say:
Every tree that does not produce good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
It is therefore manifest that our efforts must look at the fruit,
i.e. the guard of the mind; we nevertheless
need the cover, and the finery of the leaves: it is the body work. ”
Apophtegmes, Agathon, 8″

This will be the teaching of the masters of hesychasm: they will never cease to recommend first and foremost to be attentive to oneself, to enter one’s heart; or, in the words of Saint Jean Climaque, «to aspire to circumscribe the intangible (spirit) in the body “, instead of letting it (the intangible) disperse outside. This is what we call Pratyahara and Dhāraṇā in the asceticism of yoga.

But to the practice of the invocation, we must add some more external conditions:

The first – the retreat into solitude and silence, far from all worldly fuss.

The second – to life in retirement, hesychast tradition added later the practice of a determined body posture and some control of the respiration. This is what we call Āsana and Prāṇāyāma in Yoga.

”One should not think, Christian brothers, that only priests and monks have a duty to pray continually and not the laity. No, no, All Christians have in common the duty to be always in prayer. »
Gregory Palamas

In the philosophy and basic practice, there is virtually no difference between an ascetic Hindu and the approach to God in the Orthodox way. It is through the asceticism of the body, the respiratory control and control of the mind through the repetition of a mantra that we succeed in the Ultimate.

To go further:

  • Petite philocalie de la prière du cœur, Éditions du Seuil (1 novembre 1979) ISBN-10 : 2020053489
  • Philocalie des Pères Neptiques T.A1, Bellefontaine59 (1 décembre 2004) ISBN-10 : 2855899753

You can read the excellent article by Jacques Vigne, titled “ Non-dualité et Mystique Chrétienne,” Vedanta and hesychasm, published in Question de n° 99 et 100 (1995).. This text is a study on Christianity and Hinduism, especially the hesychasm, i.e. the mystique of the Fathers of the desert, and of the Vedanta.

 

AshtangaNews

In this part “blog”, you can consult news directly or indirectly related to Yoga as well as articles in the press, talk with us by offering other articles, and reviews !

Complete Sanskrit: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding Sanskrit, with Original Texts: (Book only) Learn to read, write, speak and understand a new language with Teach Yourself Paperback – 25 Jun 2010

Designed for complete beginners, and tested for years with real learners, Complete Sanskrit offers a bridge from the textbook to the real world, enabling you to learn the grammar, understand the vocabulary and even how to translate the inscriptions and texts from this ancient and religiously significant Indian language.

Structured around authentic material, and introducing the Devangari script for those who wish to take their understanding further, this first updated new edition for some twenty years also features:

 

Links page

On this page you will find the main links that we use, either for the purchase of equipment, or to visit Ashtanga Yoga teacher friends, etc.

Equipment

A specific nature of Ashtanga Yoga, it is that a carpet is enough to practice. Below a list with some addresses for you obtain this material :

  

Web sites on Ashtanga Yoga

Official website of Sri K.Pattabhi Jois, Krishnamacharya, BKS Iyengar

Other sites of our friends

Belgium :

France :

Paris

Rennes (Bretagne)

  • Cécile Dalibard Raout : La Basse Lande, 35190 CARDROC – Telephone : 99.45.82.09
  • http://www.aray.fr Yan & Anne-Marie Le Boucher, Luc Carimalo & Mireille Drouet, etc.

Fourmies (Nord of France)

Greece :