Csilla Bíró

If someone had told to me ten years ago that today I can teach traditional yoga, pranayama, and chakra meditation, I would not have believed my ears. In those days my entire life had been pervaded on every single level by the overwhelming daily flux of the great treadwheel we call the Western way of living.  I was under the thumb of its endless working hours, business trips, and an ever pressing tension and fear of missing something important.  It would not be too far fetched to say that my life then as a musical manager was light years away from the world I live in now.

It was only with the unexpectedly swift passing of my father, that life came to shed a striking light on the fact how frail and ephemeral a creature the human being is, and how easily and capriciously the great wheel of life can turn with us at any given moment. This was the moment when I came to realize that there exists a different path based on mindful eating, transcending outdated old habits, a medicine-free life, and above all, regular physical exercise.

So I took a deep breath and went out to attend my very first class in hatha yoga. 90 minutes later I realized that I could finally breath, and beyond a sense of gentle fatigue filling my body, my whole being came to be permeated with a pleasant feeling of harmony and poise. From then on I started to attend the classes ever more often. My interest and appetite never waned, and from one day to another I wanted to know more about what, how and most importantly why I should do what I chose to do, to make my progress on my chosen path as perfectly as it was possible. In a few years I completed a 350 hour yoga teacher training course, which was followed by a 100 hour Chandra Krama Sequence in 2018.  At that point I faced a new revelation, as a kind of breakthrough, when I had to understand that mere stamina and body consciousness are but a drop in the vast and almost infinitely deep ocean of yoga sciences. Thus becoming absorbed in yoga philosophy I realized, that regulating our body is a minuscule task in comparison to the one demanded by the calming of the mind, the letting go of thoughts which at times can be of devastating power and magnitude, and the releasing of the grasping of our ever craving egotistic hunger for recognition and control.

So a new 100 hour training followed, which focused on the unity of asanas, pranayama and mantra recitation. The journey always starts from within, with ourselves, therefore I too chose to proceed with working on my own self, endeavouring to safeguard, cleanse and rebuild my mind, my mental structures, and my way of seeing things. Becoming a Vegetarian came easily for me, the rhythm of my life, my sleep, and my everyday life in general came to find its balanced flow in a desired channel. The practice of yoga brought peace, serenity and calmness into my life, that none other did before.

At this point did the thought and the desire dawn upon me to share with others all the blissful transformative power and effect I could thank to yoga, and thereby help all those, who just like my earlier self, run their seemingly endless laps in their respective treadwheels of the world and their everyday life.

This mindset has opened up an entirely new perspective about my self-image as well.

I realized that I can rightly and proudly be the 54 year of woman I am now, who is filled with energy, dreams and plans, and who actually does her best to achieve them all. Therefore I encourage all, who for the sake of revitalizing and maintaining their bodily-mental-spiritual health are ready to do something, to join me in practicing yoga. Act for yourself, irrespective of age and weight, because a harmonious, balanced, and stress-free life does truly exist. Gift yourself with the most natural remedy.

Yoga is none other, than the harmony of conjoining body, mind and spirit, which creates for us bodily health, helps us discover the clarity of the mind resembling a still water of a pond and the pure and perfect light of the soul radiating through our very self from the centre of our heart connecting us with our beloved, an ever vibrating and pulsating universe, and the Absolute itself. Through yoga we can become confident, perceive and experience everything in its own essence, thereby becoming human beings of decency who are attentive about themselves and their environment, and are ready to take responsibility for their lives and actions.

Yoga and music

Having started my career as a classical pianist, I am totally aware of all those inevitable physical problems and illnesses, that besides the elevating and glorifying experience of completeness that music can give, unavoidably accompany the life of a professional musician. Most classical musicians therefore suffer from one or more severe problems of the spine, the neck, the shoulders, the arms, the waist or the shortened hamstrings. In addition to all that comes the migraine induced by stress, sleep disorders, and illnesses affecting the digestive system and the intestines, which not infrequently force an artist to give up a professional career.

However, this does not necessarily have to happen should the musicians too come to acquaint themselves with the power of yoga which elevates both body and mind. Likewise it is important to learn the common points which run between yoga and the daily practice sessions and the life philosophy of a classical musician.

HARMONY, BREATHING, FOCUS = ASANAS, PRANAYAMA, MEDITATION