Ananda Center for Self-Healing

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Foundation Courses

In the Foundation Courses you learn the basic principles and techniques which you can practice at home to achieve and maintain a state of dynamic health. You may participate in the Foundation Courses, or in any of the programs and intensives, in any order.

Life Therapy
What You Can Do Yourself To Have a Dynamic, Healthy and Happy Life

25-30 March 2012 (in Italian only)
13-18 May 2012 (in Italian only)
2-7 September 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)

This course will give you the opportunity to evaluate and improve the present condition of your physical-emotional-spiritual health and to go deeper into the concepts presented in the introductory Life Therapy weekend. Classes are based on Yogananda’s principles of dynamic health, and include a rich array of self-healing techniques that work on all levels of our being. In addition, we will deepen our understanding of how to use the basic techniques of Ananda Yoga, meditation and Yogananda’s energization exercises, for our own healing.

Topics in the week-long course include:

• Six points of a radiant health
• How to work with subtle energy
• Affirmations for Spiritual Self-healing
• Yogananda’s magnetic healing and heliotropic exercises
• How to be a channel of healing energy
• The therapeutic effects of meditation
• How to contact your higher Self

Interview with Shivani

Meditation Therapy
Superconscious and Energetic Techniques of Self-Healing

9-13 April 2012 (in Italian or English with translation) (A deposit of € 50.00 is required to confirm your reservation.)
24-29 June 2012 (in Italian only)

In this program you will learn to use meditation and Energization exercises for healing yourself on all three levels of consciousness. In addition to the group practices, the morning classes and afternoon workshops, each participant will have an opportunity to speak personally with one of the Meditation Counselors.

During this course you will experience:

• How to deepen your meditation practice, or if you are a beginner, how to establish a regular practice
• A greater understanding and ability to deal constructively with your subconscious habits and emotions
• How to use the meditative state and superconscious awareness to answer questions and solve problems
• Yogananda’s “superconscious self-healing technique,” and his “magnetic and heliotropic healing exercises”
• How to pray effectively, and receive an answer
• How to pray for others in the best way
• The powerful Purification Ceremony
• Heart-opening and healing chants and mantras
• For those who practice Kriya: two workshops on how to use Kriya for healing

Balanced Living
Harmonizing Your Material Duties with Your Spiritual Dharma

22-27 April 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)
1-6 July 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)

How can we find time for our spiritual life and at the same time fulfill all of our responsibilities to families and job? When we manage to balance this equation, our daily lives become an extension of our spiritual practices, and we are able to make more rapid progress in both areas.

In this course you will find inspiration and practical exercises for:

• Using your time more wisely, both for spiritual practices and at work
• Increasing the energy and emotional stamina you have available
• Dealing with stressful situations and aggressive people with an attitude of inner calm and intuitive understanding
• Being true to your inner values and principles
• Becoming aware of the thought and behavior patterns that lead you to a state of imbalance
• Steps for correcting a state of imbalance
• Guidelines for balanced eating
• Making and maintaining priorities and commitments
• Exercises and practices to disengage your mind quickly when you want to meditate
• Practices for focusing your mind and energies quickly while working
• Integrating your spiritual practices with your family life.

Know Thyself
Self-Awareness - Self-Analysis - Self-Transformation

To the Self-aware person, every experience of life, each relationship and even casual encounter, each place visited, every event—everything and everyone has a part to play in his evolution. During this course, which is offered in August, and during the last week of each year, you will be guided in techniques of spiritual self-analysis during which you will find often surprising and unexpected indications which are showing you the ways to greater fulfillment and inner joy. This program is conducted by Swami Shivani.

Inner Freedom
Free Yourself from the Habits which Block Your Happiness and Success

20-25 May 2012 (in Italian only)
23-28 September 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)

Yogananda has said that 99% of our thoughts and actions are actually controlled by our habits and not our free will. In this course you will discover the habits which are blocking your energy, your creativity, and holding you back in your spiritual progress. Your spiritual counselor will help you in this process, as will the classes and the practice of introspection. You will then discover how to create the positive patterns which will strengthen your free will and lead you to inner freedom.

Inwardly determine to change yourself, and you can change your destiny according to your will. —Paramhansa Yogananda

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Intensives

The experience of the Self-Healing Intensives is special because it involves a small group of participants (between 10-15), and a number of experienced spiritual counselors and teachers who are dedicated to the participants throughout the course. This individual guidance starts with a personal evaluation and a “Yoga Life-counseling session which will create for you a program for the week which will enable you to get the most from the course. During the final evaluation session with your counselor, you will create a health plan which you can follow at home, including resources that you can use and materials that you can study.

The Intensive participants have their own schedule, which differs somewhat from the general schedule followed in other courses. Spiritual practices will be led only for the this group, and other activities are included which are unique to these programs.

These Intensives, and the Individual Spiritual Therapy sessions are not designed to cure any medical condition, but rather to offer you ways in which you yourself can participate more dynamically and effectively in your health.

Each course has a limited number of places available, and requires a supplemental fee.

A typical day looks something like this:

• morning energy, yoga and meditation practices
• nature-affirmation walk (or run, or biking)
• breakfast
• individual counseling sessions, spiritual journal writing
• morning class
• lunch
• free time for reading, walking, counseling session or Individual Therapy
• afternoon workshops
• afternoon meditation
• dinner
• spiritual entertainment with the community, or a special group event

Interview with Shivani

Quantum Leap
Big Steps towards New Horizons

If you need a fresh outlook on your life and work, and if your batteries are low and need a full recharging, this course will satisfy these desires. You will learn and use Yogananda’s energy recharging exercises and use them in dozens of ways to keep your energy, enthusiasm and creativity high. Vigorous nature walks, energizing yoga and pranayam workshops. The classes will focus on how to meet challenges with full energy and creativity, how to overcome obstacles, how to maintain a high level of energy throughout the day and still be fresh for evening activities, and how to direct your energy for your own good and for the benefit of others.

Supplemental Fee: € 120.00 ( five-day course - Materials included )

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General Self-Healing Courses

An important part of Yogananda’s teachings on healing revolves around the profound healing power of sound and thought. He writes:

If sound waves can be carried through the ether, then sounds impregnated with healing Soul Force can also be transmitted through the ether. Ordinary songs and speeches, received through the radio, produce some mental effect upon the listener, but words impregnated with Soul Force remain in the ether, ever ready to work.—Paramhansa Yogananda, “The Healing Power of Thought,”Inner Culture, July 1934

There are many kinds of healing, each of which can be used in healing physical, mental, or spiritual diseases. Of the different kinds of healing . . . Vibratory Healing is of great importance.

Vibratory Healing consists in creating and sending vibrations to diseased individuals, internally by energy charged by will-power, or externally by superconsciously-impregnated chants, intonations of the human voice, enlivening words, phrases, and affirmations . . .

Harmonious sound and chants impregnated with superconsciousness and soul force, will-power and faith, awaken the drooping tissues of the nervous system by rousing vital energy in them.
—Paramhansa Yogananda, “Vibratory Healing,”Inner Culture, September 1936

Introduction to Spiritual Self-Healing: Life Therapy

10-12 February 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)

A special weekend with reduced fees

This introductory program presents the concepts and practices which are developed more deeply in the longer spiritual self-healing programs. You will learn Yogananda's Life Therapy method, and his six keys to healthful living. Fundamental to all of the self-healing programs is Yogananda's set of energy recharging exercises, some of which you will learn during the weekend. He writes: “The method which can directly and quickly rouse the life energy to effect healing I term ‘Life Therapy,’ or direct healing by the rays of the inner Life Force.” Also included are lessons in Ananda Yoga and in the practice of meditation.

The Healing Power of Sound, Mantra and Sacred Music

The purest form of healing is through vibration: sound, light, and magnetic resonance are common diagnostic and surgical tools. The yoga science has for millennia used vibrational means for healing physical, psychological and spiritual imbalances.

In this workshop you will learn to use:

• Sound: By listening to certain music, by singing, and by chanting mantras you can make important changes in yourself.
• Movement: Both yoga positions and sacred dance will be used to open your energy channels.
• Color: The colors which you wear and choose for your environment affect your consciousness.
• Energy Recharging: Strengthen your energy field and your immune system.
• Vibrations: People, places, plants, flowers, metals and gems all have useful vibrational qualities.
• Thoughts and Words: What we think and say has a direct relationship to our state of health.

Affirmations and Prayers for Spiritual Self-Healing

6-11 May 2012 (in Italian only)
1-3 June 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)
13-15 July 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)
9-14 September 2012 (in Italian only)

There is immeasurable power latent in the human mind—to create, to transform, to heal. When this power is properly expressed in words, it becomes an instrument for changing any circumstance in our lives. In this course we will practice techniques of scientific affirmations and healing prayers to help ourselves, our friends, and the world environment reach a higher level of harmony.

Some of these subjects will be addressed:

• The nature of the causal realm, and how it influences our health
• Physical, psychological and spiritual diseases: their causes and cures
• The use of sound, color and electricity in self-healing therapies
• The placebo effect and why it works
• How to turn your mind into a powerful healing instrument
• Yogananda’s scientific healing affirmations and how to use them for various conditions
• How important is faith in spiritual healing practices?
• The spiritual laws behind the healing miracles of Jesus Christ
• Are all prayers answered?
• How to use pray for ourselves and others
• The healing properties of Master’s flower essences
• The use of music and the voice in the practice of prayer and affirmation
• The Cosmic Sound: how to hear it, feel it, and use it for healing.

See also: Whisper to God by Swami Kriyananda.

A blind repetition, taking the name of God in vain, is fruitless. Repeating a demand or prayer over and over again, mentally or orally, and with deepening attention and devotion, spiritualizes the prayer, and changes conscious, believing repetition into superconscious experience.

The Divine Being cannot be deceived by the mockery of a prayer, because He is the fountain of thoughts. He cannot be bribed at any time, yet it is easy to move Him with sincerity, persistency, concentration, devotion, determination and faith. Repeating a demand with deepening concentration and faith is not mechanical repetition, but a changing, progressing power and mental preparation which, step by step, scientifically reaches God.

— Paramhansa Yogananda, Whispers from Eternity, 1936

NEW! Spiritual Self-Healing: Flower Essences, with guest teacher, Lila Devi

13-15 April 2012 (in English with Italian translation)

Course description coming soon.

NEW! Spiritual Self-Healing: Flower Essences for Overcoming Challenges and Negative Emotions, with guest teacher, Lila Devi

15-20 April 2012 (in English with Italian translation)

Course description coming soon.

NEW! Spiritual Self-Healing with Flower Essences: Advanced Workshop, with guest teacher, Lila Devi

20-22 April 2012 (in English with Italian translation)

Course description coming soon.

Purification
Eliminate Toxins, Attachments and Negative thoughts

Our bodies and minds are carrying a lot of physical and mental baggage that is slowing us down and creating unpleasant health and life situations. In this course you will have a chance to eat a yogic (and tasty) diet, get some physical exercise, do purifying yoga postures and breathing exercises, clear your mind of negativity and worries, and rediscover your natural state of harmony.

Help for Those Who Help Others
How To Serve Others without Losing Your Own Health and Inner Peace

15-17 June 2012 (in Italian or English with translation)

When life calls upon us to help others, we sometimes find that we haven’t the physical or spiritual resources necessary to truly serve them. In this course you will learn how to connect with the source of divine grace, becoming a channel for a power far beyond your human strength and knowledge.

This program is especially useful to people who serve in the healing and counseling professions, those who work with the elderly or disabled, to anyone who is caring for a sick relative or friend, and to those who teach or guide the activities of others. You will learn things that will increase your ability to truly help others in the way they need, and to do so in a way that fulfils you.

Some of the things we will discuss:

• How to be loving and effective without becoming emotionally and egotistically involved
• How to keep your vital energy high and constantly renewed
• How to perceive guidance for yourself, and for those you are helping
• How to open a channel within you for divine Grace to flow to others
• Can your prayers help others?
• How to use meditation, visualization and affirmation to help others
• When is it appropriate to give others guidance and what is the best way to do so?
• How to transmit cosmic energy and divine love to others from a distance
• How can you help those who are seriously ill or dying?
• Finding the right words to comfort others
• Using the hands, eyes and voice to transmit energy, comfort and hope
• Can we help people who don’t want to be helped?
• How to listen intuitively and understand what someone needs
• How to strengthen your aura and protect yourself from negativity, exhaustion and burnout.

NEW! The Joy of Breathing
A Course of Respiratory Rehabilitation

The breath of life – a concept that points to the fundamental connection of our breath to our life. We don’t usually pay much attention to how we breathe, we do know that we are breathing and how vital that is to life itself. Our breathing changes with exertion, illness, and different psychological states. You will learn the way to breathe with greater awareness, learn basic concepts about the physical and spiritual anatomy of the respiratory system, and improve your well-being and restore your body, mind and spirit. A joyful journey to self-discovery.

Stress Management — Relaxation Therapy

The motto for this program is “slow down and disconnect.” To get the most from these five days you will need to be willing to put aside your computer, your telephone, your projects. They will be there afterwards, and you will be in a much better condition to deal with your commitments.

Your spiritual counselor for the week will guide you and suggest ways in which you can break the stress syndrome. You will practice slow, soothing yoga postures that relax all of your muscles and mental tensions. Meditation practices are designed to help you release emotional stress. You will have daily nature walks, an excursion in nature, an art workshop with Dana Lynne Andersen, and free time to enjoy the beautiful Umbrian hills, to talk with people who have found their way to Ananda at the same time, to request one or more of the personal Spiritual Therapy sessions.