About Andhakara Yoga

Andhakara Yoga is an Inner Journey to explore, recognize and integrate your Inner Shadow.

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Darkness Yoga

The Sanskrit word “Andhakara” means Darkness. Andhakara Yoga is a contemporary Yoga style developed in Mexico by Ulises Guerra in the year 2013.

Much more than Yoga postures

Andhakara Yoga is an Inner Journey to explore, recognize and integrate your Inner Shadow. Most of the Yoga Practices and Spiritual traditions nowadays focus mainly on cultivating compassion, love, kindness, in other words, only the light-side of the Existence; but this is similar to embracing only the day but neglecting the night, or to cultivating only the inhalation but forgetting about the exhalation. With this approach you are not embracing the whole Existence, therefore you won’t be Complete. Recognizing and integrating your own darkness means joining together the lacking pieces of the Spiritual puzzle.

Transcending the Illusion

Originally one of the most important goals of Yoga was to "Transcend the illusory world”. Every Form/Shape that you perceive is a “seed” from which illusion may grow in your mind, and every Form/Shape is created through the light. Because of the light you perceive differences in the world, you perceive most of the duality: pretty/ugly, big/small, spectacular/boring, etc. Therefore when you are only used to perceiving the world through light, you are making your brain accustomed to perceiving only differences and duality.

On the other hand, when you are in a pitch dark room you can’t see differences anymore, all the Forms/Shapes “dissolve” in darkness, and when you often meditate or make yoga practices in pitch darkness you are teaching your brain to perceive without Forms/Shapes, consequently the power that duality has over your mind weakens and the Illusion starts to dissolve too.

Ego and Validation

The Ego cannot exist without “others”. The Ego needs to show things to others in order to exist. When you are making your Yoga Practice in pitch darkness there is no way to show how “amazing” you can perform your Practice, there is no way to show how much “spiritual” you are; then your Practice becomes more honest, more real, because it becomes a Practice merely for yourself; you are not looking anymore for Validation or approval of others. And the Ego starts to dissolve.

In the Andhakara Yoga Practice there is nothing to see, there is nothing to show, it’s a deep Inner Practice only with yourself.

About Andhakara Yoga structure

12 Series of Practice: There are in total 12 Series of Yoga postures. In every Series the Internal Work is completely different; for example: there is the Power Series in which the main Work is to connect with your Inner Power, or in the Healing Series your intention is focused on moving consciously your energy for body regeneration and the healing process.

Darkness: The Practice is held in pitch darkness, a kind of darkness where you are not able to see your own body; this makes the Practice very challenging for some postures, but on the other hand it leads you into a very deep Practice because there are no visual distractions and you can focus mostly on being with yourself. Of course, the students first learn the Series of Practice in dim light and afterwards they make the full Practice in darkness.
Kuji-in: Andhakara Yoga is not merely a Practice of postures, there is also the Shadow Work, and for this we use the Seals of Kuji-in. Kuji-in is an ancient technique whose origin is from the shamanic traditions of Tibetan Bön; Kuji-in is a powerful tool for spiritual development, self-knowledge and to awaken the hidden potentials that lie within you. In Andhakara Yoga we integrate the Seals of Kuji-in in the Series of Practice.
Specific music: Through music you can trigger very specific emotional and mental states, therefore we use specific music for each of the Series in order to help the practitioner perform the Work of each Series; for example: in the Power Series we use music of Drums played at some specific rhythms in order to activate your primal Power, or in the Introspection Series we use Tibetan Bowls and Gongs to help the practitioner to lead you into deep meditative states.
Avigraha asanas: The Sanskrit word avigraha means: “without form” or “without shape”; so then, avigraha asanas means “asanas without form”. Usually the students focus most of their attention on the shape of the asanas during the Practice; and they are thinking about the alignment of the asana, the arrangements to obtain the asana, and very often the mind tends to get lost in the aesthetics of the asana. Avigraha asanas is the act of avoiding the mind gettingt lost in thoughts about any idea, concept or perception about the asana; in other words, it is the act of “dissolving the asana” from the mind. In Andhakara Yoga, the darkness itself visually “dissolves” the shape of your body, then it becomes easier to dissolve the asana from the mind; and finally this action helps to bring the focus mostly on the Inner Being rather than the asana.

Final words

In several shamanic traditions they make “darkness baths” to clean the Perception; in these baths they spend hours or even days in pitch darkness in meditation or just being receptive. Nowadays we are overstimulated from everywhere; consequently the Perception and the Mind become overwhelmed, generating too much stress in daily life and also becoming an obstacle for Spiritual development. Andhakara Yoga is aware of this situation, and the purpose of the Practice is also to clean your Perception, so you can see and understand the world in a different way.