What is Dhyāna? Dhyāna is the Sanskrit term for meditation – specifically, the uninterrupted flow of concentration toward a single object. It is the seventh limb of Patanjali’s eightfold path (ashtanga yoga), following dharana (concentration) and preceding samadhi (absorption or liberation). While dharana involves fixing the mind on one point, dhyāna is the continuous stream […]

One of the teachers at The Yoga Nook, Peter Lightbody, has been reading the Bhagavad Gita and flicked the task to ChatGPT when I asked him to write a review. In his own words (not A.I. assisted), Peter sums up how well the bot performed. Personally, while ChatGPT did a good job, I think it […]

I’m often asked if it’s OK to keep doing yoga when you get pregnant. The answer is YES! Be sure to tell your teacher straight away, even if you are just a few weeks pregnant. Take care, in your first 12 weeks especially, to avoid abdominals, strong twists and backbends, and your yoga practice will […]

By Annette van Gent     From time to time, you might have seen The Yoga Nook advertise a type of yoga class called an Iyengar Yoga “led practice”. You might have wondered what this is, how it differs from one of our usual yoga classes, and why you might do this “led practice”. If […]

Who am I? What is the true nature of the Self? These are the questions that have consumed philosophers and yogis for thousands of years.

In 2017 Iyengar Yoga Australia (IYA) protested the scrapping of private health coverage for 16 natural health therapies including yoga, effective from 2019, because we objected to the basis of the decision – namely that there was not enough scientific evidence to show yoga works. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Review of […]

The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote a while ago for Australian Yoga Life, to celebrate Mr Iyengar’s centenary in 2018. You can download the entire article here. “In 1918, 100 years ago, the deadly Spanish flu pandemic swept across the world, killing 30 million people, 17 million of them in India. […]

Well Winter is unequivocally here in Sydney and it sets me to cooking! Here’s a delicious recipe I can recommend from Ottolenghis’s book Plenty. It’s great to have time to cook and nourish ourselves, friends and family. It’s the simple things that make life enjoyable after all!