Katyayani Poole

Katyayani Poole, PhD, holds a doctorate in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara and is the author of Sanskrit for Yogis: Introduction to Nada, the Yoga of Sacred Sound.  A Sanskrit scholar with over 10 years of training, Dr. Poole became deeply absorbed in the sacred Vedic, Yoga, and Tantric traditions of India. She lived and traveled throughout South Asia studying religious philosophies, interviewing spiritual adepts from many traditions, and dedicating herself to a rigorous practice of Yoga, meditation, and Vedic chanting.  Presently, Dr. Poole lives in Boulder, CO where she is the Co-Director of Shruti Institute for Vedic Arts and an occasional professor of World Wisdom Traditions at Naropa University.

Workshop: Intonation, Invocation, and Initiation with Vedic Sanskrit Chanting

Vedic Sanskrit chanting is a technology to awaken the human nervous system toward a higher vibration of consciousness.  At the root of the Yoga, Buddhist, and Tantric traditions, the Vedic chants consist of sound frequencies that stimulate specific nerve channels responsible for elevated levels of body/mind perception.  When chanted with exact Sanskrit pronunciation, according to precise meter, and with awareness of its intended feeling, Vedic chanting leads one to a powerful state of transcendent peace.

In this workshop, you will enter the Vedic experience first by exploring the scientific arrangement of the Sanskrit alphabet and its affects on the human nervous system.  Next you’ll discover the three essential ingredients that contribute to the efficacy of a Vedic chant: invocation, intonation, and initiation.  Finally, we’ll chant together sacred Vedic chants that will allow you to feel their affects within your own body, mind and spirit.   Goal: Explore the effects of Sanskrit chanting on the nervous system as we learn the essentials of chanting and experience the positive effects of this on our body mind and spirit.

OBJECTIVES:

• To provide an overview of the role and application of Vedic chanting within the Indian spiritual traditions, and explore the latest neuroscientific research on the psycho-physiological effects of Sanskrit and Vedic chanting on the body and mind,
  
  
• To gain introductory proficiency of the Sanskrit system of phonetics, rules for pronunciation, and the subtle mind/body affects of its 50 phonemes, and
  
  
• To discover how the process of human enlightenment is encoded in the technology of Vedic chanting, specifically in its method of invocation, intonation and initiation.