Sherrie Prendergast
The Fifth installment of the Aura Music and Arts Festival in mid February was much more than the live music as most people think. There is a collective understanding from the production staff, the performers and those that paid to come that the “Aura Family” is connected at a deeper level. It embraces one’s self awareness of spirit, mind and body to evolve into a better understanding of people, nature and animals around your environment. Examples of this were displayed everywhere around the Spirit of the Suwanee Music Park.
It was symbolized with art, creative attire, dance, hooping, lighting, yoga, music and physically hugging when greeting complete strangers. Opening your mind to some of these things may seem strange to a newcomer, obscure and crazy even. Some say the ultimate goal is to experience a renewed feeling of one’s peace of mind, body and soul, gain a better sense of community and leave with a better connection with everything around you.
Yoga is one of the many vessels used to achieve this sense of renewal. I spoke to Kurt with the Isha Institute of Inner-Sciences and asked him about the yoga techniques they were teaching festival goers. I asked him out of the 19 different kinds of classes that were offered at the festival, what did a person expect to get out of Yoga? Kurt explained that there were many more stages of Yoga and at Aura they were only covering a small part which is the inner engineering core set of classes. It starts with a 21 minute meditation called “Shambhavi Maha Mudra”.
This was originally created about 3500 years ago in India. Hata Yoga offers those core classes to help achieve inner peace of mind and body. Benefits include bringing balance to your body, mind and energies. It also addresses the physical system helping to alleviate stress, arthritis, asthma, hypertension, migraines and addictions just to name a few. The advanced classes are much more than meditational. The whole mission of the experience is to help raise human consciousness. Only this way, on an individual basis, can people change and then affect change around the community and home. I then asked Kurt where does someone continue the journey if they really enjoy the experience? He said that you can attend one of the many seminars that they host countrywide or you may go to the Isha Institute of Inner-Science in Tennessee.
If that does not fit your busy schedule, they have online workshops and classes. You can even earn CME Credits. Just visit www.innerengineering.com/live for more detailed information. So now when you hear about Yoga classes, it is not just an exercise class that is cool to do because it is the new popular “gym”. It does not just mean a shopping trip to get those new workout clothes. There is more value in what is learned for mind, body and spirit. The Aura Music and Arts Festival experience really does cover a lot of different activities for the mind, body and soul. So the next time you want to attend a festival that can offer you a different perspective with art, music, attire, food, and yoga, come to Aura 2015 at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park.
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