Living in the moment is what next month?s weekend retreat hosted by the Integral Yoga Centre is all about.

The Prayer of Heart and Body Meditation Retreat will take place from June 1 to June 4 at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research in St. George?s and is being sponsored by Christians Practising Yoga/Bermuda. Its focus is to celebrate a Christ-centred embodiment of yoga practice and teaching.

The retreat is being headed by Father Tom Ryan, who is from the Paulist North American Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, in New York, who was first introduced to yogic meditation during a sabbatical in a Benedictine Monk Ashram, in India.

He found that his Christian meditation was even deeper than before. He added that yoga is not a religion, although using it for meditative purposes allows one to grow spiritually. It is, he says, for all people.

?The retreat that I will be leading in Bermuda will encompass both raja and hatha yoga,? said Father Ryan.

?In some of the sessions people will be learning yoga postures (prayer of the body), and in others they will be learning about meditation (prayer of the heart) in the Christian contemplative tradition.?

Asked about the difference between raja yoga and hatha yoga, Father Ryan said: ?There are several different yoga pathways ? each one in its original conception leading to an experience of communion with the divine.

?There is the yoga of selfless service, karma yoga, of intellectual study, jnana yoga, of devotion, bhakti yoga, and the meditative path, raja yoga.?

Above all, hatha yoga is what most people do in health clubs and fitness centres. In the US, yoga is practised more for the body, than for spiritual enlightenment.

?It was developed as a subset of raja yoga because it was originally designed to help people meditate better,? said the Paulist Father.

?It does this by throwing off tension and stress in the body-mind through stretching and breathing exercises, thereby enabling one to sit still and quiet one?s body with a focused mind and meditate.

?Unfortunately, the practice of hatha yoga has become separated in the west from the practice of meditation. I consider the two as Siamese twins, literally connected to one another.?

When he returned to the US from India, Father Ryan became a yoga teacher, teaching it once a week before the classes turned into weekend sessions and now retreats.

Father Ryan has also written several articles and books including ?Tales of Christian Unity Disciplines for Christian Living, Interfaith Perspectives?, ?Prayer of Heart and Body?, and ?Four Steps to Spiritual Freedom?. He also studied Hinduism, Buddhism and Islamic studies at the Henry Martin Institute in India, and has been an advisor on Buddhist and Catholic monastic inter-religious dialogue.

With all forms of yoga, there are health benefits and raja yoga is no different.

?The health benefits of meditation have been clinically tested and proven in recent decades with the use of bio-feedback machines,? Father Ryan said.

?Meditation calms the nervous system, lowers the blood pressure, pacifies the emotions, de-clutters the mind, and provides deep rest to both body and brain. It is a consciousness discipline.

?One of its chief benefits is that it requires you to let go of your regrets about the past and projections about the future and just be fully present in this now moment as the only moment that is real.

?The present moment is all we ever have. There is never a time when life is not ?this moment?. Meditation teaches us how to be more fully in the moment. When we act out of present moment awareness, whatever we do, even the most mundane action, becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love.?

Raja yoga is also said to direct one?s life force to bring the mind and emotions into balance.

?Emotion is the body?s reaction to what?s going on in your mind. If your mind is calm, your emotions will be peaceful,?he said. ?If your mind perceives threat, your emotions will be fearful. All forms of fear-like worry, stress, anxiety, tension-are caused by too much ?future?.

?And guilt, bitterness, sadness, resentment, and grievances are caused by too much ?past?. Meditation encourages us to cut the strings of our attachments to ?past? and ?future? and more fully inhabit the ?now?. It?s the only place where true change can occur.

?The quality of our consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future. The clincher is that living well lies not in new and better technology, but in the selective use of it so that life can be enjoyed in a simpler and more fulfilling way.

?Learning to balance your lifestyle between technological marvels and the satisfaction of inner peace and contentment requires learning to pull the plug on the TV, the computer, the phone, and simply enjoy the silence and gift of your being.

?Meditation teaches you that.?

Hatha yoga is a combination of stretching and breathing exercises, he added.

?It?s remarkable to see how many of the techniques employed today from Dr. Dean Ornison?s reversing heart disease to Dr. Herbert Benson?s ?relaxation response? ultimately derive from yoga,? he said.

?Millions of women have used Lamaze breathing techniques as powerful aids in childbirth. Athletes have found that slow, gentle stretching reduces risk of injuries.

?One of the chief benefits is relaxation. Our muscles are chronically tensed and contracted.

?The first step toward experiencing inner peace is to quiet down and relax the body. Through the contraction and relaxation of the muscles, tensions are released because muscular tension corresponds to mental tension, yoga also calms the mind while it quiets the body.

?There are also a range of other benefits like increased flexibility, improved posture, sleep, and digestion, and an augmentation in overall vitality.

?What makes it attractive to many is that it is a personalised form of exercise you go along at your speed to the best of your ability.?

For people who are contemplating practising yoga, Father Ryan said: ?There are many different approaches to raja and hatha yoga.

?In hatha yoga, for example, some people are just looking for a good workout.

?Others are looking for emotional re-balancing, while still others are looking for a spiritual practice.

?Each angle of approach has its own benefits. In the way I am working with yoga, there are elements of all three.

?It?s good exercise.

?You feel peaceful afterwards and you have also prayed. If you find a better combination than that, let me know!?

All of the weekend?s workshops take place at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, in St. George?s.

For more information and registration contact the Integral Yoga Centre on 295-3355.

For the four-day retreat the price is $625 and for Friday through Sunday the cost is $525.

The price includes meals, accommodation and retreat activities.

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