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Greetings!
It is in the month of July that we remember and celebrate the life of Bikram Choudhury's Guru, Bishnu Ghosh. This issue of PURE News will explain the connection between Bikram and his Guru, and furthermore, Bikram's dedication to fulfill Bishnu's dream. We will explore the ancient lineage of Bikram and Bishnu all the way back to Mahavatar Babaji, the Father of Kriya. We will explain how Bikram Yoga has been derived from this 5,000 year old practice.
In his book, Bikram Yoga, Bikram writes, "After the 'yoga boom' of the last 10 to 15 years, there are now more ridiculous, made-up flavors of so-called yoga offered here than there are flavors at Baskin-Robbins! But when practiced correctly, the yoga I teach, based on my training in India and over 50 years of practice, is the one that nourishes, the one that heals."
We are always giving updates, banter, feedback and fun on our PURE Bikram Yoga page! If you haven't joined the fun yet, be our fan!
PURE Bikram Yoga is also on Twitter!
Check out our YouTube Channel full of Bikram Yoga videos! 
Don't forget, our web page is continuously being updated with Press, Testimonials, and Special Events! Take a look around!
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Recent Events
Keep reading for important schedule changes, specials, happenings and celebrations!
June
International Yoga Asana Championship
Afton Carraway performed a beautiful routine at the Championship! There were so many amazing, strong, and graceful competitors this year! Gloria Suen (Singapore) and Juan Manuel Martin-Busitil (Spain) took the gold for Women's and Men's Division. Dipanitta Mondal (India) and Kostal Kumar (India) placed First for Girls and Boys in the Youth Division!
Welcome home, NEW TEACHERS!
Blanca, Emilyanne, Shelby, & Jim are back from 9 weeks of intensive training with Bikram himself. Check the live schedule for their classes and give these guys a PURE congratulations when you see them!
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Upcoming Events
July
Independence Day - July 4th
LIMITED CLASSES!
Cedar Park: 9:30am ONLY
Downtown: 8am & 10am ONLY (NO BABYSITTING)
South: 9am ONLY
Westlake: 9:30am ONLY
Bishnu Ghosh Day - July 9th
ALL STUDIOS CLOSED!
Bishnu Ghosh was Bikram's Guru. He passed on July 9th 1970. In observance, many Bikram Yoga studios worldwide close their doors for a day of remembrance and gratitude.
Championship/Competition Practice
Downtown Studio - Wednesdays
7/11, 7/18, 7/25, 8/1, & 8/8 from 8pm - 9:30pm
If you are interested in competing this year, please come to these sessions. If you are not interested in competing, but would like addition help refining the postures in the Championship routines, you are also welcome and encouraged to come! The posture we will focus on are: Standing Head to Knee, Standing Bow, Bow, Rabbit, and Stretching Pose.
August
Bikram Yoga Women's Retreat - August 9th-12th
Registration
Single Occupancy $1150
Double Occupancy $900
Triple Occupancy $800
Commuter Rate SOLD OUT
PURE Bikram Yoga, Austin, Texas, is proud to host the 6th Annual Bikram Yoga Women's Retreat on August 9 to 12, 2012 in Austin, Texas (Thursday to Sunday). This year the Retreat will be a 4-day, 3-night stay at Barton Creek Resort & Spa, providing ample time for yoga, relaxation, and shared time with Rajashree Choudhury and Emmy Cleaves. The weekend will conclude with the 10th Annual Texas Yoga Asana Championships, judged by Rajashree and Emmy!
Why the middle of August? Because it is HOT outside (2011 averaged over 100 degrees during most days in August), and the Resort will accommodate yoga for 250 people under an outdoor, glass enclosed, covered Pavilion. In other words, be prepared to sweat!
Want more information? Contact us at 1(888) 406-9642 or
yogawomensretreat@gmail.com
Interested in sponsoring the event? Check out the sponsorship page or email susannah@purebikramyoga.com
Texas Yoga Asana Championship - August 12th
ALL STUDIOS CLOSED!
Competitor class ONLY
Immediately following the Retreat, on Sunday, August 12, Austin will host the 10th Annual Texas Yoga Asana Championships at Barton Creek Resort & Spa.
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In Honor of Bishnu Ghosh 
The Year 2012 marks the 109th anniversary of the birth of Bishnu Charan Ghosh, one of the greatest and most influential yoga masters of the past century, guru of Bikram Choudhury. In remembrance of his life, the Ghosh Yoga College Trust was established to support Ghosh's Yoga College in Kolkata.
Ghosh, born in Lahore, India in 1903, was a celebrated physical culturist and the first to scientifically document Yoga's ability to cure chronic physical ailments and heal the body. Beginning in the 1920's, he developed a school of Yoga that provides a unique blend of spiritual inspiration and a highly disciplined physical regimen.
Ghosh came from an extraordinary family. He was initiated into the field of yogic exercise and physical education by his guru and older brother, Paramahansa Yogananda, the world renowned Yogi and spiritual master. Yogananda founded the Self Realization Fellowship Center and his book, "Autobiography of a Yogi", continues to be one of the best known and influential works of our time.
Ghosh developed a Yoga regimen that provides a unique blend of spiritual inspiration and highly disciplined physical exercise. His view of the human body as the temple of a living God has been a major force in the renaissance of Hatha Yoga in the West. In 1923, at the young age of 20, he founded the first Ghosh College of Physical Education in Calcutta and his fame quickly spread throughout India. It is now known as the Ghosh Yoga College. Other schools were opened, first in India, and then in locations around the world. With his passing, the school was left to his son, Biswanath (Bisu) Ghosh. As he passed in 2008, it is now run by Bisu's daughter, Muktamala Mitra.
Nick-named "Tum Tum", she attended Bikram's Teacher Training in the Spring of 2010 with your PURE teachers, Tyler Tanhoff, Susannah Dowling and Gianna Purcell! Both Bikram's wife, Rajashree, and Tum Tum have studied Hatha Yoga Therapy with Prof. (Dr.) P.S. Das, author of Yoga Panacea, and student of Bishnu Ghosh.
In 1939, Ghosh came to the United States to educate people on the subject of yoga by giving demonstrations of amazing yoga feats. He lectured at Columbia University in New York, generating a great deal of interest in the field, and was widely acknowledged and respected in the academic community. In 1968 he went to Japan with his troupe and traveled all over the country giving lectures and yogic demonstrations. Ghosh's were the first yoga exhibitions to be televised outside of India, and were seen and loved by millions of Japanese.
In his book, Bikram Yoga, Bikram tells this story about his Guru:
"In February 1970 I left India and went to Japan, for what was supposed to be six months, to take care of some things there for my guru. I didn't want to go - I was a king in Bombay! But when your guru tells you to do something, you have to do it. That's it. You have no choice. As I was about to get on the plane at Calcutta Airport, my guru took my hand and told me something, in English, which he never spoke. "Promise me you will complete my incomplete job," he said. He meant bringing yoga to the rest of the world, to the West and America. And I replied, "Yes, I promise. I will." Forty years later I'm here in the United States, still performing my Karma Yoga by fixing Broken bodies and screw-loose brains.
"When Bishnu Ghosh bound me in that oath, I had no way of knowing it would be the last time we spoke. Soon thereafter my guru talked to all his family and friends, gave them his blessings, and said that he would soon take his rest. he then performed mahasamadhi, withdrawing his Spirit from his body and leaving this Earth at the age of 67.
"Looking back, I can't help feeling sad, mostly because I miss him every second of every day with every ounce of my heart. But I'm also sad because I forgot to ask him how long I am supposed to continue teaching Hatha Yoga to fulfill my Karma Yoga! Do I have to keep doing this for my entire life? With no guru to answer me, I have to conclude that the answer is yes. To which I say, "No problem!"
Now you know why Bikram created his series and relentlessly teaches yoga to us all. How amazing is that?
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Lineage of Bikram Yoga
You now know more about Bikram's own Guru, but let's go back a little bit farther. Let's see where the roots of our heated practice were seeded...
It all starts with Mahavatar Babaji, the Father of Kriya. In Sanskrit, kri means karma dhatu - action of the elements, and ya means Soul or Atma. The word Kriya indicates action of the Soul or prana karma. The first and most important action of the soul is breath.
Babaji, an eternal master, often called the Nameless One, is regarded as a manifestation of Lord Shiva himself. He developed the ancient kriya-yoga, a discipline involving purification of the body-mind organism through breath control techniques, to aid longevity and spiritual evolution. The original Kriya tradition is Guru-Param-Para, meaning that the disciple must receive Kriya initiation personally from his or her Gurudev, or Master. In this fashion, Lahiri Mahasaya was initiated into the yogic science of Kriya Yoga.
 
Mahavatar Babaji & Lahiri Mahasaya
In India, Lahiri Mahasaya was known as Yogiraj for some time. He was unusual among Indian holy men in that he was a householder - he was married, raised a family, and even worked as an accountant for the Military Engineering Department of the British Indian Government. He lived with his family instead of in a temple or monastery. So respected by his Guru, Babaji, he was chosen to reintroduce the fading practice of Kriya Yoga to the world. Lahiri's disciples included both of Paramahansa Yogananda's parents as well as Yogananda's guru, Sri Yukteswar Giri.
  Sri Yukteswar Giri & Paramhansa Yogananda Sri Yukteswar Giri was an educator, astronomer, a Jyotisha (Vedic astrologer), a yogi, and a believer in the Bhagavad Gita and the Bible. He spent a great deal of time in his Guru's presence, often visiting him in Benares. In 1894, he met Yukteswar's Guru, Babaji, who asked him to write a book comparing Hindu scriptures and the Christian Bible. He completed the book in 1894, naming it Kaivalya Darsanam, or The Holy Science. By 1903 he had established two ashrams where he taught students. In 1910, a young 17 year old Mukunda Lal Ghosh became his most well-known disciple, eventually spreading the teachings of Kriya Yoga throughout the world as Paramhansa Yogananda. Paramhansa Yogananda the older brother to Bishnu Ghosh, and Author of Autobiography of a Yogi, describes his meeting of Yukteswar, "We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfuities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of master to disciple. With an antenna or irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!" Yukteswar told Yogananda that he had been sent to him by Mahavatar Babaji for a special purpose. Special indeed. Yogananda is revered for his influence in bringing yoga to the west and throughout the world. Before his journey west, he founded a school for boys that combined modern education techniques with yoga training and ideal. Eventually, this became known as the Ranchi school, and later Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, the Indian branch of his American organization. In 1920, he journeyed to the United States as India's delegate to an International Religious Liberal convening in Boston. That same year, he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship to disseminate worldwide his teachings on Indian ancient practices of philosophy of Yoga and its tradition of meditation. He too taught Kriya Yoga and other meditation practices to help people achieve an understanding, which he called Self-realization, "Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of the body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you; that God's omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all you need to do is improve your knowing."
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Bikram Yoga Women's Retreat
LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER!!!
JULY 9TH!!!
COMMUTER RATES SOLD OUT!!!!
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Texas Regional Yoga Asana Championship
August 12th at Barton Creek Resort & Spa
Interested in competing? Email jeff@purebikramyoga.com, then go to www.usayoga.org to register for USA Yoga as an athlete ($25) and enter the competition ($25) by July 30.
Championship/Competition Practice
Downtown Studio - Wednesdays
7/11, 7/18, 7/25, 8/1, & 8/8 from 8pm - 9:30pm
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PURE Kids
Downtown Studio 10:15 -11:15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays
Last class AUGUST 7th
1 Drop in class $10
5 Classes $40
PURE Kids is a preparation class for the beginning Bikram series. We will introduce heat, balance, and discipline in a kid friendly environment. Though kids are already allowed in the Beginning Series, by taking the kids class each child will get special attention. The goal is to learn the practice in a language and environment that is exciting for kids. Therefore, each child will be ready to go into the Beginning Series with confidence. Ages 8 and older recommended. For more information, email info@purebikramyoga.com.
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The Yoga Team
PURE Bikram Yoga |
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Meet your
NEW PURE Teachers!
Emilyanne Steele
Hi all! The first thing anyone should know about me is I never do anything without being extremely passionate about it..and teaching Bikram Yoga is certainly one of these things. There was a time when I thought I should just continue as a student, but I was compelled, over and over, to go to Teacher Training, as if it simply had to be a part of my life. Now that I've listened to that call and have returned from Training, I am beginning to understand why it was so important. Seeing all of you struggling, learning, and shifting the way you do, inside of each and every class, is astounding. Words cannot say how much I love this job! Keep sweating! See you in the hot room!
Jim Holzknecht
Woody Allen once said, "Over 90% of success is just showing up." When I first starting practicing Bikram Yoga in 2005, I "showed up" very inconsistently. It was not love at first sight. Then in 2009 I was co-producing a video called Beyond Belief and I had very little energy so I decided to do a 60 day challenge. After completing the challenge, I had increased energy, focus, concentration. I decided to continue a personal, consecutive day challenge until the movie was released. I started showing up for class every day. I wanted to see where my personal limit was so I kept coming to class. My personal daily challenge completed at 862 consecutive days. Each day I show up for yoga offers new challenges, insights and rewards. The yoga is an integral part of my life now.
In the Spring of 2012, I decided to go to Teacher Training. I am committed to empowering and inspiring people to reach their wellness goals and for everyone to live long, vibrant, healthy lives. I can't think of a better vehicle to accomplish this mission than Bikram Yoga. It is an honor, and privilege to teach this yoga. I have been so inspired by my fellow yogis and the teachers at Pure Bikram yoga. I look forward to seeing you in the hot room. Just keep showing up one day, one posture at a time.
Shelby Schreiber
Shelby Schreiber has been with PURE as a student and babysitter for over 3 years, but Shelby says it was the "unique bond and unparalleled dedication shared by Bikram yoga practitioners" that inspired her to want to become a Teacher. Shelby's goal is to help you achieve all the mental and physical benefits of Bikram yoga that you come to class each day looking for.
Blanca Solis
I started practicing Bikram yoga a year ago, I fell in love with it. Bikram changed my life in everyday, I had some medical problems; anxiety, depression, a couple of things to mention. Bikram allowed me to open up and believe in myself. I made several ineffective attempts to cure myself and medication only gave me side effects.
I trusted the process of Bikram, after I saw changes, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I decided to become a teacher to help others understand the process, and to let them know there
is hope. I want my students to have faith within themselves, never give up. Trust the process of Bikram.
There are no side effects, just good changes, brighter future and a better you. I love sharing Bikram yoga with others!
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Are you Interested in Becoming a Bikram Yoga Teacher? 
Email kathy@purebikramyoga.com by July 8th with your interest. The Fall Teacher Training begins September 16th! |
Testimonials. Your change is bigger than just you. No story is too big or too small, worthy or unworthy. You all practice this yoga for a reason. Tell us. Share it. Inspire someone.
Testimonials can be submitted through susannah@purebikramyoga.com. |
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Keepin' It Clean
What we are doing:
You may have noticed this strange machine in the Bikram room at the Downtown Studio. It's called the BOSS. It's sole purpose is to zap all of the ick out of the room. We are running it over night and between classes in order to improve the quality of the room so that you can focus more easily on YOU and your practice.
In addition to this new contraption, know that we have always enlisted regular steam cleaning and daily vacuuming, and our carpets are all antimicrobial. Each heating system also has a UV filter that disinfects the particles in the air.
How you can help:
Keeping the yoga rooms fresh and clean starts with you. There are some simple hygiene steps you can take to help us make our rooms more comfortable for you and those around you.
1. We offer showers at all of our studios. If you need to, feel free to rinse off before you begin your class. You'll smell better, your towels will be cleaner, AND having a clean sweat feels great. You'll see.
2. Make sure that you enter the yoga room free of any scents or perfumes. If you have had a fragrance on during the day and come in for an evening class, refer to #1!
3. Are you a heavy sweater? Be prepared. Bring an extra towel (or two!). The more you can contain your sweat on your towel, the less we must do to remove it from the carpet after you leave. You'll also be helping the next yogi in the room so that when she steps to the right, a big step, she isn't landing in a lake sweat.
4. We provide you with spray and towels to clean your mats. If you've rented a mat, please remember to spray and wipe then return it to the rack. Feel free to use our spray and towels for your personal mats as well.
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 | | VIDEO: USA Yoga Competition - Rajashree Choudhury |
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501(c)3 Federal Tax Exempt Organization & Registered Nonprofit Organization in the State of Texas!
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 | | Mind Over Madness, Times Square |
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 | | NY Daily News: Yoginis take over Times Square |
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| | Mind Over Madness, Times Square |
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 | | Afton Carraway - 1st Place Women USA Yoga Asana Championship 2012 |
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 | | Joseph Encinia Demonstration at the 2012 USA Yoga Asana Championship |
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 2012 Female Youth Champion Dipannati Mondal from India |
 | | TODAY Show: Jenna Wolfe Doing Yoga |
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Massage/Body Work Need it? We have a massage room on Oakland Ave. and 4 wonderful therapists who also happen to be Bikram Yogis! Treat yourself. Call for rates and to schedule an appointment: Edy Bailey (512) 633-7421 Carrie Peruchi (512) 563-8496 Andrea Carlisle (817) 312-0422 Cesar Rivera (512) 499-0490 |
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