YACEP-Eligible · 8-Week Live Immersion · Small Cohort
An 8-week deep immersion through all four chapters of Patañjali, taught live by an E-RYT 500 with a decade of study behind it. For yoga teachers, it's continuing education that actually changes how you teach. For everyone else, it's simply the real thing.
The Living Sutras
Not ready to commit to
8 weeks?
Start with a free 75-minute live class on September 8, 6pm SAST.
Duration
8 Weeks
Sessions
16 x 2 hours
Total Hours
32 hours
Cost
R3,200
Every Tuesday and Thursday, 6pm to 8pm SAST (GMT +2) starting September 20
Live, and It Counts Toward Your Yoga Alliance Hours
The Living Sutras
Most yoga teachers know fragments of the Sūtras — a line about the eight limbs, a quote on a studio wall. Almost none have sat with the complete text, verse by verse, with a teacher who has lived inside it. The Living Sūtras is that immersion: eight live sessions, all four Pādas, real philosophy alongside real practice — and [XX] hours of Yoga Alliance CE credit toward your registration renewal.
Two reasons to be here
If you're a registered yoga teacher: You need CE hours to renew your registration anyway. Most CE content is filler. This is the foundational text of the tradition you teach — covered properly, once, so you're not patching it together from studio-wall fragments for the rest of your career.
If you're not a teacher, just curious: No yoga background required. Only genuine interest in the nature of your own mind. The Sūtras were written as a practical manual for a restless mind — this course treats them that way.
About This Course
Philosophy that breathes
The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali contain 196 verses — a terse, luminous architecture of liberation. Written sometime between 400 BCE and 400 CE, they remain the most systematically rigorous text on the workings of consciousness ever composed. This course moves through all four Pādas — Samādhi, Sādhana, Vibhūti, and Kaivalya — not as a literary exercise, but as applied inner science.
Each session brings the text into direct contact with meditation, somatic practice, and lived inquiry.
Philosophy
Close study of Sanskrit, Sāmkhya cosmology, and commentarial tradition from Vyāsa to Krishnamacharya
Practice
Each session opens and closes with practice: meditation, prānāyāma, or somatic enquiry drawn from the text
Integration
Weekly home enquiry practices that carry philosophical insight into ordinary life between sessions
Community
Ongoing access to a dedicated student circle, a living sangha where inquiry continues beyond the course
The Curriculum
Eight weeks, four pādas, one turning
Week One
Atha Yogānuśāsanam
The invitation & the ground
Session 1 · Foundations
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Who was Patañjali? Situating the text historically
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The Sāmkhya cosmological map: Puruṣa & Prakṛti
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Introduction to Sanskrit: pronunciation, key terms
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Sūtras 1.1–1.4: The definition and purpose of yoga
Session 2 · The fluctuating mind
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Sūtras 1.5–1.11: The five vṛttis in depth
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Recognising the five movements in your own experience
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Pramāṇa, viparyaya, vikalpa, nidrā, smṛti
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Meditation: observing vṛtti without identification
Home enquiry: Vṛtti journal — Noting mental fluctuations without judgment
Week Two
Abhyāsa & Vairāgya
The two wings of practice
Session 3 · Practice & Renunciation
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Sūtras 1.12–1.22: Practice, effort, and non-attachment
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What does vairāgya actually mean? Beyond its misreadings
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The spectrum of practitioners: mṛdu, madhya, adhimātra
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Śraddhā: faith as an epistemological stance
Session 4 · States of samādhi
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Sūtras 1.17–1.22: Samprajñāta and asamprajñāta samādhi
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The ladder of absorption: vitarka, vicāra, ānanda, asmitā
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Guided pratyāhāra: withdrawing the senses inward
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Q&A: what is samādhi in lived terms?
Home enquiry: 20-minute sthira sukha sit, finding steady ease in stillness
Week Three
Īśvarapraṇidhāna
The grace of Surrender
Session 5 · The question of Īśvara
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Sūtras 1.23–1.29: Īśvara — philosophical, not theological
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The nature of Oṃ as a contemplative instrument
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Nine obstacles to practice (antarāyas) and their antidotes
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Japa meditation: mantra as mental anchor
Session 6 · Stabilising the mind
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Sūtras 1.30–1.51: The companions of disturbance
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Maitrī, karuṇā, mudita, upekṣā: the four brahma-vihāras
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Prāṇāyāma as a mental stabiliser (1.34)
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Nirmāṇacitta and nirbīja samādhi: seedless absorption
Home enquiry: Brahma-vihāra practice — 10 minutes daily on one of the four qualities
Week Four
Kleśa & Karma
The roots of suffering — Sādhana Pāda begins
Session 7 · Kriyā Yoga & the five kleśas
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Sūtras 2.1–2.9: Tapas, svādhyāya, Īśvarapraṇidhāna in practice
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The five kleśas: avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa, abhiniveśa
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Avidyā as the root: how ignorance generates suffering
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Reflective enquiry: Where do you meet the five kleśas?
Session 8 · Karma, past impressions & rebirth
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Sūtras 2.12–2.25: Karma, saṃskāra, and vāsanā
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The correlation of kleśa and karma
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Vivekakhyāti: discriminative wisdom as the remedy
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Somatic practice: recognising kleśa as body sensation
Home enquiry: Kleśa map — which of the five feels most alive in your life right now?
Week Five
The Eight Limbs
Aṣṭāṅga yoga in full
Session 9 · Yamas & Niyamas
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Sūtras 2.30–2.45: The ethical and personal observances
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Each yama as inner freedom, not outer restriction
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Niyama as the texture of sādhana
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Discussion: the yamas in relationship & community
Session 10 · Āsana, Prāṇāyāma & Pratyāhāra
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Sūtras 2.46–2.55: What Patañjali actually says about āsana
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Sthira-sukha: the paradox of stable ease
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The four phases of prāṇāyāma: inhalation, retention, exhalation, stillness
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Pratyāhāra: withdrawing toward the source
Home practice: daily 15-minute prāṇāyāma — simple nādī śodhana with retention
Week Six
Dhāraṇā, Dhyāna, Samādhi
The inner three — Vibhūti Pāda begins
Session 11 · Saṃyama
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Sūtras 3.1–3.8: Dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samādhi as a continuum
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Saṃyama: the alchemical union of the three
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What siddhis (powers) are and why Patañjali names them
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Guided dhāraṇā practice: single-pointed attention
Session 12 · Powers and the danger of fascination
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Sūtras 3.16–3.55: Selected siddhis and their deeper meaning
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Why the powers are obstacles if misunderstood
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Dharma-megha samādhi: the cloud of virtue
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Discussion: spiritual ego and the trap of attainment
Home enquiry: dhyāna practice — 30 minutes, on the same object, for one week
Week Seven
Kaivalya
The fourth pāda — liberation
Session 13 · The nature of liberation
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Sūtras 4.1–4.15: How saṃskāras perpetuate the self
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Citta and its modifications in the final analysis
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The question of multiple minds and single awareness
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Kaivalya: aloneness or wholeness?
Session 14 · Viveka and the cessation of seeking
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Sūtras 4.18–4.34: Consciousness and its object
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Puruṣa as the unchanging witness
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Prasaṃkhyāna: the highest discriminative knowing
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The final sūtra: the return of the guṇas to their source
Home enquiry: rest as practice — non-doing as an encounter with Puruṣa
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Week Eight
Integration and Living the Text
Bringing the Sūtras into the body of your life
Session 15 · Review & Deepening
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Participant-led revisiting of the most alive themes
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The Sūtras and the therapeutic use of yoga philosophy
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How to teach these concepts without oversimplifying
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Recommended commentaries and continued study
Session 16 · Closing ceremony & forward path
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Shared reflection: what has shifted?
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Introduction to Level II: the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā
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Personal practice recommendations for each student
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Closing mantra, silence, and celebration
Ongoing: each student leaves with a personalised six-week practice
The complete Path
Three texts, one unfolding
Each level builds on the last — moving from the metaphysics of mind, into the alchemy of the body, and finally into the integration of both in the tantric vision of Gheraṇḍa.
You are welcome to continue your studies, once you have completed the Yoga Sutras Level 1), by moving on to Level 2, where we unpack the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and then Level 3, where we study the Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā.
Level I · Now Enrolling
The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali
The metaphysical architecture of the mind. Consciousness, its modifications, its suffering, and the path to its stilling. The foundational grammar of all classical yoga.
Currently Open
Level II · Coming Soon
Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā
of Svātmārāma · 15th century
Where Patañjali works from the mind downward, Svātmārāma works from the body upward. The Pradīpikā is the foundational haṭha text — an 8-week immersion into āsana, prāṇāyāma, mudrā, bandha, and nāda in their original esoteric context.
We study the four chapters in sequence: the physical practices, the breath, the subtle body seals, and finally samādhi through sound. The central argument — that the body purified becomes transparent to consciousness — is both radical and practical. Students leave with a working understanding of prāṇa, the nāḍīs, and the energetic logic behind practices often taught without context.
Level III · Coming Soon
Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā of Gheraṇḍa · 17th century
The most comprehensive of the classical haṭha texts, the Saṃhitā presents yoga as Ghaṭastha — the yoga of the body as vessel. Its sevenfold path moves through purification, strengthening, steadying, calming, lightening, perception, and isolation.
This level brings the trilogy full circle: the metaphysics of Patañjali, the energetic science of Svātmārāma, and the tantric integration of Gheraṇḍa. We explore the śatkarmas, an expanded āsana vocabulary, the 25 mudrās, and the place of pratyāhāra and dhyāna in a fully embodied practice. The question this text asks — how does a mortal body become a divine instrument? — is one worth sitting with for a lifetime.
Exchange
Your enrolment options
Next intake: September 20
Level I Only
The Yoga Sūtras – 8 weeks
R3,200
What's included
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16 live sessions (32 contact hours) Every Sat and Sun 7am-9am SAST (GMT +2)
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Weekly home enquiry practices
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Curated reading list & sūtra reference PDF
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Access to the student community circle
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Recording access for 30 days post-course
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Certificate of Completion
Full Trilogy
All Three Levels · Pay Once
R7,680 - SAVE 20%
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R9,600 if purchased separately
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You save R1,680 · 20% discount
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Everything in Level I, plus
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Priority placement in Levels II & III
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Guaranteed pricing — locked at today's rate
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One private 45-min consultation per level
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Personalised practice prescription after each level
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Lifetime recording access
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Access to all supplementary materials
Your Teacher
Rooted in practice & Study
Peter has spent decades at the intersection of practice and philosophy — not as separate domains, but as a single enquiry. He has studied Advaita Vedānta and Patañjali's yoga in India, trained in sound healing in Goa, and holds over 1000 hours of Yoga Alliance certified teaching experience. He is currently pursuing advanced Vedānta studies at graduate level, with a particular interest in the paradox at the heart of the tradition: how can subject-centred language ever point to a subjectless reality?
His teaching is grounded in the conviction that philosophy must be metabolised — not memorised. Every concept in this course is brought into contact with the body, the breath, and lived experience.
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1000+ hours Yoga Alliance certified teaching certifications
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Advanced Vedānta studies, Purna Vidya, Coimbatore
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Sound Healing training, Ancient Auras, Goa
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Breathwork & somatic practice training
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Founder, Vala House Wellness Retreat Centre, Knysna
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Graduate research: Advaita Vedānta & consciousness
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Masters in Romanticism
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
