Sundara Sangha – The Beauty of the Community

The Italian Anusara Community meets up and celebrates the beauty of its community

By Marianna Bertolazzi & Stefania Catellani
Anusara Elements™ Teachers
Italian Country Coordinators

“When I sing our invocation, even if I am alone, with my students or with my teachers, I am always wrapped in a beautiful sensation: everybody is there with me in that present moment, we are embraced by the vibration of our mantra and it feels like we are holding each other’s hand.

When I got involved in the organization of this particular national meeting by the Italian teachers, my mind went immediately into this feeling, in a place deep within my heart, always full of joy.

The idea of Sundara Sangha has thrilled and regenerated me, as the chant of our invocation does, which connects me with everyone.”   Marianna

Sundara Sangha is a Sanskrit word that describes the concept and the spirit of our meeting: the beauty of a community. A community that grounds its roots deeply into and takes its strength out of that beauty.

You would probably have smiled and your heart would have smiled with you, if you had had the opportunity and luck to live in a community that makes you experience this amazing sensation.  When you are deeply connected with people that share moments of their practice, study and personal evolution, a community gets built and the evolution becomes communal.

The first unwritten rule of community is that what you bring to the community becomes part of the community. If we each bring beauty to our community and we cultivate and preserve it, it will make it last and get stronger. Every single person can bring their own particular beauty into the community and watch it grow and flourish. Thanks to the light that has been nourished by the collective, it will be seen on the outside, and this will be inevitably recognized by everyone.

How did we decide to celebrate and nourish our community this year?

In addition to our annual teacher’s conference (meeting), we have decided to do something special this year, something that never happened previously in Italy.  The day before our annual meeting, all certified Italian teachers will participate in a seminar, open to students of all levels and traditions.

Each certified Italian teacher will conduct a part of the seminar with their own offering of communication and personality, and let students experience the beauty of the Anusara Yoga teachings, which connect and synchronize to each other. Each teacher will embody the principles to the best of their abilities, like the Divine that manifests itself in different ways.

This approach will be a great format for all of our teachers in the community to see the differences in each teacher’s voice and to appreciate how each voice contributes uniquely to the principles and teachings.  It will remove any doubts and hesitation in our hearts, and will bring light and clarity to our souls. A great opportunity to learn again and again.

This will be a unique occasion for new students to be introduced to the yoga teachings in the beautiful form of the Universal Principles of Alignment of the Anusara School of Hatha Yoga, offered by the most experienced teachers in Italy.

Even more special will be the location.

Rome will be the city where we will meet and which will host our beautiful gathering!

Rome is a city that in olden times has been the Centre of Mediterranean Culture and the Center of Civility on which the modern occidental world has rested its own foundation, a city which is at the crossroads of different peoples and nations and that still exhibits it openness to the world.

The Anusara Kula in Rome is growing more and more, and as the city is geographically at the center of our country, it will allow the possibility for the first time for teachers from the south to reach our meeting and to join and share with us their own beauty.

We are often challenged with the necessity of giving support to one another, and we have received huge feedback around that particular request. The necessity of keeping in touch, of sharing and being supported by the community has been felt and expressed strongly.

It is something vital for every individual, particularly for the ones who bring other people into a practice that unifies us all, and that helps us to reconnect with our self and with the Divine.

It may happen from time to time that everyone feels that the source of our Grace is draining a little, but the power of community will help to refill and support us all, and is the highest expression of boundless love.

During the organization of this event, we experienced the truth of this teaching.  A lot of decisions had to be made, many ideas had been proposed, and we felt the responsibility to represent and honor in the best way that we could what we loved.  In the end, the solution always arrived from our collective work, and elicited our smiles, despite the effort.  In the end everything got resolved thanks to the effort of every single person.

The intention of the Organization Committee (who is composed by Alessandra Di Prampero, Alessandra Pergreffi, Anne-Françoise Moser, Erika Nasi, Laura Casini, Marianna Bertolazzi and Stefania Catellani), is to offer an experience of joy and nourishment to all the teachers and students who will join us.  An experience that will last from our practice, to spare time together, to the conference (meeting), where we can breathe fresh and regenerating air, full of contentment, passion, care, harmony and beauty.

The location where we will be able to breathe such air is a Villa, surrounded by green vegetation, with large and bright rooms, right outside the traffic of the city center.

The 14th and 15th of March 2020 in Rome, a community will get together to honor the beauty of Anusara, its teachings and teachers, and every single person that will be part of it, to know it and get in touch with it fully. In that moment we will be expanding ourselves, and our arms will reach out wide to welcome everyone of you!

If you want to be embraced by our community and want to reach us physically, we are waiting for you, with joy.  Please join us!

For any further information you can contact us at the following address: anusaraitaliayoga@gmail.com

Namaste