Alchemy and Yoga

What is Alchemy – and what has it to do with yoga?

The medieval definition or alchemy would describe the transmutation of matter – in particular of base metals – to create gold or to find a universal elixir. In modern times we are inclined to talk about alchemy in more spiritual terms – where alchemy is a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation or combination.

For example, if we were to bake a cake, we would take all the ingredients – the sugar, flour, butter and eggs – and combine them, adding heat in the oven. The end result would not resemble the final product and the individual elements could not be extracted – in other world a transformation has happened – alchemy.

Life challenges into lessons

In life we encounter many challenges, some good, some bad – many emotions, people, events – and these we transform into who we are today. We do have many choices, of course: do we allow those changes to affect us or do we direct the effect of those occurrences consciously?

If we allow life to happen to us, we have little effect on the outcome. Perhaps we have taken our ‘eyes off the ball’ and feel like we have been swept along in a direction that is not serving us?

Perhaps now is a good time to take control and to take on board some of the tools which can alchemise those situations into a ‘better version of you’ and the life you are leading?

When your perception of life changes, life changes

We can look on the tools of alchemy as a means of activating the body’s intelligence so that the body can heal itself.

If we consider that life happens to us – from the outside – in, as it were, we would be looking at externally focused solutions. The healing modalities we might consider might include dietary changes or the magic of herbs and elixirs.

Perhaps we could consider that life can be experienced from the inside – out. In other words we acknowledge that we can affect our experience of life by affecting how we deal with those events. Here yoga, qi gong, breathwork, meditation, Kabbalah, Shamanism offer the route to alchemy. Uniting prana, the physical body, emotional and mental bodies you can activate the body’s healing powers. Bringing energy to the body and calming the mind.

We might choose to include both of these ideas and direct our healing on a holistic level – both from the outside:in and the inside:out. To me this seems the best way of improving our experience of this life. Working on all levels we can truly alchemise our experiences – good and bad – into who we want to be and how we want to live our life.

Alchemy and Yoga

In Dru yoga and meditation we specifically work with all the layers of the self – physical, emotional, subconscious and the higher self. Activated by prana and the Dru Prana Kriyas we aim to create an inner strength so that we can allow the best version of ourselves to emerge. This is alchemy – creating peace from chaos. Transforming life’s challenges into lessons.