Thursday Satsang Via Zoom and In-Person Viewing at TMC: Talk with Stephen Parker (Stoma) PsyD, E-RYT 500. “Maha Shivaratri, The Great Night of Shiva, Its Meaning and the Many Aspects of Shiva Consciousness” – February 16, 2023
Talk with Stephen Parker (Stoma) PsyD, E-RYT 500
“Maha Shivaratri, The Great Night of Shiva,
Its Meaning and the Many Aspects of Shiva Consciousness”
Thursday Satsang Via Zoom and In-Person Viewing at TMC
February 16, 2023
Talk with Stephen Parker (Stoma) PsyD, E-RYT 500
“Maha Shivaratri, The Great Night of Shiva,
Its Meaning and the Many Aspects of Shiva Consciousness”
7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. CST
6:00-7:00 p.m.: Gentle Hatha Yoga with Susan Guthrie
7:00-7:30 p.m.: Guided Meditation by Stephen Parker (Stoma) PsyD, E-RYT 500
7:30-8:30 p.m.: Talk with Stephen Parker (Stoma) PsyD, E-RYT 500
“Maha Shivaratri, The Night of Shiva, Its Meaning and the Many Aspects of Shiva Consciousness”
8:30 p.m.: Evening Prayers
8:40 p.m.: Snacks
Join Stoma as he discusses the spiritual significance of MahaShivaratri, the Great Night of Shiva and the many aspects of Shiva Consciousness.
…God has many many faces. Thou art the Sun. Thou art the Moon. Thou art the blowing Winds. Thou art the blazing Fires. Thou art the flowing, cooling Waters. Thou art the all-encompassing Space. Thou art the supportive Earth. Thou art the Tao, the Self, the Atman. In all of these many names we see the forms, and in all of these many forms we see this One permeating all. When we see God as we would like to see ourselves, when the ascetic urge has reached its maximum and is at its fullest, that being of our Selves which is one with the Supreme Self, is Shiva, the King of Ascetics.
Shiva is the Lord of the meditator, the very identity of the meditator. The earliest iconography in human history is a meditative one: divinity sitting in the right meditative posture. It is the iconography of Shiva. It is that one by whose grace we are drawn to a life of renunciation to go up the mountain, for he is the dweller of Mount Kailasha, the dweller of the highest mountain within us from whose head and from whose matted hair the gushing River of Inspiration, Knowledge and Wisdom flows. The very River that becomes our kundalini and descends from the highest of the heavens comes right into our fontanel and from there flows downward into the Seven Worlds (chakras), the Seven Continents, the Seven Oceans and becomes our very kundalini. That Shiva, to Him I dedicate myself today by the chant, “Om Namah Shivayah”… by Swami Veda Bharati
Stephen Parker (Stoma) was initiated in the Himalayan Yoga tradition by Swami Veda Bharati and was given the initiate name Stoma in 1971. Among the first teachers certified by the Himalayan International Teachers’ Association, H.I.T.A., he began teaching hatha-yoga in 1974. Stoma is a Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher at the 500 hour level of the Yoga Alliance (E-RYT 500). A member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists, he serves on the faculties of the Meditation Center in Minneapolis and the Sadhanamandir and Sadhaka Gram ashrams in Rishikesh, India. He is also a senior faculty member of the Himalayan Yoga Tradition Teachers’ Training Program. He has lectured on yoga, meditation and spiritual practice in the U.S. and Canada as well as in Caribbean countries, Holland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, South Africa, Korea, Hong Kong and India. In 2004 he helped originate and teach the first course on yoga in an American medical school at the University of Minnesota Academic Medical Center. In 2007 he received took preliminary vows of renunciation from Swami Veda and the Shankaracharya of Karvirapitha.
Stoma has been a licensed psychologist in private practice in St. Paul, MN since 1985. He also serves as Adjunct Assistant School Professor of Counseling and Psychological Services at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN. He teaches on the faculty of the Introductory Workshops of the Minnesota Society of Clinical Hypnosis. In addition to authoring journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Parker edited volume two of Swami Veda’s definitive scholarly work on the “Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali” and he has been a peer review editor for the “Journal of Men’s Studies,” the “American Journal of Orthopsychiatry” and the” International Journal of Yoga Therapy.