Dharmaparishad Yoga Collegiate
(Self-regulatory entity for the diffusion and teaching of Yoga.)
Dharmo Raksati Raksitah
(The protected Dharma protects.)
Introduction
The Dharmaparishad Yoga Collegiate of Brazil is an entity that acts as an organism to regulate and provide continuing education on Yoga in Brazil. Through the seal Lakshadharma, an assessment exam, the Collegiate accredits the interested instructor, providing a register of his qualification and competency to divulge the practice of Yoga.
Through numerous courses of continuing education and specializing in Yoga (360hrs/class), the Collegiate offers the professors and advanced practitioners an opportunity to immerse themselves in numerous classical texts of various traditions within Yoga, as well as their day to day applications.
History
In 2002, the I.Y.T.A. (International Yoga Teachers’ Association of Brazil, active in the country since 1974), the Narayana Centre for Yoga Studies (since 1966), the Narayana Graduate Course for Yoga Professors (founded in 1972) and the Brazilian subsidiary to YOCOCEN (International Yoga Coordination Centre, founded in India in 1977) founded CYBD (Yoga Collegiate of Brazil Dharmaparsihad), with the purpose of:
1) To self-regulate Yoga in Brazil, and accredit Yoga educators
2) To guarantee the pluralism of teaching and diffusion of Yoga in Brazil.
3) To avoid the control of Yoga by any regulatory entity tied to public bureaucracy, and assure the independence and freedom of thought to the branches of Yoga active in the country.
Foundation
The Collegiate directs itself on the fundamentals of the universality of Yoga, based on the doctrine of adhikarabheda, which recognizes the plurality of systems and practices derived from distinct psychic and organic aptitudes inherent to the multiplicity of human nature. Yoga as a method, as defined by T.N. Ganapathy, is the universal language that crosses the limits of regional, linguistic and geographical barriers in doctrines being non-sectarian by nature. This attitude allowed Yoga to create roots within Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Islamism, Christianity, Judaism and Sikhism; and in philosophical schools such as Vedanta, Sanquia, Tantra and Sufism in the East, and epicurist and stoic lines in the West, with repercussions in philosophers such as Shopenhauer and Nietzsche.
The adhikarabheda is succinctly expounded on verse 54 of the second chapter of Bhagavad-Gita:
“When your mind has overcome the confusion of error, the webs of illusion, do not concern yourself with the cares and questions regarding doctrines, nor with the disputes over rites, ceremonials and other adornments which are superfluous to the clothing of the spiritual idea.”
The name Dharmaparishad
The word parishad has its roots in “sitting in a circle”, “around.” It means a collegiate, council, assembly. The word dharma comes from the root dhr – support, maintain, contain – it appears in the Vedas with the meaning of “stabilizing force”, and is associated to the god Varuna, who represents Law/ Order/ Code, and also personifies cosmic power. The authors of Smrti identify Dharma with the code of conduct for an individual and for society. In Buddhism, the word dharma denotes knowledge, truth, morality and duty. Dharmaparishad is therefore an assembly of people who study and endeavor to adopt a behaviour and a code of yoga that does not injure the ethics of man or nature.