Stillness and dynamism. Bliss and ecstasy. These seeming opposites can coexist in experience.

Sound can be utilized to induce stillness. Such a sound could be called "the sound of silence" (tystnadsklangen in Swedish). For instance, during a sound bath and during deep meditation with the thought of a sound (mantra), the experience of transcending thought can be accompanied by stillness and bliss. The sound of silence is therefore the central component of sound baths and deep meditation.

Sound (physical or pure thought) can also induce energetic experiences that seem to move through body and space, often accompanied by ecstasy. Sound baths offer the opportunity to experience inner stillness and moving energetic sensations without any training or preparation. 

In AYP we use a dedicated breathing technique (spinal breathing pranayama) utilizing breath and moving awareness, to cultivate these dynamical and ecstatic experiences gently and gradually.

While all these experiences are fascinating and often enjoyable, they are just byproducts of something more important happening in the nervous system, that experientially can be described as "purifying and opening of the nervous system".  

During a sound bath, such experiences are byproducts of therapeutic and restorative processes in body and mind that are the primary goal of a sound bath. With a twice daily yoga practice, this "purifying and opening" becomes an ongoing process in us, so that the experienced qualities of bliss, stillness, energetic movement and ecstasy eventually become lasting and fully integrated in a normal active life.

My background in science, having worked for many years in theoretical physics research, makes me acutely aware that many concepts in yoga (such as moving energy, or prana, or kundalini) have yet to be found scientific underpinnings and might even appear to be in conflict with well established notions in theoretical physics or biology.

If you start reading the first AYP lesson keep in mind that the language used by Yogani aims to be close to experience, and not necessarily close to scientific, spiritual, new-age, religious or traditional yoga terminology.

So, for example, that meditation is "purifying and opening the nervous system" sounds scientific (or maybe pseudo-scientific depending on the reader) but it really just captures the experience of anyone practicing AYP for a while, and not necessarily anything that has been measured or understood in terms of biology. Similar examples can be found in the AYP writings that might appear to have specific scientific, spiritual, religious or traditional hindu/vedic meanings. In all these cases one should keep in mind that terminology was chosen to be close to experience. AYP is about practice. And since all yoga happens inside, language close to experience is most useful.

My name is Michael Kopp, and I got a Doctoral Degree in Physics (PhD) at the LMU in Munich and have been doing research and teaching for 20 years. So I'm passionate about science, but I'm also passionate about Yoga and its teaching! I completed my AYP teacher training 2024, and organized seven meditation retreats around Stockholm in the past 2 years, where I also started teaching AYP. During the Sound Therapy Training 2023-2025 in Sweden, I guided sound therapy students to a better understanding of the physics of sound and introduced them to the scientific language and research methods. It is this combination of scientific and yogic training that is mostly appreciated by my students, as it naturally leads to intuitive and concise instructions and explanations.

My path to Yoga:

After experiencing bliss and inner silence “out of the blue” for a few hours about 5 years ago, I became fascinated with the possibility to enter such states through my own will. This let me on a quest of trying out self-directed yogic and meditative practices, including Wim Hof,  Reggie Ray’s audio courses on Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, and finally Yogani’s AYP.

AYP aims to make the student self-directed right away (“The guru is in you”), and everything essential can be learned for free by just reading at one's own pace on aypsite.org. This resonated deeply with my desires and inclinations, so that AYP became my sole spiritual practice. This produced fascinating results unexpectedly fast. Only a few months after switching to AYP, I realized that AYP indeed provides a reliable way into bliss states. But much more was waiting I didn’t expect: ecstasy in and outside of meditation, and a gradual and ongoing integration of bliss, inner silence, equanimity, joy, ecstasy and love into everyday life.