June 21, 2016
First you decide to take the life-changing plunge to become a yoga teacher. Next, you must find the yoga teacher training program that’s right for you. This is no small task. One big consideration is where the training will take place. The location you choose has the power to shape your experience. Check in with yourself and ask some key questions: During my training, do I want to wake up in my own bed every morning? Or am I hankering for a physical journey as well as a spiritual one? Is your favorite studio with your favorite teacher offering a training that’s only a mile or two from home? Or do you long to experience life in an ashram with a view of the majestic Himalayas? Or beautiful South India? For some, circumstances dictate that you must stick close to home and perhaps stretch out your training over a period […]
April 15, 2016
When people come to a yoga class, on some level they know it is not the same as taking a Crossfit or circuit training class. Even a new or casual student has an intuition that yoga is something deeper. Yoga is not an exercise regimen. The eight limbs of yoga provide a spiritual way of life designed to unite us with the whole of existence. There is a tendency in the West to focus on only one limb of yoga, the asanas, or postures. While there are undoubtedly benefits to engaging with yoga on even one level, as a teacher, you want to authentically embrace the entire spiritual system if you wish to serve as an example for your students. When you set out to teach, you are committing to living a yogic lifestyle. You will live yoga and pass it onto others. We offer these nine foundational steps to […]
March 15, 2016
Science is Catching up With Thousands of Years of Meditation Wisdom It’s believed that meditation has been around for 5,000 years, originating in India. According to the latest research and oral history, the yogic tradition of meditation can be traced back to Shiva, a great spiritual master who systematized both yoga and tantra about 7000 years ago. Around 400-100 B.C.E. Patanjali documented some of those teachings in the Yoga Sutras. Millions of people have felt the many benefits of a regular meditation practice in one of its many forms (mindfulness awareness, transcendental, vipassana, yogic, and others). While scholars in the West first learned of ancient meditation teachings in the 18th century, it wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s that the practice of meditation became more popular with westerners. Today, for many people meditation has become decoupled from its roots in the religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, allowing it to […]
February 18, 2016
You are an interesting anomaly in the modern world. By becoming a yoga instructor, you are choosing a career path that will help you enrich the lives of others as well your own. And you are proving yourself to be willing to do the hard work necessary to make it happen. As your yoga teacher training approaches, how do you prepare yourself — physically, spiritually and plain old logistically — for an experience that will be demanding on so many levels? We offer twelve pieces of advice, from the practical to the spiritual, to ensure you’re as prepared as possible for what promises to be one of the most transformative and intense experiences of your life. Practical considerations Whether you choose an intensive teacher training in a locale far from home, or a nearby program that spreads lessons out over the course of six months to a year, there are a number of […]
February 2, 2016
The system is called Nada Yoga (The Yoga of Sound). It is a path of exploration of consciousness through sounds. The aim of the advanced state of Nada Yoga is to purify and harmonize the gross and subtle fields of body energy and bring them in alignment with their natural vibration. It is the opening of a door on the level of highest awareness when consciousness becomes conscious of itself. It is from that state that the transformation and healing begin in a most natural way. All our experiences of love, joy, peace, health and happiness are orchestrated by consciousness from that field of unified state, the state of Yoga, and are our birthright to enjoy.
September 10, 2015
The colours relate to certain days of the week and astrological planets. A person should wear clothes of appropriate color for each day of the week, in order to absorb the planetary energy in the light in a positive way.
August 3, 2015
Asanas are powerful in that they work on the entire physic-psycho-spiritual system by assisting in creating an extremely subtle body and mind, the basis of spiritual elevation.
July 20, 2015
It is fascinating that each chakra determines our relationship to the world of matter, emotion and spirit, yet the seven chakras are also the energy vortexes of psychic propensities or tendencies, as for example, fear, hatred, lethargy, shyness, effort, pride, jealousy, etc. Yoga teaches the exact location of each psychic propensity and how we can free the mind from troublesome psychic propensities to find peace and tranquillity – the requirement for meditation.
July 14, 2015
A Journey Into Excellence Meet Paula, a.k.a. Parvati, a young woman who decided to listen to her calling and make yoga teaching her life’s career. Parvati is a Sanskrit name and means ‘The Universal Mother and Great Goddess’ and that’s true for Paula who is moving into her greatness both personally and as someone who shares the profound teachings of yoga with others. She has completed her yoga teacher training course with the Himalayan Yoga Institute in April 2014 and has been teaching yoga in London ever since. Embarking on the yoga journey at the tender age of 14, she shares her beginnings, her courageous decision to travel to India at the age of only 18 and to make yoga the central focus of her life. How It All Began When I was 13 I had an amazing teacher at school. She taught us world religion and was one of […]