Sivananda World News: the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres

She made the teachings of the Gita come alive by applying it to our daily struggles and lives. Swamiji gave a Gita class. We thanked Swamiji and Master for their blessings and look forward to seeing the students going deeper in the coming weeks. Satsang was very busy, with many close students and teachers attending as well as new students. Linda Graham, who integrates modern neuroscience, mindfulness practices and relational psychology in her trainings on resilience and well-being, started her program on "Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Resilience and Well-Being" during an evening Satsang. We thank Narayana for his service and accommodating five staff members in the program. The staff also participated in the European online workshops, classes and Satsangs. We were especially blessed with beautiful kirtan concerts with Atmarama das, giving evening Satsangs and afternoon workshops, sharing his devotion to Sri Krishna! The Krishna Kutir house was fully prepared and the Asana platform tent and bungalow tents were cleaned.

The house provides space to accommodate special guests, Karma Yogis and extra rooms for vacation guests. We put some prana into the planning of the karma yogis and teachers duties and schedule for the period of the school holidays. A motivated group of teachers and close students came from around Europe to take part in a photo shoot. International Yoga Day celebrations: About 40 local school children visited the Ashram to demonstrate their practice of Yoga to the TTC students. The contents on these Our Teachings webpages are reproduced from the book "Essentials of Yoga Practice and Philosophy" compiled by Swami Sitaramananda. During mid June Swami Sitaramananda and staff visited Grace Cathedral in SF to give a talk and Q&A to celebrate International Yoga Day. With the arrival of June we enjoyed beautiful summer weather after a long period of cold temperatures and rain. We were very lucky to have some absolutely gorgeous summer weather for the special programs at the May Retreat. The weather has been ideal this week for sadhana.

On Wednesday TTCs started Week 3. Ashram priest Sankaran Namboodiri led us in a beautiful and powerful Devi Puja on Tuesday evening. It was a beautiful Puja with many participants, finishing with some collective rounds of Surya Namaskar. The week culminated with a beautiful Full Moon Mandala Puja led by Swami Vasishtananda at Swamiji’s house, blessing all. Isani, a long-time teacher at New York Centre, arrived for the week to teach the Yoga Immersion Week for Beginners’. Many programs are running alongside the ATTC: The Intermediate Yoga course with Sri Devi introduced the Four Paths of Yoga; Komilla Sutton taught the Jyotish weekend course on Rahu and Ketu including Satsang talks on how to understand karmic situations through Jyotish; Spencer Nielsen shared his extensive knowledge with the Ayurveda Herbs in the Garden weekend course. Main highlight was the online weekend workshop on the topic Nourishing Nutrition, conducted by Suneetha Sapur, a clinical Nutritionist who has worked as a consultant at Apollo Hospitals and Microsoft. A weekend Intensive beginners´course took place on three subsequent weekends.

On Friday day off most of the TTC students took the opportunity to visit Gangothri, visiting the cave that inspires admiration for Swamiji’s will power to have stayed there during winter months as it is cold, even in June. Meanwhile, the Yoga Farm is vibrant with energy of ATTC sadhana: the students are very inspired with their pranayama practice and philosophy classes. "There, but for the grace of God go I"; to love thy neighbor as thyself, are not just moral injunctions, but attitudes supported by the law of karma, precepts for daily practice. By the grace of the Masters all passed the exam. Staff are well, ever grateful for the grace of the Gurus, and send pranams to all. All our staff are happy & doing their Sadhanas. We are constantly swimming in an ocean of thoughts, What is Sivananda yoga attracting certain thoughts and repulsing others depending on the quality of the thoughts we keep in our mind. We had a series of workshops on the topic of Detox - Cleansing for Body and Mind. Gajananam summarized Chapter 18 of the Gita, the culmination of a monthly Satsang series. On Saturday, Swami Sivadasananda taught a combined asana class for TTC, staff, and guests; and he gave the Satsang that evening.