When I moved to London in 1997 I began to attend yoga classes, meditation retreats, Buddhist teachings and lectures by many spiritual teachers. In 2006 my search for the fundamental truths of life drew me to Agama Yoga, where I found the perfect ground for personal growth and completed the Teacher Training Course (Yoga Alliance, International Yoga Federation certified). Since then I have been teaching in North London, Thailand (Agama headquarters) and in 2008 I opened the Agama UK branch in Bristol, where I'm currently based.
My deepening yoga practice has triggered a profound shift in the way I relate to the world. So many questions about the nature of the universe, existence and the interconnectedness of all life could finally be made sense of through integral yoga.
The one common goal of humanity is to ‘find’ true happiness. We all look for it in different ways but the goal is always the same: peace of mind. Yoga is a holistically balanced and harmonious path to find and maintain such joy through introspection and self awareness.
Living a yogic lifestyle in the West is not easy; it requires strength, determination and perspective. I teach yoga knowing that it is possible to integrate this lifestyle into the fast paced rhythm of modern living. Applying yoga to everyday life means to bring consciousness into each and every action we engage in, allowing a greater awareness to be the foundation of our being.
I honour all the teachers that have inspired and challenged me and I am especially grateful to my yoga and meditation teachers Swami Vivekananda Saraswati and Sahajananda for their vast knowledge, sharp insights and compassionate wisdom. I am a Jignasu Sannyasin with Bihar school of Yoga and a qualified Agama yoga teacher and Satyananda yoga practitioner. Having spent around nine years exploring and practising various aspects of spirituality, particularly, Advaita Vedanta, Tantra, Buddhism, various forms of Hatha, Raja, Bhakti and other yogas. I now feel that my experience and practice is sufficient to share and transmit some of this information to those who are themselves seeking. Though I have been teaching some aspects of Hatha and Raja yoga on and off for some years, I have felt it important to establish myself as a dedicated yogi before being ready to teach a complete system. Though labels are cumbersome, above all I could say that I am a sannyasin and a karma yogi, committed to serving others as a yoga teacher. At quite a young age I had some experiences of what I now realise were ‘non-dual’ or ‘void’ states; glimpses of something very peaceful, powerful and indescribably beautiful. Though these experiences were sporadic, I secretly nurtured this relationship with the absolute and a profound sense that there was something far more to human existence gradually took hold of my consciousness. I was blessed with asthma, which meant I was forced to be more aware of my breath than the average child growing up and as a result I learned to observe it and I noticed how this affected the mind. I used to meditate using my breath in order to calm down before sleeping and later realised I was using techniques akin to yoga nidra. Through this, I eventually learned to observe my thinking mind and unwittingly developed some faculty where my consciousness would exist as the ‘drishti’ – the witness consciousness. Much later I began yoga: a deliberate and methodical approach to seeking truth. My first yoga, though I didn’t know it at the time, was gyan yoga ; intuitively asking: ‘Who am I?’, ‘What is this ‘I’ feeling?’, ‘How do I fit in with all this world stuff?’ . My approach was very analytical and psychological but soon enough I was guided towards a path of spirituality. This began with various forms of self-enquiry and later energy work including martial arts, reiki and chi gung. I then began certain forms of Buddhist meditation and eventually in 2002 I began Hatha yoga and spent a year in India experimenting with various forms of Hatha yoga and meditation. My Hatha Yoga practice began with some years of Iyengar Yoga which gave a me a solid physical grounding in asana and a little pranayama then I moved into Satyananda Yoga which opened the door to a more integral approach to the various yogas. This eventually drew me to India for a second time and to my guru, Swami Niranjananda Saraswati. I partook in a four month residential courses at his ashram and eventually around a year later I took Jignasu Sannyas and was given the spiritual name Devamurti. Very much in congruence with Satyananda Yoga, which is also a distinctly tantric system, I found Agama yoga; a very powerful and deeply meditative practice. I studied in Rishikesh, India for a couple of months with Agama before going to Thailand to take the three month teacher training course under the guidance of Swami Vivekananda Saraswati. My main practice is to live every moment with awareness, clarity, optimism and positivity, which is at the essence of Karma yoga, if not all yogas. Whilst self-enquiry opened the doors to yoga for me, in recent years the vritti (mind-state) of Bhakti has blossomed within me and I see clearly that mine is the path of the heart and of devotion. My personal daily practice usually includes: Hridaya Yoga (a heart centred self-enquiry meditation method), A mindful, energy-conscious Hatha Yoga practice, Devotional singing (bhajan and kirtan). Gabriella was born in Isreal into a spiritual education and began
pracitsing yoga when she was about 4 years of age—with her mother. Subsequently she continued on her own,
learning from books. She was always
attracted to spirituality and the mysteries of the Universe, and read many
books of spirituality, and together with nature, considered these to be her
main teachers. She found that book were
not enough, and continued to hope that one day she would find a living teacher
and a community of spiritual seekers. In 2002, she made her first journey to India, and in Rishikesh, discovered
her teachings of spirituality—Agama Yoga.
Form that moment onward she dedicated her life to studies in
spirituality, practice and service. Soon
after she went to Thailand
where she lived for 5 years, deepening her knowledge into the world of Hindu
and Shaivist Tantric Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, and Theravada Buddhism. There remainder of the time now she devotes
to Tibetan Buddhism, and Dzogchen. Gabriella started teaching in 2005 in Thailand,
and has since taught yoga courses, workshops, and retreats in Thailand, Europe, Isreal, and now in Canada. The workshops that she teaches cover a wide
range of subjects: from yoga and meditation workshops and retreats; women
workshops; spiritual relationship teachings; and transfiguration workshops. Her biggest love is working with other women in her women workshops, as
finding out what a woman is was one of her biggest quests. Through this she has coined it “the
ShaktiHood:” a sisterhood amongst women, a family—a women-Hood. Her development of this workshop happens all
the time, constantly finding new ways to tranmit and express the feminine
nature. “The ways to celebrate it, to
be, and to Love.” Her teachers are a
many source of inspiration for these workshops—which include, teachers from
many different backgrounds, in arts and tradition: dance teachers, other women, Zen and Buddhist
teachers. Ra Dasi was born in the earthliness of North England. As a child, she expressed Spirit deeply through creativity, adventure and a prayer that came form inward aspiration. She journeys joyfully, intensely embracing life's experiences, working with humanity on many different levels, both professionally and in play, and finding peace in the purity of nature and the love of friends. She left England in her mid-20s to move more consciously into the Soul, and to her heart's cry she discovered Agama yoga in 2005. She found the teachings to integrate all the various expressions of truth she had discovered blessing her with a whole and direct spiritual path, shared within a wonderful community. Her growth and Soul's truth is revealed more and more by Bhakti Yoga, Reiki healing, the Hridaya Spiritual Heart Retreats and sun gazing.She took some time following the completition of Agama's Kundalini programme to go deeper into these practices and to allow her being to focus fully on serving as an adult and children Yoga teacher... with the most beautiful, blessed and profound practices she knows. She spends half of the year teaching yoga in Glastonbury, UK; and the other half in Thailand, doing meditation retreats and intensive yoga practice. Born in Poland, Ania, who has a Master’s degree in Methodology of Teaching, began her Yoga studies from books in 1998, first with the Sivananda and Iyengar models. She did not easily find competent instructors in her homeland, and later left for India to seek genuine teachings. After exploring various Yoga ashrams, she met Swami Vivekananda in Rishikesh in 2001, where she was touched by the spiritual depths of Yoga and amazed by the coherence and practicality of the Agama teachings. Over the next year, through devoted practice, she gained deep understanding of the foundations of Yoga and experience with its techniques. In 2002, she began teaching in Rishikesh. In 2005 she joined the staff in Thailand teaching Yoga and later taking part in training new teachers during Agama TCC, which gave her a wider perspective on working with Yoga. Currently she is teaching in Agama Branch in Bristol. During her studies in Agama she has accomplished the program in basics of Yoga, Kundalini Yoga and the discipline for the seven chakras of Agama course curriculum (Curriculum Overview). She appreciates Agama Yoga system most for the tools and techniques it gives the student for advancement at every level of their being. She is also delighted to see so many people transforming and awakening to spirituality through it. Along with Hatha, Kundalini and Laya Yoga, she particularly values silent meditation retreats. She has an enormous gratitude to have had a chance to participate in several Self Revelation retreats with Claudiu Trandafir. Constantly meditating on the essential question “Who am I?” gave her the deepest spiritual insights in her so far experience.
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