I’ve been teaching yoga for over 20 years all over the world. Yoga for me is an unfolding or a process of awakening. Traditionally one awakens through Yoga and Meditation to self knowledge- to knowing who or what you are beyond name and form. My main awakening events happened over a period of years in India, while on teacher’s training, during Vipassana Meditation and through osmosis from my teacher, Guruji Mohan. During deep Meditations I realized deeply, not intellectually but viscerally, that the ‘self’ or the ‘me’ was false-that who I was could not be contained by identification with the ego. The feeling/belief that I existed in a body/mind separate from all other bodies, minds, energies, elements -in other words from life- was not true. Life became, instead of an individual seeking for fulfillment, enlightenment, achievement and so on, became a felt experience of the One Life expressing itself thought this body/mind. Even though I was still myself to society, I felt intimately and holistically connected to all life. I see that what the mind tells itself, as a programmed upload from the past, is not truth, but an expression that is ephemeral, like all forms.
A few years after these awakenings, I became extremely ill with, what I found out later, was a congenital heart defect. I was working as a scuba diving instructor in Egypt and created the course “Yoga Diving” to join together reef conservation practices and underwater yoga and meditation. My heart condition required emergency surgery and I left to come back to the States where I remained very ill for many years post surgery.
Because of my body’s years of pain and debilitation, I was forced to integrate awakening experiences into life in the industrialized world, and deal with emotional blockages and repressed energy. Daily yoga and meditation practices aided with this. Without the embodiment side of awakening, the emotional body does not heal and chronic pain or illness can result. My teaching reflects integration of emotion, body, mind and the spirit of the embodiment of the One Life.