Yoga Life Institute N.H.

The Yoga Institute has pioneered in the fields of Yoga Therapy, Yoga Education, Publishing, and Yoga for Better Living. Each program focuses on training people to be self-reliant and each of the above activities are forms of education. The heart of Yoga Therapy is replacing unhealthy habits with a spiritual approach to life. A great deal of effort and patience on the teacher's behalf is necessary to help people change unhealthy habits. Once educated in Yoga to the point of practicing, students become independent and are trained to help others.

In recent development, after years of planning, the Indian Educational Department made Yoga an official class at all schools. The Yoga courses focus on an overall approach to living based on four concepts: concentration, self-direction, objectivity, and self-reliance. The teaching of Yoga practices in its philosophical context maintains the subtle aspects of Yoga. Yoga postures easily develop into rote exercises when concepts like non-violence, relaxation and objectivity are forgotten.

A long-term educational endeavor of The Yoga Institute is teacher training. The program lasts six months for those who live on-site, which includes assistant teaching and one-to-one discussions with the directors. Those who commute normally study for two years before completing all the requirements of Yoga Teacher Training. Often foreigners join the six-month teacher training program and return to their homeland to teach Yoga.

Yoga Therapy has existed since the very beginning of the Institute in 1918. Each month the Institute has two-day workshops for Cardiac, Respiratory, Diabetes, Orthopedic, Abdominal, Pre- and Post-Natal Care and Stress Management. Books on the above topics show dramatic recovery or improved physical condition, i.e. less insulin for diabetics, fewer asthma attacks, and stress relief. There is a 90 percent reversal of diagnosis for heart patients, as the popular slogan says, "bypass the bypass" (surgery).

The Yoga for Better Living courses include the Seven Day Retreat described below. Numerous other programs like Sunday morning free lectures, and daily Yoga classes in the mornings and evenings, serve those who live nearby. And many long-term students receive spiritual guidance from Dr. Jayadeva, Hansaji, Mother Sitadevi (co-founder) and senior teachers. The Yoga Institute has inspired centers throughout the world by supporting individual teachers. The monthly magazine and over 45 book titles add to the resources offered by The Yoga Institute.

As a teacher trained for six-months at the Institute in 1989, I participated in all the above activities as an assistant. The message of living an integrated life comes through at each step. No one part of life is compromised over another. Caring for one's body is as spiritual an activity as is lecturing on contemplation, as is contemplating. Thus, a continual awareness of a Higher Reality is encouraged in all activities. One learns to have an objective perspective while being fully absorbed in an activity.

To live the Yogic principles in a technologically advanced world is no easy task, yet this is the message that is taught to all people who come to Yoga. Then, programs are developed to suit the needs of the particular audience. As you read between the lines, compassion underlines the service of teaching and The Institute often expresses its teaching as "The Classical Yoga of Caring."

Reprinted with permission from the "Study Guide to the Classical Yoga Lifestyle", by Dr. Robert J. Butera, Ph.D.