In times of mounting stress, who do you call? I ventured into formal yoga lessons at the turn of the millennium in response to frequent bouts of influenza and insomnia caused by workstress. Discarding a DIY philosophy of sporadic yoga practice at home, I took my first formal lesson with an Indian yoga master in a serene studio in Hong Kong. That first step unleashed yoga’s infinite possibilities.

Within months there were physical benefits:Improved posture and flexibility, a sense of wellness. Frequent influenza became and still is a thing of the past. I bid adieu to chronic insomnia, sometimes week-long. Impatience and anxiety took the backseat. I transited from overstressed to calm.

But I also stumbled into something bigger:  yoga taught me about myself.As the late yogi Parmahansa Yogananda said, “You realise that all along there was something tremendous within you, and you did not know it.”

Yoga’s true wealth lies beyond the branded profit-driven yoga industry; yoga has the ability to impart not only health and wellness, but physiological and spiritual transformation. Yoga means ‘union’ or ‘to yoke’ body, mind and spirit. This it does through varied combinations of asanas (physical postures), mudra (hand positions that facilitate prana circuits), banda (energy locks) and pranayama (breath work). Traditionally, yoga was the forerunner of meditation, balancing and aligning body, mind and spirit in preparation for spiritual development.

With practice, yoga introduced me to an entire new inner physiology. I learned about and experienced prana, the lifeforce that propels our actions and decisions. I discovered and experienced the chakras, and the pancha kosha or five‘bodies’, loosely translated as layers of consciousness. As such, yoga has the potential to make you a whole and better human. By balancing and aligning body, emotions and mind, yoga prepares the body for meditation, opening pathways to deep spiritual development and awareness of subtle levels of consciousness.

After a period of learning yoga and even teaching it, I abandoned yoga to pursue the spiritual impulse it had fired within. I returned to formal yoga more than two decades later in Sri Lanka to address the needs of a body reaching seniority. What a joy to find that yoga had matured at home with local teachers dedicated to imparting an authentic yoga experience.

For the aspiring beginner, Sri Lanka offers the opportunity for both outer and inner transformation. And even if you don’t have or desire a direct experience of the chakras or prana, you will find yoga induces a stillness within that enables you to stop and take stock of yourself, a great strength in a world spinning out of control.

So where do you start in a market crowded with yoga teachers? Caveat emptor is the key. Commercialised yoga schools abound across the world, and there are establishments offering profit-driven teacher certification. It’s pretty much like any other branch of the education industry. So look around and choose wisely.

Check credentials and experience; your teacher should keep you safe in your practice and nurture your mind-body connection. Perhaps the most important qualities of the yoga teacher, aside from being a master of yoga, is a strong moral foundation. Also know what you want – My goals were increased flexibility, fitness and stamina and not necessarily mastering advanced asanas.

Here are a few recommendations from my own search for a teacher:

• For fun fitness and stretching cramped muscles, the yoga class by Nilmini Mullegama at Zimantra Fitness Centre in Battaramulla, is pretty good. The stretches are fluid, one asana gliding into the other, and Nilmini is gentle and nurturing. Mondays and Thursdays 6.30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

      For more information, contact Zimantra Leisure Centre, Battaramulla, +94 11 33 55 666.

• For an informative and compelling experience, it’s dynamic Miuru Jayaweera. I am convinced Miuru has digested the entire anatomy of yoga because anatomical terminology rolls smoothly off her tongue.
• Her classes combine asanas, pranayama and bandas and she guides on correct body  placement so that you know what muscles you are using for an asana and how they work, which allows you to sink into the practice fully aware of what’s going on in your body. The atmospheric Light of Asia in Battaramulla, one of Miuru’s venues, adds sacred ambiance especially at night. Students also get a lot of aftercare via WhatsApp and frequent videos that recap points learned in class, as well as weekend yoga retreats. Under Miuru’s guidance, I regained muscle memory of old yoga practices that I had left behind. The muscles never forget, Miuru told me.

      For more information, login to https://myrus.lk/

• For a deep spiritual experience, sign up for a Babaji Kriya Yoga Trust initiation weekend. Regular progressive initiation seminars teach essential Kriya techniques to awaken and circulate subtle energies, vitalise, purify, deep heal and strengthen body and mind connection. My first encounter with the Kriya yogis was intensive, a traditional presentation of yoga that involved focus and veneration of the lineage guru Babaji. That said, they also tell you how to switch focus from Babaji to one’s own spiritual guru. Kriyanandamayee, the Kriya yoga archarya, is fully committed and the techniques introduced are incredibly transformational. This highly spiritual approach requires faith and perseverance for benefits. However, because I have my own intensive spiritual practice, I did not continue on this path.

                Babaji Kriyayoga Institute.
94 77 4670 834,info@thekriyayoga.com

• In my search, I settled on SethminYoga run by husband and wife team Amila Wijerathne and Tharinda Samanthi, for two reasons: I felt the strength and stamina boost after about the third lesson, and because I found myself among a few students older and even more agile than me. Amila and Tharinda’s classes are attended by students aged from 17 to 72. The one- and-a-half hour class has a good mix of 20 minutes of pranayama along with intensive asana, banda and mudra practices.

Sethmin is not your regular plush studio but a modest hall with an airy welcoming vibe. While some may find the lack of airconditioning a drawback, authentic yoga trains the body to adjust to its natural surroundings, so this was a plus point for me.With global heating, developing coping skills is a good idea.

For more information: https://web.
facebook.com/sethminyoga/

Amila who has also studied ayurveda and the healing arts, says yoga is less about image and getting a designer body and more about getting your body to work the way it should. Yoga is a life science that can even lead you to enlightenment, he says. He advises beginners to invest at least three months of regular practice in yoga to reap its rewards.

The surya namaskar (sun salutation) is the foundation of many yoga routines and the firm base of many yoga classes. Amila describes surya namaskar as the perfect routine because it lubricates the system, provides a good cardio workout, and balances the endocrine system.Daily practice will address any imbalance in the body, he says.

There is no one yoga system, he points out. We know that yoga developed over millennia because there are allusions to yoga practices in India and elsewhere in primitive art. There are said to be over a million asanas. Yoga took firm root in India where in the first or second centuries CE the sage Patanjali collated all knowledge of yoga in the four-volume classic entitled Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.Today, yoga continues to evolve, with various systems aligned with the goals of different schools. The best known systems are Ashtanga, Sivananda and Iyengar.

I started yoga at the turn of the millennium and have never looked back again. I am still accruing its rewards. Once you start living the yogic way, all of life becomes yoga.You go through life with body, mind and spirit in sync, guided not just by the drives of the materialistic world, but also by a call from deep within to live life correctly. Of course, life is never perfect and problems do not cease. But when your family and work become your karma yoga, your spiritual pursuits your bakti yoga, your intellectual pursuits your jnana yoga, problems fall into perspective far more easily. This happens when your life becomes your yoga, rich and balanced inside and out.

Have yourself a healthy baby

Here’s to a healthy, longer life!

COVID-19: How do we prepare for the worst?

Are you listening?

Leprosy Hansen’s disease