|
|
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
|
| |
Dr. Mala first got introduced to Hatha yoga as a graduate
student in the year 1982 at the Banaras Hindu University.
Seeing her passionate involvement with yoga, her yoga
teacher Mrs Das who was trained in the Sivananda tradition,
remarked, “you should continue doing yoga. I can
always see the glow of inner peace within you, after a
yoga session ”. Dr. Mala continued her practice
throughout her stay at B.H.U while she finished her M.A.
in Philosophy and enrolled for a Ph.D in philosophy. Even
at this stage her main aim of doing yoga was to find inner
balance and peace alongwith fitness. While doing her doctoral
research she got married in 1989 and had her first child
a daughter in 1990. Marriage and childbirth and the subsequent
events interrupted her yoga practice. Post childbirth
she became overweight and also developed severe Asthma.
She completed her Ph.D in 1993 and soon after was awarded
a 2 year Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) from the Indian
Council of Philosophical Research. As a requirement for
the JRF she took up teaching philosophy to graduate students
in the University of Allahabad. Inspite of her asthma
and the rigours of bringing up her daughter with household
duties she successfully completed the JRF project in 2
years. The year 1997 brought her to Military station in
Wellington, a hill station near Ooty in south India. In
Wellington, she became an expert horse rider and an avid
golfer. She participated twice in the ceremonial Ooty
Hunt Club rides.
After a year when she moved to Trivandrum, in the southern
state of Kerala, the spark of yoga was re-ignited. Dr.
Mala joined the Sivananda Yoga center in Trivandrum in
1998 and started all over again from the beginners level.
She realized that even though she knew the theory of yoga
philosophy because of her philosophy background, adopting
and practicing yoga in real life was an entirely different
experience. After completing the advanced level course,
to her surprise and happiness, she found that she was
able to reduce her weight and overcome her asthma problem
completely. Encouraged by the power of yoga, on the advice
of the Head at the Trivandrum center, she enrolled for
the Teachers Training Course (TTC) at the Sivananda Ashram
at Neyyar Dam, near Trivandrum in January 2000. She had
to be away from the family for a full month to practice
intensive sadhna, yoga asanas and kriyas alongwith more
than 100 other yoga enthusiasts from all over the world.
Since February 2000, Dr. Mala has been teaching and sharing
the knowledge of yoga in the Sivananda Hatha yoga lineage.
She started her yoga classes at Trivandrum in her house
with a few students. A year later she moved to Melbourne,
Australia and soon had a dedicated group of Australian
students keen to learn yoga from an Indian teacher. Some
of her students who had tried some other yoga centers
earlier but did not continue, remarked after a few classes
that they found her teaching style very comfortable, relaxing
and it helped them physically as well as emotionally.
As her circle of yoga community grew in Australia, she
was invited on a regular basis to some Yoga centers in
and around Melbourne for lectures on Indian philosophy,
philosophy of yoga and demonstration of asanas. Dr. Mala
developed a regular association for lecture cum demonstration
session, with the Dharma Yoga Health center in East Bent
Leigh, Melbourne and the Greenfield Yoga Centre in Kew.
After her return to India in March 2002, Dr. Mala founded
the “Aatmadarshan Yoga & Philosophy Foundation”,
(ADYP) to propagate and share the knowledge of yoga and
Indian philosophy. The motto of her center and the main
theme of her teachings are “Know thyself”.
While her teaching style remains the classical yoga in
the Sivananda lineage, Dr. Mala encourages each student
to discover his or her own path on the journey of yoga
or union of the body, mind and spirit. According to Dr.
Mala who relates her own experience, each individual’s
experience with yoga is different and one has to know
it by regular practice. Her advice to her students is
“do yoga, remain healthy, balance your family life,
career and know yourself”. Dr. Mala encourages her
students to become independent in their yoga practice
and “become like a tree, not a creeper”.
At her ADYP center yoga courses are available at 3 levels
– Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced. Individual
classes in therapeutic yoga are also available. Dr. Mala
combines yoga asana practice with the some time for yoga
philosophy discussion also in each session. For those
who want to delve deeper into philosophy of yoga, she
holds separate workshops apart from her regular classes
at the ADYP center. Dr. Mala has held yoga workshops in
schools, Madarsas, clubs, Government departments, villages
and jails in Delhi, Azamgarh, Mau and other cities in
India. Every summer she conducts kid’s yoga camp
at the ADYP center.
Dr. Mala has special skills for therapeutic Yoga to provide
relief through both creative and preventive methods. Her
expertise has helped many to get back to healthy and balanced
life style and is able to practice regular yoga asanas
and pranayams. |
|
