English Instructors

Acharya Harilalji
Harilalji, comes from a traditional family in Kerala, India, and was brought up surrounded by Ayurveda, Vedanta and Yoga. He completed his Yoga Teachers training course and Advanced Yoga Teacher Training course at the Sivananda Ashram in Neyyar Dam, Kerala, attaining the title Yoga-Acharya. Also he did a full-time diploma Yoga Therapy Instructors Course at Prasanthi Kutir, Bangalore. His thesis on “INTEGRATED APPROCH OF YOGA THERAPY for Asthma, Nasal Allergy, Artheritis, Backpain, Diabetics, GID, Hypertension, Anxiety & Depression and Obesity” received top honours.
Harilal is the director of Arsha Yoga Gurukulam in the beautiful western ghat hills of central Kerala, South India. The ashram provides residential yoga courses and yoga therapy. He is also the tutor in 'Nagelil' Ayurveda Medical College in Idukki district, Kerala.
In his teaching Harilal recognizes both the weaknesses and strengths of his students. Accordingly he suggests different asanas or variations for each individual.

Anantharavi Thillainathan
Anantharavi grew up with yoga and ayurveda. He is an inspiring master of yoga who has mastered advanced asanas and has deep insights about anatomic effects of yoga. He is trainer for yoga and aryurveda marma massage at different institutes and at the Yoga Vidya Gurucal University of Sri Lanka..

Ana Luisa Mendonca
Ana Luisa is a famous Portuguese dancer. She has trained in classic and modern dance and ballet at the "Royal Acadamy of Dance" with additional studies of different dance styles in Portugal, London and New York.
Ana Luisa is also a yoga teacher. For many years she has successfully managed her own dance and yoga school in Portugal.

Chandra Cohen
Chandra has practiced yoga intensely for many years; he has also studied with both Swami Vishnu-devananda and Swami Dayananda. His knowledge of the scriptures is extensive; he has taught Indian philosophy at Hunter College in New York City. Chandra has a humorous, yet clear way to lead you to your inner truth.

Gauri Eckhardt
Gauri is a massage therapist, experienced yoga teacher and director of the Sananda Yoga Center in Madrid. She has studied many Yoga systems, including Sivananda, Iyengar, Ashtanga and Bikram, as well as other systems of physical exercise (Feldenkrais, Pilates, Alexander technique). Her knowledge of human anatomy is extensive. Her teaching style is clear and exact, yet light-hearted. She challenges  students; after her lessons your body will feel as though you have been re-born!

Leela Mata
is well-known yoga teacher from Florida and mother of 4 children. She has practised yoga, ayurveda and meditation since childhood. She has taught for more than 20 years with great love and understanding; she gives seminars worldwide.

Dr. Nalini Sahay
is a disciple of Swami Satyananda Saraswati, founder of the Bihar School of Yoga. Nalini has many facets of experience. Currently she runs TORCH, an NGO working with street children and HIV/AIDS patients in New Delhi. She is a psychologist whose past experience includes teaching therapeutic yoga at schools and hospitals.

Narayani
Narayani is co-author and model of the newly re-published best selling “Book of Yoga”. A senior disciple of Swami Vishnu Devananda, Narayani has more that 30 years of yoga-teaching experience.
Narayani’s teaching style is characterized by deep love and sensitivity. Her classes have a magic to them – with a playfullness, even in difficult variations. The asanas are complemented by profoundly spiritual stories, poems and talks.

Shanmug Westley Eckhardt
was born in Canada, is a practising psychotherapist and the leader of yoga centers in Spain. He has trained yoga teachers for more than 25 years and studied psychology in London.

Shivakami Bretz
Yoga Vidya Acharya, nonmedical practitioner in psychotherapy, aryurvedic health consultant and trained in creative therapeutic hypnosis. She worked many years in social domains. Her knowledge about yoga, meditation and ayurveda comes from leading schools in Germany and Florida. Since 1993 she imparts her wide knowledge to the Yoga Vidya centers.

Sukadev Bretz
is the founder of Haus Yoga Vidya and the Yoga Vidya organisation. From his adolescence he was fascinated by the possibilities of the mind, learned fast reading autodidactically and attended concentration and memory training courses. At the age of 20 he graduated in industrial management from Munich university, with a minor in psychology. In 1981 he did his yoga teachers training with the Sivananda Yoga Centres. Swami Vishnu-devananda gave him the title of “Acharya” (yoga master), charged hin with the building up of yoga centers as well as the training of yoga teachers and assigned him one of his successors. In 1992 Sukadev founded the first Yoga Vidya Centre in order to teach a yoga practice that can easily be

Swami Atma Swaruparamananda
is a senior disciple of Swami Vishnu-devananda. Born in France, he is the founder and director of AYA (Adyaita Yoga Ashram) in California. He has trained many yoga teachers’, a humorous, sensitive and yet demanding yoga teacher.

Swami Bodhichitananda
Swamiji has been living in Rishikesh since 1991. He worked as the personal assistant of Swami Chidananda in the Sivananda Ashram. Swami Bodhichitananda founded the Kaivalyam Forest Ashram, an experiment in nonviolent positive being.

Swami Muktidharma
Swami Muktidharma is a Yogaarcharya, who is able to look back on more than 35 years of yoga experience. For 16 of those years, he lived in India with the Yoga and Tantra Master Paramahamsa Satyananda, an outstanding disciple from Swami Sivananda. Swami Muktidharma’s understanding of the science of Yoga is practice orientated, as well as deeply rooted in science and philosophy. It is based on many years of personal experience.

Swami Saradananda
is a senior disciple of Swami Vishnu-devananda who has a teaching style that inspires you to want to practice. She teaches yoga and meditation world-wide, and is the author of a number of books including "Yoga Mind and Body", "Teach Yourself Yoga", "Chakra Meditation" and "The Power OF Breath". With a great love of India, she also leads frequent pilgrimages.

Swami Tatvarupananda
is a master of the vedantic art of narration in analogies and stories with deep humour. He comes from Kerala. He got his wide knowledge about vedanta and spiritual truth as a disciple of Swami Dayananda, one of the closest disciples of Swami Sivananda. Swami Tatvarupananda teaches vedanta and Bhagavad Gita e.g. in Sivanada Ashram and by Amma.