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"The practice of Karma Yoga is your duty. It is the highest form of Yoga and brings the highest of benefits. Karma Yoga really means responsibility."
---Dharma Mittra
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Hamsa Yoga Gurus
 Our Beloved Gurus
Sharon Gannon and David Life developed the Jivamukti Yoga method in 1986 and are Co-Directors of the Jivamukti Yoga centers in New York City .
Today they travel the world teaching students the true meaning of yoga and educating students on the importance of ethical vegetarianism. Together they have co-authored "Jivamukti Yoga: Practices for Liberating Body & Soul, and The Art of Yoga."
We are eternally grateful to Davidji and Sharonji for passing to us this lineage with such love and devotion. Their constant guidance as teachers and role models is an inspirations and Divine Light.
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Janaki Phyllis Swalwell
In 2003, Janaki left a career in mechanical engineering to attend Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training in Austria. There she spent one month immersing herself in the teachings & techniques of yoga. Upon returning to Michigan, she opened Jivamukti Yoga Detroit in Lake Orion and began teaching yoga as a spiritual practice. Two years later, she received Advanced Certification in the Jivamukti Yoga method from Sharon Gannon & David Life.
A teacher’s teacher, Janaki’s yoga classes are a refined blend of joy and unpredictability. Drawing from over 30-years experience teaching and studying ballet, she offers deep insight into proper alignment that unites technique with grace. Her command of the ancient yogic scriptures is tempered by her own life-long practice, which gives her refreshingly practical teachings a silent authority. Janaki has taught yoga and yoga retreats internationally, and is endeared by her students as one of the Midwest’s most popular and innovative yoga teachers. |
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 SHRI K. PATTABHI JOIS
Shri K. Pattabhi Jois studied yoga under his guru Shri Krishnamacharya and also attended the Sanskrit College of Mysore, where he became a professor of Sanskrit and Advaita Vedanta. He and Shri Krishnamacharya developed the Ashtanga Yoga series based on the purifying practices described in the ancient texts. In 1948, he founded the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore. In 1958, he wrote his classic book Yoga Mala, which explores Ashtanga and Yoga philosophy. In 1998, David Life was made a certified Ashtanga teacher by Shri K. Pattabhi Jois. Both Sharon and David make regular trips to Mysore to study under him. |
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 SHRI
BRAHMANANDA
SARASVATI
Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati had an extensive background in Eastern and Western medicine. In 1958, he founded the Yoga Society of New York. Ananda Ashram, which he founded in 1964 in Monroe, New York, continues to be devoted to Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati's teachings and message, and the ashram hosts many Jivamukti events. A Sanskrit scholar, his life was dedicated to the union of science and the spirit. He is the author of Fundamentals of Yoga, The Textbook of Yoga Psychology (one of the definitive translations of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras) and Self Analysis and Self Knowledge, along with many essays. He left his body in 1993. |
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 SHRI SWAMI NIRMALANANDA
Swami Nirmalananda believed in the potency of Self rule, and he called himself the "Anarchist Swami." He inducted David Life into the sunnyas (renunciate) order in 1990. Swami Nirmalananda was a naturalist and a "mauni". He practiced silence for 11 years. "Unless the individuality is transcended, we cannot know what is universality and unless we die while living, we cannot know what is Eternal life. The mind can only think one thing at a time and it always functions within the realm of duality like good and bad, pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow. Unless we rise above these pairs of opposites, we will not be able to know what the integrated state of existence is." |
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