22 Days to go! Shiva Shakti Yoga School

Only 22 days to go before I depart for India to start my yoga teacher training at Shiva Shakti Yoga School in the state of Goa in the southwest of India. My traveling visa to enter the country has just been approved today…yay!

The name of the school I chose to do my training with quickly drew my attention as I researched many schools and places to go from Scotland, Bali, Costa Rica and Tibet...in the end Shiva Shakti in India came on top. If you’re unfamiliar with the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddesses, here’s a very short and simple explanation to a complex relationship of the namesake of the yoga school.

Shiva is the entire universe, pure consciousness. In the personification of Shiva, he is the destroyer of evil, or the ego, and the transformer to allow for awakening to higher consciousness which can only happen when we transcend the ego. He is also the Lord of Yogis as well as being the teacher of Yoga to sages.

Shakti is the primordial cosmic energy that makes the universe what it is, the vital force that makes you feel alive and vibrant. Shakti is the fuel that powers your soul. In the personification of Shakti, she is the divine feminine, the female aspect of Shiva, and her power is to create, to give birth to a new reality, new consciousness.

Shiva the formless and Shakti the formed

So, Shiva represents the unmanifest (what is destroyed) and Shakti the manifest (what is created).

As indicated on the school’s website, they go on to explain:

“Shiva Shakti Yoga explained - Yoga is experiencing the Divine Union of the Shakti (manifested energy) with the Shiva (un-manifested energy) which is Self-Realization or Liberation. It is in this divine union that the seeker experiences the Self to be the Supreme. This experience which is beyond the physicality of the body as well as the subtlety of the mind though the importance of body and mind cannot be undermined. A healthy body and a clear, open mind are central to the seekers journey.”

Those who know me or who have read my books will know that this language resonates with me very much as it’s in essence what I’ve written about in my books and what I continue to practice in my daily life. So at the end of the day, I feel a good fit has been made when I found this school…or, rather, when this school found me!

I look forward to living it deep and I know this experience will certainly Feed the Beast within me!