Yoga Lineage

My father, who had learned from Swami Kuvalayānanda, started my journey in Delhi, with the colorful Dhirendra Brhmachari, heralded as the Rasputin of India for his close association as the personal Yogi to the then PM Indira Gandhi. 

Connaught Place at the center of town, now a fully paved mall, was quite a forest then, and every Sunday saw the master's students descend to take hard core Hatha Yoga classes under the trees. Eventually, as was quite normal in those tumultuous times, the master's plane blew up - just like much of Indira Gandhi's clan also succumbed to violent uprisings.

Dhirendra Brhmachari was a brilliant Yogi in form and practice. His asana practice pictures from those days need to be uploaded here.

Spiritual Lineage

Hails from a family lineage of Swayam-āchāryas in the Sri Vaishnava tradition well versed in Sanskrit & Tamil, the two primary language platforms that have brought forth a wealth of Yoga (and other) literature.

A Swayam-āchārya is one whose family itself has an ample supply of teachers, and thus is not beholden to any formal order  of Gurus. Wise and egalitarian elders within the family ensure that the essence of the tradition is passed on through everyday lived education in these spiritual arts.

The Sri Vaishnava tradition is rooted in Vishishta-Advaita, a specialized version of non-dualistic Advaita. 

It models all conscious beings as collectively constituting the Shareera, body, of the universal Conscious Being of Brhman. 

Such a model encourages the heartfelt feeling of Hrudaya, empathy, towards our fellow travelers, while knowing there is a larger cause of which we are a part. 

It also promotes the lens of a personal deity to view Brhman, as such it leads to an incredible diversity of paths and consequently an explosion of lyrical poetry that directly influenced the Bhakti movement of living from the heart.