Sylvia Rascon

I have deep gratitude for the NOK Foundation and the work they are doing in the healing community, providing grants for people to further their spiritual studies. Because of their generosity I had the opportunity to return to India to deepen and expand my yogic studies as a practitioner and as a teacher.

For the past two and a half years I have been teaching yoga in drug and alcohol treatment centers in New York City where I have encountered men and women with physical limitations that were quite often caused by or in most cases related to substance abuse.

In the period of the grant, I spent the month of February 2005 in Chennai, India studying at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. I was in a group of 27 people from around the world participating in their “Universal Yet Personal” program. We were taught yoga as a healing art in the tradition of Krishnamacharya. I chose this program over others I had researched in India because the focus was primarily on learning how to develop an individual practice to address the specific needs of the student. The emphasis was on learning how to work with one’s limitations. Our teachers were students at KYM, some having studied under Krishnamacharya himself and or his son T.V.K. Desikachar and Kaustubh Desikachar, Krishnamacharya’s grandson.

At the Mandiram our day started with an hour of asana and pranayama class taught in the KYM style, synchronizing the breath with the movement in a gentle way, unlike the rigorous yoga classes often taught here in the west. We then had a class on the tools of yoga where we learned how to sequence postures and counter posturing, followed by a yoga philosophy class where we studied Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Then there was a break for lunch with an optional chanting class where we learned Vedic chanting as well as chanted the yoga sutras. After lunch, we had a yoga applications class where we learned how to study and read the body in an in depth way in order to prescribe a practice to suit an individual’s needs. We worked with and studied the clients of the Mandiram. The last hour was dedicated to asana practice with an emphasis on pranayama in preparation for meditation.

My studies at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram have been a valuable experience both in my teaching and in my personal practice. Upon my return from India, I have been fortunate to able to immediately put into action what I learned. The nature of addiction lies in the mind and through the practice of asana and pranayama the student can quiet the mind. The most enlightening aspect of this trip has been sharing this information with my students in the treatment centers and observing in them the healing benefits of the yoga of Krishnamacharya.

Prior to my studies at the KYM, I spent three weeks in Bombay where I studied asana and pranayama with Father Joe Pereria and his colleagues. Father Joe is one of my teachers who continue to inspire me to help those suffering with addiction. He has opened the Kripa Foundation, which are drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers throughout India. (www.kripafoundation.org).

With deep gratitude I thank the NOK Foundation for their generous gift. The people who benefit from my yoga studies increase daily with every class I teach in the treatment centers as new people come in to face their addictions.