Interview with Anahata Teachers: Atmabhava & Priyadhara
Sannyasin Atmabhava and Sannyasi Priyadhara will be teaching at Anahata’s upcoming Hatha Yoga Detox & Nutrition Retreat this November. Both facilitators have spent many years journeying with yoga and are dedicated to sharing the practices they will be teaching you on this retreat.
Read on to find out more about these facilitators and their passion for yoga detox practises:
1. What does your personal journey with health look like?
Yoga has given us insight about what leading a healthy lifestyle really means. Health not only involves maintaining a healthy physical body; mental, emotional and spiritual health are also interconnected and equally important. Yoga offers us methods to harmonise these aspects of our being and personality in order to awaken the experience of balance and total health in our life.
2. How are detoxifying practises beneficial to you?
Yoga practices have powerful and beneficial effects on our general health and state of mind. They are simple and practical. The combination of Hatha Yoga asanas and detoxification practices cleanse the entire digestive system from top to bottom, assisting the body in the elimination of accumulated toxins in the nasal cavity, stomach, and intestines. Breathing practices help us to regulate the responses of the nervous system, emotions, brain function, thought process. Meditation serves to manage and purify the content and quality of our mind and emotions. Yoga’s integral approach to total health and wellbeing caters to the multifaceted needs of our personality and physiology. Together with lifestyle recommendations, these practices help us to create a state of vitality, energy, lightness, clarity and inspiration within.
3. Why should we take the time to cleanse ourselves? Why should someone grant themselves the opportunity to attend a retreat such as this one?
Taking the time to do cleansing practices which energise and purify our body and mind is extremely beneficial to our general wellbeing. It gives us the opportunity to pause and re-set gears as well as the time to experience and consider new, healthier ways to approach our day to day. These opportunities we give ourselves are life-changing, encouraging, and transformational.
4. What can someone expect from this retreat?
Immersion in a natural & pure environment, combined with the experience of revitalising yoga practices that make us feel reinvigorated, de-stressed and relaxed.
5. Why is Anahata special to you both? What do you love the most about teaching here?
Anahata is a special and unique place in the world, offering a pure, natural environment in which it is possible to take a break from the hustle and bustle of daily life, breathe fresh mountain air, find silence and space to nourish ourselves and explore yogic lifestyle and practices. Anahata offers all of us a unique opportunity to recharge our batteries, re-connect with nature, and cultivate wellbeing and positivity. We are fond of Anahata not only because it has been our home but especially because what we discovered there changed the course of our lives. Today we continue to be inspired by the many people that come to Anahata and begin to see their life and inner potential with new eyes.
Sannyasin Atmabhava was first drawn to yoga for its health benefits. The practicality and science behind the methods made a strong impression on him, encouraging his commitment to fully immerse himself in the yogic lifestyle at Anahata Yoga Retreat, and dedicating 15 years of his life to teaching yoga. Atmabhava also worked therapeutically in Rimutaka prison and mental health sectors for a number of years and continues to teach a variety of different topics in workshops and weekend retreats around New Zealand.
Sannyasi Priyadhara first came to yoga in her youth and was eventually drawn to the teachings of the Satyananda-Bihar tradition at Anahata Yoga Retreat. A yearning to deepen her experience and understanding of yoga led her to live and receive training under the guidance of Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati at the Bihar School of Yoga in India for a period of her life. The opportunity to imbibe yoga not only as an integral science but as a way of life & culture was a life-changing experience which today inspires Priyadhara to work with people of all ages and walks of life who seek to connect with positivity, find balance in life and express true potential from within.