Satsang – Navaratri: Celebration Honoring the Divine Mother – Saraswati Puja

Online & In-person | By donation $0, $5, $10, $15

Please register in advance, a Zoom link will be provided via confirmation email.

Please review our In-person Safety Guidelines. https://integralyogasf.org/attending-in-person.

Navaratri is the celebration of the Divine Mother in the form of the three Hindu Goddesses: Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati.

We’ll celebrate each of the three Goddesses over the 9 days of Navaratri. The celebration culminates with a special service called Vijayadasami. This is a special opportunity to bless your house and all the tools you use in your work. Please join us for this special ceremony.

Satsang, a special time for us to come together as a community. In Sanskrit, Sat means truth and Sangha means community. Satsang offers an opportunity to come together to share spiritual teachings. The philosophy of Integral Yoga is explored, often through an informal discussion. Although spiritual paths may diverge, the act of sharing spiritual teachings with others is inspiring and creates a solid foundation for continued practice.

9-Day Navaratri Schedule / PT:

  • Durga PujaSunday, OCT 15 • 12:00 – 1:00 pm
  • Lakshmi PujaWednesday,OCT 18 • 12:00 – 1:00 pm
  • Saraswati Puja– Saturday, OCT 21 • 5:30 – 6:30 pm
  • Vijaya Dasami: Tuesday, OCT 24 •12:00 – 1:00 pm | Final celebration

Swami Divyananda Ma, E-RYT 500, has had a wealth of experience teaching Integral Yoga around the world since 1973. She has taught at corporations, universities, the Commonwealth Cancer Center, and for the Dr. Dean Ornish Reversing Heart Disease programs. She has also served as one of Integral Yoga’s Basic Hatha teacher trainers.
Swami Divyananda Ma took monastic vows in 1975 from the great saint and yogi, Sri Swami Satchidananda. Over the years she has served as the director of the Integral Yoga Institutes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and as Ashram Manager at Yogaville. She also served for ten years as the director of the Integral Yoga Institute in Coimbatore, India; this immersion into the South Indian culture has given depth to her understanding and practice of Yoga.

Now an itinerant monk, Swami Divyananda is constantly “on the road.” She leads the annual Sacred India Tours to sacred sites in India in addition to international Yoga retreats and trainings. Learn more at sacredindiatours.org.

Snehan Born, E-RYT 500, has over four decades of experience with yoga. He resides at the Integral Yoga Institute of San Francisco, where he teaches yoga classes and is a lead teacher trainer. Snehan is certified in all levels of Integral Yoga Hatha and has received additional certifications in Pranayama, Meditation, Raja Yoga and Stress Management from Integral Yoga. Chanting mantras and playing the harmonium are part of his regular practice and classes.
Snehan has lived and traveled extensively within India and practiced with many teachers there. He has taught yoga all over the US as well as in India, Nepal, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan and Europe.

2023-10-19T12:57:53-07:00August 29th, 2023|Tags: , , , |

Satsang: Swami Sivananda, His Life and Teachings

Online & In-Person | By donation $0, $5, $10, $15

Please register in advance, a Zoom link and passcode will be provided via confirmation email.

Please review our In-person Safety Guidelines.

“Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realise; Be good, Do good, Be kind, Be compassionate.” Sri Swami Sivananda. At this Satsang, we will share some of Swami Sivananda’s practical teachings that have uplifted thousands for nearly 100 years. To further honor Swami Sivananda’s legacy, Snehan will lead us through chanting of mantras. Sankirtan was Master Sivananda’s favorite practice and Maha Mantra is still chanted continuously at the Ashram he founded in India.

Swami Sivananda Saraswati (1887 – 1963) was a Hindu spiritual teacher and a proponent of Yoga and Vedanta. Sivananda was born in Pattamadai, Tamil Nadu. He studied medicine and served in British Malaya as a physician for several years before taking up monasticism.
He was the founder of the Divine Life Society (1936), Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy (1948) and author of over 200 books on yoga, Vedanta, and a variety of subjects. He established Sivananda Ashram, on the bank of the Ganges at Sivanandanagar, near Rishikesh. He was Swami Satchidanada’s beloved teacher’s Gurudev and you will find his photograph on many altars in Integral Yoga centers around the world.

“Do not love leisure. Waste not a minute. Be bold. Realize the Truth, here and now!”

A simple vegetarian meal will be offered after this in-person Satsang with a suggested donation of $5-10.

Satsang, a special time for us to come together as a community. In Sanskrit, Sat means truth and Sangha means community. Satsang offers an opportunity to come together to share spiritual teachings. The philosophy of Integral Yoga is explored, often, through an informal discussion. Although spiritual paths may diverge, the act of sharing spiritual teachings with others is inspiring and creates a solid foundation for continued practice.
People of all faiths are welcome.

Snehan Born, E-RYT 500, has four decades of experience with yoga and has been teaching since 2000. Snehan resides and teaches at Integral Yoga Institute of San Francisco and teaches at Mission Blue Center in Brisbane. He has also led teacher trainings at Satchidananda Ashram, Yogaville, Virginia and The Integral Yoga Institute, NYC. Snehan is certified in all levels of Integral Yoga Hatha and has received additional certifications in Pranayama, Meditation, Raja Yoga and Stress Management from Integral Yoga and “Life of a Yogi” from Sri Dharma Mittra. He has also studied with Sharon Gannon and David Life of Jivamukti Yoga in NYC. In 1997, and again in 2001, Snehan studied with Deepak Chopra in India and taught an Integral Yoga class to about 250 participants in Agra. Also in 2001 he received “Conscious Eating”, a live foods certification from Dr. Gabriel Cousens at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona.
Snehan has lived and traveled extensively within India over 9 trips and practiced with many teachers there. He has taught yoga all over the US as well as in India, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan and Europe.

Diana Meltsner, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, YACEP, has been teaching variety of classes and workshops since 2001 and since 2017 offers yoga therapy sessions privately and at Integral Yoga Therapy Clinic in San Francisco. She has worked in the clinical setting for Kaiser Permanente since 2005 as a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, and health educator and is teaching mindfulness and meditation to the medical staff.
Her focus is on the healing aspects of yoga on the mind as well as the body by applying the teachings of Yoga, practices of breath-control, mindfulness and meditation. Diana helps her clients to find healing and the ability to move through life with increased ease, stress resilience, and intuition.
Diana Meltsner works as a programs manager and serves on the board of directors at Integral Yoga Institute, an urban ashram in San Francisco. She is a yoga teacher trainer for the 200-hour and Meditation Teacher trainings. dianameltsner.com

2023-08-18T09:38:20-07:00August 18th, 2023|Tags: , , |

Yoga after 60

Online & In-person | $25

Please register in advance, a Zoom link will be provided via confirmation email.

Please review our In-person Safety Guidelines.

In a very natural way and as the body changes with age, the approach to how and what we practice changes as well. In this workshop, Diana Meltsner, certified yoga therapist will address the needs of the changing body to stay strong and mobile, to support the joints, to sustain good balance. How can we continue to experience contentment with our Yoga practice? Sometimes that means letting go of the “Yogi” we used to be and finding the Yogi who is deeply grounded in Peace in the midst of life’s changes.

This workshop will include a gentle chair and a mat practice.

Diana Meltsner, C-IAYT, ERYT-500, YACEP, has been teaching variety of classes and workshops since 2001 and since 2017 offers yoga therapy sessions privately and at Integral Yoga Therapy Clinic in San Francisco. She has worked in the clinical setting for Kaiser Permanente since 2005 as a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, and health educator and is teaching mindfulness and meditation to the medical staff.
Her focus is on the healing aspects of yoga on the mind as well as the body by applying the teachings of Yoga, practices of breath-control, mindfulness and meditation. Diana helps her clients to find healing and the ability to move through life with increased ease, stress resilience, and intuition.
Diana Meltsner works as a programs manager and serves on the board of directors at Integral Yoga Institute, an urban ashram in San Francisco. She is a yoga teacher trainer for the 200-hour and Meditation Teacher trainings. www.dianameltsner.com

2023-10-02T16:07:39-07:00August 17th, 2023|Tags: , , |

Meditation: Technique and Preparation

We apologize, this event has been cancelled. 

Online & In-Person | $15

Join Diana for this exploration of meditation and how supporting practices like breathing, centering, setting intentions, prayer and use of sacred mantras can enrich and deepen your practice. Meditation can steady the mind and engage the heart.

Swami Satchidananda often spoke of learning to tune our internal radio to Divine wavelength and invite Peace into our awareness. It is our choice to connect with Peace and Light and share this Light with the world by simply opening up to it rather than retracting ourselves into tight corners of “me”. We can be free from the old prickly prison of same old thoughts. We are all interconnected and meditation allows us to join our collective consciousness and find relief from being lost in story or “me”.

This is an opportunity to ask questions about meditation practices.

Some meditation experience is welcome, there will be a short practice included.

Diana Meltsner, C-IAYT, ERYT-500, YACEP, has been teaching variety of classes and workshops since 2001 and since 2017 offers yoga therapy sessions privately and at Integral Yoga Therapy Clinic in San Francisco. She has worked in the clinical setting for Kaiser Permanente since 2005 as a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, and health educator and is teaching mindfulness and meditation to the medical staff.

Her focus is on the healing aspects of yoga on the mind as well as the body by applying the teachings of Yoga, practices of breath-control, mindfulness and meditation. Diana helps her clients to find healing and the ability to move through life with increased ease, stress resilience, and intuition.

Diana Meltsner works as a programs manager and serves on the board of directors at Integral Yoga Institute, an urban ashram in San Francisco. She is a yoga teacher trainer for the 200-hour and Meditation Teacher trainings.
www.dianameltsner.com

2023-09-12T19:08:03-07:00August 14th, 2023|Tags: , |
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