A weekend gathering of yoga teachers, aspiring yoga teachers and newly graduated yoga teachers from all over the world

by Liliana Serban

Let’s suppose you have been practicing yoga for three, four or maybe even ten years ... After all those years you have achieved good health, inner peace, a higher level of consciousness…So what is next? What is the next step? What more could you wish to achieve?

For some students of Natha Yogacenter, Copenhagen, their spiritual dreams are more mature and responsible because they aim to become yoga teachers in order to share their knowledge with other people.

Very recently, from 10th to 13th November, 2011, Natha Yogacenter was the warm, open hearted host for three international events:

* Meeting of the teachers of the Atman International Federation of Yoga and Meditation

*Yoga teacher training course

*The graduation ceremony of the newest yoga teachers.

As you may already know, the Atman Federation is an international organization for yoga and meditation which includes yoga schools from all over the world: Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Africa. Once every 3 months, a meeting takes place between the representatives of all these schools, in which various teaching issues are discussed and the cooperation between the schools is improved. However, what took place on the weekend of 10-13 November was much more than this. This event saw a gathering of many teachers from the Federation, who spent a long weekend together in which they participated in collective spiritual actions, shared spiritual experiences, and attended seminars with the purpose to improve the level of teaching and to aid their continuous transformation. This event was a genuine meeting of the hearts, which by no coincidence took place in Natha’s ‘Concordia’ building (which is Latin for ‘with one heart’).

One could say the event was at the same time a successful and touching exchange of ideas, impressions, experiences  and… affection.

Here are the titles of some of the lectures given over the weekend: ‘The state of divine relay for the sublime energies that God manifests through a charismatic and integrated teacher’, and ‘the spiritual ego and its causes, methods for eliminating it’.

Meanwhile, those aspiring to become yoga teachers participated in the meetings of the Atman International Yoga Teacher Training Course. This is an intensive course whose purpose is to produce yoga teachers of the highest caliber, who are capable of guiding their students on the path of spiritual transformation.  Since a teacher mostly teaches through his/her own example by who he/she is, this course aims to help the aspirants to achieve a state of continuous transformation in their own being, since one cannot give what they do not have.

If some of you are curious to know what is necessary for a yoga student to become a yoga teacher, the answer is:  at least 3 years of continuous, assiduous yoga practice. Once you have attained this then you can enroll for the Teacher Training Course, which lasts for 2 years. In this time, the aspirants meet every 2nd month for an intensive weekend of practical and theoretical teachings. These teachings include the in-depth study and practice of the techniques the teacher will teach, the deepening of the knowledge and understanding of the yoga theory and a great deal of supplementary information about the role of being a teacher, the teaching process and the tools that a teacher has. These weekends take place at Natha Yogacenter in Copenhagen, bringing together dozens of aspirants from all over Europe. The course includes a practical and theoretical exam at the end of the first year, and a final exam at the end of the 2nd year. A comprehensive one year assignment is also submitted at the final exam.

The weekend was also a joyous gathering of those aspirants who sat the final exam and handed in their projects a few months ago and were now awaiting the news of their graduation. These aspiring teachers gathered in Natha from all over Europe to participate in the graduation ceremony where they received their teaching diploma. 

An emotional, very impressive and refined atmosphere characterized The GRADUATION CEREMONY.

Flowers, gifts, open hearts and, above all, the Divine Grace manifested in the most evident way during the special final meditation, the spiritual investiture of the new yoga teachers.  

And of course every successful story ends with a party, which there was….  A very nice, sparkling one…

We all, the NATHA TEAM, wish great spiritual achievements of the highest level for all the new teachers and also for all the participants of these events.

We thank you, all of you! 



Here are some interviews with some newly  graduated yoga teachers

My name is Tomaso Portale and I am coming from Italy. 

Q: How do you feel having this status yoga teacher?

A: I have this intuition from now it will be different because I realize I have a great responsibility. And I feel I have to prove I really worth this investment in front of God and in front of my spiritual guide Grieg.

Q: Why did you have this aspiration to be a yoga teacher?

A: Actually I in the past I was teaching tai chi and chi gong but now it is different. I am so deeply impressed about the spiritual vision of life receiving here at this yoga course so I feel de desire to share it to the others. 

I am Delia Pinto and I am from Schwitzerland  Lugano.

Q: How do you feel having this status yoga teacher?

A: It  was a great honor for me. I consider that each of this kind of events is a lesson every of us have to learn. And it was a great manifestation of Divine Grace. I received a lot of grace and  a lot of hope and aspiration. I felt was absolutely blessed in the meditation of investiture and it was also a confirmation of all responsibilities that I will have. That gives me a lot of courage to go into the next experiences and to achieve all the tasks I will have with happiness and joy.

Q: Why did you have this aspiration to be a yoga teacher?

A: I wanted to do something with love and open heart like a child always curious and always fresh and pure.

My name is Ramona.

Q: How do you feel having this status yoga teacher?

A: I have been already teaching yoga in the last 4 years. Still, surprisingly, I discovered that the process of passing through all the stages of this intense teacher training course, a beautiful stimulating and amazing journey within yourself, culminating with the teacher investure that we have received last night, so, all this process represented much more than what I have initially expected. Right now, it really feels blissful and as if deep inside of me, many things simply and harmoniously have arranged. I feel lifted and I can say like reborn, in a new state of peace, gratitude, light and a kind of awake equality, a new kind of equilibrium that is working its way in me.

This event in itself represents to me a celebration of God´s wisdom and mysteries, of His truth and pure knowledge, an initiation in God´s ways. and I am sure we will discover much more later on. I have to say I am extremely curious of how I will develop from now on and the way it will reflect for my students, because it feels as a completely new stage in my life. First of all, I feel increasing in me a state of responsibility in my being that - my intuition says - will expand in all areas of my life. Also, there is a field of great supportive light energy, pulling me towards a very deep and profound truth of my most inner being, and probably of existence itself, in a continuously expanding and full of peace and softness way. Actually, even if it´s just 1 day away from the graduation, I somehow feel different than before, and I know these are just flashes of a long period that will reveal itself gradually, as it comes. 

Q: Why did you have this aspiration to be a yoga teacher?

A: This kind of aspiration is very much in accordance with the aspiration that God seeded in my heart and that keeps burning since I came into this world. Since I was a child, I had this deep nature of wanting to do all I can in order to help people. I found out more and more that the roots of most of all human diseases, the roots of all evil and sufferance, lie in nothing else but into our ignorance. Even more: in preserving and getting even more of stone-like heart, far from knowing who you are and far from being connected and in harmony with the universe and with its Creator, in a sterile life, full of limitations, frustration and fear. Perhaps many of us can see how these trigger all kind of individual and social disasters nowadays, in humanity and how this affects our planet. Therefore, I found myself aspiring to become more and more to become as much pure, simple, harmonious and alive as I can, in order to simply reflect the light of pure knowledge, the one that is full of love, spontaneity, humbleness, wisdom on this spiritual path, that is very rich and complete, applicable to all life systems, that has been put at our disposal by a real spiritual guide, Grieg. This path speaks about the beauty and complexity of being a human being, and offers easy ways to develop our wonderful potential. And of course, I want to be able to manifest also my full potential and to put it in this way in the service of God, and therefore, of humanity.

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