November 12-15, 2009
The first Asian Ananda Marga Yoga Educators Conference was successfully held in the beautiful environment of Sungai Petani Eco Master Unit in Malaysia from 12th – 15th November 2009. Due to accommodation limitations the event was limited to 30 participants. Some of the participants were yoga teachers, but many attended the event for enhancing their knowledge and individual practice.
The program included: physiology of asana (yoga postures), yoga and tantra history, concepts of tantra, science of meditation, specialties of Ananda Marga yoga and the role of the yoga teacher. Anatomy of asana played a central part of the program and was conducted by physiotherapist Carol Yip from Kuala Lumpur. Dada Shankarsana’nanada conducted the rest of the workshops.
The workshops were conducted in an interactive way where the participants had a chance to share their knowledge and experience. In this way many interesting discussions came up especially related to how asanas should be performed. The last day was dedicated to meditation science and aimed to give the yoga teachers confidence to teach a simple general meditation and inspire their students to receive individual instruction from an acarya (trained instructor).
A very strong spiritual flow developed during the conference and many tears of joy were shed on the last day. We are all looking forward to the next conference, which is scheduled to be held in 2011.