My yoga journey began in March 2005. I was depressed.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. I followed the suggestion of my doctor to start a physical activity.

If I close my eyes, I clearly see the astonished expression on my face when the secretary of the fitness center asked me to do a trial yoga lesson.

“Me, yoga? Nooooo”. I thought that Yoga was a boring practice where people were sitting crossed legs all the time doing nothing.

That lady convinced me…I started once a week, then twice a week, then three times a week. I was amazed from the responses of my body and my breath.

The curiosity of knowing more, fitness and personal training certification; four year yoga teachers training followed by another three years of post-training; many workshops with important teachers from all over the world, I’m still a seeker.

My dream was to go in India,the birthplace of yoga, and deepen my practice and study yoga therapy.

I’m so grateful to have meet Dr.Omanand (Guruji) in Paramanand Ashram in Indore, in 2014. Dr. Omanand is a simple and compassionate born yogi with many gifted virtues. He is full of peace, love and amateur storyteller. He has realized the powers of human consciousness.

Any method of knowledge and healing of themselves must necessarily be based on everyday life. Any path is only effective if it considers our full and complete being, only if it fits well in everything else in which we are committed, when it invites us with firm kindness thinking of us, to change perspective.

Many slowdowns, thoughts and adjustments…many things have changed and have made me grow.

I’m very happy and lucky to be a yogi. For me, yoga is a way of life. It has given me so much, and brought so much happiness and joy into my life.

My teachers and experiences have given me a treasure. A special thanks to Guruji; no words can express the immensity of the experiences with him, when I went beyond body, space and time.

The breath is remarkable. You can learn a lot from the breath. It is profoundly wise.

Every emotion, physical condition, resistance, disturbance, or tension we have is connected to your breath.

Our breathing always carries a message. Our breath can be our best friend. It can be a tool to balance, release and free our mind and body. It can bring us strength and courage.

It can calm us down. It can wake-up our energy. It can even lessen obsessive-compulsive, anxious, and attention-deficit states — which break us down — merely by letting some air rush in.

I have experienced it many times and this was my salvation. Yes, yoga saved my life!

Where did the strategies for self-care come from?

Long before science validated the connection between the body and the brain, the ancient Indian masters understood how one part of our system influenced all other parts, and that our body, mind, and emotions are a part of one integrated system, and when we influence one aspect of our system we affect every other aspect. They knew that we are the sum total of a broad range of complexities and, consequently, created a series of complete sciences or integrative therapies for refining and developing each aspect of who we are.

Yoga, as it was initially designed, is one of the oldest forms of self-care in the world. Unfortunately, yoga in our present culture is generally misunderstood. The basic Western misunderstanding of yoga is that it’s merely separate positions to be mastered. It is not. Yoga is not just physical training, positions or movements — it is not even primarily about exercise.

I have also noted that here in the West everyone takes life too seriously. Yoga is about producing joy. Guruji often say: “Seriousness is a disease!” So, relax. It will do more good for you than you can ever imagine.

Ancient yogic scriptures state that you are already fully enlightened and full of bliss,you’re simply not aware of it. You can think of it in terms of radio waves: they may be all around you but you’re not aware of them. The practice of yoga fine-tunes your instruments. It’s all out here, it’s only the limitations of the mind that prevent you from being aware of seeing yourself as a limitless being. You can tune into any channel you want. You are complete, perfect, beautiful, loving and blissful.

Yoga is an ancient, practical system for accessing, healing, and integrating the body and mind.

Yoga practices involve our feelings, our thoughts, and our emotional flexibility. In yoga, it doesn’t really matter if your hamstring muscles are tight. Yoga is much more a state of mind than having to touch your toes.

The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj, which means to “join, link, or connect.” The essence of yoga is yoking or uniting, and to practice yoga is to “join with” — to reach a new level of integration within you. Yoga is the art of linking to all parts of yourself — your body, your thoughts, your awareness, your emotions, and your breath.

We live in an age of terrifying speed and haste. Everything we do is at high speed. We even gobble our food down quickly. We’ve created all sorts of quick devices that let us save another fraction of a second.

“Time is money” has become “speed is money.” But speed has consequences. And, racing around rarely allows us to pause and consider what we’re doing, where we want to go, and how we want to be when we get there.

To be able to live with more courage and balance the difficulties that sooner or later we have to face, there are no shortcuts.

Yoga is a journey in steps that cannot be skipped. Yoga has no recipes; it is not a magic wand to solve problems. It requires patience and a long time and this is very much in contrast with the haste and speed that characterizes our modern society.

But above all, to find courage, we need to throw away a lot of old patterns (including for example to consider ourselves indispensable) and decide to “climb the mountain” by accepting a rough and lonely path.

For me, becoming a yoga teacher meant going through a series of experiences and be happy of all I have lived that raised the desire to communicate and share what internalized.

Teaching, especially in yoga, means making sure that everyone discovers the originality and naturalness of their own identity, their own exclusivity and subjectivity.

There’s a subtle line that you ask the teacher to comply: to faithfully follow the yoga tradition and at the same time allow the development of a deep inner freedom.

The yoga teacher’s role is to facilitate an individual research path, to help student to discover and use their inner ability without delegating to others the management of their own lives.

This discipline leads to the recognition of the possibility of being architects of our life and responsible of choices and happiness that we tend to attribute to others; require a personal commitment and a recognition of our limitations. Disciplines, awareness, searching of autonomy, ability to detach are some important common denominators to check the progress on the path of yoga.

Whenever I share a yoga class with students the most important thing I ask them to do is to create their own experiences. It is important to me that students come as they are, use what they have, and do what they can. I never want to single out anyone. My goal is simply to allow each and every individual to feel included and free to explore their experience of yoga as it unfolds.

As I said before, Yoga is a journey in which there are steps that cannot be skipped. In one of the most important ancient texts, Patanjali Yoga Sutra, the author Maharishi Patanjali explains the eights limb, the path of yoga.

For me, the Eights Limbs of Yoga are directions to raise the quality of our energy. The eight teachings begin with the two more understandable but not always easier: limit violence, until you reset it, towards yourself and towards the outside; follow the purity, the beauty, the health and the harmony and bring them in your daily life.

And then take care of your body and train your breath; align and strengthen your skeleton until it arrives at its healthiest form; move your muscles, so that they do not store the emotions and the disharmonious experiences you meet; be familiar with the magic of the air flowing through every cell of your body and learn to use it.

YOU ARE COMPLETE. You, in your entirety, you are the most magical, natural and sacred. YOU, like all the Creation.

Finally, after having known and loved all your senses and their qualities, learn to listen to them with full understanding and greater awareness: in you there is much more.

Learn to not be a victim of your senses and of your thoughts, but learn to use them for the sublime purpose of your soul.

You are energy: through you the energy that lives in everything, acts, it creates and it destroys.
At the end of each day, honor your energy, recognize it and nourish it.

This is the “BLISS,” the state of perfect realization of the self: I am a channel through which my best qualities are spreading in the world. My training, my practice, my whole existence have as their goal the most healthy and satisfying beauty.

The light is already here, definitely. We do not need to wait for anyone or anything. It’s all here.

WE ARE LIGHT. WE ARE BLISS. Bliss is Eternal.

Maa Sri Devi (Sabrina Provasoli). Italian Viniyoga Teacher.

Since 2013 member of Y.A.N.I. (National Association of Yoga Teachers).

In January 2014, 200 hours Yoga Therapy Teacher Training Certification in Paramanand Institute of Yoga Science and Research, Indore, India, under the kindest guidance of Dr.Omanand, Guruji.

In February 2015 she returned to Paramanand Institute of Yoga Science and Research, Indore as a translator for a two-week course of yoga for Italian teachers and where she deepened the study of yoga therapy and obtained a certification of Yoga therapy for cancer.

In January 2017, she returned to Paramanand Institute of Yoga Science and Research, Indore, India, to learn ancient texts and deepen the meditation techniques under the mentorship of Guruji.

She has participated and also continues to participate in many workshops held by the most qualified Italian and foreign teachers.

Personal Trainer, Yoga for Pregnancy, Yoga for children, Yoga with people with special needs, Yoga therapy for cancer. Laughter Yoga.

She is representative for Italy of the International Association of Indian Yoga & Therapy (I.A.I.Y.T).

She organizes and translates the workshops of Dr.Omanand in Italy.