YOGA SCHOOL

Shantarasa School of Yoga is unusual in its function in the dissemination of yoga practice because it actually is a yoga school.  While yoga classes abound everywhere, it is rare to find a facility that is a dedicated yoga school that offers a broad range of yoga-intrinsic services. Shantarasa is a term derived from the Sanskrit language that describes the foundational “rasa” or relishment.

Shantarasa awakens a state of ecstatic recognition and non-dual awareness that conveys the ultimate contentment.  It is the very source, the centre point, and the upsurge of intense delight that expresses itself through the various sense experiences we pursue.  Shantarasa is most directly accessed not by chasing sensory stimuli, which is a hit and miss approach that is usually frustratingly unreliable, but by the cultivation of an open heart and clear un-agitated mind.  The practice of yoga, inclusive of meditation, is the most direct, successful and elegant means by which the foundational blissful awareness of being is revealed and stabilized.

The vision of Shantarasa School of Yoga’s two founders, Claude and Deborah Pezet, is to infuse all of the yoga school’s services with a respect and appreciation of the inherent essence of peace  or “shantarasa” within everyone, and that is one of the hallmarks of the authentic yoga experience.  The full complement of courses, programs, classes and non-profit activities emerging from the yoga school have this understanding as their source of inspiration.

Claude and Deborah have both been dedicated to the path of yoga for over thirty-five years.  They have studied extensively under the direct instruction of the world renowned Siddha Master, Baba Muktananda who passed away in 1982.  Since that time, their development has been guided by Mahamandaleshwar Swami Nityananda, who was designated as Muktananda’s successor in 1981 when Baba Muktananda publicly declared, “This one will be my successor. I have installed my own Guru in him.”  Swami Nityananda has unstintingly continued his teacher’s work by transmitting the power and wisdom in the great tradition of yoga.

In 2005 Claude and Deborah established Shantarasa School of Yoga to serve as a vehicle for the dissemination of the fullness of authentic yoga practice.  They view their function as directors of the yoga school, as a service or “seva” with the belief that instruction of yoga is a vocation to be performed with dedication and humility.

There is a broad range of programs on offer from Shantarasa School of Yoga that are facilitated by a wonderful group of highly skilled and empathic instructors who are motivated to assist all of the yoga school’s students to experience the beauty and transformative power of yoga.  Shantarasa currently offers 15 yoga asana classes weekly that cater to a diverse range of needs and capacities, including pre-natal, beginners, restorative, young people, one-on-one yoga therapy and open or general.