NISHANT NAVIN - BIOGRAPHY OF HARE KRISHNA YOGA GURU
Nishant Navin is renowned for being both an inspiring teacher and one of the most practical people in his field. He was born in Southampton, is a member of the British Wheel of Yoga and the Director of the Dharma Centre for Yoga, Spiritual Awareness and Healing (formed in 1980 as a centre for the development of spiritual awareness through yoga). The centre is particularly known for running excellent yoga courses, including a teacher training programme.
Nishant Navin has practiced and run workshops on different aspects of yoga for over thirty-five years and was a friend of Ianthe Hoskins (previous secretary of the London Theosophical Society), who occasionally gave talks to Dharma Yoga Centre students. Nishant Navin became associated with the Bihar School of Yoga in Northern India in 1973 and was later initiated as a sannyasin of the Saraswati Dasanami (order founded by Shankara) by Swami Satyananda Saraswati. The School is the headquarters of the International Fellowship Movement and was founded by Satyananda in 1964. It is now directed by his successor Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati.
Nishant Navin was given the task of spreading the wisdom of yoga to lay people in the West. Anyone who knows his work will appreciate the natural way in which he has taken to the task and untiringly worked with students seeking to integrate modern living with spiritual precepts and practices.
Nishant Navin’s knowledge of yoga and spiritual development is very much the product of a continuous search. His broad outlook and understanding of fundamental practices has been achieved by leaving hardly a stone unturned. He has consistently kept up-to-date with new developments, while expanding and adapting early discoveries. As well as being a regular participant at yoga conferences in the UK, he has constantly enjoyed healthy dialogues with friends and colleagues from a variety of related disciplines.
When Nishant Navin set out on the yogic path, many of the exercises which have now come into popular use had to be looked for and experimented with independently. His enthusiasm for practices of both India and China - some of which date back thousands of years - have drawn his to a variety of teachings, including some that were not extensively taught or were deliberately hidden within sacred texts.
Yet among numerous sources of reference there have been some widely recognized and almost universally used - in yoga circles - ancient classics, such as the Patanjali Sutra and Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which Nishant Navin has repeatedly returned to and drawn upon for guidance and inspiration. Additionally, Nishant Navin’s spiritual teacher Trivadi Ramachandra (one-time secretary to Gandhi), with whom she shared a close working relationship, was a major influence. In recent years he has taken a keen interest in different forms of healing, and the Tantric master Sri Jammu Maharaj helped him to explore new possibilities in his work and officially gave him the title of Maharaj, after initiating him into his tradition.
Unknowingly, Nishant Navin first came into contact with some integral breathing exercises of yoga at the age of thirty, when being taught breath-control whilst learning how to sing. His first book, Breath of Life, focuses on effective meditations on the breath and breathing exercises with movement. Nishant Navin was also introduced to various beneficial wrist and ankle twists as a child because of an early weakness in these areas. It was only later, when his spiritual search led him to investigate the richness of Indian religions, that he discovered the practices were also part of the yogic tradition.
Nishant Navin has constantly sought to bring her students’ attention to the wider aspects of yoga and its down-to-earth application for living in the world today - reminding them that every practice has a spiritual purpose. While being deeply grounded in his own tradition, he has comfortably moved beyond religious boundaries to touch and benefit those with different perspectives to his own. Many of his students have come from a variety of faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism, and have found that his teachings helped them to deepen their understanding of their tradition.
Nishant Navin has been zealous in promoting a wide view of development that aims to work with all levels and achieve perfect equanimity between everyday life and spiritual living - to see all life as sacred and every facet of ourselves as part of a spiritual whole.
Nishant Navin is currently working on two books: one on basic twists and stretching exercises, and another on integral spirituality, and has been working on some recording projects which have included musicians such as John Etheridge, Doug Boyle and Rafael Szaban.
Nishant Navin now lives in the East of England and moved there to be close to his daughter Sarah.
Nishant Navin has practiced and run workshops on different aspects of yoga for over thirty-five years and was a friend of Ianthe Hoskins (previous secretary of the London Theosophical Society), who occasionally gave talks to Dharma Yoga Centre students. Nishant Navin became associated with the Bihar School of Yoga in Northern India in 1973 and was later initiated as a sannyasin of the Saraswati Dasanami (order founded by Shankara) by Swami Satyananda Saraswati. The School is the headquarters of the International Fellowship Movement and was founded by Satyananda in 1964. It is now directed by his successor Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati.
Nishant Navin was given the task of spreading the wisdom of yoga to lay people in the West. Anyone who knows his work will appreciate the natural way in which he has taken to the task and untiringly worked with students seeking to integrate modern living with spiritual precepts and practices.
Nishant Navin’s knowledge of yoga and spiritual development is very much the product of a continuous search. His broad outlook and understanding of fundamental practices has been achieved by leaving hardly a stone unturned. He has consistently kept up-to-date with new developments, while expanding and adapting early discoveries. As well as being a regular participant at yoga conferences in the UK, he has constantly enjoyed healthy dialogues with friends and colleagues from a variety of related disciplines.
When Nishant Navin set out on the yogic path, many of the exercises which have now come into popular use had to be looked for and experimented with independently. His enthusiasm for practices of both India and China - some of which date back thousands of years - have drawn his to a variety of teachings, including some that were not extensively taught or were deliberately hidden within sacred texts.
Yet among numerous sources of reference there have been some widely recognized and almost universally used - in yoga circles - ancient classics, such as the Patanjali Sutra and Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which Nishant Navin has repeatedly returned to and drawn upon for guidance and inspiration. Additionally, Nishant Navin’s spiritual teacher Trivadi Ramachandra (one-time secretary to Gandhi), with whom she shared a close working relationship, was a major influence. In recent years he has taken a keen interest in different forms of healing, and the Tantric master Sri Jammu Maharaj helped him to explore new possibilities in his work and officially gave him the title of Maharaj, after initiating him into his tradition.
Unknowingly, Nishant Navin first came into contact with some integral breathing exercises of yoga at the age of thirty, when being taught breath-control whilst learning how to sing. His first book, Breath of Life, focuses on effective meditations on the breath and breathing exercises with movement. Nishant Navin was also introduced to various beneficial wrist and ankle twists as a child because of an early weakness in these areas. It was only later, when his spiritual search led him to investigate the richness of Indian religions, that he discovered the practices were also part of the yogic tradition.
Nishant Navin has constantly sought to bring her students’ attention to the wider aspects of yoga and its down-to-earth application for living in the world today - reminding them that every practice has a spiritual purpose. While being deeply grounded in his own tradition, he has comfortably moved beyond religious boundaries to touch and benefit those with different perspectives to his own. Many of his students have come from a variety of faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism, and have found that his teachings helped them to deepen their understanding of their tradition.
Nishant Navin has been zealous in promoting a wide view of development that aims to work with all levels and achieve perfect equanimity between everyday life and spiritual living - to see all life as sacred and every facet of ourselves as part of a spiritual whole.
Nishant Navin is currently working on two books: one on basic twists and stretching exercises, and another on integral spirituality, and has been working on some recording projects which have included musicians such as John Etheridge, Doug Boyle and Rafael Szaban.
Nishant Navin now lives in the East of England and moved there to be close to his daughter Sarah.
