• Table of Contents
  • Lecture #9 by Swami Veda Bharati
  • Selflessness by Swami Rama
  • HYT-TTP November 10-22, 2013 by Maryon Maass
  • Blessing on TTP Certification Day by Swami Veda Bharati
  • Excerpts from Yoga Sutra 1.7 by Swami Veda Bharati
  • To Be Rich by Emitai Rodrigo
  • Himalayan Yoga Institute Italia TTP by Castel Firentino
  • Shunyaa’s Life in Gurukulam by Shunyaa Tsai
  • Swami Rama Swadhyaya Goshthi by Dr. Sheelendra Rai Vidyarthi
  • Visiting Sadhaka Grama by Sudhansu Misra
  • Eleven Women and One Swami by Sabina Cesaroni
  • The Hazel Diaries IV by Roxanne Currie
  • Catching a Traveling Teacher by Stoma
  • 2014 Events and Beyond
  • Full Moon Meditation Dates
  • Location of our SRSG ashram
• AHYMSIN Newsletter Archive

How Do I Catch One of Those Traveling Teachers Anyway?

by Stoma

Many people have asked over the last year how they might arrange for a visit by one of the traveling teachers of AHYMSIN. In response to this question at last year’s AHYMSIN sangha gathering, one of the working groups proposed putting together a page on the AHYMSIN website with profiles of the traveling teachers that prospective hosts could consult. This seemed like an excellent idea, especially because it required no funding. The website would have pictures, a profile of contact information and information about the material that the teacher usually teaches and even a resume or curriculum vita if available. The website is in the process of being put together and is awaiting the responses of some of the teachers who were contacted about it. (AHEM!!!)

It is widely thought that our traveling teachers are limited to Swami Ritavan, Swami Nityamuktananda, Stoma and Ashutosh Sharma, but when we actually counted up the number of people who had already traveled to teach on behalf of AHYMSIN or were ready to do so, the number came to 27! In addition to the usual suspects, traveling teachers on that list include Swami Radha Bharati, Jelle Grupstra from Holland, Tejaswini Chandaria from the U.K., Giancarlo Colombo from Italy, Carolyn Hume from the U.S., Sri Hamsa (Shi Hong) from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Marilou Hermens and Sonia Van Nispen from Holland, Jim Nelson and Michael Smith from the Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Maryon Maass and Ramprakash of SRSG and many others. Additions have been made to the list since then. So there is a wide variety of talents and personalities awaiting your events and your students! (Unfortunately, only half a dozen people have returned their profiles and pictures for the website so we encourage the others to please take the few minutes it will take to do so and e-mail them to Ahymsin at ahymsin@ahymsin.org)  It would be very helpful to potential hosts and will save the AHYMSIN office a lot of time re-directing e-mails.

One aspect of our traveling teacher program is that we only go where we are invited. We do not solicit. Any teacher who solicits an invitation should be assumed not to be teaching on behalf of AHYMSIN. In harmony with the history of our tradition, we also never ask a fee for any teaching service we provide. If someone is asking you for a set fee, you may assume that they are not teaching for AHYMSIN. It is expected that hosts will cover transportation costs, housing, food and transportation while we are in residence, and then if there are funds to spare, the hosts can make an offering of whatever size. Sometimes these are very generous and sometimes they are literally nothing. It is all the same to us.

I think I speak accurately for the other traveling teachers in saying that we feel enormous gratitude for the family ties that we have worldwide among the sangha of kalyana-mitras. We hope that the website we are developing will broaden the opportunity to bring the teachings of the tradition to your location.