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INTRODUCTION
I would like to take the opportunity of welcoming you to my website and thanking you for taking the time to read it.
My name is Vanessa and I teach both the ancient methods of meditation, as taught by Sages and Swamis of the past and also the more modern techniques of Energy Enhancement. Both intertwine but each can be taught separately depending of personal inclination.
My hope is for meditation to become part of everyone’s daily life. Living is a spiritual experience, we each consist of mind, body and spirit but often in our busy lives our spirit side gets overlooked. Meditation can correct this; it is a rewarding and joyous experience.
Meditation can be used in numerous ways:
- To combat stress and tension, increase health and well-being.
- Using the universal energy to cleanse the body and energy fields.
- Becoming the observer of negative thought patterns and allowing change.
- Connecting with silence and stillness, to calm and nourish.
- And ultimately allowing a spiritual awareness to develop.
The centre is called Oshadhi, which means the light of awareness in all plant life and this ties in with my love of gardening. I have enjoyed creating a garden condusive to meditation and all the photos are from the plants in the garden
I was eighteen when I had my first spiritual encounter with a swami. Krishna Murti had came to England to give a talk at his school in Hampshire. I was impressed by his presence and knowledge, there seemed an inner recognition within me to all that he spoke about and which I could identify with. Yet I put to the back of my mind as I got on with my life, marrying and having children.
The years that followed I gained my degree with the Open University, received training in counselling and person-centred art therapy which I put into practice. I like being part of a community and am keen to be involved so I have done voluntary work, in particular I was a voluntary youth worker for ten years. It was only when my children become less dependent that I realised an unmet creative longing within me, with the help of counselling I started art classes and later through my spiritual teacher also took creative writing courses.
I first started yoga classes nearly twenty years ago. With a young family I was looking for some form of exercise and yoga appealed because it incorporated movement, stretches, breathing, relaxation and mediation all in one go. At first I found it difficult to achieve the postures and often after a session I would feel quite ill, as the toxins were being released from my body but I always felt the benefit. My body increased in strength and flexibility, over the years I was able to relax more. This was deepened into learning about meditation, which is close to my heart. It would take a long time to list the many benefits I have received and it is that which has encouraged me to share it with others and teach. For the last couple of years I have practiced yoga on my own daily and find it takes no effort to do so, my body naturally wishes to do it, that is the beauty of yoga – no effort.
As Patanjali says “after all that”, my life had been fulfilling yet there was something missing and it was a process of recognising that my spiritual side had been unacknowledged, this started an inner journey which opened a whole new chapter in my life. I decided to write a book on this process and it is presently under construction.
It was a house move that brought me to the yoga teacher that changed my life. I enjoyed her style of yoga whereby she encouraged a deepening of one’s spiritual side. During the yoga postures themselves I became more aware of the space and silence that surrounded them. I attended the classes the teacher gave in studying the ancient vedic texts and practising meditation. She regularly held retreats and it was on one of these I met my spiritual guide in 1997. He is a sanskrit scholar of thirty five years experience, who was well versed in the ancient texts, both knowledgeable and compassionate. He has gently guided and supported me on my spiritual journey.
It was in his presence that I experienced satoori for the first and only time. It was an unexpected opening of such beauty that I find words are unable to express its magnificence. It was awe inspiring and started the real quest for enlightenment and set me off on my spirtual path. My yoga teacher also introduced me to an Indian Swami who ran an ashram in the countryside nearby, which we regularly went for satsang.
2001 saw me going out to Greece for my first yoga two-week holiday on the island of Lesvos. The teacher herself had been taught by Iyenar himself and I was also introduced to Astanga yoga there, it was the first time I had done yoga so intensively.
The result was that my kundali energy was awakened, although I did not know it was that at the time. I was also fortunate to meet and be taught by an Ishaya monk who introduced me to their teachings.
As my interest in meditation grew I attended Buddhist meditation and qi gong classes locally. I have also learnt to incorporate standing meditations in my Tai Chi, which I have been practising for four years. This all lead to a greater understanding of spiritual energy. I am always eager to open out my knowledge and am keen to learn from spiritual teachers past and present.
As I researched energy and yoga on the Internet, I came into contact with Energy Enhancement and Swamis Satchidanand and Devi Dhyani, I felt drawn to them and booked my first course with them in Spain for two weeks in 2003. It took two years before I went back to complete the course in Argentina in 2005. Encouraged by the results of the course I returned to Spain to learn teacher training for yoga and energy enhancement meditation initiations, as well as completely retaking the whole course. I was very pleased that my husband accompanied me and took part in the first week of the meditation course.
Swami Devi Dhyani initiated me into levels 1 and 2 of reiki then mastership during the time I spent with them. Reiki gave me such wonderful experiences that I wish to share with others and I now give treatments and initiations.
Throughout the interim years I continued meditating and meeting with my spiritual teacher. I also started learning Sanskrit in order to read the ancient texts for myself. It was with his encouragement that I started giving meditation classes in 2005.
It has been a journey of self-discovery, personally working on dissolving my ego and encouraging my spiritual awakening. It is an ongoing learning process whereby I keep my mind open. There is an inner knowing that dwells within each of us which acknowledges that which is genuine and there seems to be a hand that guides me. I find the more you know the less you know and I continually enjoying reading past and modern texts to widen my knowledge. The Gita, Upanishads, Patanjali, Swamis Rama/ Satchidananda/ Ramana Maharshi/Osho up to the present day Eckhart Tolle (whom I see when he speaks in England). They are all there to give a helping hand, to encourage and support on ones spiritual journey, their teachings carry down through the ages. That is why I have declared to be on a spiritual journey, I wish to encourage others to acknowledge their spiritual side. Not just to pay lip service to it but do something about it – change your life, live it.
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