About Devika – Himalayan Yogini
Himalayan Yogini, Devika was born into a family of six children in Jomsom (Nepal), a rural village in the mountainous Annapurna region. She was inspired by an Australian yoga teacher couple when she was 18 years old, a chance encounter that was to change her life. She was hooked and spent the following four months studying the form at The Natural Health and Yoga Center in Kathmandu. Although Hatha Yoga also originated in Nepal, it became more widely recognized as coming from India, because that country produced a series of high profile teachers.
Devika is the founder of Himalayan Yogini
In 1997, she returned to the center in Kathmandu and obtained diplomas in Hatha Yoga therapy, Ayurvedic massage,
and health food management. She had been supporting her family but when her own health took a turn for the worse in 1999, everything changed.
Later in 2000, she founded the Nepalese Yoga Center in Lakeside, Pokhara. The center is a member of the Yoga, Nature Cure and Alternative Medical Council in Nepal and has since featured in the Lonely Planet guide to the country. She spends the high tourist season teaching twice-daily Hatha yoga classes and residential courses at the Nepali Yoga center. Out of season, Devika, a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, heads to McLeod Ganj in India to further her training.
Devika believes strongly in karma
– that life is 25% luck and 75% fate. She sees yoga as a union with the Divine and with our inner-self. ‘Yoga brings us harmony and balance. It helps us to develop our creativity and live a fulfilled life, said Devika. In 2001, Devika traveled to India and undertook a further Hatha Yoga instructor’s course at the Indian Yoga Institute. This training-inspired many of her ideas to develop the programs at the Yoga Center. She realized that her heart was set on the practice of Yoga more than the textbook knowledge. She describes this desire for experience as “studying the book of my life”.
Devika’s life changed forever in 2003 when she became severely ill. Unable to overcome the sickness using alternative medicine she healed herself by way of inner spiritual growth. Since then she has been traveling to Europe, living in western families, leading workshops in local yoga communities and sharing her experiences.
Back in Nepal
She realized that only a retreat environment offers people the possibility of deepening the understanding of oneself. “Exploring the true meaning of Yoga”. She also decided to start a project called Nepali Yoga Women Trust that would allow women to reassert themselves in society by developing their unexpected inner skills.
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