Sadhvi Matarisvan Gurupriya

Hari Om. 

My name is Sadhvi Matarishvan Gurupriya. This website has been created as a platform for sharing inspirational information about Yoga - all the threads that bring up the divinity in us all. Various branches of Yoga, be that Ayurveda, Mantra, Bhakti, different lineages of Yogic path, philosophy, Yogic techniques, scriptures, Sanskrit, holistic lifestyle, permaculture, etc. - all but the paths we thread to purify our self and realize. To come closer to our own true self. They have been defined and systematized. Those, proven by the time, were sifted through the multitude of choices and passed on through the generations of knowledgeable teachers. In the modern age of monopolies, rat race and "copy-paste-rebrand" sales, people mostly forget what it means to truly be authentic allowing the uninhibited creativity to take the reign. Lacking the grand view, most people stay unaware that history might have gone back in time beyond what's in the curriculum. Walking in the narrow deep trenches paved by the peers. 

My personal Yoga journey has been running up, down and in circles for more than 20 years. I have always been attracted to the transcendental. While being steadily shaped by the family to be equipped to survive, doing various degrees in finance, economics, management, hospitality, acquiring tradesmen skills of hairdressing, retailing, I have been often found at the high altitudes in the magnificent mountains of Central Asia, if not in solitude then in the company of uplifting beings. Always drawn to study civilizations, history, psychology, culture and an array of various esoteric teachings that helped me try to understand why people group in a particular way and why humankind faces downfall in evolution every now and then. My life has brought me up an absolutely optimistic person with unshakeable faith in the powers lying within. Infinite gratitude goes to the volumes of metaphysical material that inspired on the way, but most of all - to the people who have shared their wisdom. In the late teenage, I encountered Bhakti teachings of Swami Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada, transcendental meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and wealth of works by a great Russian philosopher and painter Nicholas Roerich. Thanks to my Mother and Grandmother, I have been always drawn to fine arts and literature, thanks to my Grandfather, I have been roaming a child of the forest, knew how to survive in any conditions with the mightiest reverence to the plants and animals. In fact, teachers were so many in number that they could be able to fill in the whole spectrum of light the eye can see. All this treasure of the fundamental knowledge has not been given for granted, every being gifted their share without seeing the whole of mine. Thus the road to Yoga, so to say, was a bumpy one (and taught me that "what taste as nectar acts like a poison, what tastes as poison is the true nectar"). I have been called so many names in a lifetime that at some point, naturally, a deeper understanding evolved that I was not all those names. 

When only 17 years old still in my native country Kyrgyzstan, something magical happened when I got picked up by the teachings of the master of Yoga, where the fantastic Yoga manual "A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya" by Swami Satyananda Saraswati has taken me on a journey of a "straight" Yoga. Life is everything but straight, but there are teachers and teachings that smooth the path. This was one of such impressive and adequate work on Yoga, it had everything one needed to succeed in life. And I mean the true success, not the bells-n-whistles. Nevertheless, there are also powers hidden behind the scene - collectively called Karma - the sum total of the impressions made in a course of being that orchestrate the direction our soul takes. I was still nibbling on the first chapters of this massive volume on Yoga, when moved to Australia, having started and pushed the international software business, as well as marriage, while being torn in a gazillion directions trying to make sense of life. After the birth of my first boy, still deeply unsatisfied by IT business and marriage, after a chain of long water fasts, dramatic change in lifestyle, seeking the wholeness, I was looking to undertake a challenging icy mountain climb, and given that Australia did not have any to suit my ego at that time, but New Zealand's Mt Cook's season was closed for tourists, I searched the Internet for a retreat to catch a breath. To my surprise, just in 1.5hr car drive from my house, there was a Satyananda Yoga center, which caught my eye by its Yoga name and daily routine shared on the website of waking up at 5 in the morning and silence after 8pm. Just what I needed. It was 2009, and it was the year I started the unparalleled 1500hr Yoga Teacher training in Mangrove Mountain Yoga ashram, which happened to be a place with a 40-year old history of Yoga propagation in Australia. Not a Yoga studio, not a Yoga gym, not a Yoga Spa, it was a truly unique perfected home of Yoga. Unfortunately, the first years of the ashram in the 70s were shady and poorly unorganized, a sinuous senior visiting teacher, one of the unethical disciples of Satyananda, was installed to manage the organization, and child abuse and power misuse have been happening for the first 10 years. The place has been cleared of the vicious individual, reshaped itself by the selfless work of dedicated Yogis who come and go like bees in a beehive, and all who got to know about this part of the history have learned the multifaceted lesson about neglect and misuse of power. The ashram as an educational organization rose up tall with thousands of Yoga seekers calling it home, when in 2015, it suddenly made profit, and waves of sensationalist publications and lawsuits started tearing down this incredibly upright place to pieces, until it disappeared in 2019, tainting the name of Paramahamsa Satyananda Saraswati in Australia in dirt of fabrications. Very sad and unjust, but this is the culture of the 1st world where $ rule the ball, and the unaware mob does not see the culture from the cult. Despite all this, still, no matter what style of Yoga people teach, mostly everyone, consults hundreds of scientifically sound publications made by Swami Satyananda Saraswati - the founder of Bihar School Of Yoga - the largest Yoga institution in India, which throughout the 20th and 21st centuries has made the greatest contribution to the science of Yoga.

In the latest 10 years of my Yoga study, I have been privileged to travel well throughout India, studying with different masters and learning the origin of Vedic heritage, drinking the culture of Bharata Varsha land - an affectionate name of the Hindu continent, and the original cradle of civilization. At some point, pulled into a swirl of Buddhism, studying Siddha Yoga of South Indian tradition, made a two-year in-depth journey into Shamanic culture of tribes of Eurasia and South America, learning Kriyas, Jnana Yoga from the unsurpassable teachers, pilgrimaged to the multitude of Shakti Peeths - the most significantly charged places for the seeker of purity, my Sri Vidya teacher found me and a classical Hindustani music teacher found me as well, the journey goes on. It never ends.   

So here I am, with this humble attempt to create a free portal for people to share authentic knowledge, by people for people. 

Here we can upload files, video, audio, post articles, discuss, share events, list personal profiles as well as our Yoga-related organizations. Endless opportunities. Time to pull our energy out of monopolies like FBook.   

Over the years, a dream to create a space for Sangha with a deep prayer for the steady upliftment of all, deep transformation of the body-mind duo and quenching the heart’s most sacred thirst. With this Sankalpa, somehow, the seed grew strong, the soil has been gracefully fertile, and with the support of our Elders - Vedic, as well as the Aboriginal Land Custodians, blessings have nourished and brought it to life. Now, ShantiDwara Yoga Temple has been physically born in Middle Pocket, NSW, Australia with a multifunctional online portal to share the resources.

Feel free to join and share your inspiration for the good of all.

In faith,

Sadhvi Matarishvan Gurupriya