Take Charge of Your Life
Online: Early 2024
Yogic Techniques for Thriving Amidst Change
This course will next be offered in early 2024. In the meantime we invite you to join us for a transforming New Year’s online retreat with the same instructors – Empower Yourself for the New Year
An inspiring course with Nayaswamis Gyandev & Diksha
Are you ready for roll-up-your-sleeves spirituality? Do you want specific things you can do—not mere philosophy—to make positive shifts in your life?
If so, then this highly experiential course is perfect for you. You’ll gain an entire toolbox of simple, yet powerful, techniques for working directly with subtle energy, the intelligent force that makes things happen in this world—and inside of you.
It all comes from Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of Yogi, and his close, direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda, the founder of Ananda.
Join Gyandev & Diksha for this 4-part, 8-week course. You will have lifetime access to all course materials.
Course Benefits
Master the Body-Energy-Mind Connection
Understand the secrets of working with subtle energy, and learn how to use it to upgrade the workings of your own body and mind—and your life. You’ll begin to establish new ways of living that truly serve you.
Break Through Barriers to Success
Discover how to work skillfully with inner and outer factors that have been guiding your life until now—for better or for worse—and learn how to make changes that will take your life to a higher level.
Learn Techniques That You Can Use Anytime
Most of these techniques can be used to great effect in meditation, and you can also use them anytime during the day, in any amount of available time—in some cases even as short as a single breath. Of course, more practice will yield even better results.
Gain a Wide Spectrum of Practical Insights
You’ll interact regularly with classmates via discussion forums, as together you experiment with these techniques, and share your insights and experiences.
Discover How to Live Superconsciously
Practice keys to living the way great saints and masters live: in a powerful divine flow that will help you find solutions, overcome difficulties, have greater joy, and draw God more dynamically into your life.
Be Guided by Experts
Your instructors, Nayaswami Gyandev and Nayaswami Diksha, have been practicing and teaching these techniques for decades, and they’ll share with you their experiential knowledge of how to make the most of them.
Pause, Affirm, Breathe
Paramhansa Yogananda said that the minutes are more important than the years.
Let’s use our minutes well and apply some of these ancient tools to change our energy and consciousness.
Watch this short video with Nayaswami Diksha to get a sense of what you will experiment with during the course.
Course Structure
This course consists of 4 two-week modules spread over an eight-week period. During each module, you will learn and explore a number of new techniques and exercises.
At the end of the module module, you will have a live webinar for you to share as well as refine what you’ve been learning and doing. Following are the topics of the four modules:
You’ll practice techniques that dramatically increase your level of energy, then use that energy to gain full cooperation from your mind and focus your willpower more effectively. You’ll also learn the little-known secret of effective affirmation practice.
Emotions are major carriers of energy, and they can serve us—or block us, or lead us astray. You’ll learn the hidden inner mechanism of emotion, and practice simple techniques that will help you harness that energy and redirect it to your benefit.
Magnetism makes everything happen in your life, inwardly as well as outwardly. Learn to direct your energy wisely to generate the kind of magnetism—and get the kinds of results—that you want to have You’ll also learn how to protect yourself magnetically from negative people and environments.
This is the ultimate goal of all seeking: to live in divine consciousness. It can seem elusive, but in this module you’ll learn simple, energy-based practices that take you far in this direction. You’ll also develop a personal plan for using the techniques of this course in your daily life.
Elements of Each Module
This course focuses on practicality and direct, personal experience, not philosophical study. Each module offers:
- An overview video that gives you a context for the module’s techniques and exercises
- 2–5 technique videos, plus written summaries of the techniques
- 2–3 additional strategies for daily living, to help you explore the module’s topics in a highly personal way
- Supplemental material to deepen your understanding and practice of the module’s techniques and exercises
- 6–8 videos and audios that you can practice with. All of them include meditation and other inner practices; some include Ananda Yoga practice as well
- Discussion forum (not “live”) to share your experiences and insights, ask questions, get guidance, and connect personally with classmates and instructors
- “Live” webinar at end of the module
- A comprehensive Resource Manual
- An “Ask the Instructors” forum, for additional guidance from Gyandev & Diksha
- Foundational practice resources that will be used in every module, including meditation and Paramhansa Yogananda’s Energization Exercises
- Resources for further study & practice
You will receive lifetime access to the course materials.
Meet Your Instructors
Nayaswamis Gyandev and Diksha are two of Ananda’s most popular teachers. They have decades of experience teaching all aspects of Yoga—from postures and breathing techniques, to meditation and yoga philosophy, to training teachers of meditation and yoga.
They teach regularly at The Expanding Light, Ananda’s retreat in Northern California, as well as in Canada, Europe, India, Israel, and across the U.S. Together they co-direct Ananda Meditation Teacher Training (in person and online) and create guided meditation, affirmation, and visualization videos for the free Ananda Meditation app. Both offer meditation coaching and spiritual counseling (online and in person) through The Expanding Light.
Nayaswami Gyandev
Coming from a scientific background—he holds a PhD in applied math from Stanford University—Gyandev has always loved the practical, scientific basis of the yoga teachings: it’s all about direct, personal experience, not mere belief, and there’s no better way to have those experiences than through the techniques of this course. He has been practicing the techniques of this course—and many others as well—since 1982.
Gyandev is known for his penetrating insights into the down-to-earth applications of the yoga teachings, and his ability to make those teachings and techniques come alive in practical ways for students. He also loves to laugh—even serious subjects deserve a bit of lighthearted fun—and his gentle humor has endeared him to students for decades.
Gyandev is a Certified Online Instructor as well as an Ananda Lightbearer minister and Kriyacharya (teacher of Kriya Yoga). He serves as director of Ananda Yoga worldwide and Ananda School of Yoga & Meditation. He has written three books (including Spiritual Yoga: Awakening to Higher Awareness), created numerous audio recordings, and produced more than 50 yoga videos, including the 12-volume set, The Ananda Yoga Series.
Nayaswami Diksha
A multi-talented woman of great warmth, gifted in both intelligence and intuition, Diksha imbues her teaching with a keen mind, heart, spirit, and humor. Above all, she awakens in her students their own inner wisdom and the will to make positive changes in their lives.
In addition to the many courses she teaches at The Expanding Light retreat, she serves as an Ananda Lightbearer minister, and director of Ananda Spiritual Counseling Training (in person and online). Her articles and blogs on meditation appear regularly on Ananda.org.
Diksha brings a broad and varied background to her teaching. A native Israeli, she has a B.S. in Biology from Hebrew University and did research in neurobiology at the Medical School of Jerusalem. She is an accomplished artist; in addition to her BFA for Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, she has received numerous awards for her work. She also spent three years in a Master’s program in Fine Arts at Kyoto Art University in Japan.
Diksha is also an expert in vegetarian cooking and diet, and has created Online Vegetarian Cooking for Health and Vitality (a 97-video series) as well as three acclaimed cookbooks: The Healing Kitchen, Global Kitchen, and Vegetarian Cooking for Starters. She also has studied and taught Ayurveda, India’s ancient system of natural health and healing.
FAQs
No, you can engage with the course whenever it works for you. The only “live” activities are five webinars, which are video-recorded for the benefit of those who cannot attend.
The five webinars take place on Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific time: Jan 29, Feb 12 & 26, Mar 12 & 26.
For each module, expect to spend 1–2 hours becoming familiar with the techniques and exercises, plus another hour with the webinar. Spend as much time as you like in the discussion forums, sharing your experiences with the techniques, and learning from classmates’ experiences. As for how much time you’ll spend practicing the techniques and exercises, that depends on how good you want your results to be.
Yes. The course site will remain open for 2 months after the final module ends. After that, you will have lifetime access to another site that contains all the course materials.
More Questions? Please email us.
Take Charge of Your Life
Join Gyandev & Diksha for this 4-module, 8-week course.
Dates: Next offering in early 2024
