Yogi Vishvketu (Vishva-ji) has studied and practiced Hatha and Raja yoga and the Vedic healing arts in northern India since childhood. From the age of 8, he studied Vedic wisdom at Kanvashram in the foothills of the Himalayas. With its historic temple and Ayurvedic clinic, Kanvashram attracts many yogic saints and Ayurvedic masters, and was an ideal place to absorb these ancient healing and consciousness-raising traditions. Vishva went on to attain a Bachelor’s degree from a renowned Sports College with a specialization in yoga and its use in optimizing athletic performance, followed an M.A. and Ph.D. in Yoga Philosophy at Gurukul Kangri, the Sanskrit university of Haridwar. He then moved to Yoga Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, seeking advanced teachings in Pranic purification from Yogi Nath, while teaching and inspiring students from around the world to live the yogic life with joy and dedication.

He moved to Canada in 2001, and began to teach internationally, bringing a passion for yoga and his fun-loving nature to the classes. In October 2003 he released an instructional DVD entitled Moving into Bliss with Yoga, presenting a balanced sequence of asana and pranayama techniques in a harmonious and meditative flow set to classical Indian music. Vishva-ji has been a much-loved teacher and demonstrator at the Yoga Show and Conference in Toronto for the past five years, since its inception in 2003. In March 2008, he taught at the Purnarnava Ayurveda Conference in Rishikesh.

Vishva-ji is committed to offering holistic yoga workshops internationally, incorporating diverse aspects of the practice: asana, pranayama, cleansing kriyas, Ayurveda and Vedic chanting, as well as to offering Yoga Alliance registered 200- and 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) programs in Canada and in Rishikesh (India). He calls this holistic style of teaching Akhanda Yoga, meaning whole and indivisible. It is in this spirit that in January 2007, he and his wife, Chetana Panwar, founded Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram in Rishikesh (India) where they live and teach six months of the year (Oct. – April).

Vishva-ji esteems for their teachings in traditional Hatha yoga, the great saints Baba Prem Nath and Guru Yogi Nath of the ancient lineage of Nath; and for teachings in naturopathy and Ayurveda, the master Baba Hari Nam and Swami Yogananda.

Watch a demo of Vishva from the Moving into Bliss with Yoga DVD:

Chétana Panwar

Chétana came to the path of yoga through a meditation class in 1993. Upon returning from a two-year stay in Asia, she began to embrace yoga as an all-encompassing lifestyle, faith and culture. She has found that her true nature blossoms through integrating Jnana and Bhakti yoga: philosophical contemplation, and devotional practices. “Yoga is unity in diversity, and allows us to recognize that the apparent duality between mind and heart is illusory”. This merging of mind and heart is apparent in her writing. Her article The Path of the Yoginii was published in New Renaissance magazine; she has also written for Yoga Magazine (UK Edition).

Chétana enjoys leading kiirtan at satsang gatherings, and brings chanting and inspirational messages to her classes. Her intention is to share with students the beautiful simplicity of the yogic vision through her passion for philosophy and poetry, movement and meditation, nutrition and alternative healing artsBlending insights from her Master’s degree in adult education, and her training in yoga, philosophy and meditation, she developed the curriculum and manual for World Conscious Yoga Family’s Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) courses. Chétana teaches Philosophy-lifestyle-ethics, Methodology, Prenatal Yoga and Transformational Experiences for the 200- and 500-hour YTT programs. Along with her husband, Yogi Vishvketu, she co-founded Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram in Rishikesh (India) where they live six months of the year with their daughter Uma.

Saskia started her journey into yoga when she was 14 years old, following a family trip to the Himalayan states of northern India. Following an undeniable intuition that she had much to learn from India, she journeyed there many times to live, travel, study and volunteer. An always-deepening love and appreciation of India propelled her to focus her undergraduate and graduate studies on the region -- its religious and cultural forms and history, its social and ecological development challenges, and especially its ancient wisdom traditions. Following an intensive period of study with a siddha from the Nath lineage, Saskia started a daily personal practice of yoga and has cherished her transformative relationship with the path of yoga ever since. She graduated from the World Conscious Yoga Family YTT program in 2003.

One of the most important gifts Saskia has benefited from in her relationship with India is a deep fascination with integrated approaches to living and change. Inspired by the holistic view embedded in all traditions of yoga, Saskia has sought ways to bridge the gap between the felt need for healthy and sustainable transformation in larger social structures with pathways of deep personal integration. Currently, this exploration is taking concrete shape in the form of a gap year program and school she is founding together with her husband, Shahar Rabi, and a small team of inspired educators and social change agents in Nova Scotia, Canada (www.newearthinstitute.ca). How can "coming home to yourself" shift the way that you choose to act, live, work and play in the world?

Saskia has a Master’s degree in International Development and a B.A. (Honours) in International Development and South Asian Religion. She is a published author, applying integral models to a variety of topics including sustainable development, community development, ecology, consciousness studies and global issues. Saskia has lived and worked as a consultant for community-based and international development agencies in Canada, the US, the Netherlands, Bhutan and India. She has helped to teach the history and philosophy sections of World Conscious Yoga Family’s 500-hour Yoga Teacher Training courses in India. She is very grateful to be a part of this unique, global community.

Nivedita Pingle is a medical graduate in allopathic science (western medicine) from Pune, India. She has done her yoga therapy training with Dr. S.V. Karandikar, a medical practitioner for the last 35 years and also a renowned yoga therapy consultant. She has been associated with yoga therapy for the last 10 years. She has been running her own yoga therapy studio for people with musculoskeletal disorders, cardiac ailments and other diseases for the last 8 years, having treated more than 500 patients so far. She also teaches yoga- related medicine in the Yoga College run by the institute where she studied. She has experience in teaching short-term courses of 6 weeks for yoga teachers aspiring to learn the therapeutic aspect of yoga. She also teaches anatomy and therapy modules for yoga teacher training courses, including for World Conscious Yoga Family’s 200-hour program in India.

Enthusiastic and dedicated to living life to its fullest, Radhika strives to move through each day as open hearted and passionately as possible. She is co-founder and teaches at Bodhi Tree Yoga Center in Calgary, Canada. Like her own practice, Radhika's classes are joyful but disciplined. She encourages students to move through their practice with focus, intention and awareness of why they’ve come to the mat, while paying attention to the essence of who they really are.

“Everyday is an opportunity to get to know yourself and the world around you a little better. By looking at things from different angles, we become comfortable with how we live in a world of constant change. Coming to the mat can give you so much more insight beyond our physical reality, as well as giving us space to breathe.”

“My light when it’s darkest, yoga has consistently offered me truth, compassion and joy. It has shown me that I can do anything, and that I get out of it what I put into it. With those experiences, I strive to invoke in people the belief that they can do whatever they set their intention to do: the power of thought.”

Radhika has had the privilege of being inspired by and studying with many teachers, above all Shiva Rea, John Friend and Yogi Vishvketu. Her studies with Vishva have had the most profound impact on her, guiding her to integrate yoga into her everyday life beyond the mat. Radhika is passionate about continually learning, and sees herself as a student blessed with the opportunity to share what she has absorbed. She maintains that some of the best teachers she has ever had are the students in front of her on a daily basis.
- Om

Kat’s journey of practicing and teaching yoga began in 1998. She draws on her two decades of professional background in leadership, teaching and communication, and as a fitness educator, to bridge yogic philosophy with modern life. At the core of her passion is the belief that the connection of mind and body is essential towards well-being and this thread remains an integral theme in her classes and workshops.
 
She is grateful to her students for their continual lessons.  “We are all both teacher and student. Learning is ongoing, and our process is constantly evolving, I learn something every time I teach or take a class and it’s a privilege to be part of that exchange. Yoga is a very powerful life tool, one that can help us access our fullest potential and truth.”
 
Helping her access those lessons are the teaching and guidance she’s received from esteemed leaders within the Ashtanga, Kundalini, Hatha, and Jivamukti Yoga practices. She completed Ashtanga teacher training with David Swenson, Raja Yoga and Traditional Hatha Yoga in India with Yogi Vishvektu and Chetana Panwar. 
 
Kat's unique energy and passion to her teaching is infectious. By linking experiences in asana practice to life, she encourages participants to explore their own perceived limits in mind, body and being; through movement, breath, and listening to the teacher within. While this sounds serious, the challenge of the practice is balanced by her joyful and playful approach to the process. 
 
Kat lives in Ottawa, Ontario, and teaches and presents in corporate, private and studio environments in Canada and internationally. She holds a bachelors degree in communication and certificates in adult education, leadership and coaching.

The first time he crossed the Ganges in Haridwar, India, Pranav experienced a strong revelation that, since 1994, compelled him to go to India every year, to look for his spiritual nature, and to practise yoga. In December 1999, he met Yogi Vishveketu, from whom he started learning many precious techniques. Since then, every year for a month he studies and practices pranayama and meditation at Yoga Niketan Ashram in Risikesh, India. To carry on learning about Vedantic philosophy, he studied with professor MarkDyczkowski from the Benares Hindu University. In February 2005, he obtained his 200-hour yoga teacher training certificate with Yogi Vishvketu. In October 2005, he taught yoga and pranayama at the Yoga Niketan Ashram. Every year in June he holds two seminars in Italy: one with Yogi Vishveketu, where Hatha, Raja and Kundalini yoga lessons are held, and a second seminar called Soul Therapy where yoga is combined with modern dance and kathak. His mission is to demonstrate to beginner and advanced students that yoga is a spiritual discipline, soul technology.
 

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Roberta Torrens began her study of yoga in 1996 when she came across an asana series in Ram Dass's inspirational book Be Here Now. She subsequently spent time practicing yoga while participating in the Seva program at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. While pregnant with her first child, Roberta joined a pre-natal yoga class that would develop into a post-natal/ infant massage class and eventually into an active "Yoga Moms Group". She also participated in weekend silent meditations and courses in Buddhist Studies at the Manchester Shambhala Center in her home state of Vermont. Now the mother of three young children, Roberta has become dedicated to Waldorf education and participates in a weekly study group which examines the anthroposophy and educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. Roberta is excited to join World Conscious Yoga Family as our Office Assistant.