Samantha Shakti, a certified Anusara Yoga and AcroYoga teacher, will be offering two workshops this weekend at the Vibhasana Yoga Conference: Chakra Empowerment Saturday afternoon, and Hoop Dance along with Nayeli Michelle on Sunday. During these workshops, her teaching will be accompanied by Dr. Jefe Mogalian, “playing exquisite guitar that takes the practitioner deeper into their heart,” and Sound Scapes by DJ Bliss Monkey. Each workshop is $50 and profits go to benefit Vibha, a non-profit group supporting projects that benefit children in India, and The Art of Yoga Project, benefitting incarcerated girls right here in the Bay Area.
Service is highlighted among Ms. Shakti’s values and commitments, as she revealed when granted this interview about her involvement with the conference. It was a special joy and treat to catch up with her as she has a toddler at home, a career and her yoga and teaching practices. Her enthusiasm for yoga, its tradition and benefits as well as community are palpable in what she has to say about her background, involvement in service and her take on music and silence in meditation.
The Vibhasana Yoga Conference is a local undertaking, the first of its kind and the brainchild of Anuja Chaudhri of Almaden Yoga. Ms. Shakti reports she first learned of the conference and its ambition to support children around the world through one of her students, Noell Clark. “...I was delighted to be of service. To me, yoga is service,” elaborated Shakti, revealing “I received my name and my first yoga teachers training at Partmarth Niketan in Rishikesh, India. "Partmarth Niketan" means " The Abode of Those Who Are of Service to Humanity". I lived there for over a year and have been back 6 times since that original year long sojourn. I have a deep connection to the children of India and have actively raised funds for the Indian Heritage Research Foundation which runs a boys orphanage/school and is completing a girls orphanage/school. I read about Vibha and their great work as an umbrella organization to help children both locally and internationally and I am delighted to serve to bring more light and resources to them.”
Shakti’s service ethic reaches out to her students as well, through whom she’s aware of The Art of Yoga Project’s work. Both Lynn Marrin and Katrin Kuttner, two of her students, “regularly report of their success in helping these incarcerated young women. Through yoga people learn to be free through the power of choice. To give these young women a choice in aligning with their own power to transform their current circumstance is a great gift and I will support that in any way that I can.”
Samantha Shakti’s passion for service is leavened with her passion for celebration, and it seems the two are inextricably intertwined in her practice. Her workshops this weekend promise a celebration, and she’s bringing the DJ. Dr. Jefe Mogalian provides a meditative, hypnotic accompaniment to yoga asana and celebration, energized by partner yoga and hoop dance in the second workshop also accompanied by DJ Bliss Monkey.
Shakti practices and teaches both silent and musical involvement in meditation: “To me music is an expression of beauty that reflects and celebrates the beauty inside of our hearts. In the context of a conference it is especially helpful as a form of celebration that connects the collective consciousness. However, I also believe that there is a time and place for silence and I teach in this way too.” She reports that in her experience, silence and sound are not mutually exclusive modes of practice and meditation. Yoga is a discipline of embracing the unity that underlies the seeming duality of our experience, and in bringing together service and celebration, silence and sound, movement and stillness, Samantha Shakti embodies that essence.
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