I came to teach hatha yoga by way of the yoga of meditation and years of academic study of philosophy, both eastern and western. In the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and in my graduate fellowship studies at Fordham University, I gravitated toward the senior Jesuit scholars whose excellence, openminded intellectual zeal and personal spiritual fervor gave their work an integrity that inspired me to dig deeply into my own studies, particularly of the classical philosophers and Christian mystics. But as I completed my coursework for my PhD and taught at several colleges, I was increasingly aware that I was looking for more than ideas and systems -- I was looking for the experience the mystics were talking about.

 

At the time I was finishing my coursework, I met the meditation master Swami Muktananda during his last tour of the west, and he gave me the connection, the practice, the awakening and the understanding I was seeking. With that, it was up to me to step through the door he had opened, not through concepts and theories, but through yoga. I halted my academic career and went to India in 1986 to practice yoga at his ashram and to offer my service. I spent a total of 7 years in the Ganeshpuri ashram, Gurudev Siddha Peeth, and 14 years of service overall in Siddha Yoga ashrams in the US and abroad, studying and practicing yoga, working in the kitchen and gardens, and teaching hatha yoga.

 

It was during my time in Ganeshpuri that I met John Friend while he was yet an Iyengar teacher who had come to study in Pune. We struck up a friendship when I came back to the states and I was able to practice with him, study under him, and assist in his classes, workshops and trainings for the next few years whenever he came to visit the ashram, both in the US and India. He shared with me the evolution of his thinking, which eventually manifested as the Anusara style of yoga he founded, largely through the inspiration of his own experience of the ashram. In the meantime I was also able to study with unique and talented teachers such as Aadil Palkhivala, John Schumacher, Kevin Gardiner, Erich Schiffman, Rodney Yee, Rod Stryker and others, all of whom played a role in my formation. I was one of the first teachers certified as an Anusara teacher by John Friend, and have taught in the Anusara style for over 7 years, while continuing to inquire deeply into all facets of yoga as a healing and spiritual art.

 

Over the last few years my writing and teaching have led me into explorations of aspects of yoga that are not commonly emphasized or included in the methodology or system of Anusara Yoga, and so I have relinquished my status as a certified Anusara teacher. This is without prejudice against the Anusara system: it is a decision I made for the purpose of exploring, studying and sharing aspects of yoga in my teaching without causing confusion among students seeking to understand the Anusara system of yoga. I will continue to express my respect for what John Friend and the Anusara system have meant to me, and for the firm foundation they have provided me.

 

I intend to explore further into both the realm of Yoga as Therapy that I have set forth in my manual, and even more so into the spiritual practices and teachings of yoga. With the inspiration of Swami Muktananda and the writings of Swami Lakshmanjoo, I have always resonated with the tantric philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism.

Kashmir Shaivism is a huge and daunting subject, and scholars have pointed out that as a 'school' it has been misnamed, since far too much has been included under its umbrella. For the sake of greater clarity, I choose to focus on the sages and texts who emphasize three fundamental aspects of the teachings contained within this school. First, the freedom or 'swatantrya' of the Divine as its uppermost quality; second, the understanding of 'realization' as being the 'recognition' of one's own true and divine Self; and third, the power of 'spanda,' the throb of feeling and inspiration in our everyday lives that gives us glimmerings of that recognition; and the power of Grace, particularly in the form of the Kundalini, which brings about the steady unfolding of that recognition. With that unfolding, the meaning of spiritual realization or enlightenment is to live in the experience that Swami Muktananda first encapsulated in his teaching, 'God dwells within you, as you, for you. See God in yourself and in each other.'

 

And so I focus on the yoga of 'Swatantrya,' the yoga of one's own inner expansion and awakening. Yoga concerns our own relationship to the Self from whom we came. It is deeply personal, experiential, and ultimately unmediated by any system of conceptual thought. The teachings of yoga simply provide us with the introduction to our own Self. Our philosophies provide the contemplation and focus that help us to aim more deeply into the experience. In the end, the 'breakthrough' we experience is what the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart described as the breakthrough into our own heart, where the Divine most fully dwells. This is the teaching I want to share, along with the practices and means offered by yoga to support that inward journey.

I travel nationally and internationally offering workshops and teacher trainings. I've traveled from one end of the United States to the other, and my international travels have included teacher trainings and workshops in England, India, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.

 

My home base is at the Health Advantage Yoga Center in Herndon, Virginia, near Dulles outside of Washington D.C. There I teach upper level classes and co-teach in the year-long Teacher Training program at the Health Advantage Yoga Center with Susan Van Nuys, its director.

 

-- Doug Keller