A yoga school sees the light of day
In 1970, Swami Janakananda returned from India and started the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School.
Having used yoga for many years to obtain increased creativity with theatre and painting, for his wellbeing and as a means to discover more about himself, Swami Janakananda was inspired by his teacher, Swami Satyananda, to share this experience with others.
It all began in the summer of 1970 in a little shop in Østerbro, Copenhagen. The school grew quickly, people moved in to become yoga teachers and/or to gain a closer contact with the spiritual side of life.
In just a year, it was necessary to move to larger premises. The location chosen was a villa in Hellerup, a suburb of Copenhagen. In 1974, when this also became too small, the school moved to a large building in central Copenhagen - and was made a non-profit organisation. The Copenhagen school is still located there and is an active center for yoga and meditation with a shop, six yoga and meditation rooms, a lay-out studio and a large ashram with accomodation for the yoga teachers and teacher-aspirants.
Earlier on, the teachers had started looking for a place to hold intensive retreats. In 1972, Håå International Course Center was founded, beautifully situated in southern Sweden, about 150 km north of Copenhagen. The center has become internationally recognised with students coming from Scandinavia, the rest of Europe, USA, Australia and other parts of the world. Here people are offered the possibility to discover their potential, obtaining perspective, insight and energy - in this spiritual power center, where we build a bridge between the inner and the outer life.
Bindu magazine was published in Danish as early as 1971, with Swami Janakananda as the driving force. He wrote the book "Yoga, Tantra and Meditation in Daily Life" in 1975; in 1978 it was published in English, and in 1992 was re-published in an expanded and revised edition by Rider Books in the UK and Weiser in USA. It has now been translated into 9 languages. In 1983, the cassette tape version of the deep relaxation "Yoga Nidra" was released in English. In 1996, the CD "Experience Yoga Nidra" was published in English, Danish, Swedish and German.
In 1977, the school organised an international yoga congress in Stockholm, Meditation Yoga 77, with participants from all over the world. Apart from Swami Satyananda, who during those years often visited the school, yogis came from India, Europe and USA. Yoga teachers and pupils, artists, psychologists, sociologists, musicians, people from the film world, philosophers and therapists met, gave talks, received inspiration from the lectures of others, attended courses, meditations and concerts.
Swami Janakananda is the leader of the school's comprehensive yoga teacher education, a process that gives a stable personal experience of classic yoga and meditation from the tantric tradition. Besides training yoga teachers, he teaches the annual 3-month courses and a few shorter courses at Håå Course Center. He also gives lectures, satsangs and meditation courses at the different city schools. Since 1979, Swami Janakananda has toured extensively, teaching and speaking at conferences in America, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and various centres in Europe. Although a lot of time is dedicated to research and writing, Swami Janakananda still manages to maintain his connections with his students around the globe.
Over the years, as the yoga teachers have gained experience and become independent, many have chosen to continue with the school and establish new branches. Today the Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School consists of ten mutually independent schools.
Apart from the normal schedule of classes, the teachers of the school run programs in a variety of places: hospitals, sports clubs, associations, prisons and music festivals. Major companies, banks, health fairs, prisons and orchestras also invite us to teach. We are regularly contracted to deliver custom designed courses, such as health tours to the Mediterranean and summer holiday camps. Schools and other educational establishments frequently employ us for theoretical and practical introductions.
The goals of the school are:
- to raise the teaching of yoga to a level where it is free of all superstition, with no additions, based on a profound knowledge that stems from: the sources of the tradition; individual experience; personal contact between teacher and student; and the research of modern psychology and medicine.
- to be able to offer practical yoga ranging from physical and mental wellbeing to spiritual insight, which for instance C.G. Jung asks for in our culture, so that people do not live superficially, but have a creative and conscious relationship with themselves as whole beings and with others in society.
- to be an independent school where people are free to come and go with no obligation or attachment required, other than to participate in the teaching for which they come.
Franz Jervidalo
