Guest teacher - Julia
My name is Julia Banaszkiewicz and I am a guest teacher for Ascendance – yoga for joy. I’ve been teaching Isha Hatha Yoga across Poland and Europe since 2017.
I’ve been a nomad and a seeker for most of my life. I lived in Asia for 10 years and have been practicing different forms of yoga for over 15 years. But it was only when I came across Isha Hatha Yoga that I found what I was searching for – an authentic, classical path of yoga.
Touched by the experience of practicing Isha Yoga and living in the grace of my spiritual teacher Sadhguru, I became an Isha hatha yoga teacher to share it with others. To be able to offer these tools of inner transformation is the biggest privilege and a blessing.
I follow it with all my heart and I continue to deepen my understanding of myself and others through professional training in Ayurveda, Psychobiology, Psychotherapy as well as Systematic Constellations & Hypnotherapy.
Host teacher - Shivangi
I was Estella before I started the Isha Hatha Yoga Training.
After the training, I become Shivangi. Sadhguru gave me this name.
He said that our beings are no longer the same after this intensive training process.
Based on the time and location of my birth, he chose the name Shivangi as its sound reverberates the essence of my being.
Shivangi means a limb of Shiva. It also means illumination.
In illuminating myself, I bring light to others until I reach my true essence – that which is not.
I was born and raised in a remote village in China. My upbringing and education made me highly driven and ambitious. I left China when I was 19 years old to the UK to study. Eleven years later, I transferred to Eindhoven and worked for Philips Lighting.
Up till this point, my only focus in life was career building. I worked endless nights, was stressed about trivial things, constantly lived in fear, and had poor health conditions. The money in the bank account was increasing, but I was not remotely close to being happy.
Thanks to those caring colleagues who brought Sadhguru and Inner Engineering to Philips. In September 2013, I was initiated to Shambhavi Mahamudra meditation in the old Lighting building in Eindhoven. Since then, an entirely new world has opened up for me. It is like a breeze of fresh air. I had never even imagined this aspect of life was possible.
Isha Yoga has completely transformed my life and brings me immense joy and ease. My old sense of insecurity was long gone.
I dare to take a rare route in life that is different from the mainstream. Perception has come, and I can see the world beyond my tiny little spreadsheet—another way of being starts to settle in within me.
I notice that I have become more attentive to life. A simple Namaskar can bring intense sweet emotions to my heart. Never before, I walk into a forest and see the leaves falling, and tears just rolled down my cheeks.
I have developed so much deep gratitude towards the life around me.
The offering of service becomes my purpose, and it rewards me with endless fulfilment and extreme happiness.
Isha Hatha Teacher training is the best gift I gave myself. For 21 weeks, I soaked in the powerful space created by Sadhguru. It is pure purification and transformation.
Moreover, this training gave me the privilege to speak Sadhguru’s words and bring this authentic Classical Hatha Yoga to those longing, which has become my mission and purpose.
In this photo I was sitting on the first row, next to Sadhguru’s left foot. 🙂