About Us
About the Director
My name’s Jeff Durham, and I’m a lifelong student of human consciousness. I’m a former professor of comparative religion and Sanskrit and a dedicated practitioner of physical yogas. This unique dual training helps me translate the powerful concepts of Sanskrit philosophy into forms that will let you enhance your awareness in the here-and-now.
What I’ve Done
For a decade, I’ve traveled throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas, learning the sacred languages of ancient Egyptian, Mayan, Tibetan, and Sanskrit on a sustained quest to peer into the secrets of human spiritual life. I’ve explored how yogic, meditative and religious systems shape our experience of reality, and taught hundreds of students the results of my research.
What I Do Now
Now, I bring accurate, effective yoga knowledge to the yoga community. Through my seminars and workshops, I give you rapid access to the experience-shaping tools of yoga practice and thought – while remaining rooted in the classical Indian tradition.
My Vision for American Yoga
For very good reasons, yoga has become more popular than ever before in human history. There is great promise here, and danger too; for yoga properly performed liberates, while improper yoga injures. My mission is to help build a community of scholar-practitioners dedicated to the classical roots of yoga – as well as its present practice and future shape. In that way, we maintain both traditional responsibility and creativity – a combination that makes yoga practice effective in the here and now.
My Yoga Background
I’m a twenty year practitioner of mind-body techniques – although my curiosity regarding the outer edges of awareness began much earlier. As a kid, I learned and explored the worlds of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and in college studied yoga and tai chi to achieve mental and physical balance. Through most of my professional career as a professor of religion, I’ve practiced intensive Hatha yoga and meditation, as well as Buddhist and western psychotechnologies, all in an effort to generate focused states of awareness. In 2007, I began to practice integrated Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusamdhana style yoga, and in 2009 I earned my Ashtanga-style teacher certification.
On all of this, my only comments are these: “painted cakes do not satisfy hunger” so “practice, practice, practice.”
My Professional Training
I hold a PhD from the University of Virginia in the study of sacred texts, and I was a university professor for eight years. While I was in graduate school, I worked closely with Jeffrey Hopkins, master Buddhist meditation teacher and former translator for the Dalai Lama. I also read text on text with infinitely-patient world expert in Sanskrit philosophy Dr Karen Lang. I mastered the language of the Vedanta under Patrick Olivelle, distinguished Sanskrit scholar and translator of the Upanishads. I’ve also explored Mayan techniques of consciousness expansion in Central America, traveling far beneath the tunnels of the pyramid-tombs of Copan in Central America. Now, I live in Marin County, California, where things are as strange, exciting, uncertain and promising as they have ever been.
