Carried by a Promise

23 Octo­ber
Light up your Life, Work­shop with Swami Rad­hananda
Radha, Van­cou­ver 10am — 4 pm

12 – 13 Novem­ber
Car­ried by a Promise Work­shop with Swami Rad­hananda
Erowal Bay, NSW, Australia

14 Novem­ber
Hid­den Lan­guage Work­shop led by Swami Lal­i­tananda
Com­mu­nity Cen­tre, NSW, Australia

14 Novem­ber
Read­ing Car­ried by a Promise
Thirroul Pub­lic Library, Lawrence Har­grave Drive, NSW, Australia

19 Novem­ber
Yogic Tools for Trans­for­ma­tion, Work­shop
Manipura Yoga Cen­tre, Formby Ave, Point Cheva­lier, Auck­land, NZ

20 Novem­ber
Read­ing Car­ried by a Promise
Good­eys Book­store, Crowhurst St, New­mar­ket, Auck­land, NZ

work­shop at the Berke­ley Field House

April 8^th to 10^th, Swami Rad­hananda came to Toronto for the final stop of the cen­tral Canada part of her book tour.  The group here had been meet­ing weekly for sev­eral months to pre­pare for her and Swami Lalitananda’s arrival.  Fri­day night, the swamis led a won­der­ful sat­sang at the Toronto Radha House which was packed with about 20 peo­ple, many of whom were drawn to the house for the first time for this spe­cial event.  After Aarti, Swami Rad­hananda asked the group, “why are you here?” and each per­son explained what drew them there.  Sat­ur­day after­noon, about 45 peo­ple came to Won­der­works book­store to hear Swami Rad­hananda read from her book. There was a sense of absolute focus on her every word, as she read pas­sages from her book and elab­o­rated on them.

Sun­day had more than 40 peo­ple attend­ing the day-long “Yoga of Reflec­tion” work­shop at the Berke­ley Field House, a large room in a his­tor­i­cal build­ing down­town Toronto usu­ally used for wed­dings.  The day started with rain and thun­der and by the end, we were stand­ing out­side doing the Divine Light Invo­ca­tion in the sun­light.  Many peo­ple that I talked to, and from my own expe­ri­ence as well, found that the way Rad­hananda led the work­shop really left no room for the dark clouds to hang around.

Luke Bur­ton

Swami Radhananda’s recent  visit brought the com­mu­nity together for two spe­cial evenings at Rad’a Montréal. On the first evening, April 6, we gath­ered around Swami Rad­hananda in antic­i­pa­tion. She smiled and drew us close to her in a cozy inti­macy through the atmos­phere and her sto­ries, as she shared the words of her memoir. I could sense a dif­fer­ence between her teach­ing a work­shop and this very per­sonal shar­ing of her jour­nals with the world.  The courage she needed to let go of her for­mer life is the same courage that now brings her on the road to share her process and learn­ing. Her talk about Ashram life, being in com­mu­nity, sup­port­ing a group of peo­ple in their jour­ney towards the Light was very real and hon­est. We laughed, reflected and felt close to the teach­ings in a rare way. I know I went away feel­ing I had been given a gift.

Thurs­day evening even more peo­ple gath­ered to take part in the “Tools for Trans­for­ma­tion” work­shop. In her always sim­ple and to-the-point man­ner Swami Rad­hananda showed that less is truly more. She gave the teach­ings cen­ter stage and and they brought for­ward what each per­son needed to see at that moment. Many of us felt we were ready to bring in more qual­ity and a deeper con­nec­tion to our­selves so that we can give from that place. Rad’a is in tran­si­tion  and every­one in her space that night seemed to be mov­ing through tran­si­tions, too, tak­ing bold new steps for­ward, lis­ten­ing and real­iz­ing the gifts of a safe place to share and grow.

Trine Mikkelsen

Over three days (April 1 – 3) the Ottawa com­mu­nity was car­ried by Swami Radhananda’s promise! Twenty peo­ple came out to the book launch at Mother Tongue Books, one of the few remain­ing inde­pen­dent women’s book­stores in Canada. Some were new to the teach­ings, some recon­nect­ing after a long absence. Eleanor, one of the elders in the group, was a par­tic­i­pant in the same work­shop, Women and Spir­i­tual Life, that was Swami Radhananda’s first expe­ri­ence at the Ashram.

On Sat­ur­day, twenty more peo­ple — thir­teen of them new to the teach­ings — par­tic­i­pated in the “Yogic Tools for Trans­for­ma­tion” work­shop at Rama Lotus, Ottawa’s largest yoga stu­dio. Then on Sun­day, thirty par­tic­i­pants squeezed into the Radha Yoga Cen­tre for the “Yoga of Reflec­tion: Learn­ing from Life” workshop.

The teach­ings wove their magic as par­tic­i­pants unlocked their cre­ative poten­tial with Swami Radhananda’s few, sim­ple words. As peo­ple departed there was a sense of diamond’s flash­ing and every­one had a new glow. We are still flow­ing on a river of Light left from this amaz­ing experience.

Joan Gam­ble

by Vic­to­ria Campbell

From Beach Metro News
Tues­day, March 22, 2011

In 2003 I was intro­duced to the teach­ings of Swami Radha.  In the 1960’s she estab­lished a yoga study and retreat cen­ter called Yasod­hara Ashram in B.C. (www.yasodhara.org).  I began tak­ing classes in Toronto with an instruc­tor trained in her teachings.

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From The Spokesman-Review

Through her own life strug­gles, Mary-Ann McDougall’s inter­est in yoga as a phys­i­cal exer­cise led to her learn­ing of the spir­i­tual side of the prac­tice and into fol­low­ing a path to become Swami Radhananda.

Now she is pres­i­dent of the Yasod­hara Ashram, a yoga retreat and study cen­ter in Koote­nay Bay, in south­east­ern British Colum­bia, where she helps peo­ple find tools to deal with their problems.

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Our time in Cal­gary was full, with 40+ peo­ple attend­ing each of four events, includ­ing a read­ing at the Self-Connection Book­store, and  a Sat­sang and two after­noon work­shops at the Yoga Stu­dio. Peo­ple attend­ing the work­shops were inspired by Swami Radhananda’s courage and com­mit­ment and plunged right in to explor­ing their own reflec­tions,  find­ing  threads of mean­ing woven into their lives. A splen­did time was had by all – with par­tic­i­pants com­ing from as far away as Edmon­ton and Leth­bridge. Thanks to all who orga­nized and hosted us! Even the weather coop­er­ated with tem­per­a­tures ris­ing from the –22 to +6, with lots of Cal­gary sunshine!

(Swami Lal­i­tananda)

Group in the Spokane Radha Yoga Cen­tre studio

The events here with Swami Rad­hananda were so nour­ish­ing for me. I found myself open­ing and expand­ing, just being in her pres­ence. The work­shop allowed me to go deep and I could see every­one going to the level that was right for them, from new peo­ple to those with lots of experience.

Faith Hayflich

Lis­ten­ing to Swami Rad­hananda read from Car­ried By a Promise, I felt  the gift she’s given us in open­ing up the book of her life. In the work­shop, when we were repeat­ing the Divine Mother prayer, a door opened to a deep heart­felt longing. I feel blessed to have wit­nessed how oth­ers relaxed, opened and responded to Swami Radhananda’s pres­ence and to have expe­ri­enced it myself!

Satya

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Swami Rad­hananda focused on the theme of sanyas or renun­ci­a­tion. She chose read­ings from Feb­ru­ary 2^nd, Swami Radha’s and her own sanyas day. It was easy to see how her heart­felt desire was there from the very begin­ning, yet also how Swami Rad­hananda devel­oped per­son­ally and spir­i­tu­ally through her grow­ing under­stand­ing and ded­i­ca­tion. The room was filled with about forty lis­ten­ers, many who stayed to chat, to have books signed and to drink chai in the beau­ti­ful Radha space. Read more…

Auto­bi­og­ra­phy explains trans­for­ma­tion of home­maker into swami

From the Van­cou­ver Sun

The head of Canada’s old­est yoga com­mu­nity, the Yasod­hara Ashram in B.C.‘s Koote­nay region, is com­ing to Van­cou­ver this week­end to dis­cuss her autobiography.

The book, Car­ried by a Promise (Time­less Books), explains the trans­for­ma­tion of a for­mer Alberta home­maker into Swami Rad­hananda, head of the large ashram, which each year wel­comes thou­sands of seek­ers and yoga practitioners.

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