Paul Harvey has been a student and teacher of the viniyoga of Yoga, as well as other Indian traditions such as Vedic Chant, Sāṃkhya, Bhagavad Gītā and Āyurveda lifestyle skills over three decades. Undertaking a personal inquiry and formal Yoga practice in 1972 he began meeting teachers and exploring the practice and theory of āsana and prāṇāyāma.
Following this he met and commenced personal lessons with TKV Desikachar’s former student Ian Rawlinson in Spring 1975. Through Ian he also worked in Seminars with Desikachar’s leading Western students Claude Marechel in 1975 and Francois Lorin in 1976 and 1977.
However it was when Paul met and worked in England with his root teacher TKV Desikachar in 1976 and again in 1978 studied in Switzerland with both TKV Desikachar and his younger brother TK Sribashyam, that he realised the deeper potential of Yoga through the approach of their father and teacher the eminent T Krishnamacharya.
“The target of Yoga is ‘svatantra’
which means to discover our own technique.
‘Sva’ means itself and ‘tantra’ means technique.
The techniques are in oneself and we must discover them;
if not we will depend on others. I am sick and I go to the doctor;
but finally I must become my own therapist.
This is ‘svatantra’.”
TKV Desikachar
This led in 1979, after a formal request and acceptance by Desikachar as a student, to a two year residence in South India studying and practising within the traditional setting of teacher and pupil meeting together one to one.
“A guru is not one who has a following. A guru is one who can show me the way.
Suppose I’m in a forest and somehow I’ve lost my way.
Then I meet somebody and ask, “Can you show me the way home?”
That person might say, “Yes, you go this way”.
I say “Thank you,” and I go on my way. That is a guru.“
TKV Desikachar
During this prolonged stay in Madras (as it was called then) he studied in depth many aspects of Yoga practice, as well as a detailed exploration of important Yoga and Hindu Texts, along with other facets of the primary Indian traditions. This was both directly under his teacher and through his guidance and recommendation with other students of T Krishnamacharya, namely S Ramaswami, one of the founding trustees of the KYM and AG Mohan, a KYM co-founder and its Honoury Secretary for 23 years, as well as Desikachar’s own students in India including R Prabhakar, Indra Mohan, TV Ananthanarayanan, TM Mukundan and AV Balasubramanian.
Bath Yoga Centre 1981-1984
Returning to the UK in 1981 Paul started the Bath Yoga Centre, which evolved with Paul’s work over 25 years from bYc or Bath Yoga Centre, to cYs or centre for Yoga studies, to VB or Viniyoga Britain, to aYs or association for Yoga studies, before returning to cYs in 2006 as Paul returned to his teaching roots on retiring from the demands involved in administering large teaching organisations.
They were all originally founded to help develop study and training options in the UK. The common thread within all these various organisations was the commitment to the spirit of the teachings from TKV Desikachar as received from his teacher and father T Krishnamacharya.
Centre for Yoga Studies 1985-1991
Paul’s study of Yoga and the Vedic tradition through the teachings of T Krishnmacharya was further complemented by study with Desikachar’s Western students such as Peter Hersnack, Laurence Maman, Gary Kraftsow and Bernard Bouanchaud. Plus during many return visits to India, between 1983 and 2002, by the study of Saṃskṛt, Vedic Chant, Mantra, Āyurveda pulse diagnosis and Yoga Cikitsa (Therapy) with his teacher and lessons on Āyurveda philosophy and application with K S Viswanatha Sarma, the Principal at The Venkataramana Āyurveda College.
Western Psychotherapeutic Trainings 1985-1992
To complement his Eastern studies with his teacher and to examine the root influences within his own psychological background and upbringing, Paul undertook Foundation Courses in Focusing in 1985, Core Process Psychotherapy in 1986 and NLP in 1987 before going on in 1988 to complete a four year training with the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology as a counsellor and workshop facilitator.
This and his teacher’s support for Paul‘s interest in both Eastern and Western approaches to philosophical psychology as a practice for life has enabled a further dimension in exploring how to better understand and integrate the Yoga teachings from the culture and attitudes of the East with the beliefs, culture and attitudes of the West today.
Viniyoga Britain 1992-1995
Between returning to India and establishing a teaching practice in the UK he developed a six year, four level, study and training programme. The Programme extended across all aspects of Yoga, including āsana, prāṇāyāma, dhyāna (meditation), chanting, sanskrit, āyurveda and a detailed study of the primary Yoga text, the Yoga Sūtra, as well as an overview of other important Yoga texts such as the Yoga Rahasya, Yoga Yājñavalkhya and Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā.
This is complemented by appreciating traditional Indian teachings such as the Upaniṣad, Bhagavad Gītā, Saṃkhyā Kārikā, Caraka Saṃhitā and other texts informing the application of Yoga practice and theory.
The current choices cover the viniyoga of Yoga, Haṭha, Sūtra, Mantra & Yoga Chanting, Gītā & Āyurveda Study through:
The first two levels now cover Introductory and Foundation Workshop Study Courses on Yoga Practice, Haṭha Theory, Sūtra & Gītā Study and Mantra & Yoga Chanting. They can be covered in one year, and focus on developing a personal practice and appreciation of the possibilities that Yoga can offer.
The next two levels cover Practitioner and Further Studies Practitioner Training Programmes. They offer, over three and two years, professional training for those students who wish to teach Yoga in small groups, specialise in one to one tuition or therapy and develop skills in running workshops, seminars and study courses.
Paul has had a long association with the British Wheel of Yoga, the leading National Governing Body for Yoga in England, in varying roles from County Representative in 1974 through to being the Treasurer and sitting on the National Executive Committee from 1976 to 1979. The cYs Yoga Teaching and Yoga Therapy Practitioner Programme Training qualification was fully accredited by the BWY in 1993 and the cYs Yoga Teaching and Yoga Therapy Further Studies Programme was fully accredited by the BWY in 2006.
Viniyoga Britain 1996-2002
Whilst Director of Studies for the various organisational bodies, over the next decade Paul started to de-evolve away from being the main Director and primary teacher. From 1996 he began to extend the teaching faculty and share the responsibilities for teaching the Introductory, Foundation, Teacher Training and In-Service Training Courses to include other senior teachers teaching them independently within an organisational framework.
Paul returned to Chennai (as it is called now) in South India over 20 times betwen 1979 and 2002, studying individually with his teacher TKV Desikachar. In addition Paul led some seven study groups to Chennai for special study meetings with Desikachar and to experience the teaching and Yoga therapy work at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram.
Paul hosted teaching visits by TKV Desikachar to the UK in 1992, 1996, 1997 and 2000. Paul also travelled to many countries in Europe as well the US to seminars with Desikachar as a student or support teacher or to participate in meetings with Desikachar and other of his senior Western students.
He has led his own workshops, seminars and study and Yoga Teacher Training courses in the UK for many years. He has also been invited to teach in a number of countries within Europe, as well as Canada, the US and, at the invitation of the Israeli Yoga Teachers Association, initiated two One Year Foundation Courses in Israel. This has evolved over 10 years into teacher training courses ably led by his senior student in Israel.
In 2001 a book on Asana practice was published with the help of UK students (the book Yoga for Every Body was published in June 2001 by Readers Digest in North America and Time Life elsewhere).
This period within Viniyoga Britain from 1996 through to 2002 also saw the appointment of a VB executive Director to allow Paul to focus on his primary role as Director of Studies. In addition came the setting up of both Steering and Teaching Councils with senior students as well as the growth of the senior students teaching faculty. Paul initiated the first VB convention in 2002, now held annually in July, as well as negotiating the shift away from the use of the organisational name Viniyoga Britain the following year.
Association for Yoga Studies 2003-2005
This change in attitude on the part of TKV Desikachar and his son Kausthub towards the use of the name Viniyoga was the reason behind the shift in the organisational name away from Viniyoga Britain. This also influenced Paul’s move back to his original teaching vehicle of cYs and away from what became aYs from the Steering & Teaching Councils preference to maintain an active link with the name Viniyoga.
In 2003, prior to these events, Paul had already announced his retirement as the Director of Studies within a maximum of five years in order to focus more on his personal teaching direction emerging through his transition towards becoming an elder in the Yoga community.
Meanwhile the community of his students wanted a name to more closely reflect their sense of association so the name aYs or the Association for Yoga Studies was chosen by them as a vehicle to continue the work Paul initiated through Viniyoga Britain with its Newsletters and Conventions.
This phase also saw Paul’s UK Yoga Teacher Training qualification validated in 2003 by UEFNY, the European Union of Yoga, as meeting the European Minimum Standard for Yoga Teachers. The Centre for Yoga Studies is currently, along with the British Wheel of Yoga, the only UK Yoga Teacher Training organisation accredited in the UK to their European four year Yoga Teacher Training criteria.
Entering his 60th year through 2006 marked a number of personal changes and offered an appropriate moment to retire from the ever increasing demands of administrative roles within the community of students he formally trained over 30 years and return to his Yoga teaching and teacher training roots. With his formal retirement from being Director of Studies taken in April 2006 that phase was completed.
Association for Yoga Studies 2006-
Meanwhile aYs continues in its role as a community support body for Viniyoga Britain and cYs Practitioners trained by Paul or for teachers trained by his postgraduate students, as well as offering bi-annual Convention and Saṅga gatherings and subscription newsletters for its members.
Centre for Yoga Studies 2006-
With this return the 25 year circle was complete and the as if re-linking to cYs enabled Paul to focus on what he loved best, Yoga teaching and Yoga Teacher training without the ever increasing encumberances presented by any large organisation. These days Paul’s continuing journey as a student of Yoga, dharma as a Yoga teacher and feeling for expressing the spirit of his teachers message, is more and more fulfilled within the space that a simpler, smaller and more personal practice and teaching environment such as the Centre for Yoga Studies offers.
For Paul this also honours his teachers original message, offered for example in the quote below through a seminar by Desikachar in the US in May 2002:
“T Krishnamacharya, a yogi par-excellence, immersed in the ocean of ancient Indian wisdom, understood the wealth of teachings that yoga had to offer and showed how each practitioner can choose the right means for his or her own development.”
With ‘official’ OAP status arriving in 2011 Paul finds himself in this next stage of life needing to be even freer of past, present and future organisational familial expectations and involvements in order to have more time to further refine his personal studies and practice as well as focus on Yoga teaching and teacher training.
“Suffering is the starting point for the Yoga journey of four steps from:
the symptom (duḥkha or suffering);
through to the cause (avidyā or illusion);
to the path (kaivalya or independence);
and the means (aṣṭāṅga or 8 limbed path) for viveka or discrimination.
This fourfold process is at the heart of Yoga, Āyurveda and Buddhism.”
Thus as he journeys through his mid-sixties he prefers to teach more as part of an informal global community of Yoga teachers and schools arising from nearly 30 years of training under T Krishnamacharya’s students, especially TKV Desikachar and his students in India, Europe and North America.
On a professional level the work of cYs in the field of Yoga Teacher and Yoga Therapy Training continues to be recognised. The BWY awarded the cYs Adbvanced Further Studies Programme UK Accreditation status in 2006, and the CNHC awarded cYs Direct Verifier status for UK Yoga Therapy Training Diplomas in 2009.
Yogāñjali Yoga Centre 1999-
In addition to his work with cYs Paul continues to direct Yogāñjali, a Yoga practice and therapy centre in Bishopston, Bristol. It offers individual lessons and group Yoga Classes as well as hosting cYs Yoga Practice and Study Workshops and Practitioner Teacher Training. Plus allowing Paul to continue his love of Vedic and Yoga Chanting through group and 121 teaching, as well as training students and teachers in the Art of Vedic Mantra and Yoga Chanting.
The Art of Mantra and Chanting 1985-
It was during Pauls visits to study Yoga with Desikachar in India he became exposed to the Art of Mantra, Veda and Yoga Chanting. It was taught by his teacher both as a method of transmission for sacred texts and teachings and as a personalised practice through which one became deeply focused.
This experience and the other benefits such as a deepening confidence in the message of the heart, improvements in memory through the teaching and learning processes, confidence and power arising in the sound of our own voice, led Paul in 1985 to begin a formal study with his teacher.
Though having had no prior training in singing, the use of the voice, in Western or Eastern music or ever having played a musical instrument, Paul began the formal study and practice of the art of Mantra and Yoga Chanting. Meeting within the traditional setting of teacher and student, the mantra would be taught based on the ancient method of transmission.
This involved refining the art of listening and then repeating exactly what was chanted. Learning primarily under his teacher and through his guidance and recommendation also working with Desikachar’s own students including Sujaya Sridhar and Menaka Desikachar, Paul’s interest in this ancient art and practice flourished.
It is through personal transmission that the individual needs of the student can be met in terms of pronouncing and pitch, timing and strength, maintaining a note and continuity of breath and sound. A process possible with the help of a careful methodology and a persistent teacher. From this slow beginning Paul began to teach the Art of Sound, Mantra, Veda and Yoga Chanting in the West from 1986. The influence and value of chanting to steady the mind and open the heart was soon appreciated by many and this has led to the story today with Vedavallī.
Vedavallī 1999-
As interest in the practice of Vedic Chanting grew in the UK Vedavallī was established in 1999, at the request of TKV Desikachar, as a separate aspect from Viniyoga Britain.
This was both in order to clarify the confusing boundaries appearing between Yoga practice and the Indian religious practices within which Vedic chanting resides and to offer and develop the teaching of Vedic Chanting as a meditative practice for all interested in this ancient Indian tradition.
“I think, that all those who want to practise Vedic chanting must be able to do so,
provided there is no confusion with Patañjali’s Yoga.”
TKV Desikachar
It had as its core a group of students who studied Vedic Chanting for many years with Paul as well as with other students of TKV Desikachar both in India as well as Europe.
“Unfortunately, many people are not able to differentiate between Yoga and Hinduism.
This is the biggest blunder I have seen in many institutions.”
From an interview with TKV Desikachar
As with other aspects of Viniyoga Britain evolving independently of Paul, experienced teachers now teach Vedic Chanting either individually or through groups, workshops and seminars. They can be found within the aYs student community network or listed on the cYs Chant Teachers Register.
Garuda Yatra 1993-2003
Paul’s interest in the transformative symbolism inherent within personal journeys developed from his initial experiences when he first travelled to India in 1979 to study Yoga with his teacher. During the two year stay in his first visit as a formal pupil of TKV Desikachar the extreme summer heat in South India led to travels in North India and the Himalayas.
Over the two following decades, in addition to his personal study stays and hosting practitioner group study visits to Chennai, Paul made a number of special pilgrimages to explore India’s rich tapestry of Sacred Geography by travelling extensively in North India, Nepal and Tibet visiting Holy towns and Spiritual Centres in the Hindu, Sikh and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, with the purpose of following sacred paths to sacred sites in the Himalayas.
In 1993 he travelled to the source of the Ganges. This was followed with further visits in 1998 and 2000 to all the other primary sources of the Ganges, known as the Char Dham or four sacred points. Each of these four sources eventually merge into what becomes the river Ganges and are signified with a sacred temple high up in the Himalaya mountains. They are considered some of the most revered sacred Yatra points in the Indian spiritual geography.
These visits to India were complemented by a pilgrimage to Tibet in 1995 with a group including Dr. Robert Svoboda to make a parikrama (sacred circumambulation) around Mount Kailash walking up to 18,600 feet and visit the lake Manasarovar at 15,000 feet. It was here that his teacher’s father and teacher T Krishnamacharya was said to have lived and studied Yoga for over 7 years, from 1911 through to 1918.
Paul also travelled to North India in 2000 with his teacher TKV Desikachar, his wife Meneka and senior student Sonia Nelson to Badrinath, said to be the most important of the four sites in India’s Char Dham pilgrimage.
Badrinath was said to be a favourite pilgrimage place of T Krishnamacharya when he lived with his teacher Yogeswarar Rama Mohana Brahmacharya on the shores of Lake Manasoravar in Tibet in the early part of the twentieth century.
In 2001 (Click for Link to Picture Gallery from this Journey) Paul led his first ‘personal journey’ group to the Himalayas. They went on a Pañca Kedar in the Garhwal district of the Himalayas to visit the sacred sites of Śiva as depicted in myths around the great Indian story the Mahābhārata.
Further group journeys were planned to sacred sources and sites of rivers, mountains and temples in Assam and Mustang. However the need to just travel lightly and freely to these sacred places, many of which he had not been to yet has become the greater priority. Whilst appreciating the community and shared experience offered within a group, travelling lightly with only a small backpack offers the type of nourishment that co-ordinating groups around India’s Holy places cannot. So Paul decided not to put together any more groups preferring to have the freedom to spontaneously visit these places as and when he wishes.
Meanwhile much gratitude for the continuing interest and support of students, especially those who have become spiritual friends and best wishes for your inner and outer journeys towards svatantra through 2012 and beyond.
About Paul Harvey as Yoga Practitioner, Teacher, Chanter and Traveller
Following this he met and commenced personal lessons with TKV Desikachar’s former student Ian Rawlinson in Spring 1975. Through Ian he also worked in Seminars with Desikachar’s leading Western students Claude Marechel in 1975 and Francois Lorin in 1976 and 1977.
However it was when Paul met and worked in England with his root teacher TKV Desikachar in 1976 and again in 1978 studied in Switzerland with both TKV Desikachar and his younger brother TK Sribashyam, that he realised the deeper potential of Yoga through the approach of their father and teacher the eminent T Krishnamacharya.
This led in 1979, after a formal request and acceptance by Desikachar as a student, to a two year residence in South India studying and practising within the traditional setting of teacher and pupil meeting together one to one.
During this prolonged stay in Madras (as it was called then) he studied in depth many aspects of Yoga practice, as well as a detailed exploration of important Yoga and Hindu Texts, along with other facets of the primary Indian traditions. This was both directly under his teacher and through his guidance and recommendation with other students of T Krishnamacharya, namely S Ramaswami, one of the founding trustees of the KYM and AG Mohan, a KYM co-founder and its Honoury Secretary for 23 years, as well as Desikachar’s own students in India including R Prabhakar, Indra Mohan, TV Ananthanarayanan, TM Mukundan and AV Balasubramanian.
Bath Yoga Centre 1981-1984
They were all originally founded to help develop study and training options in the UK. The common thread within all these various organisations was the commitment to the spirit of the teachings from TKV Desikachar as received from his teacher and father T Krishnamacharya.
Centre for Yoga Studies 1985-1991
Western Psychotherapeutic Trainings 1985-1992
This and his teacher’s support for Paul‘s interest in both Eastern and Western approaches to philosophical psychology as a practice for life has enabled a further dimension in exploring how to better understand and integrate the Yoga teachings from the culture and attitudes of the East with the beliefs, culture and attitudes of the West today.
Viniyoga Britain 1992-1995
This is complemented by appreciating traditional Indian teachings such as the Upaniṣad, Bhagavad Gītā, Saṃkhyā Kārikā, Caraka Saṃhitā and other texts informing the application of Yoga practice and theory.
The current choices cover the viniyoga of Yoga, Haṭha, Sūtra, Mantra & Yoga Chanting, Gītā & Āyurveda Study through:
The first two levels now cover Introductory and Foundation Workshop Study Courses on Yoga Practice, Haṭha Theory, Sūtra & Gītā Study and Mantra & Yoga Chanting. They can be covered in one year, and focus on developing a personal practice and appreciation of the possibilities that Yoga can offer.
The next two levels cover Practitioner and Further Studies Practitioner Training Programmes. They offer, over three and two years, professional training for those students who wish to teach Yoga in small groups, specialise in one to one tuition or therapy and develop skills in running workshops, seminars and study courses.
Viniyoga Britain 1996-2002
He has led his own workshops, seminars and study and Yoga Teacher Training courses in the UK for many years. He has also been invited to teach in a number of countries within Europe, as well as Canada, the US and, at the invitation of the Israeli Yoga Teachers Association, initiated two One Year Foundation Courses in Israel. This has evolved over 10 years into teacher training courses ably led by his senior student in Israel.
This period within Viniyoga Britain from 1996 through to 2002 also saw the appointment of a VB executive Director to allow Paul to focus on his primary role as Director of Studies. In addition came the setting up of both Steering and Teaching Councils with senior students as well as the growth of the senior students teaching faculty. Paul initiated the first VB convention in 2002, now held annually in July, as well as negotiating the shift away from the use of the organisational name Viniyoga Britain the following year.
Association for Yoga Studies 2003-2005
In 2003, prior to these events, Paul had already announced his retirement as the Director of Studies within a maximum of five years in order to focus more on his personal teaching direction emerging through his transition towards becoming an elder in the Yoga community.
Meanwhile the community of his students wanted a name to more closely reflect their sense of association so the name aYs or the Association for Yoga Studies was chosen by them as a vehicle to continue the work Paul initiated through Viniyoga Britain with its Newsletters and Conventions.
Entering his 60th year through 2006 marked a number of personal changes and offered an appropriate moment to retire from the ever increasing demands of administrative roles within the community of students he formally trained over 30 years and return to his Yoga teaching and teacher training roots. With his formal retirement from being Director of Studies taken in April 2006 that phase was completed.
Association for Yoga Studies 2006-
Centre for Yoga Studies 2006-
For Paul this also honours his teachers original message, offered for example in the quote below through a seminar by Desikachar in the US in May 2002:
With ‘official’ OAP status arriving in 2011 Paul finds himself in this next stage of life needing to be even freer of past, present and future organisational familial expectations and involvements in order to have more time to further refine his personal studies and practice as well as focus on Yoga teaching and teacher training.
Thus as he journeys through his mid-sixties he prefers to teach more as part of an informal global community of Yoga teachers and schools arising from nearly 30 years of training under T Krishnamacharya’s students, especially TKV Desikachar and his students in India, Europe and North America.
Yogāñjali Yoga Centre 1999-
The Art of Mantra and Chanting 1985-
This experience and the other benefits such as a deepening confidence in the message of the heart, improvements in memory through the teaching and learning processes, confidence and power arising in the sound of our own voice, led Paul in 1985 to begin a formal study with his teacher.
This involved refining the art of listening and then repeating exactly what was chanted. Learning primarily under his teacher and through his guidance and recommendation also working with Desikachar’s own students including Sujaya Sridhar and Menaka Desikachar, Paul’s interest in this ancient art and practice flourished.
It is through personal transmission that the individual needs of the student can be met in terms of pronouncing and pitch, timing and strength, maintaining a note and continuity of breath and sound. A process possible with the help of a careful methodology and a persistent teacher. From this slow beginning Paul began to teach the Art of Sound, Mantra, Veda and Yoga Chanting in the West from 1986. The influence and value of chanting to steady the mind and open the heart was soon appreciated by many and this has led to the story today with Vedavallī.
Vedavallī 1999-
This was both in order to clarify the confusing boundaries appearing between Yoga practice and the Indian religious practices within which Vedic chanting resides and to offer and develop the teaching of Vedic Chanting as a meditative practice for all interested in this ancient Indian tradition.
It had as its core a group of students who studied Vedic Chanting for many years with Paul as well as with other students of TKV Desikachar both in India as well as Europe.
As with other aspects of Viniyoga Britain evolving independently of Paul, experienced teachers now teach Vedic Chanting either individually or through groups, workshops and seminars. They can be found within the aYs student community network or listed on the cYs Chant Teachers Register.
Garuda Yatra 1993-2003
Over the two following decades, in addition to his personal study stays and hosting practitioner group study visits to Chennai, Paul made a number of special pilgrimages to explore India’s rich tapestry of Sacred Geography by travelling extensively in North India, Nepal and Tibet visiting Holy towns and Spiritual Centres in the Hindu, Sikh and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, with the purpose of following sacred paths to sacred sites in the Himalayas.
Badrinath was said to be a favourite pilgrimage place of T Krishnamacharya when he lived with his teacher Yogeswarar Rama Mohana Brahmacharya on the shores of Lake Manasoravar in Tibet in the early part of the twentieth century.
Meanwhile much gratitude for the continuing interest and support of students, especially those who have become spiritual friends and best wishes for your inner and outer journeys towards svatantra through 2012 and beyond.