It is worth remembering that there is only one yoga and can only be one yoga. True, aspirants are of different natures and resort to various doctrines and practices to progress along the path. But one who completes the process of yoga understands its different paths and sees that the systematic practice of various disciplines leads to the same place. In the end, all yogas lead to one great Yoga. —Swami Kripalu (1913–1981)
Kripalu Yoga developed from one of the American ashram experiments of the 1960s, when Eastern spirituality was spreading to the West and the enticing promise of enlightenment drew young idealists and seekers to Indian gurus and masters. More than 40 years later, while the Kripalu ashram and the guru no longer exist, Kripalu Yoga continues to thrive as a practical, accessible, and contemporary approach to yoga—with more than 5,000 trained teachers worldwide and nearly 40 affiliated studios. The former ashram is now a nonprofit educational retreat center that welcomes more than 25,000 people a year for workshops, trainings, and retreats at its idyllic setting in western Massachusetts.
Like most yoga styles and traditions, Kripalu Yoga uses classic asanas (though not a particular set or routine), pranayama (breathwork), development of a quiet mind, and the practice of relaxation. What defines Kripalu Yoga is its emphasis: following the flow of prana (life-force energy), practicing compassionate self-acceptance, developing witness consciousness (observing the activity of the mind without judgment), and taking what is learned “off the mat” and into daily life.
One reason Kripalu Yoga has been embraced by so many people is that it is designed to adapt to all body types, ages, fitness levels, and interests.
“Kripalu Yoga classes take into account people’s individuality and personal expression,” says Devarshi Steven Hartman, Director of Kripalu’s Professional Training programs, who found Kripalu Yoga in the early 1980s. “Kripalu Yoga teachers are trained to recognize that we are multidimensional beings, not just physical, and that creativity and spirituality are intricately linked.”
And like with other styles of yoga, students notice the effects of practice from the first time they step onto their mats.
“Kripalu Yoga begins to bear fruit from the very beginning,” says Stephen Cope, Director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living and author of The Wisdom of Yoga. “You don’t have to master asanas to feel the peaceful connection to your inner self.”
Swami Kripalu
Kripalu Yoga originally developed through the teachings of Amrit Desai, who was a student of Swami Kripalvanandaji (Swami Kripalu). Swami Kripalu was a highly respected kundalini yoga master from the Gujarat province of India who had experienced spontaneous pranic (energetic) movement as a result of prolonged deep meditation. He later discovered that the spontaneous physical movements he experienced were actually classical hatha yoga postures.
Through his studies and personal experience, Swami Kripalu came to believe that asana, pranayama, and mudras (hand gestures) must be done in the context of classical raja yoga (as presented in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras), in order to still the mind. In 1977, Swami Kripalu came to visit the Kripalu ashram and stayed for nearly four years, during which time he broke his commitment to silence to deliver a series of rare lectures, which were attended by some of today’s senior Kripalu teachers. He returned to India in 1981 and passed away shortly thereafter.
Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training
When Amrit started the Kripalu ashram in Sumneytown, Pennsylvania, he asked Don Stapleton, an ashram member and professor of art education with a strong interest in the sources of creativity, to develop a Kripalu Yoga teacher training. Under Stapleton’s direction, with input from other ashram members, Kripalu Yoga shifted from an authoritative teaching model and developed as an experiential learning process.
“We developed a teaching model that helps people find a way back to their own knowing and access creativity through personal experience,” says Stapleton, who now serves as Dean of Yoga Education for Kripalu. “And because Kripalu Yoga helps each person get in touch with their own inner knowing, everyone’s yoga is going to look different.” This is why each Kripalu Yoga teacher’s classes are unique; each teacher brings his or her own passion, focus, and interest and may draw from a variety of yoga styles.
“The tools and techniques of Kripalu Yoga, designed to draw the mind inward and awaken energy, can be used with any yoga style or tradition,” says Hartman. “We often say that the Kripalu approach provides a tool bag from which to draw on in classes or for personal practice.”
The Three Stages of Kripalu Yoga
Kripalu Yoga offers a framework of three stages of practice. The first stage emphasizes postural alignment and coordination of breath and movement, bringing the mind fully present to the body and to sensations through classical hatha yoga asanas. During this stage, postures are held only for a short time, which stretches and strengthens the body, releases chronic muscle tension, and encourages relaxation. The goal is to allow a strong flow of prana throughout the body and to develop mental concentration.
In the second stage, the inner experience is systematically deepened through meditation and the holding of postures for prolonged periods. In addition to strengthening muscles, this prolonged holding helps develop concentration and an ability to recognize and release deep-seated emotional and mental tensions. Over time, unconscious material comes to the surface, where it can be felt, seen, and let go of to restore emotional balance and mental clarity. The heart opens, creating an increased capacity for learning and growth.
During the third stage, also known as “meditation in motion,” both the body and the mind are deeply relaxed, and the body is invited to move spontaneously from one posture to another in direct response to the inner urges and prompting of prana.
A Typical Class
Beginning Kripalu Yoga classes focus on stage one, while more advanced classes may include all three stages. Classes are often defined as gentle, moderate, or vigorous, referring to the intensity of practice; however, because our needs vary from day to day and over time, students in Kripalu Yoga classes are encouraged to tune in to their bodies and practice at an intensity that feels right in the present moment. Each class includes centering, pranayama, postures, and meditation, and ends with a period of deep relaxation to revitalize the respiratory, nervous, endocrine, digestive, and other major systems of the body.
Taking Yoga off the Mat
Regular yoga practice is designed to increase sensitivity to the body’s needs, which naturally leads to healthier choices about diet, exercise, and other lifestyle habits. Observation of the mind’s activity—without judgment—helps to deepen the ability to express oneself, to truly listen to others, and to be authentic in relationships. Since its inception, the Kripalu approach has been an integrated one and has included focus on a healthy diet and body care, authentic communication and relationships, and right livelihood and service.
In other words, this is yoga as a way of life, often described in the Kripalu approach as taking yoga “off the mat.” With Kripalu Yoga, students are invited to bring the fruits of practice-concentration, focus, awareness, compassion, intention, clarity, and inner peace-into all aspects of everyday life. Consistent practice creates thriving and the opportunity for extraordinary living.
As Cope describes it, “We practice on the mat as a laboratory for being present and fulfilled in life and then bring this capacity-to quiet the mind, relax, and stay focused-to other tasks, whether it’s making widgets or collecting stamps. As we begin to practice, we become tuned in to hunches or intuitive guidance. These subtle aspects of the mind guide us to right behavior and highest dharma (life purpose). And the by-product of a highly focused mind is an experience of happiness and equanimity.”
Kripalu’s Future
Thousands of years ago, when yoga was first developed, practices were passed down from guru to disciple. These ancient yogis could never have conceived of today’s global consciousness. As society continues to change and evolve, people’s needs on and off the yoga mat will continue to change as well.
“Because Kripalu Yoga is a living, spontaneous style of yoga, its expression is always evolving to express people’s current needs,” says Hartman.
At present, more than 300 people a year are trained as Kripalu Yoga teachers through 200- and 500-hour teacher certification programs. Many graduates engage in the vital task of bringing yoga to the general population; some go on to specialize in using yoga to treat depression, eating disorders, chronic illness, and other physical, emotional, and social challenges. Through Kripalu’s Teaching for Diversity program, teachers can receive grants to work with special populations who might not otherwise have access to yoga, including the elderly and at-risk youth.
The Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health is itself undergoing a renaissance, seen in an expansion of the facilities, the development of specialized institutes, and growth in the number of Kripalu Yoga teachers and studios throughout the world.
Recommended Reading
Cope, Stephen. The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living (Bantam, 2006) and Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (Bantam, 2000)
Faulds, Richard, and Senior Teachers at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat (Bantam, 2005)
Stapleton, Don. Self-Awakening Yoga: The Expansion of Consciousness Through the Body’s Own Wisdom (Healing Arts Press, 2004)
About the Authors
Lori J. Batcheller, MA, MPT, is a certified Kripalu Yoga teacher, journal writing instructor, and freelance writer whose work focuses on healing mind, body, and spirit.
Grace Welker, MEd, is a yogini, writer, and lifelong learner who currently serves as Kripalu’s senior editor.
Article taken here.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
History of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
History of Kripalu Center
Kripalu’s history parallels the evolution of yoga in America, which progresses from
* An exclusive reliance on Eastern tradition, teachers, and cultural forms
* To the development of Western teachers steeped in the tradition and able to transmit its authentic depths in formats appropriate to our time and place
* To the integration of yoga with contemporary discoveries in medicine, psychology, and science.
The Yoga Society of Pennsylvania
Indian-born Amrit Desai came to the United States in 1960 to attend the Philadelphia College of Art. A close disciple of a renowned Indian yoga master named Swami Kripalu, Desai taught yoga classes to a growing number of yoga enthusiasts in the Philadelphia area. In 1966, Desai and nine others formed the Yoga Society of Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization organized to advance the science and philosophy of yoga. Within a few years, Desai had trained numerous Americans as teachers and the Yoga Society was offering 150 yoga classes a week. Along with classes, the yoga Society made yoga books and other educational resources available to students, an activity that continues today in the Kripalu Shop.
The First Kripalu Centers
In 1972, Desai left the Philadelphia area with a handful of dedicated students to establish a small, residential yoga retreat in Sumneytown, Pennsylvania. This was the first “Kripalu Center” and reflected a desire on Desai’s part to move beyond the limits of what can be offered in a yoga class. In 1974, the name of the nonprofit organization was changed to “Kripalu Yoga Fellowship” to reflect an increasing emphasis on propagating the teachings of Swami Kripalu, as interpreted by Desai, through residential retreats, depth programs, and the training of Kripalu Yoga teachers. Desai’s wife, Urmila, also played an important role in the establishment of the community.
In 1975, Kripalu purchased a second and significantly larger facility in Summit Station, Pennsylvania. Summit Station was the first full expression of the Kripalu vision for a residential yoga, health, and program center. Desai believed that a residential center could provide students with an immersion experience in the yoga lifestyle powerful enough to inspire them to explore and adopt new ways of being. The Summit Station facility had space for student housing, group yoga instruction, meal preparation, and a fully-staffed holistic health center that offered massage and a variety of other health services in concert with two physicians. This health center was the genesis of “healing arts,” which remains an important aspect of the Kripalu curriculum and mission.
The Rise of the Ashram
Both the Sumneytown retreat and Summit Station center were staffed by an inspired group of volunteers and yoga enthusiasts who formed the nucleus of an intentional community or ashram. Desai was the ashram’s spiritual leader and guru, and under his guidance the ashram staff was soon offering a modest curriculum of yoga, holistic health, and self-discovery programs to the public. Developed and taught by ashram residents, these programs were the outgrowth of practices taught by Desai and carried on within the community.
In 1977, Amrit Desai’s teacher, Swami Kripalu, came to the United States and spent the last four years of his life in residence at Sumneytown and Summit Station. Although continuing a lifestyle of intensive yoga practice that entailed limited public contact, Swami Kripalu’s presence galvanized the growth of the ashram community. Delivering periodic talks and teachings, his example and writings inspired thousands to begin regular yoga practice. Swami Kripalu returned to India in 1981, where he died shortly thereafter. His teachings, especially those delivered in America, still form the basis of the Kripalu approach.
Kripalu Finds Its Permanent Home in Stockbridge
Back in America, Kripalu Center continued to grow at a rapid rate, and the ashram community was soon overflowing the Sumneytown and Summit Station facilities. In early 1983, Kripalu purchased its current Stockbridge, Massachusetts, location, a former Jesuit seminary on a property called Shadowbrook, that had been vacant for 13 years. After a flurry of renovation work, the doors of Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health were opened in December. Drawing on their experience at Sumneytown and Summit Station, the resident staff was able to offer a varied and cutting-edge curriculum of programs on yoga, health, massage and bodywork, personal growth, and spirituality.
Read a brief history of the Shadowbrook property, once the residence of Andrew Carnegie.
Amrit Desai grew into a potent spiritual teacher in his own right during the 1970s. During the 1980s, he became an international figure in yoga, delivering talks, performing yoga demonstrations, and leading seminars worldwide. As the Summit Station and later the Sumneytown properties were sold, the Stockbridge community continued to grow in both size and sophistication until it contained more than 350 residents, necessitating the 1990 purchase of Foxhollow, another sizeable facility nearby to house senior members.
While Desai was engaged in traveling and teaching, a cadre of senior ashram residents developed into competent leaders, teachers, healers, and depth practitioners. It was during the late 1980s that efforts began to integrate the teachings of yoga with psychology, science, and Western approaches to healing and self-development. Instead of relying on ancient doctrines and Sanskrit terminology, the teachings of Kripalu Yoga were increasingly voiced by Western teachers in language that meshed with a contemporary worldview. It was during this time that Kripalu developed the Health for Life program, which combined a yoga lifestyle with aerobic exercise, alternative healing modalities, and growth psychology, foreshadowing the work now underway with the Institute for Integrated Healing.
During the late 1980s, the legal structure of the community was formalized as a church and religious order. While they had always lived simply and worked as volunteers, ashram residents now took formal vows of celibacy, obedience, and simplicity to declare their status as yoga monks and nuns. It was at this time that the ashram grew to include a sizeable congregation of lay members, individuals, and families living locally who took part in community activities on a part-time basis.
By 1990, the ashram’s network had expanded to include a significant number of Kripalu Yoga teachers living throughout North America and the world, leading local groups practicing the Kripalu teachings. In 1991, the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association (KYTA) was formed to coordinate the training and professional development of Kripalu-certified teachers. The 2,200 members of KYTA and the thousands of students they touch each week remain a vital part of the Kripalu mission.
The Fall of the Guru
Kripalu Center continued to expand in size and influence until late 1994. It was at this time that revelations surfaced of sexual relationships between Desai and several female ashram residents. When these and other alleged abuses of power were confirmed, Kripalu’s Board of Trustees called for Desai’s resignation. This ushered in a profoundly painful chapter in Kripalu’s history.
During 1995 and 1996, it grew increasingly evident that the bloom of the resident community was fading. The ashram gradually disbanded, with the majority of residents leaving the area to pursue new lives. In retrospect, it is easy to see that shattering the myth of the omniscient guru was forcing the entire Kripalu community to a higher level of maturity and individuation. At the time, a profound disillusionment gripped everyone who had dedicated themselves to birthing and sustaining the Kripalu work.
In the darkest of days, a collective of more than one hundred former residents formed a “claims group” to assert a class action lawsuit against Kripalu. Facing challenges on all sides, Kripalu did its best to make amends with all its long-term residents. A comprehensive settlement was negotiated and over $2.5 million dollars was paid to help senior residents pursue healing, education, and job training, or to meet other needs. After review by the Massachusetts Attorney General, the settlement was funded in part through the sale of the Foxhollow property. As a result, no claims ever went to court. Kripalu has the distinction of being the first, and possibly the only, yoga center in North America to survive the transition from a traditional guru-disciple structure to a secular, all-inclusive center for health, wellness, and lifestyle change.
Phoenix From the Ashes
Although divested of virtually all its assets except the building, Kripalu was once again free to pursue its mission. In the midst of the travail, a group of residents remained committed to the operation of Kripalu Center, whose doors never closed during this period. Eventually these residents were hired as paid employees and moved into the local area while continuing to work for Kripalu.
Between 1998 and 2004, the efforts of Kripalu’s leadership and staff were focused on establishing itself as a nationally-recognized yoga retreat and experiential program center. While continuing to teach Kripalu Yoga, it reached out to a broad mix of teachers from other traditions and disciplines to expand its curriculum and appeal to the growing number of Americans interested in yoga, health, wellness, and personal growth. This nonsectarian willingness to embrace all schools of yoga as venerable, along with other traditional and contemporary approaches to personal transformation, is an important part of the Kripalu approach.
During these years, Kripalu was restructured into a standard nonprofit organization offering a broad curriculum of educational programs and spiritual retreats. This new structure was formalized in 1999, when Kripalu officially ceased being a religious order.
From Surviving to Thriving
In 2004, Kripalu’s Board of Trustees hired its current executive leaders, Garrett and Ila Sarley. Both had distinguished themselves as long-term residents and leaders of the ashram community. In 1996, they left Kripalu to accept executive positions at Omega Institute, another well-known program center, and developed a second career as authors, teachers, and consultants. When the Sarleys returned to Kripalu, they brought with them a mature and tested understanding of what comprises yoga in the world and what this practice looks like in a secular, educational organization. They returned to Kripalu with the intention of reinvigorating the founding vision and mission of the organization while at the same time making it vitally relevant to society at large. Kripalu under their leadership is essentially an experiment in applying the art and science of yoga as a basis for organizational development and contribution to culture. All of the steps they have taken are informed by this experiment.
In their first two years, Garret and Ila’s focus has been strengthening the management team and staff, revitalizing the program curriculum and outreach efforts, upgrading the services of the center to meet guest expectations and current standards in the retreat industry, and accomplishing much-needed deferred maintenance and upgrades to the facility. Underpinning all these efforts to make Kripalu a professionally run, high-performing organization is their more fundamental work of transforming the culture at the institution. This organizational development work is the core of the experiment in using the practice of yoga as a basis for all of the center’s activity.
All these efforts of the Sarleys have been supported by Kripalu’s Board of Trustees.
Under the combined leadership of the Sarleys and the Board of Trustees, Kripalu is growing beyond its identity as a retreat and program center. Their shared vision is to create a whole new kind of educational organization, a place where you can go to explore what it means to be fully alive and fulfilled. The vision includes not only the continuation of Kripalu’s extensive yoga and program curriculum, but also the development of several schools and institutes, including the
* Kripalu School of Yoga
* Kripalu School of Ayurveda
* Kripalu School of Massage
* Institute for Integrated Leadership, focused on serving the needs of college-age individuals
* Institute for Extraordinary Living, pioneering the interface of yoga and other approaches to creativity and peak performance
* Institute for Integrated Healing, combining the best of traditional, allopathic, and leading-edge medicine
Plans are in place to build a new residential annex, creating a more spacious and inviting facility able to house the above schools and institutes.
Article taken here.
Kripalu’s history parallels the evolution of yoga in America, which progresses from
* An exclusive reliance on Eastern tradition, teachers, and cultural forms
* To the development of Western teachers steeped in the tradition and able to transmit its authentic depths in formats appropriate to our time and place
* To the integration of yoga with contemporary discoveries in medicine, psychology, and science.
The Yoga Society of Pennsylvania
Indian-born Amrit Desai came to the United States in 1960 to attend the Philadelphia College of Art. A close disciple of a renowned Indian yoga master named Swami Kripalu, Desai taught yoga classes to a growing number of yoga enthusiasts in the Philadelphia area. In 1966, Desai and nine others formed the Yoga Society of Pennsylvania, a nonprofit organization organized to advance the science and philosophy of yoga. Within a few years, Desai had trained numerous Americans as teachers and the Yoga Society was offering 150 yoga classes a week. Along with classes, the yoga Society made yoga books and other educational resources available to students, an activity that continues today in the Kripalu Shop.
The First Kripalu Centers
In 1972, Desai left the Philadelphia area with a handful of dedicated students to establish a small, residential yoga retreat in Sumneytown, Pennsylvania. This was the first “Kripalu Center” and reflected a desire on Desai’s part to move beyond the limits of what can be offered in a yoga class. In 1974, the name of the nonprofit organization was changed to “Kripalu Yoga Fellowship” to reflect an increasing emphasis on propagating the teachings of Swami Kripalu, as interpreted by Desai, through residential retreats, depth programs, and the training of Kripalu Yoga teachers. Desai’s wife, Urmila, also played an important role in the establishment of the community.
In 1975, Kripalu purchased a second and significantly larger facility in Summit Station, Pennsylvania. Summit Station was the first full expression of the Kripalu vision for a residential yoga, health, and program center. Desai believed that a residential center could provide students with an immersion experience in the yoga lifestyle powerful enough to inspire them to explore and adopt new ways of being. The Summit Station facility had space for student housing, group yoga instruction, meal preparation, and a fully-staffed holistic health center that offered massage and a variety of other health services in concert with two physicians. This health center was the genesis of “healing arts,” which remains an important aspect of the Kripalu curriculum and mission.
The Rise of the Ashram
Both the Sumneytown retreat and Summit Station center were staffed by an inspired group of volunteers and yoga enthusiasts who formed the nucleus of an intentional community or ashram. Desai was the ashram’s spiritual leader and guru, and under his guidance the ashram staff was soon offering a modest curriculum of yoga, holistic health, and self-discovery programs to the public. Developed and taught by ashram residents, these programs were the outgrowth of practices taught by Desai and carried on within the community.
In 1977, Amrit Desai’s teacher, Swami Kripalu, came to the United States and spent the last four years of his life in residence at Sumneytown and Summit Station. Although continuing a lifestyle of intensive yoga practice that entailed limited public contact, Swami Kripalu’s presence galvanized the growth of the ashram community. Delivering periodic talks and teachings, his example and writings inspired thousands to begin regular yoga practice. Swami Kripalu returned to India in 1981, where he died shortly thereafter. His teachings, especially those delivered in America, still form the basis of the Kripalu approach.
Kripalu Finds Its Permanent Home in Stockbridge
Back in America, Kripalu Center continued to grow at a rapid rate, and the ashram community was soon overflowing the Sumneytown and Summit Station facilities. In early 1983, Kripalu purchased its current Stockbridge, Massachusetts, location, a former Jesuit seminary on a property called Shadowbrook, that had been vacant for 13 years. After a flurry of renovation work, the doors of Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health were opened in December. Drawing on their experience at Sumneytown and Summit Station, the resident staff was able to offer a varied and cutting-edge curriculum of programs on yoga, health, massage and bodywork, personal growth, and spirituality.
Read a brief history of the Shadowbrook property, once the residence of Andrew Carnegie.
Amrit Desai grew into a potent spiritual teacher in his own right during the 1970s. During the 1980s, he became an international figure in yoga, delivering talks, performing yoga demonstrations, and leading seminars worldwide. As the Summit Station and later the Sumneytown properties were sold, the Stockbridge community continued to grow in both size and sophistication until it contained more than 350 residents, necessitating the 1990 purchase of Foxhollow, another sizeable facility nearby to house senior members.
While Desai was engaged in traveling and teaching, a cadre of senior ashram residents developed into competent leaders, teachers, healers, and depth practitioners. It was during the late 1980s that efforts began to integrate the teachings of yoga with psychology, science, and Western approaches to healing and self-development. Instead of relying on ancient doctrines and Sanskrit terminology, the teachings of Kripalu Yoga were increasingly voiced by Western teachers in language that meshed with a contemporary worldview. It was during this time that Kripalu developed the Health for Life program, which combined a yoga lifestyle with aerobic exercise, alternative healing modalities, and growth psychology, foreshadowing the work now underway with the Institute for Integrated Healing.
During the late 1980s, the legal structure of the community was formalized as a church and religious order. While they had always lived simply and worked as volunteers, ashram residents now took formal vows of celibacy, obedience, and simplicity to declare their status as yoga monks and nuns. It was at this time that the ashram grew to include a sizeable congregation of lay members, individuals, and families living locally who took part in community activities on a part-time basis.
By 1990, the ashram’s network had expanded to include a significant number of Kripalu Yoga teachers living throughout North America and the world, leading local groups practicing the Kripalu teachings. In 1991, the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association (KYTA) was formed to coordinate the training and professional development of Kripalu-certified teachers. The 2,200 members of KYTA and the thousands of students they touch each week remain a vital part of the Kripalu mission.
The Fall of the Guru
Kripalu Center continued to expand in size and influence until late 1994. It was at this time that revelations surfaced of sexual relationships between Desai and several female ashram residents. When these and other alleged abuses of power were confirmed, Kripalu’s Board of Trustees called for Desai’s resignation. This ushered in a profoundly painful chapter in Kripalu’s history.
During 1995 and 1996, it grew increasingly evident that the bloom of the resident community was fading. The ashram gradually disbanded, with the majority of residents leaving the area to pursue new lives. In retrospect, it is easy to see that shattering the myth of the omniscient guru was forcing the entire Kripalu community to a higher level of maturity and individuation. At the time, a profound disillusionment gripped everyone who had dedicated themselves to birthing and sustaining the Kripalu work.
In the darkest of days, a collective of more than one hundred former residents formed a “claims group” to assert a class action lawsuit against Kripalu. Facing challenges on all sides, Kripalu did its best to make amends with all its long-term residents. A comprehensive settlement was negotiated and over $2.5 million dollars was paid to help senior residents pursue healing, education, and job training, or to meet other needs. After review by the Massachusetts Attorney General, the settlement was funded in part through the sale of the Foxhollow property. As a result, no claims ever went to court. Kripalu has the distinction of being the first, and possibly the only, yoga center in North America to survive the transition from a traditional guru-disciple structure to a secular, all-inclusive center for health, wellness, and lifestyle change.
Phoenix From the Ashes
Although divested of virtually all its assets except the building, Kripalu was once again free to pursue its mission. In the midst of the travail, a group of residents remained committed to the operation of Kripalu Center, whose doors never closed during this period. Eventually these residents were hired as paid employees and moved into the local area while continuing to work for Kripalu.
Between 1998 and 2004, the efforts of Kripalu’s leadership and staff were focused on establishing itself as a nationally-recognized yoga retreat and experiential program center. While continuing to teach Kripalu Yoga, it reached out to a broad mix of teachers from other traditions and disciplines to expand its curriculum and appeal to the growing number of Americans interested in yoga, health, wellness, and personal growth. This nonsectarian willingness to embrace all schools of yoga as venerable, along with other traditional and contemporary approaches to personal transformation, is an important part of the Kripalu approach.
During these years, Kripalu was restructured into a standard nonprofit organization offering a broad curriculum of educational programs and spiritual retreats. This new structure was formalized in 1999, when Kripalu officially ceased being a religious order.
From Surviving to Thriving
In 2004, Kripalu’s Board of Trustees hired its current executive leaders, Garrett and Ila Sarley. Both had distinguished themselves as long-term residents and leaders of the ashram community. In 1996, they left Kripalu to accept executive positions at Omega Institute, another well-known program center, and developed a second career as authors, teachers, and consultants. When the Sarleys returned to Kripalu, they brought with them a mature and tested understanding of what comprises yoga in the world and what this practice looks like in a secular, educational organization. They returned to Kripalu with the intention of reinvigorating the founding vision and mission of the organization while at the same time making it vitally relevant to society at large. Kripalu under their leadership is essentially an experiment in applying the art and science of yoga as a basis for organizational development and contribution to culture. All of the steps they have taken are informed by this experiment.
In their first two years, Garret and Ila’s focus has been strengthening the management team and staff, revitalizing the program curriculum and outreach efforts, upgrading the services of the center to meet guest expectations and current standards in the retreat industry, and accomplishing much-needed deferred maintenance and upgrades to the facility. Underpinning all these efforts to make Kripalu a professionally run, high-performing organization is their more fundamental work of transforming the culture at the institution. This organizational development work is the core of the experiment in using the practice of yoga as a basis for all of the center’s activity.
All these efforts of the Sarleys have been supported by Kripalu’s Board of Trustees.
Under the combined leadership of the Sarleys and the Board of Trustees, Kripalu is growing beyond its identity as a retreat and program center. Their shared vision is to create a whole new kind of educational organization, a place where you can go to explore what it means to be fully alive and fulfilled. The vision includes not only the continuation of Kripalu’s extensive yoga and program curriculum, but also the development of several schools and institutes, including the
* Kripalu School of Yoga
* Kripalu School of Ayurveda
* Kripalu School of Massage
* Institute for Integrated Leadership, focused on serving the needs of college-age individuals
* Institute for Extraordinary Living, pioneering the interface of yoga and other approaches to creativity and peak performance
* Institute for Integrated Healing, combining the best of traditional, allopathic, and leading-edge medicine
Plans are in place to build a new residential annex, creating a more spacious and inviting facility able to house the above schools and institutes.
Article taken here.
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
Kripalu Center is a relatively well-known tax exempt charity with 2007 revenue of $25.6 million, operating as a health and yoga retreat center attended primarily by affluent tourists in Stockbridge, Massachusetts near Tanglewood Music Center. It occupies a sprawling, 160,000 square-foot former Jesuit seminary built in 1957 in a spare and inexpensive architectural style in an otherwise rural area of the Berkshires, and can accommodate more than 400 nightly guests. SELF magazine named Kripalu "Best Yoga Spa" of 2000.
History
Kripalu had its beginnings in 1965 when Amrit Desai founded the Yoga Society of Pennsylvania, later called Kripalu, to provide yoga classes and training for yoga teachers. Desai, aka "Gurudev", ("beloved teacher"), is a native of Halol, India, where he met guru Swami Kripalvananda for whom Kripalu is named, and who followers believe was the 28th incarnation of Shiva, the supreme god of Hinduism. During the 1970s, Desai established ashrams run by mostly unpaid followers in Sumneytown, Pa., and nearby Summit Station.
Kripalu acquired its Stockbridge property in 1983, and soon after, Kripalu legally became a religious order. Residents took vows of celibacy and obedience to Desai, who resigned in 1994, following improper sexual conduct. After issuing a denial, Desai admitted, in an apology, to sexual relations regarding three female residents.[5] Kripalu later paid $2.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit related to Desai's administration of Kripalu. The suit represented more than 100 former residents, and Kripalu made the court-approved payment partly by selling its adjacent Foxhollow property. Kripalu had purchased Foxhollow to provide housing for its most senior members.
Kripalu switched its legal status to a non-profit charity, from a religion order in 1999, and as of March 2009, was headed by a president, Patton Garrett Sarley (aka Dinabandhu), and his wife, its vice-president Mary Sarley (aka Ila), who both became followers of Amrit Desai during the 1980s. Together in their charitable endeavor, the Sarley couple earn nearly a half million dollars annually (see below for references).
By the time of Desai's resignation, Patton Sarley had risen to the rank of chief operating officer. With Desai's departure, Sarley temporarily left Kripalu, and for a time headed the similar Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in nearby Rhinebeck, New York. Kripalu was able to locate and re-hire Sarley in 2004 "with the help of a nationally recognized non-profit executive search firm," retained when Kripalu was experiencing "negative trends in mission viability and financial viability."
Several other "key employees" of Kripalu as of 2009 were also previous followers of Desai.
Kripalu Yoga
Kripalu Yoga is a registered trademark of Kripalu Yoga Fellowship, and a form of Hatha Yoga that defines itself as therapeutic, and spiritually focused. It uses yoga concepts of inner focus and meditation along with standard yoga poses and "breathwork," as well as "development of a quiet mind" and relaxation. Kripalu emphasizes "following the flow" of prana, or life-force energy, compassionate self-acceptance, observing the activity of the mind without judgment, and taking what is learned into daily life.
As of 2008, Kripalu said it offered more than 750 programs and spiritual retreats attended by about 25,000 people annually. [7] It also offered training and marketing support to teachers of its trademarked yoga, along with a semester-long program for young adults, projects in music, weight loss and post-traumatic stress disorder. A further program in health offered various folk remedies for disease.
Facility
The building that currently houses Kripalu stands near the site of the former "Shadowbrook Cottage," reputedly the largest private residence in the U.S. at the time of its completion in 1894 and later destroyed by fire. It was named for Shadow Brook, a minor stream to the west of the site referred to by Nathaniel Hawthorne in Wonderbook. [6] [7] Jesuits moved away in 1970 due to a dwindling number of seminarians. Thirteen years later, Kripalu acquired the 160,000 square-foot building with which the Jesuits had replaced Shadowbrook Cottage.
Conservation easements for 225 acres of the 300-acre property were sold by Kripalu in 1997, under the U.S. Forest Legacy Program for the Yokun Ridge Reserve area.
Center Offers Guests 'High Risk' Drinking Water
Kripalu owns and maintains its own water supply system, deemed at "high risk" of contamination with heating oil, gasoline, pesticides and other hazardous materials by a 2003 report from the state Department of Environmental Protection [10] which for these reasons, cited Kripalu for water supply violations in December 2006. [11] The following year, Kripalu's state-imposed deadline for replacing a hazardous well used to supply its guests with drinking water was extended to Aug. 1, 2009.
Unfinished Sewage Project Tax Exempt
In 2008 Kripalu began construction of a 34,000 square-foot housing annex on the Stockbridge property, as well as improvements to its sewage treatment plant and parking lot. Construction was to be financed with proceeds of a $20 million tax-exempt bond issued through Mass Development, a quasi-governmental economic development agency, with Berkshire Bank as lead lender. [8] Kripalu's sewage flows into the Stockbridge Bowl and from there via a small stream, to the Housatonic River.
Executive Compensation and Tax-Free Status
In January 2009, Kripalu eliminated 15% of its staff and forecast up to a 30% drop in 2009 revenue, while managers agreed to forgo their "bonuses" as well as to pay reductions ranging from 5% to 15%.[9] Patton Garrett Sarley Jr., and his wife Mary, as president and vice president, obtained combined 2007 executive compensation of $425,000.
Kripalu is tax exempt because it qualifies as a non-profit company and a charity under rules governing 501(c)(3) organizations, although its nightly rates range up to $462 per person. Its revenue in 2007 totaled $25.6 million and sources included "holistic therapies" which produced $2.44 million; seminars, $18.65 million, and "direct public support" of $1.4 million, according to its 2007 IRS document Form 990,[11]. Expenses of $24.03 million included $11.11 million in payroll and benefits for a staff of 436, plus $1.075 million related to executive compensation for seven "key employees" in 2007.
Kripalu compensation was highlighted in widely distributed media reports in the 1990s concerning Amrit Desai's estimated annual compensation of $350,000 to $450,000 including housing and other benefits, when Kripalu residents serving as unpaid staff received weekly cash stipends of $70.
Board of Trustees (2009)
Richard Faulds, Chairman and Chief Counsel, President of Kripalu from 1998-2001
Marcy Balter, holistic health educator
Maya Breuer, Director of Santosha School of Yoga (Providence, R.I.)
Jerry Colonna[13], investor
Lisette Cooper, Chief Executive of Athena Capital Advisors
Steve Dinkelaker, President of American Lease Insurance
Marcia Feuer, Director for Public Policy, Mental Health Asso. (Nassau County, N.Y.)
Sharon Ginsburg, President, Ginsburg Family Foundation
Maxine Grad, member of the Vermont House of Representatives
Sarah Hancock, philanthropist
Timothy Henry, business consultant
Joan Kopperl, community activist
Justin Morreale, Managing Partner, Bingham McCutchen (Boston)
Michael Potts, Chief Executive, Rocky Mountain Institute
George White, Asst. Director, Center for Communications and Community, UCLA
History
Kripalu had its beginnings in 1965 when Amrit Desai founded the Yoga Society of Pennsylvania, later called Kripalu, to provide yoga classes and training for yoga teachers. Desai, aka "Gurudev", ("beloved teacher"), is a native of Halol, India, where he met guru Swami Kripalvananda for whom Kripalu is named, and who followers believe was the 28th incarnation of Shiva, the supreme god of Hinduism. During the 1970s, Desai established ashrams run by mostly unpaid followers in Sumneytown, Pa., and nearby Summit Station.
Kripalu acquired its Stockbridge property in 1983, and soon after, Kripalu legally became a religious order. Residents took vows of celibacy and obedience to Desai, who resigned in 1994, following improper sexual conduct. After issuing a denial, Desai admitted, in an apology, to sexual relations regarding three female residents.[5] Kripalu later paid $2.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit related to Desai's administration of Kripalu. The suit represented more than 100 former residents, and Kripalu made the court-approved payment partly by selling its adjacent Foxhollow property. Kripalu had purchased Foxhollow to provide housing for its most senior members.
Kripalu switched its legal status to a non-profit charity, from a religion order in 1999, and as of March 2009, was headed by a president, Patton Garrett Sarley (aka Dinabandhu), and his wife, its vice-president Mary Sarley (aka Ila), who both became followers of Amrit Desai during the 1980s. Together in their charitable endeavor, the Sarley couple earn nearly a half million dollars annually (see below for references).
By the time of Desai's resignation, Patton Sarley had risen to the rank of chief operating officer. With Desai's departure, Sarley temporarily left Kripalu, and for a time headed the similar Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in nearby Rhinebeck, New York. Kripalu was able to locate and re-hire Sarley in 2004 "with the help of a nationally recognized non-profit executive search firm," retained when Kripalu was experiencing "negative trends in mission viability and financial viability."
Several other "key employees" of Kripalu as of 2009 were also previous followers of Desai.
Kripalu Yoga
Kripalu Yoga is a registered trademark of Kripalu Yoga Fellowship, and a form of Hatha Yoga that defines itself as therapeutic, and spiritually focused. It uses yoga concepts of inner focus and meditation along with standard yoga poses and "breathwork," as well as "development of a quiet mind" and relaxation. Kripalu emphasizes "following the flow" of prana, or life-force energy, compassionate self-acceptance, observing the activity of the mind without judgment, and taking what is learned into daily life.
As of 2008, Kripalu said it offered more than 750 programs and spiritual retreats attended by about 25,000 people annually. [7] It also offered training and marketing support to teachers of its trademarked yoga, along with a semester-long program for young adults, projects in music, weight loss and post-traumatic stress disorder. A further program in health offered various folk remedies for disease.
Facility
The building that currently houses Kripalu stands near the site of the former "Shadowbrook Cottage," reputedly the largest private residence in the U.S. at the time of its completion in 1894 and later destroyed by fire. It was named for Shadow Brook, a minor stream to the west of the site referred to by Nathaniel Hawthorne in Wonderbook. [6] [7] Jesuits moved away in 1970 due to a dwindling number of seminarians. Thirteen years later, Kripalu acquired the 160,000 square-foot building with which the Jesuits had replaced Shadowbrook Cottage.
Conservation easements for 225 acres of the 300-acre property were sold by Kripalu in 1997, under the U.S. Forest Legacy Program for the Yokun Ridge Reserve area.
Center Offers Guests 'High Risk' Drinking Water
Kripalu owns and maintains its own water supply system, deemed at "high risk" of contamination with heating oil, gasoline, pesticides and other hazardous materials by a 2003 report from the state Department of Environmental Protection [10] which for these reasons, cited Kripalu for water supply violations in December 2006. [11] The following year, Kripalu's state-imposed deadline for replacing a hazardous well used to supply its guests with drinking water was extended to Aug. 1, 2009.
Unfinished Sewage Project Tax Exempt
In 2008 Kripalu began construction of a 34,000 square-foot housing annex on the Stockbridge property, as well as improvements to its sewage treatment plant and parking lot. Construction was to be financed with proceeds of a $20 million tax-exempt bond issued through Mass Development, a quasi-governmental economic development agency, with Berkshire Bank as lead lender. [8] Kripalu's sewage flows into the Stockbridge Bowl and from there via a small stream, to the Housatonic River.
Executive Compensation and Tax-Free Status
In January 2009, Kripalu eliminated 15% of its staff and forecast up to a 30% drop in 2009 revenue, while managers agreed to forgo their "bonuses" as well as to pay reductions ranging from 5% to 15%.[9] Patton Garrett Sarley Jr., and his wife Mary, as president and vice president, obtained combined 2007 executive compensation of $425,000.
Kripalu is tax exempt because it qualifies as a non-profit company and a charity under rules governing 501(c)(3) organizations, although its nightly rates range up to $462 per person. Its revenue in 2007 totaled $25.6 million and sources included "holistic therapies" which produced $2.44 million; seminars, $18.65 million, and "direct public support" of $1.4 million, according to its 2007 IRS document Form 990,[11]. Expenses of $24.03 million included $11.11 million in payroll and benefits for a staff of 436, plus $1.075 million related to executive compensation for seven "key employees" in 2007.
Kripalu compensation was highlighted in widely distributed media reports in the 1990s concerning Amrit Desai's estimated annual compensation of $350,000 to $450,000 including housing and other benefits, when Kripalu residents serving as unpaid staff received weekly cash stipends of $70.
Board of Trustees (2009)
Richard Faulds, Chairman and Chief Counsel, President of Kripalu from 1998-2001
Marcy Balter, holistic health educator
Maya Breuer, Director of Santosha School of Yoga (Providence, R.I.)
Jerry Colonna[13], investor
Lisette Cooper, Chief Executive of Athena Capital Advisors
Steve Dinkelaker, President of American Lease Insurance
Marcia Feuer, Director for Public Policy, Mental Health Asso. (Nassau County, N.Y.)
Sharon Ginsburg, President, Ginsburg Family Foundation
Maxine Grad, member of the Vermont House of Representatives
Sarah Hancock, philanthropist
Timothy Henry, business consultant
Joan Kopperl, community activist
Justin Morreale, Managing Partner, Bingham McCutchen (Boston)
Michael Potts, Chief Executive, Rocky Mountain Institute
George White, Asst. Director, Center for Communications and Community, UCLA
Monday, August 3, 2009
Basics of Kripalu Yoga
Kripalu Yoga is a challenging approach to asana practice that emphasizes meditation and breathwork, and encourages inward focus and spiritual attunement.
BASIC PRINCIPLE: Practicing Kripalu Yoga can initiate a gradual process of physical healing, psychological growth, and spiritual awakening.
WHO FOUNDED IT: Amrit Desai
INSPIRATION: Sri Kripalvananda, also known as Bapuji (1913–1981)
WHERE TO DO IT: Tens of thousands of people have flocked to the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, Massachusetts. While there, visitors can take part in workshops on everything from yoga and hiking to African drumming. They can also spend a long weekend resting and relaxing, enroll in a teacher training, or go for the popular three-month intensive Spiritual Lifestyle Program. To find a Kripalu-trained teacher in your area, visit www.kripalu.org.
WHO DOES IT: Kripalu attracts people who want to transform their lives. Yogis looking for something more playful can try Kripalu’s DansKinetics, a dynamic blend of dance and yoga.
TEACHERS TO KNOW: Stephen Cope, Ann Greene, Sudhir Jonathan Faust, Shobhan Richard Faulds
RESOURCES: You can learn the basic approach to this style from videos such as Kripalu Yoga: Gentle, Kripalu Yoga: Dynamic, Kripalu Yoga: Partner, and Pranayama: The Kripalu Approach to Yogic Breathing. And Stephen Cope has written an autobiographical book called Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (Bantam, 2000) that delivers a compelling history of Kripalu Yoga.
BASIC PRINCIPLE: Practicing Kripalu Yoga can initiate a gradual process of physical healing, psychological growth, and spiritual awakening.
WHO FOUNDED IT: Amrit Desai
INSPIRATION: Sri Kripalvananda, also known as Bapuji (1913–1981)
WHERE TO DO IT: Tens of thousands of people have flocked to the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, Massachusetts. While there, visitors can take part in workshops on everything from yoga and hiking to African drumming. They can also spend a long weekend resting and relaxing, enroll in a teacher training, or go for the popular three-month intensive Spiritual Lifestyle Program. To find a Kripalu-trained teacher in your area, visit www.kripalu.org.
WHO DOES IT: Kripalu attracts people who want to transform their lives. Yogis looking for something more playful can try Kripalu’s DansKinetics, a dynamic blend of dance and yoga.
TEACHERS TO KNOW: Stephen Cope, Ann Greene, Sudhir Jonathan Faust, Shobhan Richard Faulds
RESOURCES: You can learn the basic approach to this style from videos such as Kripalu Yoga: Gentle, Kripalu Yoga: Dynamic, Kripalu Yoga: Partner, and Pranayama: The Kripalu Approach to Yogic Breathing. And Stephen Cope has written an autobiographical book called Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (Bantam, 2000) that delivers a compelling history of Kripalu Yoga.
Kripalu Yoga Helping Anger Management
The concept of practicing Kripalu Yoga, as an accessory to fury management care, has promise, but it also has doubters. People that would like to stay as they are have abbreviated their possibilities at achieving success through any form of treatment. If we do not believe in a sort of treatment, there's not much chance of success.
In standard healing forms of hate management treatment, a patient sees a pro psychological well-being counselor. If someone voluntarily seeks professional help, he or she sees the fact of the problem.
When anger is beyond control, it can turn violent in a second. Relations and jobs take a back seat, while hate plays itself out. Thru violence, hate leads to crimes of passion.
Yet, the objective of all forms of Yoga is tranquility of mind through coaching. Some people claim that Yoga should have any goals. This is a ridiculous idea, because generations of people would not continue to practice Yoga, over thousands of years, without goals.
Make no mistake about it, Kripalu Yoga will train the mind. The desire to have fits of hate starts to vanish as a Yoga expert continues to stay with the practice.
The benefits from a complete yoga form, which practices pranayama ( yogic respiring ), asana, mantra, meditation, and relaxation methodologies, can't be understated. The cause of a state of tranquility is quite simple: Kripalu Yoga permits the specialist to manipulate their mind.
There are plenty of reasons to go off into a fit of anger. We may not have reached a state of maturity, where we are able to control our actions. For instance : Kids don't consider the results of their actions. Anger is, in truth, a total waste of time. If someone hurts us, it's far better to get a logical solution to end or reduce the pain. When the mind is in the middle of a temper fit, no logical solutions will be found.
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