Kalyan Yoga

19/04/2026

IN THE FOREST

The community of trees-
thousands of bodies
with a human body among them.
Branches and leaves are waving.
Then the call of the creek,
and my eyes open to the sky of the great Mind.
A smile is seen
on every leaf.

The forest is here,
because the city is down there.
But Mind has gone with the trees
and put on a new green dress.

The sunshine is the leaves.
The leaves are the sunshine.
The sunshine is no different from the leaves.
The leaves are no different from the sunshine.
All other forms and sounds
are of the same nature.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 🍃

Gather at The Beech Glade classroom, within the beautiful Brook Waimārama Sanctuary, for a gentle and grounding hour of guided meditation in nature.

This session weaves together simple seated and walking practices designed to help focus and quieten the mind, supporting a deeper experience of presence and awareness. Surrounded by the sounds and stillness of the natural world, you’ll be invited to slow down, reconnect, and come home to Presence.

🌳 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧: 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month (starting 10th May), 9:00–10:00am
💦 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: Meet at The Glade (please arrive 15 mins early to allow time to walk in)
🔥 𝐊𝐨𝐡𝐚: $5–$10 donation, paid in cash directly to meditation teacher
🍃 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Not required, just turn up to the session.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠:
➡️Something comfortable to sit on such as a cushion or folded blanket (There are some plastic chairs and wooden benches available. If you wish to sit on the floor you may wish to bring a yoga mat as well)
➡️A blanket to keep warm
➡️Comfortable, weather-appropriate clothing

𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐖𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐚 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲:
🌳Sanctuary Members: Free of charge as per annual membership
🌳Non-Sanctuary Members: Early-bird special of $10 per adult (This provides an opportunity for guests/visitors to explore after the session)

All are welcome—whether you’re new to meditation or have an established practice.

22/11/2025

Monkey Mind

Monkey mind describes the restless, scattered and unsettled state of ones thoughts, like a monkey jumping from branch to branch.

This state of mind can also include a constant stream of distractions, worries, and an inability to focus, leading to anxiety, tiredness and stress.

A fundamental condition for yoga is that the mind is quiet. When the mind is quiet, we can simply rest in our natural state.

Therefore, yoga as a practice includes so many different practices that can help us to quieten the mind. These include physical postures, breathing and concentration practices, and meditation.

The list of benefits of a quieter mind is long.

If you're in need of some guidance and tools to help quieten your mind then we currently have three offerings a week where the intention is to become quiet and rest in naturalness.

Sunday 5-6:30pm Kindred Studio
Monday and Wednesday 5:30-7pm Nelson Osteopathic Clinic

Monday and Wednesday classes are by koha ❤

31/10/2025

We're really pleased to share that we'll be offering Hridaya Hatha Yoga two evenings a week at Nelson Osteopathic Clinic. We're fortunate enough to be able to offer these classes by koha as well. In these classes we'll try to guide you, as skilfully as possible, to experience directly your innermost Self, the Heart ❤

15/08/2025

Did you know that yoga is a spiritual path from the Hindu tradition and the purpose of the practice is to support practitioners to connect with spirit and reveal their true self?

Like most religions or spiritual groups, yoga aims to help followers overcome suffering. From a yogic perspective, ignorance or misunderstanding of our true self is seen to be the root cause of human suffering. So yoga can support a practitioner to realise, experientially, their true nature, and in doing so, help them to overcome suffering.

The practice of yoga creates conditions which leads to insight into our true nature. As we persevere with the practice, insight comes and ignorance starts to transform into direct knowledge or wisdom. This explains a little bit about the transformational effects of yoga. We are transforming our misunderstanding of who we think we are to an understanding of who we really are; freedom.

This can lead to all kinds of positive changes in daily life. Practitioners don't have to master yoga or become enlightened to experience the joy of this transformation.

Join us this Monday evening at Koru Studio for the practice of Hridaya Hatha Yoga 🦋

Send a message to learn more

09/08/2025

We are Adam and Sabina of Kalyan Yoga, and we have dedicated the last nine years of our lives to following and sharing the teachings of Hridaya Yoga.

What does Hridaya mean?

Hridaya is a Sanskrit word which translates to Spiritual Heart. We could describe the Spiritual Heart as the Heart of all of existence. Just like the blood flows out from and returns to the heart in the human body, all material reality arises from and returns to the Spiritual Heart.

The Spiritual Heart is the source of existence and represents eternity, infinity. When we bring our attention to this infinite dimension of our being, we may perceive a feeling of coming home, intimacy, familiarity, ease, playfulness, innocence.

What does yoga mean?

Yoga is another Sanskrit word which translates to union. We could say that yoga is the union of the individual heart with the Spiritual Heart or the recognition that the individual heart is one with the Spiritual Heart. Yoga is the recognition of our divine nature.

The primary purpose of the Hridaya teachings are to support each practitioner on a journey of reconnection with their heart, which in turn reveals their inner most essence, Hridaya, which is shared with all that exists. This can be experienced directly and in some cases create a profound shift in perception, of the way we relate to ourselves and the world around us.

It is so easy for life to pass us by without taking a moment to turn towards our heart, towards the very core of our being, as reflected in these words by Saint Augustine:

People travel to wonder
at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves
without wondering.

Does yoga as a spiritual practice seem off-putting or more daunting than yoga as a form of exercise? Or does the spiritual nature of the practice make you feel curious? Or both! If you have any questions, we’d love to hear from you.

Join us for the practice of Hridaya Hatha Yoga, where we use the physical body and its energies to reveal the more subtle realm of the Spiritual Heart.

Send a message to learn more

14/07/2025

New Offering in Nelson

Hridaya Hatha Yoga with Adam
Mondays, 5:30pm - 6:30pm
Koru Studio
Learn More: https://kalyanyoga.com/

Hridaya Hatha Yoga

Hatha Yoga helps to purify the physical, energetic and mental layers of our being and thus creates more harmonious conditions for Self-connection.

Hridaya Hatha Yoga is a form of classical Hatha Yoga practiced in a contemplative style. We often describe this style as meditation in motion. The practice is performed with the eyes closed and we generally hold the postures for longer than other styles of yoga. This helps us to interiorise and connect with the more subtle aspects of our being.

We practice with a non-pushing attitude, striking a balance between effort and relaxation.

Hridaya Yoga

Hridaya is a Sanskrit word that means Heart or Spiritual Heart. It is really just another word that points towards the heart or centre of our being. When we return to the heart of our being, we return home to our true self. Hridaya Yoga supports practitioners in this reconnection to our true self.

When we reconnect to or open our heart, we reconnect to the intuition of our heart and slowly we can develop the courage to live from the heart. We begin to open more and more to the fullness of life, embracing both joy and sorrow in equal measures.

About Adam

Adam is a Hridaya Yoga teacher. He offers Hridaya Hatha Yoga classes, meditation workshops and Hridaya Silent Meditation retreats.

Adam has followed the teachings of Hridaya Yoga since 2016 and has been sharing the practice since 2019. He has completed the Hridaya Teacher Training Course, which is a 500 hour course and includes two 10 day silent meditation retreats and a solitary retreat in the dark room. He has also completed four additional yoga modules at the school and various other group and solitary retreats across the world.

14/07/2025

Kia ora!

After some weeks of work on our website, we've finally transitioned over from the UK to NZ. And now that we have a functional and up to date website, we're ready to share with you that we will offer yoga classes again, starting small, with just one class a week initially.

Our appreciation for the practice is greater than ever and we're super excited to share the beautiful teachings of Hridaya Yoga, and all that comes with it, with the community of Nelson in New Zealand.

This is a kind of relaunch, more than five years on from launching the website before offering yoga in Totnes, Devon, and we wish to take this opportunity to express gratitude to everyone who we met through these offerings in the UK. It was a very special time in our lives.

May this new chapter bring good fortune, and by sharing these teachings with others, may we have a positive impact on their lives. May we all develop a greater capacity to meet suffering with love and to live with an open heart.

Learn yoga and meditation with experienced teachers from Kalyan Yoga. We offer yoga classes, workshops and retreats in Nelson and across NZ.

03/05/2023

‘Within each of us there once was a fire, and for some of us there seem as if there are only ashes now. But when we dig in the ashes we find one ember. And very gently we fan that ember. Blow on it. It gets brighter. And from that ember we rebuild the fire. The only thing thats important is that ember. Thats what you and I are here to celebrate. All we’re going to do for eternity is sit around the fire.’ — Ram Dass 😍

Jon Hopkins with Ram Dass, East Forest - "Sit Around The Fire", out now on Domino. Taken from the album 'Music For Psychedelic Therapy,' out now (digital / C...

04/04/2023

Here is the secret:

The cross
points to THAT
which cannot be crucified.

It reminds us of Who We Truly Are -
prior to the story of time and space.

In this place of raw presence, the bride and the bridegroom, the father and the son, time and the timeless, emptiness and form, even life and death are merely imaginary mental opposites, swimming in a love and a silence and a wholeness beyond comprehension, which we may refer to as ‘God’.

Or we may simply keep silent.

The wild torture of the cross
sucks the separate self into
its infinitely calm centre.

The crucifixion, understood in its deeper spiritual and mythological sense, points beyond psychology and even theology, to this ultimate invitation to awaken from separation; in other words, to die to all that is false, and in the midst of that devastation, to discover the eternal Life that we are.

Call it ‘God’ or call it ‘awareness’ or call it nothing at all, it really doesn’t matter at all.

We all live our own crucifixion! We all face ruin and ridicule and despair and the loss of the image. Nobody escapes the trials of life. Nobody can divide themselves from the river of humanity, as the Buddha taught.

The only question is, what is our relationship to this existence? Can we “lovingly give ourselves up to the torment”? Can we be “joined forever” to ourselves, with “peace beyond understanding”?

Can we see that death itself is not something to fear, but a dear friend reminding us of the preciousness of our very existence?

Can we begin to find inner acceptance even in the midst of the utterly unacceptable moments?

Can we die and be reborn...
in every Now?

- Jeff Foster

03/04/2023

In meditation,
your only ‘job’
is to be curious about what arises.

Don’t try to get rid of any aspect of your experience.
Your crazy thoughts – just watch them.
Uncomfortable feelings – just breathe with them.
Cry with them. Laugh with them.
The part of you that hates meditation – be interested in it, too!
The child in you who can’t sit still.
Who wants to be somewhere else.
Who feels ashamed or guilty for thinking ‘unspiritual’ thoughts or feeling ‘negative’ feelings and impulses.
Who feels the burning desire to run away and do something else.
Welcome them with open arms.

Breathe them into love
and breathe love into them.

In meditation,
even the unwanted is wanted;
even your resistance is sacred!

- Jeff Foster

03/03/2023

Treat yourself to some time in silence in the heart of Dartmoor National Park 🐎

A silent meditation retreat creates the ideal conditions for revealing and experiencing the peace of the Heart. This is an invitation and opportunity to connect with the joy and simplicity of Being.

Spending time in silence, watering seeds of love and wisdom, is a precious gift for yourself and for all of existence.

‘Your own Self-realisation is the greatest service you can render the world.’ ~ Ramana Maharshi.

The Kalyan Yoga silent meditation retreats are inspired by the Hridaya Yoga format of retreats.

Each meditation practice is shared free from dogma and on the basis of non-dual philosophy or ‘advaita vedanta’ in Sanskrit. Known as the pearl of Indian philosophy, advaita vedanta has influenced virtually all schools of Indian thought. At the core of this philosophy is the understanding that there is no separation between anyone or anything. There is a shared consciousness that lies beyond the realms of the mind and personality and this can be experienced directly through the practice of meditation.

Through consistent practice, we can start to touch deeper and more subtle aspects of our being. Meditation is an experiential exploration of the fundamental questions of life – ‘Who am I?’, ‘What is this Existence?’.

These days dedicated to silence, are a profound journey of self reconnection.

Gentle hatha yoga sessions are provided each day to balance and invigorate the energies of the body.

Every aspect of our retreats are fully dedicated to creating the best conditions for the revelation of our true essence and the awakening of our hearts ❤️

'I just wanted to say again how grateful I am for the incredible space you guys created for us all last week, it was such a beautiful space of opening, heart, inspiration and deep connection.'

'My heart is still glowing and open from the amazing week we shared, and I have been able to grace my challenges and joys with deepened resilience, gratitude and mindfulness.'

A silent meditation retreat creates the ideal conditions for revealing and experiencing the peace of the Heart.

30/01/2023

An inspirational and heart warming sharing from a participant who attended a silent meditation retreat guided by a friend in New Zealand recently 🥰