Sri Shyamji was born and raised in India. At age 12, he met his spiritual teacher in the Himalayas and spent several years under his guidance. The Guru initiated Shyamji into the Saivite tradition of Tantra—imparting a rare oral tradition of sacred sounds (naada yoga), breath (svara yoga), and spiritual wisdom.
The grace of the guru (guru krippa) and the spiritual practices he imparted (sadhana) are the basis for Sri Shyamji’s extraordinary intuition and unique chanting of sounds and mantra. For millennia this tradition was passed down from generation to generation through an oral tradition which preserved its purity. It is a rare opportunity to learn the science of sound from a true master.
Christopher Wallis, also known as Hareesh, is a scholar-practitioner with thirty years of experience, having been initiated into the practice of yogic meditation at sixteen, and fifteen years of formal education. His degrees include a B.A. in Religion and Classics from the University of Rochester, an M.A. in Sanskrit from U.C. Berkeley, an M.Phil. in Classical Indian Religions from Oxford, and a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from U.C. Berkeley. His doctoral dissertation focused on the role of spiritual experience in the tradition of Tantric Shaivism. Additionally, he received traditional education at yoga āshrams in upstate New York and India, training in meditation, mantra-science, kīrtan, karma-yoga, and pedagogy. He currently teaches meditation, yoga darśana (practical philosophy), Tantrik philosophy, Sanskrit, mantra-science, and offers spiritual counseling.
Professor Paul Muller-Ortega, Ph.D., is recognized internationally as one of the world’s most highly respected and renowned academic scholars in the field of Indian Religion and Hindu Tantra. He is the founder of Blue Throat Yoga, which teaches the elegant Svatantra philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism, along with the practice of Neelakantha Meditation.
For nearly fifty years, Paul has been a pioneer in the technology of Consciousness, lecturing and teaching about meditation and Indian philosophy to hundreds of thousands of people in North and South America, Europe, and India. Through his books, articles, essays, commentaries, and translations, Paul has earned a reputation for his unparalleled scholarly authenticity and for being a charismatic teacher with a remarkable capacity to convey esoteric truths and teachings. Paul’s teachings are highly accessible, relevant, and comprehensible to the Western mind.
Professor Paul Muller-Ortega earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Yale University in 1971. He received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of California, where he studied Sanskrit, Indian Religions, and Asian Philosophy and Culture. For twenty-five years he was a Professor of Religion at Michigan State and then the University of Rochester, and was known for his passionate and innovative teaching style and enrolled-to-capacity classes.
Paul has been a meditation practitioner and teacher for nearly fifty years. He has formally studied with several of the greatest meditation masters of our time, and subsequently has organized and taught hundreds of meditation seminars, disseminating potent practices of meditation to thousands of individuals. With this rare combination of training, experience, skill, spiritual practice, and profound insight, Paul teaches his students to abide in the heart of Consciousness: a journey that is inspiring, life changing and enlightening.
