Sivananda Yoga Peace Educator Training

The Sivananda Yoga Peace Educator Training is a 300-hour, one-year yoga for peace program at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm in Grass Valley, California. It is for people who want to become peace educators and compassionate leaders, grounded in the teachings of Yoga and Vedanta and joined with modern psychology, communication and peace studies. The program is directed by Swami Sitaramananda.

Its aim is to prepare participants to apply classical Yoga and Vedanta philosophy to disharmony in a person, a family or a community, and to teach peaceful practices that support wellbeing in individuals and in society.

What to Expect

The training has three residential modules of seven days each, followed by twelve weeks of online distance learning and a practicum. The modules move through three themes: Yoga and the Mind, with methods and steps toward inner peace; Relational Peace and the Ethics of Oneness; and Peace Applications for social and universal peace. Each module opens with an initiation ceremony and closes with a graduation ceremony.

The daily rhythm is full. Peace education talks begin at 6:00 in the morning, followed by asana practice at 8:00 and a brunch break. Further talks run through the midday and evening, with an afternoon group discussion practice and breaks for rest and dinner. The last talk of the day starts at 8:00 in the evening.

Subjects include the causes of stress and their link to conflict, the power of the subconscious mind, Yoga and Ayurveda for a peaceful lifestyle, the root causes of addiction and abuse, Vedic counseling techniques, the yoga of relationships, karma and dharma, emotional management, and how to teach groups peaceful collective living and conflict resolution.

The distance learning phase meets online once a week for two hours, covering Ayurveda and Yoga for health, stress and trauma, forgiveness and suicide prevention, with case studies. The practicum then has participants work with individual cases and with groups under the guidance of a mentor.

About Swami Sitaramananda

Swami Sitaramananda is a senior acharya of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers. She directs the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm in Grass Valley and the Sivananda Yoga Resort and Training Center in Dalat, Vietnam, along with city centers in Ho Chi Minh, Dalat, Hanoi and Tokyo. She is the acharya for Asia and the organizer and teacher of the Sivananda Yoga Health Educator Training, an 800-hour yoga therapy program accredited by the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

The Faculty

An advisory board brings in voices from peacebuilding, nonviolence, scripture, psychology and Ayurveda. Dr. Youssef Mahmoud is a Tunisian diplomat with over three decades in United Nations peace operations. Michael Nagler, Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley and founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, is a leading teacher of nonviolence. Gay Rosenblum-Kumar has thirty years of experience in peacebuilding projects with the UN and international NGOs. Dr. Debashish Banerji teaches Indian philosophy and Integral Yoga at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dr. Fred Luskin directs the Stanford Forgiveness Projects. Dr. Ramkumar is a founding Medical Director of the Vaidyagrama Ayurveda Healing Village in Coimbatore, India.

The Setting

The residential modules take place at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm in Grass Valley, California. Accommodation is arranged separately for each module and comes as a shared dorm or as single rooms in several tiers, each covering eight nights.

Before You Go

The program lists no prerequisites or experience requirements, so applicants should confirm eligibility directly with the Yoga Farm. Teaching is in English. Tuition covers the three residential modules, the initiation and graduation ceremonies, the weekly online sessions, both practicum components and access to the full faculty. Accommodation is billed separately, and meals beyond the scheduled breaks are not specified.