Kamalamma

My name is Polina. My interest in yoga, after lying dormant for years, manifested in a sudden propensity to perform a yogic asana, on a peculiar spring evening of 2014 in Saint Petersburg. I have met my first Hatha yoga teacher in Sri Lanka, and my life has been intertwined with yoga ever since. A few years later, energy practice, passed down to me by a spiritual guru, entered my life. As a culmination of my learning, I travelled to India, where pilgrimaged to Sri Ramana Maharshi Ashram in Tiruvannamalai, and obtained professional qualifications from Swami Vidyanand in Auroville, and the International Yoga Academy in Chennai.

My interests span art-therapy, Buddhist and Indian Philosophy, Sanskrit and Greek languages. I like to travel, eat lightly, and abstain from the habit of eating meat, fish, and eggs (unless eggs are somehow already mysteriously mixed into the dough).

Yoga shapes our thoughts and lifestyle, heals, transforms and emancipates us. To an outside observer, it may seem that in yoga we are engaged with the body; but yoga in particular helps us to realize that “I” is not the body! Subtle energy channels are cleansed and the body becomes healthy, dexterous, and light, and as it stops hurting, it no longer alerts our minds. It is important to let yoga do its work, through unwavering commitment to the practice and not the outcome. Once, I heard my first teacher say, “if you can’t perform an asana in this life, [given the continuity of your commitment] you will do it in your next.” The thing about yoga is that it holds the key that opens the door to ‘oneself’, our heart’s essence. Anyone can practice yoga regardless of their physical condition, age, or spiritual state. Though practice may appear to start and end (due to limited time and circumstance), the flow of yoga itself is never discrete and forever accessible.

Though the division of self into body, mind, and soul is contingent, the main idea is that one should save the soul, calm the mind, and train the body. Yoga is very dynamic, but its dynamics are turned inward, and that is why, to an external observer, a static asana appears sedentary. The flux of yoga starts from the manifest and visible, and ends in the deep and latent. Begin simply, and maintain simplicity: All that is needed will be gradually revealed to the sincere devotee, for in the heart in each of us lies an inner guru, (the inner witness, Paramatma). Conscious and sincere practice of any yoga style heals, thereby providing an access to the innermost spring. With every practice I return to restorative solitude, and the spring within.

Yogic practices have ubiquitous creative impetus, expanding vision and bestowing inspiration. My hands, vessels of art therapy, let polymer clay flows across canvases, each piece concealing mantra and healing power.

My personal art portfolio website is: vNica.com