#013: Deepika Mehta | Movement into Stillness

Stillpoints: A Podcast with Scott Johnson

Scott talks to Deepika Mehta, a friend and fellow long term practitioner and teacher of Ashtanga yoga.

Deepika has been practicing yoga for over 20 years, where she used the tools of yoga to heal from a devastating climbing accident. Since then she has thrived, studying the Sivananda and Ashtanga yoga traditions and becoming an Authorised Level 2 teacher, from her teacher Sharath Jois, in the latter. She currently runs highly regarded retreats and intensives around the world with her co-teacher and husband, Mark Robberds.

You can find out more about Deepika here

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Movement into Stillness - Deepika Mehta

Scott and Deepika have known each other since March 2019, where they met at the Ashtanga Yoga Bali Conference. They bonded over a love of music, both touched by how music has affected and driven their lives. They recorded this interview while both teaching in Goa in November 2019.

In a beautifully honest and open interview Deepika shares:

• how movement has been an intrinsic part of the way she understands her life and how yoga is a deeply spiritual part of her life.
• how she found yoga after a life threatening accident and how her recovery was the jumping off point to yoga becoming a central part of her life.
• beautifully honest comparisons between who she is now and growing up in India as a young girl.
• how prayer has been a deep part of her life since she was a young girl
• how her grandfather was a yogi.
• how she discovered Sivananda yoga. That was her way into yoga practice.
• how intimidated, challenging and out of place she first found the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore (now SYC).
• how Ashtanga yoga became an expression of spirituality for her.
• how she has a deep love for her teacher Sharath Jois and what he brings as a yoga teacher.
• how she has developed herself as a teacher over the years
• the way practice can become effortless. A stillness.
• how body skills and training the body is pointing back to our personal sadhana.
• how physical practice and movement is a meditation for her.
• how movement and dance have been deeply spiritual for her.
• how she teaches new students who have just started yoga.
• how she steps out of her own way when she is practicing and teaching.
• how she stays inspired every day.
• what she has learnt over the years of practice.
• what it means to live a contemplative life.

'Deepika is a highly inspiring woman. She has had to overcome a deeply personal trauma in her younger years that has now transformed the way she lives her life, and practices and teaches yoga. Deepikas story shows how you can find an inner resolve through movement and by finding the courage to turn inwards.

Scott Johnson - April 2020

If you enjoy this podcast then also listen to Scott’s conversation with Caroline Taylor who has a beautiful story about how yoga transformed her life.